I fiddle with my coffee cup, unconvinced.
“In any case,” she says, “maybe Miles will respond. You never know. That was a long time ago, and people process things differently. He might want to finally set the record straight, or he might want to leave it all in the past.”
I nod, and Dara’s phone buzzes. She glances down at the screen and her face shifts into work mode.
“Crap, I gotta run,” she says, standing and grabbing her coffee. “I’ve got that call with the Knicks GM in twenty and I still need to review my notes.” She looks at me. “Lunch tomorrow? Usual place?”
“Yes,” I say, smiling. “And good luck with the call. Go kick some ass.”
“I always do,” she says, winking and already moving toward her desk. “And go to the party tonight. Just maybe don’t sleep with him again until you’ve figured out the Miles situation. It’s only going to make things more complicated.”
“I’mnotgoing to sleep with him again,” I say.
Dara just looks at me.
“I’m not.”
“Sure,” she says, grinning. “Love you.”
“Love you too,” I call after her.
She pauses a few steps away and looks back over her shoulder. “Hey. For what it’s worth, if it turns out Dominic didn’t know what Miles was doing, there’s no fixing what happened fifteen years ago. But what matters is what you do with it now.” She shrugs. “And I know you. You’ll figure it out and do the right thing.”
She walks away before I can respond, weaving through the maze of desks toward her corner of the office, and I watch her go before turning back to my laptop and the pile of unread emails I should be answering.
I pick up my phone and type out a reply to Dominic.
Me:Thanks. I’ll be there. Congratulations to you and Roman.
CHAPTER 17
Dominic
The bass from the DJ booth is rattling through my chest like a second heartbeat, and I’ve been pinned against this bar for the past twenty minutes listening to a supplement company rep explain the science behind their new protein powder. I’m nodding in all the right places, but my eyes keep drifting across the warehouse to where Brooke is laughing with Roman’s mom.
She’s wearing red. Ofcourseshe’s wearing red.
It’s always been my favorite color on her, not that I’d ever admit that out loud. And I keep losing track of whatever this guy is saying about amino acid profiles because my brain won’t stop replaying the sound she made when I pinned her wrists to that mat two nights ago.
“So what do you think?” The rep is looking at me expectantly, and I have absolutely no idea what he just asked.
“Sounds promising,” I say, which seems safe enough. “Send the details and we’ll take a look.”
He pumps my hand enthusiastically and finally moves on to his next target. I down the rest of my whiskey and order another, scanning the room while the bartender pours.
Brooke catches my eye from across the warehouse. She’s still standing with Roman’s mom, but she’s looking directly at me now, and for a second neither of us moves. I raise my glass in her direction, a gesture I hope reads as something likethanks for the article, glad you could make it,without requiring me to actually walk over there and form sentences. She nods back, a slight smile at the corner of her mouth, and then Roman’s mom says something that pulls her attention away.
Good. Fine. That’s enough interaction for now. I don’t know what I’d say to her if we actually talked, and a crowded party full of industry people and media isn’t the place to figure it out.
The next hour blurs into a carousel of handshakes and small talk. A streaming network executive corners me near the photo booth to pitch documentary rights for Roman’s title fight camp. Two sponsors want to discuss partnerships. A reporter from ESPN asks if I have five minutes for a quick interview, which turns into fifteen minutes of the same questions I’ve already answered six times tonight.
I smile until my face hurts, say “thank you” and “we’re thrilled” and “Roman did all the work” approximately four hundred times, and watch the clock behind the bar tick steadily toward eleven.
Every now and then I catch a glimpse of red moving through the crowd. I see her talking to a group of fighters near the entrance, then getting a drink at the bar on the opposite end of the warehouse, then laughing at something one of the UFC executives says with her head thrown back. She’s completely in her element. I keep my distance and she seems to be doing the same, and I tell myself that’s exactly what I want.
Roman is still holding court near the center of the space with his parents flanking him like proud bookends, his mom dabbing at her eyes every time someone new comes over to congratulate him. The kid has earned every second of this. Tomorrow we’re back to work and back to the grind of preparing for a title shot in Mexico City that could change everything for both of us, but tonight belongs to him.
I catch his eye across the crowd and raise my glass in a final salute. He nods and I grab my jacket from the back of a chair and start weaving toward the door.
