CHAPTER 8
Sampson
Mari picks up Nicholas, a knowing look in her eyes when she glances over me before turning to Nina. “My second interview went well. Thanks for taking Nicholas. We’ll check in on Mr. Mittens. Don’t hurry home.”
I roll my eyes at her misunderstanding of the situation, but I have to admit, I’ve got live wires sparking inside me.
Still, after she and Nicholas have gone, I retreat to the kitchen to settle myself.
I even manage to pour white wine without crushing the bottle, which is a personal best given how wound up I am.
Nina punching me is one of the hottest things I’ve ever experienced. Her emotions ran so high, I think I caught them. Or my dick did.
At the last minute, I change the glassware out for smaller stemware.
Alcohol of any sort doesn’t affect me, or at least, I’ve never drunk enough to find out if there might be a limit, but I don’t want Nina feeling woozy.
I want her with all her senses intact, so that whatever happens between us is purely consensual.
Fine. Maybe wishful thinking, but it feels as if something is going to go down between us. There’s a sense of an impending storm in the atmosphere that has less to do with how she laid into me, and everything to do with how she clutched onto me while I carried her.
All the hairs on my arms stand in a state of high expectation.
And then there’s my dick. It refuses to misread the signs she’s been giving me, like the secret glances she’s tossing me as she licks her lips.
She looks like she’s finally ready to lap up the ice cream from earlier.
If so, she’ll be disappointed. I had to throw hers away since she didn’t eat it.
When I return to the living area, I hand her a glass before sinking next to her blanket-covered feet.
I take a sip of the dry, ice-cold vintage, and pause to appreciate the perfect, small burn.
It may not be enough to get me drunk by a long mile, but there’s something about wine that still relaxes my tightly-wound senses.
“So, done pummeling me?” I ask when I can find my voice.
She stretches out her hand, proving it’s not really hurt, before she nods. “I’m sorry, Sampson. I didn’t mean…” She shrugs.
“I think you did. You wanted to hurt me. I need to know why, Nina. Enough time has passed, hasn’t it? I know why I’ve hated you. You must know why you feel so strongly against me, so just… tell me already, so we can see if we can work past it.”
Because I want to work so far past our impenetrable block that we’re already in bed together, with me buried inside her. I can taste her on my tongue instead of the grape. It’s like the flavor of her is in the air.
I take another chug from my glass, finishing it, because… yeah.
For a few minutes, she doesn’t respond, just twirls her glass, before she takes a small sip, and then sighs. “The thing is, you’re asking me to be courageous, and I just don’t do courage.”
I smile. “I do. All the time. It gets easier with practice. You just decide what you want to do, and you do it. No second-guessing.”
Which is true. I don’t give anything too much of a second thought anymore. Yeah, I can be hurt, but so what? I’ll recover or I won’t.
“But you’re some sort of town hero. I’m not.”
“Not so much a hero, Jelly Bean, as a guy who has a lot to pay back.” So much to pay back, sometimes the weight is stifling, but I don’t need to tell her that. “Anyway, I can’t do that if I’m sitting in a safe corner.”
“Why? What do you think you owe? To who?”
“My parents, for one. The guys at MFD for another… I owe them far more than I can every repay. They gave me a life. They gave me a home, a family, and a community. I never let myself forget what I would have been without them… nothing.” I shrug.
“Jumping into dangerous situations seems a small price to pay in comparison.”
“See? Spoken like a hero.” Her voice is very soft, her blue eyes even softer.
Just soft enough to fill me with shame. Maybe it sounds good, but the reality of owing a bottomless debt feels a lot like trying to paper over a wall of fire with nano-sized ice shards.
I lean over to the table and collect the bottle, filling my glass again.
She can’t understand what I’m saying, because she was born normal.
Her parents wanted her from birth, but mine wanted me only by grace.
I’m the mutt in the shelter, only granted a home because someone was kind.
My parents didn’t choose to make a baby.
They didn’t seek out a reputable agency and go through the million steps necessary to find a baby to adopt.
I was foisted on the entire town, and my parents and the MFD accepted that burden.
I shake off the thought and focus on Nina. “Being brave is a choice, Jelly Bean. All you need to do is jump—in this case, decide to be honest. All I’m asking for is an explanation. No judgment, just help me understand.”
