by Kennedy Ryan
“Morning, ladies,” I greet Quinn and Tanya, who teaches Titanium’s pole dancing classes.
“Hey, love,” Tanya pulls me into a Chanel-scented hug. Even at six in the morning, she smells of her signature scent. “You look amazing, Banner. I’ve been meaning to tell you.”
“Thank you,” I reply, returning Tanya’s squeeze. “You look beautiful as usual. Best calves in the business.”
“Stripper heels and stripper poles, honey!” She tosses a swathe of blonde hair and looks me up and down. “I’d love to get you in one of my classes. Hell, I’d love to get you in one of my clubs, Banner. Men love tits and ass, and you’ve got both, m’dear.”
My face heats. I’m used to being complimented on my intelligence and things that have little to do with the outside. I always said it didn’t matter, but that was another lie I fed myself. The gulf between the truth and the lies we tell ourselves is filled with misery. It’s not bad to enjoy praise about the physical. That doesn’t make me shallow. I can be as proud of losing more than fifty pounds as I am of negotiating an eight-figure deal for one of my clients. I’m not the smart girl. Or the pretty one. Or the whatever label people want to assign to me. I can be all those things at once.
“The class, maybe,” I say. “The club, never.”
“My last date appreciated my time on the pole,” Quinn interjects with a roguish grin. “if you know what I mean.”
“My virgin ears.” I cover my ears and laugh.
“I doubt there is anything ‘virgin’ left on you,” Quinn says. “Not after last night with Zo. It’s been weeks since you saw each other, right? I’ll take it easy on you today, since I’m sure he didn’t last night.”
I chuckle right along with my friends, neither confirming or denying, and quickly change the subject.
“Speaking of the pole,” I say to Tanya. “You still do those parties here in the city?”
“As long as there are horny men looking to get shit-faced,” Tanya says wryly. “I’m doing parties. But those are separate from the clubs. All private high-end affairs.”
“Yeah, I know.” I look at her frankly. “I have an awkward favor.”
“Anything for you, Banner. You know that.”
“I have a couple of guys who, if they sneeze too hard, could be out on their asses. The league is watching them like a hawk. Think you and your girls could keep an eye out?”
“What exactly are we watching out for?” Tanya asks, her precisely plucked brows lifting.
“Not just being at a party. They can have their fun. I mean drugs or something that could get them in real trouble. I don’t want it on Instagram or TMZ if we can help it.”
“It wouldn’t be exactly professional,” Tanya says, a glint in her eye. “And I can’t make any promises, but tell me who I’m looking for.”
“Oh, I got a list.”
The three of us laugh. Many of my duties representing clients, especially young players in the NBA, which has become somewhat of a specialty of mine, are written in invisible fine print.
“Between tail, weed, and fights in the club,” I add as our laughter dies off, “I need all the help I can get keeping these guys in line and under contracts.”
“We’ll be on the lookout.” Tanya grabs her tote from the floor and heads toward the exit. “In the meantime, try to make one of my pole dancing classes.”
I nod and laugh, starting to stretch before Quinn tells me to.
“Is that the new model AesThetic sent?” I ask, nodding to the prosthetic lower leg I haven’t seen her wear before.
“Yeah.” Quinn extends it for me to see. “Pretty cool actually.”
“Cool enough for you to put your name behind it?” I lean into an abductor stretch. AesThetic has been after her for a year to endorse their line of prosthetics.
“We’ll see.” She puts on her drill sergeant face. “I’m more concerned about your legs than theirs right now. Come on, gimme some squats. Ass to grass, lady.”
We’re both incredibly focused people, so we go through the motions of my workout with almost no chatter for the first twenty minutes, other than the orders she barks to guide me. We’re starting battle ropes before she delves into her juicy gossip phase.
“So about last night,” she says, lips pressed into a sneaky grin.
I pause to look at her warily, a rope in each hand.
“What about last night?”
