Theo studied that photo, and his skin began to tingle in awareness. Anyone looking at that picture would recognize his bliss. His eyes were closed, his chin rested on her hair, and a goofy smile had spread across his face. His arms held her with a tenderness so sweet it shocked him.

And the way Lucy pressed up against him, her elegant neck turned so that she could snuggle into his shoulder…

He and Lucy looked like lovers in that picture. Theo supposed the whole world could see it, just as he did right then. And maybe it was that simple. They were lovers, and it was time to dive headfirst into the concept. It is what it is, as Tyson would say.

“What’cha reading, Theo?” Buddy opened the sliding glass doors and joined him at the back porch table.

‘The paper.“

“You got the baseball standings?”

“Here you go.” Theo tried to keep his face hidden so Buddy wouldn’t see how upset he was.

“What are you upset about?”

Theo laughed. “Nothing. Just still real tired from the test.”

Buddy nodded and poured himself a bowl of cereal. “When will you know if they’ll let you back in?”

“A few weeks, Bud.” And Theo knew it was going to be the longest few weeks of his life.

Tyson had called her at home the night before and asked her to wear a jog bra and spandex running shorts for their workout in the morning. When Lucy asked if he had something particular planned, he said, “No. I just want to watch you move in them.”

So Lucy showed up at the Palm Club in her favorite pink sweatpants and a baggy T-shirt, and as she made her way across the gym Tyson shielded his eyes as if from a glaring sun.

“Ouch! You sure know how to torture a man, Lucy.”

She laughed and reached up to rub a hand over his shaved head. “Sorry, but spandex and me were not on speaking terms this morning.”

“Yeah? How much damage you think you’ve done in the last couple weeks?”

“I’d say a few pounds and a whole lot of backtracking in the attitude department.”

“You’re going to be fine.” Tyson tugged on her ponytail. “I thought today we’d do some free weights on the stabilizer ball, with some power lunges and squats, and then maybe we’d hit the bags a little. You know, something an engaged couple like us might do.”

Lucy shook her head and tried to laugh, but her heart wasn’t in it. It seemed she’d learned a new lesson about celebrity-that anything was fair game. You couldn’t put yourself out there for public consumption and then tell the public what they could and could not consume. They simply consumed whatever part of your life they were hungry for at the moment-whether it was what you wore, what you said, how you danced, or your state of mind. It was all theirs for the taking.

This was an experience quite unlike her last encounter with fame, which was wholly unintentional. The only thing people wanted to know back then was how it felt to be used. Anything else was not interesting.

“Can we do something else for cardio?” she asked Tyson. “I’m really not in the mood for brutality today, if you don’t mind.”

Tyson shot her a wily smile. “I’m not sure what’s left without spandex or brutality, unless we do the six o’clock spinning class. You up for that?”

Ugh. Lucy hated those cycling classes. If she ended up in hell after this life, she was sure the devil would greet her at the door, then escort her to her own personal Reebok stationary bicycle, her pain in the ass for all eternity.

“Fine.”

“Have you spoken to Theo lately?”

Lucy’s answer was a groan of frustration. When

Theo left her office the week before, he’d looked disgusted with her. She couldn’t blame him-she was disgusted with herself. She accused him of only caring about money. She was angry at the world, and overeating and not exercising, and not going to her appointments with Doris.

Who’d want to be in the same room with that kind of bundle of joy?

“Just push me until I’m exhausted today,” she told Tyson. “Suffering is a path to Nirvana, right?”

Tyson laughed, punching in a fifteen-minute warm-up on the elliptical trainer. “Need some tough love today, baby girl?”

“Sure do.”

“You’ve come to the right man.” Tyson leaned over and planted a cheerful kiss right on Lucy’s lips, just as Theo walked into the cardio room.

“You two set a date yet?” he asked drily. Then Theo disappeared into the trainer lounge.

“Dayum,” Tyson whispered, shaking his head. “I picked a bad time to start kissing you again.”

Lucy stared at the closed door to the lounge and kept pedaling. “Kissing can be more trouble than it’s worth.”

“Hmm, well I gotta go in there and talk to him.” Tyson studied her on the machine for a moment and asked, “You gonna be OK on your own for a few? You’re not going to eat some Danishes or something while I got my back turned, right?”

Under normal circumstances, Lucy would have laughed at that comment. But these weren’t normal circumstances, because it seemed that with each new day, things got more twisted up between Theo and herself, and the truth was that without him, she didn’t want to face this fifteen-minute warm-up, let alone the next few months. Lucy had come to rely on Theo’s calm conviction, his steady presence, and his smile, and now that she no longer had them, she missed them so much it hurt.

She loved Theo and she needed him-like she’d never needed anyone in her life. Lucy pedaled and took a deep breath, wondering how she could have let things get so out of hand.

When Tyson entered the room and cleared his throat, Theo could already hear the apology coming. So he stopped his friend before he could start.

“It’s cool, Tyson.” He kept his back to him. “Thanks for being good to Lucy and picking up where I left off with training-just watch her form on the bench press, because she has a tendency to torque her elbows, and don’t let her in the same room with a pecan pie.”

Theo heard Tyson collapse into a chair.

“Well, it ain’t cool. You two need to talk to each other. That woman loves your sorry white ass, Theo, and for the life of me, I don’t know what the holdup is. Why can’t you tell her you love her, too? Because it’s plain to everyone that you do.”

Theo turned around and studied all six-feet-five of Tyson Williams, sprawled out on one of the small metal chairs. He was wearing a half smile, clasping his hands behind his bald head. “It’s all your fault,” Theo told him.

Tyson gave his head an exaggerated shake, then focused in on Theo. “What the hell did I do now?”

“That night at the Mandarin you said she deserved to be savored. Spoiled! Enjoyed!”

“All right. I said that. So what?”

“I was on my way over to tell her I loved her-and you fucked with my head!”

Tyson sat up in the chair and leaned forward, elbows to knees. “How you figure that, Redmond?”

“After you said all that, I figured I don’t have the time to do any of those things now, let alone when I get back into school and then into my residency.” Theo smacked a pile of mail onto the conference table. “I wondered how I was going to savor Lucy on two hours of sleep a night. How I was going to spoil her if I hardly ever saw her. How I would find a way to enjoy her when my life is going to be reduced to studying, working, wolfing down hospital cafeteria food, and fantasizing about what it’s like to sleep in my own bed.”

Tyson shifted uncomfortably.

“I’ve seen what medical school and residency do to relationships, Tyson, and it sucks. I don’t know if it’s fair to ask Lucy to start something right when my life’s about to get even more fucked up than it is.”

“I know you want to be a doctor.”

“I do. It’s what I’m supposed to do with my life. Simple as that.”

Tyson studied his hands and said softly, “Is this about Jenna?”