This Loving Feeling (A Mirror Lake Novel)

by Miranda Liasson

  He didn’t want their lovemaking to be about revenge. He wanted it to be about them. With a kind of terrible horror, he realized he wanted her to love him.

  “Do you hang around with me to piss your brother off?” he blurted.

  She turned toward him in the car. The streetlight shone on her cheek, glinted in her eyes. She ran a hand through his hair and gave him a gentle smile that he felt clear through his bones. “When I met you, I was ready to give up on everything. My friends all left me and my own brother didn’t give me the benefit of the doubt. So to be honest, at the beginning, yeah, I was attracted to you being a badass. But Lukas, you’re really the worst badass I’ve ever met.”

  He narrowed down his eyes. She was smiling. Smiling!

  “I mean, you look the part, okay?” she said. “But you don’t drink, you don’t party, you don’t do drugs, and you don’t get into trouble. Really, from a rebel standpoint, you’re kind of a huge disappointment.”

  Maybe so. But he’d seen firsthand how drinking could shatter a family, and he vowed never to be like his parents, who’d both been destroyed by alcohol. “Well,” he said, cupping her face in his hands, “since we’re being honest, you suck at being a rebel, too. So be who you are.” He wrapped the scarf around her neck and kissed her.

  It went without saying she was a terrible rebel, and he often made fun of her for it. She volunteered at a nursing home, helped her grandmother with blood pressure screenings, and wherever they went, she said hi to everyone in town. She was simply too good-natured and loving to be disaffected for very long.

  Her one sore point was college. They talked about art all the time but she refused to discuss applying to art school. She’d decided on business, she said. UConn, an hour away. The plan was her brother’s doing, he was sure of it.

  Still he refused to bring her back to his apartment. He was too afraid, not so much of the temptation but for himself. Once he made love to her, their relationship would be different. His heart would break for sure when she left him, which he was certain would happen. She’d find someone better, smarter, a college guy.

  He came home from work one afternoon in March on his birthday to find that she’d gotten the key from Mrs. Clinker and decorated his apartment with paper streamers. She’d cooked a pot of chili for him and even bought him a fancy cake from the bakery. Then she’d put a bow on her own head and begged him to take her to his bed. Samantha with a bow on. The perfect birthday gift. How could a hot-blooded male refuse that?

  That night they’d gotten naked together for the first time and he’d made her cry out his name, just like all those times he’d dreamed it, and it was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard, but he would not have sex with her.

  To get him back, she tortured him, grabbing his cock and demanding to know what he wanted her to do with it. She had this joyfulness for everything, a freshness he never tired of. Her touch was velvet, and what she lacked in experience, she made up for in enthusiasm, and he’d never felt so happy in his life.

  A big part of him worried he was just a phase she was going through, that she’d be bored of him by the time college began.

  In the spring, the Clubbers all got busted when Reggie turned in a recording of their latest cruel escapades in exchange for getting himself off the hook for some other trouble. Monique lost her Dartmouth admission. Sam seemed more than relieved to leave everything about high school behind in the rearview mirror.

  In the fall, Lukas got promoted to head mechanic and Sam went off to school. He thought for sure she’d meet a college boy and forget about him forever. He tried to think of ways he could better himself. His garage band was getting more gigs, weddings, mostly, which was fine with him since Sam was gone most weekends now.

  Over Christmas she brought him a skinny little tree and a box of ornaments from the dollar store. They tossed down a blanket and turned on the single string of lights and lay there in the dark in each other’s arms, staring at the multicolored reflections.

  “I bought you a present, too,” he said, handing her a rectangular package he’d wrapped himself.

  She didn’t need any encouragement to open it. She tore into it, finding an art tablet and a fine set of charcoal pastels.

  “Wh . . . what’s this for?” She was tearing up. He hadn’t meant to upset her.

  “Well, they’re like crayons. You draw with it on paper. Like this, see?” He picked one up and held it to the paper.

  She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be funny.”

