by Robin Huber
Sam laughs and drops his chin. “Pizza. Definitely pizza.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Come on. It’s my treat,” Joe says, grabbing his keys off his desk.
Sam looks at me and I turn my palms up and shrug innocently. “I may have mentioned that it was your birthday.”
He smiles and wraps his arm around my neck, and we follow Joe and Tristan outside.
“You’re closing up early?” Sam asks Joe, who’s locking up behind us.
“Yeah, it’s a special occasion.”
“You don’t have to,” Sam says, shaking his head.
“I know I don’t. But I want to.”
Sam smiles and takes my hand, and we follow Joe to his car.
“Everybody buckled?”
“I am,” I say, giving Sam a disapproving look.
He reaches for his seat belt. “All right, all right.”
“You should always wear your seat belt.” I reach for his hand. “It could save your life one day.”
“Who needs a seat belt with Joe behind the wheel?” He smirks and Tristan laughs.
“Oh, you guys think it’s funny to drive safe?” Joe asks them.
“Well there’s driving safe and then there’s just plain driving. Are you sure your foot’s even on the gas?” Tristan teases, and I can’t help the smile that turns the corners of my mouth up.
“You see all these nut jobs?” Joe asks, pointing to another car rolling up to a stop sign across the street.
“The old lady who can barely see over the wheel?” Sam asks, shaking his head.
“Yeah, well that old lady might just roll right through the stop sign.”
Sam and Tristan give each other an amused look and then laugh in unison.
“It’s called defensive driving,” Joe says, shaking his head. “If you’re lucky, I’ll teach you two knuckleheads when you get your own licenses.”
“Which at their rate will be never,” I say, looking at Sam with wide eyes.
“What’s the point?” he asks, shrugging his shoulders. “It’s not like I’m going to get a car anytime soon.”
“Kid, you’re going to have a car someday, trust me,” Joe says, looking at him in the rearview mirror.
“You think so?”
“I know so.”
I give Sam a small smile and squeeze his hand.
“If I ever get a car, I’m going drive right out of this shithole and never come back,” Tristan says, gazing out of his window at the rundown buildings that line the street. You wouldn’t know they’re open for business with their torn-up signs and covered windows.
“Never say never,” Joe says to Tris, watching the road in front of him.
“You know, I never understood why you came back here,” Tris says to him. “I mean, you can’t really care that much about helping kids. Did you lose all your boxing money in a bet or something?”
Joe smiles and shakes his head. “I wouldn’t expect you guys to understand. Not for a few more years anyway.”
“I’ve been told I’m mature for my age,” Sam chimes in, and Joe smirks.
“My father raised me just a few blocks from here,” he explains.
“You’re father?” Sam gives him a confused look. “I thought you were raised in the system, like us.”
“I was. But not until I was older, maybe sixteen.”
“My age,” I say, intrigued.
“What happened, did he run out on you or something? Did he go to jail?” Tris asks, but Sam and I both listen quietly from the back seat.
“No, nothing like that. He was a good man. Firm with his words and quick to set me straight when I mouthed off. He taught me to be a man. Taught me to believe in myself, and to believe in something better, something more than this,” he says, glancing at the neglected houses outside. “He used to tell me about what it was like when he was growing up here. Not like it is now. It was a lot different back then.”
“No drug dealers back in his day, huh?” Tristan says.
“Maybe not standing on the street corners hawking to kids, but there have always been drugs of some sort, as far back as history tells. It’s the people who were different. They cared about their community and education for their kids. Houses were kept up and business was booming.”
“Come on?” Tris says, dropping his head to the side.
“No, really. Brighton Park used to be one of the most popular neighborhoods in Atlanta back in the fifties.”
“No kidding,” I say, fascinated.
“So when did it all go to hell?” Tristan asks.
“Not until the eighties. But before that, it was a different place, far from what is now. It was safe for kids, and the streets were clean.”
“I bet the men wore suits and the ladies wore hats and dresses, just like in those old black-and-white TV shows,” I say, smiling.
