by Robin Huber
Admitting the truth, that Drew isn’t the love of my life, would mean acknowledging it, and the implications of that scare the hell out of me. But if I lie, I could lose Sam for good. My heart cries from the corner it’s been painted into. If I answer honestly, life as I know it will change irrevocably. But part of me deep down knows that it already has. It changed the second I looked up and saw Sam standing outside on the sidewalk. When he mouthed the word hi, my fate was sealed.
He stares into the deepest part of my soul, seeking the truth, but I close my eyes before he can read me. When I open them again, he reaches for a pen and a piece of paper on the desk and scribbles something down.
“When you’re ready,” he says, gazing at me. But before I can respond, he turns toward the door and leaves me just as breathless as when he walked in.
I watch him jog across the street and get into a very expensive-looking car.
“Bye, Sam.”
I reach for the piece of paper and read his familiar handwriting. An address? Here in Atlanta. His address? I look up as he’s pulling away from the curb and fall against the desk.
“Oh. My. God.” Sebastian rushes over to me, holding a tissue in his hand. He sniffs and wipes his eyes, and promptly pulls me into a hug. “Sweetie, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I couldn’t. I’ve never told anyone. Drew doesn’t even know,” I say, looking at him desperately.
He takes my hand and drags me to the back of the studio, and we fall onto the old leather couch together. He hands me a box of tissues and demands that I tell him everything, so I do.
“Lucy, I don’t even know what to say,” Bas responds after I’ve finished.
“There’s nothing to say.”
“Actually, I think you’ve got tons to say, to Sam.” He exhales loudly. “I cannot believe that Sam Cole was your boyfriend. Or childhood soulmate, or whatever he was. It’s insane. Paul is going to flip.”
“Bas, can you just keep it to yourself for now?”
He sighs. “Fine. But what are you going to tell Drew?”
I cringe at the thought of telling Drew anything about Sam. I can’t. Especially not that he came to see me today. “I don’t know. Nothing, for now.”
“Well, whatever happens, I’m here for you.” He smiles and puts his hand on mine. “You don’t have to figure it out alone.”
My eyes well with tears. “You’re kind of the best assistant a girl could ask for. And by assistant, I mean friend.”
He makes a fist and gently knocks it against my chin. “Aw, kid, you know I’d do anything for you.”
I wipe my eyes and nod. “Thanks, Bas.”
Chapter 8
Lucy
It’s been two weeks since Sam showed up at my studio and effectively ruined my life. Since then, I’ve been silently struggling with how to tell Drew about him, but with each passing day it’s grown harder and harder. How do I tell Drew that I’ve been keeping a secret from him for years, a secret that popped up at my studio out of the blue and made me question every decision I’ve made since I was eighteen? I could risk losing everything that’s good in my life. Which is why I decided not to.
I glance in the rearview mirror, checking my makeup for the third time in twenty minutes. That’s how long it’s been since I pulled out of the driveway I share with Drew, drove down our tree-lined street, and left our gated suburban neighborhood. Drew is seven hundred miles away in Philadelphia and, as much as I wanted him to stay and give me a reason to not go see Sam, as soon as he left I knew that I had to. I have to tell Sam that I’m happy with Drew, that I’m going to marry him, and that he can’t come see me again. Then I’m going to go home, wait for Drew to return, and tell him about the boy I used to love.
I inhale a shaky breath and run my thumb back and forth over the seam in my black skinny jeans. I settled on these, a white T-shirt, and my white Chuck Taylors, opting for comfort over style, something I think I’m going to need today.
I follow the directions on my GPS through the city, squinting through my Ray-Bans as I chase the afternoon sun through the tall buildings that make up downtown Atlanta. All too soon I’m pulling into an unfamiliar parking garage below a shiny high-rise apartment building that matches the address Sam left for me. I’m stopped by a security guard who steps out of his booth as I approach the gate.
