A Love Like Yours

by Robin Huber

  “Do you have a condom?” she breathes.

  Fuck. No, I don’t. I look at her, desperately hoping that she has one.

  “I have one,” she says, smirking, reaching for her backpack. “I want a family with you, but not yet.” She tears it open and puts it on me, and I welcome her warm hands.

  She pulls her panties off and climbs over me again, and I hold her hips while she sinks down on me until she’s flush against me, surrounding me and making me forget everything else. There’s only me and Lucy in the entire world.

  She reaches for my face and kisses me slowly while she moves up and down, sending electricity coursing through my body.

  I grip her warm thighs and she moans against my mouth, igniting the fire that’s scorching through me. I wrap my arms around her and lift her up and down on me, again and again, listening to every breath, every moan, every whisper she makes.

  “Sam.” She tightens around me and her body trembles under my hands, making me lose control.

  I hold her tight and let go, groaning against her neck as I come. “Luc,” I grit through my teeth.

  I reach for her face and kiss her softly, but the wind blows and raises goose bumps on her arms again. I grab her T-shirt and jacket, and she slides both back on.

  “What would you have done if I hadn’t shown up earlier?” I ask, watching her pull her panties back on.

  “Sam.”

  “Just humor me.”

  “I would have done what you taught me. Throat, knee, groin. And then I would’ve shown ’em my right hook.” She smiles.

  “Show me,” I say, getting to my feet.

  “Sam.”

  “Show me. Make a fist.”

  She curls her small fingers into her palm and wraps her thumb around her knuckles tight.

  I push against her fist with my hand. “Good. Keep it strong.” I hold my palms up. “Now show me. Let me see that right hook.”

  She pulls her right arm back and hits my left hand, but I barely move.

  “Harder.”

  She does it again, a little stronger.

  “Harder.”

  She does it again and my hand actually moves back an inch.

  “Good.”

  She shakes her hand.

  “You can’t be afraid to hit, Luc. They won’t be afraid to hit you.”

  “I just don’t like hitting you.”

  I smirk. “I think I can take it.”

  “I don’t care if you can. I don’t like it.”

  I reach for her wrist and spin her around, locking her in my arms with her back to my chest. I hold her tight. “Now what do you do?”

  She squirms in my arms but barely moves. I’m using only a fraction of my strength.

  “Come on, Luc, what do you do?”

  She squats down fast, spins out of my hold, and brings her knee up to my crotch. “Lower my center of gravity.”

  “Good.”

  “Am I done now?”

  I nod and hug her. “I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.”

  She hugs me tight. “I know the feeling.”

  “Hey, I got something for you.”

  “You did?” She smiles up at me.

  I pull a small black box out of my backpack and hand it to her.

  “What’s this?” she asks suspiciously.

  “Just open it.”

  She opens the box carefully and touches the small gold bracelet inside. “Sam.” She gives me a shocked look. “Is it real?”

  “Yeah, it’s real.”

  She looks at it again. “How did you buy it?”

  “Joe’s been paying me a little to clean up the gym after hours.”

  “He has? Since when?”

  “I’ve been doing it for a few months now.”

  She gives me wary look. “Really? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I wanted to surprise you. Here, put it on.” I take it out of the box and fasten it around her wrist. “Do you like it?”

  She bobs her head and looks up at me, but I can’t tell what she’s thinking.

  “If you don’t, I can—”

  “No, Sam.” She smiles softly. “It’s beautiful. Really. I love it.”

  “You do?” I ask, unable to hide the smile on my face.

  She nods and touches it. “Yeah.” She wraps her arms around my neck and whispers, “I’ll never take it off.”

  “Good,” I breathe against her cheek.

  “Thank you for giving it to me.” She places a soft kiss on my lips.

  “I got you something else too.”

  “Something else?”

  I reach into my backpack and pull out three small bottles of paint and a new package of paintbrushes. “I got them at the drugstore. They only had red, blue, and yellow.”

  “Sam, that’s perfect. Thank you.” She sits down and pulls her drawing pad out of her backpack.

