The forms were, indeed, long. We paused way too often to remember some TV show we watched or food we ate, and to detour in a discussion about my brothers, what they did, the situation we all found ourselves in now. It was all related, I knew, but it also felt intensely personal. Not only like he was getting to know me, who I was, what I wanted from life, but that he cared.
"Okay," he finally said, reaching over and squeezing my hand. I felt my body lean toward him, like a house plant toward a bright window. But one second later, he closed his laptop and stood up, then began to pack up his things. "So, I'll give you a call in a few days. This is a multifaceted situation, but it's not complicated, I don't think. If that makes sense." He smiled at me with such fondness in his eyes that I almost wanted to ask him to stay, even though I didn't know how I could, what excuse I could give him for why. I had told him that I was leaving town. We’d both treated our last night together like it was, well... our last night together.
"It'll be a few days from now. We can set up another time to meet, and as your actuary, I want to make sure you get covered sooner rather than later, especially if you're going to keep The Knockout Brothers open for business. Are you? Still open for business?"
His eyes darted around the empty gym.
"It’s just The Knockout, now,” I said. “No brothers involved. And yeah," I said, "It's just that ten in the morning isn't our busiest time. Things will pick up in an hour or so. If... uh... if you want to stick around. We could spar, maybe?" I shot him a little grin. He knew I’d kick his butt. I knew he’d like it.
"Gotta get back to the office," Ethan said, holding up his laptop bag and wiggling it a little. "I'll give you a call, okay?"
"Okay," I said, worrying my lip again. My breaths felt shallow in my chest. I couldn't tell whether it was panic or excitement over definitely hearing from Ethan again, but I did know one thing - I didn't love the out-of-control feeling, no matter what it was.
I hauled open the heavy metal door and blinked at the bright sunlight, which contrasted so sharply with the cool, wet Philadelphia early spring morning. I'd missed this, I realized. Everything in Philly was dynamic, the exact quality I'd run away to chase, just in its own quiet way.
"Thanks again," I said, right before Ethan caught me completely by surprise. He stepped close and slung his arm around my waist, pulling me close enough to him to feel his hard muscles through his shirt, to feel the warmth of his breath on my neck as he squeezed me into a hug. Then he stepped back just enough so that his face was in kissing distance.
"I know you called Kennedy and Sousa, and not me. But I'm glad you got me, anyway."
For the first time since that terrifying moment three days ago when my life had changed in such a big way, my mouth stretched into a grin. I was glad, too, but I wasn't sure exactly how to say it. Turned out that Ethan didn't need to hear it. He just skipped down the steps and toward the train station, waving at me over his shoulder. "See you soon, Tali. Oh, and by the way – love the gym’s name change," he called.
I just stood there, smiling and waving, until he turned the corner.
Chapter 8
Ethan
The Knockout Gym was an insurance nightmare. It would take an agent three times as experienced as I was a week to figure it out.
I was going to do it as quickly as humanly – or, at least, actuarily - possible. Because once I had a proposal and some quotes for Natalia, I could see her again. Hell, I just wanted to share air with her again. Honestly, I’d been too surprised by the circumstances of seeing her again that I hadn’t even been able to formulate a coherent plan for how in the world I’d get her back in my life in a serious way, now that she was planning to be in Philadelphia for the foreseeable future.
The rest of that day, I focused hard on the screen in front of me.
The rest of that day, and into the night, I worked frantically at my desk, plugging in various scenarios and variables into the system. What if The Knockout hired extra staff? What if they lost the staff they already had? If they added some classes and expanded their clientele, would they be covered? How much extra would it cost to make that happen? What investments were feeding into keeping the place up and running? Who was covering the gym’s debts in case of lean times? Was their equipment up to date and safe? What budget did they have for replacement costs? Did they have an updated records and client management system? How did they keep their clients' payments secure?
And, worst, the dreaded death question - what would they do if the business completely died? Would the sale of the building bring in what it needed to in order to get them back on their feet?
