“Me, too.” Kieran rubbed the back of his neck. “Is that all?”
“Have a seat.”
That couldn’t be good. Kieran sat in the only available chair.
Neal settled in behind his desk and lifted an unsealed envelope. “Do you know what this is?”
“A donor’s check to replace the pipes in the building?”
Neal frowned. “What’s wrong with the pipes?”
Other than being as old as the building and leaving all kinds of damp spots in the ceiling tiles? “Nothing. What’s in the envelope?”
He knew Neal could see right through him, but instead of calling him on his bluff, the man tapped the envelope against the desk. “It’s a resignation letter from Lily Parker, effective immediately. She must’ve dropped it off with Rachel first thing this morning.”
So she’d quit. Good for her. They could mail her a check, and she’d have enough, hopefully, to get her by until another business snatched her up. Maybe she really would work at Riverside.
The thought soured in Kieran’s gut.
“Now, the last time I saw Lily, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. She was always on time, she seemed happy to help out wherever we needed her when she wasn’t working on our social media pages, and I never once heard that girl complain.” Neal set the envelope on his desk and leaned back in his chair. “Did anything happen while you two were gone this weekend? A certain personal trainer may have mentioned you took Lily to your sister’s wedding.”
Dammit, Sebastián.
Kieran couldn’t bear to look Neal in the eye, so he stared instead at the pictures of Neal’s family on the wall behind him. At the pictures of Kieran and his coworkers and the family they’d built. There was even one with Lily and Rachel waving from behind the welcome desk. “This weekend made me realize a lot of things.” He hesitated. Neal didn’t need to know all those things. “I got in too deep, and now the gym’s paying the price.”
“The gym will survive. It always has.” Neal sighed. “But we do need to talk about how we’re going to move forward without Lily. She was going to run some video event during the fight on Saturday. The other gyms will have their people filming, and we should as well. I’ve already asked Sebastián to take over the social media pages when he’s between appointments with his clients, but since he’ll be helping you during the fight, we could use some extra help.”
Work. He could talk about work without feeling like a disappointment. Kieran lifted his head. “I can talk to Maeve.” Between him, Sebastián and Maeve, they could figure something out. Hell, maybe he could let Danny prove himself with a little responsibility.
“But the fight isn’t my biggest concern right now.” Neal came out from behind his desk and leaned against its edge. “Are you okay?”
He was anything but okay. Lily had told him she loved him, and there was nothing he could do but save her from the disaster that was his family. His life.
Love isn’t enough.
“I’m good.”
Neal studied him. “You will be, son.” He stood from his perch, his gaze never leaving Kieran’s face, and held out his hand. When Kieran took it, Neal helped him to his feet.“We’ll figure out how to make things work. But I’m going to need you to figure out what’s most important to you and what you’re capable of before you take over this gym. If you really want it, you’ll fight for it.”
Of course, he wanted it. “And by fight you mean the tournament, right?”
Neal clapped him on the shoulder. “Something like that.”
ChapterThirty-Three
Tuesday dawned clear and sunny. Another turn around the sun and here she was: twenty-four and clear-eyed. Well, to be honest, her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, but nothing compared to where she’d been a year before. That girl who’d curled up in a ball on Natalia’s couch and hidden from the world was gone. Lily gathered her dark hair up into a high pony and released a slow breath.
Somewhere up past Halstead, Kieran was taking his morning run. He’d head north then east, going around Hamilton Park before heading back down on Stewart Avenue. Somehow over the summer, his routine had become her routine. It had happened so gradually, tiptoeing quietly into her muscle memory, that it wasn’t until it was ripped away that she realized how central he’d become in her universe.
He slipped into her life so seamlessly, like water slipped over river stones. He knew how to read her broken edges. He heard the words she didn’t say. He knew her in the quiet and in the dark, recognizing her by the beat of her heart against his.
And it wasn’t enough.
Lily tightened her shoelaces and hit the sidewalk, headingwest. No more running away, only branching out. Chicago was bigger than the South Side, and her heart was bigger than Kieran Sullivan.
* * *
Lily was finishing her shower when her apartment door clicked open.
