Sweet Talk by Cara Bastone

Chapter Five

Jessie

Welp. I just woke up with my cell phone plastered to my cheek and my out of battery laptop halfway balanced on my stomach. Because apparently I fell asleep on the phone last night.

Talking to Eliot Hoffman. While we watched a show together.

It’s so nauseatingly high school. Which must be the reason I immediately bury my face in the couch cushions and make a noise I haven’t made for fifteen years.

What am I doing? I’m off the deep end.

Okay.

It’s probably time I explain something.

I’m very likely not Eliot Hoffman’s type. I am a very specific . . . flavor, shall we say? And when dudes aren’t into me, they are like, viscerally not into me. I don’t say that from a place of insecurity. Honestly, it reassures me. Because when someone is expressing interest, I know that they are really into it. Me. And if they aren’t then there’s no confusion and we all move on. It’s a black-and-white system and it works for me.

In the handful of times that I’ve stood in front of or next to Eliot Hoffman, and in the fewer than a handful of times I’ve actually spoken with him, I’ve never once gotten a vibe that he was into me. He obviously likes talking to me on the phone. But if he were to see me in person, he’d probably weed-whack the flirty vibe immediately.

But this . . . this is not why I’m refusing to tell him who I am. If it were as simple as that, I’d pull off the Band-Aid and let the chips fall where they may.

The anonymity is necessary, because when he finds out who I am . . . at some point, he’s going to find out who my brother is. And that’s when things get ugly.

Like, very ugly.

As in, my entire life completely unravels. I go broke and homeless. My brother disappears off the face of the earth. And Eliot Hoffman hates me and never speaks to me again.

Did I mention that the stakes are kind of high?

So, why, oh why am I doing something as stupid as falling asleep on the phone with him? Why, oh why am I not just screening his calls? Or blocking him and pretending that this whole mess never even happened?

Because I’m possessed by this stupid, crushed-out girl, and she takes control of my body so she can flirt with him.

Frustrated, I peel myself off the couch and hop directly into some workout clothes. I take a deep breath as I step outside my building and stretch one quad and then the other. It’s early yet, and as it’s mid-April, there’s night-frost on the few tulips that have bloomed in the tree wells. There are a few early-morning commuters headed up Bedford toward the trains, but for the most part, I have the sidewalk to myself as I set off at a jog.

The air still has that sleepy, dawn-ish feeling about it where everything feels like a secret. My footsteps are loud as I run past all the houses where people are still tucked into their beds. Here’s the thing. I don’t sleep well, and of course, I wish I could sleep better. But part of me also likes being awake when everyone else is asleep. It makes me feel like I know something that almost no one else does. If the aliens came right now, at this very second, I’d be the one they’d see first. The top of my head bopping along as I jog down the street. Everyone’s asleep and I’m on neighborhood watch. Look at me, holding down the fort for all these sleeping strangers. It’s a good feeling.

I get to the gym just as Raoul is opening up the security gate.

“Hey, kid.” His tawny skin crinkles into smile lines but his mouth stays serious. He’s not surprised to see me.

I’ve only known him for the few months since I moved to this neighborhood to take over for Pops, but Raoul is one of those people who shows you everything at once. Once you know him, you know him. He didn’t bat an eye when I showed up that first day, even though I was surely one of the very few women to ever ask for a membership at his gym.

Geddy’s is not a designer gym. This isn’t where you go on January third to maximize your weight-loss potential. They don’t sell expensive water at the front desk or put fancy shampoo in the showers. Your membership buys you access to the equipment, exactly one scratchy towel a visit, and if you’re lucky, some one-on-one time with Raoul Geddy himself.

Geddy’s is where you go if you want someone to step on your back when you’re doing pushups. It’s where you go if you want to beat the shit out of a punching bag. It’s where you go if when you split the skin on your knuckles, you want an old man to superglue the cut closed.

Pops is the one who first taught me how to box. And until I moved down here earlier this winter, I was still going to our same boxing gym up in Queens. I’d still prefer Pops as my boxing coach, but Raoul is a steady second. He’s tough and nonjudgmental and never lets up about my form’.

