She smiles up at me.
“I may never stop wanting to do that,” I admit.
She winds her hands in my hair and pulls my mouth back to hers. “Good.”
* * *
“Sam…Lucy,” Miles shouts from the living room. “If you’re naked, put some clothes on. I’m coming in.”
I grumble against Lucy’s neck—her smooth, warm, perfect neck—and kiss it softly, tasting her skin on my tongue for a brief second, before she climbs off me.
“Stop, enough people have seen me naked this week,” she says with wide eyes, giving me a salacious smile as she quickly gets to her feet. She fumbles through a large mound of clothes on the floor and pulls out a T-shirt and a pair of her sweatpants.
I get up and pull on a pair of joggers and head to the living room with a very sexy, messy-haired blonde on my heels. “Miles, you can’t just barge in here anymore,” I say when I see him.
“Don’t look at me.” He glances over his shoulder at Tristan, who has an annoyed look on his face.
“I called you like ten times,” Tristan says, dropping his gym bag on the couch. “Hey, Luc,” he says to her with an unapologetic smile. “How you doing?”
“Hey, Tristan,” she says tentatively.
He looks at me and throws his hands up. “You want to beat Antoine Phillips or not? Because we’ve got to be on a plane to LA in a few weeks, and by the looks of you, you’re not ready for him.”
“Yeah, I want to fucking beat him. What kind of question is that?”
“Then get dressed and meet me in the gym. We were supposed to start a half hour ago.” He picks up his bag and crosses my apartment. “See you later, Lucy. Sorry to wake you up.”
“My phone was in the other room,” I call after him. “I forgot you were coming at six thirty today.”
He ignores me and disappears down the hall.
Lucy looks at me at me and sings quietly, “Somebody’s in trouble.”
I roll my eyes. “He had to wait thirty minutes. He’ll survive.”
“Well, while you two are working out your differences in the gym, I think I’m going to go get the rest of my things from Drew’s house.”
His name smacks me in the middle of my chest and my shoulders tense reflexively. “Okay, well…I can go with you. We can go this afternoon.”
She presses her lips together and shakes her head. “You two are like oil and water. I think it’s probably best if I go alone.”
“Okay,” I say reluctantly, ignoring every overprotective bone in my body.
“Why don’t you let me come with you, sweetheart?” Miles offers, giving me a knowing glance. “After everything with the media this week, it’s probably better to have somebody with you. Safer.”
“He’s right,” I urge.
“Don’t you have better things to do than be my bodyguard, Miles?”
“Yeah, actually, I do. But none that are more important. And I can spot a telephoto lens from a mile away.”
Lucy smiles softly. “Okay, fine. But you’re following in your own car.” She points at him. “And you’re not getting out.”
Miles looks at me and I shrug. “You heard her.”
She stands on her tiptoes and kisses my cheek. “Don’t let Tris work you too hard.”
* * *
“You’re not focused,” Tristan shouts at me over the music blaring through the gym speakers.
“What do you mean?” I hit the punching mitt on his right hand a little harder.
He circles the ring, leading me around the mat. “Since the Sanchez fight at the Garden, your head hasn’t been in it. It’s even worse since Ackerman. I don’t know if it’s because of the concussion or—” He stops himself, but I know what he was about to say.
“You weren’t even at that fight,” I grunt, smacking the other mitt. “So what do you know about it?”
“I know that if I was, you wouldn’t have gotten a concussion first place. And you damn sure wouldn’t have needed to take a three-week break on some remote island.”
“Is that was this is about? You’re pissed because I took a vacation?”
“I’m pissed because you’re letting your personal life affect how you fight.”
I hit his mitt and challenge, “Want to elaborate on that?”
“Okay. You got the shit beat out of you in Quebec and nearly lost the fight because you weren’t focused on Ackerman. You were thinking about Lucy.”
“Lucy,” I shout, “is the only reason I won that fight.”
“Yeah, well, like you said…I wasn’t there, so what do I know?” He lowers his mitts and climbs out of the ring. “The new battery in my pacemaker is working great, by the way.”
I drop my gloves and look at him, letting go of my anger. “I’m sorry, okay?”
He turns down the music and grabs a bottle of water. “I don’t need your pity.”
I cross my arms over the top rope. “It’s not pity. It’s just an apology.”
“Well I don’t need an apology.”
“Fine, then I’m not sorry. I’m fucking pissed.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re twenty-seven and you have the heart of an old man.”
He sits down and chugs his water. “Yeah, well, you don’t need to worry about me.”
“Okay, so then why don’t you tell me why the hell you’re so worried about me? I know you like to win, but—”
“Lucy.” He gives me a frustrated look. “The way you are with her. It’s ten times worse than when we were kids.”
I feel my blood pulse as he crosses a dangerous line.
“Don’t get me wrong. I like Lucy. She’s was too good for you then, and she’s too good for you now. She’s a great girl, but—”
“She’s the girl.”
“Okay, then. If she is, you have your whole lives together. So just give me the next couple of years, because that may be all I’ve got.”
I climb down out of the ring. “Come on, don’t say that.” I tug my laces with my teeth. “You know I don’t like to hear you talk like that.”
“It’s a fact, Sam. The pacemaker’s just buying me time.”
“Says who? Your doctor?” I look up at him. “We’ll find another doctor.”
“All the doctors. There’s no opinion here. My heart isn’t going to last longer than a few years. If I’m lucky.”
“What about a transplant? You’re on the list.”
“Someone gets added to the transplant waiting list every ten minutes. And about twenty people on that list die each day waiting on a new heart.”
“Then I’ll call somebody. I’ll…get you moved up.”
“You can’t buy your way up the list, Sam. Your money can’t save me.”
A wave of anger rushes through me, leaving through my fist, which I pull back and slam into the nearest punching bag.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asks, jumping to his feet. He lifts up my glove and inspects the loose laces.