“Sure. What would you like to talk about?”
“Well, tell me about yourself. Are you married? Kids?”
Kamry stiffened, taking a breath and beginning to rub her hands on her knees. “Um, no and no.” She silently thanked God for no children. Not that she didn’t want children, she just didn’t want any children with Steven. “How about you?”
“No and no.” He chuckled. “I work a lot and my life, well, it’s kind of crazy and a lot of women are just in it for money or bragging rights.”
Her curiosity shot through the roof, but at the same time, he hadn’t actually said what it was he did for a living, so maybe he didn’t want her to know exactly what it was. “That’s too bad.”
“Yeah. So, I can tell by your accent you aren’t from NYC.”
This time it was Kamry that chuckled. “Nope. I’m a SEMO girl.”
“A what?”
She smiled. “Southeast Missouri.”
“That’s it. That midwestern/southern accent combined. But it’s nice. It’s different. I like different.” He looked up and they locked eyes. For an inkling of a second, the world stood still. Then Ms. Maybelle’s SPO2 monitor beeped and brought Kamry back to reality. Both Kamry and Garret started. Ms. Maybelle’s heart rate was dropping. Kamry stood and silenced the machine.
“Do you want to keep this on? I can shut it off and let the nurses know.”
“Yes, please. It’s bad enough watching, but I think hearing it will be worse.” Garret reached up and wiped a single tear from his cheek.
Kamry sat with Garret for several hours before Ms. Maybelle took her last breath. For the first time in a long time, she wrapped a man in her arms and held him while he let the tears fall.
When the funeral home arrived and left with Ms. Maybelle, Garret walked Kamry to her car. “Can I have your number? I would like to let you know about the arrangements.”
“Absolutely.” She reached into her car and grabbed a business card, scribbling her personal cell on it. “Call me any time, even if you just need to talk.”
“Thank you.”
She watched him walk away. She didn’t know where his parents were because Ms. Maybelle had never talked about her children. Kamry assumed it was something along the lines of hard feelings or maybe they had already gone to Heaven, because Garret hadn’t called anyone from when Ms. Maybelle had passed.
Kamry finished her day at work with a sadness in her heart. She had known that Ms. Maybelle was going down because she had been growing tired with therapy, but had insisted on continuing. It wasn’t going to be the same without her there, though.
She turned into the gym parking lot. After entering and changing her clothes, she did her warm up. Usually Jose didn’t show up until after she was finished working the bags over, but today, he didn’t show at all. She worked through the routine they had been working on. She was proud of herself for being able to do the things she was doing now and she owed it all to Jose.
She owed a lot to him. She would have to invite him to dinner or something to thank him. She knew it wasn’t much, but something told her that Jose enjoyed the smaller things in life and that no amount of money would mean as much as a good dinner.
When she was finished, she started worrying about him, but grabbed her bags and went to leave. A poster that she hadn’t really paid attention before, which hung next to the exit, caught her attention for reasons unknown to her.
She smiled, raising her brows. It was Jose, Jose Cortez, and apparently he had just won middleweight champion belt in MMA. He looked completely overcome with joy. Next to the poster was an article about him. She began reading it, and noticed words like had, was, and past, and wondered why the article was written in the past tense. Maybe it was because he was no longer fighting, she thought. She read through his entire career and then reached a sentence that stunned her.
“Jose ‘Hope’ Cortez was at the top of the MMA world before his life was taken tragically in a head-on collision.”
“What?” That couldn’t be right. Something was wrong with the article. Panic began to fill her when she realized he wasn’t there today and she looked at the date of the article, which was five years old.
Her hand clamped over her mouth. “No way.”
She kept reading and then learned that he had a brother that continued to fight and was also making his way up to the top: Garret Maybelle.
Her blood seemed to drain from her body. That explained why he looked so familiar, as reading that put all the puzzle pieces together. He did favor Jose. How was this possible? How was Jose training her?
How?
How?
How?
Kamry didn’t return to the gym for the next few days. She did go to Ms. Maybelle’s funeral after receiving several phone calls she didn’t answer. Garret had left a voicemail with the details. She paid her condolences at the service, but nothing more. He had asked her out for coffee after, but she turned him down, using the excuse that she had work to get back to.
Really, she just wanted to get back to her apartment and try to wrap her mind around what was happening. It didn’t make any sense to her. For the past few days, she still couldn’t figure it out. How could he be dead? Why was he training her? How had she met him, Ms. Maybelle, and then Garret?
If she ever wanted to tell someone, to see if their brain could make sense out of it, they would assume she had lost it and needed a straitjacket. Nope, that wasn’t an option either, but calling Garret back and taking him up on his coffee offer was.
She reached for her cell and quickly dialed his number. Three rings later, he answered.
“I was afraid I would never hear from you again.”
“I’m sorry about that. There’s been a lot going on. Do you want to meet up, maybe have that coffee today?”
“That’s a nice surprise. Absolutely. Do you have a place in mind?”
“Do you know where Jay’s is?”
“Do I ever. They have the best cinnamon rolls in NYC. Meet you there in an hour?”
“An hour it is.”
She hung up and quickly changed her clothes. She opted for casual and comfortable: embellished Silver jeans with an AC/DC black t-shirt and her ever-faithful, black flip flops. She may have lived in NYC now, but country was forever in her blood.
She reached the cafe about fifteen minutes early. She found a table and ordered her favorite cup of coffee, black. She would have ordered his, but she really didn’t know what he would take in his coffee. She knew he would order a cinnamon roll, but assumed he would want it warm.
The minute she heard the bell of the door, her body began to tingle. The hair on her arms began moving with the beat of something… She didn’t know what the beat belonged to, but she did know they were in perfect rhythm with something. She looked up and sure enough, he was walking towards her table. He smiled that smile that would make any woman stop and stare at him. The man was walking perfection when it came to looks.
But what she liked the most was his eyes. They were full of mystery and sexy and yet so warm and inviting. Knowing what she knew now, she had seen those eyes long before she met Garret. They were Jose’s eyes.
Garret sat at the table and used his hand to gesture for the waitress. “I’m glad you called. I seriously thought I had seen the last of you. I was a bit disappointed.”
Kamry smiled. “I’m sorry. Things are…complicated. I lead a very private life and there are things in my past that I don’t want to exactly talk about in detail and to this day, I run from. I didn’t kill anyone or harm anyone or break any law. It’s just…complicated.”
“I like complicated as well. It’s a puzzle. I enjoy them too.”
This time, Kamry smiled. She didn’t know why, or what for, but she had this soothing feeling coming over her like a warm blanket on a chilled night. She liked it.