Chapter 5
Sam couldn’t believe it had been seven years since the first time he set foot at Keller Campground. Seven! So much had changed in those seven years, and yet, so much was the same.
Things that had changed? Well, Sam’s dad had been released from prison again…but something that stayed the same? He was still a mean, rip roaring drunk who liked to beat up on Sam any chance he could find. Only now Sam was bigger, faster, stronger, and he had a place to escape besides the four walls and roof he had called home the first ten years of his life. In the years that had followed since meeting Olivia, Keller Campground had become his home. Even moreso, Olivia had become his home. She was his anchor in the storm, and brought him true comfort in his life of utter chaos.
After that first summer when she had taught him how to swim, he realized how much he loved the water. It had become his safe haven. The water in any capacity filled him with joy; whether he was in the water, swimming rhythmic strokes, or on top of it in the Keller’s boat pulling skiers or tubers behind him, being part of the lake had become his sanctuary. Not only had he found a new passion, but ever since he and Olivia had turned fourteen two summers ago, they had been hired as official life guards, which gave him a chance to be around the water all of the time, something he didn’t take for granted.
The Kellers had become his family, and even though they weren’t blood, he often found their bond to be even more special than the family he was born into. Because the Kellers loved him for who he was and because they wanted to, not out of obligation or necessity. He had become a regular at their dinner table in the evenings after work, and when he sat in the seat across from Olivia, absentmindedly passing platters of food around the table, laughing about nothing and talking about everything with her family, he realized what he had been missing all those years of his life living with his parents on the other side of town. There were no family meals eaten in their tiny kitchen, meals usually consisted of Sam scarfing down anything edible he could find. There was no laughter shared together, the only sounds of laughter he ever heard usually came in the late hours of the evening when his parents were deep into the bottle - before those laughs turned into screams of rage.
When Ray had first invited him to stay for dinner, he was apprehensive and nervous, but the thought of a warm, home cooked meal overruled any other emotion. But his nerves were quickly put to rest the moment he and Olivia walked into her house, soaking wet from their float lesson. Her dad didn’t bat an eye at his scrawny build, his shaggy hair, and didn’t bring up his parents. He simply told him to wash up with Olivia and pulled out a chair for him at the table, and that was that. From that evening on, he had a standing place at the table, something he never took for granted.
Despite the addition of his bonus family, one more thing that had stayed the same? Olivia was still the most important person in his life. But something that had changed? His love, admiration, and protectiveness of her had grown exponentially. They had become inseparable in the years that followed that first meeting in the gas station. Yes, they had their own circle of friends – ok, Olivia did – Sam still liked to keep to himself most of the time, but he had opened himself up to trust others a little bit more after seeing the Keller’s kindness extended to him, believing people were capable of being good. Spending most of his afternoons, weekends, and entire summer at the campground had softened his heart in more places than one, especially his view on what family could look like.
“Hey Callahan! You going to give me a hand over here? Or are you going to continue to stare off into space?” Olivia snapped him out of his trance as he looked over the water from the Rec Center.
4th of July was right around the corner, and the Kellers were in the full swing of planning and executing their biggest event of the summer. 4th of July wasn’t just celebrated for one day at the campground, the Kellers made a whole week of it. On the days leading up to Independence Day, they threw various events to get everyone excited for the main attraction – a huge catered BBQ followed by fireworks over the lake. People came from far and wide to experience the 4th at Keller Campground and Sam couldn’t blame them. They put on quite the show.
“Sam!” Olivia was draped with red, white, and blue lights as she stood atop a ladder.
“Sorry! I got you!” He shook his head and grabbed some of the lights from around her neck as he made his way over to the ladder. “I swear, your dad buys more of these things every year, they keep multiplying,” he said as he began to hang the lights.
“You’re not kidding. Five years from now you’ll be able to see the campground from space,” she smiled as Sam chuckled at her joke.
Glancing over at her best friend, her heart couldn’t help but skip a beat. Stretching his arms up overhead as he strung lights onto their hooks, his muscled stomach peeked out under his t-shirt. His skin was a beautiful olive, that was even more darkened courtesy of the countless hours he spent under the sun. When he wasn’t wearing his signature backwards ballcap, his dark hair fell into his face, as he liked to keep it a shaggy long – which he loved to shake out at her like a dog anytime they exited the water.
But as always, she was captivated by his gorgeous green eyes. Ever since the first time her eyes locked with his in that gas station seven years ago, she felt as if she could see straight into his soul. From that moment of connection, she knew him to have a pure heart, and over the years he had proven that to be true.
