Chapter 12
SAM
Sam watched the cursor blink on her screen a few more times before she let out a heavy sigh. She’d been staring at it for at least the past twenty minutes, but she couldn’t find it in herself to concentrate on writing. Her mind kept wandering back…
That kiss.
Her lips still tingled from the softness of Charlie’s kiss, his lips fitting so perfectly against hers like a long-lost puzzle piece.
It was a whisper of a touch at first, but slow, exploratory pecks that softened each time their lips greeted one another.
The way his hand snaked around the back of her head to pull her closer, deepening the kiss.
It was true that she’d spent most of the night thinking about it, only pulling away from it by forcing a writing session in to distract herself last night.
A hint of panic settled in her gut over the whole thing, knowing that if a simple kiss like that would cause her to blush like a sinner in church, she was going to be in a lot of trouble.
How on earth would she be able to keep her composure and actually try to focus on getting notes for her book when her body wanted to melt into a puddle at Charlie’s feet?
Angel’s words lingered in her mind, but she tried to brush them off swiftly to focus back on the words on her screen.
It might have been a long time ago, but she knew Charlie still felt the same way.
Nothing had changed between them, and even if he had kissed her like that, it wasn’t because he genuinely wanted to.
He was being a good friend to help her, just so she could write a good book.
Besides, he would’ve told her if his feelings had changed… Right?
No, Charlie had always been honest with her.
He would’ve told her if things had changed for him.
He wasn’t one to keep many things from her.
He told her just about everything, things he hadn’t told anyone else before.
It was why they were such good friends to begin with.
He rarely spoke about Erica these days, but he had opened up to her once or twice about it, so she knew without a shadow of a doubt that they were comfortable enough with one another to share anything.
Well, even though she didn’t tell him about how she felt…
But that was only because she knew it would make him uncomfortable, knowing he didn’t feel the same.
The last thing she wanted was for Charlie to distance himself from her because she made things awkward between them.
If they could survive a silly little fake dating experiment like this, they could survive anything.
The more she tried to convince herself of that, however, a deeper, more persistent fear hovered over Sam like a dark rain cloud, calling out to her from the depths.
Things between them had always been the most stable part of her life, knowing he would always be there. This could change things between them, and that frightened her more than she initially thought it would.
She could lose him if she wasn’t careful.
Before she could dwell too much longer on the thought, her phone rang. She picked it up without looking, immediately regretting the decision when the familiar voice came through. “Samantha, dear, I hope you’re in a better mood than you were last time we spoke?”
Sam fought to contain the groan before it slammed through the phone receiver. Aunt Emily, of course. As if she didn’t have enough problems in her life right now.
“It’s about the same as last time,” she replied honestly.
Aunt Emily tsked on the other end. “And here I was hoping you would apologize for how you behaved before. I suppose I thought too much of you.”
This time Sam didn’t fight the laugh as it bubbled out of her. “Me, apologize? I wasn’t the one who went on a tangent on how awful of a person I am, according to you.”
“You exaggerate, dear. I was simply making a point.”
“A point that I’m a terrible person?”
Aunt Emily scoffed. “A point that you have received a lot of blessings from our family, and it’s time you started to act like it.”
Sam sank back in her spot. “Where should I send my eternal gratitude to?”
“Don’t get smart with me, young lady. I’m still your aunt, one of the only family members you have left!”
“As you keep reminding me,” Sam grumbled. “Which you manage to forget when you bring up my education, as you did last time we spoke, that I’ve already paid you back what you and Uncle Ron spent to send me to school. Remember? Sent you a huge check for it? Ringing any bells?”
Another indignant scoff. “Well, that is expected, Samantha, don’t you think? Your uncle and I are not made out of money, and with how you wasted your education on that useless English degree, I think we were owed our money back.”
It was laughable how much of a point of contention her degree had been at the time. But she wasn’t sure she should’ve been surprised at all. Her aunt didn’t take kindly to her disobeying the plans she had laid out for her.
