Page 3 of This Loving Feeling (Mirror Lake)

“He has no family here. No friends. This town means nothing to him.”

“It has one thing no other town has.”

Sam stopped in her tracks. “What’s that?”

“You.”

Sam’s cheeks went hot. Good thing the lighting in the gym was dim. She rolled her eyes and shook her head at Jess’s hopeless romanticism. It didn’t help that at the same time, the chorus of that damn song rang out and the kids started chanting it over and over.

I thought I knew you, I thought I loved you, but I didn’t know you at all.Sam smiled at the kids having a great time when all she really wanted to do was cover her ears and run because hearing that cheesy chorus one more time was about to make her hurl.

Songs often transported people back to the past, reminding them of intense memories. The summer she was nineteen, she’d poured all her teenage angst into those three short phrases after Lukas Spikonos had dropped her like a hot gyro.

He’d taken more than her heart with him.

He took the poetry she’d written way back then in all her angst and turned it into the number one song in America, his breakout hit. She envisioned him holding the rumpled sheet she’d torn out of her college-ruled spiral notebook as he shamelessly borrowed her words, her feelings.

The bastard.

Frankly, she didn’t care about the stolen words. The day he finally left town for good, a year after their breakup, he’d kissed her. Really kissed her, passionately and with feeling. A knock-your-socks-off, seeing stars and twinkly lights and getting dizzy kind of kiss, which was full of the promise of lots of other kisses. She’d just broken up with Harris. She was free to make a different choice, and she’d chosen him.

And then he never called. He’d left—forever, she’d come to think—to find fame and fortune. He’d wanted success far more than he’d ever wanted her.

Suddenly the lights dimmed, making the disco ball spill a Milky Way of stars all across the old gym. The band stopped playing. It was as if the old building itself were holding its breath.

A giant spotlight rose up to follow a solitary figure carrying a guitar as he ran through an aisle of parted bodies and burst onto the stage.

She would recognize his lithe form anywhere. Oh, he had a wild presence, dressed all in black, golden muscles covered with elaborate swirls of ink, flexing as he fingered his guitar like a lover. He strode back and forth lifting his arms and encouraging the kids to sing along to the song they all knew by heart.

Lukas Spikonos had actually shown up. Surprise mingled with shock as Sam watched him from afar.

His coal-black eyes scanned the gym, waving and egging everyone into a frenzy. Then his gaze locked on to her.

The music faded. The beat of the song was replaced by a solitary heartbeat that thundered in her ears, loud and strong.

Sam shook her head. He couldn’t have singled her out, not in the dense crowd. It was just her imagination. There was a time when she wouldn’t have been able to look away, when she would have frozen in jaw-dropping attraction, but now she made herself turn her back. It was much easier knowing that those stolen words were hers. She even made it to the beverage table for a drink of punch.

His voice echoed through the gym on the squeaky old microphone. “Someone named Ellen sent me a video you kids made saying why you wanted me to show up at your prom.”

Wild cheering. The principal stood, arms crossed, looking pleased as pie that his school would make headlines in the national news tomorrow. The chaperones whispered among themselves, as googly-eyed as the kids.

Lukas Spikonos flashed his million-dollar grin. Sam went back to pouring punch, angry with herself for looking again, and angry that she’d felt that grin deep down in places he had no business reaching.

That’s all it was.Hormones. Maybe she couldn’t help the attraction but that was simply part of his carefully orchestrated brand. Suddenly she was desperate for fresh air, but found it impossible to peel her eyes off of his magnetic presence.

He pulled a square of paper out of his pocket, carefully unfolded it. Put on reading glasses.What?The most popular recording artist in America wore geeky glasses? “I’d like to thank Joey, Christy, Shawna, Paul, and Katie for writing to me via my friend Ellen. And I’m thrilled to be back here at my alma mater to play for you.”

Shouts and screams reverberated through the gym.

“So I’d like to have all of you and—where’s Katie Hubbard?—yeah, all of you, come on up here and sing my newest song with me.”

The kids helped Katie up on stage. She’d been in a car accident at the beginning of the school year and was still doing physical therapy for her injuries.

They sang together his latest release, “Not Over You.” He danced with Katie, who shone with happiness.

“He’s doing a good thing,” Jess said, taking a plastic cup of punch from the table. “Are you okay?”

Sam smiled and gave her friend an aggressive thumbs-up.Whatever. In a few minutes he’d be out of here with his entourage and the night would return to the normal prom stuff of stopping the kids from grinding and keeping an eye out for disruptions.

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