“WHAT?” MAYA’S EYES were round as coasters. “He can’t do that!”
They were in the kitchen, Lindsey stirring the leftover chili she was heating up for their dinner. She’d known her sister wouldn’t take the news of Rich’s imminent departure well.
“He’s got a chance for a really big-deal fight. He has to get back to San Diego and train his butt off.”
“What about us?”
A shrug was all Lindsey could muster, a limp imitation of apathy and acceptance when all she wanted to do was scream. “Rich doesn’t owe us anything. And I’m sure if he hadn’t gotten this opportunity, he’d be happy to keep training you through the month. And don’t forget—Mercer said he’d work with you.”
“It’s not the same!”
No, it wasn’t. “I’m sorry, but that’s how it is.” It was a truth Lindsey needed to accept, too, even as her exciting new reality fell to pieces around her.
Maya slumped against the counter. “He promised he’d work with me until September. We made a deal.”
“I don’t know what else to tell you. Sometimes we have to leave important things behind, when even more important ones are at stake. Just like you have to put training on hold when school starts.”
Maya offered a joyless, disbelieving laugh. “Oh, I am not going back now.”
Lindsey countered with her best leveling stare.
“No way. Rich was, like, the only teacher I’ve ever had who made me feel like I was special at something. No way I’m going back. They’ll probably be happy I don’t. One less crappy score messing up their stupid standardized tests and making the school look bad—”
“I’m ending this discussion,” Lindsey said. “We can talk more about it when you’ve calmed down.”
“Fine,” she snapped. “Fine. He just better not be smiling when I show up for my lesson tomorrow, thinking it’s cool to just—”
“You should find out if it’s still on. God knows what stuff Rich has to run around and get done.”
“What? He’s just going to brush me off?”
She abandoned the chili, turning to hold Maya’s shoulders. “Seriously, chill out. You can’t take it personally.”
Yet personal was so exactly how it felt to Lindsey. Her brain knew it wasn’t, but her heart was ripped and ragged. She’d been left behind for better things before. Brett’s abandonment had happened in slow motion, but the pain stayed the same—only concentrated this time around.
Maya slipped out of Lindsey’s hold. “I’m going to my room until dinner.”
“Fine.”
After her sister left, Lindsey leaned into the counter, succumbing to a bone-rattling sigh. Some damage control was needed, lest Rich get blindsided by a tornado of teenage outrage tomorrow at the gym. She turned the burner down and found her phone.
He didn’t answer, and when the beep prompted her to speak she ended the call, throat too tight, mind a blank. Five minutes later her phone jingled, Rich’s name on the screen.
“Hi,” she said, hearing shouts and bass in the background, the unmistakable soundtrack of the gym.
“You just call?”
“Yes, with a bit of a heads-up. I just broke it to Maya you’re going back west, and to say she took it poorly is the understatement of the year.”
“Shit. I hadn’t even thought that far ahead. But I’m heading out now—I’ll swing by when I get home, if you think that’ll help.”
“Probably better than suffering her tantrum in the gym with all those witnesses.”
“No doubt. I’ll bring a mouth guard in case it gets ugly.”
“See you in a bit.”
She didn’t bother telling her sister he was coming—it’d only give her a chance to rehearse her diatribe. They were just ladling chili into bowls when the knock came at the door.
Maya’s eyes narrowed. “That better not be him.”
Lindsey headed for the door, shocked as always by the size of him, the way his face made her IQ drop fifty points. “Hey. Brace yourself.”
Rich smiled and hopped inside, spotting Maya at the table. “Hey, kid.”
She glared daggers at him. “Hey, traitor.”
He made his way over, flipping a chair around and sitting. Lindsey took his crutches and leaned them against the wall, then settled down with her own bowl.
“Traitor, huh? I knew you’d make a good fighter. Fans love a grudge match.”
Maya kept on glaring as she blew at her steaming chili.
“Look, kid—”
“Quit calling me kid.”
“Sorry. Maya. But listen—I’d happily keep working with you, if this thing hadn’t come up. But you have to admit, if somebody offered you a hundred grand to drop everything and give up the next three months of your life...tell me you wouldn’t do it.”
