by Alexis Daria
“I can’t stay,” he admitted, and he didn’t miss the way his father’s mouth tightened. “There’s an emergency at the gym and I have to fix it.”
His mother knotted her hands together. “When will you come back?”
“I—I don’t know how long it will take.” He’d been about to say I don’t know, but he couldn’t do that to them again.
For all these years, he’d thought this door was closed. But it was open again. Or maybe it always had been, and he’d just refused to walk through.
His mother nodded, like that would have to be good enough.
“We still have things to talk about,” his father said mildly.
“I know. We will.”
It was the best he could give them right now.
“Pues, hasta luego.” Esteban clapped him on the shoulder. “See you next time.”
There would be a next time. Gabe didn’t know when, but the answer wasn’t “never” like it had been just a week earlier. For now, he had to close another chapter of his life before he could even think about starting a new one.
“You should give some of the conchas to Michelle’s family,” Gabe suggested as his mother packed one for him in a plastic container.
“Aren’t you going back over there?” she asked.
“No, I—” Can’t. “I’m not.”
Esteban eyed him warily but said nothing. Norma glanced at the suitcase by the kitchen door. “Oh. Sí, I’ll bring them over. Don’t miss your flight.”
“Do you want me to drive you?” Esteban asked, but Gabe shook his head quickly. After what had just happened with Michelle, he couldn’t take another drawn-out and emotionally wrenching goodbye with someone he had years’ worth of baggage with.
“Está bien. I’ll take a cab.”
Gabe kissed his mother goodbye, gave his dad a quick hug, and went out to the sidewalk to secure a rideshare to take him to the airport.
When the SUV showed up at the curb, Gabe turned for one last glimpse of the houses where he’d spent the majority of his time from ages six to eighteen.
When he’d come back a week earlier, the sense of coming home had scared him.
He wasn’t afraid of that feeling anymore. Not when his future had become so much scarier than his past.
Pulling out his phone, he snapped a quick picture of the houses. Then he got in the car and began the trip back to his real life.
Chapter 23
Through the living room window, Michelle saw Gabe get in a car and leave. He didn’t come back over to say goodbye.
Some things never change, she thought bitterly.
After cleaning up in the bathroom, Michelle returned to the desk to wipe it down and right all the things she and Gabe had displaced during their frantic lovemaking. She collected all the pens from the floor, closed and stacked her notebooks, and repositioned her laptop back in the center of the desk.
The Pros and Cons list was ripped up and flushed down the toilet, never to be spoken of again.
Tapping the touch pad to wake up the laptop, she sat down and moved all the files related to the Agility campaign into their shared folder, then moved them off her laptop onto a USB stick, which she tossed in her dad’s drawer.
Before she could talk herself out of it, she invoiced Agility. And added a 20 percent cancellation fee.
She’d just sent the email when she heard Ava’s voice calling for her.
“Down here,” Michelle yelled. She shut the laptop and went upstairs.
Ava was in the kitchen unloading cans of chickpeas from a canvas tote. Four bottles of wine already sat on the counter.
“Jasmine’s on her way,” Ava reported, putting the food processor together. “There’s traffic, so it might take her a little while to get here from Brooklyn.”
Michelle climbed onto one of the high chairs stationed at the counter. She didn’t sit in them often, because her legs were just barely long enough to rest her feet on the rungs, but she wanted the comfort and familiarity of watching Ava in the kitchen.
Ava plugged the processor in, then grabbed the corkscrew and opened a bottle of red. She retrieved three glasses from the cabinet, poured wine into two, and pushed one across the counter to Michelle.
“Here. We can wait to talk until Jasmine gets here, if you want.”
“Thanks. I don’t want to go through it twice.” Michelle raised the glass and took a sip.
“Oh, there was a package for you by the door.” Ava handed Michelle a cardboard tube.
Michelle took it and glanced at the label. “Wow, this got here fast.”
“What is it?”
Michelle didn’t want to tell her. But she was trying to change, trying to let her cousins in.
