Closer - Noah Centineo/Peter Kavinsky

Closer (Part 41)- trust in the mafia

Hello, welcome backkk!!!

What previously happened: Jay won his first match in Ohio ( and has never lost a fight in New York). After, Ella finally confessed her feelings to him in a heated moment backstage.

Now, we go on from there! Enjoy!

"How do you plan on going back to Seth's with a busted lip and those bruises?"

"I told him about Ben after you left the other day," he admits, which makes me immediately pause in my tracks.

"What?" I hear myself squealing from the sink.

"I didn't tell him anything about the mafia thing," he explains. "I told him that I knew Ben from back in New York as a kid and that I ran into him here. The story is that I found out that he's moved here to start a boxing business aka the warehouse. Then, I said that we went over there and played around a bit," he finishes.

"And how did you tell him you knew Ben if you didn't mention the mafia thing?"

"You remember my cousin Vinny?" he asks, while I give him a nod, thinking back to the calm and quiet mafia member I met back in New York. "Seth knows about Vinny from hearing. I told him that Ben and him used to be friends before Vinny moved to back to Italy which is all true except the moving to Italy part," he chuckles nervously, while scratching the back of his neck.

"So, now what? You're gonna tell him that you're gonna be training there with Ben and you wanna stick to the basketball team at school as well?" I ask dumbly.

Illegal fighting was enough as it already is.

"I guess you could say that I'm living a double life," he drawls amused, but I sense a bit of sadness in his tone which makes me feel sympathy for boy who didn't ask for this. It was served forcefully on a plate to him.

"What if he comes down to this so called gym?," I ask, with a cocked head.

"No problem. Ben is making this place look like a legit gym. The mafia members and fighters know that this whole thing needs to look innocent from the outside looking in. And, it will just look like a regular beat up gym. Then, late at night, twice a month, I'll be fighting,"

I'm about to open my mouth to ask more before he interrupts me.

"I know you have a ton of questions but it's better if I show you so you understand what I mean by innocent," he chuckles, holding out his hand for me to grab.

I grab it with confidence and curiosity taking over me. He pulls me back into the hallway but into the opposite direction where the fight just was. We go down the dimly lit hallway until we reach a new staircase. I realize that we're on a whole other side of the warehouse that I've never even seen before

As we go up the steps, Jay turns around to flash me a smile while brushing his thumb on the back of my hand. I never want this to stop.

We end up at the top of the stairs and Jay removes his hand from mine to dig up keys from the back of this pocket.

"Ella, welcome to Ben's Gym," he says while the opened door exposes a huge boxing ring with training equipment all around. The front wall shows the logo of Ben's Gym written in red and black.

"This is what outside will see," he explains. "A new gym opened by Ben to support  boxers and fighters. And only the inside will see where I just fought,"

"This is gonna work?" I breathe out, walking around the gym while an exhausted Jay sits on the red couch in the far right corner.

"You can't trust the mafia but you can trust that they do everything in the most conniving and brilliant way," he replies. I turn back to see him wincing in pain in his attempt to hide it.