Going the Distance (18 page)

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.

12

H
E
KISSED
HIS
MOTHER
and sister goodbye outside the terminal,
promising to call when he landed in San Diego. His mom had wept the entire drive
to Logan, ten miles that felt like fifty between rush-hour traffic and the cloud
of Catholic guilt.

A security runaround was inevitable with the crutches and cast,
but Rich made it through the gauntlet with time to spare. And as he relaced his
sneaker on the other side, he was free.

He sat quietly for a minute, straining to manifest what he
ought to be experiencing.

This is where you feel happy,
asshole.

Or at least relieved. Grateful to be done with everything
except fighting. No coaching, no cleaning, no secretarial duties, no more
strangers wanting to rehash the injury with him. He was back to being the center
of his own universe, 100 percent focused on the thing he was good at.

Maybe he'd skip the happy relief stage and jump straight into
the blind focus. Yeah, that was a plan. No time for excitement—he had to get his
head where it needed to be, mind on nothing except the moment he'd be in that
ring, staring Farreira dead in the eyes.

He swung toward his gate and fetched a coffee with much awkward
juggling, sipping as he sat and stared out the windows at taxiing planes.

You're the light heavyweight champ. You've
got the fight of your life in three months.

You're waiting for a plane to fly you
across the country, to Rio come November, and maybe this spring it'll be
England or Japan or Australia.
This is what you've been dreaming about, the thing
thousands of guys would kill for but only a handful ever get.

So why did he feel so...

Empty? Exhausted?

Depressed.

That's the word you can't even bear to
utter in your head.

He shut his eyes, leaning back in the seat.

He hadn't felt this last year. But last year he hadn't known
what he did now. He hadn't known how much his mother missed him, or indeed
exactly how much he'd miss her. He hadn't known he was valuable to Wilinski's as
anything more than a body willing to show up at six and do his part. He hadn't
realized how much he'd miss the cold bite of winter and the salt crunching under
his shoes, or how those skeletal trees were so much more
right
than any swaying palm.

Last year...

He swallowed and opened his eyes, staring at the city skyline.
It was just past ten. His heart sped. He felt a weird tug, knowing exactly where
she was amid all those buildings. Sitting only a few feet above where he'd spent
hours and days and years, nearly two decades. And tonight she'd go to sleep one
floor above the room he'd called his nearly his entire life.

She'll still be in those places the next
time you touch down.

Likely. She'd still be where he lived, where he worked. But
where he felt her was far closer to home. Like a sliver, sharp and barbed,
lodged in his heart.

A selfish part of him wished he'd ended things differently.
That he'd let her know she meant something to him. But self-serving as Rich
could be, that would've been a step too far. Admit he cared for her as more than
a friend or lover, leave her waiting in patient, lonely fidelity. Then come
home, pray they hadn't dreamed that connection, then what? Gone again a few
weeks later.

She deserved a man who'd put her first. Rich might even have
wanted to be that man in some alternate reality where he was free to care. He
might have grown to love that scary sensation, the way her eyes cut through his
armor to let the anger and fear escape, making room for him to take a deep
breath.

But wishing didn't change circumstances. And emotions, unless
diligently corralled and harnessed, served only to drag a man down. A legacy
he'd sworn never to inherit.

So when boarding commenced and his zone was called, Rich joined
the funneling crowd, aware of the curious looks he earned—his build and scars,
the crutches and cast hinting at a story he was too weary to recount. He was
relieved when no one asked.

His boarding pass was scanned, the young woman on duty flashing
him a smile she hadn't gifted his fellow passengers. He returned it, feeling
lonelier still as he made his way through the gate.

Self-pity's a luxury,
he reminded
himself, gaze locked on the next step, the next step.
One
you haven't earned yet.

But a soft, clear voice echoed in a darker corner of his mind,
lighting up shadows he preferred not to look upon.

Will you ever feel like you've earned
it?

Would the prize money ever feel like enough of a safety net?
And what happened when his body simply couldn't do this any longer?

If I needed anything from you...it's not
something that could be taken away by an injury or a loss.

What that thing was, Rich had no clue. No clue how to label it,
or how to offer it.

And there was no place in his world for anything but the
concrete. Money. Contracts. Family duty. The next fighter who stood in Rich's
way and the skills to conquer him. Lust and the physical acts that satisfied
it.

No shapeless feelings, no indefinable
something.
No ache in his chest or restlessness in his bones from
these emotions. Pain only from injury, wounds treated with ice and ointment and
time.

He felt too much in Boston.

And the sooner the city slid away beneath him, the sooner he'd
remember who he was.

* * *

D
EAR
G
OD
,
WHY
had she ever agreed to this?

Lindsey watched the activity swirling around the Spark office
from the threshold—assistants moving her and Jenna's desks, adjusting the
placement of plants and bookshelves to create the perfect backdrop for Lindsey's
photo shoot.

It was Monday and Jenna had closed the office, treating it like
a holiday, arriving early to let the magazine people in. She was playing maid of
honor in what she kept calling Lindsey's “big day,” a hyper bundle of
excitement.

In her brain, Lindsey was grateful Jenna was so supportive. But
in her heart...

The editor had emailed the cover copy the night before, so
Lindsey might “get into the vibe.”

Boston's Most Eligible Bachelorette:

Why this matchmaker and wedding planner is in no rush to say “I
do.”

A couple weeks ago, Lindsey would've been only too happy to
play that role. She'd been freshly single and happily so, free to be with Rich
after mooning over him for practically a year. Except she'd blinked, and it was
over. And after this shoot, she'd head home to a cranky teenage roommate and
have to call her parents and report that, if anything, this experiment in Boston
living had made things worse, as far as getting Maya back in school went.

