Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The gym is eerily quiet the next morning, save for the occasional cruise ship bellow. Gracie stands in front of a pull-up bar, a mischievous glint in her eyes.
“Topher, come here.”
Topher’s face lights up when Gracie signs his name. Poor guy has got it bad.
“Hang upside down on this bar from your knees.”
He hops up and positions himself on the pull-up bar, an eager pupil needing her approval, and hangs down. His fair complexion shades to red as blood races to his skull. Then Gracie blindfolds him.
I purse my lips, uneasy with where this might be going. Topher gives us a thumbs up, obviously game. But then comes the metal rasp of handcuffs as Gracie secures his wrists behind him.
I step onto the mat. “But he won’t be able to communicate.”
“Then I guess he’ll have to depend on his training partner to defend him.”
Before I have a chance to process what she means, she lands a side kick hard on Topher’s shoulder. A dense thud echoes through the gym.
Danny rushes forward. “Hey!”
Topher grunts but doesn’t flip down from the bar. He stays, dangling from his knees, blindfolded and handcuffed, his face growing purple now.
“Oh, you don’t want to see him hurt?” Gracie’s voice is all false innocence, but her eyes are fire. “Then use your defense moves and protect him.” She spins around for a Superman kick before Danny knows what’s happening, and it lands with a thwack on Topher’s abdomen.
“Stop it!” I’m fumbling for my phone, trying to find Bill’s number, and no one is listening to me. Danny stands in a crouched defensive position in front of Topher, slowly covering him while Gracie circles.
Gracie kicks hard with her right leg again, but this time, Danny sees it coming.
He pushes off the strike with both hands and recovers his stance just in time to defend her right hook.
I exhale a little. Danny is defending each strike as if he sees them coming in slow motion.
He’s not letting anything get by him now.
“So you’ll defend him,” she says, backing up. “But not yourself. If only I could get Topher in the ring with you on fight night. Tie him to some train tracks like a damsel in distress.”
Danny doesn’t relax his stance until Gracie unclicks the handcuffs. Next, she removes the blindfold and pats Topher’s knee twice to signal for him to hop down. He does, his face looking like an eggplant, his hands pressing down on his right abdomen.
“You OK?” she signs to him. He nods, and limps out toward the front entrance for some air.
“Lauren, can you give Gracie and me a second to speak privately?” Danny says.
“Excuse me, I didn’t agree to that,” Gracie says. “I never attend private talks just because the other person feels like hosting one. It’s a personal gift I give myself.”
“Gracie, please.”
She glares at him, crossing her arms at her chest. Silence pounds through the gym.
“I was just going to check on Topher anyway,” I say, keeping my eyes averted to avoid attracting Gracie’s ire. Whatever is going on between her and Danny won’t be solved in front of an audience.
Topher is sitting on an upside-down Home Depot bucket, pressing an iced water bottle to his side. I type something into my notes app and show him.
Me: That was crazy. Is training always like this?
He takes my phone and types below it, and we hand it back and forth to communicate.
Topher: No, but it’s cool. She cleared it with me first. We both want him to win.
Me: At what cost? Someone will get hurt. You’re just helping her so she’ll like you back.
Topher: Think it’s working? :)
I roll my eyes at him and he grins, typing more.
Topher: Gonna ask her to dinner tonight. If I can still stand.
Me: Just like that?
Topher: Sure. I really like her, so why would I wait?
I huff and take the phone back.
Me: a) Crippling anxiety b) Fear of rejection c) Self-doubt
I’m about to type more when Topher laughs and grabs the phone back.
Topher: You gotta feel those things and do it anyway. How else will you get a kiss?
How else indeed.
Danny comes out the door and pats Topher on his back.
“Sorry, man. She got a few on you before I knew what was happening. I asked her to go easy on you, but may have just signed your death warrant.”
Topher drags a hand over his face, groaning.
“Don’t worry, bud. I’ll be better prepared for next time. Lauren, ready to get some lunch?” He shifts his gym bag on his other shoulder, offering me his arm.
I take it, and we start walking away. I look back at Topher and give him a thumbs up.
He smiles, then heads back into the gym to find Gracie.
Danny and I weave our way through Pike Place Market, a basket of locally grown vegetables in my hand. “I literally almost called the police,” I say. “And Topher’s no help, staring at her like a lovesick puppy.”
“She’s unconventional. But she’s effective.”
“She’s deranged.”
