“Maybe. But I know Theo, and he doesn’t like quitters. He’ll do everything he can to convince her to come back.”

“So you like the toe ring?” Stephan enjoyed watching the eager nod of her head and wondered just how much of this game Lola was cognizant of.

“I love it!”

“Why don’t you poke around a little at the gym and find out what you can about Lucy? You know, if she’s gone off her diet and has stopped exercising completely, stuff like that. Maybe we can leak it to the press-bad publicity is better than no publicity at all.”

Lola gave him a little frown. “I don’t like Lucy much, but you really don’t like her, do you? I mean, you act like you hate Lucy Cunningham.”

Stephan smiled. “Let’s just say she won’t be getting a raise this year.”

“Whatever happened to the picture?” Buddy jogged along at Theo’s side, the sweat soaking through his T-shirt.

“I sent it to myself registered mail that next morning, so it has the date on it. I’m waiting for the right time to show it to her.”

“She’s still not coming to see you at the gym?”

“No. And she won’t answer her any of her phones. She won’t return e-mails.”

“I’m sorry, Theo.” Buddy shook his head. “That was a real nice picture, too.”

Theo laughed. The picture was pretty stupid. But it was the best he could do at the time. At least it would get the point across, and he knew that someday Lucy would find the humor in it.

At least he hoped.

“Buddy, let me ask you something.”

“Sure.”

“Have you thought much about how you’ll feel if I get back into med school?”

Buddy raised the hem of his shirt and swiped at his sweaty face, not answering right away. “I’ll be OK, Theo. I’m growing up. I want you to be happy. When’s your big test?”

“Next Friday.” Theo patted his brother’s shoulder and knew they needed to wrap up their morning run. They’d gone through the Miami Springs residential neighborhood this morning instead of the track, because Lucy wasn’t joining them.

“I miss her a lot,” Buddy said.

“I miss her, too.”

“You’ve got to get her back, Theo. She’s the nicest lady who’s ever loved you.”

Buddy was right again. Lucy was the nicest lady who’d ever loved Theo. In fact, she was the most of everything of any woman Theo had ever met. And if he’d already lost her, he’d never stop kicking his own stupid ass.

“Do you worry that you don’t have time to love her? Is that what’s making you so dumb about this?”

Buddy’s question nearly knocked the wind out of him.

“Is it because of me, Theo? Do I take up too much of your time?”

“Oh God, Buddy. No.”

“ ‘Cause I won’t be living with you forever, you know. I want my own apartment after I graduate, and I want to get a job and maybe even get married one day. I worry that you’ll just sit around being lonely.”

Theo nudged his brother to turn left at Pinecrest so they could head back toward their place on DeLeon. “I won’t be doing much sitting around, Bud. I won’t even be doing much sleeping. Not for a lot of years.”

“Yeah, but even busy people get lonely. I worry that you’ll be sad, wishing you still had Lucy. So you’d probably better get her back now.”

Theo stopped running, and Buddy came to a halt in front of him. He looked at his amazing brother- someone who was determined to carve out a life for himself without a single guarantee of success-and wondered why he couldn’t be just as courageous.

“You look surprised that I have these plans, Theo.”

“Not surprised. Proud.”

Buddy put his hands on his hips and smiled, his eyes squinting through his thick glasses. “I think Lucy makes you even happier than Jenna. Lucy loves you back. I don’t think Jenna did.”

We Loves Lucy 233

Theo gulped the air and stared at his brother. “You’re right, Bud. You’re right about everything.”

Buddy gave Theo a friendly slap on his back, and the two jogged the few blocks back to their house in silence. As they stretched in the driveway, Norton padded across the grass to sit near them, cleaning himself. Occasionally he would glance in their direction.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I’m taking Norton with me when I get my own place. But you and Lucy can visit.”

Theo broke out in a huge smile. “You can count on it, Bud.”

“It’s been two hours. Give the guy a break, Lucy.”

Veronica slipped in Lucy’s office door and stood with her arms crossed over her chest, tapping her toe.

“I don’t want to see him.”

“He’s such a nice guy.”

“Is there anything else? Or was this just a ‘Theo Redmond is still in the building’ update?”

“He’s been hanging out in the lobby three days now.”

Lucy chewed on the end of her pen, hearing and feeling her stomach rumble. She’d basically been starving herself the last few days, trying to make up for overdoing it the previous week. But she felt exhausted, shaky, and about as cranky as she’d been in ten months. “What’s he doing out there?”

“Studying. He said his test is Friday. He said he took the whole week off to study.”

Lucy cringed. And to sit around in the Sherrod amp; Thorns lobby. She was ashamed of herself-if Theo didn’t do well it would be all her fault. If he didn’t reach his dream it would be…

His dream! Maybe he was here about the money! Maybe that’s all he wanted.

“You can send him in,” Lucy said abruptly.

Veronica let her head swivel around in surprise. “Huh?”

“Send him in. Let’s get this over with.”

Theo popped in a moment later and shut the door behind him. He sat down in one of the chairs in front of Lucy’s desk and threw a heavy-looking backpack on the other.

As he glanced around her office, Lucy realized Theo had never before been here. She wondered if he liked the pale yellow walls and the combination of primitive and modern art. Then she reminded herself she didn’t care what he liked.

He smiled at her. “How are you, Luce?”

What kind of a greeting was that? Like she could answer that question truthfully!

“Fine, thanks.”

One of Theo’s eyes squinted and his smile grew a bit crooked.

“And how are you, Theo?”

‘Tired and nervous about tomorrow. And I miss you, Cunningham.“

Why did he have to be so direct? So… Theo?

“I suppose you want to talk about the money.”

He said nothing and didn’t move, and she took that as his way of letting on that he was embarrassed about it, but that’s exactly why he was here.

“I’ve thought it over,” she went on, “and I think the equitable thing would be to have Ramona pay you for the seventy-two pounds, through last month, and then the rest should go to Tyson.”

Theo still said nothing.

“I know that’s not all the money you’d hoped to have for med school, but it’s still a lot.”

Theo finally stopped staring at her, and he looked down at his hands, the fingers spread wide over his knees. It was then Lucy noticed he wasn’t wearing his usual white Palm Club polo and the blue trainer shorts. He was wearing the white linen slacks he’d worn to the victory dance in Tampa, with a dusky blue cotton button-down. And the way he sat, with his head bent and his strong shoulders sloped, he looked tired. Weighted down.

She remembered how she’d summed him up when they’d first met. She thought he was a pretty-boy jock with an empty head and not a care in the world. She’d been so unfair to him. And completely wrong.

Maybe she was wrong again.

“Theo-”

He cut her off when he raised his head and shot her a look of fierce anger and hurt. That face was too beautiful and kind to carry the force of those emotions. It surprised her.

“I only meant-” Her phone rang. She could see by the numbers on the display that it was Gia, calling from her cell.

“You wanna go to lunch?”

Lucy held the phone to her ear while she watched Theo begin to seethe.