Chapter 15 Sam #3
Again, not the response I would’ve wanted. Not as enthusiastic as I would’ve liked. I can feel myself deflating in real time, and shit, I wish I could smack the rewind on that. Why the fuck did I say that? What a dumb fucking idea.
Desperate to get away from me, I guess. After being stuck together this long. Probably wishes I just drove us down to Miami and dumped him at the first hotel and let him fend for himself. Well done, Rivero, you big dumbass. You’re just hurting yourself at this point.
So I try to change the subject and direct his attention down to the long pier jutting out into the water below us. A colorful shack sits upon it. “That’s where we’re gonna have dinner tonight. Best crab cakes you’ll find anywhere. And, um, I thought we’d meet a couple of my friends there.”
He goes real stiff in my arms. His hands drop. “Friends?” he echoes.
“Yeah. Just a couple of guys from high school I haven’t seen in a while.”
“Sam—” He grabs the railing again and I can tell he is distinctly unhappy with me, even though I can’t see his face. It’s all in the set of his shoulders, the way he’s holding the rail so tight that his knuckles are turning white. “You never said anything about meeting anyone.”
I move up to stand beside him, try to catch his eye. I bump him with my shoulder. “It’s just for dinner, nothing crazy. I’m not saying we gotta hang with them the whole night.”
He won’t look at me. He’s staring very determinedly down at the beach, jaw tense. I say his name and he doesn’t look up, so I reach out and tuck his hair behind his ear, exposing the butterfly, and he sort of flinches away from me.
“You’re pissed at me, aren’t you?” I ask.
“I’m just—I don’t know if I’m up to it. Meeting a bunch of random assholes.”
“They’re not random, they’re okay.” I want to say they aren’t assholes, either, but maybe that’s a lie.
They were assholes in high school and so was I.
But I’ve since grown out of that, I like to think, and surely they have, too.
I have no idea what they’ll make of Ash—probably, they’ll think he’s a bit odd.
He isn’t convinced either way. He’s purposely not looking at me. And maybe it was a dickish thing to do, setting this up when he was basically unconscious in my backseat. With his money. Not that he seemed fussed about it until just this moment.
It’s just that I want them to meet Ash. Because he’s important.
I need to make him real to someone. Like if I do, he won’t disappear when we cross into Miami like some phantom I dreamed up.
This entire trip is just one big hallucination that I can’t tell anyone about because of the very nature of our relationship.
Just let me in. I wanna grab him by the shoulders and shake him with every word. Just let me innnnn! Show me I’ve made as big of a mark on you as you have on me. Tell me this isn’t nothing. You’re rewriting my entire friggin’ brain chemistry so how can I be nothing to you?
Again, feeling like crying. Like I’ve done something irreconcilable. Like some invisible line has been crossed and it’s over, and I’m just grasping at sand, watching it sift between my fingers.
I fish a cigarette out of my shorts and light it. “Okay,” I say at last, exhaling smoke into the breeze. “Fine. Don’t worry about it, Ash. I’ll tell them we can’t make it.”
He turns to me, his eyes big and fawning. “What? No. I don’t wanna be the reason why you can’t see them.”
“It’s fine. Some other time.”
“No, Sam.” He butts up under my chin, suddenly all affection where there was none before. “It’s fine. I’m just being stupid. Let’s go.”
“You sure?” I say hesitantly, letting him steal the cigarette from my mouth. “We really don’t have to. It’s not a big deal. Like, they’re just some guys from high school.”
“You said they’re cool.” He takes a long drag off the cigarette. “I believe you.”
“I mean—” Great, now it’s gonna be my fault if they’re dickheads. “You know, I haven’t hung out with them in years—”
“It’ll be fine.” He hands the cigarette back. “Whatever. Who cares.”
His change of heart has me suspicious as hell, but what can I do? Or say? I stub the cigarette out on the railing. “Wanna go for a swim?” I ask.
