by Robin Huber
“I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I say, fortified by his presence. “There could have been worse shots.”
He lets go of me and gives me a troubled look. “You saw the pictures,” he says cautiously, but it sounds like a question.
“I saw a picture.”
Bas holds his phone up and shows Sam the picture, but I can tell by the look on Sam’s face, it’s not what he’s talking about.
“That ain’t the one that’s got everybody so excited,” Miles says over my shoulder, and Sam shoots him an exasperated look.
He turns his attention back to me. “Lucy, there are other pictures.”
I look at Bas, whose thumbs are dutifully scouring the internet for more pictures. It doesn’t take him long, before he scrunches up his face and gasps, “Oh, my God.”
I swallow down the bile rising in my throat. I don’t even want to know what he’s looking at. I look at Sam, whose worried face does little to comfort me. “I’m not looking,” I say to him. “Just tell me what it is.”
“It’s you,” Sebastian says, appalled. “Topless on the beach.”
A quiet breath escapes between my lips, but I keep my eyes on Sam, afraid that if I look at anyone or anything else, I might disintegrate.
“It’s my fault,” Sam says quietly to me. “I’m so sorry. I convinced you that we were secluded there. I thought we were. I was so stupid.”
“Yeah, you were,” Miles says. “You know these parasites find a way.”
“How did they even know we were there?” I push thoughts of Janice out of my mind. She wouldn’t tell anyone.
“My guess is, they didn’t,” Miles says. “They just got lucky.”
I give Miles an incredulous look that’s met with one of sympathy.
“Lots of celebrities stay there, sweetheart. They probably cruise the island a few times a week, hoping to spot one.” He points to the tattoos on Sam’s arm. “You’re not exactly Mr. Inconspicuous. With a telephoto lens, it probably didn’t take them long to figure out who you were.”
“Why didn’t Jacinda tell us that?”
“Not to run around outside naked?” Miles smirks.
“I wasn’t…we weren’t…” I sit down on my old leather sofa and drop my face to my hands. “This is my punishment.”
Sam sits beside me and gently pulls my hands away from my face. “Punishment? For what?”
“For you!” I look at him and his face falls. “For what I did.”
Sebastian quickly chimes in. “What Lucy’s trying to say is that she knew there would be consequences for leaving her old boring life behind, but that you’re totally worth it.” He cuts his eyes at me and raises his dark eyebrows. “Right, Lucy?”
“Of course,” I say to Sam. “Of course you are.”
“Are you sure?” Sam asks, raising an eyebrow with worried amusement. “Because you seem pretty upset.”
“I am upset. I’m very upset. I’m humiliated.”
Sam’s face softens again. “I know.” He drops his chin and I see the guilt on his face.
“It’s not your fault, Sam.”
“Guys, look, I’m doing everything I can to get it taken down, at least from some of the smaller sites.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s out there now. For the whole world to see.” I groan.
“Lucy, it’s going to be fine,” Bas says calmly. “There are literally topless pictures of Kate Middleton on the internet. And the whole world still loves her.”
“Last I checked, I’m not royalty.”
“You’re my queen,” Sam says, trying to lighten the mood, and I flash him a fleeting smile.
“Have you checked your email lately, Bas?”
“Not in the last hour. Why?”
“Oh, just waiting for Aurelia Snow to rescind my invite to her show.” I throw my hands up. “There goes my career.”
“The exhibit in New York? You got an invite?” Sam asks eagerly.
I give him a small smile and bob my head. “Yeah. I did. And I got invites to six other exhibits too.”
“Lucy, that’s incredible.” He pulls me into a hug. “I knew everyone would want your paintings once they saw how talented you are.” He releases me and says, “I’m so proud of you.”
“We’ll see how many still want them now.”
“Lucy, this will die down in a couple of days,” Miles says. “If you want, we can put a statement out, address the violation of privacy. That can go a long way sometimes.”
“It can also bring more attention to it,” Sam argues.