She couldn’t tell him a thing—the figure had struck her dumb.
“But you must get Christmas break, right? We can pick up where we’re leaving off when I come home.”
The shock faded, her anger returning, but diminished. “I’ll have forgotten everything I’ve learned by then.”
“Well, that’s your fault, if you don’t practice.”
“No, it’s your fault. For promising something, then going back on it.”
“I’m sorry. This is my job, and I have to earn that money for my family. We don’t have a dad like you guys do. Okay? I never meant to let you down, but it’s not like I’m the only trainer out there.”
“You’re the only one who’d ever see anything in me,” Maya said.
“That’s not true. Plus, I promise you, I’m the worst trainer Wilinski’s has. You’ll be in way better hands with Merce or any of those other guys the next couple weeks.”
But Lindsey was on Maya’s side on this one. Rich was irreplaceable.
“It’s not the same,” Maya said, but the passion had gone out of her voice.
Lindsey had to wonder exactly what breed of attachment had her sister so upset. Not a starry-eyed crush, she didn’t think, nothing romantic or physical. It had to be that Rich was the one who’d discovered her, in a way. The first authority figure—the first cool adult, for that matter—who thought she was special. Not a father figure, not even a fun older brother. But a successful, talented stranger who had absolutely no reason to invest his time or energy being kind to her, but had chosen to anyway. It broke Lindsey’s heart to fully appreciate what this meant to her sister.
Rich raked his hands through his hair. “I don’t know what to tell you. This is the biggest thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“Me, too,” she muttered, and stood with a squeak of her chair. She left the room and Lindsey put a hand to Rich’s forearm to tell him to let her go.
After Maya’s door slammed, Lindsey registered the warm muscle under her fingers and pulled them away. “She’ll calm down. She got to vent how she was feeling, which is the important thing.”
He shrugged. “If she decides to come for a final lesson, I’m happy to let her pummel me, if that helps.”
“Want some chili? We’ve got loads.”
“Thanks, but no.” He got uneasily to his feet and Lindsey fetched his crutches. “My mom has something in the oven. And I’ve got to break the news to her and Diana still.”
“Oh, right. Won’t they be happy?”
“Diana will be, for both the money and because she gets that this is my thing. My mom’ll be stressed. And bummed, since she’s been so excited to have me home.” He headed for the door and Lindsey opened it. “It’s like a deployment. She gets that I need to do it, but she still hates that it means I’ll be away for months at a time, risking bodily harm. And two days is, like, no warning at all. The rosary’s in for a hell of a workout tonight.”
“Good luck.”
“Once all the weeping and praying’s done, odds are twenty to one the next order of business’ll be planning a going-away dinner for tomorrow night. Consider yourselves invited.”
“Thanks.”
They both paused, and it drove home to Lindsey just exactly what they were to each other—friends. With benefits, sure, but friends at the end of the day.
I’m upset, too, she longed to confess. Maya’s meltdown embodied everything Lindsey felt about Rich’s departure but couldn’t be said. My heart hurts. At least let me sleep next to you one more time. Let me memorize every second with your arms wrapped around me.
She’d let herself believe she’d have more chances, enough chances for their infatuation to run its course and lose its fire, dull this pain when Rich inevitably left. But he’d be gone in two days, not two months, and she was still smoldering.
Rich put his hand to her jaw, stroked her cheek with an apology in his eyes. For her? For Maya? She felt tears brewing and panicked, pulling away with a burning face. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He straightened, offering a weak smile. “You better.”
Already her chin was trembling, and she backed away, praying he couldn’t tell. “Congrats again.”
Another smile, one Lindsey didn’t entirely buy, and he hopped around to begin the awkward trip down the steps.
The tears were falling before she even got the door shut. She emptied Maya’s untouched bowl back into the pot, then her own. Apparently, nobody felt much like chili tonight.
* * *
IT TOOK EVERY scrap of enthusiasm Lindsey could fake to smile when Lorena opened the door the next evening.
“Welcome, girls.” She eyed the Tupperware container of cupcakes Lindsey held. “Aren’t you sweet?” She swept them into the kitchen.