Even if it meant they saw her for the sentimental sap she was.
“Right after we graduated, I made Gabe a photo collage of the two of us. A memento since I’d be away at school.” She turned the tube over in her hands but didn’t open it. “This weekend I got the idea to make a new one, using the photos we’ve taken here, to replace that one.”
What a stupid, ridiculous idea. She’d made the collage on her phone during the drive back from the quinceañera, and ordered it on the spot. She hadn’t expected it to get here so soon, yet here it was.
And Gabe was already gone.
Michelle passed the tube to Ava. “Throw it out.”
“I want to see it.”
Michelle shook her head. “I don’t. Just toss it.”
Ava sighed, but she put it in the recycling bin under the sink. Then she turned on some music and opened the cans of chickpeas to make hummus from scratch.
By the time Jasmine arrived, Ava had arranged a whole spread while Michelle sat at the counter drinking wine and singing along with K-pop songs. The coffee table was laden with hummus, pita chips, vegetable slices, and cubed cheese. And, of course, wine.
Michelle met Jasmine at the door with a full wineglass. Jasmine slipped out of her sandals, took the wine, then enfolded Michelle into a tight, one-armed hug.
“Stop,” Michelle muttered. “I’m not ready to cry yet.”
“Then we’d better get started.” Jasmine sipped from her glass and headed into the living room.
The three of them sat on the floor around the coffee table and dug in.
“So, he’s gone?” Jasmine asked, her tone hesitant, like she was worried about bringing up the subject of Gabe.
But he was why they were here, wasn’t he? Once again, he’d left her, and her Primas of Power were putting the pieces back together.
“He left for the airport right before Ava got here.” Michelle toyed with the stem of her wineglass, the pressure of all she was holding back building in her chest.
“And?” Ava prompted. “Did he say anything?”
“He said he might be selling the business.”
Ava and Jasmine exchanged a glance.
“The gym?” Jasmine asked. “He’s selling the gym? Why?”
Michelle shrugged. “He wouldn’t talk to me about it. He just said he had to deal with this on his own, and he was leaving.”
Ava’s voice was gentle. “Did he say when he was coming back?”
“No. He’s not coming back.” And that had hurt more than his departure.
Ava gripped Michelle’s arm. “Michelle,” she said quietly. “Stop fighting it. Just talk to us.”
Heartache threatened to overwhelm her. Michelle’s immediate urge was to wrestle it down and lock it away so she could carry on like normal.
But where had that ever gotten her?
“I don’t even know how,” Michelle admitted in a dull voice. What was the harm in letting it out? Why was it so hard to let her cousins see her?
“Are you worried we’re going to judge you?” Jasmine asked.
“Logically, I know that you won’t.” Michelle sighed. “And I know you’ve both gone through worse. In comparison, this is nothing.”
Ava was divorced, and Jasmine’s last breakup had become na
tional news. It felt silly for Michelle to cry to them about Gabe leaving.
“It’s not nothing to you,” Ava murmured, and that quiet acknowledgment broke the dam on Michelle’s need to hold back.
“It hurts,” she whispered, staring into her wine. “A lot. I told myself I’ve been in this situation with him before, that I could handle it when he left, especially since I knew it was coming.”
“It’s different this time,” Jasmine said, reaching out and rubbing Michelle’s back. Of course Jasmine would understand.
“I didn’t count on getting so close to him. On—” Michelle faltered, then spit it out. “On falling in love with him.”
Because she had fallen for him. Not as the boy she’d known, but as the man he’d become. She loved him.
It was so much worse this time around.
“I asked him to stay,” Michelle admitted hoarsely, and the pressure in her chest and throat finally moved up and spilled out of her eyes as tears. “I didn’t last time. But this time, I did.”
“And what did he say?” Ava prompted.
Michelle’s answer came with a sob. “He said we aren’t real.”
Her cousins passed her tissues and hugged her as she cried, and while Michelle wanted more than anything to declare that she was fine and that they should stop fussing, she let them coddle her.
