41
We’ve driven for about seven hours and it’s getting late, close to midnight when Tenny pulls off the interstate to a shitty inn. We’re just a little outside of Pensacola, and he kills the engine, yawning.
“Let’s call it a night,” Tenny tells everyone, but mostly me.
“I can drive,” I say.
He shakes his head. “You’ve been yawning since Georgiana.”
“I’m fine,” Sam offers. “I can drive.”
Tennyson shakes his head again. “We keep driving and we’ll get to New Orleans at three a.m., and what’ll we do then anyway? May as well stop now.” He shrugs. “Have a proper rest.”
He doesn’t wait for the rest of us to have any thoughts; he just climbs out of the car—which is an annoying thing to do, but I sort of respect it, though I’ll never tell him that. It’s so decisive even if it is a bit pricky. Tennyson gets both his bag and mine from the trunk, then walks into the motel lobby.
Instinctively I want to glance back at Sam, but I don’t let myself, because I feel sad and wretched and, also, Oliver’s too close—which maybe doesn’t even matter anyway now.
“We’ll get two rooms, please,” Tenny tells the man behind the desk.
The guy’s not George Clooney, I’ll tell you that much. He’s balding weirdly and unevenly. He’s in a stained tank top and Terry Richardson glasses, but in an unironic way. He takes a swig of Mountain Dew Liberty Brew.
“Two?” I blink. “I’m not sharing.”
“Yeah, you are,” Tennyson tells me without looking back.
I frown. “I don’t want to share.”
“I don’t mind sharing!” Oliver says brightly.
“Fine.” I shrug. “I’ll share with Oliver.”
Oliver scrunches his face. “I’m going to share with Sam,” he announces.
I glance between Oliver and Sam, exasperated. “Why?”
Sam’s just watching me, brows low. I think he’s annoyed at me too. We haven’t really spoken since the gas station, which was about three hours ago.
“Because he’s my coach,” Oliver says.
“And I’m your sister.”
“Share with Tens.”
“I don’t want to share with Tennyson.” I fold my arms.
“Fine! Fuck,” Tennyson growls, shaking his head. “We’ll get a third room.” He turns back to the guy. “We’ll take a third room.”
The guy puffs out his mouth and shakes his head. “Don’t got a third room.”
I push in front of my brother. “You don’t have one extra room? In this whole complex?”
“Lady, this ain’t Taj Mahal.”
“Yeah,” I scoff as I glance around the room I’m standing in. Bug zapper in the corner. Ripped-up sofa. Flickering light. “No fucking shit.”
Objectively and honestly, the flickering lights and the blue-light bug traps and the linoleum floors are all, like, very on-brand for a murder aesthetic, so I’m glad that I haven’t backed myself entirely into a corner I’d probably die in and instead am sharing with my six-foot-two brother who never skips arm day.
Not–George Clooney holds up two sets of keys. “I got one with two doubles and one with one king—”
“Doubles!” I yell, lunging for the keys. “Give me those.” I snatch them grumpily from the weird desk man.
Oliver looks a bit pleased, and eight hours ago I would have been fuming, but now I don’t know. I don’t know whether I have the right to be fuming.
The man points us to our rooms, which are a few doors apart on the second level.
Tennyson carries my bag up the stairs, and I follow, and Sam watches me the whole way up. His gaze weighs on me heavily, like a coat I never want to take off, and my brain is swirly with thoughts and feelings.
“See you boys in the morning.” Tennyson nods at Oliver and Penny. “We’ll text you when we wake up.”
I don’t say anything as I walk into our room, and Tenny follows behind me, tossing my bag on the floor.
Overly patterned bedspreads, bright yellow walls with a weird blue carpet.
It’s technically clean, but it doesn’t feel clean, and I’m frowning so much my face starts to hurt.
“What happened?” Tennyson asks.
I blink over at him like I’m confused, but I know exactly what he means. “What are you talking about?”
He gives me a look.
“Nothing.” I shrug.
“Why are you suddenly a bitch then?”
“I’m not.” I glare over at him.
