Just Let Go

by Alessandra Thomas

  She sighed, long and hard. “Just that Sunday dinner was Mamá’s. She lived for that all week, you know? Or at least Friday and Saturday, shopping and preparing. Now it’s… well, it’s not that none of us wants to do it. It’s just that we really can’t. You know?”

  “Can’t deal with remembering her?” I asked, anticipating this answer. Of course it would be painful for Natalia to remember her mom by repeating that dinner every single week. It had only been four months or so since she’d passed away.

  * * *

  But Natalia lifted up on an elbow, looking at me with confusion. “No. Not that. Like, we actually can’t. The cooking, the cleaning, the shopping, the inviting. She was the only one who could pull everything together like that, every week. She made magic happen. It was an art that I – well, honestly, I never really showed any interest in learning. No matter how hard Mamá tried.”

  Natalia’s voice broke at that, and I just let her do whatever crying her body wanted to do. I kissed her hairline in a soft, slow pattern. I felt a few tears, heard a couple slow, deliberate breaths in. But then it ended. “Anyway,” Natalia said on a sigh, “We always did Monday night football, too. In the lounge of The Knockout. And that was just easier than Sunday dinners, after she died. Both because all we needed was some chips and a veggie tray, and because it wasn’t there. At the house. Next to the kitchen where she stood cooking and cleaning all damn weekend, until it was time for Mass.” As those last words came out, Natalia’s voice went soft and quiet, like she’d suddenly grown too exhausted to go on talking.

  I understood that. I did. The difference between Natalia and me was that once I got started talking about Mom, I never shut up.

  That’s why I tried not to get started. It had scared more than one girl away and only made me sadder in the process.

  Because I understood Natalia, better in this moment than I thought I ever had, I slid off the couch, scooped her up, and bundled her into my bed. Then I made her log into her YouTube account and we played every silly video from the last two weeks of her watch history. She sniffled and smiled now and then at a girl beating her boyfriend at powerlifting or a talking dog. I was happy just being able to squeeze her now and then.

  She fell asleep there, bundled in the blanket, her skin not even touching mine.

  I didn’t count that as a date, and she didn’t ask me to later. Even though she could have traded in our YouTube cuddle for another insanely dangerous date, she didn’t.

  That was on Monday. We talked on the phone once, and I ran into her at Federal Donuts another time, chatting with her for precious few seconds before I had to get to a meeting. We hadn’t had any couple time together, though. I was too acutely aware that I’d just given Mark the same advice that any sane guy would give to any love-sick guy: don’t text her like a crazy person. Instead, I worked late hours. I binge-watched a stupid vampire show and I cleaned my apartment top to bottom, but I did. Not. Call.

  Early Thursday evening, I was so close to breaking, I could taste it. That was when I heard a sharp, yet measured knock on the door that could only be Natalia’s. Forceful and purposeful, just like the rest of her. I pulled open the door with a sigh of relief, only to see Natalia there in what looked like riot gear – tight black leggings, combat boots, and a running jacket – her hair pulled into a severe ponytail, fingerless leather gloves on her hands.

  Oh, man. This did not look good.

  “Come on, loser,” she said with a sparkle in her eye. “We’re going on one of my dates.”

  Chapter 15

  Natalia

  Lately, I’d seen Ethan far more than I’d expected to when he first walked back into my life. The city was huge, but it was like all its bustling energy and random occurrences just wanted to pull Ethan and I back together again. Yes, he took me out, and we had one phone consultation a couple days after that night - and that following morning. We also ran into each other at Federal Donuts, where Amalia had sent me because she was having period cravings, not because I would ever eat that trash.

  Well, I thought I'd never eat it. All it took was one soft-eyed look from Ethan to convince me to try a bite of his blueberry mascarpone cake donut. I could taste the grease it was fried in, yes, but that hardly mattered because the combination of the craggy crust and rich, sweet, yet slightly salty cake inside was to die for. His self-satisfied smile when I moaned at the taste was infuriating and sexy all at the same time.

