The lawyer’s office had been exactly what I expected. Hours of reviewing documents, initialing pages, signing my name so many times my hand started to cramp. Castellanos and his partners on a video call, all of them looking pleased as the deal finally closed. Ben grinning like he’d just brokered world peace. By the time I walked out of that glass-walled conference room in midtown, my head was swimming with terms and conditions and liability structures, but none of that mattered.
Because the building is officially mine. The gym is officially happening. Everything I’ve been working toward is suddenly, irrevocably real.
I wish my parents could have been here. My mom would have cried, I think, standing on this sidewalk looking up at the place where my dad’s journey began. And my dad would have pretended he wasn’t emotional while his eyes went suspiciously bright, the way they always did when he was proud but too stubborn to show it. I can almost hear his voice, that slight Croatian accent that never fully faded.
The dream I had when I was young, to train the best fighters in the world, here in New York where my dad first started, is actually coming true. And now I just need the person who’s been missing from all of this. The person who could make it mean something more than just business, more than just legacy.
It’s time to find Brooke.
I turn away from the building and start walking, my feet carrying me downtown without conscious decision. I know her address from that night after Roman’s party. The West Village, a brownstone on a tree-lined street.
I still haven’t called or texted her. Maybe part of me has been scared to jinx whatever fragile thing might still exist between us, and part of me wasn’t sure what I’d even say.Hey, I bought a building in New York, want to try this again?
The distance had been the problem, or so we’d told ourselves in Mexico. But now I’m standing on a Manhattan sidewalk with a set of keys in my pocket and a lease with my name on it, and that excuse doesn’t exist anymore. I can split my time between coasts and be here, in her city, for months at a stretch if I want to be.
Which means the only question left is whether she wants this too.
We’d said we loved each other in that hotel room, both of us raw and open in a way I’d never been with anyone, but that was in the aftermath of something intense, in a country that wasn’t home, with the reality of our separate lives waiting on the other side of an airport security line.
It’s easy to say things in a moment like that and harder to know if those words hold up when you’re back in the real world, when the heat of the moment has cooled and you’re faced with the actual prospect of building something together.
I know what I want, but Brooke’s life is still her life. Her job still takes her everywhere, chasing stories across the country, across the world. Her career is everything she worked for, and I’d never ask her to give that up. So maybe this changes nothing for her. Maybe she’s already moved on, filed what happened between us undernice while it lastedand gone back to the life she had before I crashed back into it.
There’s only one way to find out.
I turn to head toward the Village, glancing back once more at the building that is now mine. The faded sign, the boarded windows, all of it waiting for me to turn it into something new. I let myself look for just a moment longer, then turn back around.
And stop dead.
Brooke.
Of all the sidewalks in this city, all the streets, all the blocks in all of Manhattan. She’s walking toward me, her stride faltering the moment our eyes meet. She looks as shocked as I feel, confusion written across her face.
She’s in a long camel coat that falls to her knees, dark hair loose around her shoulders, and she’s so goddamn beautiful it makes my chest hurt. In a city of eight million people, she’s here, on this block, at this exact moment, like I summoned her just by wanting her badly enough.
“Dominic?” she says, stepping closer, her eyes scanning my face, my clothes, like she’s trying to make sure I’m real. “How are you... what are you doing here?”
“I flew in this morning and bought the gym,” I say, the words coming out before I’ve figured out how to say them properly, my brain still catching up to the fact that she’s standing right in front of me. “My dad’s old gym. An opportunity came up with some investors, and I just signed the papers an hour ago.”
Her face transforms, shock giving way to something bright and warm. “Oh my god. Dominic, congratulations! I don’t even know what to say, that’s... that’s incredible.”
I just stand there looking at her, still not quite believing this is real. “How are you even here?” On this street right as I am? I feel like I’m losing my mind.”
“I told you,” she says, a smile spreading across her face as she looks at me with those brown eyes. “When we were both at the gym that night before the fight. New York City sometimesfeels like a small town with how often strange things like this happen.”
I laugh, remembering that conversation, and how different everything was then.
“So,” she says, her tone cautious now, “are you... are you moving here?”
“Part time,” I say, shoving my hands in my pockets, suddenly unsure what to do with them. “My life is still in Dark River, and I love it there, but I have it set up so I can spend part of the year here, part of the year there. Sarah’s running the gym back home, and the investors want me hands-on for the build-out, so I’ll be in New York a lot over the next year at least.”
She nods slowly, her eyes searching my face like she’s trying to read between the lines of what I’m saying. The wind picks up and she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.
“That’s a big change,” she says. “After all these years of never leaving Dark River.”
“Yeah.” I hold her gaze. “It is.”
We stand there for a moment, the city moving around us, taxis honking and people brushing past on the sidewalk, and none of it matters. None of it exists. There’s just me and her.
