A Love Like Yours

by Robin Huber

  A strange feeling exudes from my chest and tingles down to my fingertips at the thought of seeing him again. Say no. “Okay.” Drew flashes through my mind, and I remember my original plan to tell Sam that he can’t come see me again. But the thought of this being our last goodbye is almost unbearable. I can’t do it. Not yet.

  “Why don’t you put my number in your phone and you can call when it’s a good time,” Sam suggests.

  “Okay.” I pull my phone out of my purse and tentatively add Sam to my contacts. “What’s your number?” I ask, ignoring the warning signs my mind is holding up. Proceed with caution…Dangerous territory.

  He recites his number and I enter it carefully.

  “I’m really glad you came by today, Luc.”

  “Me too,” I say, giving him a friendly hug goodbye. But when he winds his hands around my back and pulls me close, I don’t want him to let go.

  “I missed you,” he whispers, and I could die right here in his arms. If he’s a stranger, he sure as hell doesn’t feel like one. He feels like family, like my family that I’ve missed so very much.

  I close my eyes and breathe him in, nodding silently against his warm chest, savoring how it feels under my cheek. “I missed you too.”

  My phone buzzes in my hand like a warning shot sounding, and I let go of him and look at the screen. I hit ignore on the call from Drew and feel the blood drain from my face.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” I say, dropping Drew into my purse, which suddenly feels like a ton of bricks.

  Sam walks me to the elevator and presses the call button, and the doors open not a moment too soon. But my heart pounds when I step inside the empty elevator.

  “Have a safe trip tomorrow,” I say casually over the pulsing in my ears.

  He stands across from me, looking into my eyes, and it feels as if there’s a rubber band wrapped around us, pulling us back together. He takes a step toward me, but the elevator doors close, snapping the rubber band as I’m whisked away from him.

  I close my eyes and clutch my stomach, but I don’t think this feeling is going to go away anytime soon. I look at my blurry reflection in the shiny steel doors, grateful that I can’t see my face. I don’t think I could bear to look at myself right now.

  Chapter 10

  Sam

  I pull my hand away from the elevator door and grab my shirt. I try to rub away the ache in my chest, but it’s no use. “Fuck!” I slam my fist against my door and push it open. I’m so incredibly screwed. I close the door behind me and lean against it, and look around my empty apartment. I’ve never felt more alone than I do right now. I close my eyes and slide down the door until I’m sitting on the floor. I pull my knees up and fold my arms over them. She loves him.

  After a few minutes of feeling sorry for myself, I get up and pace around my apartment. She isn’t happy. I could see it in her eyes when I asked. I fall onto the couch and lean against the cushion where she was sitting, and breathe in the soft scent of her perfume. I can’t believe how beautiful she is. She was always pretty, but now…I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

  I fucking hate Andrew Christiansen. Does he know how lucky he is? Does he know how amazing Lucy is? Does he know all that she went through? Maybe it was wrong to spend the afternoon with her, but I don’t care. He has the only thing that ever made me happy. I’m not looking to do him any favors.

  I walk into my bedroom and lie on the bed. The truth is, I envy him. I grab the remote off my nightstand and lower the screens over the windows. I close my eyes and lie in the dark, listening to the sound of the ceiling fan, hoping sleep will put me out of my misery, but after a few minutes I open my eyes and resort to the only thing that has ever helped fill the hole Lucy left in my heart. I grab my phone and scroll through my contacts until I reach the M’s.

  “Molly. Let’s go out.”

  “Sam, get up,” Miles calls from the living room, waking me from a deep sleep. “Come on, champ, we’ve got to go,” he says again, walking into my bedroom. I try to ignore him, but he slaps me on the ass. “Let’s go.”

  “Jesus, Miles!” Molly shouts, covering herself with the sheet.

  “Remind me again why you have a key to my apartment?” I ask him.

  “Because if it weren’t for me barging in all the time, your sorry ass would miss every event you commit to.”