Diana was setting the table, Andre rinsing salad greens in the sink. Their greetings didn’t hang heavily with the angst Lindsey felt. To them, this going-away party had its emphasis on party. But all Lindsey could seem to focus on was the going-away. Far away. For months.
It’s good, she told herself. If you really loved him, you’d be happy for him. As it was, she couldn’t help but feel bad for what she was losing. It’s not love, she promised herself. Not love, not love.
“Where’s Rich?” Maya asked.
“Destinking himself,” Diana said. “Takes him forever with that stupid cast.”
He made his appearance shortly, hopping into the kitchen, hair wet and gleaming. “Smells good.”
His mother fussed until he made it onto a chair. Rich shot Lindsey and Maya a nervous smile, and rightfully so. He’d had to cancel Maya’s lesson and Lindsey hadn’t spotted him around the building all day. The last time he’d seen them he’d been gifted with a tantrum and thoroughly half-assed congratulations. Such excellent thanks after he’d found Lindsey a home and given up his free time to work with her sister. Well done, Tuttles.
Lindsey dug deep and offered a genuine smile.
While the others were heaping plates, she touched his shoulder and said, “Sorry about last night.”
“What about it?”
“You know.” She nodded to Maya. “I shouldn’t have asked you to come and put out my fires when you’re bound to be so busy.”
He waved the thought aside. “I started that fire. Wouldn’t be fair to leave you on your own with it.”
His mother set a plate in front of him, and Lindsey went to assemble her own dinner. She wasn’t sure what the main dish was, aside from looking a bit like paella and smelling divine. As she sat, she glanced around the table, wondering if anyone suspected what had gone on upstairs after the last dinner they’d been invited to. How soundproof was this place? She blushed, thankful everyone was preoccupied, passing condiments and raving over their first bites.
Dinner passed in a flurry of questions about Rich’s match and training regimen, fretful and excited alike.
“Enjoy this now,” Diana teased. “No way they’re letting you anywhere near a plate of arroz marinero until your fight’s over.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“I’ll text you photos of Thanksgiving dinner,” she added. “To inspire you before your weigh-in.”
“If you do, you’re out of my thank-you spiel.”
She stuck her tongue out at him, and the conversation shifted to Andre’s upcoming job interview at the local radio station.
Soon enough, second helpings and cupcakes had been consumed, and the dishes were rinsed and loaded. Diana and Andre excused themselves to watch a show in the living room, and Lorena bade everyone good-night, with a nagging reminder for Rich to be up early for his flight.
Maya had chilled out during the meal, but she was still mired largely in her own disappointment. She cast Lindsey and Rich a look, one that said she understood Lindsey’s farewell wasn’t something requiring witnesses.
“Thanks,” she said to Rich, and let him hug her with a stooped tangle of crutches. “It was cool of you to work with me as much as you did.”
“Wish I could’ve seen you through to September.”
“I’ll probably live. Have a safe flight.”
He flicked her temple and she scowled, then held up her guard with a grudging smile and headed for the door. “You better win or I’ll be pissed,” she added over her shoulder. Then to Lindsey, “I’m stealing your computer, okay?”
“Color me shocked. I’ll be up in a minute.”
Then the door shut behind Maya, and it was just the two of them.
Rich grinned and asked, “Only a minute? That bodes poorly for either my chances or my longevity.”
She laughed, cheeks heating, the sudden flirtation throwing her for a fresh loop.
“I’m sorry about last night, too,” he added quietly. “I’d have asked if you wanted to hang out, but...”
“You had some major news to break to your mom.”
“But I’m all packed now, if you felt like having a goodbye drink...?”
Did she?
An invitation to one last taste of their addictive chemistry, a hard offer to pass up. But also an invitation to let Rich burrow that much deeper under her skin, make their actual parting sting all the more. Her obsessive crush had dogged her for ten months the last time he’d gone away. This time she’d be saying goodbye to a friend and lover, not just a hot acquaintance. Every resulting emotion was bound to ache a hundred times worse—longing, jealousy, uncertainty...
