This Loving Feeling (A Mirror Lake Novel)

by Miranda Liasson

  “You can make me younger in this portrait, right?” she asked.

  “No. Why do you ask?”

  She shot her granddaughter an obstinate look. “It must be like airbrushing,” she insisted. “You can do whatever you want. So make me look younger.”

  “I’ll tell you what. Let me finish it and I’ll let you have the last word, okay?”

  “Younger. And maybe blonde.”

  On so many levels, this was a very bad idea.

  “Quit clowning around before you knock Liz into the street,” Sam warned a group of her students who were standing at the roadside in front of the gas station parking lot just past the downtown shops. They were holding up fluorescent posters advertising their fundraiser. It was a brilliantly sunny Saturday. The girls wore bikini tops and cutoff shorts, and the guys wore swim trunks and T-shirts. They were laughing and fooling around and even though they hadn’t yet washed a car, they were all wet.

  Someone had brought a beat-up boom box and it was cranked up to the Top 40 radio station and happy Saturday music was rolling out of it. It was eighty degrees already—at eleven—and the late May sun was beating down strong and bright and full of promise for a fabulous day.

  “It’s okay, Ms. R.,” Calvin said, holding Liz by the waist and swinging her around—away from the street, mercifully. “Liz is expendable. Right, Liz?”

  Liz beat on Calvin’s shoulders and playfully screamed for him to put her down.

  Ah, young love. Jess had brought Hugo and they’d been a big help hooking up hoses and organizing the kids to be ready when the cars arrived. Which they hadn’t yet, but it was still early. The energy level was high, judging by the whooping and hollering and the general excitement of being outside on a gorgeous spring day with summer right around the corner.

  Hopefully the weather would bring them a lot of business and they’d make a nice sum of money to help fund the food for the upcoming donor dinner. Jess had somehow convinced Hugo to wear a regular T-shirt and for now, he was keeping it on. Life was good.

  Except Sam felt a little old. She remembered herself at that age. She would have been out there with a bikini top, too, flirting with boys. Yet by the end of senior year, she wouldn’t have bothered to show up at an event like this at all.

  Not that she minded being the authority figure or even having to be a hard-ass teacher sometimes—she loved her kids, shaping young minds, mentoring them. It was just that she looked at all the fun they were having and felt like some of it—well, a lot of it—had passed her by.

  She missed being spontaneous and crazy and a little bit wicked. Yeah, yeah, she understood that being an adult meant you had to leave that behind. But sometimes she just wanted to let loose and . . . live a little. She thought about what Effie had said, about acting too old for her age, about not taking any risks.

  That made her think about Lukas. That crazy, impulsive kiss. That had been the wildest thing that had happened to her in . . . well, six years. Being with him had always seemed to be a roller coaster ride of risk and excitement. How could any relationship sustain that artificial high for any length of time? It just wasn’t natural.

  It was fairy dust, and she supposed she had stars in her eyes just like everyone else in this town. Best to stick to steady and tangible reality.

  She shook her head. She had to tuck the past away, where it belonged. Her future was set, and once Harris and she navigated this rough patch, all would be well. Once Lukas Spikonos moved on—as he soon would—her life would finally get back to normal.

  Just then a fire-engine red Maserati streaked down the street and pulled into the car wash lot. Harris stopped on a dime and revved the engine, instantly causing a gaggle of teenage boys to stand at attention.

  She smiled. He’d come here—all the way from Boston—to support her and give her a proper good-bye. To make up for last weekend when nothing had gone well. To say he’d missed her and he’d been thinking of her and—

  “Hey, babe.” Harris winked. She loved that wink. Suddenly her mood lifted.

  The boys surrounded the gleaming sports car faster than if it were a hot girl standing in the middle of the parking lot. “Hey, sweet car,” Leo said. Several guys ran their hands along its smooth-as-ice surface. Admired the gleaming silver spokes on the hubcaps.

  “Just pull up to the hoses and we’ll get it washed for you,” Calvin said.

  Harris pushed his aviators to the top of his head. “Does this car look like it needs to be washed?”