“I just thought I picked up on something.” She pretends to search for a word, but I know how calculating my friend is when she “senses” a tidbit. She probably practiced this conversation in the mirror this morning. “Interesting.”
“Oh?” I start the workout, snapping the ropes, alternating left and right. “What was so interesting?”
“You and Jared Foster.”
One rope slips from my hands, throwing the rhythm off. I ignore her raised brows and pick up the fallen rope. Our two names even linked casually stands the hair up on my neck. I don’t have feelings for him anymore, but I would never presume to be safe around Jared. The man is his own danger zone.
“There is no me and Jared Foster.” I fix all my concentration on the forceful undulation of the ropes in my hands.
“Really?” Quinn takes a sip of her berry-infused water. “Then what was that my Spidey senses picked up between you two?”
“Disdain? Revulsion? Nausea?” I ask with false pleasantness. “I think you got your webs crossed, Spidey.”
“You forget I can sniff out sexual tension like a bloodhound.”
“I didn’t forget. I never knew.” I drop the ropes and walk away to grab a towel and wipe my face.
“Well I can,” she asserts, hands on slim hips. “And there was something there. Fess up.”
“There’s nothing to fess.”
“I won’t judge, you know,” she says softly. “I mean if you’re worried about Zo or whatever.”
I freeze with a bottle of water midway to my mouth and glance Quinn’s way. Her expression is the patience of a saint and the obstinancy of the Devil.
“Okay, so we have a history,” I admit. “We went to college together.”
“Oh my God.” She clutches her imaginary pearls dramatically. “To see that man in his prime.”
“I’m pretty sure he’s in his prime now,” I say, remembering how Jared looked last night. “This was pre-prime, and he was still kind of prime-ish.”
“So did you guys . . .” She makes a hole with two fingers and thrusts another finger in and out “. . . do the nasty?”
I heave a breath and close my eyes, not wanting the flood of curiosity and questions I know my answer could unleash.
“One night. We had a one-night stand my senior year, but it ended badly.”
Fuck the fat girl.
“Really badly,” I reiterate, focusing on the high shine of the studio floor. “And we haven’t been around each other much over the last decade. When we are, our interactions range from polite to awkward, but I suspect we have the potential for downright hostile.”
“So in college it was hate fucking?” Quinn whispers hopefully. “’Cause that shit is intense.”
If there was a chair in here, she’d pull one right up.
“No, in college we were . . .” All the nights we laughed and studied and challenged each other in that laundromat invade my memory: Jared helping fold my clients’ clothes and teasing me about my bad knock-knock jokes. “We were friends.”
“Maybe you can be friends again,” Quinn says. “He seemed pretty cool last night.”
“I think it’s best to just leave it alone.” I grab a yoga mat for poses to end the workout. “We’re at rival firms, and if there’s one thing I know has not changed about Jared, he’s still ruthless. More now than ever.”
“And I had to go and give him guest passes.” Quinn adjusts my body in Kapotasana pose.
“Yeah, thanks for that.” I laugh at her chagrined expression. “It’s okay. Hopefully we can avoid each other.”
&nb
sp; “And how was it last night after not seeing Zo for so long?” Her knowing look seeks to know more. “You guys fuck like savages?”
Never.
I chastise myself for the thought. We’ve been together six months, and I keep hoping for wild chandelier sex, but that hasn’t happened. It sounds crazy, but sex has never been as important to me as all the other things that make a relationship work, that make it rich.
“It was really good to be with him again for sure,” I say, neatly side-stepping her question.
The timer on her watch goes off, indicating that our session is over.
“When is he moving in?” she asks.
“The Titans will make the playoffs.” I grab my water bottle and bag from the corner of the studio. “I don’t anticipate them going too far, though. Not this year. He’ll come here after his last playoff game and plans to stay until he has to report for pre-season workouts.”
