All I Want...

A thrill ran through her and she curled the fingers of her left hand, feeling the missing ring keenly tonight. Josh knew about Link, he knew about their so-called engagement, but he kept coming around, and lately she hadn’t done enough to discourage him. A ring would make her feel more taken, show the world she belonged to Link in a way she wasn’t sure the world knew right now. And maybe not her either.

Because she was taken. Thoroughly. Just because Josh turned her insides over and around and upside down when he smiled at her…

She spun suddenly to face the room. So? Plenty of happily married—or involved—people developed crushes which had no significance and faded. She’d had them, too, once or twice in the years she and Link had been together.

The intensity of this one stemmed from it hitting when she was particularly vulnerable. When she and Link were having a particularly bad time. When she was not at all sure why or how to go about fixing whatever had gone wrong. Relationships inevitably encountered rough patches, but this one seemed…ominous. Lately she’d been wondering how much longer she could go on without listening to the doubting voices in her head, without looking at the discouraging signs along the way.

Tonight she’d come home from singing at Eddie’s to find the dinner dishes still stacked in the sink, Link sprawled in front of the TV. She’d gone to him, kissed him, he’d mumbled a question about how the show had gone, and had barely noticed her response. Then she’d gone into the kitchen, cleaned up, made her lunch for the next day, hearing the canned laugh track mingle with Link’s occasional laughter, louder than his usual. It was hard not to feel as though he was rubbing it in that he was enjoying himself while she slaved.

But she couldn’t think that way. Link worked hard, too—most architects did, long hours and often late—and she wanted him to have his wind-down time, his leisure.

She just wanted him to need her with him enough so that maybe one day he’d turn off the TV and come in and help her. Really talk to her and really listen. The way he used to.

But those things she had no control over. She wanted him, but she couldn’t make him want her.

Lucy sighed and pulled her feet up on the window seat, arms around her knees. Big sister Krista would tell her to get therapy or go on antidepressants or kick herself out of it.

Krista would tell her to leave Link and start a relationship with Josh.

Krista had never been in love. Though what Lucy called love, Krista called codependency—or had once in a particularly bitter argument in the ongoing series of arguments they’d been having about Lucy’s relationship.

Everything in Krista’s life was crystal clear, black or white, right or wrong. She knew unswervingly how everyone around her was supposed to behave in every situation she and everyone else found themselves in.

Sometimes Lucy thought nothing would make her happier than for Krista to fall passionately, inextricably in love in a situation so complicated and hopeless that her world would turn upside down and she’d be reduced to angsting uncertainly over every aspect of her existence for hours at a time.

But then, that wasn’t particularly sisterly or charitable of her, was it.

Mom would say she was going through a stage, that love was hard and life had its yin and yang and she needed to buckle down and chin up and get through it.

Dad would chuck her under the chin and wish fervently that his little girl would be happy, then go back to watching the Celtics.

Link would look at her like why was she making such a big deal out of everything? With the implied “again” at the end. Life is beautiful, he’d say. You wake up, you do stuff you enjoy, you go to bed.

Wake up. Do stuff. Go to bed. Every day. Yes, but there used to be more magic, even in that.

The tears slowed; she sniffed and wiped them away with the back of her hand.

A slight sound made her jump; she turned to see Link, bed-ruffled, puzzled, half-asleep, swaying in the doorway, his tall, beautifully muscled body illuminated by the white light from the street behind her.

“Lucy.” He frowned and peered at her across the room. “Why’d you get out of bed?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

He squinted and took a step toward her. “Are you crying?”

She hesitated. If she said no, she’d be lying. If she said yes, she’d have to explain.

“Sort of.”

“What do you mean sort of?” The irritation was starting in his voice already. It seemed to be his regular tone of communication these days. “Are you crying or not?”

“I was.”

“Why?”

“Go back to bed, Link. I’ll be fine.”

“Why are you crying?”

“It’s nothing.”

He made a sound of exasperation. “You’re sitting here crying in the middle of the night in the dark for no reason.”

“Yes.” She barely got the word out for the hot, miserable weight in her chest.

He put his hands on his hips, glaring at her. Opened his mouth to say something, then lifted one hand and let it slap on his flannel-covered thigh. “Fine. No reason. Good night.”

He walked out of the room, stumbled and swore. She heard the headboard bounce against the wall as he flung himself into their bed. He’d sleep badly now and blame it on her. Wake up in a bad mood and they’d eat the breakfast she prepared in a silence that was starting to become horribly familiar.

Lucy hugged her knees close to her chest, rested her chin on top of them and let the tears flow again.

She loved Link. Loved him with all her heart and had since they’d first met in college—six years ago at the beginning of their senior year—and begun dating within a week.

But something wasn’t working. She didn’t know what it was or when it had happened or even how to identify it so she could begin to fix it.

And she was terribly, deathly afraid it would end up tearing them apart.

2

SETH SWAGGERED INTO the offices of the Boston Sentinel, sunglasses on, Red Sox cap pulled firmly onto his head. A tiny gold hoop hung off his left ear, and his knees had felt the December breeze through the holes in his jeans. The hood of his sweatshirt bounced against his upper back as he walked. He had a major ’tude going. And he who had expected to be seething with resentment over this utter waste of his time…was having a ball.

Not a soul would recognize him as Seth Wellington IV, heir to the vast Wellington fortune, CEO of the very respectable company. He hadn’t done anything like this in almost two years. Not since his traveling days, when he’d experimented with different personalities in different towns, tried them on to see how people reacted.

Er, okay, mostly to see how women reacted.

He approached the receptionist, a young perky blonde, and leaned his forearms on her desk, wishing he could whip off his sunglasses and make eye contact but not daring to reveal that much of his face. “Hey, how you doing today?”

“I’m fine, thank you.” She held herself formally, but a tiny smile was trying to curve her lips. “Can I help you?”

“Sure, yeah. I’m Bobby Darwin, old classmate of Krista. Is she here?”

“Krista…”

“Yeah.” He grinned at her. “Marlow.”

“She was in this morning. You just missed her.”

“Damn.” He slapped the desk and straightened, hands on his hips, shaking his head. “Missed her at home, now here. You know where she went?”