Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
The bid was up to a thousand dollars.
Who the hell was bidding a thousand dollars on a guitar lesson in Crane Cove?
Sam had been to charity auctions in Los Angeles and New York where his lesson would have gone for tens of thousands of dollars. Hell, he’d once donated tickets to a show that went for fifteen grand. But Crane Cove? He thought he was safe when he wrote down $250 when he’d arrived.
He could end this right now. Write down a big sum, and no one could outbid him. But Graham would lecture him about it. Or Eloise would be sweet but disapproving. She liked community involvement. Graham wasn’t allowed to write big checks so no one had to attend an Under The Sea-themed benefit to buy the middle school new computers.
“Fifteen hundred,” Sam muttered under his breath, writing down his new bid and auction number. If he ever found out who number thirty-two was…
“What are you doing?”
Sam jumped, the pencil in his hand cartwheeling through the air and bouncing off the wall. Graham stood behind him, dressed like Bert from Mary Poppins , with fake soot rubbed around his face and a pageboy cap on his head. He put his hands on his hips.
“Were you bidding up your own item?”
“Umm…maybe?”
Graham sighed. “Well, shit. I’ve been babysitting your paper all night, trying to make sure no one outbid me .” He shook his head and crouched under the table to retrieve the dropped pencil. “I should’ve known something was up when it got above five hundred.”
Sam’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re number thirty-two?”
“Yes, I am. Well, Eloise and I are. I don’t know what all she’s bid on, and I’m kind of scared to find out.”
Graham wrote down a bid beneath Sam’s and set the pencil down, then glared, threatening him to pick it back up.
“You really want a guitar lesson?” Sam asked, sticking his hands in his pockets.
“No. But I know you don’t want to give one, so here we are.” Graham mimicked Sam’s stance and put his hands in his pockets. “You’re going to give Eloise a cooking lesson, though.”
“Why?”
“Because she wants one and she’s never going to ask you directly. I think she’s still a little scared of you.”
“Me? Really? She’s friends with Sybil.” Sam frowned, his stomach sinking a little. “I like Eloise. I don’t want her to be scared of me.”
“You should come over for dinner soon. Bring Lacey too.” Graham looked around. “Speaking of…where’s your new girlfriend?”
“She’s—” Sam turned to point to where he’d left Lacey, but she wasn’t there anymore. “Shit.”
“Isn’t it a little soon for her to be sick of you?” Graham teased .
“This place is too crowded,” Sam grumbled, rising up on his tiptoes to try and spot Lacey. She was tall. This shouldn’t be so hard.
“Let me know what works for you two,” Graham said. “We’re a little busy with the Claymore Abbey ball, but after the first weekend in November our schedule opens up a bit. Oh, and I need to know if you’ll be around for Thanksgiving or not. Jordy and Annie were talking about coming to visit, so I need a headcount, and if you’re not going to be around, I need to find someone else to cook.”
“I don’t know yet.” Sam clenched his teeth, biting down on a frustrated growl. Where had she gone?
Then, like spotting Waldo in a picture full of mimes, he saw her, ironically, grab a mime. Relief flooded his body, dousing the fires of anxiety.
“Try not to let anyone else win me,” he begged Graham, before squeezing through the crowd toward his mermaid.
No, not his mermaid. His fake mermaid. His temporary, convenient, accidental, fake mermaid.
Sam put a gentle hand between her shoulder blades, and was rewarded with a stiff punch to his shoulder.
“Ow!” he protested, dropping his hand to grab his throbbing arm. “What did I do?”
Lacey’s eyes widened. “I—I thought you were someone else.”
Who else was touching her, and why was her first instinct to throw a punch?
“Are you training for the featherweight championship of the world?” he asked, but instead of laughing, Lacey’s eyes welled with tears, and her jaw tightened with the effort of holding them in.
Adrenaline shot through his system like he’d touched an electric fence.
Sam bent his head close to hers so he didn’t need to shout to be heard. “What’s wrong?”
Lacey shook her head, taking a shaky sip of her beer.
“Do you want to go outside?”
The look she gave him clearly said that this was all his fault and she didn’t want to go anywhere with him, but faced with a lack of options, he would have to do because she did want to escape. A small nod confirmed his suspicion.
Sam cautiously put a hand on Lacey’s lower back to help guide her through the crowded brewery. Had her skin always been so soft? It was like touching flower petals.
The back patio was unlocked and, mercifully, empty. Lights reflected off small puddles, and every surface seemed to faintly glow from recent rain. It smelled like rain too. Petrichor. One of his favorite words.
Once they were clear of the door, Lacey moved away from him and his hand. His calloused fingertips missed her softness instantly, like they’d been granted one brief brush with heaven and—dear god, no wonder he’d written a song about her when he didn’t even know her name.
“Why did you disappear in there?” he asked.
“Why…why did I…” Lacey laughed mirthlessly, then chugged the rest of her beer. “I didn’t disappear. You did.”