I lower my window and smile at him. “Hi, I’m here to see Sam Cole. He lives here,” I explain, gesturing to the high-rise building.
The smirk on his face tells me he knows.
Sam is famous, I remind myself, the whole building probably knows. The thought makes me uneasy. What if word gets out that a mystery blonde in a silver Volvo is visiting Sam Cole at his home? Maybe I should have told Drew first.
“Name?”
“Lucy Bennett.”
“ID, please?”
I reach for my wallet and pull out my driver’s license.
The guard takes it from me and returns to his booth.
Am I supposed to be on some kind of list? Sam doesn’t even know that I’m coming today.
After a few seconds, the gate raises up and I feel a strange mix of relief and reluctance.
The security guard smiles and gives me back my ID. “You can park in spot 322 on level three. Mr. Cole reserves it for his guests.”
“Okay. Thank you.” I shove my license back inside my wallet, take a deep breath, and pull forward.
I wind through the garage until I’m on the third level. 322…322…I see it. And I pass it.
Not once.
Not twice.
But three times.
As I approach the spot a fourth time, I wonder if the guard is watching me on a security camera, thinking I’m some kind of half-wit. I park out of pride, but sit in my car for another ten minutes, until I finally get the nerve to open my door. When I do, I see an expensive-looking car parked beside me in spot 323 that I’m pretty sure is the same car Sam was driving the day he came by the studio.
I grab my purse and black leather jacket off the seat and take the stairs to the first level of the garage, hoping to buy myself some time to figure out what I’m going to say.
Less than a minute later, I’m standing at the entrance of the apartment building looking through the giant glass doors. I take another deep breath, reach for the shiny handle, and pull the heavy glass door open.
I walk inside where, once again, I’m greeted by a security guard who promptly addresses me. “May I help you?”
“Hi. Yes, I’m here to see Sam Cole. He lives in”—I eye the paper in my hand—“unit 2500.”
He gauges me with the same scrutiny as the parking garage guard. “Your name, please?”
“Lucy Bennett.”
He looks at his iPad and scrolls over the screen a few times. “Yes, ma’am,” he says, smiling at me. “I’ll just need to see your ID.”
I can’t help but wonder if this level of security is afforded to all the residents in this building, or just Sam. I hand over my ID and, after the guard reviews it, he hands it back and says, “I’ll let him know that you’re here.”
Oh. I nod nervously. There’s no turning back now.
“You’ll want to take the elevator to the twenty-fifth floor.”
I wait for him to give me further instructions, but he just smiles and says, “That’s it.”
“O-oh, okay.” I smile shyly. “Thank you.”
Has he got the whole floor?
When I reach the bank of elevators, I press the call button and eye my blurry reflection in the shiny stainless steel doors. I look like an abstract painting, with the black and white colors of my outfit blending together. There couldn’t be a truer depiction of my life right now. The ping of the arriving elevator startles me, and I consider turning around and getting back in my car, but the security guard in the lobby is still watching me, probably wondering if I need help. I smile at him and wave, then I take a deep breath, step inside the awaiting elevator, and look for the button for the twenty-fifth fl
oor.
23–24–PH. The twenty-fifth floor is the penthouse?
I take another deep breath and press the button. Expensive cars and penthouse apartments. I shake my head at the foreign thought.
The doors close and I’m whisked to the twenty-fifth floor before my stomach has a chance to catch up. When they open again, I step out of the elevator and take a second to steady myself. But the feeling doesn’t last long. Sam opens his apartment door—the only door in the small foyer surrounding the elevator—and the floor falls away again.
The corner of his mouth turns up just enough to gift me with a dimple that sends my heartbeat sprinting. “Hi,” he says over a crooked smile, and my heart pounds even harder.
“Hi,” I say softly, letting him pull the heavy blanket of emotion off me, until I feel like I’m floating.
