I doubted she would have wanted me to do that anyway. She wasn’t that kind of person, no matter how much she supported her brother.
We hung there in silence for another moment. “Good night, Lucy,” I finally forced myself to say.
“Good night, Dylan,” Lucy said, just as quietly. “Be safe, okay?”
“Okay,” I said. I hung up the phone and eyed the bottle of booze. Somehow, I didn’t feel like drinking it anymore. Instead, I turned and headed into the bathroom, turning the shower on hot. I let my body finally relax beneath the spray and then crawled into bed, thoughts of Lucy still going through my head.
FOURTEEN
LUCY
I looked around the crowded arena. It was one of the final fights of the tournament, and based on the points tallied so far, it was pretty likely that one of the guys fighting tonight would win the whole thing. I chewed on the edge of my thumbnail, trying not to let that thought fill me with anxiety.
Either way, I would be happy for whoever won. Of course, I would never go so far as to root against Bobby, but if Dylan won, especially in light of Bobby’s attempts at rigging the rounds, well…
Oh, that was something that I really couldn’t think about.
The truth was, I was still trying to reconcile what Bobby had told me over dinner. In the grand scheme of things, what he had done hadn’t been the worst thing in the world. There were plenty of other ways that he could have cheated the system, and his motives had been good enough, I supposed. He’d just wanted to give the crowds a hometown hero.
I understood his motivations on a deeper level, too. He and I had grown up in Boston, or near enough anyway. But still, at the end of the day, it had always felt as if we were outsiders. He just wanted to be the hometown golden kid for once. I couldn’t fault him for that, not after everything that we had been through.
Besides, each person still had the opportunity of winning. They’d still had to go through all the matches that they would have otherwise. And there had been some surprising upsets, proving that Bobby’s system hadn’t worked as flawlessly as he might have wanted.
I didn’t think that what he had done was so terrible. I wished that he could have just trusted in his own training and experience to win the thing, but whatever. It was his choice.
At the same time, if Dylan won…
Yet again, my mind shied away from the possibility. It felt disloyal to my brother, but I couldn’t help thinking that Dylan deserved it. He had fought well, and other than that one ill-fated match, he had walked out a champion from most of his rounds. Especially in light of how long it had been since he’d been in a professional fight after his injury, he was doing so well.
There was, of course, a part of me that was sure that if Dylan won, there was no way Bobby would ever speak to him again. That would be awkward given the things that I wanted to talk to Dylan about once the match was finally over.
I had been thinking things through since Bobby and Dylan had had it out at Oceanside the other night. Well, I had to admit to myself, I’d been thinking things over since way before that. Dylan was, somehow, always on my mind.
“You look thoughtful,” Jen said, dropping into a seat next to me. “Still got feelings for the sexy ex-Navy bad boy?”
I groaned. Did she have to put it this way? She made it sound like I was only concerned with what Dylan looked like, but really it was so much more than that.
“I think I’m going to ask him to move in with me,” I told her. “Just for a little while.”
Jen looked at me as though I had grown two heads. I guess it was pretty crazy to say that. I barely knew the guy. But the more I’d thought about it, the more I wanted to get to know him better, and the only way to do that was to make it known to Bobby that he was just going to have to get used to this.
Jen shook her head, deciding not to comment on my idea, no matter how crazy it was. “Your apartment isn’t big enough for two people,” she protested. “Besides, isn’t your lease up soon? I thought your landlord was going to try to sell the place.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Actually, now he’s decided that he would make more money if he rents it out as a short-term place,” I said.
“Ugh,” Jen said, rolling her eyes. “I mean, I get it, but rent prices in Boston are already ridiculous enough without all the rentals turning into holiday homes. What are you going to do?”
“I was thinking that I might head up to the lake in Maine for a while,” I told her, grinning. “I’ve been meaning to spend a few months up there, anyway. There’s a couple projects that I’d like to do on the house, and I think the peace and quiet would be nice for a change. You know, really give me a chance to figure out if this is what I want to do with my life or not. I could keep up with my studies online.”
Jen laughed. “Are you ever going to know what you want to do with your life?” she asked teasingly.
I shrugged. “I think I’m one step closer,” I said, nodding towards the ring, where Bobby and Dylan were just stepping out to face one another. “I talked to Bobby about it.