Would the business be worth putting back on its feet at all?
I fell asleep at my desk, a couple hours after wolfing down a burger when my stomach protested. I couldn't have named exactly what possessed me - I only knew that Natalia's face kept haunting my vision. It wasn't the Natalia I'd gotten to know during our brief fling last year, confident and ecstatic to be alive. This Natalia looked apprehensive, unsure, and terrified. And the awful yellow lighting in the gym offices was only a small part of that.
I was overwhelmed with one simple desire - to help make it better. To comfort her. To ease her fears.
After a few hours' sleep, I roused, squinting against the barest hint of tangerine sunrise creeping over the horizon. I'd pinched something in my neck, sleeping in such a weird position, but at least I was nearing a preliminary report I could bring to Natalia as soon as I got a hold of her and worked out a time. I hoped it was soon.
Yeah, I was desperate. Normally I'd try to brush that kind of feeling off, but something about this being Natalia dulled that reaction.
I sent her an email from the firm, at eight o'clock sharp. I knew she was an early riser, strapping on her running shoes most mornings for the same reason most people stumbled to the coffee maker. She needed that activity to wake her up. While we were seeing each other last year, I'd convinced her to replace running with another early morning activity a couple times, even though she groused half the time about how awful her morning breath was. It never really had been that bad.
I paced, waiting for my email to ding a response. I got my coffee, did a few jumping jacks, and halfheartedly jotted down a list of all the other crap I had to accomplish today for work. Even though part of me wanted to devote an entire second day to helping Natalia, I knew that it was foolish to rely on her reply. First, we had a history. Maybe she thought it was weird. Second, she had every right to get a second opinion, or even a third and fourth. It could take days to hear back from her on updating her insurance. Hell, it could take weeks. But the thought of that made my chest constrict. The Knockout definitely couldn't risk being uncovered for very much longer.
Since I was a little kid, I'd been anxious about pervasive dangers and impending doom of the world. Every tree was waiting to drop a branch on someone’s head, every rock on the road was waiting to send a bike and its rider flipping end over end. My skill for exercising caution had carried through to my adulthood. After writing up the report of all the kinds of insurance coverage The Knockout really, definitely should have, I was envisioning every bad thing that could possibly happen there... happening. A fire. A shiny new gym that charged half as much, had twice as many classes, and was open 24 hours opening around the corner. All of Natalia's brothers moving away and leaving her without a built-in helping hand. A flood. Hell, there could be a tornado. They were rare in Philly, but theoretically, they could happen.
Or, with his heart condition, her dad could die. When Mom passed away, I was barely functional for months. Natalia talked big, but anyone could see the fear in her eyes at handling this all-consuming responsibility. And it sounded like her brothers were barely pitching in.
I stopped at the big printer around the corner where I'd sent all the documents, yawning against the realization that it was still too early for my secretary to have gotten into the office. I'd removed my belt sometime yesterday late afternoon, and shed my butt
on-down shirt to protect it from the ketchup I knew would glop out of my hamburger bun. My beard was extra scraggly, I could tell by the slight itch that the hair curling at the ends caused.
I should go back home and take a nap, see if I could reset my neck to a position where it didn't hurt so bad. Clean up a bit. Natalia hadn't even emailed me back, but she was probably at the gym by now.
It was like there was a tiny engine in the center of myself, continually churning and saying, Gotta see her, gotta see her, gotta see her.
I should have walked the one and a half short blocks back to my brownstone, where my cleaner, Susan, would be arriving in the next hour. I should have taken a shower and eaten a square breakfast and read over my papers to make sure there were no glaring errors.
Instead, I turned toward the SEPTA and took the next train back to The Knockout.