He scoffs, pulling off his shirt. “I’m taking a shower. Take whatever bed you want.”
I perch on the bed farthest away from the door and switch on the TV. SVU reruns. Maybe this night is turning around after all.
I grump there on my bed, thinking about Oliver lying next to Sam, and I feel a pang of jealousy.
About five minutes later, Tennyson reemerges in just a pair of gray sweats and falls onto his bed, blowing air out of his mouth.
“What?” I look over at him.
“It’s her, right?” He glances at me, nervous. “It has to be.”
I purse my mouth. “I mean, it makes sense.”
Tenny nods, thinking to himself. “Yeah. Fuck. What are we going to—I mean—Mom’ll be—”
I shake my head. “She already is.” I shrug. “So we just give her what closure we can.”
Tennyson nods again, distracted—jaw tight, eyes pained.
My phone buzzes, and I glance down at it.
Unknown:
Outside
It’s from a contactless number in my phone, but I know it’s Sam’s because Oliver put us in a group chat at the start of the week to streamline his complaining about Mom, and I accidentally learned the number by heart.
“Um.” I blink a few times, trying to think through the lie I’m about to tell my brother so it’s believable. “I’ve got to get something from the car.” I stand up, walking toward the door.
Tens stands up. “I’ll get it for you.”
“Er.” I pause. “No.” My voice goes squeaky. “I’ll do it—I’m fine.”
“Oh.” He snorts a laugh and plonks back down on the bed. “Yeah, I can’t get that for you.”
I roll my eyes at him like he’s so immature. “Whatever you think you know, you don’t.”
“Right.” He gives me a disbelieving look.
“You don’t!”
“Right!” He grins, annoyingly.
I start to walk away.
“Hey,” Tens calls.
I glare back at him. “What?”
“Forgetting something?” He holds up the car keys, licking away a smile.
I growl under my breath as I walk out of the room.
Smug bastard.
***
I look around the poorly lit balcony.
There’s a vending machine casting a vague light on a shadow I could never mistake.
He looks over at me, his white T-shirt a little blue from the glowing Pepsi sign. His eyes go extra bright under the light and his mouth is pouting a little, and I stare at it for a few seconds because it’s begging for it, and then Sam grabs me and kisses me, urgent, desperate, arms wrapped around me, pulling me into him.
I sink into him, kissing him more, and we fall against the vending machine.
He pulls back and peers down at me, smiling a little. “Did we just have our first fight?”
I pull back my head in false surprise. “Hold on, sorry, do you believe in ‘we’s’?”
He sniffs a laugh. “Oh, so we’re about to have our second…”
I give him a tight smile, eyebrows up. “There you go again with that ‘we.’”
He shakes his head at me. “You got something to ask me, just ask.”
I straighten up. “When exactly was the last time you were in a long-term relationship?”
Sam takes a big breath in and sighs it out. “Nine years ago.”
Fuck me. That’s longer than I was expecting. I try to keep my face cool and steady, but I think my heart’s about to break.
“Why?” I try to ask lightly, but the connotations are heavy and we both know it.
He sniffs again, tired. “You tell me.”
I roll my eyes at him. “I can’t.”
He gives me a dubious look. “Sure you can.”
“That’s a very broad request.”
“Is it?” Sam tilts his head before he shrugs. “You read people for a living, Gige. Read me.”
I throw my hands into the air. “I have no information. I don’t know any of the defining details of your past relationships, none of the dynamics, how you met, when you met, what state either of you were in when you met—”
He shrugs again. “Ask away.”
I tilt my head and give him an unsure look.
He nods his chin toward the car. “Let’s talk in there.”
He takes my hand in his—no talking—and walks me over to the car. I love my hand in his. My whole hand gets enveloped.
He opens the car door and we climb into the back seat of my brother’s car, where I turn to face him.
“So.” I watch Sam’s face closely. “Do you know why?”
“Why I haven’t been in a relationship in a while?”
I nod.
“I think so.”
I shrug. “Then what am I doing?”
“Practice?” he offers, smiling a bit, but there’s something about it that feels reserved.
I purse my lips. “Are you sure?”