  I sit down beside her and watch her wipe off a section of the concrete and squirt a small amount of each color onto it.

  She tears open the package of brushes and grabs the biggest one first, dipping it into the blue. She brushes it over the top half of the paper until it’s the color of the sky. Then she takes another brush and paints the bottom half red, blending it up into the blue. She mixes the two colors together, adding some yellow, and paints very carefully across the middle of the paper where the blue and red meet.

  I watch her for several minutes while she works, biting her lip and concentrating.

  When she’s done, she holds the paper out in front of us, and I see the same cityscape that’s in the distance.

  “Wow, that’s incredible.”

  “You like it?”

  “Yes.” I take the pad from her and hold it in my lap, noticing every brushstroke, every detail, every color she created. “You’re so talented.”

  “I used red here because that’s us,” she says, pointing to the bottom half of the page. “You and me, up here above all the crap down there. It’s love.”

  I wrap my arm around her neck and kiss her cheek.

  “And the blue”—she points to the top half of the page—“that’s everything that’s waiting for us. Our future. Big and bright.”

  Chapter 4

  Lucy

  I gaze out of the window over the wing of the airplane, watching the familiar mass of buildings and skyscrapers that make up the New York City skyline come into view as we approach JFK. Since opening my own studio, I’ve fallen in love with the Chelsea neighborhood, home to more art galleries than all of Georgia, and home to some of my favorite artists. To be among them and sell my paintings in New York would be the pinnacle of my career. Atlanta’s art district is still waiting to be discovered, but I’m aiming to change that with my exhibit next month. If all goes well, it will get me one step closer selling my artwork in New York.

  “We’re beginning our descent into New York, folks,” the pilot says over the speaker. “The current temperature is fifty-three degrees. Please stay seated with your seat belt fastened until after we’ve landed.”

  I give Sebastian a worried look. “Fifty-three degrees? I hope I brought warm enough clothes.”

  “It’s early,” Paul says. “It’ll warm up by the afternoon. It usually does in October.”

  “And if it doesn’t, just buy something new.” Sebastian winks at me. “I’m sure Drew wouldn’t mind seeing you in a new dress when you go home.”

  I know that he’s teasing, but just thinking about Drew ties my stomach into knots. Surely if Drew knew about my history with Sam, he wouldn’t have wanted me to come. I’ve never been able to bring myself to talk about it with him. I wanted to once, but the more I thought about what Sam and I had, the more precious it became. I couldn’t bear to pretend that it was anything less than a once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. And I couldn’t bear to hurt Drew with the truth—that I’ll never be able to love him the way that I loved Sam. So I keep Sam tucked away safely in a corner of my heart that will always belong to him,
and I live with the secret pain, taking the blows every time I read an article, watch an interview, or see a picture of him on the internet.

  “You okay?” Sebastian asks me. “You look nauseous. Do you need the baggy?” He grabs the paper bag from the seat back in front of him and holds it out for me.

  “No,” I say, batting it away. “I’m fine.”

  I peek out of the window as the plane angles down and the horizon disappears.

  We’re in the clouds.

  Below the clouds.

  And racing toward the runway.

  I close my eyes as we bump along the tarmac until the plane eventually comes to a stop. I open them when we begin to taxi toward the terminal. I’ve flown only a few times in my life, and only since I met Drew. I don’t mind the flying part, but I could do without taking off or landing.

  Sebastian hands me my carry-on bag from the overhead compartment, and I follow him and Paul off the plane. Before we even make it inside the airport, Sebastian starts rattling off to-do items from the itinerary he made us.

  “Okay, I got us early check-in at the hotel, so we can drop our bags, and then we have lunch reservations at Balthazar. It’s too far to walk from Midtown, so we’ll take the subway to SoHo. After that, I thought we’d do a little shopping, and then head back to the hotel to get showered and dressed. We’ll take the subway to Grand Central Station and have cocktails at the Oyster Bar before the fight, and from there we can take a taxi to the Garden.”

