LITMIR.BIZ

      1

      STEPH PAUSED AT THE BOTTOM of the steps, gym bag in hand, and gave the space a long study. Wilinski’s Fight Academy.

      It wasn’t how she remembered it from her last visit, in November.

      It looked like a bomb had exploded.

      The cardio equipment and mats and the boxing and octagonal rings were crowded to one side, the other half overtaken by milling contractors and stacks of cinder block.

      In the fighters’ corner—the sounds of gloves whacking and men grunting, the bass din of the hip-hop that fueled their drills.

      In the workers’ corner—shouted questions and directions, the squeal of a band saw or sander from inside the space that would become a second locker room in a couple weeks’ time. A thick sheet of rubber flaps hung over the would-be door, but dust still escaped.

      Sweat and concrete—the scents of laboring men.

      Steph had sampled enough of each to last a lifetime. The next time she got close to a guy, she hoped to heck he smelled like a gentleman. Whatever gentlemen smelled like. Cedar, maybe, or citrus or leather, or that stuff from Hermès that she’d bought for her older brother one Christmas. Robbie had taken one sniff and made a face, so she’d snatched it back, promising to get him Bruins tickets instead. Now the bottle lived in her bedside drawer, and occasionally she spritzed it on her pillow and pretended it was evidence of her incredibly urbane boyfriend, out of town in Brussels, attending a convention for surgeons or dignitaries or CIA operatives—any job that came with really sophisticated Christmas parties, so she’d have an excuse to wear heels and curl her hair.

      Someday. Somehow.

      For now, here she was in a gym, construction dudes on one side, fighters on the other, a big old buffet of the kinds of guys she used to date. Perfectly nice ones, likely. Good, hardworking men like her dad and brothers and her friends and exes from Worcester. But she was in Boston to start a new chapter, one that might feature a boyfriend with soft, strong hands and a college degree and a knowledge of Scotch.

      And one who wouldn’t be embarrassed to introduce her, saying, “And this is my girlfriend, Steph, the retired cage fighter.”

      Yeah, good luck with that.

      She toed off her sneakers and tucked them in one of the cubbies by the door. Giving the construction chaos a wide berth, she headed for the workout area, scanning for a familiar face. She found one, its owner busy leading a group in kickboxing drills.

      Rich Estrada. She’d met him at a big event in Vancouver the previous spring, and she ought to sue him for emotional distress, for hoisting her hopes up to such dangerous heights.

      The first time she’d laid eyes on him, he’d been dressed for a press thing, sauntering around in a suit. He didn’t have a fighter’s face—not yet—and she’d been intrigued. The kind of sophisticated guy she never crossed paths with. The event had been held at a huge casino, and she’d assumed he was some jet-set high roller visiting from the Riviera or someplace. She’d been in for a shock the next day when she glanced to her side and found him whacking a heavy bag in the gym. And when they’d spoken—that accent. He sounded like every guy she’d known growing up, dropping all his R’s and sticking extra ones where they didn’t belong. The most elegant man she’d ever seen, and he winds up being Boston disguised as Barcelona.

      He called a water break now and she caught his eye, waving.

      “Penny! Hey.”

      She winced. She’d been fighting as Penny for ages, a nickname from when her baby brother hadn’t been able to pronounce “Stephanie.” It had stuck because her hair was red as copper, and she’d competed as Penny beginning with her preteen karate days. Since then it had followed her through her first true love, judo, then jujitsu, then on to mixed martial arts. It was time she put her foot down. Here and now she’d quit being the person everyone imagined she was, and start being who she wanted to be.

      “I prefer

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