“Right. Easier said than done.” Taking a deep breath, she squeezes her eyes shut before opening them and saying in a rush, “I’ve hated you since that day in April when you walked into the locker room and found me with Bruce and Chris.”
“Ah, Chris. Can’t forget the quarterback.”
My quip catches her breath. Her eyes briefly shutter again before reopening. “That day…” She shakes her head again.
“I remember.” Too well, if I’m being honest. It was the single worst span of moments I’ve ever experienced—and I’ve almost been burned alive a few times.
Anger briefly flares across her face, but just as suddenly, her features fall. “You looked at me like I was the worst sort of trash. Like I was unredeemable. Disgusting. Like I was a disgusting slut.”
“I didn’t…”
But she continues right over me before I can explain. “And the thing is, until I started punching you, I thought I hated you for making me feel that way, but having gotten out the poison, as you said, I realize that if I’m honest…”
Her pause is long. She takes another sip, staring into her glass as if it holds the secrets of the universe. But there’s a puzzled furrow to her brow.
“Yeah?” I lean forward, waiting.
She looks up and says in a rush, “If I’m honest, I’m suddenly wondering if the reason that I hated you all this time was because I thought I was trash?
And knowing you thought so, too, was just…
an affirmation I didn’t want?” There’s a question in her voice, but also something solid.
A huge breath escapes her, and she chugs some more of her wine.
“Yeah. That’s the truth, isn’t it? I’ve hated you for reflecting what I thought of myself.
That’s like…” She snorts. “That’s so stupid. ”
I fold her words over, processing them. “I’ve seen you around Mossburg over the years.
Every single time you spotted me, your lips twisted and your eyes fired.
” I thought she saw me as disgusting, somehow.
That’s what I expected to hear when I cornered her in the bathroom and insisted on a conversation.
Maybe some crack about my height. Something about how I used to be such a nerd, I don’t know.
Something that would take whatever self-assurance I’ve built over the years and trample it in mud.
But that’s not what she’s saying. “You mean that the only reason that you’ve hated me all these years was because the way I looked at you mirrored what you already felt about yourself? ”
Her head bobs side to side as she considers.
“Yeah. Your expression that day—it just sank into the heart of me, like it had claws. You were so judgmental, and it really got to me, but I was… I was doing a very dumb thing when you saw me.” She waves her hand through the air.
“Usual story. Nothing original about it, but I was lashing out at my parents in an unproductive way. Some part of me even knew it at the time, though I didn’t want to admit it.
When you looked at me like I was loathsome, it was easy to focus my anger on you, I guess.
Better than focusing on me.” She tosses me a self-deprecatory smile.
“And, go figure, it only took me how many years to figure that out?”
“I should have cornered you sooner.”
“Or not at all. Maybe ignorance was bliss.”
I don’t say anything. I don’t want to derail her, and I don’t think she’s finished yet.
And I’m right. Her smile fades, and she stares into her glass again. “I’m sorry for blaming you for being disgusted by my actions, Sampson.”
I inch closer. “Why were you with them?”
She shrugs. “My home life was bad. My parents were fighting, my dad was cheating, and so was my mom. We didn’t have much money, and I just felt lost, you know?
Plus, some of the girls said I was fat, which was just the last straw.
When Chris started flirting with me, I felt so relieved, like maybe I wasn’t Giganto the Whale.
It felt like… well, like someone finally saw I had some worth and wanted me for it.
I’d had a tiny crush on you since the summer before… ”
“What?”
She jumps at my exclamation. “Yeah. Just a little one.” She places two fingers close together.
“Obviously, I couldn’t do anything about it.
I guess some girls can ask boys out, but I’m not that type.
I never was. Plus, you didn’t really seem to see me, but Chris did.
And as I said, it was a relief to know that I wasn’t so awful looking that no boy would ever want to be with me. ”
“But that’s not how it was,” I object.
“No?”
“No.” My voice is firm, but my insides quiver. How did I miss that she had a crush on me, too?
She shrugs again. “Anyway, when you came upon us in the locker room, you looked at me like you knew all along that I was a slut. It gutted me, especially because I had feelings for you.”
The eyes that look up at me are a bruised blue now, like crushed delphinium beneath life’s heel. Tears glisten, and my entire body begins to ache worse than it did from tumbling into the flames with the tree.
“Nina.”