  Sam turned from where she was making change for a twenty that Mr. Marks in his hardware store truck had just handed over.

  “Isn’t that why you’re here?” Calvin looked puzzled. “To support the theater project?”

  “My parents have donated more than what you’d make from ten years’ worth of car washes to this theater project, kid,” Harris said. “I’m here to talk to my girlfriend.” He got out of the car and walked over to Sam.

  Sam felt her face heat. She overheard Leo say, “Who is that guy?” and Calvin say, “He was kidding, wasn’t he?”

  “I don’t think so, man,” one of the other boys said. “What a jerk.”

  At that moment, a bus drove into the car wash lot, loudly honking its horn. The kids all turned to see a giant black tour bus pulling in with “Lukas Live!” in scrolly yellow letters across its side. Someone waved out the driver’s-side window. Someone with midnight-black hair and a wicked smile he was aiming right at her. The kids swarmed the bus. At that moment, Sam couldn’t have been more grateful that everyone’s attention had been diverted away from her.

  “Look, Sam,” Harris said, “I don’t like the way we left things last weekend.”

  Sam studied his handsome face. His expensive clothes. He had a commanding air about him that would serve him well as he made his way up the political stepladder.

  The initial relief she’d felt on his surprise appearance had dissolved to irritation. For the sake of her students, she wasn’t going to leash it in. “No talking until your car gets washed.”

  “What, are you kidding me? Let teenage boys rub some dirty dollar-store sponges over that perfect paint job? They’ll scratch it.” A you-couldn’t-possibly-ask-this-of-me look passed across his face, liked she’d just asked him to surrender his aspirations of one day becoming president.

  She folded her arms obstinately. “That would be teenage boys and girls. And they’ll do a nice job. Now that you’re here, I’d like you to support our project.”

  From the corner of her vision, she saw Lukas drop his lithe body down from the driver’s side of the bus. Oh, no, he was walking toward them across the lot, the kids close behind, some of them oohing and aahing over the bus, others gathering around him, wanting to be close. He walked up to where Sam and Harris stood. “C’mon, Harold,” Lukas said, a lazy grin spreading over his face. “I always thought you were one to support a good cause.”

  Harris had the decency to look sheepish. “I was just teasing. Of course they can wash it.”

  But the kids were all about the bus, asking Lukas if they could go inside, admiring the elaborate artwork on the outside.

  Lukas sent her a concerned look. One that seemed to ask if she was okay.

  She felt a blush creep into her cheeks. She didn’t like that look. It was possessive. Territorial. Like he would have risked getting into it with Harris if need be.

  Sam didn’t need anyone to defend her. It wasn’t his business and she’d been fine without him. Still, he’d come to her aid. He was trying to make the situation better. And, God help her, that made her ridiculously happy.

  Lukas got pulled away by the kids. Harris was telegraphing her his I’m-sorry-please-forgive-me face that usually won her over but she just wasn’t feeling it.

  “Want to stay and help out for a while?” Sam asked, giving him a chance to redeem himself.

  “You know I’ve got that plane to catch. And I’ve been driving all morning to make things right between us. I’ll see you next week,
okay? I’ll be back before the big donor dinner. We’ll spend some quality time together.” He kissed her, but she felt no comfort. She looked over to see Lukas watching her and frowning before he turned back to the kids.

  Harris squeezed her hand. “Next week, everything will get back to normal, okay, Sammy?”

  Sam hated when he called her that. It made her feel like she was ten. Somehow she managed a civil good-bye. As he drove away from her only to pull up to the pumps for gas, she realized he’d managed to escape without subjecting his car to a wash.

  She looked over to see the tour bus full of soap and Lukas holding his Gibson under the shade of the gas pumps, looking around for a place to plug in his amp cord. Stevie ran out of the bus, dressed in too-big swim trunks with bright fluorescent fish, waving wildly at her with the hand not holding his blankie.

  She waved back just as wildly. She would survive this. Although she seriously doubted things would ever get back to normal as Harris had promised. But there was fun to be had, and this time she wasn’t going to miss it.

