Chapter Twelve. Mackenzie #3
“Well, you also had a surprise growth,” I remind him gently. “A three-foot-tall one with an anti-dessert agenda.”
And also because—Sam really did disappear. There was no invitation to come meet Ben. No follow-up texts or Christmas cards. If there was a time I was supposed to tell him, it never came.
“Were you scared?” Sam asks quietly.
“Shitless,” I say with a laugh. Not because it’s funny, but because it’s the first time I’ve admitted it out loud. “But it wasn’t cancer, in the end. It was just some weird genetic thing that happens all the time. So it felt like I had no right to be scared.”
Sam’s thumb goes still just above my collarbone. “Sure you did. I can’t even imagine what was going through your head.”
At the time, I couldn’t, either. It felt surreal. Like it was happening to someone else. Even going online made it feel more like a dream—most of the other people dealing with it were older than I was, usually by decades.
But once the surgery was over and I’d had time to adjust to the new reality, I felt strangely grounded. Something radical had changed my life forever, and I had to change, too.
It didn’t happen fast. I went to therapy. I spent a lot of time with myself. For the first time in my life, I stayed still.
“It made me reflect on some things,” I say. “Like—the people I was worrying about. I spent a lot of time chasing after people who didn’t deserve it. That energy should have just stayed with the people that were already there.”
Only then do Sam’s eyes fall to the water. I am desperate to know if he’s wondering the same thing I am—where the two of us fall between those two categories.
I always assumed Sam would be one of the people who weren’t worth it. Sam, who seemed to hate my lyrics before we even met. Sam, who called me Sparkles and avoided me offstage, only to torture me on it. Sam, who was always an arm’s length away, but impossibly out of my reach.
Sam, who is freezing his ass off right now to teach me how to float, and asking questions none of those other men would have asked.
His eyes meet mine again. “Now I’m wondering what else you’re hiding.”
He is so sincere that I feel more naked now than I did shedding my sundress. It isn’t a scary feeling, but maybe it should be. I don’t know what to do with it—the sensation of feeling seen and feeling safe at the same time.
But I’ve put my trust in too many things that have fallen through—Sam included. I can’t risk it. This will stay fun, and I won’t put any more weight on it than that.
“Are you now?” I challenge him, lifting myself on the tips of my toes. “You realize you’re talking to the Sweet Spot champion.”
Sam’s brows lift, surprised by the shift in tone. But then his lips curl to match my smirk, his hands dipping under the water to graze just above my hip bone. “That’s the last place you had one.”
“For all you know, I’ve got one on me right now.”
Sam unexpectedly grips me by both arms and lifts me out of the water, making me squeak with surprise.
“Do you?” he asks.
I wriggle in his grasp even though I’m enjoying it a little too much—the firmness of his hands on me, the absurd ease it takes for him to lift me. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
He releases me, shielding himself as I splash him. He stays close, though. So close that I can see the shifting light reflect against each fleck of color in his eyes. So close that I can track the drops of water streaming down his face and catching on his nose, his lips.
“Maybe I would,” he says quietly.
We’re both very still for a moment. We have a script, me and Sam. And we’ve been off book these past few weeks as we’ve gotten to know each other, shifting from rivals to friends. But we’re shifting again, and this time there’s nothing gradual about it.
“I gotta be honest,” he says. “The things I’m thinking right now—I think they’d make your boyfriend want to punch my lights out.”
Shit. There’s a brief flash of guilt—not because I’m doing anything that would upset Grayson, who was never anything more than a guy I went out with twice. But because at some point in the last half hour, I forgot Grayson even existed.
“I broke things off with him,” I tell Sam.
“You did?” Sam asks. “Why?”
“We get along just fine, but there was no—” Lock, click , I almost say. “No spark,” I say instead.
I brace myself, knowing what’s next. The few times Sam deigned to acknowledge me on tour, it was to make fun of my exes. This time it’ll be khaki jokes, Corporate Ken jokes, the works.
Or worse—maybe Sam won’t care at all anymore. He’ll be just like all the men who came before him, who didn’t care about me half as much as the thrill of the chase.
But Sam’s lip curls, so unabashed that I’m blushing.
“So what does a spark feel like?” His hands are on my hips again, and only then do I realize he was holding back. His fingers press deeper this time as he pulls me in, like he’s relishing every inch of it.