Because she wasn’t fine. Her heart was breaking, and it felt like she would never recover.
But Jasmine and Ava had. And they were here with her now, supporting her. If nothing else, Michelle had her primas. And they would help her through this.
AFTER A LAYOVER in Denver and flight delays on both legs, Gabe crashed hard when he got back to his apartment in Venice. He was so tired, he couldn’t even enjoy the feeling of being back in his own bed.
On the plus side, he was so tired he didn’t have the energy to think about Michelle’s absence at his side. If he had, he wouldn’t have been able to sleep at all. After just three nights, he’d already gotten used to falling asleep with her soft curves pressed against him.
The next morning, he dragged himself up, showered and dressed, and hit a Starbucks drive-through on the way to Fabian’s new house in Brentwood.
By some miracle, there was very little traffic, and Gabe arrived at Fabian’s quickly. He showed up at the front door with a to-go carton of hot coffee and a box of pastries.
Fabian’s sister Shirelle let Gabe in, greeting him warmly and taking the box of baked goods off his hands. Gabe followed her into the kitchen, where the whole Charles family seemed to be gathered around the long rectangular dining table.
“Coffee!” Fabian’s wife, Iris, exclaimed when she saw Gabe.
Iris, a petite Black woman with medium-brown skin and a short dark bob, got up from the table and walked stiffly over to the counter. Gabe remembered she’d had a C-section just a few days before.
“Should you be . . . walking?” He felt weird asking that of his friend’s wife, but he was a health professional. She was clearly moving like someone in pain, and her normally bright eyes seemed dull.
“I’m okay, but you’re sweet to be concerned. Put it down here, Gabe. Fabian, get milk and sugar.”
Gabe set down the carton and passed her one of the paper cups. She took it and sent him a grateful smile. “Bless you, Gabe. None of us got around to brewing a pot yet. As I’m sure you can imagine, things have been a little hectic around here.”
“I bet. Where are the babies?”
Iris pointed to the tablet propped on the counter, which showed split-screen video footage of two little lumps in bassinets. “Sleeping,” she said. “Both at the same time. Thank god.”
Gabe filled cups while Fabian set out skim milk, oat milk, half-and-half, and a variety of sweeteners. While Fabian fixed cups for his wife and sister, Gabe took direction from Fabian’s parents about how they liked their coffee and passed them their drinks, while also promising Mrs. Charles that he’d happily help her with rehab services after her leg healed. Then he and Fabian poured and doctored coffee for themselves.
“You’re a lifesaver,” Fabian said as he took the first sip from his own cup. “Thanks for thinking of this.”
“I figured caffeine would be welcome.” Gabe drank deep from his own cup, heavy on the oat milk, with a hint of granulated brown sugar. It tasted like perfection.
Fabian’s tired eyes sharpened. “Since when do you drink coffee?”
“Since staying with people who treat café con leche like a lifestyle,” Gabe muttered.
A squeal came from the tablet’s speakers. On-screen, one of the lumps started moving.
Fabian and Iris both moved to go, but Shirelle waved them off. “I’ll get her,” she said. “You two chill.”
Wincing, Iris sank back into her chair at the table. She sent Gabe and Fabian a meaningful look.
“Go,” she said. “We’ll be fine. You two have things to discuss.”
Fabian snagged a croissant from the box on the table and gestured at Gabe with it. “Come on. Let’s go talk in my office.”
Fabian’s home office was in the back of the house on the first floor. A few streaks of test paint had been dabbed on the walls, but the last Gabe had heard, Fabian had yet to decide what particular shade of eggshell he wanted. The ceiling fan was still in its box, and Fabian’s new filing cabinets sat empty with the drawers open, while cardboard filing boxes rested on top of them. A rolled-up rug was propped in the corner, and framed baseball memorabilia leaned against the wall under the window. The desk was brand-new but otherwise looked like Fabian’s desk at the gym—covered in piles of paper and sticky notes—with a framed photo from Fabian’s wedding sitting on the only clear space.