  “What’s up, buddy?” Lukas asked Harris as he got out of his car and inserted the gas nozzle into his tank. From the expression on Harris’s face, Lukas could tell he wasn’t stopping by to ask for an autograph.

  “Stay away from my girlfriend, roughneck,” Harris said, lowering his voice so Sam couldn’t hear.

  Lukas almost smiled. What kind of man pulls up to a kids’ fundraiser and refuses to have his car washed? A first-class jerk, that’s what kind. For the thousandth time he wondered what the hell Sam saw in this guy.

  Lukas plucked out a little riff, to make sure the amp was working. A few twangy notes spilled forth and reverberated out into the parking lot. Harris’s hands curled into fists, and his face turned angry-emoji red. It was too easy to push this guy’s buttons. He really should refrain. Hold back. Be the gentleman he strived so hard to be.

  But holding back was not in Lukas Spikonos’s nature.

  “I walked away once, Harrison old buddy, and I won’t be making that mistake again.”

  He was now convinced Harris Buckhorn, the-Whatever-Number-He-Was, was not good for Sam at all. There was no way he could stand by and watch him ruin her life.

  Lukas squeezed his guitar a little tighter. Otherwise he held the same relaxed posture, kept the same lazy grin on his face. But his hands were trembling a little. Because he’d meant it, every single blessed word.

  Harris’s laughter held a diabolical edge. “We’ve been dating for six years. Do you actually think you have a chance of breaking us up?”

  “Funny, but I don’t see that you’ve put a ring on it. No ring, no promises.” He punctuated that with a strum.

  “You’re a scumbag.”

  “I love when you talk dirty to me.” Lukas took great pleasure watching a brand-new wave of flush start at the collar of Harris’s Ralph Lauren polo and race up his face. He might be handsome now, but Lukas detected a bit of puffiness around the eyes. A hint of softness around the middle. Good thing Lukas had stopped smoking, as of six days ago, anyway. No premature crow’s-feet for him, no siree. Or flab, for that matter.

  “Go ahead, rock star. Insult me. Try to steal her. See what happens.” Then he revved his car. Lukas almost said, big car, small penis but he didn’t want to get a war started in front of the kids.

  Lukas was relieved when Harris finally peeled off. He picked up his guitar but discovered the amp wasn’t working. He’d just walked over to the outlet and unplugged the cord when a guy wearing long pants and a T-shirt with a blown-up view of Michelangelo’s God and Adam that said “Adam Was Made of Atoms . . . so Study Physics!” walked up to him. He bent down and pushed a little button in the middle of the socket. “Now try,” he said.

  The couple of notes he played sounded out loud and clear. “Thanks for the help.” He extended his hand toward the stranger.

  “Evan Wolensky. I teach physics at the high school.” A bunch of kids wearing “Physics is Phun” shirts had gone to mingle with the other students. There still weren’t any cars in line.

  “I couldn’t help but notice how you told that guy off,” Evan said. “Impressive. I have the same problem.” He sighed and nodded toward a woman Lukas recognized as Sam’s best friend Jess, who was watching a very built guy do a front-double-biceps pose for a group of kids. With his shirt off. “Except I haven’t got the muscles, and couldn’t carry a tune if someone threatened to cut off my family jewels.”

  Lukas laughed. “Everyone’s got their own special talents going, you know, man? Why wish for somebody else’s?”

  “Because those kind get the chicks. Maybe I can get a job at the nuclear plant over in Waterford and hope for a radiation exposure.”

  What the hell? “Why would you want to do that?”

  “The Hulk, man. Don’t you read comic books?”

  “There are other ways, dude. It’s not all about muscle.”

  “Yeah, right. Tell that to Jessica.”

  “You’re a bright guy. I mean, you just saved me from looking like a fool. Use your talents to find her love language.”

  “Her love language,” he repeated, before a couple of his students called his name. “I’ve got to go. But nice meeting you. Thanks.” He gave a parting nod before making his way back across the lot.

  “You, too. And dude,” Lukas waited for him to turn around. “A haircut wouldn’t hurt.”