Recently she had been trying to figure out when she had started noticing Sam the man, instead of Sam the boy. Every time she tried to put her finger on the first time she had felt those butterflies come alive in her stomach, she couldn’t quite pinpoint it.
“Liv! Hey. Now who’s the one staring off into space?” Sam called as he stepped down from the ladder, a smirk adorning his lips.
“Sorry,” blushing as she met Sam in the middle of the Rec Center that was filled with boxes of decorations.
Which was truly obscene.
A few years ago her dad had built a separate shed specifically for all the 4th decorations; lights, banners, torches, everything you could think of that screamed summer at the lake. And each year Ray cackled maniacally when Olivia and Sam were the ones instructed to unload and sift through the boxes. He told her it was payback for all the sleepless nights he spent walking the house like a zombie while holding her as a baby trying to get her to sleep. Even though she groans and complains each and every year, it had become a small game to them, something she secretly looked forward to. There were a lot of traditions that she cherished, and she started to become emotional at the thought of those traditions shifting in the coming years.
“I was just thinking how I can’t believe this will be our last 4th of July here.” Olivia tucked a strand of her blonde hair back into her messy bun.
“What do you mean?” Sam puzzled, not looking up at her as he sifted through more boxes.
“Well, it’s the summer before senior year. Our last summer of normalcy, when the summer ends, we go back to school, but next year, we graduate.” She sat her hands on the side of a box and looked out over the lake.
“Yeah? And? I’m still missing the part about next summer not being normal,” Sam prompted.
“Well, after graduation, people go off to college, start the next chapter of their lives. Things will never be the same.” There was a tentativeness in the way she spoke that wasn’t usually there, which made Sam stop rummaging through the boxes and turn to give her his full attention.
“Liv. You’re not going anywhere. You’re going to college in the fall, major in business, and still work here with plans to take over this place from your dad. It won’t be such a huge change.”
Olivia and Ray had been talking about this plan for years, much to Ray’s dismay. He wanted her to go off and explore the world, explore herself, and see what else may be out there for her to tackle and achieve. He didn’t want her to feel as if she were obligated to stay here and feel stuck running the campground. The thought that his daughter may grow to resent it, and in turn, resent him, in the future was something that kept him up at night. He had to trust in the confidence of his daughter when she assured him this is what she wanted to do with her life, and he was going to support her no matter what.
Pausing for a moment, it took her a few beats to look back up at him. It wasn’t just the start of a new and scary chapter, high school ending was the end of an era. Was that lame to think of her life in that way? Probably. But it felt as if there were a hollow pit inside of her, realizing that life as they knew it was about to change dramatically.
“Well, we have kind of danced around your plans and where you’re going to go.”
“Liv.”
Staring straight into her eyes, he gave her her favorite Sam smile. The one that turned up slightly higher on the left, where his lone dimple twinkled at her.
“We haven’t really talked about it because I’m not going anywhere. Even though my grades are solid, we both know I don’t have the money to apply and pay for college. But let’s be real, aside from getting a degree, which would be cool, there is nowhere else I’d rather be. I’m going to stay on here, and maybe after a few years, learn the ropes from your dad and be your right hand man when you take this place over in ten years.”
Her heart broke for the thought of his limited options, he had worked his butt off in school, taking pride in something that he could control. His homelife was anything but controlled, so being able to dictate how much time and effort he put into his studies was something that he was in charge of.
She would never forget the turning point from when he transitioned from that aloof ten year old who used school as an escape, to the twelve year old who decided he was going to be better than his father.
In seventh grade science class, they were tasked to come up with an experiment of their choosing, and Sam had spent a solid two weeks crafting an epic volcano that exploded with the press of a button, and even omitted a gassy smell that made it even more realistic. Olivia had never seen him more proud than on the day he walked into that classroom with his shoulders tucked back and his head held high. Their teacher was so impressed that she not only gave him the blue ribbon awarding him the highest marks in the class, but she put his volcano on display in the main office so everyone that came through would see his hard work.
On the day that he took his volcano home, his dad had lost yet another job and had already been halfway through a bottle when Sam walked through the door. Instead of showering him with praise like most fathers would do, he ripped the volcano out of his hands and threw it against the wall, causing the clay to shatter everywhere, along with the pride that Sam had felt within himself. That was the day that Sam decided he was going to work his ass off to be able to get as far away from his parents as possible. In addition to proving his worth, showing himself and the world that he was going to grow to be a man who was the complete opposite from his father. And when he received a high mark on a test despite all the obstacles he faced at home, god damn that felt good.
