35. Isn’t This Wonderful
Isn’t This Wonderful
ELLIE
Idon’t think anything could have prepared me for the scene I found when I came up the stairs that morning: Sam, trying to feed Henry in his high chair, but laughing so hard he was holding his stomach. Sitting across the table from—
“Mom?”
Both of them turned to me.
“Ellie-belle!” Mom jumped up from the table and ran over to me, enveloping me in a giant hug. It felt so good being in my mom’s arms.
But I was still so confused.
After realizing Sam was upstairs with Henry, I did a much-needed morning pump since I’d missed last night’s.
Then I’d taken a leisurely shower, which I spent trying to sort out the wild jumble of things in my head.
I’d been preparing several different scenarios for how to talk with Sam about last night, and kept vacillating from one extreme (it was a one-time thing we couldn’t repeat) to the other (we needed to do that a bunch more.
ASAP). I knew there were a bunch of options in between, but I hadn’t landed on anything that felt right, and the water had started running cold.
Now, to see my mom here? I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I’d told Mom about Sam, but only up to the point where he was helping out with Henry.
“What are you doing here?” I managed when she finally released me.
“It’s Tommy’s birthday next week, isn’t it? I’ve never missed a single one.”
My heart clenched. She was right. She’d always been there for Tommy. Every year, no matter how busy she was.
“Yeah but you’re on the other side of the country now, Mom. I never expected you to keep that up.”
“Honey. We’d talked about me coming to visit. So why not now? Besides, I wanted to see how you’re getting along. And maybe have a chance to meet Sam.” She gave a pointed look to Sam, who got up to take the bags of milk I’d forgotten I was holding.
“Freezer?” he asked.
I nodded, blushing slightly.
He smiled and did it like this was something he did every day.
I gave Henry a kiss, but he didn’t seem to be interested in me picking him up for once, so I sat down at the table.
“It looks to me like things are going well between you two?” Mom said, waggling her brows.
Oh my God. How much did she know? Briefly I was seized with panic as I considered Sam might have told Mom we’d slept together last night. Not that Mom was traditional or anything—not by a long stretch. But that would be weird, right?
“I told her a little about what happened with Tommy yesterday,” Sam said from the kitchen, apparently reading my mind. “I hope that’s okay.” He came back in with the coffee press and filled my mug, sliding the cream and sugar my way before subtly pointing his chin at the couch.
The blankets were still there, though Sam had folded them neatly and stacked the pillow I’d given him on top.
I relaxed slightly. He’d needed an explanation for why he’d stayed over. He hadn’t even had to lie.
“That was very kind of you, Sam,” Mom said. “Not everyone would have offered to do that.”
Sam sat down next to Henry again. “Tommy’s a good kid. I’ve had the privilege of getting to know him as I get to know Henry.”
Mom’s face went soft. “Tommy is a good kid. Not a lot of people can see that under…everything else.”
I took a sip of coffee, feeling a little less deer-in-the-headlights. “I told Sam how you were there for the worst of it, Mom.”
She smiled, sadness in her eyes. “It was rough. But we made it through. You made it through. And look at you now!” She swept her hands around. “This place is looking amazing. And look at all these gorgeous houseplants!”
I smiled, because of course Mom would notice the plants.
Sam cleared his throat. “Henry, uh, took a bite out of that fern, earlier. I’m sorry.”
“He what?” I asked.
Sam told us about this morning, looking chagrinned.
“He escapes on me too,” I said, explaining I thought there was something wrong with the latch but hadn’t gotten around to fixing it since it worked most of the time.
“Well, you’ve got enough plants to spare,” Mom said. “I’m very impressed. Where did you get them all?”
“Do you remember Sarah’s sister Kit? The landscaper? She supplied them all.”
“Of course! She came to the flower farm with you years ago. Remember that awful boyfriend she had?” Mom laughed.
I grimaced. “They’re still together.”
Mom gaped. “He picked my peonies!”
“Oh my God, I forgot about that.”
I told Sam how Kit and Chip had visited my mom’s farm with me once.
“For some reason that ding-dong thought it was some kind of U-pick place,” Mom said.
She was mostly mad about it because he hadn’t even picked them for Kit. “He said he was going to try to resell them at the beach later!”
I chanced a glance at Sam as Mom went on.
He laughed at what she was saying, but as he did, his eyes caught mine. Then he winked, turning my insides liquid. Flashes of last night popped into my mind.
“Honey?”
Mom had finished the story.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “Still picturing Chip’s face when you yelled at him.”
Mom laughed. But when Sam got up to plate the food, Mom whispered, “He’s wonderful, Ellie. So sweet to you, so good with Henry. And he’s handsome, too. Those eyes!” She fanned herself.