He nods once. I look at his face for a long second and try to brace myself to hear a lot of answers I don’t think I’ll want to hear but probably really need to.
“Name?” Me.
“Nicola.” Him.
“How old were you when you met?” Me.
“Eighteen.” Him.
“Her?” Me.
“Nineteen.” Him.
“Where?” Me.
“LA.” Him.
“Together for how long?”
He waves his hand. “Two years? Two and a bit.”
“How’d you meet?”
His eyes flick up and left. “Party.”
“What kind of party?” I watch his face. “Like—birthday party, Chuck E. Cheese, Tupperware?”
Sam rolls his eyes as he leans in closer toward me. “A party-party.”
“Was she a user?”
His eyes drop from mine. He nods.
“Recreational or addict?” I ask.
Sam cocks a small smile and leans over, brushing his mouth against mine.
“What are you doing?” I ask, his mouth still against mine.
“Kissing you.” He kisses me softly again.
“Why?”
He sniffs a laugh. “Because you don’t fucking pull any punches and it’s…” He wipes his mouth absentmindedly. “Hot.”
I feel my chest swell and I pull back a bit because I want him to keep being proud of me.
“Answer the question,” I tell him.
“I mean, it all starts off recreational.”
“So, addict.” I nod to myself, and in my periphery, I see him smile a tiny bit as he watches me. “You overdosed when…?” I trail. “Twenty?”
Sam nods again.
I look for his eyes. “Where is she now?”
He takes a big breath in and shrugs out a sigh with his whole body. “I don’t know.” He looks away, mouth twitching with AU10. Contempt.
“You don’t know?”
He shakes his head.
“Why?”
Sam shrugs again, and it’s like he thinks he’s being dismissive, and it’s the least emotionally aware I think I’ve ever seen him. “Just don’t.”
“Oh.” I’m starting to get it, I think.
“What?” He gives me a curious look.
“Did you get high together a lot?”
His face pulls tight. “Yeah.”
I swallow, then nod again. “Okay.”
He watches me, and it strikes me that he might be nervous…the shape his eyes have taken, the chin angled down toward his chest—
This is it. This is what he couldn’t put words around. He knows it about himself; he just doesn’t know how to tell me.
“You don’t have problem with committing to something,” I tell him. “You’re an addict—you’re as committed as they come. It’s not a marriage thing; it’s not even a love thing. You’re…” I tilt my head, looking at him only a few inches away from me, watching me watch him, letting me unfold him in the backseat of my big brother’s car. I frown at him, sadly. “You don’t know whether you were addicted to her or the drugs.”
His eyes drop down and to the right: he’s recalling an emotional memory or a bodily sensation.
Our bodies tell all our secrets.
“We were always together, always high—I don’t think we ever hooked up sober—so I was high from the drugs, but I could have been high from the sex. I don’t know. I can’t tell.”
I’m frowning because I hate the thought of him having sex with someone else. His hands on their body, his mouth on theirs—it makes me feel like something’s clawing at my stomach.
Sam’s face scrunches up in thought. “Loving someone’s an obsession—and being in love, even fucking—you get that high.”
“Oxytocin.” I nod.
“They say it’s as addictive as coke.”
I nod again. “They do.”
Sam presses his lips together tightly—he’s self-hushing. “I don’t have a good lid on myself with pacing things that make me feel good.”
I give him a dubious look. “Yeah, you do…”
“Yeah, right.” He scoffs. “That’s why I’ve taken it so fucking slow with you.”
I shrug, then offer, “I don’t have an addiction problem and I haven’t taken things slowly with you.”
He breathes out his nose and looks away. “It’s not the same.”
“How do you know?”
Then he glares over at me. “Because you don’t look at me how I look at you.”
Interesting. A hint of resentment.
“You don’t know how I look at you—”
Sam cuts me off. “I can see.”
I give him an unimpressed look. “You’re not in my head; you don’t know what you mean to me.”
Sam’s face is completely littered with emotions—there’s contempt, there’s sadness, there’s fear—
“I haven’t felt anything for anyone for nine years.” Sam swallows. “I was clean…of everything I was addicted to. I was clean—and then I met you.”