Olivia couldn’t help the smile that bloomed on her lips, selfishly ecstatic to know she wasn’t going to lose him. If she was being honest with herself, the thought of him starting a new chapter elsewhere had kept her up at night recently, not being able to picture the campground without him around.
“Keller and Callahan do make a pretty bad ass team.” She said from underneath her lashes.
“That’s my girl,” Sam nudged her shoulder with his. “Now, let’s finish hanging these lights so the aliens on Mars can see em.”
“You’re on!”
Once their fingers started cramping thanks to the thousands of strands of lights they spent untangling, they set out for their afternoon shifts. Sam was stationed in the main lifeguard tower on the beach, the most popular swimming spot for all the guests. It was a small spit that sat in a perfect slough of the lake, tucked back from all the boaters and skiers that lived on the water during the day. For years it had been just a regular stretch of lakeside dirt, but Ray had wanted to make it more accessible for the families that brought small children, and give them a place where they could spend their days in the water safely.
So he had purchased buoys and ropes that cordoned off the swimming area, and he and Sam had taken countless wheelbarrow trips full of sand to create a beach with soft, golden sand that felt fluffy beneath your toes. Sam’s back had been sore for days, and he swore he would have the calluses on his hands from gripping the handles of that damn wheelbarrow for the rest of his life, but the beach had been an amazing idea and worth all the effort.
Sam loved being able to sit up in the tower and look out at all of the colorful beach towels strewn on the sand, with parents propping up umbrellas provided by the lodge, and sitting under the shade as they ate their lunches out of their packed coolers. Growing up an only child, he didn’t have a sibling to play with, so hearing the sounds of children’s constant laughter and splashing brought him so much joy to feel part of that camaraderie, even if he was a bit removed up in his tower.
He and Olivia had gone through the lifeguard training together, and in true Olivia fashion, she had taken the courses extremely seriously.
When they had sat down their first day in the training class, Sam had leaned over and whispered in her ear, “I’m so glad we’re here perfecting our CPR skills, it’s a matter of life and breath.”
The daggers she had sent him caused him to break out in laughter, which made her glare even more intense. But despite his jokes, he flourished in the class and was so excited to be part of something bigger than himself once he stepped into the lifeguard tower every day.
School had been out for summer for a couple of weeks, and the campground was officially sold out for the rest of the season, which meant that the weeks ahead were going to consist of early mornings, hot summer days, and balmy afternoons that stretched into long evenings. He couldn’t freaking wait.
Olivia was working in the rental hut today, checking in and out all the fun rental equipment the lodge offered. Whether it be floaties for the little kids who were learning how to swim, big rafts for the older kids to horse around on and try to capsize, paddleboards, towel rentals in case anyone had forgotten to pack them, and even buckets of sand toys for the kiddos who weren’t yet brave enough to try the water. The rental hut had been her own idea a couple years back, and being able to sit with her dad and go over budgets for the items, and the costs of how to effectively keep them clean and in pristine condition was the first time she had a direct hand in a piece of the resort, and she couldn’t get enough of it.
She was in the middle of doing inventory on her clipboard when the rap of knuckles on the counter grabbed her attention.
“Excuse me, Miss. I’d like to check out that extremely hot lifeguard that is on display up in that tower over there.”
Olivia rolled her eyes at her closest girlfriend. Cassie had been plopped into Olivia’s life when her parents had vacationed here a few summers ago and had impulsively decided to never leave. “They picked up their lives from Washington State and somehow finagled a way to buy out one of the larger cabins from her dad, and have been living at the lodge ever since.
Lucky for Olivia, Cassie had seamlessly fit into their gang. She was wild and uninhibited, which was a stark contrast from Olivia’s tendency to think things through a little more thoroughly. But their friendship worked perfectly, they were very much the yin and yang to each other.
“You can look for free, renting him is gonna cost ya,” Olivia said without looking up from her clipboard.
Narrowing her eyes at the flush that appeared at Olivia’s neck, Cassie decided to push it one step further. “I have no problems looking, but I am not one to step on toes and go after someone else’s man.” A sly smile crept over her face.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Sam doesn’t have a girlfriend,” Olivia retorted, still not looking up from her clipboard. She had reread the same item on her checklist six times since Cassie had walked over.
