Feel the Heat: A Contemporary Romance Anthology (11 page)

I
stared at the ceiling
, tracing the shapes of the whorls in the paint with my gaze in the early morning light. I'd long passed the sensations of shock, rounded the corner to terror and swung back around again to anger before finally settling somewhere in the middle.

Because I'd spent the night with Robbie at his bungalow. And closure was the last thing I felt.

It was the exact opposite, in fact. I felt like I'd cut open an old wound with a razor and made it fresh and new again.

Idiot.

I squeezed my eyes closed and ignored my cell phone that had been buzzing on the nightstand for the past twenty minutes.

I'd texted Ashlynn to tell her I wouldn't be home late last night, but she must have been sleeping. Judging by the way my phone was blowing up, she was awake now, and probably ready to kill me.

I rolled gently to my side so as not to wake up Robbie, and peered over at the screen. Text after text rolled by.

Call me.

Call me right now.

If you're with Robbie, I'm going to kill you.

I flopped onto my back again with a sigh and wished I could bury my head in the sand and pretend like none of this had ever happened.

Liar.

Even as the thought entered my mind, my body betrayed me, still humming from his touch, even now, listing toward his side of the bed for one last touch. One last chance to inhale that Robbie scent.

"You up?" he murmured softly.

I nodded wordlessly, not trusting my voice to speak. As much as I wanted to tell myself otherwise, I wouldn't have changed last night for the world. It was one more memory with him that I could cherish and relive and recall when things got too lonely and I missed his face.

"Are you hungry?"

"No."

It was hard to imagine ever wanting to eat again, my stomach felt so wrecked, but even then, it was hard to say no when I knew he was gearing up to make me the one thing he knew how to cook. Robbie's famous toast with butter and strawberry jam. The memory came as they all did, a bittersweet blast from the past that hurt and felt good at the same time, like peeling a sunburn.

"I've got to go. I have plans with Ashlynn today."

I forced myself to swing my legs over the side of the bed. Luckily, I'd had the foresight to throw a T-shirt on in the middle of the night to avoid being naked with him in the harsh light of morning. Unfortunately, the t-shirt I'd grabbed had been his, along with a pair of gym shorts he’d been wearing.

I clutched the shirt more tightly around me as I stood. "I'd rather not put that dress back on but I can get this stuff back to you..." I trailed off.

"Don't worry about it," he said, sitting up against the headboard. His bare chest was mottled with bruises, and his cheek was an ugly shade of red, but there had never been a more beautiful sight than that, and for a second, I just stared at him.

"Yeah, well, we are leaving in two days so we probably won't see you," I muttered, already scurrying toward the door of his room. I bent to scoop up my sandals and turned to face him. "Good luck with everything, Robbie. I hope you get everything you've ever dreamed of."

There was no point in dragging it out. That would be like dying by a hundred, tiny paper cuts instead of by guillotine. Instead, even as he called after me, I made like a ghost and disappeared.

By the time I swung the door open to my own hotel room, I was sobbing uncontrollably. Ashlynn came running out of her bedroom with her holiday fling, Gil, trailing behind looking shell-shocked.

"Wow, uh...should I go?"

Ashlynn spared him a quick smile as I flopped face first onto the couch. "Actually, can you run down and get us a couple iced coffees and breakfast sandwiches? Maybe look at a couple of the shops and come back in an hour for our beach day?"

He nodded and gave her cheek a quick kiss. "You got it."

I didn't unglue my face from the pillow until the door closed and I felt a weight settle next to me on the couch.

"That bad, huh?" she murmured, petting my hair gently.

"Not good," I said with a hiccupping, mirthless laugh.

"You want to talk first or cry some more and then talk?"

I shrugged and sat up, hugging my knees to my chest. "I think I can do both at the same time."

She gave me a sad smile and tucked a lock of my hair behind one ear. "Okay, so spill."

"I went to Robbie's fight last night, and I wasn't going to let him see me so I wore a disguise but he saw me anyway and…"

I let the rest out in a rush, dumping every sad, gory detail, until the very end.

"And then I left, wearing his clothes, and did the walk of shame back here barefoot and weeping."

"The motherfucker." I'd been so caught up in my pathetic tale and pity party, I hadn't realized that Ashlynn had gone from feeling sorry for me to being downright, shaking mad. "I told him you weren't strong enough to stay away. That he had to be strong enough for the both of you. I told him not to come around."

She shot to her feet, trembling with outrage.

"Ash, to be fair, I went to his fight, and--"

"Then you left. And he came to find you." I reached for her arm but she shook me off. "He should've let it be, and he didn't."

I watched in shock as she stormed toward the door.

"I'm sick to death of this. He's the one who ruined everything, yet you're the one always left crying." She pushed the door open and shot me a glare over her shoulder. "Don't follow me. Wait here with Gil, eat a sandwich, and then I'll be back."

She slammed the door with such force, the room shook. As I stared at the closed door, I wondered briefly if I should chase her. Beg her not to get involved. But I knew better than anyone, stopping Ash when she was on a mission would be like trying to stop an airplane in motion. I could try to shoot her down with a rage as hot as hers, but I just didn't have the energy.

Because I’d allowed my heart to be splintered into pieces by Robbie Stevens.

All over again.

What was that saying? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...

God, I was such a fool.

* * *

I
sat on the sand
, staring out at the ocean, wondering how I'd gotten here. After four years of fighting against myself daily to stop from doing this very thing, here I was, making Melissa cry again.

I let out a groan and picked up a rock, tossing it into the tide with a muttered curse.

"If you were trying to skip it, you're doing a shit job of it," a female voice called from behind me.