“Mom, stop!” I hissed, feeling like a teenager.
She buttoned her mouth, but wiggled her eyebrows.
I should have laughed at her, but suddenly I was struck with this sick feeling, like all of this was too good to be true. He was good. He was amazing. But what Sam and I had was supposed to be temporary. No hearts involved.
But it was getting harder to remember why.
She must have seen the concern on my face, because her eyebrows slanted. She squeezed my hand as Sam came back into the room with my food.
“Thank you,” I said, my voice slightly choked as he set the plate in front of me.
What would he have done if Mom wasn’t here? Checked in with me? Asked how I was doing? Kissed me?
Even in my agitated state, a flurry of sparks tickled my stomach thinking of him touching me.
I shoved a forkful of eggs in my mouth, willing the image away.
We chatted about neutral things after that, and I relaxed again, remembering there were no stakes here. Mom was just observing two people who’d been close the night before. Naturally she’d pick up on the way we were interacting.
“Well,” Sam said when he’d finished, “I’m going to tidy up in there, then I’ll get going. You guys need to catch up.”
I zipped my gaze to his. He met my eyes and gave me a little smile.
“Are you sure?” I asked. Despite my anxiety, I didn’t want him to go. Not yet.
God, was that desperate?
“Yeah, actually, there’s a SAR orientation this afternoon I’m going to help out with. Then I need to catch up on some work I missed this week.” He began collecting our plates.
Guilt churned in my stomach. He’d been helping out here this week. Putting his life on hold for us.
“What do you do for work?” Mom asked.
Sam smiled. “I’m in the wonderful world of auto parts sales.”
As he explained to Mom what he did, I felt myself appreciating him in a different way.
I loved how Sam wasn’t disparaging about his job.
It wasn’t his life’s work, and he didn’t love it, but he never spoke poorly about it.
He was grateful to it for what it was. And he brought home those hilarious stories about his strange co-workers and clients.
“He also does websites,” I said, when he was done explaining all that to her.
“Oh!” Mom said. “I’m actually in the market for a new website for the farm. Can I see some of your work?”
“I can show you,” I said, since Sam’s hands were now full.
As Sam headed into the kitchen, looking a little bashful, I pulled up the SAR website on my phone. “Here,” I said to Mom, handing her my phone. “Can you also watch Henry for a sec?”
“Of course!” She unbuckled Henry, pulling him onto her lap.
When I came into the kitchen holding the last of the dishes, Sam looked up from the sink, where he had water running, his arms deep in the soapy water.
“You can put them in here,” he said.
He pulled his hands out of the water as I dropped them in, then dried his hands on a kitchen towel.
Then he gripped my head, sliding his hands into my hair before crushing my mouth to his in a silent kiss. Heat flooded me at the desperate grip of his hands on me; the feeling of his hard body walking me back and pressing me up against the wall.
“Oh this is beautiful!” Mom called from the other room as Sam broke the kiss.
“I’ve been wanting to do that all morning,” he breathed into my ear.
“You really did all of this?” Mom asked.
“Yup,” Sam said.
He cupped my face, running his thumb over my bottom lip. “I want to taste you again,” he whispered. “As soon as fucking possible.”
“I—” I breathed, but I didn’t know what I was trying to say.
“Go be with your mom,” he said.
“I can help with—”
Sam gave me one last kiss. Then he took me by the belt loops and turned me around, swatting me on the ass as he practically shoved me out of the kitchen.
“I want you to do my website, Sam,” Mom called as I walked, knock-kneed, back into the dining room.
“Isn’t this wonderful, honey?” Mom asked, showing me the website I sometimes looked at when I was missing him after he’d left us to go back to his place.
When Sam came back into the room, he talked only to my mom, purposefully not looking my way.
Of course he’d do her website. And hell no would he take any money. He told Mom about how he’d been able to do the SAR website during Henry’s nap time.
Mom was so impressed she couldn’t stop gushing. She made him list off some other ones he’d done so she could look at those later. He of course obliged.
When he did, he stood behind me, gripping the back of my chair. But as my Mom typed the names in her phone, he drew a finger over the back of my neck—a featherlight graze that had me shuddering into my coffee.
Finally, twenty minutes later, Sam said his goodbyes. All I got was a paltry wave. But the look in his eyes held fire that I was still thinking about as he disappeared down the stairs.
I felt Mom’s eyes on me.
“Not a word ’til he’s out the door,” I said through my teeth.
Except he was delayed, because voices sounded from downstairs. Tommy was up.
“Your daddy is very handsome, isn’t he?” Mom whispered to Henry.
I glared at her.
“And he looks at your mom like—”
“Mom!” I said through my teeth. But this time I couldn’t help but laugh. She was impossible. And I was so, so glad she was here.