34
I can’t help but feel like maybe it was on purpose that we spent the day on the boat—and I do mean the day. The boys caught us redfish off the side of the boat and grilled it for lunch and then again for dinner. By the time we docked back in at home, it was well past nine and our mother was internally livid but externally trying to be gracious.
Maryanne had gone home after dinner, and so it was just Mom and Debbie at the breakfast bar, drinking wine. Mom asked us about the boat, and Debbie told us about the sermon at church this morning but told me I probably wouldn’t have liked it, and when I asked why, she said, “You just wouldn’t have,” which I think means she thinks I’m a disagreeable person, which isn’t true. I just don’t like her.
I hadn’t gotten much alone time with Sam today, and I wasn’t sure how I even would at this point, so I make a quiet but intentional announcement that I’m going to bed.
Sam’s eyes lock on mine and he rubs his mouth absentmindedly.
“Night!” Oliver sings.
“I’m kinda tired t—” Sam starts, but Oli interrupts.
“No! I have an idea, let’s—”
I begin to hear my brother launch into a plan, but I don’t catch the finer details.
I lie awake in my bed for hours. I leave my door cracked open so I can see him when he comes, but the time drips into the early hours of the morning, and I begin to wonder whether maybe we’ve got our wires crossed? Was today not leading to where I thought it was?
I’m barely ever wrong, but sometimes I am.
I eventually give up and go and have another shower, washing off all my expectations of how I thought this night would go.
After this shower, I don’t apply mascara and I don’t put on any of the tinted lip balm from By Terry that makes my mouth look perfect; I just apply the normal balm.
Before, I was wearing a black camisole from Cami NYC, but now I change into some jersey pajamas from Eberjey—which is what I actually sleep in, because they’re so comfortable, it’s a joke.
I do my best not to feel stroppy about it, even though I do a little. It’s not like Sam and I made plans out loud… It was a conversation we may or may not have had with our eyes, and I could have imagined it all, and it’s probably really actually Savannah’s fault—completely!—because she said we were about to have sex and so my expectations shifted.
When I walk out of the bathroom, his bedroom door is open now and his lights are on, and I walk past without looking inside because I feel a little dejected.
“Hey,” he calls after me quietly.
He gets off his bed and walks toward me.
“Hey.” I give him a tired smile.
He takes me by the wrist and pulls me inside his room. “I’m sorry—Oliver kept talking and talking, and I—”
“No, it’s fine.” I shake my head. “You’re here for him.”
“Yeah, I know,” he concedes, looking at the floor, and then he peers back up at me. “I wanna be here for you now too, though.”
I feel like a flower blooms right there on my face, right in front of him. I nod my chin back toward downstairs. “How did you get away?”
He shrugs. “We were just talking on his bed. He fell asleep.”
I smirk. “You fell asleep in bed with my brother?”
Sam gives me a playful look. “No, your brother fell asleep in bed with me.”
I cringe. “Well, that doesn’t bode very well…”
He laughs. “I guess not.”
“What?” I kick him playfully in the ankle. “You’re not going to defend your honor?”
He nods coolly. “My honor’s fine.”
“Well.” I bat my eyes. “I wouldn’t know.”
He gives me a crooked smile. “Do you wanna know?”
And that line hits me like a stone sinking in my stomach.
“Maybe I do.” I shrug airily. “Maybe I don’t.”
I don’t know why I’m playing hard to get. Maybe because it would be so fun to be gotten by him.
“Okay.” He licks away a smile. “Goodnight, then.” He talks a step away from me.
That asshole’s playing hard to get with me too.
“Wait,” I pout.
He raises his eyebrows. I gnaw on my bottom lip, frowning up at him.
I huff. “Do you want to have sex?”
“Uh.” He smirks, like the control he has right now way too much. “Do you mean in general? Or with you?”
“With me.” I frown again.
“And now, or…?
“Like now.” I interrupt him.
He swallows heavily. “Yep.” He’s pink and flustered and I get an adrenaline rush of lusty power. Sam clears his throat. “Uh—do you—should we—here?”
“Yes.” I nod.
He nods back. “Okay.”
“Okay.” I nod again.
He sniffs an amused laugh as he takes a step toward me. He presses his mouth together and then slips one hand around my waist, tugging me in toward him. His other hand is on my face, his thumb on my cheek as his eyes flicker over me.
And you know that moment right before kissing, where your noses are grazing and your breaths are tangling? It hangs there like Christmas Eve when you’re a kid, all excited, merry joy, and his mouth is getting closer to mine, and it feels like he’s hanging the last stocking on the fireplace before we light it—our mouths brush lightly for a second before he throws a packet of fire starters on the logs and we roar to life.
I hope this is how we’ll always kiss, like it will always feel like a surprise. Even when I’m expecting it. Even with my eyes open, as soon as our lips touch. It’s like the universe springs into Technicolor.
And he’s very good with his hands. I mean, very .
He has me pressed against the doorframe in his room; his mouth moves from mine and down my neck and his breath on me feels like when you climb into a hot shower after you’ve been rained on.
“Wait.” I pull back, looking up at him.