  “That you commit to, not me,” I grumble, and sit up.

  “Good point. If it weren’t for me, your sorry ass wouldn’t have a career.” He grabs my arm and pulls me up. “Let’s go.”

  “I’ll see you later, Sam,” Molly says, gathering her clothes off the floor.

  “Thanks for last night,” I say to her.

  She shoves her hand into my hair and gives me a sincere look. “You know I’m here if you need me, right?”

  “Yeah, Molls, I know.”

  She gives me a soft smile. “Goodbye, Miles,” she calls over her shoulder as she leaves.

  “Goodbye, Molly,” he says, rolling his eyes.

  I stretch and head for the shower.

  “You’re still banging that chick?” Miles asks, following me into the bathroom.

  “She’s not some chick, she’s my friend.”

  “I thought I was your friend.”

  “You are my friend. But I’m not going to sleep with you. So stop begging.” I strip down and turn the shower on.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not in the market for an STD.”

  “Hey.” I step out of the shower. “I don’t have unprotected sex, and I get tested every six weeks. I’m clean.”

  “Calm down. I was kidding.” He shakes his head and walks out of the bathroom. “I’ll be in the kitchen. I’m going to make some coffee.”

  I stand under the hot water not thinking, until Lucy comes creeping back into my mind like a weed. It was all I could do to block her out while I was with Molly, but now all I can think about is seeing her again.

  When I’m through with my shower, I turn off the water and grab my toothbrush.

  “You got something to tell me?” Miles asks, walking back into the bathroom, holding something sparkly in his hand.

  “What is that?” I ask with a mouthful of toothpaste.

  He holds up a diamond ring, and I know instantly that it’s Lucy’s. I spit out the toothpaste. “Where did you find that?”

  “It was on the kitchen counter.”

  “It’s Lucy’s.”

  “Lucy who?” His eyes widen. “Lucy, Lucy?”

  “The one and only.”

  “How the fuck did you end up with her ring?” He drops his hand and gives me a hard look. “Tell me you didn’t.” He closes his eyes and starts pacing around the bathroom. “I said I needed you focused on getting closure, Sam! Not on the girl who wrote you off the second you had a pair of handcuffs slapped on your wrists.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. It wasn’t like that,” I say, feeling a shift in my stance on everything I believed for nearly a decade.

  “Oh, I think I know.” He stops pacing. “But maybe you need a reminder. The only people who gave a shit about you back then are the ones who stuck with you when you were incarcerated. Joe, Tris…they never gave up on you the whole time you were in that shit hole. You didn’t have to prove anything to them. They knew you weren’t guilty. They knew you were great. They knew you could be the champ. The only thing she ever saw was a criminal.”

  I shake my head and let out a controlled breath. “You’re wrong.”

  “Where was she when you were locked in that cell, huh? In some fancy house in some stuck-up suburban neighborhood. She wasn’t thinking about you. She was too busy banging her way into high society.”

  I lunge across the bathroom and pin him against the wall with my forearm, pressing it against his neck. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I growl at him.

  “Get off me,” he grits through his teeth, and I struggle to contain the fire raging through me. “Get
the fuck off me!”

  I let go of him and step back.

  “Are you crazy?”

  I grab the counter and take a deep breath.

  “You want to risk everything you’ve worked for, go ahead. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He slaps Lucy’s ring down on the counter.

  “I didn’t sleep with her.” I turn around and he runs his hand through dark hair.

  “So what, she just came over and took her engagement ring off so you could chat?”

  “She must have taken it off when we were cooking.”

  He pulls his eyebrows together. “You were cooking together?”

  I cross my arms over my chest and shrug.

  “I told you to go tell her goodbye. Not ask her on a date.”

  “I tried. But…it’s complicated.” I shake my head. “And it wasn’t a date. We just talked.”