“Wow. That sounds serious.” Quinn smiles warmly. “He’s a good man.”
“The best.” I deftly shift topics. “I’m loving the Girl, You Better app, by the way.”
We chat about the app and how it might be improved until we reach the front desk. As soon as employees spot her, Quinn is pulled in several different directions.
“I gotta go.” She kisses my cheek. “Make sure to log your points.”
“Alright, Sarge,” I joke. “I will.”
I’m leaving, focused on logging my workout into my phone when I bump into someone entering the building as I exit. We somehow end up trapped together in a partition of the revolving door.
“I’m so sorry! I . . .”
Him.
“Imagine seeing you here,” Jared drawls, standing still so I can’t move forward either. His closely cropped hair glints golden in the bright morning sun.
“It is my gym,” I answer caustically.
“Your gym,” Jared says, arms folded across his chest. “Your city. I don’t remember you being this possessive.”
“I’m surprised you remember me at all.”
One dark blond brow ascends and that wide mouth tips at one corner.
“Pretty Pastel,” he murmurs, his deep voice and his damn seductive scent suffusing the tight glass-encased space, making it a hothouse.
“What?” My mind blanks because he couldn’t be saying . . .
“You still use the same dryer sheets.” He leans forward and sniffs my shoulder.
“Stop that.” I bat him away, conscious of the fact I didn’t take the shower I had planned.
“Are they or are they not called Pretty Pastel?” he asks.
His self-satisfied look darkens and intensifies the longer we stand transfixed in this glass box of boiling air.
“You don’t want to know all the things I remember, Ban,” he says, his laugh husky. “Or maybe you do.”
“I do not.” Our words, our breath, whatever is condensating in this partition between us, is literally fogging the glass. “Let me out.”
A woman enters on the other side, bewildered that the revolving door isn’t revolving, that we aren’t moving. Jared flashes her one of those smiles, and she blushes and bats her damn eyelashes. We can only get out of this if he steps forward and I step back. Even for just the few seconds it takes to free us, it feels like he’s advancing on me.
“I’ll be seeing you, Banner,” he calls from inside as I walk to the parking lot.
“Not if I see you first,” I mutter.
I click my car open and climb in, slamming the door with unnecessary roughness. I don’t even make it to the interstate before the phone rings in my car, my mother’s name displaying on the screen.
“Hola, Mama.”
“Hola, Bannini.”
When Mama’s family first moved here from Mexico, she spoke no English. One teacher in the overcrowded San Diego public school took extra time and care to make sure Mama learned English and helped her adjust to her new circumstances, her new country. That teacher was Ms. Banner Johnson. My namesake, but my family calls me Bannini. How that started, no one remembers, but it stuck.
“How are you?” I continue in Spanish. “How’s Papa?”
“Ehh. We are fine. Always fine.”
“Papa’s taking his medication?”
Considering what Mama cooks every day, diabetes was practically an inevitability. I’m constantly after Mama to adjust their diets. Between what he eats and how hard he works running the construction business he built from the ground up, I have reason to worry.
“Yes, yes,” Mama replies with a touch of impatience. “How are you? Are you eating? You were wasting away last time I saw you.”
Only my mother would accuse me of wasting away at a size ten.
“I’m eating. Promise, Mama.”
“How is my boy?” Mama’s voice goes soft and sweet with the question, and there’s no doubt who she’s asking about.
“Zo is fine.” I laugh and take the exit to my house. “He’s at my place. Still sleeping when I left.”
“Tell him I’m mad he was in San Diego and I didn’t get to see him,” Mama says. She’s actually chastising me for not bringing Zo to the house.
“Scheduling was tight,” I say by way of apology. “I’ll make sure you get to see him soon.”
“He’s coming to Anna’s quinceañera, yeah?”
My niece, Anna, turns fifteen this year. The quinceañera is like our blowout sweet sixteen party . . . but at fifteen. Our bat mitzvah. Our rite of passage making the transition from girl to woman, and the perfect excuse to throw a massive party.
