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“Okay,” he said as he breathed in. “Before I went to prison, I was a boxer.”
“Really?”
Luke glanced at her, finding her eyebrows up. “Really. You think men work out for muscles like these for no reason?” He shook his head. “No. I needed them in the ring.” He looked back at the water, hoping the tranquility of it would carry him through this story. “Ilovedboxing.”
“You don’t do it anymore?”
“No.” He shook his head, thinking of the gym in Las Vegas. “My dad owned a gym in Beeville. I worked out there. I had a private, personal trainer and a manager. I was good. I won a lot.” He cleared his throat, the images in his mind seemingly belonging to someone else. How had their memories been implanted in his head?
They fuzzed around the edges, and Luke let them take their time leaving. “I worked out hard, but it’s not enough. Everyone takes steroids. So.” He cleared his throat again. “I did too. They really took me to a new level, and I won even more.”
Hannah said nothing, and Luke didn’t know what he wanted her to say. He stroked Petunia and kept going. “One night, I won a tournament in a knock-out. That means I hit the other guy so hard, he couldn’t get up and continue the fight. It was the pinnacle fight of my career so far, and my manager was talking about going pro, moving on to bigger and better circuits, with more prize money, all of it.”
He stared out at the sky now, unseeing. “Then, I got hit with the manslaughter lawsuit. My opponent died.” His throat clogged, but he kept going. “His family filed a lawsuit against me, claiming I was in the wrong weight class because I’d lied about my weight. They said I could’ve and should’ve stopped hitting him before he couldn’t get up again. They claimed I wasn’t even present at the end of the fight, but was swinging to kill in a steroid-induced rage.”
By the time he stopped speaking, Luke’s voice came out in a whisper.
“Wow,” Hannah said, her hand tightening in his. “You got convicted of murder?”
“No,” he said quickly. “No, nothing like that. The judge wouldn’t even accept manslaughter. Their lawyers dropped it to involuntary manslaughter—which means, yes, I killed the guy, but unintentionally—and I was convicted of that. It means I acted recklessly, and because of my actions, someone died.”
“I see.”
“It’s a federal felony, which was why I was in River Bay. But I got low security because of the involuntary part. I got a forty-month sentence, and I had to submit to drug tests every day for the first year.”
With the story out, Luke felt a weight lift right off his chest. Off his shoulders, out of his mind. He hadn’t even known he’d been carrying such a heavy item for so long.
“It was a hard time for me,” he said. “It still is, sometimes.”
“Why’s that?”
“I don’t think I did anything wrong,” he said. “People get hurt in boxing all the time. Men and women suffer from brain damage, broken bones, the whole gamut of injuries.They’renot going to federal prison for over three years.”
A sense of injustice and indignation started to fill him. “I can’t get that time back. I don’t have a career anymore. I feel…I don’t know.” He didn’t want to say what he really felt, because it sounded pathetic to sayhewas the one who felt cheated of something.
Another man hadlost his life.
Luke still had his. He could still walk around, breathe, eat, celebrate birthdays with his friends and family.
He clenched his mouth shut, not about to tell her how he really felt. He’d work through it, just like she’d said.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “Life isn’t perfect, and humans aren’t perfect.”
“That’s the truth,” he said.
“We do the best we can. Most of us, at least.”
Luke nodded, craving the carefree feeling he’d had a few minutes ago. As the seconds ticked by, the tension bled out of his body. Eventually, he felt more like himself, and he asked, “Where do you want to go to dinner?”
“You have to plan that, Mister,” she teased.
“Give me a hint,” he said with a smile. “I know you eat out a lot, and you have favorite places.” He looked at her, finding a beautiful smile on her face. “I haven’t been in town long enough to scope out anything good.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll choose the first time.” She met his eye, and Luke sure did like Hannah Otto. He also knew now that she expected him to have a plan for their dates, and his stomach lurched. Luke rarely had a plan for anything.
“Dutch Baby is amazing,” she said. “They serve breakfast all day, and they have this hash that—mm mm. It’ll change everything you’ve ever thought about potatoes.”
Luke laughed, because Hannah did love off-the-wall restaurants with unique food. “I’ve heard that before,” he said dryly.
