Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
Sam had started cooking because a therapist told him he needed a hobby where the result wasn’t subjective. Music was extremely subjective; any kind of art was. But cooking? Cooking was fairly obviously good or bad. The same applied to knitting.
The turkey resting on the counter was objectively stunning. Sam was proud of that damn turkey. Cooked to exactly one hundred and sixty-five degrees according to his wireless meat thermometer, it was a beautiful golden brown and smelled heavenly.
Sides that needed to be baked were in the oven. The potatoes for the mashed potatoes were bubbling on the stove, and the gravy he’d made from the turkey drippings was simmering and thickening.
He was the motherfucking king of the kitchen.
“Knock, knock.”
Sam had been so zoned in on his triumphs that the voice caught him off guard and he jumped, startled. If it had been anyone other than Lacey, he would have bitten their heads off. But his girlfriend—his fake girlfriend—was the exception to the rule. Lacey was the exception to a lot of rules. One that sprang to mind was the No Sleepovers rule. Sam had invented an entire playbook of reasons and excuses to keep Lacey at his house late enough that she gave up on driving home and slept in his bed. Daisy might’ve been a furry barrier, but the last thing he saw before he fell asleep and the first thing he saw when he woke up were his girls.
His girls. He’d been wrestling with that particular revelation.
“It smells really good in here,” Lacey said, having traversed the kitchen while he got his heart rate back under control. She wrapped her arms around his waist and wrecked his pulse all over. “I feel bad you’ve been in here all by yourself for hours.”
“Don’t feel bad,” he assured her, locking his arms around her. “It’s been heaven.”
Lacey tilted her head to one side and slightly raised her eyebrows. “Heaven, huh? Should I vacate your paradise?”
Vacate his paradise. He needed to write that down before he forgot it.
“You can’t. I’ve trapped you,” Sam teased, squeezing her and making her laugh.
“This feels very Hades and Persephone coded. If you break out a pomegranate, I’m running.”
There it was. Half a song appeared in his head like someone else was typing it. Sam groaned and released Lacey, taking out his phone to tap out the lyrics before they vanished like smoke. He’d need to do more research later, but the skeleton of the idea was there: paradise, hell, Hades and Persephone, longing, love, loss.
After months upon months of being starved for inspiration, Sam suddenly couldn’t stop writing. His brain had woken up after a long hibernation, and he had more than an entire album’s worth of songs in some stage of development. All thanks to Lacey, the greatest accidental muse he could’ve asked for.
Sam wrote as much as he could manage to distill into actual words, then tucked his phone into his back pocket. Lacey had gone to the stove and was eyeing the simmering gravy, so he opened a drawer and handed her a spoon.
“Try it,” he urged, craving her approval.
Lacey dipped her spoon into the gravy, then blew on it gently before putting it in her mouth. Her eyelashes fluttered, and she moaned.
“Is it good?” Sam asked.
“Find out for yourself.”
So he did. Lacey was close enough that he could wrap his hand around the back of her neck and pull her to him, though it wasn’t much of a pull because at the slightest pressure she stepped into his space, her body fitting against his like all their grooves and curves had been designed for each other.
There was no hesitant brush of lips, no soft exploration. His tongue plunged into her mouth, and she answered with the same greedy desperation roaring through his body. Lacey gripped the hair on the back of his head tightly in her fist, and a sound rumbled in Sam’s throat that was half moan, half growl. Faintly he remembered that he was supposed to be tasting the gravy on her tongue, but the only thing he could comprehend was Lacey.
“Fuck, you taste good,” he said against her mouth, unwilling to separate enough to speak properly. Lacey smiled against his lips.
“That’s not the first time you’ve said that,” she reminded him.
The memory of his face being buried in her pussy on a hotel bed rocketed to the top of his mind.
“Fuck dinner. I want to eat you.”
That was the wrong thing to say because it made Lacey laugh. Sam loved making her laugh, but not when he was hoping to get her naked. His cock was so hard that it was testing the structural integrity of his pants.
“But you worked so hard,” she said between kisses.
“Let me work hard on you.” He sounded pathetic and he didn’t care.
“We don’t have time,” Lacey pointed out, even as she slid her free hand under his shirt to caress his stomach.
“I can be fast,” Sam promised, nipping at her bottom lip to make her whine. “It would be so good.”
Her grip on his hair tightened. “What was that you told me when I wanted boxed mac ’n’ cheese? Fast rarely means good?”
Sam groaned. “Do you have to use my own words against me at a time like this?”
“Should’ve lowered yourself to use the powdered cheese.”
“I made you homemade mac ’n’ cheese.”
“And it was delicious.” Lacey grinned at him. “I might be almost as spoiled as Daisy.”
“No one is as spoiled as Daisy.” Jordy’s voice made Lacey jump away like she’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Sam wanted her back. “Don’t let me interrupt. I just wanted to know when dinner was going to be.”
“You already interrupted,” Sam huffed.
Lacey edged toward the door. “I’m going to see if Daisy needs to go potty.”