“That’s months away, Mama, but, yes. Zo is planning to be there.”
“Good. He’s family.”
Even before we started dating, Zo was considered family. That first Christmas after his family died, I invited him to spend it with us. He’s been adopted into my family and spends every holiday with us. They dropped hints about a romantic relationship between us years before Zo expressed interest. Once they found out he wanted more, the teasing, the pressure only intensified. It was just a matter of time. We’ve only been dating six months, but talk of a wedding and little bebes for Mama to spoil has already begun.
“Camilla knows I’m paying for the venue, right?” I ask. My sister is a single mother, doing so much on her own and always refusing my help.
“She didn’t like it,” Mama admits, “but she has agreed.”
“Why is it so hard for her to let me help, Mama? We are sisters.”
“She is your older sister, Bannini,” Mama says softly. “All the things you both dreamed about, you’ve actually done. Your sister made different choices. She wouldn’t trade Anna for the world, but hers was a different path. She’s been slowed down. Maybe sometimes it’s hard for her to see you running so far ahead.”
That renders me speechless. It never occurred to me that Camilla, gorgeous, perfectly formed Camilla, could ever envy me. My sister does not have a weight problem. Never has. She’s beautiful, and with that beauty came many temptations. While I was studying and wondering why no one else wanted to spend their weekends learning Italian, she yielded to every temptation, the greatest of which was Anna’s father, who is now nowhere to be found. I suck my teeth and shake my head, exasperated.
“Well, this is Anna’s big day, and I will help make it as special as it can possibly be,” I say. “Like Camilla and I had.”
My quinceañera wasn’t in a beautiful villa like the one I’m reserving for Anna. It was in a small salon near the church where Mass was held. My aunts all prepared the food and the entire family was involved. My damas and I worked for months on the carefully choreographed dance. I bonded with all fourteen girls and did the same for them when it was their turn.
“I still have my first heels I received that night,” I tell Mama, smiling, reminiscing.
“Your Uncle Javier picked those out, believe it or not,” Mama says, her deep chuckle making me miss her smile.
“Yes, but he could barely stand up to help put them on
when the time came,” I say, my words touched with affection for one of my favorite godparents.
“Yes, well, Javier loves his tequila almost as much as he loves you.”
We laugh together as I pull into the short, pebbled driveway of my pride and joy, the mid-century modern post and beam house I purchased when I relocated. Though only three bedrooms and two baths, the tongue-and-groove ceilings, clerestory windows, walls of glass, and cool concrete floors create an open, airy tone that I appreciate after apartment living in New York for years. And the view through all that glass offers me the Hollywood Hills on nature’s platter.
I let myself into the house through the garage, still listening to Mama, and smile at Zo over his bare, muscled chest and bowl of cereal.
“Mama, let’s talk later,” I say. “There’s someone here who wants to speak to you.”
I hand the phone to Zo.
“Hola, Mama,” he says, trying to pull me onto his lap. I avoid his hands and laugh over my shoulder, leaving him and my mother chatting in rapid Spanish and laughing like the old friends they are. Probably plotting our engagement. I leave them to it so I can shower and get to work.
I’m drying off when the bathroom door opens letting steam out and my boyfriend in. Irrationally self-conscious, I grip the towel tighter around my breasts. Silly. He’s seen me naked many times during our relationship, but I’m not used to sharing my space and my privacy. His big hands grip me by the hips as he pulls me close and kisses me thoroughly. I’m breathless and reassured by the time he’s done. This can work. This should and will work. There’s no reason it shouldn’t.
“How was the gym?” he asks, stepping away to shuck off his boxers, revealing his beautiful, well-conditioned athlete’s body.
“It was great.” I go into my walk-in closet, pulling out a summer pantsuit to put on once I’m done with my hair and makeup. “Quinn had no mercy, as usual.”