Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Sam could hear the sound of his blinks as his brain slowly took in and filtered information.
The dance teacher with the great ass and even better legs was named Lacey.
He’d named his fake girlfriend Lacey.
He’d told Edith Nelson he was dropping off coffee at the dance studio and then he’d told her he was seeing Lacey. Romantically.
Part of his plan had worked perfectly. He’d planted the seed of rumor with Edith, and she’d made it grow in a matter of hours. The spread and sprawl had gone far enough to come back and bite him in the ass.
Lacey.
Where had he even plucked that name from? It had floated to the top of his mind like an iridescent bubble. Why?
“Your name is Lacey?”
“Yes, it’s Lacey. For fuck’s sake, Sam. We’ve met so many times, and every time you stare at me like someone used that clicky thing from Men In Black on you.”
“I do not,” Sam protested, heat creeping across his face and down his neck. He did look at her exactly that way every time he ran into her, but he wasn’t going to admit it to her. “And we haven’t met that many times.”
Lacey snorted, and Sam once again got the impression he was missing something.
“Can we talk about this somewhere else?” he asked, movement at the end of the aisle catching his eye.
“Where?”
“Your place?” he suggested hopefully.
“I live with Gavin and Leo,” Lacey pointed out. “So if you want to hide out in my room like we’re fifteen, yeah, let’s go to my place.”
“Fine, we’ll go to mine,” Sam grumbled.
“And I get the strawberry ice cream.”
“Absolutely not.”
Sam put his things on the conveyor belt, then put down the divider stick. Behind him, Lacey put the meager contents of her cart on the belt, then moved the divider to annex the ice cream.
He moved it back.
Lacey moved it again.
Rather than continue the ridiculous silent argument of ice cream ownership, Sam moved the divider behind Lacey’s items, and silently dared her to argue.
Instead of rolling her eyes, sighing, or grumbling, she stuck her tongue out at him, then smiled. Warmth bloomed in his chest and spread down his limbs like a winter thaw. Sam turned his attention to the cashier who had been watching their interaction with a mixture of confusion and amusement.
“We’re having a custody battle over the ice cream,” Lacey explained.
“I’m winning,” Sam said, taking his credit card from his wallet.
“No, I’m allowing you to win this battle so I can win the war.”
“Over ice cream?”
“Don’t think I won’t fight you.”
“Land wars in Asia,” Sam muttered, hearing Peter’s voice in his head religiously quoting The Princess Bride .
“Stop going against a Sicilian when death is on the line,” Lacey retorted.
The cashier announced Sam’s total and began to bag up his items, mixing Lacey’s menstrual products in like they belonged there. Sam chose not to call out the assumption and inserted his card in the chip reader.
“You’re Sicilian?” Sam asked while his payment processed.
“No, but I wasn’t going to let the joke die.”
“Anything for the bit?”
“I’m a natural-born performer.”
Sam considered this as he loaded his bags—and Lacey’s things—into the cart. His little white lie might benefit from some professional assistance.
“So, am I riding with you, or am I following?” Lacey asked as they stepped into the crisp night air.
“Following, obviously.”
“Okay because you’re holding my tampons hostage.”
Sam opened his trunk. “I’m not holding them hostage. I’m transporting. And aren’t they technically my tampons because I paid for them?”
“Do you need them? Because I’m happy to share if you do.”
His face burned from his ears down. He’d walked right into that one.
“Don’t lose me. My road isn’t well marked,” he said to change the subject.
“How fun and mysterious,” Lacey said drolly, gently bumping his hip with hers to get him to move over. Out of surprise, he did. She pulled out the ice cream.
“Hey, that’s mine,” he protested.
“Insurance so you don’t try to lose me ,” she said.
“And how do I know you’re not going to take the ice cream and buy new tampons?”
“Because,” she said, looking him up and down like she was sizing him up, “I’m curious why you did it.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Sam protested.
“Tell that to the Crane Cove rumor mill. Come on.” Lacey patted the top of the ice cream carton. “This is going to melt.”
Sam didn’t have to worry about losing Lacey. After they left the grocery store parking lot, he had to worry about her ending up in his backseat if he tapped his brakes.
That his road wasn’t well marked was an understatement. There was no mailbox at the end of the lane. The house number, required by the Crane Cove Fire Department, was tacked to a tree and easy to miss. A single reflective post sat at the mouth of his driveway so he knew when to turn. Sam couldn’t decide if installing a gate was a good idea. It was a layer of security, but it also alerted passersby that there was something down the road worth protecting. He flipped on his bright lights to better illuminate the way for both of them. The little lanterns that lined the driveway didn’t even start until half a mile down the mile-long road.
