I begin to babble. “I didn’t expect it to happen like this. So strong, so fierce. I knew him, knew what he could do to my heart. I was so sure I could handle it. It shouldn’t have happened so quickly.”
“It happened years ago, or did you forget the last twenty years of your life?” she teases softly.
“Kara.” My breath shudders. “I may have to make a choice. How do I make a choice?”
“A choice about what?”
I fill her in on what Sarah said yesterday. I’m talking so quickly, I’m at the Brewhouse and parking before I know it. “How am I supposed to choose? I love them both.”
“There’s a part of me that wants to say love will overcome no matter what, but we live in reality.”
“Reality can suck my left tit,” I proclaim.
Kara chuckles, but there’s a vein of sadness beneath it. “There’s only one thing I can say, Maris. After everything Jennings and I went through, after finding our way back to one another. There’s only one certainty.”
“What’s that?”
“You shouldn’t have to choose between your child and the man you love. But life sometimes just gets it wrong, no matter how many times you throw wishes and pleas into the air.” We’re both quiet, remembering. When she speaks again, there’s a huskiness to her voice. “If that happens, come to me. My arms are waiting for you just like yours were for me.”
“Why do you have to live so damn far away?” The first time I said those words to her, I was dropping her off at the airport to fly home to Florida right after she found out she was pregnant with her son, a little over eighteen years ago. I’ve never meant them more than I do right now.
“I’m just a flight away.” Her exact words back to me.
“Or a few,” I retort.
“Better now. We don’t get charged an arm and a leg by the airline.”
I let out a watery laugh knowing Jennings would fly either of us in either direction if we needed each other. “Okay. I have to go.”
“One last thing?”
“What?”
“It’s your time to find a love as extraordinary as the one you wanted for me.” She disconnects the call in my ear.
In the car, with the summer light streaming through, I whisper, “Damn you,” because I’m still left with wondering whose love that is.
Nicholas
“Great news, Nick.” Reece smiles enormously as he lifts the bar back upward while he’s doing reps on the bench press. Oliver is spotting him and merely lifts his chin to acknowledge my presence, his eyes on the bar moving up and down from Reece’s slow-moving chest.
I drop my bag and shrug off my sweatshirt before heading over to the jump rope. Quickly getting into rhythm, I ask, “Oh? What’s that?”
Reece finishes with his last rep and with Oliver’s help reracks the bar. He sits up before he announces, “Talked with my gran last night. Turns out, we were doing the same thing for each other. She’s been wanting to move to somewhere warmer for years but was afraid of hurtin’ me by sayin’ so. She has some friends who RV but made Albuquerque their winter home base. She’s all in.”
I grin. “That’s great news.”
“So, when do we go?” Reece demands excitedly.
“Go?” I ask blankly.
“Head to Albuquerque?” His voice is eager.
My mind completely blanks so much so that an exercise routine I’ve performed over and over daily trips me up. Literally. The jump rope winds its way around my ankles, and as I pull back, Oliver yells, “Look out.”
But it’s too late. I go flying face forward toward the mats like one of the untried kids at Razor.
And as I’m falling, thoughts flash through my mind: Razor, work, and the most important one. Maris.
Even as my body crashes down hard, I know in my heart she won’t turn her back on me just because I have to go home to do my job. I roll to avoid the jarring impact, cursing.
“Nick, you trying to show Reece why we bring in a dance instructor to Razor to work with the athletes?” Oliver calls out.
“Asshole.” I throw him the finger to enhance my point before untwining the jump rope from my ankles. “But yes, that is something we do.”
“I can’t wait.” And now that the worry is gone, there’s nothing but excitement in Reece’s voice.
“How long will it take you to get everything settled?” While this guy needs to be at our camp training, my heart is aching in my chest. Please let him give me some outrageous date so I don’t have to have this conversation with Maris soon, I beg silently.
“How does two weeks sound?”
“Because if you need…that soon?”
“Technically, the house we live in belongs to my parents,” Reece explains. “So, after we made our decision yesterday, I called them and told them our plans. All we have to do is pack and find a flight.”
“Don’t worry about that,” I hear Oliver tell him through a fog. “Razor covers all your moving costs.”
Two weeks.
On one hand, I’ll be out of Alaska, but I’ll be leaving Maris for an untold period of time. I don’t know how long it will be until she can wrap things up and join me in Albuquerque. Assuming she wants to, a little voice inside me prods. But I shove that niggling doubt aside. We love each other. What is there to hold us back?
Right?
From my sitting position on the floor, I begin making plans for who Reece should train with first. Tatum, absolutely. Even though Tatum’s climbing the ladder steadily, it will do him some good to have some in-house competition. Besides, despite the fact he’s a weight class lower than Reece, his ground game is unparalleled. Briefly, I wonder how Reece will feel having his ass kicked by one of our women fighters?
“Shit, you’re fucked,” Oliver cackles. I don’t even acknowledge him as I imagine how quickly Veronika would be able to take this behemoth down.
“What? What’s going on?” Reece worries.
“Nick’s face?”
“Yeah?’
“That’s his ‘he’s planning your training’ face.”
“So? What’s wrong with that?”
“I’ll ask you that in about a month when your ass has been handed to you by a woman,” Oliver predicts.
Reece scoffs. “Right.”
I decide then to put Reece in the ring with Veronika first thing. Clapping my hands together, I push myself to my feet. “Okay. If you two have the workout here under control, I’m going to head back to my place to make some plans. The sooner we get things started, the sooner we’re back home.”
The sooner I can show Maris my home, I think to myself.
Reece walks over and holds out a hand. “Thank you for taking this chance on me, Nick.”
“You’ll earn it, Reece. So, the thanks are ours for putting your trust in Ollie, in Razor, and in yourself.”
He smiles, and immediately my brain remembers, media kit. Shit, I need my computer pronto.
Six hours later, I have first-class tickets booked for Reece, his grandmother, and Oliver out of Juneau in ten days. It’s a shorter timeline than I originally intended, but after checking with Reece, he said it’s one they can make work. “Like I said earlier, Nick, we just have a few things to pack.”