He’s wearing gray joggers that look like they’re tailored to the lower half of his body and a white V-neck T-shirt that hugs his tattooed chest. His hair is messy and he’s barefoot. “I, um, I hope it’s not a bad time. You didn’t leave a number, so I couldn’t call…”
He crinkles his eyes, and I wonder if it’s on purpose. “It’s not a bad time.” He holds the door open for me. “Come in.”
I smile shyly and slip past him, taking in the soft scent of sandalwood and laundry detergent that clings to his shirt.
Holy crap. His apartment his huge.
I glance at the open space that is encased in floor-to-ceiling windows, the only thing I have time to notice before he draws my attention back to him. It feels intrusive to be standing in his apartment, as if seeing his personal space is going to expose a life I don’t want to acknowledge he’s had all this time. Just the thought of him standing in my living room and seeing proof of the life I’ve lived without him fills me with anxiety. I’m suddenly plagued with dread, for fear of what I might see when I look around, or who I might see. Why didn’t I think of this before? Why didn’t he just ask to meet him for coffee somewhere?
“Do you want a drink or something?” he asks, eyeing me carefully.
I’ve never been good at hiding my emotions. “Water would be great.”
I take my jacket off and follow him to the kitchen, keeping my eyes on him the whole time. I’m pretty sure it’s an impressive kitchen, by the gleam of the marble counters and the shine of the stainless steel refrigerator door that swings open, but I can’t say for sure because I’m staring at a small freckle on the back of his neck.
He turns around and the freckle is replaced by the V of his T-shirt and the tattoo peeking out of it. “You okay?” he asks, pulling my attention up to his face.
“Your eye. It looks so much better,” I say, examining it in the bright light. The bruising is gone and there’s just a thin line where the glue was holding his eyebrow together two weeks ago.
“Yeah, I guess I was still kind of mess from the fight when I stopped by.”
I shudder at the thought of him taking that hit from Sanchez.
“I’m sorry about that.”
A puff of air passes between my lips. “You’re apologizing for having a black eye?”
He hands me a bottle of water but doesn’t let go of it when I take it from him. “No, I’m apologizing for coming to see you. I wasn’t thinking.”
I gaze up at him and begin to feel the oxygen slowly seep from my blood, leaving me with a woozy head and a heavy heart. He’s exactly right. He shouldn’t have come to see me. So why does it hurt so much to hear him say it?
“I didn’t mean to upset you.” He takes a step closer, forcing me to step back until I’m bumping into the counter behind me.
I blink up at him, wrestling with my emotions, but I can’t think with him standing so close. “It’s, um, it’s okay.”
He lets go of the bottle and leans against the counter beside me.
I quickly open it and take a sip. Unwilling to look at him, I’m forced to take in my surroundings, but much to my surprise, there isn’t anything in the kitchen that appears harmful to my emotional health. Just a large wooden bowl filled with bananas, a coffee maker, a stack of papers, and a laptop.
“You’re a minimalist,” I say over the rim of the plastic bottle.
“I’m not here very much.”
“You travel a lot.”
He shrugs. “It’s part of the job. I leave again in the morning.”
“Where are you headed?”
“Las Vegas.”
“Ahh.” I raise my eyebrows. “Big party to attend?” I cringe at the thought of him partying in Vegas with God only knows who.
“No. I got Vegas out of my system a couple of years ago.” He smirks and I feel my face twist up as I recall reading a story about him partying all night in Vegas. “It’s for a charity fight.”
“Oh. You can fight again that soon?” His eye looks better, but it’s not completely healed.
“Doc said two weeks. It’s been two.” He watches me take another sip of my water. “I thought maybe you lost my address. Or threw it away.”
“Sounds like you’ve had a change of heart about coming to see me. Maybe I should have,” I say, feeling insecure about my decision to come see him now, especially if he doesn’t care one way or the other who I marry.
“I don’t regret coming to see you, Lucy. I just regret upsetting you.”
I take another sip from my half-empty bottle.
“I’m glad you came today,” he says.
