37. Meet Your Match
WESLEY
Somehow the gymwas still the one place where I found clarity. All of my modeling contracts required me to maintain a certain physique, and I’d be lying if I said my muscular build didn’t get me more attention. No workout ever replaced the feel of hitting a man square in the jaw, though. Punching the bag only got me so far.
It had long slipped my mind that I still owned a gym in River’s Run. Phillip left last night in a huff, mumbling under his breath about how my father would make me pay for my actions, and after tossing and turning down on Aunt Shirley’s lumpy couch, I went for a run and stumbled upon my old stomping grounds.
There was no one inside, but my code still worked. I didn’t even know who managed it or if we had any members. Everything was clean and organized, so someone had to maintain it.
An empty gym was perfect. I stripped down to my shorts, foregoing the wraps for my fists, and beat the bag until my knuckles split. My Airpods blared my workout playlist, Keith Urban’s “Stupid Boy” reminding me how badly I had fucked up. She had laid her heart right in my hands…and I dropped it.
A movement in the corner of my eye gave me pause. There was a small area towards the back that was set up as a class studio, with mirrored walls on two sides. A girl with light blonde hair pulled into a tight bun wearing a leotard and tights was spinning in pointe shoes. Classical music tinkled out of a miniature speaker she tucked into the corner next to her bag.
She didn’t stop as I approached. Not until I was only a foot away with my arms crossed at my chest. There weren’t any other adults inside, meaning the girl was in here all alone. A huge liability issue, by anyone’s standards. She couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven years old.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked.
The girl stopped gracefully, slinking down flat on her feet. “Practicing,” she answered calmly. Her brilliant blue eyes didn’t betray an ounce of fear.
I turned around again, double checking for a parent I might have missed. “By yourself?”
“It’s a solo piece,” she informed me. “I don’t need anyone else.”
What was with this kid? For all she knew, I was a child predator about to kidnap her into my windowless van, yet she was ready to square up like Mike Tyson.
“You got a name?” I didn’t remember most of the people in town, but a name might give me a place to start.
She leaned back on one foot, clearly sizing me up from head to toe. “Not sure why you need that,” the girl finally replied. “You’re not from around here.”
It was so reminiscent of Celeste’s first greeting that I almost laughed out loud. “Technically I used to be. I’ve been away for a while. How did you get in here?”
The girl shrugged. “My mama has a code to the building. I need somewhere to practice and no one ever comes in here.”
“Why don’t you just go to your dance studio?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes and turned to face the mirror again. “Because my dance studio is in Savannah and I can’t exactly drive.”
Damn, her sass was enough to shut me up. It was like talking to a mini version of myself at ten years old. Lord bless her parents because that attitude had to be a hand full.
“Well, I own this gym and I can’t let you be in here without a grown up.”
That got her attention. She rounded on me, hands on her hips and a mean mug that made me take a step backwards. “If you really owned this gym, you’d know that I come here to practice every day. When my mama’s stuck at work, this is the only thing that makes me happy.”
The girl clamped her mouth shut after that last remark. Maybe she figured she told me too much, but if anything, she spoke in a language I understood. I knew all too well what it felt like to have a parent too busy working to notice you. At least she found something that made her feel good. That was already a jumpstart on me.
But the lawyer in me couldn’t let her be here unsupervised. “Look, I get that you’ve been coming here for a while,” I began, “but for safety reasons, I can’t let you do that without an adult here. What if you got hurt?”
It was her turn to cross her arms over her chest. “Just talk to my mama. She only works down the street.”
Patience wasn’t really my thing, so I bit back the snarky comment on the tip of my tongue. She was just a kid, even if she did have a mouth on her that would land her in trouble one day. For some reason, I pictured Mr. Hendricks dealing with a little girl like her and had to hide my smile.
“My workout is done, so let’s go talk to your mom, okay?” I suggested. “Otherwise I’m gonna have to call the sheriff on you for trespassing.”
Her eyes widened at the threat, then narrowed in a glare. “Forget it. I’ll find somewhere else to practice.” She huffed over to her bag and withdrew a pair of sweatpants that she aggressively yanked on over her leotard.
I watched her as she walked to the door, muttering under her breath what I hoped wasn’t some kind of voodoo curse on me. Guilt hit me hard in the chest. I remembered what it felt like to be that kid, the one with nowhere to go and no one who cared either way. At least dance was a healthy activity that gave her an escape. What kind of asshole would take that from her?
Right as she was about to step outside, I called out, “C’mon, tell me your name!”
“Iris,” she called back over her shoulder.
“Do you wanna meet here tomorrow?” I offered. “I can do my workout and you can get your dance practice in.”
She rounded on me. Her blue eyes lit up with hope, then skepticism as she regarded me coolly. After sizing me up, she slowly nodded. “Be here at six a.m. sharp!” Iris instructed.
I chuckled after her as the door closed. Whoever her mama was, I hoped she had the patience of a saint.
It wasn’t the time to ruminate on the girl, however, because it was time to face my past. I needed to shower and look presentable before heading over to The Comfy Cushion. Picking up my cell phone from the floor next to the weight rack where I left it, I saw six missed calls from my father and groaned. Each voicemail got progressively worse, with him going so far to threaten cutting me off completely. As if I would shed a tear over no longer being associated with him or Madden Enterprises.
Now that I had my own nest egg from modeling, he had nothing to touch me with. I could continue leading the same lifestyle—albeit with fewer private jets and yachts—and be just fine. And while being an attorney wasn’t my dream job, it was certainly one that could pay the bills. I didn’t have any real debt, so let him cut me off. I’d get myself straight.
The phone buzzed in my hand again. Instinct told me to ignore the call, but I knew my father would just keep at it, so I might as well get it over with. I adjusted the volume as low as I could before I hit the green button, though.
Sure enough, his angry scream belted in my ear. “WHY ARE YOU IN THAT WASTELAND OF A TOWN RATHER THAN ON THE JET TO TOKYO?!”
My jaw hurt from the way my teeth ground together. “Gee, Benny, it’s good to hear from you, too.”
“Don’t give me any of your horse shit, Wesley! You were hired to do a job and I expect you to fucking do it!”
He tended to forget how many days of my life I wasted in his corporate offices, watching mediocre white men overpaying themselves without doing any actual work. I knew for a fact that I had more schooling than half his board members. Rich people only supported rich people. There was no actual need for me; this was nepotism at its worst.
“I guess something else came up,” I sighed. We were just going to keep talking in circles. I wasn’t sorry for skipping out and I couldn’t care less about getting fired from a corporate job I hadn’t technically started.
Benedict lowered his voice, the contempt thick enough to choke a horse. “You get your ass on the next flight to Japan or I will rain hell down on you.”
I snorted. That was the best he could do? “Not gonna happen, Pops, but thanks for playing. Bye now.” And I hung up.
It took several minutes of visualizing painful ways for Benedict Madden the Third to die slow, gruesome deaths before I was in the right frame of mind to leave. Glancing back towards the classroom area, I texted Phillip to look up business properties for sale in River’s Run.
Phillip called rather than text back. “Do you have a particular kind of business space in mind?”
“Yeah, something big enough for a dance studio.”