by Lily Zante
“He knows the deal. His manager knows the deal.”
“Maybe he’s got a lot on his mind,” I volunteer, not understanding why I’m taking Eli’s side when I’m in this mess all because of him. “With this big fight not so far off, his only focus is on the training.”
“He must eat? He must stop to grab some water, or go to the bathroom? I’m sure you can accost him en route? Use your initiative, Harper.”
I want to tell him I’ve followed him into the locker room and it still didn’t turn out well, but I decide to keep that to myself.
I feel like suggesting that maybe I switch with Gerry. That maybe he comes over to the boxing gym and interviews Eli. I have a feeling that Eli would probably be nicer and more receptive to Gerry than he is to me.
“I have background details on him and I’ve been talking to Ernesto.”
“Who the hell is Ernesto?”
“He’s a handyman.”
Merv looks pained. “Are you cut out for this?”
I sit taller, snapping to attention at those doubting words. “Yes,” I reply indignantly. “It’s only been a few weeks, Merv. It was always going to take time for me to get settled in and win his trust.” He has no idea how much I’m flailing.
“Do you think you can go any faster?” His tone is nothing short of patronizing.
“I’m working on it.”
“Yeah, well, hurry the hell up. We don’t often do articles like this one, and you’re lucky that Gerry put you forward to run with this when he could have done a better job in one-tenth of the time. Sometimes that guy is too altruistic for his own good.”
I leave his office in a bad mood, even worse than the one I came in with. I return to my desk and decide to go through a few things now that I’m here.
My cell phone vibrates. I’d set it to silent mode when I went into the meeting with Merv.
I glance at the incoming call. It’s Eli.
“I’m done,” he announces. I blink and it takes me a moment to make sense of what he means. I’m also probably in a little shock at the idea that he actually called me.
“What do you mean?” I ask, confused.
“I can meet. If you want to continue with the interview.”
I place a hand on my stomach because it still feels weird. Surely, Eli’s voice can’t make me feel this unsettled? “Do you know The Weston?” It’s a nice hotel and not far from town. It will be better for us to meet there.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll meet you in there for drinks. Give me twenty minutes.”
“Okay.” He hangs up and I sigh loudly. I’m suddenly not ready for the meeting, and I’m not feeling so good, but Eli’s given me an in, and I’d be silly not to take it.
I quickly finish off the work I was in the middle of, then freshen my makeup and jump into a cab, even though the hotel isn’t too far away.
By the time the cab pulls up outside the hotel, I see Eli standing outside, as if he’s a doorman, minus the uniform.
“What are you doing out here?” I ask as I walk towards him. “You should have gone inside.”
He shakes his head in disgust, it looks like. “This fancy place? No thanks.”
I’m about to ask him what he’s talking about, but then I take a mental step back and understand. It hadn’t even occurred to me that he might feel out of place here, when he clearly had no reason to.
“We can go someplace else, if you prefer,” I offer. A woman and her teenage boy walk past and I see them faltering, then they stop, and the woman prods the boy with her elbow. Eli notices them.
“He’s too shy to ask,” the mother says, and before the boy can say another word, Eli smiles at him. “You can’t be shy, man,” he coaxes. “Ask me. Don’t ask, don’t get in this world.”
The boy hesitates. His mother whispers something to him.
“How are you ever going to ask a girl out?” Eli says to the boy who shrugs in typical teenager fashion.
“Can I have your autograph?” the boy finally asks.
The mother pulls out a notebook and pen and hands it to Eli.
“What’s your name?”
“Chris.”
He scribbles something down. “Here you go, Chris.”
“Thanks.”
“How about a selfie?” Eli offers.
“Sure!”
The kids pulls out his phone, and Eli faces the cell phone, then puts his arm around the kid. “This okay with you?”
The boy nods, looking as if it absolutely is more than okay. “Thanks,” he says, and they both walk away.
Having never seen this side to Eli, I am impressed. “That was nice of you.”
“I have my moments,” he replies.
“You surprised me.”
We’re still hovering outside the main doors of The Weston. “Why didn’t you wait for me inside? Was it because you’d get bothered by people?”
“It’s because I hate these types of places. All money and no soul.” He pulls the door open for me, but I still don’t walk through.
“We can go someplace else. You choose,” I tell him. “Show me where you hang out.”
“Is this where you hang out?” he asks, still holding the door open.
“Sometimes. We can go somewhere else,” I repeat, wanting to put him at ease.
A young and fashionably dressed couple walk through, and the woman does a double take when she sees Eli.
“Do you want the interview or not?” Clearly I do, so I walk through and he follows.
I choose a table all the way towards the end of the bar, in a corner where I feel there will be more privacy.
We both sit down and stare at one another. I haven’t prepared for this, and the meeting with Merv has deflated my mood. Seeing Eli has lifted it somewhat, but I’m in for a tough time, and I’m not up to it.
“Ask away,” he says, sitting back effortlessly. He eyes me like a lion.
“Let’s continue from where we were,” I say.