Was this the dumbest thing he’d ever done? Apparently his self-sabotage streak ran deeper than he thought. Because making up a girlfriend was all fun and games until said imaginary girlfriend turned out to be a real person with great legs and a fantastic?—
Nope. Not going there.
Warm light filled the windows of his woodland home. The lights inside were on a timer because entering a dark house unnerved him. Anyone could be lurking in the dark, so he made sure it wasn’t dark. The only kind of person that would wander up here was an ax murderer.
Sam parked in the driveway. The garage was still half full of boxes he needed to break down and haul to the recycling center, and there were a few more boxes in his trunk he’d picked up at his PO box earlier in the day. Plus he didn’t like the idea of Lacey being able to block his car in completely if she parked behind the closed garage door.
“Holy Fortress of Solitude, Batman,” Lacey said when they got out of their cars.
Sam frowned. “Superman has the fortress, not Batman.”
“Yeah, but Superman could never afford this place.” She followed him up the short walkway to the front door. “And I don’t think Superman was quite so into security.”
There was a keypad on the front door. On all of the exterior doors, actually. Two wrong answers set off the alarm and alerted the authorities. Not that Sam had a ton of faith in Crane Cove’s small police force, but it was better than nothing. He tapped in the code, heard the whirr of machinery inside the door, and then opened it.
“I don’t think Superman was worried about break-ins. He could just laser people.”
“I think Batman enjoyed break-ins. Gave him a chance to test out his gadgets and gizmos. Like Kevin from Home Alone .” Lacey slipped off her shoes by the door. “Poor, dumb criminals thinking they’re breaking into lonely billionaire Bruce Wayne’s house but instead they get Bat Justice.”
Sam chuckled. “You have an active imagination.”
“Keeps life interesting.”
She followed him into the kitchen, and he pretended not to hear her small noises of surprise as she took in his private refuge. The high, vaulted ceilings were lined with the wood of the trees that had been cut down to make room for the house. And then there was the wall of windows from the floor to the ceiling. During the day, he could see the ocean from his spot in the tree line.
Sam put the grocery bags on the large island in the kitchen. The space was his particular pride and joy, the thing he’d cared the most about during the design process. Black cabinets and pale gray countertops gave it a sleek, moody feel that reminded him of the persistent coastal gloom. The double ovens, professional-grade range, and unreasonably large refrigerator made it look like a celebrity chef had moved in, not a musician.
“You’ve got a lot of groceries,” Lacey observed, snooping through his bags. He was about to tell her to stop when she pulled out her menstrual products. “Planning on having a dinner party?”
“No,” Sam answered, drumming his fingers on the counter while he waited for Lacey to move out of his way.
“You’ve got this big kitchen and all that food, and you’re not entertaining?” She sounded skeptical as she boosted herself up onto an empty section of the counter. “I thought you had friends in town.”
“I do.”
“Do they ever come up here?”
“No.” Sam unloaded his groceries onto the counter, separating the ingredients for his dinner from the rest of the pile. An uncomfortable silence formed between them, but when he glanced at her from the corner of his eye, Lacey was just watching him. So he was the uncomfortable one. “I like my privacy.”
“I mean, I guess I get it,” Lacey said, pulling a green grape from the bunch and popping it in her mouth. “It’s much easier to leave someone else’s house than it is to get people to leave yours.”
“I wish it was acceptable to hang a sign that says ‘Please leave by nine,’” Sam admitted, and Lacey laughed. The warmth bloomed behind his sternum again. It made him want to squirm. “Did you eat yet?”
“No. I just left work.”
There hadn’t been any food in her cart, he remembered. “Did you have plans?”
“Me and the microwave,” she said, unabashedly eating his grapes. “Are you asking if I want to stay for dinner?”
The warmth from his chest spread to his face, so Sam quickly grabbed the freezer items, including the coveted strawberry ice cream, and restocked his freezer. The cold air felt good on his skin.
“They special-ordered my scallops, so I’ve got a pound to get through.”
“Was that a statement or an invitation?” Lacey teased.
“You can stay if you want.”
“I don’t turn down free food, even though that philosophy has gotten me into a lot of trouble.” Lacey broke off a stem of grapes, giving up the pretense of picking them off one by one. “I think I’d be pretty easy to kidnap. A sign that says ‘Free cheese’ would be enough.”
Sam chuckled. The statement tickled something in the back of his brain, in roughly the same spot that bugged him whenever he looked at Lacey. That strange sense of familiarity, like he’d had this exact conversation with her before in another time and place.
