“Okay. You try mending damn near every bone in your body. And your brain. And tell me how real it is.”
I paused. I could hear irritation in his voice, seeping through the phone in ruby puffs like tiny clouds filled with anger. Leave it to me to kill his good mood instantly.
“Sorry,” I said. “Just kidding. My gym or yours?”
“I could hit something,” he said.
AS MUCH AS I loved my kyo sa nim, Gunner, I had to admit to myself that I missed Chris’s smelly gym a little more. It was part gym, part zoo that housed grunting, thick-necked thug types. But there was something about it that drew me in. Maybe that nobody was judging me. Maybe that I could sweat and cuss and throw punches and it wouldn’t be seen as weird or unladylike or gross.
Maybe it was that Chris was at this gym, and there was something about working out alongside each other, our sweat comingling on canvas, that made me like it.
I got out of my car. Chris was already there, waiting for me by the front door, gym bag in hand. He was still in dress pants and a tight polo shirt, his key card dangling from his belt. His hair was shiny from gel, and he was wearing his sunglasses.
“What took you so long?” he asked when I got to him.
“I don’t know, maybe one of us has to drive the speed limit, and it’s not you.”
“Or maybe one of us is more excited about hitting the bag than the other one. You sure you’re up to it?”
It had been a while since I’d been to Chris’s gym. But it hadn’t been long at all since I’d last pummeled an inanimate object. I’d been at the dojang twice in the past week alone, working on ducking and bobbing. I had always been bad at keeping it smooth and staying in a fighting stance while coming up from a crouch. Gunner thought it was the only real thing holding me back in tae kwon do now.
“Oh, I am so ready,” I said, hooking my hand through his gym bag handle and swiping it on my way inside.
We sat on the bench where we’d sat before, the bag at our feet. There were two guys sparring in the center boxing ring. One was bleeding everywhere, but neither seemed to be letting up even a little bit. A couple of guys were leaning against some free weight equipment, chatting, their beer-and-burger bellies poking out in front of them like flags. The heavy bags were free.
Chris handed me a wrap and I started winding it around my hand. He didn’t try to help.
Wait. He didn’t try to help. Did that mean he knew I had done it before?
“So you remember bringing me here,” I said. I wrapped fast, then finished and squeezed my fist, liking the way it felt taut and solid, like a stone.
He nodded. “It’s been a good day.”
I arched one eyebrow, paused midway through wrapping the other hand. “Oh, has it now?”
He didn’t meet my eye, but I knew he could feel me staring at him. He messed up, had to unwrap a bit and rewrap. “I don’t know, maybe it’s being back at work. Jogged some things loose or something.”
“What kind of things?” Both hands wrapped, I leaned down and tightened my shoelaces, then stood and pulled off my T-shirt, revealing a plain white ribbed tank top underneath. Chris’s eyes flicked up, and then quickly down again. I could see little points of color dot the tops of his ears. I suppressed a smile.
He went back to wrapping his second hand, concentrating a little too much. Finished, he stood abruptly and shook out his arms before putting on his gloves. He hopped on his toes a few times, looking like the old Chris and not the beat-up hit-and-run victim Chris, put on his gloves, and smacked them together. “You ready?”
I had wriggled into my gloves. I liked the way they weighed down my hands, making my arms feel strong and anchored. “Always.”
We found two bags, side by side, and laid into them at the same time. I noticed that Chris’s bag moved less than mine, and when I glanced over, his teeth were gritted together with every punch. He seemed to especially favor his left side. I felt angry all over again at whoever had been behind the wheel of that Monte Carlo. They had taken something from him that he was struggling to get back, and it wasn’t just his memory.
But then he caught me looking at him and smiled wide, his eyes crinkling at the corners. He was hurt and he was struggling, but he was happy to be back in the game.
He abandoned his bag, moved to the other side of mine, and steadied it. Sweat streamed down his temples to match the sweat that soaked the front of my shirt. “Come on,” he said while I punched. “You can go harder than that. Harder. Why you holding back? You afraid of this thing?”
Every word spurred me on to whale harder and harder, my gloves meeting the bag in a frenzy of whumps, until my arms were noodles and my breath was ripping out of me. I sagged against the bag, leaning my temple against it. My hands were just above his, our faces inches apart.
“Wow,” he said. “That was great.”
“Your turn.”
He shook his head. “I’m good. Don’t want to overextend myself. Got to keep the energy up for chasing bad guys.”
“Speaking of.” I shook off one glove and wiped my forehead with the back of that hand, my breath slowing down but still labored. “You remembered something?”
He nodded, excited. His eyes were on fire, blazing at me. He leaned harder into the bag; I could feel his breath on my face. “A community center.”
I waited for him to say more. When he didn’t, I raised my eyebrows. “That’s it? A community center?”
“Not just a community center,” he said. “The Waller Recreational Center.” He lowered his voice to a whisper, the breath coming at me so lightly it gave me the shivers. I felt goose bumps ripple up and down my arms, grapes and wine. “Address 15332 Dozier.”
The numbers lit up in my mind when he said them. A five and two threes, just like I’d said. I straightened. “Heriberto Abana?”
He shrugged, straightening too. “I don’t know. Maybe. All I know is it’s sure interesting that I remember being at that building and you remembered an address with those numbers in it. More than a coincidence, right? Has to be.”
He had no idea how much more. I wasn’t just remembering those numbers; I had seen them. My brain had remembered them, flashes of white and purple blinking off his computer screen, even when I wasn’t trying to see them. Even when I didn’t know I had.
“Way more,” I said. “So now what?”
He pulled off one glove and tucked it into his armpit while he removed the other, then began unwinding his wraps as he walked back toward the bench. I bent to pick up the glove I’d dropped and followed him, my arms aching and too noodly to take off my other glove. I let my gloved hand dangle between my knees when I sat down.
“So I guess I visit the Waller Recreational Center,” he said. He stuffed his equipment back into his bag.
“You mean we visit the Waller Recreational Center,” I corrected.
Chris stared into my eyes for a moment. I gripped the seat of my chair with my one ungloved hand to keep the swooping, sweeping rainbow under me. He reached over and pulled the glove off my hand and began unwrapping it. “And you want to be there why?”
I looked at him incredulously. “Because I was there when you were run over. If this Heriberto Abana is behind it, I want to be there when you find him. Maybe seeing him will jog my memory.” I had tried a million times to picture the person behind the wheel of that Monte Carlo. But it had all happened so fast, I’d never even had time to look. Still, maybe I’d looked without knowing. That had certainly happened before.
“Yeah,” he said softly, turning back to my hand. His fingers brushed the inside of my wrist softly. I lit up with violet inside. I could feel my cheeks get hot. Damn it, Nikki, don’t blush. “I guess you’re right.”
“Today?” I asked. “I mean, I’m not doing anything. That I know of.”
“I probably should work until lunch at least before I bug out,” he said. “You up for an afternoon swim?”