Liv

There are certain things you can always count on.

Like how the perfect pair of jeans is a myth. It’s a simple fact of logic—no ass is alike, and it’s impossible to cut denim to conform around every imaginable curve.

Roots will grow out faster than a stylist says they will. I’ve got a purse full of root touch-up pens in every imaginable color that prove this one true. I’ve been many colors, but I haven’t been my own in years. No matter how hard I try, there are some traits I can’t seem to dodge. Just like the Valentine last name, Archie Valentine’s damn dishwater-blond hair is one of them.

There’s also the rule that the best-looking men are the ones who will tear your heart apart. My mom should have warned me about this one. She knew better. She picked a man who dragged her heart across the country, to Atlantic City and back. Weeks at a time of her life were wasted—aching nights spent awake and unsure of where my dad was, who he was with, how long she’d be in some hotel room or her own bed alone. She said prayers on dirty concrete floors beneath coliseums, begging spirits to protect him or heal him after a fight. She always prayed for him to get up, to fight again, and for him to come home—no matter where he was…no matter whom he was with.

My dad counted on it.

There is one truism that should comfort me—you can always go home again. Only, it’s those things that never change around here that make coming home the most miserable sure bet of them all. It’s the way the air smells—like dirt on fire. It was sixty-eight degrees when I boarded the plane in Portland. The pilot said it was a cool one-oh-six when our wheels touched down in Phoenix.

As miserable as the heat is, that’s not what sinks deep in my gut as the cab idles forward against the grain of every other vehicle heading the opposite direction.

My parents and uncle share a duplex, one of four built as a downtown Phoenix infill project when I was a kid. Time has left the place with mismatched garages, oil stains on the driveway, and chunks of broken sidewalk bits. Development plans changed to a different part of the city, forgetting this one under the scorch of the relentless sun. Trees don’t grow here, just old piles of brick and barred-up windows guarding pawnshops and bail-bond joints.

V’s Gym stands in the center of it all. A whitewashed stucco two-story with cracks every few feet and a thick layer of dirt from the summer dust storms and lack of rainfall. At the height of his career, my dad had enough to buy the entire block, so he did. It was going to be “the investment of the century.” Like all of his grand plans, though, this one fell short too. Locals still come to train, or at least they did before I left seven years ago. The gym churns out just enough business to keep the power on. Renters in the other two duplexes and my Uncle Leo’s coaching pays for the rest of their needs.

The three of them are all of the family I have left on this earth, and the last thing I ever wanted was to see them again. All it took was one good-looking man to drag my heart around Portland—dragging my name through the mud—and here I am, rolling up alongside the large mural of my father in his prime painted on the side of V’s. The setting sun casts a golden hue over the chin, his light almost gone in reality, too.

The streetlight struggles to flicker to life as the cab stops. The sensors can’t tell if it’s day or night. The heat muddles with the computer systems just as much as it seems to with the people living here. My eyes scan over the faded words painted on the brick under the likeness of my dad’s face: ARCHIBALD “THE HEAVY” VALENTINE

“Forty-six.”

The cabdriver’s voice startles me from the short visual trip to my past.

“Uh…yeah, right. Of course.” I shift in the seat and remove the safety belt from my waist, leaning to pull my phone from my back pocket. I slide out the crumpled fold of bills from the small slot on my phone case and take a slow breath in an effort to chase away the tight squeeze of humiliation climbing up my throat.

Pulling out the two twenties and two fives I have left, I pause with the money in my hand and let my eyelids flutter with nerves for just a moment.

“I’m gonna need change,” I say, handing my cash through the small window. It only takes the driver a second to realize how much I’ve given him.

“How much?” His reply comes out in a bark.

“Four, please,” I say, clearing my throat before the words are done leaving my lips.

His fingers work quickly on his stack of folded bills, and his hand jerks back for me to take the money.

“Thanks,” I say, eyes focused on the door handle and my attention on getting out of this cab as fast as I can. I drag my rolling duffle bag along the seat behind me and the cabbie takes off the moment I slam the door.

I’ve quit giving excuses to people. That driver would never believe me, but I need those four dollars a lot more than he does.

“You just gonna stand out there all night? Or you planning on coming inside and giving your favorite uncle a hug?” The familiar gravel of his voice fires up a few more nerves inside my chest that I thought were dead.