“Hmm, I don’t know about that. There is a certain blonde friend of mine who seems to have called dibs,” Cassie said, nonchalantly looking over her very chipped and sad manicure.
“What?” At this, Olivia’s eyes finally met Cassies’ in confusion. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re not talking about me, are you?”
“Oh come on Liv!” Cassie slapped her hand on the counter with gusto. “I have known you both for years and we all seem to be dancing around the sexual tension that is in the room every time you two are together. I haven’t said anything because I thought FOR SURE something would have happened by now. But the tanner he gets up there in that lifeguard tower, the deeper the blush gets on your face when you look at him.”
At Cassie’s observation, Olivia’s stomach muscles tightened. She still hadn’t been able to sort through all the intense feelings she was having towards Sam. A flush of embarrassment overcame her at the realization that Cassie had caught on to her inner conflict - she hoped to God Sam hadn’t noticed. She couldn’t pinpoint the moment her feelings for him had shifted. For years they had been buddies who shared all of their secrets together, things between them came as easily as breathing. But one day when he had shown up to work with his ball cap on backwards and a smirk on his lips, she felt her stomach drop out from underneath her. She had felt like she had been punched in the gut, and she didn’t even see it coming.
“I may have noticed that his muscles have become more…buff. And that his dark hair has a few natural sunlit streaks in it. And that his dimple seems to dance when he chuckles from the depths of his belly.” Olivia’s face was a bright crimson now, mortified that she just admitted those things out loud, albeit to her friend. She covered her eyes shamefully as Cassie let out a whoop of laughter.
“I knew it!! I KNEW it! You have it so bad for Callahan! So what are you waiting for? Make your move. You guys have been best friends forever.”
“Exactly! We’ve been best friends forever. There is no way that he feels that way for me. He probably looks at me like the sister he never had. I would rather stick one hundred needles in my eye than go through that kind of humiliation,” Olivia said as she began furiously folding towels.
“Well, that sounds a bit dramatic. Leave the theatrics to me, will you, darling?” Cassie countered. “Liv, let’s be real. He only has eyes for you. He hasn’t so much as ever looked at a member of the opposite sex in any other way other than in passing, let alone been interested in anyone. You should shoot your shot.”
Olivia put down her clipboard and looked across the beach to the lifeguard tower. Sam stood at the railing, looking out towards the water at two young kids who were pushing each other off their rafts out deep in the water. Even from this distance away, she could see the way the muscles tightened in his arms as he gripped the railing, leaning forward to get a closer look. His shorts hugged him in all the right places and the white Keller Campground tank top he wore clung to ab muscles in a way that made you want to rip it off and see if the rippling you saw through the fabric was real. He was wearing his ball cap backwards, which drove Olivia’s insides crazy for whatever reason, maybe because it added just a little bit of swagger to his already confident presence. Even though his sunglasses shaded his gorgeous green eyes, she knew that they were scanning the beach in preparation of having to react. His lifeguard whistle was currently in his mouth, being bitten between his teeth, and Olivia couldn’t help but wish it was her bottom lip that was there instead of the whistle.
Shaking her head in disbelief, she willed herself to focus. There was no way that she would be able to admit to Sam that her feelings had grown from pure, innocent friendship, to longing and want. She was absolutely sure that he would laugh in confusion, and gently tell her he didn’t see her any other way but as a friend in an effort to not make things weird between them. Their friendship was too important to her to mess up over her temporary raging hormones.
“No way. But you are welcome to. Be my guest,” Olivia told Cassie as she pulled her long blonde waves up into a ponytail.
Eyeing her suspiciously, she didn’t take the bait. “Hmm, I think I’m good for now. There will be plenty of boys who will come and go this summer. I want to keep myself available.”
“Good plan, Cass.”
Olivia could see what Cassie was doing. She knew her friend was pushing her in the direction she had been pulled to for so long. And honestly, the thought of anyone starting to notice how gorgeous Sam was made her blood turn hot. She tried to picture Sam being interested in someone and taking them on a date, and she felt her stomach roll over with nausea. She had been trying to chalk up these feelings to the simple excuse of hormones, but maybe there was something deeper happening inside of her. Even so, she knew that there was no way Sam would ever reciprocate those feelings, she was positive he only ever viewed her as a friend…Right?
