The Proposal(87)

He sighed.

“Just keep your voice down, okay? I got a lot of bad publicity last time. I don’t want to have to deal with that again.”

Well, now she’d have to turn up the volume.

“Bad publicity last time . . . I can’t even believe you. Spit it out, Fisher. What are you doing here? I thought you got the message that I didn’t want to see or talk to you anymore.”

Finally his smile dropped away, and he moved closer to her. She backed away again.

“Look, Nik. Haven’t you realized by now what a mistake you made? We had a good thing going. Mutually beneficial, isn’t that what they call it? Good for you for many reasons, and quite frankly, it was good for me to be seen with you. People had this impression of me that I was shallow and only good for the dumb-guy parts, and no one would even send me the good scripts.”

For good reason. The dude had a great body but couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag.

“But more than once,” he continued, “directors would talk to you at parties, and then they would see me with you and they would be a lot nicer to me. And my agent told me people said they thought there must be more to me if I was dating someone smart and interesting and urban like you.”

Urban. She wondered if Fisher’s agent had really said that or if that was Fisher’s translation from “black.” At least now she knew where the out-of-the-blue proposal had come from.

“So you proposed to me, in public, without talking to me about it first, because you thought it would help you get ahead in your career?”

He nodded eagerly.

“It would have! I still don’t understand why you said no. It would have been great for you, too.” He waved his arm up and down her body. “I mean, look at you. People who look like you don’t usually get to go to the places I would take you. You had so many more opportunities, dating a person like me.” He smacked her butt.

Without even thinking about it, she took a step back, shifted her weight onto her back heel, pulled her fist back, and punched Fisher right in the face.

“Oh wow. It really does hurt your hand,” she said as Fisher writhed on the ground at her feet.

A woman walking with a baby stroller stopped next to them.

“That was amazing!” she said. “How did you learn to punch like that?”

Nik shook out her fingers. The pain was worth it. She grinned at the woman.

“Natalie’s Gym, over on Larchmont. It’s fantastic; you should take one of her classes!”

The woman rocked the stroller back and forth with her foot while she took out her phone and made a note.

“Natalie’s Gym. Thank you! Great job.” She started to walk away with the baby, and then turned back and looked down at Fisher, who was still on the ground. “I bet you’ve had that coming to you for years!” She waved good-bye to Nik as she walked off.

Nik looked down at Fisher.

“Stop moaning. You’re fine; you’re not even bleeding.”

He struggled to his feet and glared at her.

“My face is my most precious commodity, next to my body. I can’t believe this.” He turned his back on her and walked to his car. “I should call the police on you.”

“What, and tell them you got punched by a girl?”

Nik laughed all the way up to her apartment. She kept replaying the scene in her mind where she’d punched Fisher, and it made her happier every time.

She unlocked her front door and dug around in her freezer until she found a bag of frozen vegetables for her knuckles. Just think, less than two months ago she’d been so freaked out by Fisher’s texts that she’d had to have Carlos search her apartment, and now, she’d knocked him to the ground all by herself. Carlos would love this story so much.

Shit. She couldn’t tell Carlos.

She sank down on the couch and put her head in her hands.

She had plenty of people to tell who would be excited for her. Courtney and Dana would crack up. Natalie would be thrilled. So why did it hurt so much that she couldn’t tell Carlos?

Because Carlos would have been so proud. He was the only one who knew how far she’d come. He’d seen her that night; he’d been worried about her; he’d cheered her decision to go to Natalie’s class. Courtney and Dana had guessed, and Natalie had helped, but Carlos knew. He’d been so ready to protect her, but she’d protected herself.

He would have loved that. He would have been so happy for her and impressed that she’d stood up for herself. That’s what was so great about Carlos, damn it. Why did he have to go and ruin everything?

Courtney and Dana had said that she needed to learn how to be vulnerable, but she’d been vulnerable with Carlos in a way she hadn’t been with any guy in years. She’d let him know how scared she was that first night they’d gone out, when she’d let him search her apartment. She’d told him what Justin had said about her writing and how it still made her insecure sometimes. She’d cried with him when the baby was born. Maybe none of those things would be a big deal for someone else, but they were for her.

Ugh, why was she back to thinking about Carlos? She went to the kitchen to pour herself a drink. She deserved one for her triumph.

Maybe not rosé—she wasn’t going to let Carlos’s jokes about it ruin her favorite wine forever, but why push herself right now? She made a gin and tonic and brought it back over to the couch.