But one look at the hopeful, mischievous gleam in those dark eyes, and she knew her answer.
“Sure. That’d be nice.” Yeah, nice. Nice and masochistic.
They made their way up to Rich’s floor, pausing in his kitchen to grab a pair of beers.
“My last drink till Thanksgiving.” He smiled, handing her both bottles. “Would you like to see my belt?”
She laughed. “I would, actually.”
He led her down the hall. “Oldest trick in the book.”
“Funny how you didn’t need it last time.”
He flipped on his bedroom light and ditched the crutches, hopping to the corner beside his closet. From a flat cardboard box he lifted the belt from between sheets of bubble wrap. Lindsey’s eyes grew wide and she set the beers on his dresser, crossing the room.
“Wow, it’s heavy.” A black-leather-and-gold-plated monstrosity, all done up with rivets, the organization’s logo on an octagonal field of chain-link pattern. “Can I try it on?”
“You can wear it to bed for all I care. In fact...” His eyes glazed, suggesting he was imagining her wearing nothing but the belt to bed.
She rolled her eyes and wrapped it around her waist, holding it in place as she went to the wall of mirrors.
“Wow, I look tough.” She swiveled this way and that, watching the gold glint. “And it’s so slimming.”
“I wish I could’ve shown my sixteen-year-old self this. Some hot blonde in my room, modeling my championship belt.”
Lindsey did her best cheesy impression of a ring girl, holding the belt aloft and grinning sex-beams all around the room.
“Okay, okay. It’s going to your head.” He took the belt from her with a smile, nesting it back inside its bubble wrap.
“Do you have to give it back if somebody beats you?”
“No. That’d be kinda gross, considering how many dudes’ sweat and blood it’d get marinated in.”
“Ew.”
He grabbed his beer and hopped to sit on the mattress and unlace his shoe. Lindsey followed suit.
They sat cross-legged, sipping their drinks and talking about the fight for a long time. Then Rich shot her a look, dark with bad intentions.
“What?” she asked, knowing perfectly well what. He took her bottle and set it with his on the bedside table. Her middle gurgled with those nerves it seemed she’d never stop feeling, no matter how many times she got close to this man.
Rich lay down, urging her to join him. He sandwiched her knee between his, smiling as he brushed her hair from her face. His gaze jumped from her eyes to her mouth and back again, half a dozen times before he finally leaned in to kiss her. The contact warmed her from her head through her middle, all the way to her toes and fingertips. More than lust, it was the familiarity of this touch, this mouth, this man that had her entire body blushing. She curled her fingers around his collar and deepened the kiss.
Rich tugged her into the embrace, hugging her leg between his thighs. A strong hand molded to her waist, coaxing her center closer to his. Everything that had happened the last time they shared this bed flashed through her memory, sped through her bloodstream. But behind the arousal, a storm cloud lurked.
This is goodbye. No matter how good it is, you might never enjoy it again. And in a few short hours, Rich wouldn’t be this man in her arms. He’d be that face on a screen, belonging to everyone.
His hands were at her hem, sliding her top up. She pushed the painful thoughts aside and helped him peel it away. He did the same, and for blissful minutes she got lost in his mouth and the sensation of his restless flesh warming hers. She felt him smile against her lips, heard that smug, happy hum in his throat.
Some other woman could be relishing that same sound, and who knows how soon? Could be tasting this mouth, feeling these hands on her bare skin.
The worries set snakes loose in her belly, twisting queasily.
Rich’s fingers found the button of her jeans. She let him lower her fly and ease his palm inside to knead her hip. Eager, he took her hand, pressing it to the front of his pants to find his cock stiff and ready behind the smooth fabric. He slid his hand back inside her jeans to return the caress, and for a minute she was too turned on to feel anything aside from desire.
Then a helpless, hungry moan fell from his lips to warm hers, and the reality of what she was doing—and what she stood to lose—hit home.
Another moan, and he murmured, “I’m going to miss this so much more than beer and ribs.”
She went rigid against him, her hand fleeing to his hip.
“There’s so much I wanted to do with you,” he whispered. “I thought we’d have weeks.”