His mouth hovers above mine. “Are you okay?”
I grimace a little. “Weird question.”
“Oh, good.” He gives me a look. “I love weird questions before sex.”
He smirks and I laugh, and then he nudges my head with his.
“What?”
I take a deep breath and squint up at him. “Can we do it in my room?”
A grin cracks over his face. “Yeah, for sure.”
He moves ahead of me and casually walks inside, standing in the center of my room. He’s in black loose-fitting jeans, a gray T-shirt tonight, still—like always—no shoes. Hands dangling at his sides, watching me with a slight tilt to his head. I quietly close the door behind me and just stand there, suddenly feeling a bit nervous.
The good kind. The feeling you get right before you’re about to do something brave, or something confronting, or something that might change your life.
It’s a funny distance between us. Too much space. I can see all of him. His stance, feet shoulder-width apart, head squared but still tilted, arms folded over his chest.
“You okay?” he asks kindly.
“Yeah!” I nod quickly. “I just…” I wave my hand like it’s nothing. “I’ve had sex in this room before, but it’s just—um—never been on my terms?”
His face softens.
“Okay.” He glances around uneasily. “Whatever you want—we don’t have to—”
“No.” I shake my head. “I want to. In here.”
“Okay.”
“I’ve just never—”
He nods. “Yeah, I get it.” He points to my bed. “I’m going to lie down over there.” And he does. He glances back at me as he stretches out, hands behind his head, mouth twitching with a smile he’s trying not to show. “And whenever you’re—whenever—”
I purse my lips and walk over to him, feeling shyer than I want to. Not because I’m not sure of what I want, but because I know exactly what I do.
He squints up at me. “Are you sure you want to—?”
I nod solemnly. “Yes.”
“I wouldn’t be mad—”
“You’re not about to be the first person I’ve slept with since Beck.”
He exhales and lets out a tiny laugh. “Fuck! Thank God—that was a sentence I didn’t know I wanted to hear, but—”
My head pulls back, surprised by his relief. “Do you not want to do this?”
He sits up and swings his legs around the edge of my bed, frowning.
“Don’t misinterpret this as me not wanting to sleep with you. I’ve wanted to”—balled fist, absentmindedly hammering into his mouth, his go-to self-hush that I think is exclusively for me, or in the very least, for his less virginal thoughts—“since you felt me up on the day we met.”
I laugh.
“I just…” He trails off and squashes his mouth together, and then he looks at me quite seriously. “I don’t want to fuck us up.”
My eyes go round and my heart goes mushy and I move toward him, sitting on his lap.
I look from his eyes to his mouth to his eyes, and my cheeks go pink as something somewhere deeper than my belly goes hungry.
“You’re going to have to make the first move,” I tell him quietly, but Sam shakes his head.
“Please?” I press.
He nudges my cheek with his nose, then kisses my cheek. “You can do this.” He pulls back a little so our eyes meet. “You’re in control.”
I swallow nervously and then I reach for the hem of his T-shirt, tugging it up and off of him and my eyes fall to the scar from his accident. Without my permission, my brows bend and my bottom lip juts to a tiny pout—despair that he was once-upon-a-time hurt.
Sam sees it, our eyes catch and hold for a couple of seconds before he rests back on his arms, smiling at me patiently.
I undo the buttons of my pajama top and it falls open.
His eyes falter from mine just for a second, but his cheeks flush and his breathing quickens.
My heart is thudding like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade marching band as I lean in toward him.
He doesn’t close his eyes; he just watches me getting nearer and nearer to him, a tiny smile tucked into the corner of his mouth.
And then I kiss him.
Barely at first, but then my hands slip from his face to his hair, and once I do that, he tugs me in by the waist and he kisses me like the world will end if he doesn’t.
I fumble for the button on his jeans and Sam lies down, bringing me with him. I kick his pants off and his hands slide down my body, under my shorts, and then he pulls me out of them. There’s nothing but Calvins between us now.
Kissing Sam Penny on this bed is the greatest thing I’ve ever done with my life up until now. Forget Cambridge, forget my internship, forget loving Storm, forget getting to confront my sister—
This is it.
This is what music exists for. This is why the birds sing. This why the tide pulls and the water falls. It’s why the sun rises and it’s why the moon hangs there all ghosty white.
I shift a little bit so I’m under him, and it could crush me, the amount of happy I feel in this moment. He’s kissing me everywhere; up and down his mouth drags, and my breath gets caught in my throat, making little gasps. He peers up at me, grinning as he shushes me.
I pull him back up toward me, because kissing him is the best silencer, but I’m dying for him now, and I think he is for me too, because he chokes out, “Now?”
And I nod and he pushes into me.
He drops his forehead on top of mine and takes a ragged breath as he hooks his arm around my neck, pulling me in closer and tighter, as though we weren’t already the closest two humans can be in this lifetime.
I pause and look up at perfect him.
“Are you okay?” He frowns a little, and I nod again, brushing my lips against his.
“Yes,” I say quietly.
I take a photo in my mind, let history rewrite itself for a second. It doesn’t erase it, but it scribbles over it a bit in a louder color.