“You tell me,” I say, sliding my hands over his forearms.
Sam’s teeth graze his lower lip. “I think I’d rather show you,” he says, voice low. “We’ve never done anything to find out.”
I lean in close. “Oh, but we did.”
I don’t mean to say it, but I don’t regret it. We’ve danced around that kiss for too damn long.
Sam knows it, too. “We did,” he echoes, without pulling back.
Our last joint performance was a full two years ago, at the Sunray Awards.
It was a breezy, beautiful August night for it.
Candy Shard had released “Kiss & Desist” earlier in the year, and the running bit the whole night was that Sam would kiss anyone who won an award.
He kissed one starlet on the forehead like a ’90s sitcom dad, cheekily pecked the front man of another band on the lips, full on made out with every member of a seasoned rock band to such raucous applause that it’s a miracle it didn’t devolve into a full-scale audience orgy.
It was all typical Sam antics until there was a twist at the end of the show we didn’t see coming: “Play You by Heart” won Single of the Summer by fan vote.
I was pushed onto the stage, dripping sweat in the sequined hot-pink crop top and skirt I’d performed in earlier.
Sam was in a similar state, flushed and exhausted from all the running around for the cameras, but beaming at me with a conspiratorial What the fuck?
For the first time ever, I wanted to launch myself at him with a hug.
I was so proud . But we had our roles to play.
Sam held the mic over me to thank our team, using the top of my head as an armrest. I wrestled it away from him, darting across the stage in a game of keepaway as I handed the mic to other performers, making them score his kissing skills like a sporting event.
“Before they kick us off this stage, I’d like to thank all of you for voting for us and proving me wrong. I used to think Sam Blaze was good for nothing.” I turned to level him with a smirk, putting a hand on my hip. “But now I know he’s good for one thing.”
Sam slid his hand around my waist, drawing me in as I straightened my back as if to challenge him, even as I let myself be moved.
“Be fair,” he said, aiming a cheeky kiss at the audience. “I think I’ve more than proven tonight that it’s two things.”
“Hearsay,” I said back.
“That’s right, Sparkles,” said Sam, turning to me with an unrepentant hunger. “You haven’t had your turn yet.”
The next few beats were familiar ones. Sam pulling me in tighter.
Me reaching my arms up around his back, pressing my fingers into the planes of his shoulders to the point of bruising.
His expression cheated out to the camera, a clear You think I can’t handle this?
And mine a clear I’d like to see you try.
By then we were both so spent that we were practically drunk with exhaustion.
I couldn’t even tell whose heartbeat was whose with our chests pressed against each other, with the roar of the crowd.
He lifted a hand and cupped it under my jaw, tilting my head toward his, driving the crowd wild with the slow deliberation of it.
I let my eyelids flutter shut and breathed in deep.
Burnt sunshine , I remember thinking. Like I wanted to taste the edges of him, sink my teeth into the center.
His nose grazed mine, his breath warm and sweet. Distantly I tried to remember the last time we’d done this—last week? The week before? I wasn’t sure whose turn it was to pull away at the last second. The moment Sam’s lips brushed against mine, I realized that neither did he.
The crowd was united in a disbelieving scream. They’re going to kill us for this , I thought. Twyla, Isla, the label, our bandmates. A kiss would be like a series finale. It would wreck the whole rivalry. We were supposed to do anything, anything but this.
But it felt so inevitable that there was no stopping it. Like we’d leaned so far over the edge of something that we had no choice but to fall, and hold on to each other for dear life.
There was an abrupt slam of a curtain falling just in front of us. Our eyes shot open into each other’s in shock, and then mutual understanding. We couldn’t stop ourselves, so somebody else had. Which meant we had one second, maybe two, before whoever it was caught us.
We took it.
He seized the back of my neck and I hooked my arms around his back, coming together with such force that it was every bit as much a collision as a kiss.
The desire didn’t swell in me, but pushed up with violence, angry to have been dismissed for so long.
I had all kinds of designs—to jump and wrap my legs around him, to tug on the back of his hair, to pull back and hold him there and make him look at me so he’d know, he’d know , that after this he was mine .
“Mack!”
It was over before it could even start. Serena yanked me back by the arm, someone yanked Sam by the back of his jacket, and we were bodily pulled off the stage. Laughing, I remember. Sam was laughing, and then so was I, and then—
And then the next morning, he was gone.