I nod, unsure what to say. But the silence doesn’t last long.
“So are you going to tell me why you came to the fight now?” he asks, just like he did at the studio, his eyes still desperate for the answer.
I gaze into the familiar mix of blue and brown, and answer honestly. “Because I wanted to see you.”
His shoulders soften and slope a little. “Why?” he pushes, and my stomach tightens, because I think he has as many questions as I do, but he has no hesitation to ask them.
I give a weak shrug.
“You know, there was a time when you would tell me anything.”
“I guess the longer you keep something in, the harder it is to get out.”
“You don’t have keep it in. You can tell me.”
I laugh quietly, because what he doesn’t realize is that he is what I’ve been keeping in all this time.
“What is it?”
I drop my chin. “It’s everything. It’s all of it. The articles, the pictures, the videos, the interviews, the girls.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. You are what I’ve been keeping in all this time. The more famous you’ve become, the harder I’ve had to hold on to the secret.”
He pulls his eyebrows together and drops his chin. “Secret. That’s what I am.” He walks out of the kitchen, forcing me to follow him into the living room, which is filled with contemporary-looking furniture that surrounds a large stone fireplace. But once again, my eyes stay fixed on the back of his neck, so I don’t see much else. Surely there are pictures and memorabilia in here, ready to stab at my heart.
He turns around when he reaches the couch. “Are you embarrassed of me?”
“Embarrassed? No. Why would you—”
“It’s okay, I get it. Your life is different now.” He drops his eyes over me. “Sophisticated. I’m just a fuckup from Brighton Park who got lucky with a pair of gloves.” He sits down on the long gray sectional couch, rests his elbows on his knees, and laces his fingers together.
“Sam.” I sit beside him. “You are not a fuckup from Brighton Park. And I’m a little offended that you think I would ever be embarrassed of you.”
“Then why would you keep me a secret? I mean, no one knows about us? Not even your—”
“No.” I can’t bear to hear him say fiancé. “But not because of the reason you think.”
“Everyone close to me knows about you, Lucy, so I don’t really know what to think.”
“They do?”
“Yes.” He sits back and looks at me. “My life was on pa
use for three years while I was in prison. And I spent the majority of that time worrying about you and wondering about you and praying that I’d get to see you again. It’s why I started fighting again. Because I knew I could win. I knew I had to. So you could see who I really am, who I’ve always been. Who I could have been for you, if you’d only believed me.”
I swallow the giant lump in my throat and try to tame the wild thoughts that are running rampant through my mind.
“So yeah, they know who Lucy Bennett is. The girl I spent my whole life fighting for, and fight for still, even if it is in vain.”
“Sam.” I close my eyes and warm tears roll down my cheeks.
“I’m just having a hard time understanding why that same girl would keep me a secret.”
I drop my head into my hands and mumble, “Because you hurt too much.”
“What?”
I sit up and wipe my eyes. “Because you hurt too much. I was in a dark place for a long time, Sam. Drew eventually pulled me out of it, but I couldn’t bear to talk about you with him or anyone else.” I close my eyes and recall the pain I felt when he went to prison. “When you pled guilty, it was like the earth crumbled beneath me and everything I believed, everything I knew to be true, disintegrated.”
“I pled guilty because my lawyer told me to. He said it would lessen my sentence, and it did. I told you that.”
“But when you did that you were guilty.” I shake my head. “I really believed that. And I felt so betrayed. For a really long time. Because you were the only person I trusted.”
“I didn’t betray you, Lucy. You have to believe that. I would have never done that to you.”
I shrug, because it doesn’t change anything. “It doesn’t matter. You were gone. And so were we. Then one day, I turned on the TV and there you were, bulldozing your way back into my life and demolishing the walls I’d built around my heart. You were real. And I knew that what we had was real. But it didn’t change anything. It only made it harder.”
He holds his folded hands to his mouth and inhales a deep breath. “Then please, just tell me that you’re happy.”
