Six #3
“Really?” I just couldn’t get over it. “Well, you have to cut him some slack. He’s a police detective and—”
“Oh, I know all about his job.” She dismissed my argument.
“So you understand why sometimes he can come off—”
“It must be very stressful to be a detective; I’m not denying that. But it doesn’t really explain his mood since I’ve met him.”
“Oh. What does?”
“Well, I thought maybe it was because he was lonely.”
I shrugged. “That would seem reasonable.”
“So I asked Mikey, and he agreed with me that we would set him up with some of my friends.”
Mikey? “That’s really nice of you guys.” I nodded, thinking about how I could get Michael alone so I could strangle him. Set Sam up? Was he high?
“It was.” She smiled sheepishly. “But the second you walked through the door, Michael leaned over and told me to not worry about it anymore.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I think I know what Mikey wants now.”
“And what is that?” Not to be called Mikey?
“Oh please!” She giggled. “He was worried about his brother and thought maybe I could help him do something about it. But now that you’re here…he wants you and Sam to be together.”
“You think?”
She laughed, because she knew I was teasing her. “Jory, ohmygod, could Mikey like you any more? Could any of them? My goodness, it’s like Christmas around here right now.”
“That’s because—”
“I had no idea Sam was gay,” she said in a low voice. “Nobody tells me anything.”
“Well, he’s not gay, he’s actually—”
“Holy crap,” she said softly as she glanced warily around the room. I put an arm around her shoulders. “There are a lot of people here.”
And I realized that, to her, we were just talking.
She didn’t care for a second that I was gay or that Sam was bi.
It was a tiny detail to her, a momentary “huh,” merely something she hadn’t known or considered.
In her universe, where Michael was the center, the situation with Sam and me was meaningless.
I loved the fact that no one cared at all.
“Beverly.”
She turned to look at my face.
“Everything’s gonna be all right. It must be a good sign that the extended family was summoned over here to meet you.”
“I guess.” She was unsure, and it was clear from her voice.
“No, I’m sure it was.”
“Oh God.” She grimaced, glancing around, appearing uncertain.
I smiled tenderly. “It’s okay. You must always tell yourself: the more the merrier.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So, are you guys getting engaged?”
“Oh, don’t I wish,” she replied honestly, and I doubted she even realized what she’d said.
“No, it’s just he wanted me to meet his whole family, and so did his mom, which is nice, I guess, but…
I mean, I’ve been here a few times before, met his folks of course, and Sam and his sisters, but not… everyone.”
“It’ll be okay,” I told her, patting her shoulder.
She whimpered.
“Why don’t you come into the kitchen and help Regina and me?”
“Are you sure that’s the right thing to do? I mean, I want her to like me, but I don’t want to push.”
“Believe me, that’s the way to do it. I’ll help you clean the kitchen after the meal is set out. That’s a step in the right direction, big-time.”
She grabbed my arm. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. You have no idea how crazy I am about this man. I have to make his family love me.”
“It’s easy.” I smiled warmly, speaking from experience. “Just be yourself.”
“Were you yourself?”
I thought about it a minute. “Yeah, I was.”
“Did you know you wanted to be with Sam from the moment you laid eyes on him?”
“I don’t know if—”
“Me too.” She jumped to the conclusion even after cutting me off. “I want to marry Mikey,” she confessed. “I’m in way over my head, Jory.”
I tightened my arm around her shoulders and squeezed gently. “Well, I think he’d be lucky to have you,” I said supportively, realizing I meant it. This was a really nice girl. I hoped Michael was smart enough to realize what he had.
Beverly Stiles was just a little shorter than me, so just under five-nine, with shoulder-length brown hair and big cornflower-blue eyes.
She did her makeup with the heavy black eyeliner on top that made your eyes look like a cat’s.
The lipstick was pale and lined dark, and she had an amazing tan.
I was thinking at least two trips a week to the tanning salon.
“And how long are you going to be around?”
“What?” My mind had been drifting.
“I asked you how long you were planning on staying around.” That was a very good question. “I hope for a long time, because I need you.”
“Me too,” Sam said quickly, his voice deep as he walked up beside me.
“Hey.” I smiled up at him. “Say hello to Beverly.”
“Hi there.” He smiled at her, his hand slipping around the back of my neck. “Hope you’re not put off by the volume in here today.”
She was stunned; you could tell. Like a lot of people, she had thought she’d seen Sam and knew what he looked like. “No.” She gulped, and I saw her pale, looking at him. “It’s fine.”
“It’s good to see you again,” he said honestly, moving his hand to massage the back of my head, his fingers buried in my hair. “My brother looks really happy.”