I was pretty sure I dozed off on the train ride, which was only seven stops. Thankfully, when I jolted awake it was right before my stop, and I felt refreshed. It was another damn morning, although the air held the promise of warming up enough to ditch my overcoat by lunchtime. Hell, a bluebird might as well have been singing on my shoulder, given the rays of sunlight and the skip in my step. I was going to see Natalia again. I was going to help her. And I was going to figure out how "I'm only going to be here a few more days" had changed, and whether she would let me spend any of the extra days with her.
To my surprise, the top quarter of The Knockout's windows were propped open, and bass boomed out of them, shaking the glass panels slightly. I winced. That right there was something I'd already forgotten to include in the assessment. I'd considered the structural integrity and maintenance needs of the brick and the interior of the building, but somehow in my exhaustion the decades-old glass windows had escaped my consideration. Dammit. She was going to think I was an idiot.
I approached the heavy metal door, ready to knock on it, when I realized it was propped open with a child’s car seat. Thankfully, there wasn't an actual kid in it, but it made me wonder -was there really no other way to prop the door open? I cursed myself for not doing a thorough walkthrough of the property, or better yet, hired a building inspector to go through it before I came to talk to Natalia. But all those things required time, and my instincts about Natalia told me that it was likely she'd be bolting, and soon. And I needed - needed - to see her again.
Against my better judgment, I reached up and gave the door a good solid knock, it was pointless. The sound reverberated through the door pitifully, barely making a dent against the booming music. Someone was on the floor, doing something. Maybe it was Natalia, working out. Burning off frustration. Maybe I could convince her to do that with me.
I ducked into the gym, figuring that if the door was propped open anyone was welcome. Just as I did, a muffled "oof" sounded from the boxing ring and two male voices shouted when a body hit the floor. The victor of the boxing round, shirtless and in basketball shorts and bare feet, raised his gloved hands high above his head and crowed, lisping through his mouthguard, "I AM THE BESSSSHT!"
Suddenly, the music cut off with a pop, and the guy who'd been knocked down raised his head. "Who did that?" he asked after spitting out his mouthguard. "Put it back on. It was muffling my groans."
I grinned at that, then panned over to the corner where Natalia, tall and taut and muscled, stood shaking her head next to a tiny woman at least six inches shorter. The petite woman stood there, tapping her foot, arms crossed, absolute nuclear fire shooting out of her eyes. “Rodrigo, how many times have I told you not to fight to knockdown with your estupido brothers? Especially with that baby girl at home? Now I have to leave Natalia and find someone for Camila and take your sorry shit-eating ass to the emergency room.” As she yelled, she gestured over to the corner, where a small child, no older than two years old, played quietly with blocks.
"Amalia, mi amor," the guy who’d won the match said. He jogged to her side and looped an arm around her waist, planting a sweaty-faced kiss on her cheek. She made a face. “De verdad, it's nothing. Okay? Just a little fun and games.”
"Yes, mister fun and games, I saw your brother’s cabeza estupida bang against the floor and you did not. So I am telling you it is not okay. He has two girls to take care of." Finally, she approached the ring and glared at the guy who'd gone down until he picked himself up and walked over to her. He bent down over the ropes, sweat dripping, and reached down to give her a hug. She flinched.
"Take a shower, Sebastian. If you don't faint in there, I won't make you go to the hospital." She still sounded stern, but the barest hint of a smile played at her lips.
"Ethan!" The sound of my name pulled me out of the scene, and I looked up to see Natalia walking toward me. “Is everything okay?"
"Yeah, I..." I fumbled in my bag for a second and pulled out the folder I'd put together. "I brought some initial paperwork."
"That was fast," she said.
"I just wanted... uh... to get these to you as soon as possible." I was suddenly acutely aware that the other four people in the gym were staring at me as I talked to Natalia, probably standing a closer to her than mere business associates would. "Nice that the gym's this full of clients this early in the morning," I said.
Natalia threw her head back and gave me a full belly laugh. "Ethan. These are not clients. Meet my brothers."
Oh. Brothers. I raised my eyes to theirs and was met with a barely-concealed glare of contempt from all four of them. Even the woman, who I assumed was married to one of them, looked wary.