  “It’s just that maybe it’s been long enough, you know? I thought maybe you missed doing art.” He shrugged. “If you give it up for them, they win.”

  There was a long pause, and he worried he’d been too presumptuous. She hated being told what to do and maybe he’d crossed a line. But a second later, she leapt into his arms and threw her own arms around him, hugging him tightly. He was immediately inundated by the smell of her shampoo, that clean citrusy scent she favored that he couldn’t get enough of. “I love you, Lukas,” she whispered. “Make love to me now. Real love. Please.”

  She looked at him with those big green eyes. They were full of excitement and happiness, a far cry from how she was months ago when he’d first met her. He threaded his hands through her hair, reveling in the abundance of thick silky curls. “Sam—” He started to talk, but she cut him off with a kiss. He’d never understood before what it was to be happy, but he was certain from how swollen and full his heart was and from the sheer pleasure of holding her in his arms that this was it.

  He kissed her back with all he had, pressing his lips over hers. She wrapped herself around him, her hands roving through his hair and up and down his back. Their tongues tangled, their kisses grew deep and hungry. He wanted and needed her so badly and he simply couldn’t get enough.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “I started the pill,” she said. “I’ve never been more sure.”

  They made love under that skinny little tree, but it may as well have been the tree at Rockefeller Center for how awed he felt. He used condoms because he wasn’t taking any chances. He wanted to do right by her. He loved her.

  The months that followed were happy ones. They were both busy with their own lives, but they made many trips back and forth to be together on weekends between where she went to school in Storrs and Mirror Lake.

  Sam had lost her anger for good. Probably because she’d made a whole new set of friends, many of whom Lukas had met and liked. That spring he got another raise. They’d been dating for over a year. It was time he picked her up for a real date.

  He bought flowers and a button-down shirt that was not black and showed up at her house. He even took out his nose stud. As he neared the door, he heard the sounds of two people arguing.

  “What do you mean he’s coming here? I thought you’d stopped seeing him a long time ago. Haven’t you met any nice guys in college? And what kind of name is ‘Spike’ anyway?” Definitely her older brother Brad.

  “His name is Spikonos,” Sam said, “but you can call him Lukas.”

  “I thought it was because of that stupid spiky hair of his.”

  “I’m just asking you to be nice to him.”

  “I can’t be nice to a guy who’s going nowhere, Sam. I honestly don’t know what you see in him. I thought we raised you better.”

  She was crying. Because of him. He’d never be good enough, just as he hadn’t been good enough for every family looking to adopt who had passed him by. He was too old, too dark, too rebellious. And underneath it all, he was just too alone.

  He tossed the flowers into the bushes and left. Her family was never going to accept him. She could do a lot better. He’d always known it was only a matter of time.

  The next week, Mr. Clinker had a heart attack and decided to close the business. And Martha Ellis was diagnosed with cancer. Suddenly, his world was in a tailspin.

  And then Sam’s brother died.

  A cold, terrible idea came to him. If he broke up
with her, she’d hate him, but she’d heal. She’d have her family. She needed them, and he was only creating tension there. Someday he would leave town and figure out his life. Figure out how to become someone. But right now he would be there for Martha Ellis.

  So he let Sam go. And he hadn’t had a day of peace since.

  The next summer, Martha died and he had the near miss with the chicken truck. Sam had sat by his side until he was out of danger. The year had done nothing to stop his longing for her, but by then she’d met Harris. There was no way Lukas could compete with a guy like that, who was educated and rich—everything he wasn’t. He became consumed with the feeling that he had to get out, had to find his own life. Become something better than what his parents had become. In his heart, he knew that doing that in Mirror Lake was impossible. So he did what he did best: he left Sam behind for good.

  CHAPTER 8

  If not cigarettes, then coffee. That was Lukas’s motto for the day. He’d just downed his third cup and was sitting on the patio talking to his agent, Tony. Stevie and Mrs. Panagakos had gone for a walk down the road to the lakeside park.