  “Listen to me, Sam. I’m not just telling you this as your manager, I’m telling you this as your friend. You are treading on very dangerous ground here. Just promise me you’ll think before you do anything stupid.”

  “You don’t have to worry, Miles.”

  He lets out a heavy sigh. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” I say, nodding to the wall behind him.

  “What, you mean the wall? That you shoved me into?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Stupid idiot.”

  I grin. “Still haven’t figured out why you like me so much.”

  “Well, I’d lie and say it was about the money, but the truth is you’re like a brother to me. And somebody’s got to look out for your ass.”

  “Ah, Miles, I love you too.”

  “Shut up.”

  “That was a hell of a fight,” Joe says encouragingly, buttoning up my shirt.

  I hold my casted hand out so he can roll up my sleeve. “It was pathetic.”

  “Ahh, it doesn’t count. It was for charity.”

  “It’s still a draw. The first one of my career.”

  “You weren’t exactly in your head tonight, were you?”

  “No.”

  “You know better than to throw a punch like that. You’re lucky you didn’t break every bone in your hand.”

  “Just the one.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s a small hairline fracture. It should heal pretty fast.”

  “Is the cast really necessary?”

  “No. But it’s the only way to keep you off the bag. You’ve got a big fight coming up. Your hand needs to heal as much as possible before then, so you can be ready for it.”

  “I’ll be ready.”

  He pats my cheek. “I know you will, champ. Take the next few days to work out whatever’s eatin’ ya, okay?”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  Miles walks in and eyes my cast. “Jesus Christ.” He holds his hands out and looks me up and down. “You got any other injuries I need to know about?” He takes my unbruised face in his hands and inspects it. “I don’t believe it. The only injury you got, you did to yourself.”

  “I’m my own worst enemy.”

  “You said it.” He grins and wraps his arm around my neck. “You look good. You ready?”

  “Yeah.” I follow him to a media room for a panel interview and take my seat beside him.

  Everyone begins asking me questions at once, but Miles picks the reporter he wants me to respond to, and the room gets quiet.

  I lean in to the microphone and ask, “Can you repeat the question?”

  One by one, they take turns asking me the same question a different way, all of them wanting to know about my hand and what my plan for recovery is. But the last reporter surprises me when she says, “You said you were distracted tonight. I don’t mean to get personal, but I can’t help but wonder if a girl isn’t responsible for your loss of focus in the ring?” She smiles and the room joins her in quiet laughter. The status of my love life regularly comes up in interviews, but for the first time, it’s actually relevant.

  Miles puts his hand over my mic, leans in to his, and says, “Okay, we’re not here to talk about his love life.”

  “So you’re still single?” she presses.

  “Come on,” Miles says, irritated.

  I lean in to my mic, look directly into the camera in front of me, and say, “For now.”

  Chapter 11

  Lucy

  My phone vibrates on my bathroom counter, but my hands are covered in face wash, so I don’t answer the call. It’s been forty-eight hours since I left Sam’s apartment, and in that time, with plenty of space between us to think clearly, I’ve decided that I have to let him go. As painful as that decision is, my life is here with Drew. And it’s a good life. A comfortable life. A nice, normal life. The kind of life that I used to dream of as a kid. Drew loves me and he doesn’t deserve to be the third point in a love triangle that he doesn’t even know about. Not to mention that his mother took me under her wing, made me feel like family, and singlehandedly launched my budding art career with her clout in the community. I owe her so much.

  I rinse my face and hands under the warm water, and my phone buzzes again. I grab a hand towel, pat my face dry, and look at the screen. Sebastian. I put him on speaker so I can continue with my nighttime routine. “Hey,” I answer, dotting my eyes with anti-wrinkle cream that Janice gave me. She says I’ll thank her in my forties if I use it in my twenties.

  “Sam broke his hand.”

  I stop dotting. “What?”

  “He broke his hand during the Vegas charity fight.”

  The fight wasn’t televised live here, so I haven’t watched it yet. “Wait. What? How do you know? How could he break his hand?” Isn’t that what gloves are for?

