that to the country, Miss Harp. But rest assured, it’s being taken care of.”
“So you’ll fight this year?”
“I hope so,” his annoyingly sexy voice rumbles through his chest. “But I won’t kill myself over it. If I don’t fight this year, there’s always next year.”
“Well, if you don’t fight,” the interviewer prods, “what will you do with your time? Pro fighters tend to train all day long, no? So if you’re injured…”
“Training never stops,” he cuts in. “But I have a highly skilled team watching closely to make sure that what I do is beneficial and not harmful.”
“Plus, your sister is a nurse, right? I bet that helps, having in-house medical advice.”
He smiles for real this time. Genuine, loving… enough to almost reduce me to tears. “My sister is obsessively invested in my recovery. She watches me around the clock, and she long ago banned me from opening the tight jar lids.”
“Shoulder,” Will declares, scaring me out of my trance. I forgot I wasn’t in here alone. I forgot that anyone else in the world existed. “No jars means he busted his shoulder.”
I nod.
“See that left side?” my brother murmurs. “See how it’s just a little bit lower than the right?”
“I see it,” I whisper. I angle closer to the TV, closer, so barely an inch of my body touches the recliner at all. “It hurts him.”
“It’s cute that you guys have matching injuries.”
“Shut up.” I thrust up from the recliner and leave the room to go in search of an ice pack. “Stop speaking about us like we’re a couple. You’re not helping. In fact.” I whip the freezer door open, snatch up an ice pack, then close it again with a slam. “You’re doing harm. I can’t have him, and that makes me sad. So stop being a prick about it.”
“So, with all your free time,” that chick’s voice drones from the television. “What are your plans for the rest of the year?” I stop back in the living room just in time to catch the woman’s smirk. “Your mother was your age when she was pregnant with you, was she not?”
Jamie’s eyes soften with love. “She was.”
“Do you have a special friend in your life, Jamie? Evelyn is clearly paired with Ben Conner. Former heavyweight world champion, four time—”
“I know who he is,” Jamie chuckles. “He and I ate at the same table every day this week. I know how many titles he held.”
“And your sister is engaged?”
Jamie’s eyes narrow just a little. “My sister is happily engaged to the man she’s loved since they were children.”
“So that leaves you, right?” The woman digs, digs, digs. And though I’m disgusted at her intrusion, I still find myself lowering back into my chair in silence. “Your mom and dad were friends since childhood. Your sister and her fiancé too. Is there a special someone in your life that you’ve been hiding from us?”
Jamie’s eyes snap to the camera. To me. I swear, he sees me just as clearly as I see him. “I had a very special someone, Miss Harp. We were children, we were very much in love, but then the universe tore us apart like an old boat in a hurricane. I don’t know about her, but I’m still trying to collect the pieces.”
“Oh damn,” Will mumbles. “He’s going deep.”
“Could she be watching tonight?” Harp asks with a twinkle in her eyes. “Could your special someone be watching right now?”
“I don’t know,” he murmurs. “She might be.”
“And if she is?” Harp presses. “Is there something you would want to say to her?”
I remember back to when I was a child, to episodes of The Flash, where he would cross the screen as nothing more than a blur. That’s how it feels when a woman dashes into view. She stops in front of Jamie, presses her hands to his shoulders in an intimate way that makes my stomach cramp. Then she pulls him down to whisper in his ear.
I have only a moment to be jealous. To want to rip that bitch’s hair out by the roots. To want to use her mahogany hair to swing her around. But then my brain catches up, and I find myself on my knees just two feet from the TV.
Two feet from Jamie.
Two feet from Sophia Solomon – my dancing hero – while she consults with Jamie.
Then she’s gone again, her movement a blur, her hair the first and last thing we see, until Jamie looks down the barrel of