Her voice quavered. “Me, too.”
His fingers stroked her, slick and eager. “Before I go...I have to know how you taste.” He began edging down her body. “If you’ll let me.”
“I...”
Noticing she’d gone stiff as stone, he paused and met her eyes. “You okay?”
“I don’t know.”
“We don’t have to, I just like it. But if you—”
She pulled away, feeling naked.
“What’s the matter?”
“I can’t do this.”
* * *
RICH SAT UP as Lindsey did the same, dizzy as his body tried to flip so quickly from lust to alarm. His cock ached, angry. But even addled with arousal, he could guess exactly when he’d stepped in it.
Smooth one, jackass.
“Linds, wait. I’m sorry—I was kidding, about the ribs and beer. I’m not really rounding you in with that stuff.”
She yanked her top back on. “I know. It’s not that.”
“What, then?”
She swallowed, meeting his eyes. “I thought I could just roll with this, like it’s just fun to me—just sex. But I can’t. I’m sorry.”
He slung his bad leg over the edge of the bed as Lindsey scrambled for her socks and shoes. “Hey, hey. Slow down.”
She studied him as she buttoned and zipped her jeans, some mix of hesitance and resignation in her eyes.
He patted the comforter. “C’mere.”
She sat. “Sorry. This was all supposed to be really simple, just the two of us hooking up.”
“But it’s not?”
“Not to me,” she said, eyes on the blanket, then she sighed. “I wanted it to be.”
What had it been to him? he had to wonder. A pleasant diversion, to start. A mutually pleasurable arrangement, and one he got to share with a woman he now saw as a friend—not usually how sex worked for him. If it was something more, he couldn’t afford to let himself think about it. This time tomorrow, he’d be three thousand miles away. It was a nonoption for too many reasons.
Was he supposed to touch her? Hold her? Unsure, he reached out to rub her knuckles with his fingertips, all the closeness he dared hazard. “What is it for you?”
“I’m not sure. A crush, I guess.” This woman, always ready with a barbed retort, yet the admission had her bashful and mumbling. “A bad one. One that gets worse every time we...you know.”
That, he understood. The sex should have quenched their thirst for one another, but even he could admit that it only deepened the craving. “Right.”
“And as much I want to, I dunno...make the most of you while you’re here...it’s making it worse. I want way more than you can give me.” She paused, huffing a frustrated breath. “Sorry. I didn’t want to ever have this conversation with you.”
“How come?”
“The same reason it hurts so bad now. Because I knew the score, and I thought I was fine with it being whatever it was, just temporary. And knowing that was supposed to keep me from getting emotional about it. About you.”
If someone had given Rich a heads-up about this discussion, he’d have gone into it with dread, formulating a plan to cut her loose as painlessly as possible. It’s not you, it’s me. Which was exactly true, come to think of it. Lindsey was great. She was wonderful. And she deserved a guy who could offer what she herself was prepared to give.
He cleared his throat. “I can’t be that for you. Anything more than this,” he added, nodding to mean the bed. Never had words left his mouth and made his chest hurt so acutely. Was this guilt? It didn’t feel like guilt.
“I know you can’t. I knew going in. That’s why I feel so stupid for even being upset. You were supposed to leave thinking I was as blasé about our hooking up as you are.”
Not guilt, he realized—grief. I can’t be that for you. It was the truth, but he wished it wasn’t.
Rich bit his tongue, so close to admitting it was different for him, as well. But that was a luxury he couldn’t afford. “If I come off like I don’t care, it’s nothing personal. I can’t be anything extra to anybody at this point in my life—not aside from my family. I can’t make room for anything else, not until I know I’ve done my job as a provider.”
Her smile was limp and void of surprise, twisting his aching heart. “And when will you feel like you’ve succeeded at that?”
The question spurred a different pang. “I’ll just know. I’ll know when I’ve done enough that I can make room for other things. Other people.” He had to believe that.
She cast her eyes down and took a deep breath.
“Sorry,” he offered, rubbing the back of her hand.
“Don’t be sorry. I’m not sad for myself, not beyond feeling really dumb. Not the way I feel sad for you.”
