Chapter 29
Dominic
The wind cuts through the city streets, sharp enough that I pull my jacket tighter as I walk.
Manhattan is gray today, the sky heavy with clouds, but I don’t mind.
I actually missed this city, the noise and the crowds and the way everyone moves like they’ve got somewhere important to be.
The energy and possibility of this place.
And she’s here. Somewhere in this city of eight million people, Brooke is going about her day, maybe sitting at her desk at The Sporting Standard or grabbing coffee at whatever place she likes, or curled up in her apartment with a glass of wine and her laptop.
I shift my bag on my shoulder and check the map on my phone to make sure I’m still heading the right way to the hotel, and notice a text from Sarah back in Dark River.
Sarah: I know you just landed, so just wanted to let you know all is good here. Roman’s in the gym, morning classes went smoothly, nothing on fire. Now go sign those papers and make us bicoastal!
I shake my head, smiling. The question of how to manage the Dark River gym while splitting my time with New York was one of the first things I’d had to figure out when this deal started coming together, and the answer had been so obvious I felt like an idiot for not seeing it sooner.
Sarah has been helping run the place for years, more competent than anyone else I’ve ever worked with.
So I’d offered her a promotion to general manager with a significant raise, and she’d accepted without hesitation.
There’s no one else I’d trust to keep Midnight Boxing running the way it should be run, which means I can split my time between Dark River and New York without worrying that everything will fall apart the moment I’m not there.
I’ve got a few hours before the meeting at the lawyer’s office to finalize the paperwork for the gym space.
A few weeks of negotiations and due diligence and back-and-forth with Castellanos’s people, and today it all becomes real.
My signature on a lease. My name on a building.
Midnight Boxing NYC, rising from the bones of the Lower East Side gym where my father first learned to fight.
It’s terrifying and exhilarating and I’m not entirely sure how it will all work out, but my gut tells me this is right.
I’ve always been practical, cautious, the kind of person who needs a plan before he takes a step.
But some things are worth the leap. The gym where my dad threw his first punches, the dream I’ve carried since he first brought me here as a teenager, it’s all finally within reach.
And with it comes the possibility of a life with the woman I love.
The building stands in front of me, solid and real and completely mine.
I stare at the faded KOWALSKI’S GYM sign, at the cracked windows and the peeling paint, and I still can’t quite believe it.
That same broken window Brooke and I climbed through months ago is boarded up now, secured by the property management company that handled the sale.
The door that hasn’t changed since my dad first brought me here when I was sixteen, the one that was rusted shut when I tried it that night with Brooke, now has a fresh lock with a key that belongs to me.
The lawyer’s office had been exactly what I expected.
Hours of reviewing documents, initialing pages, signing my name so many times my hand started to cramp.
Castellanos and his partners on a video call, all of them looking pleased as the deal finally closed.
Ben grinning like he’d just brokered world peace.
By the time I walked out of that glass-walled conference room in midtown, my head was swimming with terms and conditions and liability structures, but none of that mattered.
Because the building is officially mine. The gym is officially happening. Everything I’ve been working toward is suddenly, irrevocably real.
I wish my parents could have been here. My mom would have cried, I think, standing on this sidewalk looking up at the place where my dad’s journey began.
And my dad would have pretended he wasn’t emotional while his eyes went suspiciously bright, the way they always did when he was proud but too stubborn to show it.
I can almost hear his voice, that slight Croatian accent that never fully faded.
The dream I had when I was young, to train the best fighters in the world, here in New York where my dad first started, is actually coming true.
And now I just need the person who’s been missing from all of this.
The person who could make it mean something more than just business, more than just legacy.
It’s time to find Brooke.
I turn away from the building and start walking, my feet carrying me downtown without conscious decision. I know her address from that night after Roman’s party. The West Village, a brownstone on a tree-lined street.
I still haven’t called or texted her. Maybe part of me has been scared to jinx whatever fragile thing might still exist between us, and part of me wasn’t sure what I’d even say. Hey, I bought a building in New York, want to try this again?
The distance had been the problem, or so we’d told ourselves in Mexico.
But now I’m standing on a Manhattan sidewalk with a set of keys in my pocket and a lease with my name on it, and that excuse doesn’t exist anymore.
I can split my time between coasts and be here, in her city, for months at a stretch if I want to be.
Which means the only question left is whether she wants this too.
We’d said we loved each other in that hotel room, both of us raw and open in a way I’d never been with anyone, but that was in the aftermath of something intense, in a country that wasn’t home, with the reality of our separate lives waiting on the other side of an airport security line.
It’s easy to say things in a moment like that and harder to know if those words hold up when you’re back in the real world, when the heat of the moment has cooled and you’re faced with the actual prospect of building something together.
I know what I want, but Brooke’s life is still her life.
Her job still takes her everywhere, chasing stories across the country, across the world.
Her career is everything she worked for, and I’d never ask her to give that up.
So maybe this changes nothing for her. Maybe she’s already moved on, filed what happened between us under nice while it lasted and gone back to the life she had before I crashed back into it.
There’s only one way to find out.
I turn to head toward the Village, glancing back once more at the building that is now mine. The faded sign, the boarded windows, all of it waiting for me to turn it into something new. I let myself look for just a moment longer, then turn back around.
And stop dead.
Brooke.