She nodded, and I watched her melt under his warm eyes, his gentle voice and trace of a smile. She wondered, like everyone else, how in the hell he hadn’t commanded more of her attention before. Had he always looked like that? Was she so blinded by Michael that she had missed his gorgeous brother?
“I’ve never seen you look better,” she told him sincerely.
He gave her an automatic smile in response instead of the cold, disapproving look I knew she was used to. “Thanks. You want something to drink? I’ll grab it for you.”
“No.” I put up my hand. “Let Beverly get it. Your mom will like that.”
“What?” Beverly asked anxiously, turning from Sam to me.
“I’ve watched Regina—she likes to see people making an effort to join in and help each other,” I told her. “Really. Go in the kitchen and tell her you’re there to get Michael a drink, and one for Sam as well.”
“Oh, okay.” She nodded, moving around me fast. “Thanks, Jory.”
I watched her go as Sam stepped behind me and wrapped his arms loosely around my neck. He leaned down and kissed my ear as his father yelled for me to get into the living room and watch football with him. Like I even did that.
I sighed heavily. “What’s with him pushing my buttons tonight? He’s never been like this before.”
“Ask me what he said every time I came over here,” he whispered in my ear, giving me goose bumps.
“What?” I smiled as heat raced along my skin.
“He said, ‘So, idiot, when are you gonna go get your boy?’”
“Are you kidding?” I was stunned. He’d called me Sam’s boy?
“No. He embraced me having a man in my life fairly quickly.”
“Is three years quickly?”
“For Thomas Kage, oh hell yeah,” he said, pressing a kiss into the crook of my neck. “You smell so good.”
“Quit.”
“You wanna see my old room?”
“No.”
“I think ya do.”
“No.” I smiled, but I didn’t laugh. It was a victory for me.
“How ’bout my old bed? It doesn’t creak much.”
“Sam—”
“My dad is crazy about you. Everyone is.”
I let out a deep breath.
“You’re the only one everybody likes, in fact.”
He sounded odd, so I turned my head to look at him.
“Huh.” He was really thinking about what he’d just said. “That’s really interesting. Everybody else has a problem with at least one other person in the family.”
I smiled at him as he looked down into my eyes.
“Except you.”
I arched a brow for him.
“Funny.”
But I was likable. Dane always said so.
I had never been in Sam’s childhood room before, and I had no idea why.
Maybe because I’d never been invited, and to go without being asked seemed like an intrusion.
But he had offered, so I was there, alone, looking at his bookshelves, at the pictures tacked to the cork board, at the trophies and a letterman jacket hanging by itself on a hook behind the door.
“In case you missed it,” he said from behind me, “I wanted to come up here with you.”
I hadn’t even heard him open the door. “I know. I just wanted to see what you were like when you were younger. Where’d you keep your porn?”
He chuckled and walked up behind me. I felt him there like a wall of heat, and when he kissed the crook of my neck, I tilted my head so he could reach more. Instantly, his arms wrapped me up, holding me tight against his chest.
“We should’ve stayed home.”
“Why?”
“Because all I can think about is last night.”
“And?”
“I wanna go back to bed.”
I felt my heart flutter and I trembled hard. I couldn’t help it; my body reacted to the sound of his voice, to the low, throaty quality of it that just dripped sex.
“Your body was always beautiful, but now…” He put a hand in my hair. “Damn, baby.”
I couldn’t take it. “Sam—” I barely got it out.
He turned me in his arms, bent, and kissed me in one fluid motion.
His mouth was sealed over mine, his tongue sliding between my lips as I opened them for him.
One of his hands was on the small of my back, the other one lower, on my ass, kneading, caressing me through my jeans.
My hands were in his hair, holding him close to me, as I kissed back with every drop of need in me.
I was hungry for him, and he wanted me just as bad.
“Ohmygod, that’s disgusting.”
We broke the kiss, flying apart, both of us turning to face the source of the voice at the door.
“Are you kidding?” Rachel grumbled, shaking her head first at me, and then turning to her brother. “Our parents live here you freak. Could you be more gross?”
“Aww,” Jen said from beside her. “I think you guys are adorable even though, yeah, Rachel’ right. It is a bit stomach-churning considering where you are.”
“Uh,” Sam groaned. “Talk about a buzzkill.”
Rachel’s arched eyebrow, Jen’s clasped hands held to her heart, and Sam’s scowl—it was all too much. I dissolved into laughter. I loved Sam’s family.
Another groan from him and I could barely breathe.
“He’s so cute,” Rachel said, smiling at me.
“Oh yeah.” Sam sighed. “He’s a goddamn riot.”