Exhausted from the day, Olivia crashed through the front door of the house and collapsed onto the couch and swore she wasn’t going to move for the rest of the evening. Her earlier conversation with Cassie replayed in her mind as she tried to make sense of her emotions. She had no idea someone else could feel the tension that seemed to always hang between them, she always thought that it was solely on her end. But hearing from Cassie that there may be something coming from him as well, well, that just made her insides tighten at the thought. Sure she had other guy friends, and had even been out on a couple of dates with a few of them, but she had never felt a spark or wanted it to go anywhere further. But she didn’t get the impression that it bothered Sam, which is exactly why she was positive he only saw her platonically as a friend.
Groaning, she threw an arm across her face as if to hide herself from her own embarrassing thoughts, and laughed when her stomach rumbled dramatically. Deciding eating her feelings was a better way to deal with her emotions than actually confronting them, she hopped off the couch and headed into the kitchen. Even though she was seventeen and didn’t have to sneak around to hide the fact she was going to snag some Oreos before dinner, she was still her father’s daughter who would be scolded for sneaking sweets before the dinner they always shared together.
Hopping up on the counter to reach the top shelf of the cabinet where she secretly tucks them away, (her father would eat the whole box before she even got one if he knew where she stashed them), her stomach made another noise as if it knew the treat it was about to be given. Laughing at herself as she pulled the box down, her elbow hit the homemade cookie jar she made for her father in the third grade for Father’s Day. A resounding crash reverberated through the kitchen as she stared in shock at the shattered clay on the floor.
“Shit,” she muttered. “Dad is going to be pissed!”
Hopping off the counter, careful to not step on any broken pieces, she noticed a note amongst the rubble. Kneeling down, she plucked the tattered corner of the paper and shook off the remnants of the shattered clay. The angel and devil appeared on her shoulders instantaneously, one telling her there was a reason her father had it tucked away in a place she would never look and to respect his privacy, the other screaming at her to open it and find out what he was hiding.
She respected her father immensely and was never one to pry into his business, but there was something almost physical that was pulling her fingers to unwrap the note. Even though she knew it was the right thing to tuck it back away somewhere, her stubbornness and curiosity won out. Sweeping the bits of clay aside, she plopped right down in the middle of the kitchen floor and slowly opened the note, afraid of what she would find. She furrowed her brow in confusion when she didn’t recognize the handwriting, but the name signed at the bottom made her cover her mouth to ward off the nausea that instantly rose to her throat.
Dear Ray,
Here you will find the attached papers signing my rights away to our daughter. Congrats, you’re a daddy! What a long nine months it has been. I will definitely not miss the never ending morning sickness - good riddance vomit. I am handing over sole and physical custody of her, so you will never see or hear from me again. I won’t come looking for money, I just want my freedom. Twenty three is too young to be attached to campsites in the backwoods forest, let alone be attached to a dependant human being for the rest of my life. I never wanted to be a mother, and I definitely don’t want to be stuck in the middle of bum fuck nowhere, so this one-night-stand-mistake is your responsibility now.
-Renee-
Olivia clutched her stomach as a whimper escaped her lips. Everything she had been told about her mother raced through her brain like a series of movie clips playing across the back of her eyes as she squeezed them shut. That her mother had loved her father and they had plans to run the campground together. That they had both been ecstatic when she had found out she was pregnant with Olivia, but that she had tragically died in childbirth and that had left her father devastated. All of those thoughts went up in flames in her mind as she let out a guttural scream that she didn’t even realize had come from her.
A moment later the kitchen door burst open, but Olivia didn’t even notice in between her heaving sobs.
“Liv?!” Sam stood in the doorway and felt his knees almost crumple.
She was sitting cross legged in the middle of shattered bits of clay, her chest heaving up and down as if she couldn’t catch her breath, her hair stacked on the top of her head that left her face bare, where it was red and hot with tears that looked as if they were never going to stop. He had never seen her look so broken. He was over to her in two strides, before kneeling down on the floor and taking her in his arms. He didn’t say anything at first, just held her and let her cry. She clutched the front of his t-shirt in her fists like a vice, as if the connection to him was the one and only thing holding her together, that without his touch every single emotion in her would rip her open and destroy her from within.
Sam lost track of how long they sat together on the floor before her sobs started to subside. He held her in the quiet, and when he tried to pull away to get a look at her face, she clutched his shirt even tighter. Understanding that she needed the connection, and was maybe trying to hide her face from him, he wrapped his arms around her tighter and rested his chin on the top of her head.
“I haven’t seen you this upset since I beat your score on that geometry test sophomore year,” he joked, hoping that it would lighten the moment.