Gabe’s desk at home sat in the corner of the living room and had almost nothing on it. Being in Fabian’s house like this, surrounded by his family, it was hard not to compare it to his own cold, spare apartment.
Especially after being back in his childhood home, and in Michelle’s apartment. She lived alone, too, but her apartment was vibrant and full of life.
Maybe he would get a plant.
Fabian sat behind the desk and Gabe took a seat in one of the leather armchairs facing him.
They were quiet for a moment, before Fabian said, “So we’re really doing this.”
Gabe shrugged. “What choice do we have?”
“There’s always a choice, Gabe.” Fabian steepled his fingers under his chin. “If you wanted to keep the business, I could help you figure it out. It doesn’t all have to go to Powell.”
“You have enough on your plate,” Gabe protested. “This is the easiest and cleanest course of action.”
And besides, why not now? If Gabe had to take out loans or find other investors so he could buy Fabian out, who was to say he wouldn’t find himself in this position again further down the line? And without as sweet a deal as Powell was offering.
“I don’t want you to do this only because of me,” Fabian argued. “I want you to want this too.”
Gabe spread his hands. “What do you want me to say? That I want to sell? I don’t. But this is too good an opportunity to pass up, and I’m not going to drag it out when you need to move on.”
And the thought of running this business without Fabian was terrifying. They’d been a team from the beginning. He’d never have that bond with Powell.
Fabian grimaced. “This was your dream. I don’t want to be the one who makes you give it up.”
“You’re not.” Gabe thought about Michelle’s presentation. “And anyway, I’m starting to realize that what the gym is now . . . is not what I envisioned.”
Fabian nodded and looked uncomfortable. “I thought about that sometimes. But everything seemed to be going well, so I figured it was okay. And dude . . . I don’t want you to think I’m bringing this up to influence you or anything, but you’ve seemed kind of . . .”
“Kind of what? Just tell me.”
Fabian shrugged. “Like utterly fucking miserable. For at least a
year now. Definitely since you took on more admin duties.”
Gabe folded his hands over his middle and leaned back in the chair.
“I fucking hate calendar alerts,” he admitted. “And emails. And meetings.”
Fabian huffed out a laugh. “I know you do. You’ve made it pretty fucking obvious.”
But Gabe also hated the idea of giving up, of throwing away everything he’d worked for and being left with nothing.
Well, money. He’d have the money.
But it had never been about the money. It had been about building something with his name on it. It had been about creating a space where he could help people with his own two hands.
Not that the money was nothing. He remembered the way his parents had struggled and saved back when the four of them lived in a small two-bedroom apartment. His father had been so proud of being able to buy the house they lived in now.
At the time, Gabe had been six, and he’d put his foot down. He hadn’t wanted to move, so he’d insisted he would stay behind in their old apartment. His father had imparted the lesson he would then go on to repeat multiple times over the years.
You need family. No one makes it alone.
Gabe had set out at eighteen to prove him wrong. To prove he could do it himself, without his family. Here in Fabian’s house, surrounded by his parents, his sister, his wife, and his two babies, it was hard not to see the truth of those words. Gabe was still sure he didn’t want to be a father, and he wasn’t sold on the institution of marriage. But companionship? A partner to stand by your side? The support of your community, whether it was biological or found family? He was starting to see the value of those things.
He was about to make the hardest, biggest decision of his adult life, and he didn’t have anyone to discuss it with. There was Fabian, but Fabian was part of the decision. Gabe imagined Fabian had discussed it at length with Iris, who, in addition to being his wife, was a big-time Hollywood lawyer. He’d probably talked about it with his parents, too, and maybe even his younger sister.
Hell, Michelle had all but begged Gabe to talk about it with her, and he’d shut her out. He hadn’t wanted to admit his failures, his doubts. Hadn’t wanted to speak them out loud, to show her that side of him.