“Yeah, like that one Maxine always used to watch,” Sam says, pulling his eyebrows together. “Leave It to Squirrels…or something like that.”
“You mean Leave It to Beaver?” Joe laughs. “Yeah, my dad loved that show.”
“You think that’s what it was really like?” I ask, captivated by the thought.
“Maybe something like that.” He smiles at me in the review mirror.
I look out of my window and imagine families walking up and down the sidewalk. The mothers are lovely in their white gloves and knee-length dresses and the fathers tip their hats and shake one another’s hands. Little boys and girls chase each other around their parents’ feet, while their mothers tell them not to ruin their new clothes in the freshly cut grass.
“I wish I was born in the fifties,” I say quietly to myself, and Sam reaches for my hand.
“Where does that leave me?” he asks softly.
I smile at him. “I think you’d look pretty cute in a white T-shirt and a leather jacket.”
He laughs quietly and shakes his head.
“So what happened to your dad?” Tristan asks.
“He got cancer. Died just a few years after my mother passed.”
“Joe, I’m so sorry,” I say, glancing up at him in the rearview mirror. “That’s terrible.”
“Ahh, I was one of the lucky ones,” he says, winding the steering wheel and turning into the Pizza Hut parking lot. “My parents didn’t choose to leave me.” He parks in the shade of the pointed red roof and looks at us over his shoulder. “There are still good people left in Brighton Park. People like my father. That’s why I came back here.”
Sam reaches for Joes shoulder. “You’re one of those people, Joe. You’re one of the good ones.”
Joe smiles. “Come on, knuckleheads, let’s go eat.”
* * *
“Lucy, can you hear me?”
I blink at the glaring light in my eye and try to move my tongue, but my head feels like it’s underwater, caught in a strong current.
“Her pupils aren’t dilated, but her BP’s climbing.”
“We’ve got to get her into surgery.”
The dull pain radiating down my leg suddenly stabs all over my body and I let out a scream that brings my back off the bed.
The man and woman hovering over me press their hands to my shoulders and hold me down. “Lucy, Lucy…look at me,” the woman says. “I need you to be still. Okay? I know it hurts, but we’re going to help you.”
I feel a sharp stick in my arm.
“We’re going to give you some medicine that will let you sleep for a little while, so you don’t feel it anymore.”
“No. No.” I turn my head from side to side, searching for Sam. “I want Sam. Where’s Sam?” I struggle against the fading pain and let out weak cry. “Sam.”
Chapter 12
Sam
You ready?” Miles asks me, and I lean back in my chair, exhausted from listening to the reporters’ questions.
“Yeah, let’s go.”
“Okay, that’s it for tonight, guys,” Miles says into the microphone, getting up from his chai
r.
I pull my phone out of my pocket and see a missed call from Lucy. “Hold on,” I say to Miles. “Lucy left a message.” I hold my phone to my ear and listen to it.
Hey, call me when you’re done. There’s stupid paparazzi following us home. Joe’s trying to lose them, but at this rate, you’ll get there before we do. I just wanted you to know. Love you, bye.
“Dammit.”
Miles gives me a curious look, but I ignore him and call Lucy.
Her phone just rings and rings. “Come on, Luc, answer the phone,” I say through my teeth, trying to keep my worry under control.
“Sam, what’s the matter?” Miles asks.
I shake my head and call Joe, but his phone goes straight to voicemail.
“Sam! Sam!” Leon shouts from the back of the room, holding his phone to his ear. He waves me over, ignoring the alarmed reporters who are staring at him with the same concerned look on their faces as I have on mine.
Miles pulls his phone out of his pocket and answers a call. “Yeah?…What?” He turns sheet white, and my heart spikes with a sudden burst of adrenaline. “Where are they?”
“What is it, Miles?”
He doesn’t answer me.
“Tell me what the fuck is going on,” I say, but he keeps his phone to his ear.
I run to the back of the room, shoving reporters out of the way to get to Leon. “What happened?”