“You’re my only uncle,” I say as I roll my neck and look at the bald and overweight man holding the security door open leading into my parents’ house. We’ve made this same joke so many times; it quit amusing me when I was ten. Of the three of them, Leo was my favorite. Of course, that’s like picking a favorite way to get your tetanus shot. Leo would be short and sweet with a tiny needle in the arm and maybe a Hello Kitty Band-Aid at the end. My parents, they’re definitely multiple rounds right in the stomach, and probably an infection from the puncture wounds.

“Come here and give me a hug.”

Lips tight and eyes wide, I lean in as he wraps his heavy arms around me, wishing I felt more than a glimmer of comfort in them. I’m desperate, but I can’t let that color things too much. Leo still is a selfish prick of a man. He hasn’t seen me in a while, so right now I’m getting the charm. Once the newness wears off, his rust will show, and it will be nasty.

“Your mom can’t wait to see you,” he says, letting go and backing away from our embrace to lead me inside. “She’s upstairs with your old man, giving him a bath.”

I nod and drag my feet through the foyer, the edges of the linoleum peeling up more than I remember. The house smells of dirty towels, sweat, and some sort of pungent medicine.

“Let me take your bag.” I feel the weight shift in my hand as my uncle takes the straps on my bag and tugs.

“I got it,” I say, wrapping my fingers tighter around the handle. I don’t really like people taking things from me anymore. I’ve lost too much.

My eyes hit his, and his lip ticks up on one side to match his shoulder shrug.

“Thing is, you’re actually going to have to stay in my spare. Your mom’s in the other room here. She stays up so late with her shows, and your dad just sleeps all of the time…”

My eyes drift down to his chin and I relax my grip on my bag.

“That’s fine.”

I guess staying with him is better than staying with my mom. It’s another set of doors between us, and I’m fairly certain I’ll come to appreciate those barriers. My bag looks even smaller in his possession. He holds it up and flashes a short-lived smile.

“I’ll take it on over and be right back. Your mom should be down in a minute or two.”

I nod and wave my hand near my leg, spinning away on the balls of my feet and hooking my thumbs in the pockets of my jeans. My mom isn’t excited to see me. I guess maybe, somewhere woven into that innate motherly instinct there’s a flicker of excitement in there, but mostly she’s looking forward to saying I told you so.

I’m a Valentine all right—one big-fat disappointment to Angela Grossman, a Valentine by marriage. Just as disappointing as that man upstairs.

“You Olivia?”

My hands flee from my pockets and clutch the cotton on my chest, my heart pounding against my knuckles.

“Who the hell—” my face and arms flush and tingle with the rush of delayed adrenalin, my mouth dry three words in.

He’s like a ghost the way he leans against the kitchen counter, taking big gulps from the bottle in his right hand. Black sweatpants ride low on his hips, pushed up to his calves, and the V-cut white T-shirt hugs his body where it’s dampened with sweat. His build is vintage Archie Valentine—the build of a real boxer, a physique that almost doesn’t exist anymore—but a glance up to his face shows a different kind of man. He isn’t smirking, and his brown eyes aren’t shifting gears to show off his charm. His face is void of ego, even after he lifts the bottom of his shirt with his free hand to run it along his face to clear it of sweat, thus revealing a sculpted row of abs that brings my gaze back down to his waist.

“Olivia, right? Leo said you were coming in…”

My eyes widen as he steps closer, wiping his palm along his right hip before reaching out for my hand. It lingers there for an awkward second before I wake myself from this frozen state and take his palm.

“Yeah, sorry… I…I didn’t know anyone was down here,” I stumble.

“I came in through the back. I needed to wash this out,” he says, holding up his now-empty bottle, the insides gritty from some sort of green drink.

“You, uh…” I raise my hand and tap my fingertip on the edge of the bottle. “You missed a spot.”

His eyes hover on mine for a beat just before his chest shakes once with a chuckle.

“Yeah, I meant before I mixed this stuff, but you’re right. I should wash it out again. I’m bad at leaving stuff until later.”

He turns from me and moves to the sink. I immediately recall all of the things I’ve left until later, until it’s too late.

“I’m sorry, but…who are you?” My eyes roam over the muscles in his back and the curve of his thick shoulders as he rinses his bottle out at the sink. I know what he is. It’s been a while since a body in his condition worked out around here, though. Most of the guys that come to V’s are hobby-seekers. They like the workout, and telling people they box, even if it’s only against other thirty-year-old wannabes in sparring gloves. This guy, though…he’s different.

“I’m Memphis.” His short answer is punctuated by the sound of him tapping his bottle against the sink, shaking away the beads of water.

“Unique name,” I say, my nerves clearing out a little more. I remind myself that good-looking men hold no power over me.