“Do you have any allergies?” he asked, opening a low cupboard to grab his salad spinner to wash the greens he’d bought.
“I mean, dairy doesn’t always like me as much as I like it, but it’s not an allergy,” she said. “Do you want any help?”
“Not really. ”
“I don’t mind.”
“You don’t, but I do. I don’t necessarily like people in my flow when I’m cooking.”
This was true. Sam had rare exceptions to his “get the hell out of my kitchen” rule. Graham was one of them, because his friend was conscientious and excessively detail-oriented. And then there was Connor McMahon, a sort-of friend Sam had inherited through Graham. The lifelong Crane Cove resident was a fantastic baker and meticulous enough to satisfy Sam’s high standards.Connor’s brother Cole cleared the bar, too, but barely.
Lacey didn’t seem too upset not to be helping. In fact, she seemed very content to sit on his counter and eat his grapes like she belonged there. Like her spot was a foregone conclusion to a question he hadn’t asked.
Sam quickly wiped his wet palms on his pants and took his phone out of his pocket, opening his notes app and writing down the thought before it escaped him. These days he’d take any lyrical inspiration.
“I didn’t realize you were such a control freak.” The teasing edge was back in Lacey’s voice, and Sam started to suspect that she liked seeing if she could make him blush. That prickly feeling in the back of his brain told him that there was a reason she could make him turn red as easily as tapping her feet.
“I like things just so,” he deflected, putting his phone on the counter then handed her the full salad spinner. “Here. You can do this.”
“Oooh. I get to push a button. So much responsibility.”
“If you can handle that, maybe I’ll upgrade you to can opener.”
“That might be above my skill level.” Lacey pressed the button on the lid of the salad spinner several times in quick succession until the inner bowl whirred. They both watched its quick revolutions until it slowed and stopped. She picked up the bowl and handed it to him with an overly exaggerated presentation. “Ta-da.”
A wide smile broke across his face, so big it almost hurt. She was ridiculous. When she didn’t seem vaguely angry with him, she was playful and silly. In some ways, she reminded him of Peter, but a little less chaotic. Peter was a bullet in a steel box, whereas Lacey felt more like a sleek race car with a few loose lug nuts. He was holding on for dear life because he didn’t know when the wheels would fall off, but it was thrilling.
“If you’re going to get cocky, I’m going to revoke your can opener promotion.”
“Does it come with a raise? Because I can’t accept more responsibility without a change in compensation.”
Sam shook his head, biting down on a laugh that was building in his throat. If he laughed, it might break the strange, vibrating tension building between them. He hadn’t had this feeling in years. “Are you angling for ice cream?”
A bright smile was his reward. A field of rainbow wildflowers filled his mind, with ethereal white and yellow butterflies fluttering near the flowers, kissing the petals with their delicate feet.
He wanted to reach for his phone to try and write this feeling down, but how to capture the multi-sensory moment he was having? Those butterflies lived in his mind and his stomach. He could hold on to this, right?
“Is it angling if I know I’m going to get it?”
“Scoop size is up for negotiation.”
“Gimme that can opener so I can razzle-dazzle you,” Lacey said, holding out her hand.
Whatever magic had been building between them that made her easy for him to talk to her even though he barely knew her popped like a soap bubble. There was no can involved in the meal. And Sam couldn’t begin to think of a witty comeback.
The drawer he needed was to the right of Lacey’s legs, and when Sam opened it, the back of his hand brushed the side of her knee. She crossed her legs to move out of his way with more grace than he’d ever exhibited in his entire life, and his brain handed the keys to the castle over to his cock. It throbbed, growing and thickening with each rapid beat of his heart, and Sam hated himself for his self-imposed summer of celibacy because someone crossing their legs shouldn’t make him hard.
Instead of grabbing whatever it was he was supposed to be looking for, Sam’s hand closed around the can opener. And because his brain had well and truly given up, he handed it to Lacey.
She twirled it around her finger and slid it into a pretend holster at her side like she was the gunslinging star of a Western film.
Sam couldn’t believe anyone had believed they were dating. Lacey was a million times funnier and cooler than he was. What did he have going for him?
Sure, there was the money, the awards, the fame, and the homes, but what did he actually bring to the table?
What did it matter? They weren’t dating. They weren’t going to date, even if he did want her legs wrapped around various parts of his body.The only reason Lacey was at his house, sitting on his counter, was because he was terrible with names.
Tongs. He’d meant to grab tongs.
“So, why me?” Lacey asked when he was removing the tough foot muscle from the sides of the scallops.
“What?”
They’d fallen into a companionable silence over the last few minutes. Or at least Sam thought it was companionable because he’d almost forgotten she was there while he heated the cast iron skillet, minced garlic, and juiced a lemon.
