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I couldn’t read a damn thing on her face, not like earlier, when I’d seen more. This was the guarded Isabel, the collected Isabel. And I found I liked her transparency better. In her anger, no matter how dangerous that was to my well-being, I could see everything she was thinking.
I jammed the mitts back on my hands, even though my forearms were getting a hell of a workout. Holding them up to my face, I barked, “Again.”
She set her feet, and we started the dance all over.
But this time, there was an edge.
Each time she struck the mitts and knocked my arms back, I felt more and more coming from her. I blocked her knee when it came up a little too hard and gave her a warning look.
Her lips, full and pink, curled up in a satisfied smile, even as her upper body heaved with exertion.
“You don’t want that job,” I said quietly.
Isabel’s jaw clenched, and she ducked to the side when I was expecting her to throw the left cross. She came in with an uppercut, and I blocked it easily.
“How the hell do you know?”
I swatted her arm away when she tried to jab. “Because this is not just a job, or a paycheck for you.”
Isabel sidestepped and tried to do a low roundhouse, but I knocked her leg down with the mitts. Her eyes flashed hot, because I wasn’t holding back as much. But neither was she.
“You don’t know me,” she said, striking the left mitt hard with a jab.
“Because you don’t let me.” She hit the mitts three more times in rapid succession, the pop pop pop sound echoing around us. “But I see you, even if you don’t want me to.”
She swore.
“You treat the employees like family,” I said. She danced around me, neither one of us making a move. “You do the same to the clients.”
I slapped the mitts and she attacked, jab, cross, cross.
“Good,” I yelled. “And you know every inch of this place like it’s your own home. You may think I’m just hiding in my office every day,” I leaned in when she backed up, “but I know exactly what this building, these people mean to you.”
She didn’t say a word, but in only a few sentences, I noticed her movements change again, packed to the brim and overflowing with emotion, whatever my words were triggering in her showing in the ferocity of how she came at me.
“You don’t want that job,” I repeated, and this time, I felt my own reaction coloring the delivery of the words. I sounded, to my own ears, less steady and calm. “And I don’t want you to take it either.”
And just like that, whatever we were doing became less choreography that we were expecting and more instinctual. The moment she broke out of whatever pattern we’d established, the more I had to anticipate what she might do next. This wasn’t about hurting each other because it wasn’t a battle. What it felt like was a test.
But I was at a disadvantage wearing the mitts, not my typical gloves, but still … I blocked and spun, catching each offensive strike before she caught me. I almost smiled when she missed her opening, and when I saw her eyes flash, I knew I was in trouble.
She yanked my arm out with her own and tried to sweep my leg out from underneath me, and I caught it midair. With her shin tucked between my arm and side, she muttered a curse under her breath and lost her footing.
Isabel hit the mat with an oomph, arms splayed out and her rib cage expanding on deep, greedy breaths. I leaned over, mitts braced on my knees, doing some deep breathing of my own.
“You okay?” I asked.
She nodded, but didn’t move to get up.
I pulled off the mitt and held my hand out to her. Isabel visibly swallowed, and I had a moment of pause about whether this entire interaction with her was the dumbest thing I could have ever done.
Her eyes, in the overhead light of the gym, were a deep, midnight blue, something I hadn’t really registered before tonight.
I didn’t want to know the color of her eyes or the smell of her hair, but the feeling coursing through my veins at what had just happened was too potent for me to ignore.
Because it was life. When you lose someone you love, a part of your brain and a part of your heart believes you’ll never, ever feel again. That forever, you’ll walk around with numbness in this one portion of who you are. And for the past two years, it held true.
When Isabel sat up and slowly tugged her gloves off, tossing them to the side, I almost pulled my arm back. But then she took it with hers, and as I curled my fingers around her hand, that numbness was absent.