“Thanks,” he says, turning back to face me, cheeks dimpled with a proud grin. “I picked it myself.”

“Ahhhh, you’re a wrestler,” I joke. “I have to advise you, though.” I lean toward him and look both ways before cupping my mouth and whispering loudly. “Memphis doesn’t really strike fear in the heart of your opponent the way, say, Thunder or The Ax does.”

His grin tightens, holding in laughter.

“The Ax?” he repeats, one eyebrow raised.

“I couldn’t think of any real wrestler names, but you have to admit…those would be good ones.” I nod and fold my arms, squeezing myself at my ribs as a physical reminder to be wary.

“Those would be terrible,” he says, chuckling through his words. “Pretty as you are, I can’t lie.”

My fingers squeeze harder and my jaw loosens as my smile drops.

“You usually lie to pretty girls?” My gut squeezes in response to my knee-jerk reaction. That wasn’t fair. It’s not his fault I happen to know a guy who makes his living lying to pretty girls. “Sorry, I was…I’m just tired. Long flight.”

His eyes move down to the floor between us. His lashes are long enough to draw my focus to them.

“I bet. No worries.” His eyes move up just then. They’re a brown that’s also gold. “I know what you meant.”

I match his gaze, wondering if Leo told him more than my name, like why I had to come crawling back home, penniless.

“Do you really know?” My brow draws in, and his expression follows as we stare at one another. His lips part with a breath, about to speak, but in a blink his attention is behind me.

“Your hair looks like shit.”

I have a feeling I could have stayed in the silent conversation with Memphis for a while had my mom not brought me right back to reality with her ever-so-warm and loving welcome.

My eyes drift closed and I turn to the side, not quite ready to fully square up with her. Angela doesn’t wait, though, running her hand through my hair and twisting ends in her fingertips, pushing her glasses to the tip of her nose and studying my dark-brown split ends before glancing at the top of my head where my color is much lighter.

“I haven’t been able to get to the salon,” I say, falling right into my roll of justifying things that shouldn’t be important or matter when the daughter she hasn’t seen in seven years is standing in her kitchen.

As far from grace as my parents have fallen, my mom still gets up two hours before she has to care for my dad to make sure her hair is done and her face is covered in foundation and powder to soften the wrinkles made from a lot of hard living.

She lets my hair fall from her fingers and tsks, moving over to the young version of my father who bared witness to this little taste of my dysfunctional family.

“Memphis,” she says, patting her palm on his chest. I catch the slight curl of her fingers and cringe. He’s man-candy to her, a throwback to what my father once was.

“Good night, Mrs. V. I was just borrowing your sink when Olivia came in.” His eyes flit to me as he says my name.

“Welcome here anytime, son. You’ve got a big fight coming. Arch is really hoping to be there for it.”

Memphis nods, and nothing more is said about it. He must be close enough to the family to know that my dad hasn’t left his bedroom in years, and my mom’s delusions that they’ve had coherent conversations—let alone made plans for him to leave this house—are to be indulged and then ignored. The last time I reacted to her fantasies led to the worst impulsive decision of my life.

“Tell Leo I’ll see him in the morning,” Memphis says, glancing my way briefly. “Nice to meet you finally, Olivia.”

“You, too,” I say, forcing myself not to look at him long either. It’s bad enough that I’ll be seeing him again. I need to treat him like a client of the family business. I should probably treat my parents and uncle that way, too. I’m here as long as it takes for my bank account to be viable enough to survive a cheap apartment in any other zip code.

My mom barely waits for the back door to close before she starts working me with guilt.

“You should go see him before he falls asleep. I told him you’d be up, but be careful, he might not remember what you look like. It has been a while.” The sarcasm oozes with her special brand of bitterness.

I gnash my teeth under tight lips and pace myself. If I start engaging with her now, I’ll never make it through the week, let alone however long I have to stand it here.

“All right,” I say instead of the dozens of things I’d rather respond with.

When she pulls out a stack of tabloids from the cloth bag she takes to the grocery store, I do my best to ignore her obviously calculated attack. I recognize the covers. I should—I’m on them: my head buried in a hood, a newspaper folded and shading half of my face. Enoch’s lawyer ushering me toward that last luxury car I’ll ever step into.

“You should go with a dark brown again,” she says, flipping over one of the covers with my red locks on display.

“Maybe,” I hum.

That photo was one of the first ones, right before the trial.