Her small chuckle made him sprout a small smile as she wiped her face with her forearm. But she still didn’t speak.
“Liv. What happened?” He asked gently as he brushed a light kiss along the top of her hair.
He felt her take a few steadying breaths before she silently handed him a tattered piece of paper. Releasing only one arm from around her body, he kept the other firmly locked around her as he took the paper and began to read. His body instantly coiled as he read the words he knew had just shattered her heart. Discarding the note, he wrapped her back up in his arms even tighter. Knowing there were no words that would ebb her pain, he just sat there with her, a quiet reminder that he would be there with her to weather any storm together until she was the one to speak.
“My dad lied to me,” was the first thing she whispered against his shirt.
Sam was processing many thoughts pertaining to what was in the letter, but he was surprised that was the first thought she latched onto. Stunned her first thought wasn’t about her mother who was still out there somewhere, alive. But of the father who had put his daughter before everything else, and had loved her so fiercely that she never had to doubt that she was cherished. That’s the kind of father Ray was to her.
“You have every right to be mad at him, but Liv, I have no doubt that he did it to protect you,” Sam responded gently as he began to stroke her hair.
Olivia squeezed her eyes shut tight as she leaned in harder to Sam’s strong frame. She felt as if her world was crumbling all around her, but the arms that surrounded her were holding her together and she felt safe. That in the midst of the biggest storm she had ever faced, he was anchoring her, and despite feeling as if she were going to break, he wouldn’t let her.
“Every single thing I believed about my mother and our past was a complete lie. How could he do that to me? Because now instead of knowing that she left this world giving me life, which even though it’s heartbreaking, was kind of beautiful in a way, but the truth is she just left. She left him. She left me. She didn’t want me. I was a mistake. I was never supposed to be here.” She wiped her nose on Sam’s shirt. “That is such a shitty feeling.”
Leaning back and finally letting her go so he could look her in her eyes, he cupped her face. “First of all. You are not a mistake. Never, ever think of yourself in that way. Ever. And if anyone knows what it feels like to be left and abandoned, Olivia, it’s me. I know exactly how you feel,” Sam said as his deep green eyes pierced hers.
Olivia just looked back at him, searching as if she would find every answer to all the questions swimming in her head right there in his eyes. She covered his hand on her face with her own.
“The thought that you have felt this way your whole life breaks my heart,” she said softly.
Sam shook his head minutely in awe. In true Olivia fashion, she was putting Sam’s pain above her own. That in a moment that completely shattered every foundation she had about her past, she was identifying the pain he had felt most of his life. He couldn’t believe that this selfless and kind woman was in his life, and it killed him that he couldn’t take away the pain that was clearly written on her face and on her heart.
“Oh Liv,” he huffed as he pulled her back into his arms. He held her for another minute before continuing. “You’re going to have to talk to your dad,” he said against her head.
“Ugh, I feel like I’m going to have to cool off a little bit before I do that. Or there will be more shattered hardware in this house and this time it won’t be accidental.”
Sam chuckled under his breath, knowing that when her fiery side came out, it was best you steer clear. “Do you want me to be with you when you do it?” He asked gently.
Releasing a deep breath, she pulled back and settled across from him. “God yes,” she laughed unsteadily. “But I think this is something I need to do on my own, there’s a lot to unpack,” she said as she rubbed her hands over her face.
“I know. And you have every right to be angry at him for keeping something so huge from you,” he started.
“And for lying about it,” she tossed back at him.
“And for lying about it,” he agreed. “But Liv, your dad loves you more than anything on this Earth, and would do anything in his power to protect you from pain. And even though what he did was wrong, I know Ray and he had your best intentions in mind. I have no doubt about that,” he finished as she gave him a stern look.
He reached over and tucked a stray piece from her messy bun behind her ear, giving her a small smile. “Just try to remember that in the back of your mind when you are tossing heavy hardware at him.” A shadow of a smile whispered across her face, and Sam relaxed a bit knowing that she was starting to calm.
“So what now?” She asked as she shrugged her shoulders up and down. Giving her knee a quick squeeze as he stood, he held out a hand to help her up off the floor.
“Now I’m going to sweep up this mess, and you are going to sit your ass on the couch and finish that pack of Oreos I know you were smuggling,” he said as he walked to the closet for the broom.
She did as he instructed, and when she watched his strong and steady frame sweep up the shattered truth of her life, she realized that she was in love with Sam Callahan.