  Evan shook his head and laughed. Lukas had just gotten back to focusing on his guitar again when a familiar voice said, “You’re not gearing up to do another Christopher Plummer imitation, are you?” And there Sam was, looking magnificent in a powder-blue T-shirt and cutoffs, not too short for the kids’ sakes but enough to hug her fine ass and kick his imagination into high gear. He took in her bright green eyes, her pale skin that was already a little flushed from the sun.

  Maybe she’d sensed trouble between him and Harris. So be it. He’d just decided his primary goal today would be to make her forget that Harris ever existed.

  He shot her a mischievous look. Caressing the guitar, he strummed a few bars with ease and grace. Then he strummed and sang, very sweetly and slowly, “How do you solve a problem like Samantha?”

  She rolled her eyes. But her lips lifted in a little smile.

  “Hey, Lukas, play ‘You Don’t Know Me,’” one of the kids yelled. Lukas stiffened. He wasn’t about to ruin the fact that he’d finally made her smile.

  “You know, that song’s getting sort of old,” Lukas said, winking at Sam, pleased when she blushed prettily. “How about we sing something a little fresher?” He started the riff to one of his hits from last year, “That Girl Is Trouble.” “You all help me sing it now, all right?”

  Stevie ran over, surrounded by Sam’s students who were laughing and joking with him. Someone had given him a pair of round sunglasses that made him look like the adorable little kid from Jerry Maguire. The kids started to dance while Calvin stood in the middle and sprayed the hose straight up in the air so water rained down on everyone. One of the guys lifted Stevie up on his shoulders. His sunglasses were falling down his nose and he was clapping his hands and belly laughing so hard he hiccupped.

  Suddenly Sam joined the circle of kids. She danced. She swung Stevie around. The water fell down in drops and made rainbows shoot over their heads. The sun was hot, the smell of spring and water hitting the hot pavement thick in the air. Lukas crooned a wicked love song that worked its magic and filled everyone with pure joy. He tried not to look at Sam but every time he gave into the urge, he found himself catching her eye across the lot, and it felt in more ways than one as if he was singing to her. As if she was the girl who was trouble.

  When the song was through, she was breathing hard and completely soaked.

  The music ended. There was a long line of cars that stretched out of the parking lot and up the nearest side street. As the kids got to work, Sam caught Lukas’s eye as she put Stevie down so the boy could go help a group of kids with the washing.<
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  This time, he stared for an entirely different reason. Directly at her boobs, which were covered with a hot pink bra that was outlined perfectly through her wet pale blue shirt. He saw the second she realized the problem. And he couldn’t help the grin that surely must have spread across his face from ear to ear.

  Sam hurriedly crossed her arms and jogged to the abandoned side of the tour bus, which was now gleaming cleanly in the sun, but Lukas was quicker. He got to the bus first and pulled the door open for her. As she slipped past him, he couldn’t resist saying, “The real question is if the panties match the bra.”

  He let his gaze trace a slow, lazy path from her flip-flops, up her pretty toned legs, and lingering on the aforementioned bra before he met her eyes. There was a fine mix of horror and panic there. He told himself he really shouldn’t capitalize on her discomfort but it was too fun not to.

  He was about to make another smartass comment but at that moment their eyes locked and for a second he was unable to breathe. A jolt of electricity passed silently between them that walloped him like a thunderclap.

  Lukas was not one to be thrown off balance by a woman. Rather, he was usually the one to do the unbalancing. So he was pleased when she turned as bright pink as her underwear. Just when he’d thought he’d regained control, she leaned toward him and said in the softest whisper that brushed his cheek, “You’ll never know,” and punctuated the comment with a simple lift of her brow.

  He laughed out loud. Shook his head. Fisted his hands to prevent himself from scooping her into his arms and kissing her senseless.

  “So can I borrow another shirt before I lose my teaching job or what?”

  He somehow managed to rip himself away and walk to the back of the bus, where he disappeared around a corner and snagged a black T-shirt. “Here you go,” he said, tossing it at her.

  The shirt said “Lukas Live!” in white lettering, similar to what was on the side of the bus. “Thanks,” she said, looking for a place to take off her sopping wet shirt. He motioned toward the bathroom, which she quickly ducked into.