Life’s funny. I made written promises to myself in a junk-store diary I bought for a dollar when I was twelve: I would never become my mom. But here I am…twenty-five years old, existing in the same kitchen she’s in…stuck just like she is, in a life that didn’t turn out anything like either of us thought it would.

The moment he opened his mouth at the podium in front of the packed finance lecture hall at State, Enoch Rostram breathed me in. He was this young, enigmatic spark of inspiration dressed like the men do in magazines I’d flipped through in the grocery line. He smelled of Gucci, and he wore crisp, white collared shirts that somehow didn’t feel douchey with the top two buttons undone. Not on him. He was a lion, pacing in front of hundreds of wide-eyed and naïve college freshmen business students all hoping to be the next Facebook CEO or Mark Cuban.

He was promising so much too. A one-year internship with Rostram Investment Holdings that wasn’t limited to only seniors. It was a chance to race to the finish line and come out ahead, and maybe land the single greatest job of my dreams.

“I got where I am not by playing by arbitrary rules like degrees and prestigious university titles,” he had said, waving off the squirms of our professor in the wings who clearly disagreed. “I got here by taking risks and choosing paths that aren’t expected. And today, I’d like to talk to each and every one of you.”

He was completely serious. I missed my next two classes waiting patiently in a line that wound through eighteen tiered rows of seats—just to get a shot at a one-minute Hail Mary to leave the boxing world behind for good. I wasn’t like the others in here. I didn’t want a hundred employees or a portfolio of clients with million-dollar accounts. All I wanted was the opposite of the life I’d always known. I wanted to be someone different and do a job that I was good at, and maybe have one of those nameplates on a door to a small office one day down the road.

I rolled the dice and, during my one minute, told Enoch just that. He offered me the job on the spot. I didn’t sleep with him until my internship was over—the day it was over, but still. He moved me into his Seattle penthouse, I dropped out of my degree program, and I got stars in my eyes at the prospect of becoming Mrs. Rostram.

He never even saw the Feds coming. Neither did I.

The final number plastered on every news site and front page from Seattle to New York was $1.4 billion. I know that number should be bigger. The money he took from me was a fraction of a fraction compared to the millions he squandered away from others in his Ponzi scheme, but when the house of cards came crumbling down, we were all left with the very same amount—nothing.

My bonus was getting my name attached to the biggest international fraud story to break since Madoff. There was also the little bit about me being pregnant that got leaked by one of Enoch’s lawyers. My “condition,” as his legal team referred to it, would buy him sympathy and reduce his sentence. They abandoned that idea two weeks later when I miscarried.

A month after that, they abandoned me.

My mom didn’t call to check on me once. Until I drained my checking account and could no longer make coffee-shop pay stretch to cover rent, utilities, and well…life, I managed to survive without calling anyone in my little family. Eviction has a funny way of making dead lifelines suddenly feel viable, though.

My mom flips the tabloid closed and nudges it toward the center of the table, her fingers just following orders in her next calculated move by spinning the cover image just enough I have to look my own, terrified self in the eyes.

“I’m actually really tired, so I’ll see Dad tomorrow.” I turn away, a little proud that I didn’t engage her and actually defied her by putting my visit with Dad off for the night.

“You start at eight, and really…the floor needs to be cleaned and the main office opened up for new registrants by then, so you should probably start at seven.” She pulls the magazines together again into a neat pile as a tight, satisfied smirk begs to grow on her lips. Her eyes flutter, still heavy with the day’s makeup, and eventually they open on me. “What? Did you think you were going to stay here for free and just…mooch off us?”

I press my tongue against the back of my teeth and force a small nod before rapping my knuckles against the side of the doorway.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

I can feel my eyebrows pushed up on my forehead, wrinkling my skin. She reads my surprise; I can tell by the way her pucker tightens against the push of her smile that she is dying to flash at me like a silent checkmate and I-told-you-so rolled into one. But she’s not prepared for the girl who’s been through hell and back with literally nothing to lose.

“In fact,” I start, pausing to mimic her grin—the one she gave to me, “I’ll be ready by six so we can discuss my salary.”

Her eyes twitch, the right one just a little more than the left. I’ve fucking engaged, and it feels sickening and addictive all at once. Codependent mother-daughter relationships never really die, I guess.

“Oh…” My brow draws in. I do it for effect. I do it…to be a bitch right back to her. “Did you think I was just going to work for you for free?”