He gives me a look that makes me want to throw up. “It’s Lucy and Joe. They were in an accident.”
“What?”
Miles shoves his way through the reporters surrounding us. “Come on, we gotta go. Come on!” he shouts, pushing the reporters back.
I run next to Miles and Leon, feeling my heart pound painfully against my ribs. “What happened?” I shout at Miles as we hurry to the car outside the arena.
“I don’t know. But they’re at the hospital. That’s where we need to go,” he says to Leon, who climbs into the driver’s seat.
I get in the passenger seat and close the door, ignoring the reporters shouting questions outside. I pull my phone out as Leon tears away from the arena parking lot and I call Sebastian, who answers quickly.
“Hey, Sam. Is everything okay? I’ve been trying to call Lucy, but she’s not answering her phone.”
“You haven’t talked to her?”
“No. Not since Joe took her home.”
“Fuck,” I whisper into the phone.
“Sam, what’s going on?”
“They were in an accident. Lucy and Joe were in accident.”
“An accident? Oh, my God. Are they okay?”
“I don’t know, we’re headed to the hospital right now.”
“The hospital? Oh, God, the b—”
“Sebastian, please…I can’t think about anything besides Lucy right now or I’ll fucking fall apart, so please don’t say that. Okay? Just…don’t say it.”
“Okay, yeah. Okay,” he says with a trembling voice. “I’m leaving. I’m leaving right now. I’ll be right there.”
I hang up and look at Miles in the back seat, who’s been on his phone since we left the arena.
“Let us out at the emergency room entrance,” he says to Leon, and hangs up his phone. “They were T-boned, Sam. The other driver ran a red light. They were both going too fast. It’s not good,” he says dismally.
“No. Don’t you do that. Don’t you fucking look at me like that. They’re fine!” I shout at him. “They’re going to be fine.”
“Sam—”
“You don’t know shit! Okay? You don’t know anything. So get that fucking look off your face.”
“You’re right Sam, you’re right. Let’s just get inside and talk to someone who can tell us what’s going on.”
I turn back around and close my eyes, but it does little to calm me down. The fresh cut above my eye throbs as my blood pulses through my veins and my heart aches inside my chest, which tightens around it with every tortured breath. My mind moves from thoughts of Lucy to thoughts of Joe to thoughts of my unborn baby, and I feel each one of them slipping out of my grip.
I’ll never leave you, Sam. I’m yours. Forever…We’re yours.
I feel the oxygen leaving my body, but I fight hard against it. She’s okay…she’s okay, I repeat over and over in my head, like a mantra.
Leon pulls up in front of the emergency room, and Miles and I jump out.
“Ignore them, Sam,” Miles shouts as we make our way through a small sea of reporters who have already gathered outside the hospital. “Ignore them!” he shouts again, and it takes everything in me not to knock them out of the way.
When we get inside, I run over to the nurse behind the counter, who promptly stands up.
“Where is she?”
“Where is who?” She looks me up and down.
“Lucy Bennett,” I say desperately. “Where is she?”
She puts a fisted hand on her hip and eyes the stitches over my eyebrow. “And you are?”
Miles steps in front of me. “I apologize. He’s just upset. He’s Sam Cole.” He waits for her to react, but she just stares at him with the same unenthused look she gave me. “He’s a boxer. He had a big match tonight over at the Philips arena…that’s why he looks a little beat up. And it’s the reason for all the reporters outside,” he says, glancing over his shoulder. “Lucy Bennett is his fiancée and Joe Maloney is his coach. They were in a car accident on their way home from the match. We just need to talk to somebody to make sure they’re okay.” He glances up at me, giving me a reassuring look.
She pushes her lips together and reaches for a clipboard hanging on the wall. “I’ll need some identification.”
I grab my wallet out of my pocket and hand her my driver’s license.
“Yours too,” she says to Miles, who holds up his finger.
