Chapter 9
NINE
Kirsten
Sam is quieter than usual tonight, and though he participates in the banter at the dining room table with my family, I know him well enough to know there’s something on his mind.
Dumping me?
I don’t think so.
That’s not who he is.
We haven’t talked about the future too much on purpose.
We decided early on in our friendship that we would take things one day at a time, but things are changing now.
He didn’t know how long he would be in Vegas and now that we know it’ll be over a month—basically until he leaves to go on tour—that gives us a lot of time to be together.
To figure out if things really are as good as I think they are.
I’m already frustrated at the lack of opportunity to spend the night together again, and I have to think about how to broach that subject with Sydney. Technically, I can do what I want. Not only am I eighteen, I have enough money to move out on my own.
But that’s not what this is about.
I owe her and Ford respect since I live in their home, and it would be ridiculous for me to move out a couple of months before I leave for college.
The thing is that I still have school for a couple of weeks, including finals, which I have to do well on. So she and I need to talk about me spending weekends with Sam, or sleepovers even on school nights since I drive myself back and forth to school. I’m not a little kid. I’m perfectly capable of getting up and getting myself to school even if I spend the night with my boyfriend.
I can’t just make unilateral decisions, though.
I have to find out if Sam even wants me to stay with him.
Then I can talk to Sydney.
“Will you show me your guitars?” My nephew Owen asks Sam. “I like the blue one.”
Sam grins. “If it’s okay with your parents, you can come to the studio and see all of them.”
“How many do you have?”
“Four that I play on stage, including an acoustic, and a couple more that are back home in storage.”
“Can I play the blue one?” he asks, wide-eyed.
Nine-year-old Owen is the child Ford and Sydney had when she was seventeen. Our parents threatened Ford and then lied to Sydney about why he left. They didn’t find their way back to each other until a couple of years ago, but Owen has settled into going from Sydney being his big sister to being their son with no issue. It’s like he always knew Sydney was more his mother than our mother was.
Just like I did.
She’s still my sister, though. It’s different for me since I’m so much older than Owen, but I like seeing how our family has changed over the last few years.
Our youngest brother, Colby, wasn’t even a year old when our parents disappeared, so Sydney is the only mother he knows, and she and Ford legally adopted him this year. And now they have another baby, Poppy, who’s only two months old. She’s planning to take all the kids on tour until school starts for the older two because she doesn’t want to be away from Ford for that long, but I know it’s going to be hard on her when she has to come back. Not only being away from him, but also not having me around.
It was the two of us handling everything when our parents faked their deaths, so I worry about her doing it alone even though she’s not really alone. We all have money now, which we didn’t back then, and they plan to hire a nanny, but I still hate that I won’t be here for her.
“Kirsten?” Sydney is watching me, and I realize someone was talking to me.
“Sorry.” I smile. “I was thinking about finals. What did you say?”
“I asked what your plans are tonight. Are you and Sam going out or staying in?”
“Oh.” I glance at him. “We hadn’t talked about it because he didn’t know how late he would be at the studio.”
“I was thinking we’d go for a ride,” he says, meeting my gaze. “Unless you have studying to do. But either way, we’ll be back early. I know you have to get up for school.”
I nod. “Yeah, I can’t slack off before finals. Two more weeks.”
He grins. “Don’t worry about me. You do what you need to do.”
Since dinner is basically over, Sydney shoos us out of the kitchen despite my protests, and Sam and I wander into the living room.
“You want to get out of here for a little while?” he asks. “I wanted to talk to you about some things.”
Uh oh.
That sounds ominous.
“Okay, let me get my purse.” I run upstairs, my heart pounding.
Is he going to find a way to gently end things between us? I know he won’t be a jerk, but I’m not prepared for him to end things completely.
I need to stop being so insecure.
Just because we had sex doesn’t mean he owes me anything.
Except he does.
We spent months leading up to the main event.
I can’t wrap my head around the idea that he gave me what I wanted and now he’s done with me.
I dab on some lip gloss and then hurry back downstairs, sliding on my sandals.
“Let’s go.”
We get into the rental car he’s driving, and he reaches across the center console for my hand.
“Are you breaking things off?” I blurt.
He squeezes my hand. “Not unless that’s what you want.”
“No. I never want that.”
“What do you want?”
It’s such a simple question but I don’t know the answer.
At least, I don’t have a specific answer.
I have a general idea what I want. Articulating it is proving to be more difficult.
“I want it all,” I admit softly.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I want to go to college, I want to be a rock star, and I want you. I just don’t know if I can have all of that.”
“That’s what I was thinking too.”
My heart sinks.
“The problem,” he continues before I can respond, “is that my feelings for you make it a lot more complicated than I originally thought.”
“Same.”
“And if we’re really, truly honest with each other—it’s going to be hard. Much harder than you think.”
“What do you mean?”
“For the purposes of this conversation—because I’m not being literal—I’ve done everything. One-night stands. Threesomes. Drugs—just pot and coke a few times, it’s really not my scene, though, so that’s not an issue. Frat parties and all-nighters. You name it, I’ve done it. You, on the other hand, haven’t done anything. Yes, you have more success than I do, but not the life experience to go with it. You’re going to be in college, and it’s possibly going to have been months since we’ve seen each other. You’ll be at a party and a cute guy is going to be flirting with you. You’re going to want to kiss him or?—”
“No, I?—”
“Let me finish,” he interrupts. “Please.”
“Okay.”
“The thing is, I believe in that situation, you should kiss him.”
“Sam!” I stare at him, even though he’s watching the road.
“You can’t just have been with me your whole life. Not with what you have ahead of you.”
“Why not? You hear stories of tons of people who marry their first everything and are together forever. True love and all that.”
“No, you really don’t. I mean, yes, you do hear stories like that, but you also hear the ones about those marriages ending in divorce. Fifty percent of them. That’s a fact. Half of all marriages end in divorce. Obviously, I have no statistics on whether or not they slept with other people or what the other circumstances are. That’s not my point.
“My point is that I don’t want you to be at a party, meet an interesting guy, and have to say no. Or worse, give in for a minute, and then beat yourself up for months because you feel guilty about cheating on me. I don’t want that for you.”
“And I’m guessing you don’t want it for yourself either,” I respond dryly.
“See, that’s the difference. I’ve done it. Hundreds of times. I have no lack of experience in dating and sexual encounters. I’ve done all the things. I can wait. But I don’t think you should.”
“That sounds like you want to end things,” I mutter.
“Actually, I don’t. I want the opposite. I want to drive straight to a chapel and elope. Right this minute.”