I help him flick on the lights, and we stretch in silence for a little bit before he grabs the jump ropes for us. During the days, he’s there as a coach, helping the members through their workouts. But in the mornings, he works out, too. Which is why I started coming in the morning. It’s nice to push myself alongside him. Two minutes pass, and he’s already embarrassing me. He’s a sixty-eight-year-old man jumping rope so fast it’s just a blur, and I’m the one sucking wind. He grabs the pads and gloves and has me start out with a few combinations. The thwack of my gloves against the pads is the only sound for a long time.

“How’s the old man?”

Pops started coming to this gym after he moved down from Queens ten years ago, so they know one another really well.

“His spirits are high. You know him. But the chemo’s just wrecking him.”

Raoul grunts. “You getting up there to visit him?”

“Not as much as I’d like. A couple times a week. I’d like to go every day.”

“But you’ve got a lot of work to get done at the house, huh?”

“Yeah. Seems like every time I turn around there’s something else to do.”

“You ever need help, I’ll send my boy over.”

I make a noncommittal sound. I don’t want to be ungrateful to Raoul, and it’s nice of him to offer. But recently I’ve started to get the feeling that he wants to set me up with his son. And Ronnie? Ronnie is cool. Big and shy. Every once in a while I’ll catch him sneaking peeks at me from the other side of the gym. He’s exactly who I should have a crush on.

But even though my physical body is sweatily running through combinations in a stinky gym, my inner crush is somewhere in a bubble bath, chewing toxically pink bubble gum and watching reruns of Sex and the City. On the outside, I’m a tough cookie. On the inside I’m pure candy.

This is my only explanation for my feelings for Eliot Hoffman.

Who I talked to for hours last night.

Just for funsies.

“Yow.” Raoul steps back and shakes out one of his hands. “You put some power behind that one.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

I use my teeth to start taking the tape off my gloves. I can feel Raoul watching me.

“Everything all right?” he asks.

I grunt.

“Is it Jack?” he asks.

I look up at him in surprise.

“Don’t look so surprised. Whenever your dad was in here hitting me too hard it was always because of your brother. It figures that he might be an issue for you, too.”

I sigh, consider evading. But I hate keeping secrets. And these days that really feels like all I do. I’m keeping secrets for Pops around the house. I’m keeping secrets from Eliot about who I am. Adding Raoul to the list just seems like unnecessary torture.

“Jack may or may not have created a situation that I am now paying the price for.”

“What kind of price?”

Raoul is five-foot-five on a good day, maybe a buck-twenty after Thanksgiving dinner. But right now there’s a metallic glint in his eyes and I could swear he just grew by an inch or two.

“No, no. Nothing like that. He didn’t get me in trouble with the law. Or with anybody scary or anything. I’m just out here lying to cover his ass.” I occupy myself with the last bits of tape on my gloves. “To somebody I really don’t want to be lying to.”

Raoul opens his mouth to say something, but before he can, the door to the gym swings open and three strapping young gents pile inside.

“I gotta get going,” I tell Raoul. “Got stuff to do.”

“Go easy on yourself,” he tells me and I can see from the look in his eye that he really means it. That’s the medicine he’s prescribing. You’re not a punching bag. Come to the gym if you need to beat something up.

I give him a nod, quickly wipe down my gear, and lock it back into my locker.

I’m halfway home when I see Eliot Hoffman up the block. I knew this might happen, considering how close we live to one another. My heart lurches sideways, and even though he’s walking away from me, I still cross the street to get further away from him. He’s got a to-go coffee in one hand, and I can tell from the fancy paper cup that he went to that one café that has the five-dollar almond croissants and the Instagram-ready baristas. I bet they flirt with him relentlessly as they hand over his latte. I bet they put on lipstick just so they can leave a kiss on the side of his cup. He probably scores a new number every morning.

He stops at the intersection and glances behind him. I’m so glad I crossed the street because he would have seen me otherwise. Well, he’d have seen the me that isn’t me. I mean, he’d have seen the me he knows me as, not the me he doesn’t know I am.

Are you confused yet?

I am.

Either way, I’m glad he isn’t currently looking at the me who’s all sweaty from the gym while he stands there in slacks and a button-down and looking like he’d just naturally smell like the inside of a new car.

The light changes and he strolls away. I mentally slap myself and head home. If I get my work done fast enough today I’ll have time to visit Pops. And that’s all that matters right now.