He answers his phone and speaks quietly to someone on the other end of the line briefly, before hanging up. “You might want to get that,” he says to her, dropping his phone back in his jacket pocket.
She gives him a funny look, but then the phone on her desk rings and he gestures for her to answer it. She picks up the receiver and speaks quietly into it. “Yes…Okay…Okay, thank you.” She hangs up the phone and looks at us. “If you’ll wait here, someone will be down to escort you to the surgical waiting area in just a moment.”
“Surgery? Who’s in surgery?” I ask, panicked.
“I’m sorry, I don’t have those details.” She hands me back my driver’s license and sits down behind her desk.
“Mr. Cole, Mr. Angelo.” I look up and see a suited man walking over to us with his hand extended. “I’m Jason Hernandez, the hospital president.”
I reach out and shake his hand. “Sam Cole.”
“I’m a big fan, Sam. I’m so sorry to hear what happened tonight, but I want to assure you, your loved ones are in good hands.”
“Where are they? Are they okay?”
“I only just arrived. I haven’t spoken to the physicians yet. But why don’t we head upstairs so you can speak to the teams taking care of Joe and Lucy. They’ll be able to tell you much more than I can.”
“Sam!” Sebastian calls across the waiting area. He runs over to us with Paul on his heels and puts his hand on my shoulder. “Is she okay?”
“We’re about to go find out. Why don’t you come with us.”
He inhales a shaky breath and wipes his red-rimmed eyes. “Okay.”
* * *
“Lucy’s in surgery. She has a fractured hip and a few other scrapes and bruises, but she’s going to be okay.”
I drop my head and grab Miles’s shoulder, and he wraps his arm around me. “She’s okay,” he says, pulling his hand to his eyes.
“What about the baby?” Sebastian asks, choking back tears, and I steel myself for the answer.
I close my eyes and recall the moment Lucy told me she was pregnant—the joy I felt, the joy I saw in her eyes, and the promise of a family we never had. I have to be the one to te
ll her. I’m going to have to look in her pale blue eyes and shatter her heart into a million pieces. I feel mine begin to splinter and break apart in my chest.
“She’s fine,” the nurse says, and the air rushes out of my lungs. “We’re keeping a close eye on her.”
“She?” I ask over the quiet cries I hear coming from Sebastian, and suddenly, without warning, I’m hit by a wall of emotion that slams into me like a tsunami, taking me to my knees.
“Mr. Cole, are you okay?” the nurse asks, reaching for my arm.
I pull one foot under me, drop my elbow to my knee, and cry into my hand.
“I’m so sorry, I thought you knew.”
I look up at Miles, who’s grinning at me. “I’m having a girl,” I say to him, and he pulls me to my feet.
“Yeah, you are.” He pulls me into a strong hug.
I look at Sebastian, whose face is partially hidden as he leans into Paul. “She’s going to be so happy.”
“Mr. Cole,” she says, watching us.
I give her a small, grateful smile. “Just Sam.”
“Sam. I need to talk to you about Joe.” The look on her face pushes aside my gratitude. “His injuries are far worse than Lucy’s.”
“How much worse?”
“He took the brunt of the impact from the other car. He has internal injuries, and there was quite a bit of bleeding, but they’re working hard to repair the damage.”
“They can fix him, right?”
“They’re doing everything they can. I just…want you to be prepared.”
“Prepared?”
“Injuries like his are not always repairable.”
“Wait, what are you saying? You’re saying he’s not going to make it?”
“I’m saying there’s a chance he might not make it out of surgery. So if there’s anyone you want to call, you should do that now.”
I pull my hand to my pounding head and look at the floor, feeling the room spin around me. “Go tell Tristan,” I say to Miles. “He needs to know.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea, Sam?”
I look up at Miles. “I don’t really know, but Tristan deserves to know.” I take a deep breath. “Is there a bathroom?” I ask the nurse, who nods and points across the hall.
I shut the bathroom door behind me and drop my head back against it. But I can’t stop the sick feeling racing through me, so I hang over the toilet and give in to it.