“No, no statement,” I say, shaking my head. “Sam’s right. I don’t want to bring any more attention to it.” I sigh and stand up. “I should have known better.”
“I should have known better,” Sam says. He looks at me like there’s no one else in the room. “I’m so sorry, Lamb.”
“It’s okay.” I smile softly and try to convince myself that my art will speak louder than these junk sites that posted my picture. But only time will tell.
Chapter 5
Sam
I watch the orange glow of the rising sun peek through the high-rise buildings outside the bedroom window, careful not to wake Lucy, who’s sleeping peacefully on my chest. I brush the blond hair off her forehead and stare at her beautiful face, trying to memorize the shape of her nose and the curve of her lips. I run my hand over her shoulder—tan from spending the better part of a month in Exuma—and pray that I get to spend every day of the rest of my life waking up like this.
She sighs and wraps her arm around me. “Good morning,” she mumbles.
“Morning.”
She opens her sleepy eyes. “What time is it?”
“Seven.”
“Is there a reason you’re awake?”
“I wanted to watch the sunrise.”
“Now that you’ve seen it, can we go back to sleep?”
“Not that sun.”
She smiles wide and closes her eyes. “I love you.”
“I’m still waiting.”
She laughs and opens her eyes, flashing their brilliant blue that rivals the color of the sky outside.
I tilt her chin up and kiss her, and she moans softly, waking up any parts of me that were still asleep. I sit up and pull her on top of me and gaze into her sleepy eyes, which fill with desire I know all too well now. “Hi.”
She parts her lips and inhales a slow breath, drawing my mouth to hers like a moth to a flame. “Hi,” she says against my lips.
Sam, Fifteen Years Old
“Stop it!” Lucy warns, peering at me over the roof of the car she’s hiding behind in the grocery store parking lot.
I smile as I creep around another car parked a few spots away. “Or what?” I challenge, dropping my backpack and leaping over the hood.
She runs between another row of cars, giggling as I get closer. “Sam, stop!” she squeals, pulling her arm out of my grip. “Get away!” She laughs, running a little farther, until she’s off the pavement and on the sparse grass that covers a path to the adjacent park. As soon as she’s on soft ground, she takes off like a bolt of lightning, backpack and all.
I go pick up my backpack and run even faster.
I catch up to her quickly, chasing her onto the empty playground, but she hides behind a rusty old merry-go-round. She wraps her small hands around the peeling red handlebars and crouches down in the dust as I make my way over to her. She watches me with excited eyes as I step up onto the merry-go-round, which creaks under my weight.
“Ahh,” she squeals, giving it a pull and sending me for short ride, before I leap off it and chase her over to the swings.
She holds one of the rubber swing seats in her hands, and the chains clink together as she backs away from me. “I’m going to let go,” she warns, but I step closer to her anyway. She lets go and the swing flies through the air at me, but I dodge it and chase her over to the slide.
She runs up the metal and I wait by the steps, but when she peers d
own and sees me, she turns around and runs back down the slide, her sneakers squeaking on the slippery metal. When she’s about halfway down, she sits and slides the rest of the way.
I make it around to the end of the slide just in time to catch her. “Hi,” I say, leaning over, gripping the cold metal lip on either side of her.
She laughs and looks up at me. “Hi.” She starts to sit up, but I don’t move, so she lies down against the slide and smiles up at me.
“You can try to run from me, but I’ll always catch you.”
She laughs and wriggles her legs between mine, but I don’t move. Her chest rises and falls inside her jacket as she gazes up at me and her creamy white skin flushes pink. “Promise?”
I stare at her pale blue eyes, nearly colorless from the bright sun shining down on us. I watch her parted lips move when she draws in a breath, wanting so badly to know what they taste like, and my heart races inside my chest, even faster than when I was chasing her. I lean in closer, unable to resist the pull drawing my mouth to hers.