“Why did you tell everyone that we’re dating?”
“I didn’t,” Sam insisted, trying to focus on the scallop prep instead of looking at Lacey. “I told Edith I was seeing someone named Lacey. I didn’t mean to implicate you.”
“So this wasn’t your incredibly weird way of trying to lure me back to your house so you could make me dinner?”
Sam shook his head. “Not even a little.”
“I bet you won’t forget my name this time,” she teased.
“Never again,” he vowed.
“Why did you tell Edith you were dating someone named Lacey?”
Sam sighed. “Because as much as I love being here and living the small-town life, it can get a bit…claustrophobic. I don’t know if that’s the right word. But the retired element of this town is very, very interested in my dating life. And setting me up.”
“The small-town fishbowl effect,” Lacey clarified. “I felt very ‘on display’ my first month here. I bet it’s even worse for you being…you.”
“Being famous?”
“Well, famously…aloof.”
Sam knew a diplomatic phrase when he heard it. “You mean asshole.”
Lacey held her hands up. “You said it, not me. I was trying to be nice.”
“You think I’m an asshole?” The cold grip of impending anxiety twisted behind his sternum, seeping through his chest and down to his stomach with alarming speed.
“Not really,” she said, readjusting her hair into a messy bun on top of her head. “But you’ve got a big reputation, buddy.”
“I know about that.” Lord, did Sam know about it.
“I’m very happy to know you can read.”
He rolled his eyes, but turned so she couldn’t see the smile he was fighting. She wasn’t necessarily sugarcoating it, but there was a sweet edge to Lacey’s honesty.
“You’re guarded,” Lacey explained. “I don’t blame you. It can’t be easy having everyone constantly want shit from you. There’s nothing wrong with having boundaries.”
Sam shrugged. Plenty of people disagreed with her. The hundreds of people who’d called him an asshole to his face—or to his back as he walked away—because he was tired and didn’t have the energy or capacity to stop, talk, sign autographs, or take pictures. All the times he wished he had Peter’s boundless energy for the general public hadn’t given him the same ease with strangers.
There were nights when he couldn’t sleep where he wondered if he would choose this life again if he knew at sixteen what he knew at thirty.
“I’m used to nobody giving a shit about my boundaries,” he said, rinsing the scallops in cold water. “It’s more”—Sam searched for the word—“ heightened here. And fucking frustrating because no one is trying to be mean or take anything from me, they want to help, except I don’t want their help. But how can you tell someone who looks like your grandparents to fuck off and leave you alone?”
“Have you tried ‘fuck off and leave me alone’?” Lacey suggested cheekily, and then she squealed when he flicked the water off his fingers at her. “Is that why you told everyone I was your girlfriend?”
“Yes—no!” He patted the scallops dry with a paper towel. “I didn’t tell anyone you were my girlfriend. But…yeah. Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“What about your friends? What did they think about your plan? ”
The echoing silence answered for him.
“Oh shit.” Lacey whistled. “You were going to lie to your friends too. How was that supposed to play out?”
Discomfort sat like a stone in his stomach. Lying to his friends was the hardest pill to swallow, but he’d choked it down. He didn’t trust his friends to lie convincingly for him. Graham would’ve tried to talk him out of it.
“You—” Sam winced at the slip. “ She was going to be conveniently busy a lot, and I was going to be my famously aloof self when it came to details. And then I was going to gradually drop hints about how things were hard and break up with her before Christmas.”
Lacey shook her head. “You should’ve had her breaking up with you. More sympathy that way.”
“Where were you for the planning stages? I could have used you.”
“1467 Sycamore Street,” she said. “Or at the studio.”
“Well, the next time I have a stupid idea, can you magically appear and fix it for me?” Sam asked, moving his prepped ingredients next to the stove.
“How often are you having stupid ideas? Because if this is a full-time gig, it’s going to cost you more than dinner and ice cream.”
“What if I threw in lunch? How many dumb ideas a week does that get me?” Sam dropped a tablespoon of butter into his hot skillet, then seasoned the scallops with salt and pepper while the butter hissed in the pan.
“Maybe three. It depends on the level of stupid.”
Scallops cooked quickly. In Sam’s opinion, they were the best way to get a dinner that looked and felt fancy in under five minutes. As soon as they were placed into the pan to sear, Sam grabbed two plates from a cupboard and the lemon dijon dressing he’d made over the weekend for the salad. He flipped the scallops a minute later, humming satisfaction at the golden-brown color on the bottom. Salads were plated during the second sear, given a drizzle of dressing, and then it was time to pull the scallops from the pan. Immediately he melted two more tablespoons of butter in the pan, added the garlic and stirred until it became fragrant, then poured in the lemon juice, and a little salt and pepper. Another stir, and then he spooned the sauce over the scallops, completing the dish.