  It unsettled me when Ethan was right. About anything. I knew deep down it was because I was afraid he was right about my stunt double career. More than that, I knew myself. I knew that, if I was faced with it, I would do anything for my family, if I knew deep down it was best for them.

  I was almost too busy to think about it, though. Whether The Knockout was my number one passion or not, the challenge of making it the best it could be was like pushing an "on" button inside me. Lessons I'd learned in business school came flooding back, lining themselves up and just waiting for me to implement them. I worked hard writing up business profiles for all the independent gyms within fifteen miles of ours, and noticed that we were one of only three traditional-style gyms in Philly. We had an open floor, racks of hand weights, equipment, a rudimentary track, punching bags and a single ring. That was it. Other gyms featured rows of ellipticals and treadmills, still more specialized weight training machines, boutique features like smoothie bars, and classes. So many classes.

  There was also a freakish divide between the two types of gyms - gender. Women didn't belong to traditional gyms, by and large. Heck, I wouldn't belong to a traditional gym back in LA. A male-only membership might work for some of the other sweatboxes in Philly, but we had the space to expand. Our building was almost too large, and it could benefit from an expanded clientele. The Knockout was getting old - a collection of aging men who still thought that they could fight like boys. Our area was chock-full of college students, though, thanks to a location that had seen so many universities grow up around it. I knew we should take advantage of them – run a class or two geared toward them, and hire some of them, too. At that, my thoughts turned to Mariana, Sebastian’s oldest girl. It would be cool, I decided, for teenage girls to have a place where they could learn to box.

  A couple days after my first "normal person" date with Ethan, I was exhausted. Not from the incredible sex we'd had that night, but from working. I'd pulled two fourteen-hour days now, much of them spent in a flurry of texts and questions to Ethan. For every observation I had about our business, Ethan had an extra point to consider, something to temper a bad assumption I was making, or even just a word of encouragement.

  At this pace, I knew, I'd burn out. This was my M.O. - go at something hard and fast until I couldn’t do it anymore. Pick something new. Rinse and repeat. But I couldn't afford to do that with The Knockout. It was different. It was responsibility. It couldn't just wait for me to pick up my own shattered pieces after I'd broken myself. I needed to do the grownup thing - I needed to take a break.

  And I wanted to make Ethan go on one of the dates he'd promised me. It had to be something insane and dangerous - a phrase he kept repeating with disdain and a hint of fear, and one that made my blood go singing through my veins. Insane and dangerous. It had to be fun, too, but not so insane, dangerous, or, from my perspective, fun that it made Ethan never want to see me again. Even though something deep down inside told me that would never happen, I still knew I didn't want to scare him away.

  That meant base jumping was out. Skydiving, too. Anything with a parachute, probably. Was hang-gliding technically a parachute? Best to leave that out too, I guessed. For the first date. Race-car driving felt too loud. Running one of those muddy obstacle courses? Maybe save that one for later, when I didn’t care quite so much about looking like shit in front of him. Then it came to me. Guns.

  Guns were something of a divisor in my family. Sebastian had, sadly, seen enough of the devastation guns could cause on a human body and community in his role as a middle sc
hool teacher that he didn't want any of us ever to touch them, get near them, buy them, even think about them. It was one of the only things he ever fought with Arturo about. Arturo hated how brutal guns were too, which was why he was committed to carefully training recruits to the police department to use them safely and accurately, and why he spent so much time trying to get tighter controls on who could buy guns in the first place.

  I sent Arturo a quick text to check his schedule, and grinned when he said that the Academy indoor range would be clear of students for an hour this afternoon. He even said he could be there to show us the ropes and then supervise to make sure we didn't blow our heads off. I laughed, knowing his offer was most likely reflective of Academy policy and not how little he trusted me.

  I tugged on tight black leggings and boots with just a little bit of a wide heel, for sturdiness and, of course, sex appeal. Then I grabbed my keys and jumped in the car. “Come on, loser,” I said when Ethan opened up his door, looking happy to see me if not a bit stunned. “We’re going on one of my dates.”