“For me?”
“It sounds so...lonely. Only letting yourself be one thing. Like you’re hiding behind your role as a provider.”
A new feeling surged, one that jabbed with a hot, sharp finger. Hiding. Lonely. Rich knew isolation. His father had modeled it for him perfectly. “I’m not hiding from anything. I’m stepping up and doing what needs to be done. I’m not hiding.” So why on earth would the allegation sting the way it did?
Lindsey’s hand slipped from his as she stood. “You’re cheating yourself, acting like you’ve only got one dimension.” She hopped, pulling on a sock.
“Has it never occurred to you that maybe I do? I’m good at exactly one thing.”
She gave him a long, peculiar look, as if translating what he’d said from another language. “There’s a lot more to you than that. And it hurts to hear you say the opposite, since that means you must think I was only ever interested in you because of your job or your money—”
“Linds.”
“Because it was never about that for me.”
What had it been for her at the start? Sex? Surely not—Lindsey struck him as too complex a woman for such a simple answer. “What then?”
“I guess...just you.”
“What do you mean?”
She sat and pulled on the other sock, thinking. “If I needed anything from you...I don’t know what to call it. But it’s not something that could be taken away by an injury or a loss.”
The words jabbed him anew, discomfort churning.
“It was how you made me feel, maybe. When it was just us, just being with each other. There’s this fire in you. This...energy. This thing that made me forget who you were, outside the body in my arms, or the man standing across the room from me.” All at once she looked mortified again.
Rich didn’t know what to say—he wasn’t even 1 percent as good as she was with all this emotional, self-awareness stuff. He needed labels, simple names to assign to who he was and what he felt. Angry, horny, triumphant, exhausted. Tidy, black-and-white terms that reduced his emotions to on-off switches.
She sighed. “I get that we see the world differently. I’m not trying to get you to change your mind, or saying you should. I guess I just want to say, don’t sell yourself short. You’ve got more to offer than the things you give yourself credit for. And you deserve to feel valued for those things.”
Nobody ever said stuff like this to Rich, no one except his mom and sister. The women who knew him. He felt a bone-deep shiver and had to look away from those searching blue eyes. How she managed to peer right through his skin and into his heart, he’d never know. And it was yet another unnamed sensation he couldn’t handle right now.
“Anyway,” she said, slipping into her shoes.
He opened his mouth but nothing came out. Only one thought wanted to be aired, but he couldn’t go there.
Are you in love with me?
Even if she was, Rich would have no clue what to do with it.
He’d been told that by women before. Tipsy women, more often than not, with that starstruck heat in their eyes, right before or after he took them to bed to cap off a fight. That shallow adoration. I think I might love you, he’d been told, and he’d smiled as if he believed it. But in his brain, all that echoed was You don’t know the first thing about me. About who I am, where I’m from, what matters to me, what goes through my head before I fall asleep. You don’t love me. You haven’t even met me. But he let them believe they did. Let himself believe it for as long as it took to bed them, because the truth was too lonely to contemplate.
But Lindsey.
She did know him, as much any lover ever had. And those moments when his walls had slipped and he’d told her things...she had actually met him. Peeled him open like a banana, when all these years he’d imagined his defenses were impenetrable.
She offered a weak smile. “Thanks for everything you did for my sister.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’m sure I’ll see you around, next time you’re home. Sorry if I just made it awkward.”
He froze, throat too tight to reply.
“Have a safe flight.” She mustered a smirk, some of the sadness gone. “Kick Farreira’s ass.”
He returned her smile, but still no words came.
Grab her hand. Pull her back. Kiss her until you know what to say to keep her from going. But the surety that let Rich step nearly naked into a cage...it was nowhere close to the courage he needed now. He let her turn. Let her walk out, watching the shadows in the hall flicker until she’d gone.
A distant squeak, a click and a minute later, muted footsteps above him as Lindsey retired to her own room.
Rich lay back and held his hand up toward the ceiling, opening and closing his fingers. Her body was no more than ten feet from his.
Yet he’d never felt so alone in his entire life.