We change and go downstairs with a couple of hotel towels, bypassing the over-crowded pool deck and hitting the beach beyond.
Ash looks in his element, strangely enough—or maybe not strangely. With that long gold hair and that lean, taut body of his, he’s got all the makings of a hot-ass surfer and I know he’s going to turn some distinctly feminine heads in Miami. He’s a lot of girls’ types.
Almost a shame he plays for the other team. And can’t surf. At least, not yet. Maybe it’s a hobby he’ll pick up. The surfing, I mean. Not the girls.
The sand’s hot from baking under a Floridian sun all day and much hotter than Ash is expecting, I guess, because he gasps and does a little hop. I can’t help but laugh. “Too hot? I can carry you, if you want.”
He shakes his head. “It’s fine. I’m just—Sam, wait, no—”
Too late. I’m already scooping him up and throwing him over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry like he weighs fuck all—which isn’t true, he’s really not that skinny at all—leaving him to squawk and shriek in equal parts mortification and delight.
He swats my backside as I cart him across the narrow strip of beach.
I catch sight of the startled, amused faces of the beachgoers who care to take notice of us; no one else seems to give a shit or think our antics are particularly strange. Two boys goofing off at the tail end of summer.
“Sam,” he yelps as I begin to slosh through the water, “I swear to god if you throw me in—”
“Yup.” I smack his ass. “Tossing you right to the sharks.”
“You motherfucker.” He tries to wriggle free. “Put me down.”
So I do. Well, I try. Honest, I was just going to set him right down in the hip-deep water, but I don’t think he trusts me to do so.
He seizes hold around my neck when I try to pry him off and because he does have a solid weight and strength to him, he just drags me right down beneath the shallow, gentle waves.
I open my eyes down there, just for a second, and he’s all hair flowing in the current. He looks like a mermaid. I surface with a gasp and he pops up beside me a moment later, whipping his wet hair out of his face. He smacks my chest. “You’re a dick.”
“I wasn’t gonna throw you in!” I protest. “I wouldn’t do that to you. Not with your seizures. What do I look like?”
I think he’s about to whack me again, but instead he sets his palm against my chest. And then the other one.
He kicks closer until he’s under my chin again, and I gather him up in my arms. We’re out far enough, I think, that no one can really see what we’re doing.
Or maybe they can, but I don’t care that much.
What are they gonna do, anyway? Buncha old people, mostly.
Guess that’s how I know I’m back in my home state. I’m not scared. I don’t care.
Ash lifts his wet face to mine. There are droplets clinging to his blonde lashes, rivulets trailing down his face and neck. His blue-hazel eyes match the color of the sea perfectly. I take that gorgeous face of his in my hands and kiss him right on his perfectly parted mouth, deep and fierce.
He makes a small sound against my lips—in protest, maybe, an attempt to resist, pushing at my chest before his arms wind around my neck a split-second later.
He tilts his head, lets me deepen the kiss, lets me take his lower lip between my teeth and gently tug, lets his tongue brush up against mine.
God, I want him. Again. Here. Anywhere. Somehow.
I break away and press my forehead to his as a wave surges around us.
My fingers slide through his wet hair and slick it back from his face, put all that gorgeous bone structure of his on display.
His lashes flutter and flicker against mine as he wraps his fingers around my wrist. “Sam,” he breathes.
“We can’t do this here. Everyone can see. ”
“Don’t care.” I rub my nose against his and man, I really don’t. Not right now. “Do you?”
“I—” He’s startled by my response, blinking into my face. “I don’t—I don’t want you to get hurt. Like before. Because of me.”
“Relax, butterfly. I can take care of myself.” My thumb brushes the scar on his chin. “You’re beautiful,” I say softly, voice barely audible over the surf and wind. “You know that?”
Speechless once more, I guess, he just looks up at me with his mouth agape. I think he’s fumbling for the words to respond and can’t quite find them. Not even a thanks, you too.
I leave him to it. I turn away and dive headfirst into an oncoming wave.