Sam had been told most of her life, ever since she moved in with her aunt’s family basically, that she had two options in life.
If she wanted an education, she would have to go to a college that they approved of and get a degree in accounting, so she could eventually work for her uncle’s law firm.
Or, option number two, they would set her up so that she could marry rich like her aunt had—most likely to the son of someone that her uncle wanted to go into business with.
Her freedom of an actual choice with her life had been stacked against her from the very beginning.
“What is it that you want, Aunt Emily? You mentioned last that you had something you wanted my participation in, so what is it?”
The other end was silent for a moment, and it almost gave Sam a sense of satisfaction, knowing Aunt Emily was likely trying to collect herself to at least pretend to be pleasant for a moment. Which meant she definitely needed something.
Ever since that huge blowout when she was in college, the only time her family ever bothered to reach out was if they needed something. Most of the time, she would decline, though once or twice, she’d been guilted into helping in one way or another.
“Tommy wants to write a book,” Her aunt finally announced.
Stunned silence forced Sam to clap a hand over her mouth before another shocked laugh escaped her. “You’re joking.”
“I would think you would be thrilled your cousin would want to follow in your footsteps,” Aunt Emily said curtly, venom laced in her words that Sam could recognize too easily.
Unbelievable.
“Well, considering how you and Uncle Ron acted when I got into writing, color me surprised that you sound so… supportive now,” she said slowly.
What surprised her almost as much was trying to imagine Tommy writing a book. When he’d spent most of his life being handed everything he ever wanted on a silver platter, thinking of him putting in the time and energy to write anything was almost fiction in and of itself.
Her aunt cleared her throat. “He shows promise, and I think he could really make some good money.”
She wasn’t going to mention the extensive process of getting a book published and simply sighed again. “And how would I be participating in this exactly?”
“Didn’t that little friend of yours you went to school with go into publishing?”
Sam held the phone out, as if it had shocked her, staring at it with indignation. Oh, this was priceless. After all these years of giving her shit for being an author, all of a sudden when Tommy wants to do it, it was up to Sam to roll out the red carpet for him?
It was her turn to scoff when she put the phone back to her ear. “You want me to put in a good word for him.” A statement, not a question. She didn’t need the question. It was the only thing that made sense.
“Well, of course,” her aunt stated, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world—as if she was more surprised that Sam hadn’t already immediately started calling everyone she knew.
“Aunt Emily,” she started as calmly as she could muster, “it’s not as simple as saying, ‘Hey, my cousin wants to write a book. When should he come in to sign a deal?’ There are steps that he’s going to have to take in order to get to a point where he would talk to an agent.
I can walk him through what he needs to do when I have a—”
“I should’ve known you would make this as difficult as humanly possible.”
“Me?!” she exclaimed. “You know you can’t just snap your fingers and get what you want, right?”
“Excuse me? How dare you speak to me that way! I know your mother—”
“—raised me better than to speak to you that way. I know,” Sam finished for her, letting her irritation bubble out of her. Sam surprised even herself at that one, though she immediately felt a sense of euphoric pride for not letting that guilt trip hit the way it normally did.
There was a long pause on the other end of the phone. An eerie silence that Sam should have taken advantage of by hanging up the phone, and she regretted not doing exactly that when Aunt Emily finally regained her composure.
“We’re the only family you have, Samantha,” Aunt Emily finally said, “and it would do you some good to remember that if you’re not careful, you’ll run off anyone left to give a shit about you.”
The sky opened up just in time for Sam to make it back to the coffee shop.
After her call with her aunt, she decided to head there to get some more work done because it didn’t seem possible at her place.
Her aunt’s words spun around in her mind like a greyhound on a racetrack, so she’d thought some fresh air would do her good.
Raindrops pattered insistently against the glass window, the sound rhythmic and calming as the once-calm sky churned with dark clouds.
It was the perfect kind of atmosphere for her to pick up the book she’d last been reading, curl up in a comfy chair with a cup of hot coffee, and take in the relaxing atmosphere of the quiet cafe. But she had a lot to do.