I turned to see Ashlynn slowly making her way toward me across the white sand. Her arms were wrapped around her waist, tugging a thin hoodie closer to her body in an effort to ward off the early morning breeze.

"I'm sure you can show me how it's done, but I'll take a rain check. I'm not in the mood for company."

But Ashlynn, being Ashlynn, didn't give a shit about what I was in the mood for and plunked down in the sand next to me.

"I feel like we talked about this already, Rob," she said as she stared up at the puffy clouds dotting the sky before sighing and turning to face me. "I feel Iike I specifically said I didn't want you fucking with her. In fact, I think I said that the island was big enough for all of us, and we could basically avoid each other while we were here. Can you tell me why that didn't happen?" she asked.

Her tone was more resigned and sad than angry, and I turned my head to meet her gaze.

"The island is definitely not big enough. I can sense her here…everywhere…and, fuck, I know it's wrong, but it's like I can't stay away." I raked a hand through my hair and let out a short, harsh laugh. "I love her. Always have. Always will. And if I knew how to stop, I'd have done it years ago."

"Then explain it to me, Rob.” She shook her head, her brow knit in genuine confusion. “You loved her so much, you made an effort to go party clear across town without her and screw another girl? Even if you want to chalk that up to youth and rampant hormones, that doesn't explain why you then came home, told her about it and then dumped her, basically telling her you didn’t want her anymore. That's not love. You don't hurt people you love like that."

The emotion in her voice told me more than words ever could. Ashlynn was no stranger to pain and she would do whatever she could to keep her friend from experiencing it again. I thought about the repercussions...about my long-held secrets and the weight of keeping them all this time.

And suddenly, it was like a dam broke. The words poured out in a rush.

"It was a lie, Ash. All of it. I never cheated. She was so damned smart," I said, burying my hands in the sand. "She wanted to go away to a great medical school, and I knew she'd never do it. She would've stayed in that shit town with me and gone to some shit school because she didn't want us to be apart. I'd have been like an anchor around her neck. So I lied."

The sound of the surf seemed magnified by the rush of blood pounding in my ears.

Ashlynn's silence was absolute, and for a second, I wondered if she'd even heard me...if I'd even spoken the words aloud. But then, she balled up a fist and punched me in the arm, hard.

"No." Her fingers uncurled and she wrapped them around my forearm, yanking until I met her gaze again. Tears filled her eyes as she shook her head. "Robbie, don't fucking tell me that. Do not tell me that right now."

"It's the truth," I said, forcing the rest of the story through numb lips. "I knew if I told her to go and the reasons why she had to do it, she'd make an excuse not to. The week before, I’d seen a pamphlet for state college on her dresser. I knew she was thinking about changing her mind and commuting. Giving up on the school of her dreams. I couldn't let her do it."

"This is the worst thing I've ever heard," Ash murmured, leaning forward to lay her head in her hands. "All this time? All this time, you let her think your whole relationship was a lie and that you never loved her, and for what? Because you thought she'd be happier if she went away to school?" She lifted her head, the despair plain on her face. "Did you ever stop to think maybe it wouldn’t be selflessness that made her stay? Maybe she would’ve wanted to stay because that’s what made her happiest. Who were you to decide that for the both of you? You think she's so smart...why not let her make up her own mind? Or even better, put your heads together and work out a solution that didn’t involve tearing both of your hearts out and stomping on them."

The words landed like stones, each leaving a bruise behind that throbbed with the truth. "I-I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was saving her from herself."

"You have to tell her." Her clipped tone brooked no argument, but I cut her off before she could say more.

"No, I don't. And neither do you, Ash. Look at your reaction, and it wasn't even you this happened to. Can you imagine what this would do to her? No," I said, shaking my head. "At least now she doesn't hate my guts. I know we'll never be together again, maybe she can get some closure like she wanted. Re-opening these wounds wouldn’t be fair."

"What's not fair is hiding this from her," Ash said, swiping sand off her legs as she stood. "And if you think those wounds ever healed, you’re dead wrong. You’re both grown up now. She’s already made it through four years of school, and can go to dozens of amazing grad schools. You’re both old enough to take planes and trains and work out a plan to make this work if you want it bad enough.”

She stared at me for a long moment before looking away with a sigh.

“This isn't my story to tell, so I’m not going to rat you out. But damn it, if you did love her...if you
do
love her, she needs to know it. Whatever the fallout, Robbie. "

She started to walk away and then stopped in her tracks, turning to shoot me a sad little smile. "For what it's worth, I'm glad you didn't cheat. As sad as this love story ended, you guys were my go-to happy couple. Whenever I had a boyfriend, I measured our relationship against yours. I wanted to be as happy as Robbie and Melissa. It gives me a little more faith in humanity to know I wasn't wrong." She rolled her eyes, and held up a hand. "Don't get me wrong, it was still a royal fuckup. But I know your heart was in the right place."

She made her way back toward the hotel and then disappeared through the doors.

I sat there, motionless, for I don’t know how long, just letting myself feel. I’d won the biggest bout of my career, and was on my way to boxing’s big time, and all I felt was a throbbing, aching despair. Because it was nothing without Melissa.

Did she feel the same way? Had my deceit tainted her joy over her achievements? Had my effort to ensure she could fulfill her dreams only succeed in making those dreams seem hollow?

Did she feel like half her heart had been missing since that night four years ago?

Thoughts of the night before came tumbling in, one after another. Her whistle of glee, piercing through the air during my fight. Her taste, her touch, the way our legs felt tangled together.

If there was even a one percent chance we could have that again, I had to try.