Sam stares at me for a few seconds and then his eyes drop.
And then I understand what he’s saying.
“You’re afraid of transferring your tendency toward dependence,” I say. “You don’t want to be addicted to anything—not even me.”
He holds my eyes.
I touch his cheek. “You think I’d let you be addicted to me?”
He gives me a sore smile. “I don’t think you’d have a say.”
Then he turns his face in my hand and kisses my palm.
“So what are you saying, Sam?” I duck to meet his eyes. “Is this over?”
He shakes his head solemnly. “No.”
“Do you want…” I pause. Reword my sentence. “Do you need this to be over?”
He shakes his head again, pressing his tongue into his bottom lip.
“Penny.” I hold his face in my hands. “You’ve had relationships with other people in these last nine years. You’ve been committed to them. You love your sister and your niece. Your dedication to the well-being of my brother is unparalleled.”
Sam rolls his eyes, but I keep going.
“You’re capable of having affections for people and being committed to them in an appropriate measure.” I poke him in the chest. “You can do this.”
Sam’s face softens. “You asking me to fall in love with you?”
I smile coyly. “Maybe.”
“Maybe I will.” He shrugs. And then he looks serious. “You’ll watch me?”
I nod. I’d swear to forever if he asked me to, here and now.
Sam Penny purses his mouth, twitching it as he thinks. “Are we okay?” he asks cautiously.
I flick my eyes over to him. “Are we a ‘we’?”
Sam Penny raises his eyebrows up in a nervous hopefulness, his cheeks pink even in the dark. “Yep.”
“Oh.” I swallow heavily, heart beating like the drum in “Hot For Teacher.”
He looks for my eyes. “Is that okay?”
“Yeah.”
He presses his hand into his mouth, wiping away a smile. “Okay.”
“Okay.”
We stare at each other, about six inches apart, and my eyes can’t land on him. Eyes—mouth—eyes—mouth—
But Sam’s zoned in on my lips, and have you ever been to Typhoon Lagoon in Florida? The Disney theme park? There’s a big wave pool, and every fifteen minutes this whistle blows a few times as a warning that something big is coming, that you should get out of the water if you’re afraid or not a good swimmer. Then there’s this deep woof of a boom, and then this gigantic wave comes and you ride it into shore, if it doesn’t knock you over.
The way Sam’s watching my mouth, I’m telling you, I can hear the whistle—I notice his breathing getting faster, which makes mine get faster, and I feel the grown-up equivalent of how I felt when I was a kid at the wave pool and I knew it was going to knock me clean over. It’s that nervous-scary-exciting feeling you get when you’re a kid doing something semi-dangerous but mostly good and definitely fun—you want it to knock you over, that’s the best part. I suck in my bottom lip because that’s what I do when I feel exposed, and I swear to God, I can hear the woof-boom, and then he kisses the shit out of me.
I pull him down on top of me, and the way he’s kissing me, I’m a puddle on the floor.
I pull his shirt off.
He doesn’t stop kissing me as he unbuttons my striped vintage Ralph Lauren shirt, and when his hand touches my bare skin, I catch on fire, but it’s okay because Sam Penny is the fire blanket the universe throws to me.
My body arcs up into his and I clamber for him, but his hands are firm and steady, and it’s quicker than last night—more rushed and urgent, desperate in our longing. I guess fights do that to lovers.
He doesn’t let go of me after, holds on to me for dear life as he sits up and pulls me onto his lap, holding my face in his hands.
He’s panting quick and heavy, eyes dragging with tired blinks and a spent smile on the surface of his mouth.
I tilt my head, looking at him. “Can I ask you something?”
He cocks a half smile. “There she is.” He kisses me again and nudges his face with mine, then nods with his chin, waiting for me.
I purse my lips as I square my shoulders. “What’s our sex like compared to…drug-addled, high sex?”
He smiles, squashing it as best he can. “Incomparable.”
I feel a frown flicker across my face. “Why?”
Sam Penny pushes some hair behind my ear. “Because I can remember ours.”