I’m about to look away from him, but then Sam lets out a soft laugh of recognition. Like he saw the film reel of it reflected in my eyes.
“Do you remember what you said to me on the phone?” Sam asks.
He’s still holding me, but there’s something guarded in his tone. I can’t have that. I already spent two years second-guessing that conversation, and I’m sure as hell not going to let myself get hung up on it again.
I tilt my chin at him. “Before or after you said you wouldn’t be dating anymore?” I ask right back.
He said it offhand, without prompting. As if he worried it might be the only reason I was calling. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t one of them, but mostly I just wanted to know he was okay.
It hurt like hell to hear, but it was good of him to say it. I never had to wonder where we stood. Unlike right now, with Sam so close that he’s nudging his knee into my thigh under the water.
“After,” he says, not denying it. “You said not to worry about the kiss. That it didn’t count, because it was only five seconds.”
I have no trouble believing him. It sounds exactly like something I’d say to protect myself. I nudge my own knee into him and dip low into the water so I’m at his chest, staring up at him.
“Well, yeah,” I say easily. “That’s basic kissing math.”
Sam lowers himself to meet my eyeline. “Hmm. They didn’t cover that in my classes,” he says, voice low against the ripples of the water. “You’re going to have to explain.”
I swallow hard, my eyes flitting to his lips and back to his eyes. “The transitive properties of the five-second rule apply to physical acts. If I kissed you right now, for instance, and it was only five seconds—it wouldn’t count.”
Sam nods thoughtfully. He’s pulling me closer to the shallow end of the pool. I let him, feeling the tension build with every ripple of the water against our skin.
“Oh. So in a sense, we’ve barely broken the no touching rule this entire time.” His tone is innocent, but his eyes are anything but. “Since there’s a five-second grace period.”
Funny. The pool doesn’t feel remotely cold anymore.
“See?” I say, the word half in whisper. “You’re a quick study.”
“Look at us, swapping lessons.” We’re in shallow enough water now that Sam can take a knee. He wastes no time putting me on the other one, flashing a wicked grin as my legs straddle him and he lifts his thigh just so. “Might help, though, if this one came with a demonstration.”
I’m letting out a keen noise of agreement before I even know what it’s for. The anticipation is already curling low in my belly, that same hunger rising up in me—not sharp and raw like the last time we kissed, but slow and brimming.
We’re pressed together now, bare stomach to stomach. “I take it you’re volunteering, then,” I say.
He keeps one hand on my hip and uses the other to brush the wet curtain of hair off the side of my face, his eyes blazing and tender and entirely sure.
“I am,” he tells me. “So show me how it’s done.”
His hand slides under my jaw and holds it there, hovering so deliciously in the almost that I can’t help but savor it. Knowing that this moment isn’t a performance for other people’s sake, but one that’s finally just for us.
Still, I can’t shake it. Through the haze of want and demand and the honey smoke smell of him, I feel the faint tug of reality. The quick bite of fear that’s spent years living like an animal curled under my ribs, afraid of getting too close—of giving anyone the power to hurt me again.
Of giving him the power to hurt me again.
“We have to work together,” I breathe. “Rules still apply.”
I brace myself for him to pull away, but he only nods. I see it in his eyes, then—the steadiness. The certainty. This will be a fleeting thing, maybe, but not a painful one. Like writing this album. Short and sweet and finished.
“Lucky thing I’m good at keeping time,” he says, and then gently tips my head, and kisses me.
His lips are unexpectedly gentle, the kiss slow and savoring.
There’s a tap of his finger on my hip, right where I hid the last Sweet Spot.
A quiet one . His fingers dig satisfyingly in the heavy, wet hair at the nape of my neck.
Two. His tight muscles ripple under my palms as they slide down his back.
Three. The hot coil in my stomach is burning all over my body— four —so demanding that by the time he’s pushed me up against the edge of the pool deck it’s consuming me, until—
Five.
Sam gently pulls away. I’m dizzy and dumbstruck, leaning against the wall as the water bobs around us, as his face comes into focus again.
“See?” he says, flushed and breathless. “Even bad boys can follow the rules.”
I know I’m in trouble, then. Because I can’t even remember the rules anymore. All I can think is how sweet it feels to break them.