  “I didn’t know you had a car,” Ethan said as he slid into the passenger seat. Cocky Ethan was here, grinning ear to ear, fully confident that he was going to blow me away on this date. I smiled to myself at the pun as I thought it.

  “It’s not technically mine.” I screwed up my nose, thinking. “Well, actually, maybe it is now. I’m not sure if it belongs to my dad or the gym. Or whether that matters.”

  Ethan chuckled. “The car belongs to the LLC. You own the LLC. So, yeah. The car is yours.”

  He nodded down at my hand wrapped around the gearshift. “It suits you. The car.”

  I smiled softly, thinking about the Jeep I drove. “I know it’s kind of a ridiculous car to have in Philly. We all know it. But Rodrigo wanted to go off-roading and spent weeks constructing his case to Papá.”

  “Let me guess,” Ethan said with a smile, “He told your dad you could use a Jeep Cherokee to haul stuff for the gym.”

  I chuckled. “Yeah. Exactly. It guzzles gas, but we live in the city, so we never drive it that far.”

  “It wouldn’t even fit all eight of you inside,” Ethan said, shaking his head.

  No, but Mamá had her van for that. And besides, if we had two cars instead of one, he could drive me to school or back home sometimes, too. As soon as he mentioned that, I argued the case with him. I begged him to let me drive it.”

  “Did he?”

  “Eventually,” I said softly. “They all tried to teach me to drive a stick shift, but none of them had the patience. In the end, Mama taught me to drive it.”

  I remembered the day we brought it home. I was thirteen. It wasn’t brand new – we’d found one that was two years old – but it was shiny and black and to me, it was more gorgeous than a diamond. Alejandro perched me on the hood and gathered our brothers around the jeep. Abuela had snapped a picture, shaking her head and clucking at how silly this whole thing was.

  We were at cruising speed on the Schuykill Expressway, and my hand rested loosely on the gearshift, not needing to change until we slowed down some. He placed his hand over mine, gentle and warm, and moved his thumb over the place where my pinky finger joined my hand. “That’s you,” Ethan said. “You decide what you want and go after it headlong. It’s amazing that you were the same when you were in junior high.”

  “I’m not the same,” I told him, surprised at how quickly the words flew out. “I used to want what other people told me to want. Now I want what I want. And I go after it.”

  “Yeah,” Ethan said. “You sure do.” He said the words softly, but they came with a strange tension I couldn’t name.

  The last ten minutes of the car ride were pretty quiet. That was one thing I’d always liked about Ethan – his ability to sit with me quietly. He didn’t need me to talk to him to feel self-assured.

  As we pulled off the highway, though, he did start to fidget. “So… I prepared myself for every eventuality here, Natalia. I just want you to know that not a single one of them filled me with excitement, but I am still really damn happy to see you. To spend time with you. So, you know… do your worst.”

  I smirked. “That’s why you came out with me, huh?”

  “That’s why I came,” he said resolutely. I turned onto the street Arturo had told me to, and the long, flat roof of the Philadelphia Police Training center came into view.

  “Not because we made a deal, huh?”

  “No. Well, yes. But mostly no. It’s mostly you.”

  I switched off the engine, and something about the sudden silence in the car made my senses go into overdrive. The day was overcast, chilly, and something about the pervasive gray made the space here inside the Jeep feel like it was charged with wild color. Ethan was here, with me, about to do something dangerous. And suddenly, all I wanted to do was to put my mouth all over him. I looked over at him slowly, only to find his eyes fixed on me.

  His voice came out slow, deep, and gravely. "I'm sure you have an awesome date here planned for us, and as terrified as I am of what it involves, I think we should step out of the car before we spend the entire time we have here in... here."

  I blinked, trying to process the fact that Ethan had just basically read my mind. I stammered and nodded my head, not missing the quirk in his lips when I did. I bit my lip and nodded, turning in a whirl to open the car door.