I swallowed. "Your family. W - wow."
"They won't bite," she said, grabbing my arm and guiding me back to the office. The brothers were only a few steps behind. “Ethan, meet Rodrigo and Sebastian, who will probably kill each other one day. Amalia, the woman you saw, is Rodrigo’s wife, and she’s taking care of Sebastian’s little girl Camila today.”
Chapter 9
Natalia
My heart pounded as I led Ethan back to my office. I had no idea he'd been here after less than twenty-four hours, but I was grateful. My brothers were driving me insane. Christian and Daniel had been taking Papá to doctor's appointments, and Arturo had been cooking meals for his freezer while bossing the others about getting his car tuned up and cleaning his house. We were all busy bodies, always had been. It was in the genes. But if my brothers really were going to give me a fifty percent share in The Knockout and trust me to take care of the gym and of Papá, I kind of wished they would... just do that. Yes, I was the baby sister. Yes, I was also a grownup. They didn't have to hang around here forever. And they couldn't fool me by saying that's not why they were here, even if they disguised it with their dumb morning pissing contests that masqueraded as workouts.
Amalia didn’t count in that resentment. She and I were close, and she’d already offered to take point on Papá’s care. She was pursuing a master’s degree in art at Drexel, and selling her pottery creations on the side to various boutiques in Philly. She was a nurturing soul, a role she enjoyed.
Ethan coming here, however scruffy he looked, could only help with my problem. When he stepped into the room, I wanted to scream, See? I can do grownup business things, I am doing them, so just give me the benefit of the doubt and leave me be!
Of course, my brothers did just the opposite of that. They both left the ring and followed Ethan, who was following me, back to my office. One of them was texting furiously, no doubt to Alejandro, telling him to hurry over to the gym. I glanced over my shoulder, my eyes flashing murder at them, to which Rodrigo turned his eyes to his shoes, knowing he was being dumb, and Sebastian cracked a smile.
There was barely room in my office - Papá's office, just two weeks ago - for two people and a desk, but somehow my sweaty brothers managed to cram their reeking bodies in there. As a gross bonus, they were both still shirtless. Amalia, who had finally caught up with the baby slung on her hip, squeezed in too. She wrinkled her nose. "Ay," she said. "What were you Neanderthals thinking?" She reache
d up and gave Sebastian’s head a light smack, despite having been apparently so concerned about it having a concussion just a few minutes ago. "Everyone out, to the lounge."
"Or you could just get out, and let me conduct my own damn business meeting with the insurance guy.”
"It's a family business, Nati." Rodrigo’s voice was quiet, but testy.
"I told you not to call me that," I barely kept myself from growling. "Excuse me, Mr. Anderson. My brothers seem to think that I am still seven years old."
Ethan briefly quirked an eyebrow at that before apparently realizing I was in no mood for jokes. I knew what he was thinking. I was most definitely not a little kid, at least as he knew me. As much as I would have liked to dwell on those happier, more carefree memories right now, I couldn't. Not with a pack of my stupid brute brothers fighting for space in my stupid tiny office.
"Give us a break, Natalia. We just want to participate while we can," Sebastian said. He had taken time off work to help me for a few days. As much as it annoyed me, I supposed I should have been grateful.
Ethan chimed in, holding up the sheaf of papers. "Might be helpful for them to see what we're working with, here. Do you have a copier?"
Amalia snagged his wrist and tugged him briefly toward the door, chatting about how she'd show him where it was, and it was better for her to be there just in case, since the copier often broke down. His eyebrows furrowed together at that, and he quickly pulled out his phone, tapping something into it.
There was silence in the room for a few seconds while I took the time to glare at all my brothers in turn. "You give me fifty percent," I growled, sweeping my eyes across the room, "You give me freedom and your trust that I can run this." None of them said anything, which I took to mean that they really did understand they'd gone about this the wrong way. "Got it?"
Just Let Go Page 5