Our blue eyes duel and flicker in silence, and after a few seconds, I walk back out the way I came in and cross the yard made of stones and weeds to my uncle’s place. The familiar kick of adrenaline pumps my heart faster than I’m used to, and I hate that it feels good. I don’t like the person I am when I’m here. Unfortunately, this job is the only one I can get. I’m not sure what’s worse—being broke and homeless, or working for my mom.

I use my toe to push open my uncle’s front door, which he left cracked so I could get in. I’m relieved when the inside is dark, and I feel for the bolt lock, twisting it after I shut the door behind me. I let my head fall forward, resting it on the wood while my thumb rubs along the cool metal of the lock.

Darkness seems to be the only thing that soothes me lately. I like the idea that nobody can really see me. Maybe I just like the idea of being alone. There’s no one to begin to unload exactly what they think about Enoch Rostram on me—with all of the hate and vitriol I know he deserves, but somehow becomes my burden to bear just by having been the woman who was stupid enough to love him. I did love him. He was my fortune. He was also my curse.

Rolling my head on the door, I spin slowly on the balls of my feet until I relent to the idea of sleeping in this house tonight. My fingers trace along the familiar walls, the pathway to my temporary room the exact opposite of the one I grew up in. I count the stairs on the way up, all the way to twenty-eight, and then it’s only four steps until I’m able to close another door behind me and welcome the darkness in.

My bag sits at the foot of a bed I doubt has ever been slept in. The mattress is small—smaller than a typical twin bed—and it reminds me of my dorm room back in Seattle, the one I lived in during the internship. I didn’t appreciate that safe independence enough when I had it. I was too busy chasing a fantasy—bitter girl swept away by millionaire Prince Charming.

I push my bag to the side to sit next to it, unzipping the top and feeling inside for the softest T-shirt I can slip into for the night. My fingers stop on what I am pretty sure is my plain white one, so I tug it out from the middle of the folded stack of clothes and stand to kick off my flip-flops and slip from my tank top, bra, and jeans.

The fresh shirt is hot from travel, warm from the Phoenix air outside and the stuffy room I’m in—my now home. The cotton clings to me as I move closer to the window covered by the same yellowed metal blinds that my uncle put in when he bought this pad. I twist the wand and tilt the slats open to the sky, bending the one near my sightline just enough to take in the scope of the stars. They may very well be up there, but I’ll never know. It’s all a muted gray, not quite black because of the light pollution put out from the city. I can see the heat at night, the way it swallows up anything pretty.

Breathing out a sigh of disappointment that I can’t even have the pleasure of stars anymore, I twist the stick again to close the blinds. Just before the slats flatten completely, my eyes catch a glimpse of the things below my window. Specifically, the shirtless man in black sweatpants leaning against an opened RV door, one foot propped on the step. His thumbs hang from his waistband, pulling the material lower on his hips than it was when I met him minutes ago. Muscular lines that highlight clear discipline in the gym run down his stomach and curve over his sides.

“Shut the blinds, dumb-ass,” I whisper to myself, somehow thinking chastising myself out loud will help me behave. My eyes don’t even blink, though, and my fingertips don’t twist an inch. Fifteen feet below, a man who apparently named himself Memphis stares up at the same dark-gray sky I found nothing in. He stares with eyes that are at peace above a mouth resting in a satisfied smile. This is what content must look like. I wonder if I’ve ever worn it?

His head rests cocked back against the metal siding of what seems to be his home, a tiny place on wheels with rusted trim and a broken-down vehicle cab unlikely to drive it somewhere else. He’s stuck here, too. Maybe he’ll never want to leave, though I can’t imagine that. His right hand moves from his waist to behind his neck, adjusting his position to look up at the bleak sky a little bit longer, but a twist in position brings his eyes right to my window. I don’t run, and I keep the blinds open to wait until he gives up on finding something up here.

Cradled in my darkness, I doubt he sees much, if anything at all. But the longer his gaze focuses on my window—on me—the more I wonder if, somehow, he sees things I no longer can. I wonder what he sees when he looks at me.

“Close the window, dumb-ass.” I whisper my orders to myself again, and this time my hand obeys, twisting the blinds shut. My feet slide back to my bed, and I sit and fall back onto the blanket that smells of dust and stale air.

It’s too hot to sleep under the covers, so I push the material down underneath my body until it falls to the floor, the thin sheet not doing much to shield my skin from the springs I feel in the mattress, but at least smelling less of dust.

It’s only a minute or two before an RV door slams shut outside. My muscles twitch with the urge to rush to the window again now that it’s safe, but I have discipline too. Mine came the hard way. And the only boxer who’s going to break my heart is the one who gave me my name.