She closes her eyes and I press my lips firmly to hers. And everything falls away—the slide, the cars in the distance, the smell of the rusty playground. I reach for her face and hold it in my hand as my lips move over hers, pushing and pulling for several long seconds. I exhale a heavy breath, ignoring the way my body is screaming for more, and drop my forehead to hers.
She smiles up at me.
“I may never stop wanting to do that,” I admit.
She winds her hands in my hair and pulls my mouth back to hers. “Good.”
* * *
“Sam…Lucy,” Miles shouts from the living room. “If you’re naked, put some clothes on. I’m coming in.”
I grumble against Lucy’s neck—her smooth, warm, perfect neck—and kiss it softly, tasting her skin on my tongue for a brief second, before she climbs off me.
“Stop, enough people have seen me naked this week,” she says with wide eyes, giving me a salacious smile as she quickly gets to her feet. She fumbles through a large mound of clothes on the floor and pulls out a T-shirt and a pair of her sweatpants.
I get up and pull on a pair of joggers and head to the living room with a very sexy, messy-haired blonde on my heels. “Miles, you can’t just barge in here anymore,” I say when I see him.
“Don’t look at me.” He glances over his shoulder at Tristan, who has an annoyed look on his face.
“I called you like ten times,” Tristan says, dropping his gym bag on the couch. “Hey, Luc,” he says to her with an unapologetic smile. “How you doing?”
“Hey, Tristan,” she says tentatively.
He looks at me and throws his hands up. “You want to beat Antoine Phillips or not? Because we’ve got to be on a plane to LA in a few weeks, and by the looks of you, you’re not ready for him.”
“Yeah, I want to fucking beat him. What kind of question is that?”
“Then get dressed and meet me in the gym. We were supposed to start a half hour ago.” He picks up his bag and crosses my apartment. “See you later, Lucy. Sorry to wake you up.”
“My phone was in the other room,” I call after him. “I forgot you were coming at six thirty today.”
He ignores me and disappears down the hall.
Lucy looks at me at me and sings quietly, “Somebody’s in trouble.”
I roll my eyes. “He had to wait thirty minutes. He’ll survive.”
“Well, while you two are working out your differences in the gym, I think I’m going to go get the rest of my things from Drew’s house.”
His name smacks me in the middle of my chest and my shoulders tense reflexively. “Okay, well…I can go with you. We can go this afternoon.”
She presses her lips together and shakes her head. “You two are like oil and water. I think it’s probably best if I go alone.”
“Okay,” I say reluctantly, ignoring every overprotective bone in my body.
“Why don’t you let me come with you, sweetheart?” Miles offers, giving me a knowing glance. “After everything with the media this week, it’s probably better to have somebody with you. Safer.”
“He’s right,” I urge.
“Don’t you have better things to do than be my bodyguard, Miles?”
“Yeah, actually, I do. But none that are more important. And I can spot a telephoto lens from a mile away.”
Lucy smiles softly. “Okay, fine. But you’re following in your own car.” She points at him. “And you’re not getting out.”
Miles looks at me and I shrug. “You heard her.”
She stands on her tiptoes and kisses my cheek. “Don’t let Tris work you too hard.”
* * *
“You’re not focused,” Tristan shouts at me over the music blaring through the gym speakers.
“What do you mean?” I hit the punching mitt on his right hand a little harder.
He circles the ring, leading me around the mat. “Since the Sanchez fight at the Garden, your head hasn’t been in it. It’s even worse since Ackerman. I don’t know if it’s because of the concussion or—” He stops himself, but I know what he was about to say.
“You weren’t even at that fight,” I grunt, smacking the other mitt. “So what do you know about it?”
“I know that if I was, you wouldn’t have gotten a concussion first place. And you damn sure wouldn’t have needed to take a three-week break on some remote island.”
“Is that was this is about? You’re pissed because I took a vacation?”
“I’m pissed because you’re letting your personal life affect how you fight.”
I hit his mitt and challenge, “Want to elaborate on that?”
