Page 21 of The Woman in the Warehouse

“Not dating,” I said.

“I met the love of my life when I was practically a kid still,” she said. “Why would I need to ever date again once he was gone?”

My father had died when I’d just been three of an unfortunate boxing-related injury. He’d gone back into the ring too soon after getting a concussion, getting a second one on top of it, sustaining something called Sudden Impact Syndrome that had been fatal.

I didn’t have a single memory of him.

The only reason I knew what he even looked like was thanks to his picture on my mother’s mantle at home… and on the wall of this gym she’d taken over for him after his passing.

When I’d asked why the hell she would want to run something that revolved around the sport that had, essentially, killed my father, she’d shaken her head and told me that there were three things my father loved. His kids, his wife, and boxing. And that she needed to honor his memory by taking care of those things for him.

I didn’t get it, not really, at the time.

But I’d also never been in love.

If not for the way my mom loved my father, I wouldn’t even believe it existed.

I did understand it years later. But with a completely different kind of love.

“So, you tried to sidestep the original question,” she said, slipping her gloves back on.

“Which question was that?”

“What this Anthony guy looked like.”

“I dunno. A mafia guy, I guess,” I told her, then charged, looking for a way to avoid actually telling her that the man was stupidly handsome.

We fought for a few more minutes, both of us dripping in sweat, our ponytails starting to hang low, before she moved back, a big smile pulling at her lips.

“That hot, huh?” she asked.

This was my mother.

She knew me better than anyone. There was no getting away with lying to her. Or even trying to evade answering a question.

This was a woman who instinctively always knew when I was trying to sneak out or back in, who told me to bring a condom when I said I was going out with friends, but she knew I was seeing a boy, who could always tell that my anger was often hiding something else a lot softer and more fragile underneath.

“Yeah, that hot,” I agreed. There was no use lying about it. “You’re going to see for yourself in about ten minutes,” I reminded her.

“Ugh,” she said, swiping her forearm across her forehead, coming away sweaty. “This is no way to meet an unreasonably attractive man. I’ll be back,” she said, rushing off.

She didn’t bother to tell me that I was in no state to interact with said ‘unreasonably attractive’ man. She knew better. In fact, I bet she knew that I was actually trying to make myself as ugly as possible for this meeting to turn him off of me, so I didn’t have the green light to jump him when my body felt like it.

Which, I’ll admit to myself, at least, happened no fewer than five times between jumping in his car in Washington Heights, and when he dropped me back off a few blocks from my actual apartment in Hell’s Kitchen after walking my dog in Spanish Harlem.

And, damn it, yes, one of those times was when he’d been able to pull a gun on me without me noticing.

Was it healthy that my body saw that as some sort of foreplay? Probably not. But I was how I was. There was no changing me at this point in life.

“Hey, killer,” one of the regulars said as he ducked under the ropes. “Wanna try to knock me out again?” he asked, knocking his gloves together as he started to circle me.

“It’s always a joy to beat the shit out of you, Denny,” I said, smirking as he faked a couple of punches, trying to look all big and bad. But it distracted him, letting me move in on his slow left side and land a nice punch to his ribs that had him exhaling forcefully.

“Oh, it’s on,” he said, anger flicking in his eyes.

Denny was one of those guys. You know, the kind who thought that being masculine meant he should be stronger and more intimidating than a woman. Up to the point where he would genuinely try to hurt me because I’d bruised his ego in front of the two other guys in the gym.

So I danced around him, jumping back when he swung, knowing those punches were the kind that would leave me walking around with bruises for a week.

---