  “Take a breath, Bas,” Paul says, reaching for his hand as we file through the mass of people moving around the airport.

  I laugh. “What about the Met?”

  “Tomorrow,” Sebastian says with wide, smiling eyes. He loves it as much as I do. “And if we have time, we can look for a new gallery to check out in Chelsea.”

  “Before we embark on the Sebastian Tour of Manhattan, we should probably get our bags,” Paul says, tugging him in the direction of baggage claim.

  I walk behind them, admiring their affection for each other. Paul laces his fingers with Sebastian’s in the most casual yet caring way, and I can’t help but envy them. I fantasize about Sam and I walking through the airport together, our fingers intertwined as he leads me to a car that’s waiting to take us home. I imagine our house and kids…and pancakes. My heart glugs heavily in my chest and my feet drag as if bricks are tied to them. I admonish myself for fantasizing about a life I already have with Drew. Sans kids, at least for now. I know Drew wants them, but I can’t imagine taking care of someone else when I can barely manage my own emotional well-being. Still, I often think of what my and Sam’s kids would look like. A little boy with caramel hair and eyes like his. A little girl with light hair and eyes like mine.

  “Come on, slowpoke,” Sebastian says, pulling me from my thoughts. I’ve fallen several paces behind them.

  “Sorry.” I blink a few times to push down the sorrow. I feel it whenever I let go of that dream.

  “To good friends.” Paul raises his martini glass, and Sebastian and I do the same.

  “And to sexy husbands,” Sebastian adds, raising an eyebrow at Paul.

  “And good assistants,” I add, winking at him.

  “And good bosses.” He winks back.

  “And to that beautiful hunk of a man who’s going to be up on the stage tonight,” Paul says exuberantly.

  “It’s a ring, not a stage,” Sebastian corrects, lowering his glass.

  “Oh, put your glass back up,” Paul says to him. “You know I’m only here to see Sam Cole, half-naked and sweaty.”

  I laugh awkwardly. “Cheers,” I say, ending our much too long, and now somewhat uncomfortable, toast. We all clink our glasses together and sip our martinis.

  “Well, some of us actually came to watch the fight,” Sebastian says. “Right, Lucy?”

  “Oh, uh, mm-hmm,” I say, taking another sip of my drink. My eyes dart around the dimly lit bar that’s tucked away inside Grand Central Station like an old hidden tavern. The arched ceilings are covered in century-old chevron-shaped tiles that glow amber in the ambient light.

  “You know, our seats are close enough to see the sweat beading on their faces,” Paul says, and butterflies immediately flock to my stomach.

  I want to see Sam tonight, but I don’t want him to see me. A million thoughts race through my head. He won’t see me, he’ll be focused on the fight…What if he does see me and loses focus on the fight?…Would he even recognize me if he saw me?…What if he sees me and doesn’t recognize me?…What if he recognizes me and he doesn’t care? My heart pounds inside my chest. “I can’t believe our seats are that close,” I say, just louder than a whisper.

  “What?” Paul asks, leaning in to hear me better.

  “I can’t believe our seats are that close,” I say again, louder.

  “Maybe we’ll be on TV,” Sebastian says excitedly.

  “Oh, God, I hope not.”

  “Honey, in that dress, you’ll definitely be on TV,” Paul says, smirking at me.

  My face feels hot and my hands automatically move to the taut material covering my thighs. I swallow hard and look down at the navy-blue cocktail dress. I tug at the material that’s barely hiding my cleavage. “You told me to wear this,” I say, shoving Sebastian’s arm.

  “Yeah, because you look hot!”

  “I’m too dressed up.”

  “We’re all dressed up,” Paul points out. “You’re supposed to be.”

  “Luc, why are you freaking out? You look gorgeous.” Sebastian tussles the ends of my long hair. “Your hair is super shiny and your skin looks like porcelain. You have nothing to worry about.”

  I bob my head. Right. Nothing to worry about. Except that I’m secretly stalking the estranged love of my life during a title fight against his biggest rival, in which he may or may not see me, at which point he may or may not care. I think I might throw up.