“Jordy can—” Sam began, but she was gone before he could finish. He glowered at his best friend, who didn’t seem one ounce ashamed of himself. “You’re a fucking cockblock.”
“Cockblock seems a little intense. Unless you were going to fuck your girlfriend on Graham’s countertops.” Jordy grinned and came to inspect the turkey. Sam smacked his hand when he tried to touch the golden, crispy skin. “Is talking about mac ’n’ cheese how you get your engine revving these days?”
Sam rolled his eyes. “About as much as talking about birds gets yours going.”
“Talking about birds does get me going these days,” Jordy said. “Annie gets talking, and she’s so fucking smart. It’s hot.”
“I’m glad ornithology lectures make you so happy.” It sounded sarcastic, but Sam sincerely meant it.
There was a brief, awkward lull. Jordy was thinking, and that was a dangerous pastime.
“Are you happy?”
Sam turned off the heat under the boiling potatoes and picked up the pot, using the task to buy himself time to think for a few seconds. Finally he said, “Yeah, I am happy.”
Jordy nodded, crossing his arms. “Good.”
Sam poured the potatoes into the strainer he’d put in the sink earlier. “You’re being weird, Jordan. What aren’t you saying?”
“I’m not being weird. I’m…relieved.”
“Relieved?” Sam put the potatoes back into the pot and moved it back to the stove. “Can you just tell me what’s going on inside your head?”
Jordy looked up at the ceiling. “I think about you a lot. I wonder how you’re doing, if you’re okay, if you’ve gotten out of bed today. I’ve been afraid for a while that you’d do something…permanent.”
“Besides the tattoos?” Sam gave Jordy a wry smile in a vain attempt to diffuse some of the tension building in the room.
“Whenever you’d go super quiet…I worried this would be the time I wouldn’t be enough to make you stay. You’re my best friend, Sam.”
“Isn’t Annie your best friend now?”
“It’s different. I want to spend every day with her, but I want to spend every day with you too.” A soft smile replaced the melancholy frown on Jordy’s face. “My stupid dream is we all buy a big plot of land and build a commune. Walk to each other’s houses whenever we want. No more stupid planes and long car rides.”
Sam raised an eyebrow. “Do you really want Peter popping in?”
“Yes. I miss having my people close.”
Sam started to season the boiled potatoes so he could mash them. “You know I’ve never been actually suicidal, right?”
“Yeah, but how far is it from ‘everyone would be better off if I wasn’t around’ to…well, ‘everyone would be better off if I wasn’t around ever again’?”
That was the gut punch Sam hadn’t been expecting. Because there wasn’t a very longway from garden-variety intrusive thoughts to the insidious sort. Sam couldn’t pretend like he hadn’t spent the entire summer wondering if Jordy would be better off if he never spoke to him again. That his life would be enriched by Sam’s permanent absence.
Jordy shrugged. “I don’t know. I just want to make sure that you’re safe and you’re happy.”
“I’m safe. I’m happy.” It was true, too. Not a little half lie. Not skirting close to the truth. He really was safe and happy. “I’d be happier if you and Annie moved closer, but baby steps.”
Jordy chuckled. “Never say never. Maybe in a few years.”
“If we can convince Peter to move here, we could recreate LA without all the traffic and pollution.”
“I know where Graham hides his spare key,” Sam said, mashing the potatoes.
“Speaking of hiding, where is your house?”
“I’ll never tell.”
“But Lacey knows?”
“She’ll never tell. ”
“Are you sure?”
“I can do things for her that you can’t.”
“Yeah, but she and Annie are really chatty.”
Sam stopped mashing. “Did you send your girlfriend to find out from my girlfriend where my hideout is?”
Jordy grinned. “No, but it was worth pretending to see the look on your face.”
“See if I give you directions now.”
“Is it serious? Between you and Lacey.”
The question took Sam by surprise. It shouldn’t have. Sam had been prepping answers to various relationship questions all week. What surprised him was his body’s reaction to the question. His pulse jumped from a comfortable resting to a frantic racing. His stomach twisted into a knot. Things weren’t serious. They were fake as fuck. But good luck telling his body that.
“We haven’t been dating that long,” Sam deflected.
“She knows where you live, and you have a dog together,” Jordy pointed out. “I’d call cohabitation and joint custody serious.”
“When the fuck did you learn the word cohabitation?” Sam asked, tasting the potatoes and adding more salt.
“I’m in love with a PhD. She’s going to help me beat Peter in Scrabble.”
“There’s playing the long game, and then there’s whatever you’re doing.” Sam was finally satisfied with the potatoes, and cracked the oven to check on the dishes cooking in there. Golden brown perfection.
“You’re being avoidant.”
“No, I’m just not ready to answer the question.” Back into half-truth territory. Because he wasn’t ready to answer the question, to Jordy or to himself. Kissing Lacey had only muddled things further. His brain, heart, and cock had teamed up to demand to know why he was wasting precious brain cells answering Jordy’s questions when he could be thinking of ways to get Lacey alone so he could touch her again. “Not all of us know in three days.”