“Wow.” Lacey sounded impressed. “That looks professional.”
“It’s not hard,” Sam said modestly, though inside pride was bursting like fireworks.
“That’s not what I said.” Lacey hopped off the counter and came over. She waved the can opener under his nose. “I didn’t get to use this.”
“Are you sad about it?”
“No. Not really.” She picked up a plate and turned to go to the dining room. “Sam…you don’t have a table.”
“Um, no.”
“Why don’t you have a table?”
“Because I don’t really need one. It’s just me.”
“Where do you eat?”
“In the kitchen, usually. At the counter.” Sam shrugged. “Sometimes outside on the deck.”
Lacey set her plate back down on the counter. “Okay, here it is.”
A hot, shameful blush spread across Sam’s body. “Sorry. I wasn’t expecting company…ever.”
“No, it’s fine,” Lacey said, but Sam would swear the unsaid part of that sentence was “not like I haven’t been on my feet all day.”
“We could eat on the couch,” he suggested.
“This reminds me of when I lived in New York,” Lacey said after they’d settled onto Sam’s large sectional. “My apartment didn’t have space for a table, so I ate either on my couch or in my bed.”
“You lived in New York?”
Lacey nodded, cutting into one of her scallops with the side of her fork. “I did. From when I was eighteen until I was twenty. And again when I was twenty-five.” She put half the scallop in her mouth, then her eyes drifted shut and she moaned. The sound went straight to his cock, which teamed up with his brain to remind him he could make her moan in other ways. “Oh my god. What the actual fuck, Sam. This is incredible.”
He basked in the warmth of her compliment, even though outwardly he shrugged it off.
“If music doesn’t work out, you could open a restaurant.”
“Restaurants are terrible businesses.”
“Take the fucking compliment, Sam.”
He shouldn’t like the forceful, snappish tone of her voice. Cranky kindness. But he did.
“Thank you,” he mumbled, stuffing a forkful of salad into his mouth.
The modest meal didn’t take long to eat. Lacey took enjoying his food seriously and made small sounds of approval with almost every bite. Sam was ready to squirm.
When they’d finished, she yanked the plate out of his hand and went to the sink to do the dishes, like she knew he would have argued if she’d offered. She seemed to understand him without him having to explain.
“I’ve got a stupid idea,” he said, trailing after her into the kitchen.
“It’s going to cost you lunch,” Lacey warned him, rinsing off their plates.
Sam’s heart was beating so hard he could feel the throb of his pulse in his neck. “What if,” he began, resting his back against the counter and folding his arms, trying to appear cool and collected, “we didn’t correct anyone and you pretended to be my girlfriend?”
The whoosh-whoosh of blood in his ears was deafening and made possible by the crystal silence in his house. Lacey didn’t say anything for thirty seconds—he counted them. Then she laughed.
“No…oh no…” she struggled to breathe, but her laughter tapered off. “Oh, you’re serious.”
“Not that serious,” Sam grumbled, his face on fire.
“You don’t need a fake girlfriend,” she insisted, “and even if you did, no one is going to believe it’s me . You can do better than me.”
“People already believe it,” he reminded her.
“Congratulations, you tricked an old lady and some teenagers in my jazz class.” Lacey dried her hands on her leggings.
“Then why did you get so mad at me at the grocery store if it’s so unbelievable? If the fire is going to put itself out, you don’t need to pour water on it.”
Lacey opened her mouth to disagree, then shut it. While she took a moment to think, Sam wrote down what he’d just said about fire. It wasn’t a bad line.
“I can’t, Sam,” Lacey said. “I don’t see this ending well for me.”
“What do you have to lose?” he asked, trying to nudge her in the direction he wanted without pushing her the other way.
Her mirthless laughter bounced around the high ceiling. “Because dating in this town once was enough for me. People talk. A lot. And when things end between us—like they’re supposed to—I will take the blame for it, no matter how it goes down. I will get the judgmental, invasive questions disguised as concern. ”
“How do you know that?”
“Because they’ve got to ask someone, and it won’t be the rock star.”
Sam wanted to argue, but it was like trying to change Graham’s mind. He’d have better luck fitting the Grand Canyon inside Rhode Island.
Lacey sighed. “Look, if someone asks, I won’t confirm or deny for the next twenty-four hours so you can get your story straight, okay?”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“You’re going to owe me lunch, remember?”