  “Turn on ESPN.”

  I run into my bedroom and turn on the TV. I know all the sports networks by heart, so I find the channel quickly. Sam is sitting for a panel interview surrounded by cameras and reporters. The news scroll at the bottom of the screen reads: Sam Cole breaks his hand during a Las Vegas charity fight.

  I pull my hand to my mouth. “Oh, my God.”

  “I know.”

  “I’ll call you back.” I hang up the phone and stare at the screen, watching Sam intently.

  He nods and answers the reporters’ questions. His hand is in a hard cast that wraps around his outer three fingers and covers his wrist.

  What happened? I listen to his manager explain how he fractured his fifth metacarpal throwing a bad punch, a surprisingly common injury in inexperienced boxers. But Sam isn’t inexperienced.

  He assures the media that it’s a simple fracture that should heal quickly. Joe chimes in and tells the crowd that gloves are intended to protect the face, but good wrapping and proper technique are what protect the hands. When asked if his hand was wrapped properly before the fight, Sam leans in to his microphone and says, “Everyone on my team makes sure I’m ready before each fight. Tonight was no different. If there’s anyone to blame for this stupid mistake”—he holds up his casted hand—“it’s me. I was the only one who came unprepared tonight. I was distracted and I lost focus out there. That’s on me.”

  Distracted? I chew the corner of my mouth, but when that doesn’t provide the relief I need, I pull my thumbnail to my teeth. I chew it nervously throughout the remainder of the interview, until Sam answers the final question.

  He smirks at the bubbly brunette reporter who asks him if he’s single, and then he looks directly into the camera, into my bedroom, into my soul, and says, “For now.”

  I swallow hard and stare at the TV, even as the network switches to a different story. I rewind it and watch it again.

  For now.

  …

  For now.

  …

  For now.

  My phone rings and I know it’s Sebastian. I hold the phone up to my ear.

  “Oh. My. God.”

  I don’t say anything.

  “Lucy!”

  “What?”

 
“Did you see the interview?”

  “I saw it.”

  “And?”

  “And what, Bas?” I ask, irritated.

  He’s quiet for a second. “Oh, okay, we’re doing the denial thing. In that case, I didn’t see a thing. Not a single thing. Especially not Sam looking directly into the camera suggesting he doesn’t plan on staying single for long. Or when he said he was too distracted to focus on the match, in which he broke his hand and received the first draw of his career. And I certainly didn’t contemplate what on earth could have been so distracting to a world champion boxer that he could forget how to throw a proper punch.”

  “Are you trying to make me feel like shit? Because it’s working.”

  “I’m trying to make you realize that the boy is still crazy about you.”

  “So what if he is? It doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters if you feel the same way.”

  Drew walks into the bedroom with his bag slung over his shoulder. “I have to go. Drew just got home.”

  “Did you find your ring yet?”

  “I have to go, Sebastian,” I say again, ignoring his inappropriately timed question. I hang up the phone and turn off the TV. “I didn’t hear you come in.” I smile at Drew, trying to ignore the way my heart is pounding inside my chest.

  “What was Sebastian making you feel like shit about?”

  “Oh, my ring,” I say impulsively, feeling the need point it out before he notices that it’s missing. “I took it off at the studio to paint and can’t remember where I put it. Sebastian was just giving me crap about it on your behalf.” As soon as the lie slips off my tongue, I regret it. Just tell him the truth. You took it off at Sam’s apartment while you were cooking and didn’t realize it was missing until the next morning because you were too busy crying yourself to sleep over the fact that you’ve decided to let him go.

  Drew pulls me up off the bed by my left hand and looks at my naked ring finger, but I pull it away before he notices that it’s shaking. I swallow hard and prepare myself to tell him about Sam, but it’s about as easy as jumping off a cliff. “Drew, I, um…” I swallow hard and blink up at him. “I—”