“Hi!” A beaming young man with perfectly styled hair swept in
from the meeting room, a swath of tulle heaped over his arm. Enthusiasm radiated
off him in waves. “You're Lindsey! You're even prettier in person.”

“Oh. Thank you.” She shook his hand, shoving the worries to the
back of her head.

“I'm James, the creative director for this shoot. We are going
to have
so
much fun.
Are you ready for your cover-model
debut?”

“Ready as I'll ever be.”

He patted the heap of fabric. “So the visual concept is that
you're a fairy godmother to your clients. A young, hip, sexy fairy godmother.”
He grinned, clearly wanting Lindsey to be equally delighted by this idea.

“That's so cool,” she hedged, smiling through her nerves. “But
exactly how sexy?”

“Don't worry, not
too
sexy. This
isn't a men's magazine.”

“Is that a wedding dress?”

“It is!” James unfurled the gown, an outrageous explosion of
gauze and crepe and oversize sequins. “Betsey Johnson! Isn't it a scene? Custom
couture job, then the wedding gets called off. Her loss, our gain.”

“It's very...funky. I love it. But doesn't that contradict the
whole concept about me not being in a rush to say ‘I do'?”

“We're going to tint it digitally so it won't scream
bridal
in the final image. Want to try it on? It's
probably too big, but we've got clamps.”

“Sure.”

In all honesty, she didn't want to be in the same room as a
wedding dress, let alone wear one. The last time she had, she'd been trying on
gowns for her own supposed special day, back in Springfield. The special day
that had never arrived, the nonrefundable dress she'd never ordered, thank
goodness.

But it's not a wedding gown. It's just a
spangly, fun dress, and it won't be white, and why on earth can't you just
let loose and have fun and be the center of attention for once?
Because her heart hurt. Hurt as if somebody had cut it out and sewn a fistful of
nails in its place. And she didn't feel at all like celebrating her
singlehood.

Still, a lot of women would kill for this chance. And not too
long ago, Lindsey would've counted herself among them.

“Are there shoes?” she asked, faking the excitement she wished
she were feeling.

“Seven and a half, right?” James rifled through boxes and
withdrew a pair of heels—silver and strappy with a stiletto that could murder a
man.

“Whoa. I probably don't get to keep those, huh?”

James smiled. “Sorry. On loan from the designer.”

“Oh, well. I'll always have the pictures.”

Jenna arrived with an artsy man in tow, both of them carrying
coffees. Her face lit up at the activity. She introduced herself to James, and
Lindsey to the photographer, Ari.

Maybe if Lindsey could sell this idea that she was stoked to be
single to the camera, to every person who walked past the newsstand... Maybe
when she saw this cover... Maybe then she'd start to believe it herself. While
the men strategized about the photo shoot, Lindsey showed the heels to Jenna,
mustering a grin.

“Oh,
wow.
” Jenna snatched one,
nearly salivating.

“I know. Sadly, no chance I get to steal them. They're ‘on loan
from the designer,'” she added in a snotty, self-aggrandizing whisper. “So don't
drool on it.”

Jenna handed the shoe back. “Even if you did steal them, I'd
steal them from you for my wedding.”

“Speaking of weddings, check out what I'm wearing.” James had
draped the dress over a chair, and she held it up for Jenna.

“Hot damn.”

“Not something I'd ever have picked, but yeah. Hip fairy
godmother indeed.” She clutched the bodice to her chest and let the skirt swish
and flare. “Better make sure it fits.”

She closed herself in the bathroom and stripped to her panties.
With a deep breath, she unzipped the dress and stepped into it.

It was too big in the bodice, but she reached behind and
clutched the extra fabric, watching herself in the mirror.

“Wow.” The lights glinted off the clear and pearlescent
sequins, and the wide satin ribbon around the waist shone like silver. Lindsey
never wore strapless dresses, but now she wondered why—the cut made her
shoulders and neck look terrific.
She
looked
terrific. She looked...she looked like someone worth sticking on the cover of a
magazine.

She looked like a bride.

A bride who'd misplaced her fiancé first, and now her lover.
Just a bachelorette playing dress-up in another woman's
good fortune.

She shook her head, alarmed the thought had even crossed her
mind. As if there was anything pathetic about being single.

Then why a job as a wedding planner? Or a
matchmaker, for that matter?

She'd never actually thought about it, how all her jobs seemed
designed to celebrate the opposite of what this article said about her. She was
supposed to feel empowered and liberated—that was the magazine's angle. But in
all honesty, her singleness didn't feel like those things. Empowered and
liberated were the things Rich had made her feel in bed, and with him gone, his
body and voice and heat now thousands of miles away—

A knock at the door, then Jenna's voice. “Need any help?”

“No, just preening.”

She took a deep breath and opened the door, holding the bodice
to her chest.

Jenna's eyes widened.

“Does it look okay?”

“You look amazing.”

“It's a bit big.” Right on cue, James swept over with clamps,
cinching the excess fabric at her back.

“Oh, yes,” Jenna said, all breathy and overwrought. “That is...
Wow.”

James led Lindsey to the lights and reflectors angled around
Jenna's desk. A stack of books had been arranged, their blank spines to be
edited in Photoshop with titles such as “Etiquette
”
and “Chemistry.” Lindsey would be perched next to said stack, with her legs
crossed and one of the gorgeous shoes dangling from her toes, smirking and
looking “mischievous and beguiling,” as James explained.

Two women took over for Lindsey's makeup and hair. She admired
the results in a mirror held for her, relieved they'd gone natural save for the
fine, crystalline glitter swept over her lids. Her hair was done in loose curls,
then arranged in an ethereal updo with a few dozen discreet bobby pins.

“Okay,” Ari said, peering through his viewfinder and adjusting
his tripod. “Sit on the edge of the desk for me so I can get a sense of the
light.”