Of all the sidewalks in this city, all the streets, all the blocks in all of Manhattan. She’s walking toward me, her stride faltering the moment our eyes meet. She looks as shocked as I feel, confusion written across her face.
She’s in a long camel coat that falls to her knees, dark hair loose around her shoulders, and she’s so goddamn beautiful it makes my chest hurt. In a city of eight million people, she’s here, on this block, at this exact moment, like I summoned her just by wanting her badly enough.
“Dominic?” she says, stepping closer, her eyes scanning my face, my clothes, like she’s trying to make sure I’m real. “How are you... what are you doing here?”
“I flew in this morning and bought the gym,” I say, the words coming out before I’ve figured out how to say them properly, my brain still catching up to the fact that she’s standing right in front of me.
“My dad’s old gym. An opportunity came up with some investors, and I just signed the papers an hour ago. ”
Her face transforms, shock giving way to something bright and warm. “Oh my god. Dominic, congratulations! I don’t even know what to say, that’s... that’s incredible.”
I just stand there looking at her, still not quite believing this is real. “How are you even here?” On this street right as I am? I feel like I’m losing my mind.”
“I told you,” she says, a smile spreading across her face as she looks at me with those brown eyes. “When we were both at the gym that night before the fight. New York City sometimes feels like a small town with how often strange things like this happen.”
I laugh, remembering that conversation, and how different everything was then.
“So,” she says, her tone cautious now, “are you... are you moving here?”
“Part time,” I say, shoving my hands in my pockets, suddenly unsure what to do with them.
“My life is still in Dark River, and I love it there, but I have it set up so I can spend part of the year here, part of the year there. Sarah’s running the gym back home, and the investors want me hands-on for the build-out, so I’ll be in New York a lot over the next year at least.”
She nods slowly, her eyes searching my face like she’s trying to read between the lines of what I’m saying. The wind picks up and she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.
“That’s a big change,” she says. “After all these years of never leaving Dark River.”
“Yeah.” I hold her gaze. “It is.”
We stand there for a moment, the city moving around us, taxis honking and people brushing past on the sidewalk, and none of it matters. None of it exists. There’s just me and her.
“Brooke, I...” I take a breath, and my chest feels tight with everything I’m about to put on the line. “I was just on my way to find you. I was heading to your apartment when you walked around that corner.”
Her lips part and she stares at me, not saying anything for a long moment. “You were coming to find me?” she asks.
“I don’t want you to feel weird pressure, like I got this gym for you.
It was my dream anyway, it always has been, but.
.. you were part of it too. Part of why I finally said yes.
” The words feel heavy now, weighted with everything I need her to understand.
“I thought about calling but it all felt like something I couldn’t say over the phone.
So I just knew I had to come find you once the deal was actually signed.
To see if you still want this. Me. To see if Mexico was real. ”
For a long moment I’m not sure if I’ve made a terrible mistake, if I’ve misread everything, if she’s about to tell me that Mexico was just Mexico and I need to move on.
“You’re not going to believe this,” she says, the words coming out in a half laugh, her eyes shining.
“I just got off the phone about twenty minutes ago. I accepted a promotion at The Sporting Standard. It’s this huge opportunity, beyond anything I could have imagined.
The role is basically mine to shape however I want.
I get to mentor the next generation of journalists, decide which stories we pursue, actually change things instead of just writing about them. ”
“Brooke, that’s amazing,” I say, and the pride that floods through me is overwhelming.
“But that’s not the point,” she says, stepping closer. “The point is, it’s remote optional. I can work from here when I need to, but it also means I could work from Dark River. Part of the time, at least. I could be bicoastal too.”
“Brooke...”
“I’ve been thinking about you every day since I got on that plane,” she says, and her voice cracks just slightly.
“So if you’re asking if Mexico was real to me, the answer is yes.
It was the most real thing I’ve ever felt.
” She shrugs, a tear slipping down her cheek even as she smiles.
“I chose you, Dom. Before I even knew you were choosing me too.”
I can’t wait anymore. I close the distance between us and pull her into me, one hand cupping the back of her neck, the other wrapped around her waist, and I kiss her like I’ve been drowning for weeks and she’s the first breath of air.
She melts into me, her fingers gripping the front of my jacket, and I can taste the salt of her tears on her lips.
The city disappears. The cold disappears.
Everything disappears except her mouth on mine and the feeling of her body pressed against me and the knowledge that we both made the same impossible choice without knowing the other one was making it too.
I pull back just enough to see her face, my thumb brushing the wetness from her cheek. We’re both laughing now, the kind of laughing that comes out when you’re overwhelmed and happy and can’t quite believe what’s happening. I kiss her again, softer this time, lingering.
“I love you, Brooke,” I say against her lips. “I don’t know if we get another life, but I know I want you in this one. Even if there are a hundred versions of us out there somewhere, a hundred lives, I’d find you in every single one. And I’m never letting you go again.”
“I love you too, Dominic,” she says, and her hands come up to frame my face, holding me there. “In this life. In all of them. I’m yours.”
I kiss her again, right there on the sidewalk in the middle of Manhattan.
We’d told each other in Mexico City that maybe in another life we could have worked out, and we’d let fear and distance and practicality win.
I almost let that be the end of the story.
I almost let the best thing that ever happened to me walk away because I was too scared to reach for it.
But not anymore.
This is it, this is the only life I’m sure of, and I choose her.
We choose each other.