  He did the same, and we met out in front of the car, face to face, mouths inches away from each other. Ethan dragged in a shuddering breath, which pleased me. He was affected by being close to me, just as I was with him.

  "While, as you know, I'm always up for sparring with you, I have to admit I'm hoping this isn't a self-defense class. I just keep thinking about the poor son of a bitch who has to get dressed in that padded suit, and the pissed off German Shepherd they always have charging him in those police academy videos. We're not doing that, are we? I mean, I don't even like dogs, and I don't think we have to let one of them attack me to prove -"

  By now I was grinning at this random distaste for dogs that I hadn't even been aware Ethan had, while simultaneously wanting to calm his nerves. So I pushed up on my tiptoes and smashed my mouth to his. The electricity that had surrounded us in the car remained with our bodies, intensifying at the connection, and I suddenly wished very, very much that Arturo was not waiting inside for me. Even moreso as Ethan did that thing where he slid his tongue ever-so-slightly over my lower lip, then drew back just enough to suck it between his lips.

  But in the next instant, he was rocking back, smiling at me. "Like I said," he chuckled softly. "Don't wanna miss that date."

  I dipped my head in a nod and started to walk toward the unassuming building, stretched out tan and low against the drab sky. Ethan followed. I realized I liked this feeling, of Ethan playing the game, going along with what I wanted. It was more than him trying to make me happy. He was respecting a part of me, even if we didn’t have that thing in common.

  We walked with enough distance between us to prevent comfortable hand-holding. No matter what our previous relationship had been, Ethan still technically worked for The Knockout, which was really mostly working for me and working for my brothers only a little bit. Still, I knew at least one of them would have an Issue with Ethan and I seeing each other, even if I couldn't predict which one it would be. Best to avoid problems while I still could.

  "It's closed," Ethan said, confusion wrinkling his forehead, when we arrived at the front doors and saw the darkened interior of the academy.

  "Mmmhm," I agreed. "Closed to cadets, but Arturo is a more senior officer and decided to help us out. Today you'll be firing a Glock .22."

  I swore I saw Ethan's Adam's apple bob - just enough of a sign that I'd planned a date with sufficient safety shock value. I grinned at him, then turned to greet Arturo, who was approaching from down the hall.

  Chapter 16

  Ethan

  What the fuck? Guns? Was Natalia completely crazy? Did she know the statistics on how
many people died accidentally from guns in this insane country every year? Even when you took away the examples of insane serial killers, it was still hundreds. No, thousands. In fact, the mass murderers got all our attention, or whatever little attention our country was willing to give them, at least, but most people in our day and age didn't kill each other on purpose. No. It was the kid shooting his cousin with the loaded gun he'd found under his mother's mattress. It was the dude whose camouflage blended into the brush just a little too well when he was out hunting with his buddies. It was the poor kid waiting in a convenience store line when a robber who never intended to shoot a soul, so long as he got his money, mishandled his weapon.

  And I couldn't stop seeing one of us making a mistake here, today, and shooting the other.

  That would be an awful fucking end to this whole crazy romance, wouldn't it?

  I swallowed hard, hoping Natalia didn't notice, for some reason trying hard to hide my hesitation. Guns were nothing to mess around with. Aside from the danger, I'd never even felt the slightest desire to hold one of the things.

  But Natalia was already strides ahead of me, chattering up a storm to her brother in Spanish, her infectious energy bubbling out of her as she punched him on the arm in one second and swung her arm around his neck to pull him into a hug the next. You could see it in his face - he was a sucker for her. Natalia, apparently, could put you under a spell, and I wasn't the only guy who was susceptible to falling for it.

  Arturo let us into the gun range, handed each of us a weapon, and then, after tossing me a look of half-sympathy, half-apology, left, leaving us alone in the stark white cavernous shooter's area.

  "He said they're loaded," Natalia explained, in a tone that suggested that would put me more at ease. It did not. Instead I was now thinking about all the pre-loaded weapons that must just be laying around the police academy, waiting for someone to do something stupid and fuck up and hurt someone at the academy without even realizing what they were doing.