“Okay. You got the shit beat out of you in Quebec and nearly lost the fight because you weren’t focused on Ackerman. You were thinking about Lucy.”
“Lucy,” I shout, “is the only reason I won that fight.”
“Yeah, well, like you said…I wasn’t there, so what do I know?” He lowers his mitts and climbs out of the ring. “The new battery in my pacemaker is working great, by the way.”
I drop my gloves and look at him, letting go of my anger. “I’m sorry, okay?”
He turns down the music and grabs a bottle of water. “I don’t need your pity.”
I cross my arms over the top rope. “It’s not pity. It’s just an apology.”
“Well I don’t need an apology.”
“Fine, then I’m not sorry. I’m fucking pissed.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re twenty-seven and you have the heart of an old man.”
He sits down and chugs his water. “Yeah, well, you don’t need to worry about me.”
“Okay, so then why don’t you tell me why the hell you’re so worried about me? I know you like to win, but—”
“Lucy.” He gives me a frustrated look. “The way you are with her. It’s ten times worse than when we were kids.”
I feel my blood pulse as he crosses a dangerous line.
“Don’t get me wrong. I like Lucy. She’s was too good for you then, and she’s too good for you now. She’s a great girl, but—”
“She’s the girl.”
“Okay, then. If she is, you have your whole lives together. So just give me the next couple of years, because that may be all I’ve got.”
I climb down out of the ring. “Come on, don’t say that.” I tug my laces with my teeth. “You know I don’t like to hear you talk like that.”
“It’s a fact, Sam. The pacemaker’s just buying me time.”
“Says who? Your doctor?” I look up at him. “We’ll find another doctor.”
“All the doctors. There’s no opinion here. My heart isn’t going to last longer than a few years. If I’m lucky.”
“What about a transplant? You’re on the list.”
“Someone gets added to the transplant waiting list every ten minutes. And about twenty people on that list die each day waiting on a new heart.”
“Then I’ll call somebody.
I’ll…get you moved up.”
“You can’t buy your way up the list, Sam. Your money can’t save me.”
A wave of anger rushes through me, leaving through my fist, which I pull back and slam into the nearest punching bag.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asks, jumping to his feet. He lifts up my glove and inspects the loose laces.
“That’s fucking bullshit.”
“Look, I care about winning, because this—you, Joe, the ring—it’s all I have. This is it for me.” He tightens my laces back up. “I just want to see you win a few more belts. The right way.”
“Okay.”
“And it wouldn’t hurt if you knocked out Antoine Phillips.” He looks up at me and laughs. “I hate that cocky motherfucker.”
“That’s the plan,” I say over the tight feeling in my chest.
“You know…I do envy what you have with Lucy. I’m never going to have the girl.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Find the girl of my dreams and then kick the bucket?” He laughs grimly. “I would never do that to someone.” He shrugs. “It’s just not in the cards for me.”
“Hey…I’m sorry, okay? And it’s not pity. I’m just sorry. Because I want it for you, brother. I really do.”
“Yeah, well, just because I can’t have the girl, doesn’t mean I can’t still have fun. Women love a guy with a heart defect. Especially when they look like me.” He grins.
I tap my gloves together. “Don’t think I won’t hit a pretty boy,” I say, knowing good and well I’d never hit him.
He puts his mitts back on and climbs into the ring. “Come on, then. Show me what you got, champ.”
Chapter 6
Lucy
I drive down the familiar tree-lined street to Drew’s house—my old house—pausing in front of it when I see Janice’s car parked in the driveway. I need to talk to them both, but I wasn’t planning on doing it at the same time.
Maybe I should come back later.
Miles pulls up behind me in his Escalade and I reluctantly pull into the driveway. Is that thing supposed to be inconspicuous? The matte back rims and blackout windows aren’t exactly subtle. I park behind Janice’s car, looking for signs of Drew, but I don’t see his car. Maybe it’s in the garage.