“We didn’t get very far at all, from what I remember.”
“Then maybe you can make it up to me,” I shoot back. It wasn’t meant to be laced with any intent, but I find my voice shaking as I speak. His dark eyes staring back at me might have something to do with the wobble in my voice. “What made you get into boxing?” I’ve asked him this question a few times now, and I’ve yet to get a decent answer.
“Survival instincts.”
I turn on my voice recorder, then see the look of trepidation in his eyes. “What are you doing?”
“It’s so that I don’t miss anything.”
He looks as if he doesn’t trust me, as if a switch flicked on in his brain. “I can put it away if you want.”
He suddenly looks so uncomfortable, that I switch it off. “We can do without,” I say.
He slumps back in his seat, his brow smooth.
“Survival instincts?” I repeat, hoping he will start talking. But he presses his lips together, as if this is hard for him. I wonder why he had a change of attitude earlier, why he came up to me in the gym earlier today and said I could ask him anything.
“I used to get into a lot of fights,” he starts to say, but a server interrupts to take our drink orders.
“What are you having?” I ask Eli.
“Water.”
I angle my head. Friday night in the trendy bar of a chic hotel, and he’s having water. “I’ll get this,” I offer, in case that helps.
“It’s still water,” he says.
I turn to the server. “I’ll have a glass of dry white wine, and a bottle of still water, please.”
I hear him chortle. “What’s so funny?” I ask.
“I meant it’s still water, my choice. I wasn’t going to change it just because you’re picking up the tab.”
I laugh. “Did you want sparkling?”
“No, it’s still still.”
We both smile at the infantile joke. It seems to have pierced the tension in the air. “Why did you decide to talk
to me?” I’m curious to know what made him change his mind.
“My sister said I should give you a chance.”
“Your sister?”
“At the diner the other day when you were with that ginger-haired guy.”
“Nina?”
He nods.
He cares what his sister thinks. I make a mental note of this. “Is she older or younger?”
“Older, by one year. She’s always looked out for me.”
He’s volunteering information. “What about your parents?” I have to tread carefully here because I’m well aware that this is his Achilles heel.
“Didn’t really have much parental support.”
“No?”
“No.”
I want to pry deeper, and I remind myself that he said I could ask anything, that he was the one who suggested we talk, but I back off, for some reason I don’t fully understand.
“Apparently, my parents had a volatile relationship, even before we were born, and it got worse once we came along. My dad was always disappearing for long periods of time, then showing up unexpectedly. As for my mom, well, let’s just say she didn’t cope so well.”
“What do you mean—?”
But before he can answer, the server arrives with our drinks and we turn silent again.
“Are you sure you don’t want anything to drink?” I ask, as I lift my glass. For me on a Friday night, a glass of wine signifies the end of the week.
“I’m training.”
“That you are. So, it means you can only drink water?”
“It means no alcohol. I need to be at the top of my game.”
“And you certainly are that.” When he doesn’t say anything, I rattle off his impressive wins. “That’s a pretty good record. Unbeaten in twenty-seven fights, one loss, one draw.”
“Thanks.” He unscrews his bottle top and pours water into his glass. I sense that if we weren’t in this place, he’d drink it straight from the bottle.
“Your career’s been on an upward trajectory.”
“Comes with training, a shit ton of hard work, and never giving up.”
“Did your mom teach you that?” I ask, eager to probe into that part of his life.
He laughs, but it’s not a happy laugh. “No, she didn’t, but she might have been the reason I learned how to survive—we learned how to survive—from an early age.”
“Why’s that?”
“Our aunt told us that when Nina was four and I was three, my mom left us alone for the entire weekend. It was a time when our dad had gone AWOL again for months. We managed to survive on ketchup, raw eggs, and mayonnaise which we squeezed out from the bottles. There wasn’t much food around. When the police broke down the door, because the neighbors could hear us crying, they said I was trying to drink the water from the toilet bowl, and Nina was asleep on the kitchen floor. I remember trying to scoop water out of the toilet.”
The shock of his words hits me hard and I almost drop the glass in my hand,
“Social services would have taken us then had my aunt not stepped in.” He’s speaking so calmly, so matter-of-factly about it, as if he’s telling me about the time he went to the beach, only I don’t think Eli has those types of childhood memories.
“I’m so sorry,” I put the glass down untouched. Images flash through my head of Eli as a toddler. My heart is beating, and I fall into his story as deeply as if it were my own. My childhood was a blissfully happy one, and I can’t get to grips with the fact that this man had the type of life I can’t even begin to imagine.
“Why are you sorry?” he asks, his voice hard, like a warning. “You don’t know me.”
“I… I feel sorry for you.” It slips out before I can take it back.
“I don’t want you to feel sorry for me.”
“I don’t mean it like that.”
“Then don’t say stuff like that because I don’t want your pity.”
“I’m not offering you my pity, and I’m sorry if it comes across like that.” No wonder he wears that stay-the-hell-away-from-me body suit. His looks, his reputation, his demeanor; they all say ‘keep away’.