Sam frowned. “I was checking on my auction item.”
“Do you even care that I’m here?” Lacey’s voice cracked on the last word. She pressed her fingertips to the inner corner of her eyes. “Of course you don’t.”
“I never said that,” Sam protested, stepping toward her. Lacey stepped away, maintaining their distance.
“You didn’t have to. You didn’t notice that I was twenty minutes late, you left without a word as soon as I found you— I found you —and after you abandoned me, I think I ran into every person in this town that wants this”—she gestured between them with her empty glass—“to be fake. And with the way this night has gone so far, I know exactly what they’ll be saying about me tomorrow.”
“What’s that?”
“‘Did you see her chasing him around all night? He’s not that interested in her. She’s desperate.’” Lacey’s chin wobbled. “We’re supposed to be pretending, Sam. Can’t you act like you like me?”
Sam’s stomach clenched and twisted, like it was trying to wring itself out like a used dish rag.
“I’m sorry,” he said, unsure of what to do with his hands. Did he put them in his pockets? Behind his back? Cross his arms under his chest? Try to give Lacey a reassuring hug? “I guess I don’t really know how to do this anymore. It’s been a while since I’ve dated, real or otherwise. How do I fix this?”
“Maybe try to act like you like me.”
“I do like you. You’re fun to be around.”
“You have to act like it, Sam. Pretend like you can’t keep your hands off me, like I’m the funniest person in the room?—”
“You probably are the funniest person in that room. I mean that.” Sam crossed his heart for good measure.
Lacey sniffled, but a small smile danced across her lips.
“We didn’t cover this is in our meetings,” Sam pointed out.
“I didn’t think we had to.” Lacey swiped errant tears as they fell off her lower lashes. “Can I have a hug?”
Sam opened his arms and she stepped into them, wrapping her arms gently around his waist, her empty beer glass bumping against his vertebrae. He encircled her to the best of his ability, trying to cover as much of her exposed skin as he could. It was almost Halloween and the air was bone-chilling. Lacey was tall enough that she could rest her cheek on his shoulder, and floral-scented hairspray tickled his nose.His heartbeat noticeably slowed .
“Better?”
She nodded.
“I’m sorry I made you cry.”
Lacey let out a shaky sigh. “It wasn’t just you. I ran into Marianne and Mitch before you found me. They’re the fucking worst.” The tip of her cold nose brushed against his hot pulse and Sam swallowed hard. “I shouldn’t let them get to me, but I really wanted to rub this in their shitty faces.”
“We could still rub it in their faces,” Sam reminded her, internally screaming at his thickening cock that this was fake and any kissing was for show. That she wasn’t going to be touching him later, no matter how much he begged.
He was willing to beg, if it would make a difference.
“Just pretend to be a doting boyfriend for forty-five minutes, then we can leave.” Lacey released him, wiping under her eyes one more time. “And maybe get me a snack.”
The interior of Cranberry Brothers was stifling. Sam kept a hand on Lacey’s hip, letting her guide them through the crowd back to the bar where she flagged down Mallory.
“Can I get another pumpkin beer?” she half shouted, leaning forward over the bar top. Her ass pressed against his groin, and Sam looked up, counting lights to try and distract his lecherous brain.
“Coming right up,” Mallory promised, taking Lacey’s old pint glass and returning after a moment with a fresh, full beer. “You found your wayward sailor.”
“I did.” Lacey straightened, then leaned back against Sam, giving him a quick, familiar kiss on the cheek, like she did it all the time and would keep doing it for a long while. Warmth spread from Sam’s face to his chest.
“Can she get a snack too? Before all this beer goes to her head,” Sam asked, placing his hand on her bare midriff.
“Sure, but it’s probably at least half an hour. The kitchen is slammed,” Mallory warned them, filling a clean pint glass with a clear bubbly liquid from the soda gun, and garnished it with a lime wedge. She put it on the counter, and Sam grabbed it.
“I mean, if we’re going to be waiting anyway, can I get a brisket quesadilla and cajun tots?” Lacey asked, half addressing Mallory and half addressing Sam.
“Anything you want, baby,” Sam said, nudging aside her hair with his nose to kiss her neck.
“Brisket quesadilla and Cajun tots. Coming up…eventually,” Mallory said, tapping the order into the computer before moving back down the bar to help someone else.
“Baby? Really?” Lacey scoffed once Mallory was out of earshot. “I need a different nickname.”
“What do you want? Schmoopy?”
Lacey laughed so hard she snorted. Pride and lust shot through Sam in equal measures.
“No, not that. It’ll come to you.” She patted his cheek. “Are you doing okay?”
“Having a grand time.”
“You said that like you’re in the middle of a root canal.”
“I think I would’ve had a better time at my root canal if my dentist looked like you,” Sam said.
Lacey rolled her eyes discreetly. “I don’t think anyone can hear you. You don’t need to lay it on so thick.”
Sam wasn’t laying it on thick, though. He’d barely brushed the surface.