“It’s been longer than three days, and the dopey-ass look on your face when she’s around says otherwise. But that’s just my opinion.” Jordy shrugged. “Do you need any help?”
“Yeah. Help me find the fucking oven mitts.” Sam couldn’t remember where he’d put them down. “I do not have a dopey-ass look on my face.”
Jordy snorted, looking around the kitchen counters. “Yes. You do. It might not be full-blown heart eyes, but for you? It’s pretty damn dopey— Ah-ha!” He held up the lost oven mitts. “They were behind the turkey.”
Sam sighed. “Of course they were.” He took them from Jordy. “I don’t look any more dopey than you do looking at Annie.”
This did not have the desired effect. Jordy smiled. “I know how fucking stupid I look when she’s around, and I don’t care. I love her, I’m going to ask her to marry me as soon as it’s reasonable, and I’m going to enjoy looking dopey for the rest of my life.”
The presentation of the meal was not the triumphant moment Sam had envisioned. There was chaos in the dining room. Eloise’s carefully constructed seating chart was ruined. The place cards had been moved around the table. In fact, the only person who didn’t seem at least a little bit confused was Peter, who looked like the cat that ate the canary. Sybil sat next to him, looking very much like the canary in question.
Lacey was seated across the table between Chase and Annie, and Sam glared at Chase until he got the hint and asked Sam if he wanted to switch places.
Sam did.
When he’d settled into his new seat, Lacey leaned over and kissed his cheek. “You did a really great job on everything.”
The flush rushed over his body like a wildfire through bone dry prairie.
“You haven’t even tried it yet.”
“I’m very familiar with your cooking,” she reminded him, squeezing his knee. “I have no doubt this is going to be the best Thanksgiving I’ve ever had.”
Sam relaxed a little and kissed her softly, just because he could. It was supposed to be a quick peck, but Lacey lingered, so he did too.
When it was all said and done, it was the best Thanksgiving Sam had ever had. He was surrounded by people he loved, and those people loved him loudly enough in return that he barely ever questioned if they really liked him.
Daisy spent the entirety of dinner—after she’d wolfed down her meal like she was in a speed-eating contest—under the table, laying on Sam’s feet. When it was his turn to say what he was thankful for, Sam said that he was grateful for Daisy, who gave him a reason to go outside every day.
Then Lacey said, “I’m grateful to be here,” and Sam wondered what that meant all through dessert.
He waited until they were in the car to ask.
“What did you mean when you said you were grateful to be there?”
Lacey yawned, fighting off a food coma. “It was nice to feel like I belonged for a few hours.” She stretched and didn’t say anything when he drove past the street he’d need to turn on to drop her off at Gavin and Leo’s. “I don’t know how hard I should try to keep making friends with them, though, since you’ll get them all in the breakup.”
“What breakup?” Sam rolled through a stop sign.
“Ours. In the future. When you feel sufficiently safe from the old ladies, you break up with me and I go back to having no friends.” Lacey paused thoughtfully. “Except for Annie. Giving me her number was the nicest thing any of my boyfriends has ever done for me.”
Sam gripped the steering wheel. “That’s fucking awful.”
“No, I mean that it’s the nicest significant thing. Anyone can do flowers and dinner. You went out of your way to get me Annie’s phone number when you didn’t need to. You’ve really raised the bar.”
“Your bar was in hell,” Sam grumbled. “You’ve got the worst taste in men.” Me included.
Lacey laughed ruefully. “You’re not wrong. They all start off nice and become complete shitheads.”
“Except me. I started out a shithead. What you see is what you get.”
Lacey scoffed. “You like to act like you’re a shithead, but you’re the biggest softie I’ve ever met.” She reached across the car and tucked some hair behind his ear. He needed a cut. “Shitheads don’t make their dog’s food from scratch.”
Sam’s heart ballooned in his chest, growing so big it squashed his lungs and made it hard to breathe. He didn’t want her to go, but he didn’t know how to make her stay. The easy answer, the one he’d get if he told anyone what was actually going on between them, was to tell her how he felt, how having her around made him not simply happy but joyful, how she soothed hurts she hadn’t caused. But Lacey never seemed to miss an opportunity to remind him they were in a fake relationship that was very temporary.
This was the universe’s way of punishing him for telling Jordy he couldn’t fall in love quickly. To have the thing he’d sworn he didn’t want dangled in front of his face.
“I’m not soft. I’m hard. Like my mattress,” Sam said, knowing it would make Lacey laugh. And it did.
“You own the most comfortable bed in the world. It’s why I keep letting you trick me into sleeping over, even though Daisy farts and kicks, and you snore if you get even the tiniest bit blocked up.”
“If you think I snore, I’ve got terrible news for you.”
“I do not snore!” Lacey said indignantly.
“I’ll record you sometime. And I’m not sure all those farts are Daisy’s.”