  “. . . a sold out venue in L.A. next month . . . the last album’s just gone platinum . . . Rolling Stone wants an interview and GQ’s offering a photo op for the cover and a feature article.” Blah, blah, blah. Lukas drowned out the business talk. Bored, he watched the fine tremor in his hands with a strange sense of awe. He’d never been much for tripping out on too much caffeine and now he knew why. He punched nicotine patch into the reminder notes on his phone. Right next to more milk and Lucky Charms, which Stevie had just informed him was his favorite cereal. Turns out there was a way to get him to drink milk after all.

  “This is a lot of attention for an up-and-coming artist, so we’ve got to take advantage of every opportunity . . .” Tony was still rambling on. Lukas didn’t mind working hard. In fact, he loved working hard. He loved writing songs and appreciated that he was lucky enough to be able to perform them. He just hated that he was a brand, a commodity that everyone seemed to want a piece of. At the risk of having no pieces left for himself, no privacy, and no life.

  A boat approached the dock, a shiny twenty-five-foot white-and-blue speedboat with blue stripes and a cabin. The guy behind the wheel tossed two ropes to the dock, then jumped out and tied them to the dock cleats.

  Lukas didn’t have to guess who the guy was. Harris looked eerily the same as when they’d met six years ago—the same thick head of wavy light brown hair, the same hawkish nose. He pushed his aviators high on his head and put his tanned hands on his hips, his pristine white shorts and white polo reflecting in the sunshine. “Samantha!” he called from the dock, looking around. “Sam! I’m here!”

  Sam walked out of the main house’s front door, carrying a picnic basket and a towel, wearing a bright pink swim cover-up and flip-flops, clearly ready for a day on the water. She jogged down to the dock and flung her arms around him in that one-hundred-and-one-percent way of hers, making Lukas’s gut twist a little. He shouldn’t watch, but he simply couldn’t turn away. Harris kissed her but then backed himself up to arm’s length, smoothing his mussed hair carefully back into place.

  A strange feeling churned in the pit of Lukas’s stomach. Acidy distaste, mixed with dislike and a big stab of jealousy. He added Tums to his grocery list.

  This thing with Sam was all his own fault. She’d turned into an obsession because he’d picked the wrong damn time to develop a conscience. Or to be stupid. He’d let thoughts of being a nobody consume him. He’d been desperate not to end up like his parents.

  That nauseous feeling was back that told him he’d screwed up, bad. The thought of Harris with her . . . he couldn’t even go there, because every cell in his body believed back then that Harris was a complete idiot and she could do a lot better. Maybe Harris had changed, but people usually didn’t.

  Ironic. That Lukas had stepped away because he thought he wasn’t good enough. Only to have him get her. It was wrong. Bone-marrow-deep wrong.

  Lukas squeezed his eyes shut. Dammit to hell anyway, he should’ve handled things so much differently. All these years of messed-up feelings, ones that had poured over into his very best songs. This inability to move on would never have happened if he hadn’t pushed her away. That was why she’d stuck to the corners in his brain like spiderwebs that wouldn’t wipe away for all these years.

  Oh, Samantha.

  She’d dated Harris for the past six years. Why hadn’t she married him?

  Thank God she hadn’t.

  Wait. There’d been no vows, no church ceremony, no noisy Rushford family celebration with all the big, burly brothers rallying around their little sis, all the town old ladies and the cousins and . . .

  She wasn’t married.

  Not that Lukas thought he still had a chance with her.

  Did he?

  Out in the water, Harris pulled the front rope onto the boat and took the wheel, Sam settling in behind him, stretching out her lovely legs on one of the side seats. Harris kicked the boat into reverse and moved away from the dock.

  Except the putt-putt of the motor suddenly sputtered out. From the patio, Lukas saw Harris’s startled expression as his steering became ineffective and the boat began to drift. Sam walked to the back of the boat and pointed, and Harris got up and followed her.

  A normal guy would have realized he’d forgotten to pull the rear rope in, which had gotten wrapped around the propeller and seized up the engine. A normal guy would’ve also jumped overboard and pulled the hell out of the front rope to get the boat back to the dock. Guess Harris didn’t want to risk ruining that bright white outfit.