We stop at a seafood stand and buy two crab cocktails, plastic cups with tangy horseradish sauce at the bottom and Alaskan King Crab chunks piled high on top.
Danny checks his watch. He’s been distracted since we got here, in search of a quick lunch and some fresh buckwheat pasta to make for dinner tonight.
“I’m serious,” I say, sitting on a bench and squeezing some lemon over my cup. “We should tell Bill what’s going on. I don’t know much about mixed martial arts, but I have a finely tuned moral compass, and this type of training feels wrong.”
“I’m just going to run to the bathroom,” Danny says while I dig into my crab.
“I’ll go with you.”
“You want to take crab cocktail into a public restroom?” His eyes narrow. “I’m not going to escape. We have our deal, remember?”
“OK,” I say hesitantly, looking over at the stall of handmade pastas in all different flavors and colors. Chocolate, chive, and ah, there it is. Buckwheat.
Danny squeezes my shoulder and slips into the crowd. The back of his head bounces down the stairs to the lower level of the market. I wait a few beats, then follow him.
He isn’t in the men’s room. I poked my head in to check, making sure to hold our crab cups far outside the door.
He’s not in the chowder house or the meat market either.
I duck down another flight of stairs until I’m in the darkened alley of the gum wall, where tourists have covered every inch of the alley in chewed pieces of gum for decades.
I spot Danny immediately, hood up, handing money to a man leaning out of an alley doorway.
The man is wearing the white jacket and black checkered pants favored by kitchen staff.
A small sachet of something light and powdery is exchanged.
They both look around furtively, so I press myself backward, out of sight, and directly into stuck-on pieces of gum chewed by a thousand strange mouths.
Oh, gross. I risk a peek, my hair sticking to the wall.
They haven’t seen me. They give each other a quick fist bump goodbye, and then Danny jogs up the alleyway.
When Danny finds me, I’m pretending to sample some huckleberry yogurt.
“All set?” I say brightly.
“Yep. Let’s go.”
We walk back to the gym, my mind buzzing with worry. I spend the rest of the afternoon wondering what to do. Should I tell Gracie? Bill? Belinda? Or should I confront Danny head on, demanding to know what he bought in that back alley?
Nothing feels like the right move—but I have to do something. Because somewhere inside that innocuous-looking backpack lies a little white bag that could ruin everything. For both of us.
After meal prepping and cleaning the kitchen, Danny and I finally settle in for dinner. He pushes his buckwheat pesto around in his plastic preportioned meal prep container and groans. “This shit is flavorless. My pleasure versus pain balance is so fucked.”
“The fight is in sixteen days,” I say. “Just hang on a bit longer.” I eye his gym bag on the floor by the front door. And please don’t do anything stupid, like take illegal street drugs.
Danny slumps in his chair, like a child who won’t eat their vegetables. “There has to be a way to make this evening more pleasurable.”
My cheeks fill with heat. I don’t know why my mind always goes there.
He’s probably talking about one of his simple hedonism pleasures.
A hot bath, or reading a book in front of the fire.
Dammit. Now I’m thinking of Danny, his tan chest covered in bubbles, reading in a bath while wearing those sexy Talented Mr. Ripley glasses that are the sluttiest thing I’ve ever seen on a man.
I gulp some cold water to calm myself down.
“What night is it?”
I frown at him. “It is insane to me that you never know the day. It’s Thursday.”
“Oh, fuck yes,” he says, picking up his plate. “Come with me. Bring your dinner.”
“Danny, what—”
But he’s already slipped on his Crocs and grabbed a napkin, heading out the door.
I pick up my preportioned plastic tray and follow.
We take the elevator up to his rooftop. Up here, the lights of downtown sparkle below us, painted on the water of the bay in yellow ripples. There are two beach chairs already set up in one corner, and we sit, dinner containers on our laps.
“What are we doing up here? It’s about to start drizzling again.”
“Look.”
Through massive loft windows across the street, long red silks hang from the industrial ceiling, billowing in the air.
“Is that …?” I lean forward in my chair.
Just then, a woman wearing a bustier covered in sparkles flips down, tumbling as if to her death, only to catch herself feet from the ground.
A bare-chested man in black ballet leggings climbs the other silk using an insane amount of upper body strength.
A crowd claps. The warehouse isn’t empty.
It’s filled with small candle-lit cocktail tables from which audience members enjoy oysters and champagne as they watch the aerial burlesque show.
“Best seat in the house,” Danny says. He’s been watching me take it all in.
“It’s mesmerizing.”