Now I understand what makes him ruthless and makes him step into a ring and beat the life out of his opponent.
I can’t help it though. And once again, my reaction to this man surprises me. I have so many images of him in my head, of him in the ring, ruthlessly attacking his opponent, of him in the locker room, of his tattoos with the sweat trickling down his steel-hard muscles. And now I have images of Eli trying to drink water out of a toilet.
“And then what happened?” I ask, trying to remain focused, trying not to let my feelings get in the way.
“My aunt took us in.”
An aunt is a good second choice, I tell myself. She can never replace a mother, because nothing can, but this news fills me with some relief. “That must have been something?”
He nods again. The voice recorder wouldn’t have helped because this man’s expressions say more than his words. “Boxing is my salvation.”
“Your salvation?” Boxing is rough, ruthless, dog-eat-dog. Salvation is the last word that comes to mind when I think of this barbaric sport.
He doesn’t say anything, so I go back to questioning him about the boxing, and the training, about Lou and Ernesto. His past is off limits, and I back off for now. I’ll worm my way back to that another time.
Like Merv says, I need the story.
I order another glass of wine, and he still has his bottle of water. I’m debating whether we should get something to eat, especially when the mood lightens and we talk about current events, reality TV shows and the latest movies—all safe and common ground.
I’m enjoying his company, and every once in a while my gaze drops down to his sweatshirt. I can’t help it. But it happens enough that I catch myself doing it. Once or twice Eli sees me do it, and my gaze flutters to meet his.
He fills out a sweatshirt well. Not too big and bulky that he reminds me of The Hulk, yet nicely ripped that I am curious about him all the same.
“You moved up levels,” I say, when he catches me ogling him a third time. I point out that I was checking his body out because I had an important journalistic point to make about his size.
“I started off at flyweight when I first started out. I was a scrawny little thing.”
He looks at his watch then announces that it’s getting late.
“It’s not. The night has barely begun,” I reply, but he reminds me that he gets up at the crack of dawn and goes for a run before hitting the gym.
His training schedule sounds like my worst nightmare.
I want to ask him to stay longer, because I’ve enjoyed his company. The more I sit here and stare into his eyes, and find out about him, the more I warm towards him. It’s been a while since I was out with a nice-looking guy. Odd, because I’ve never thought of Eli as nice-looking before. I’ve always thought of him as dangerous, with a to-be-avoided-at-all-costs label attached to his chest.
But my impression of him has changed. Despite his smooth skin and unlined face, and those mesmerizing brown eyes, he’s got an edge to him. A roughness, and a meanness. Yet tonight I’ve seen another side of him, and it’s hard not to find myself wanting to stay here with him, when the alternative is to go home to an empty apartment. It’s too late to call my friends and meet up with them, and I still don’t feel so great, but this I can do; sit with Eli and try to unveil his deepest, darkest secrets. I’m sure he has them.
“I was going to ask you about Grampton House,” I say, forgetting my earlier resolve not to talk about his past.
“That’s a topic for another day.” He takes out his wallet, but I’m not going to take any money for water. “I said I’d get this.”
“You sure?” he asks.
“I’m sure.”
“Maybe next time I’ll show you where to go to get a proper drink.”
“I’ll hold you to it,” I say.
“Do that.”
/>
There’s no point in me staying here if he’s leaving, and since I don’t feel great anyway, I decide to leave as well.
Chapter Ten
ELI
* * *
I could stay here talking to her for a while longer, but I decide now’s the time to take my leave.
Harper isn’t the type of woman I usually hang around with, and this place isn’t the kind of establishment I like to frequent. I’m feeling a little claustrophobic as the bar fills up, and I really can’t drink any more water. I also think she’s eager to get to my life story. I don’t want that. I wish she’d stick to the boxing.
She hasn’t asked me about my love life, yet. That’s a surprise because most women tend to get to that question real quick.
But I see her checking out my arms when she thinks I don’t notice, and when I catch her at it, she hides it well—but there’s a tell in her eyes, like a double-blink, and then she looks away and pretends she’s thinking up a new question.
She was definitely checking me out. I find myself trying to guess how old she is; I could easily do a search on her online. She looks like the type to have multiple social media accounts just so that she can tell people what her lunch looked like and show off the cool cocktail she’s drinking. It’s losers like her who give a shit about stuff like that.
But I’m not about to look her up online because I’m not interested. She’s not my type, and, even if she was, there’s no point. No sexy times, Lou has warned me. Not until the fight is over. So I don’t even go there. Not even in my head. I haven’t been with a woman for months, and I can’t afford to have any distraction, especially this close to the fight.
I don't usually give people a chance because I trust no one, but, surprisingly, Harper's easygoing when we get talking.
She looks disappointed when I tell her I need to leave. I can see that she’s trying to hide it, and I sense that she’d like to stay here for longer. She’s partial to her white wine. I’m sure this is her third, although she’s only had a sip of it.
She decides to leave with me, which makes sense because I doubt any woman would want to be left on her own for other men to hit on her.