  Lukas found himself running down the grassy yard to the dock before he could think his decision through. The opportunity to watch Harris flounder a bit more was too good to pass up. And, oh yeah, he was not going to miss a chance to save the day. Show Sam his special skills. For a guy who’d spent years making engines work, a seized propeller was not a big deal.

  As Lukas approached the dock, Harris said, “Gosh darn it, Sam, get out of my way. I can get it.” He didn’t push her, but his tone was prickly and condescending enough, making the hair on the back of Lukas’s neck stand up. Once an idiot, always an idiot.

  “Hey, there, Harris,” Lukas called from the dock. “Why don’t you pass me that rope and we’ll see if we can’t pull you back to the dock?”

  “The prop seized. Pulling me back in isn’t going to help that.”

  Lukas suppressed an eye roll. “Um, you’re right, but it will help me to be able to help you.” Lukas grinned at Sam, who tossed the rope to him. It landed with a soft splash about six feet from the dock. Lukas jumped into the water from the dock with his pajama pants on and grabbed the rope.

  “You didn’t have to do that, you know,” Harris said as Lukas used the rope to haul the boat back to the dock. Then he pulled himself up and out of the water and tied the boat back to the dock cleats.

  “I just wasn’t thinking,” Harris said, a bit flustered. “Sam was chattering on about the weather or something and I was a little distracted.”

  What did she see in this guy, a guy who treated her like an abused employee instead of a girlfriend? Sam’s face had turned red. She bent her head low to examine the problem with the engine, but Lukas could sense her embarrassment.

  “I’d be a little distracted, too,” Lukas said, “if I had a beautiful woman on my boat.” He winked at Sam, who did roll her eyes—but there may have been just a trace of a smile turning up her pretty lips. Any guy who didn’t own up to his own mistakes was no man at all in his book.

  Lukas jumped back into the water and swam to the rear of the boat near where Sam sat. “Tell your boyfriend not to have any funny ideas about starting the engine until I’m done with this.” He reached underwater to unwrap the rope, which had coiled around the propeller at least twenty times. When he was done, he brought the end of the rope back to the dock.

  “Lukas, thanks so much,”
Sam said. Lukas sat on the dock, wiping the wet hair out of his eyes.

  Harris reached over the boat and shook his hand. “I appreciate your help. Nice to see you again, buddy.” Lukas knew Harris well enough to know he was only being nice for Sam’s sake. He wondered what he really thought, especially after Lukas had kissed her at the kids’ prom. Harris draped an arm around Sam and kissed her on the forehead. “Okay, honey, let’s try to get our day started again, shall we?”

  “Well, thanks again.” Sam smiled and glanced at Lukas, but a sense of awkwardness came with the gaze. She quickly looked away as Harris started the motor.

  Lukas gave a wave as they puttered away from the dock, and he headed back up to the house.

  He hoped they had a nice day. He also hoped Harris figured out that Lukas was staying in the guesthouse and that it made him jealous as hell. Lukas wasn’t a man with a normal job, a house with a white picket fence, and tons of experience with a loving family that left him capable of sustaining a real relationship. But he knew how to treat a woman with respect, to never demean or condescend or embarrass her in front of others.

  Maybe Lukas wasn’t the kind of guy Sam deserved. No, he would never be that traditional, upstanding type. But he’d be damned if dickbrain Harris was either.

  The fiery remnants of a salmon-and-pink sunset streaked across the sky as Sam dragged a picnic basket back up the hill. “Look, we haven’t got much time to seal the deal,” Harris said into his cell phone, trailing behind her. “I’ll meet you first thing in the morning and we can go over things, okay?” He’d seemed to spend half the day on his phone, always multitasking, often distracted by business or staring out into the distance at the pristine blue of the lake, lost in his own thoughts.

  Harris loved her. She was sure of it. She just had to give him space, understand the demands of his job and his career. Understand his stress. That’s what love did.