  “Can you just give me a minute?” I ask, getting up from the small cocktail table we’re sitting around.

  “Yeah, but hurry, we need to leave in about ten minutes,” Paul says.

  “Okay, I’m just going to the restroom. I’ll be right back.” I balance carefully on my stilettos to the bathroom, where I lock myself inside a stall and take slow, deep breaths. It’s going to be fine. It’s going to be fine, I repeat over and over in my head. The thought of not seeing Sam tonight, as anxiety-inducing as it may be, would be much worse for me in the end. I’d regret it forever. Not to mention that if I back out now, I might never fully regain Paul’s faith in my sanity, even if Sebastian eventually comes around. I’m just going to have to suck it up and get my dress-clad, stiletto-wearing butt ringside.

  Lucy, Seventeen Years Old

  “Are you ready?” I ask Sam, who is sitting in a folding chair across from me in the chaotic locker room at Joe’s. His hands are wrapped in tape and Joe, who has been trying to manage the disarray and mayhem that accompanies an amateur boxing match, is sliding Sam’s gloves on.

  Sam nods, but he doesn’t answer me, because of his mouth guard.

  “He’s ready,” Joe says, wiping the sweat from his forehead. He’s been supervising the ebb and flow of anxious boxers and coaches all afternoon. Sam is one of four boys from the gym who have a match tonight, and all of them, along with their coaches, opponents, opponents’ coaches, and officiators, are squeezed into the relatively small space. I fan myself with a folded promotional flyer that Joe had printed up. It’s usually freezing in here, but there are so many moving bodies creating heat, I’m actually sweating.

  “Craig. My man,” Joe says, shaking the hand of an official. He’s one of the many volunteers who helps Joe get these matches set up. It’s a lot of work, but there’s usually a cash prize for the winners of each weight class, and the event helps generate revenue for the gym. Joe runs a nonprofit facility. He grew up in Brighton Park and, after some success as a professional boxer, decided to open the gym to give underprivileged kids a place to come after school. After he saw Sam
get into a fight four years ago, he convinced him to join and has been coaching him ever since.

  Sam stands up. It’s almost time for his match.

  I hug him and he holds me to his chest for a moment. “Be careful,” I say to him, and an eager smile lights up his eyes. As confident as I am that Sam will win tonight—because he always wins—I hate knowing he could get hurt. The last time he fought Anthony Russo, he was left with a fractured rib and covered in bruises. Russo looked even worse.

  Sam says that pain is fleeting. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been hit before. I leave the fighting to him. Just watching it is painful enough.

  “Lucy, you should go grab your seat,” Joe says, tightening the strings on Sam’s gloves.

  “Go get ’em, Rocky,” I say, winking at Sam, before I’m absorbed by the crowd of people flowing from the gym floor into the locker room. Once I squeeze past them, I find my seat in the front row next to the ring. It’s marked by a sign with my name on it. Joe always reserves a seat for me up front.

  Sam and Anthony climb into the ring and take their corners and, after a quick introduction by the referee, begin the dance I’ve come to know as boxing. The footwork, the balance, the cardio, the strength, the technique required for a boxer to gain victory over his opponent…it’s a little theatrical, but what can I say, I’m a fan of the arts. To me, boxing is just a very violent ballet. Much less chaotic than the street fights I’ve witnessed. Even the cheers and jeers from the crowd are synchronized to the movements of the match.

  Sam takes a jab to the jaw, and I cringe, but it doesn’t seem to shake him. He throws a left hook, followed by an uppercut that leaves Russo stumbling backward into the ropes.

  The gym erupts even louder than before.

  By the middle of the third round, Anthony and Sam both look exhausted. But everyone is still screaming and cheering them on. I’m too anxious to cheer. I’m just trying not to chew my nails down to the quick.

  Sam takes an uppercut to the ribs. And another.

  Dammit. This seems to be Russo’s favorite move. It’s how he broke Sam’s rib before. Come on, Sam! Move!