45
After we’re all settled into our hotel, we head out to dinner.
Napoleon House on Chartres Street. Tatty, scribbled-on walls, dimly lit, old wooden chairs and tables—old wooden everything, actually—it’s like going back in time.
We sit by a window with a lace curtain that’s drooping a little in the center, and I have the best Pimm’s cocktail of my life, so England should be ashamed of itself. Sam manages to sit across from me at the dinner table, and plays footsie with me the whole fucking time, even with Oliver next to him.
Sam and I being a we has really numbed any former convictions he had around us being covert about our feelings for one another. He holds my eyes too long, he’s almost always smiling every time he looks at me, he clocks me in the middle of conversations he’s having with anyone else—just checking I’m still there—and it worried me at first, but the more Pimm’s Cups I have, the less I care.
I don’t get drunk. I just get buzzy enough to dull the edges of my concerns.
My brain doesn’t switch off naturally… I don’t ever just see a face for a face, a human as a human. They’re always a closed book I want to open and riffle through the pages of. I don’t think I was always like this; it’s learned, but once you’ve learned what I’ve learned, it’s almost impossible to unlearn—though alcohol does help. It suppresses the release of a chemical in our brains called glutamate, which is a neurotransmitter that would normally increase brain activity and energy levels, help you stay alert, notice things. With alcohol cockblocking glutamate, all the while increasing my brain’s production of GBA (which is another neurotransmitter, except this one has a sedating effect), it’s the perfect recipe for a busy-bee brain like mine to catch some z’s.
We wind up in a bar on Bourbon Street. Bit of a dickhead move considering half of us are alcoholics, but Tennyson’s apparently wanted to go to Arnaud’s French 75 all his life, so here we are.
“ Esquire says it’s one of the top five bars in the country,” Tennyson says, looking around in awe. Old and woody, the way you’d imagine a former gentlemen’s club would look.
“They’re alcoholics!” I blink widely, but Sam tosses me a little wink.
“I got this,” he tells me, brushing his hand against my waist as he walks past me and over to the bar, leaning across it.
“Two cokes.” He looks back at Tennyson, questioningly.
“Washington Cobbler,” Tenny says over the crowd, and the bartender nods.
Sam points at me.
“French 75.”
“And a French 75,” Sam says, passing the bartender his card. “You can keep it running.”
He turns back around, and our eyes catch like they just seem to now, and it’s getting worse.
The white mosaic floor is dotted with tiny black hearts and trim, and I wonder in my mind-numby haze what it’d be like to decorate a house with Sam Penny, but I only wonder that for a second before I pull a face at myself and demand internally that I get a grip.
“So,” Tenny says as we sit around a table with our drinks. He elbows Oliver. “You dating anyone?”
That question is a big deal coming from Tennyson—I’ve never seen him ask Oliver a question about his personal life—and I see it sort of startle Oli at first. He blinks a few times before he shakes his head. “No.”
“What?” Tennyson rolls his eyes, and as he does, Sam slips his hand under the table and rests it on my knee. I swallow, stare straight at my younger older brother, and lift my eyes up like I’m waiting for the answer like everyone else.
“I don’t know.” Tennyson keeps going. “I don’t know what men find—like, what guys like in other guys, what’s attractive as a man if you like—”
“We get it, bud,” I cut in, giving Tennyson a playful nod. “You’re not gay.”
Tennyson gives me a long-suffering look before he looks back at Oliver. “I feel like you’d do well,” he says with a shrug.
Oliver looks so pleased—his shoulders square up a little, and I wonder how long he’s waited for Tennyson to ask him something like this, to give a shit. Maybe his whole life.
“Yeah.” Oliver smiles, chuffed. “Yeah, I do okay.”
“But there’s no one?” Sam asks, giving him an encouraging smile, and I feel myself swallow, and if I were watching me, I’d have seen how my jaw went tense, and I’d have known I was nervous about something, but I’m not watching me, I’m watching Oliver. How his eyes tightened at the speed of light at the question. His eyes also flicker fractionally to the left—he’s thinking of someone—and then he swallows and shrugs dismissively. All of that happens in about one-point-five seconds, but I see it and my stomach drops to the floor of the bar, and I feel my control on my face slipping, so I just stare at my cocktail.
“Uh.” Oliver smiles at Sam, and to me, it’s the most obvious confession of feelings I’ve ever seen in my life, but people are good at sidestepping the things they don’t want to acknowledge. “I have a bit of a thing for someone, but I’ve—Georgia will tell you—” He gives me a smile and a nod, and I brush Sam’s hand off my knee because what the fuck am I doing? “I’ve not historically had the best taste in men.”
Sam retracts his hand, doing the worst job in the history of ever covering the tracks of his hurt all over his face, but I can’t look at him. For one, because without context, why would I? And two, if I do, I will cry.
“No.” I shake my head at Oliver, trying to sound how I always would with him—trying my best not to sound like I’m about to set my own happiness on fire. “That Wall Street dad-turned-DJ was…nice.”
Oliver snorts a laugh and Tennyson glances over, interested.
“What are you looking for in a—” Tennyson stumbles at the word, but he’s trying. I can tell he’s trying. “Partner?”
“I don’t know.” Oliver shrugs as though the person he’s talking about isn’t sitting right there in front of him. “Just someone…healthy, and, like—emotionally in tune.” My younger older brother’s eyes land on Sam—hover for a second longer than they would have if Sam meant nothing to him—and then he flashes a smile at Tennyson. “Why? Do you know anyone worth my time?”
Tennyson laughs. “I’ll keep my eyes peeled.”
I’m consciously not quiet for the rest of the evening. I do my best to hold all conversations and all eye contact as I normally would, but I’m desperate to get out of there.
I keep suggesting we call it a night, but Oliver’s waited his whole life for Tenny to give a shit about him, and so he doesn’t want to leave. Sam offers to take me home, but I say no, and Oliver tells him pretty quickly that I’m fine. (“She can be tired, who cares. She’s grumpy all the time anyway.”)
Sam spends the rest of the night trying to find my eyes, and I spend the rest of the night trying to avoid his. We get back to the hotel, and it’s less bad than I thought—we each have separate rooms this time, sort of: Tennyson and I have a two-bedroom suite, and Sam and Oli each have their own rooms on different floors. I gave Sam the most indifferent and vague closed-mouth smile and wave that I could muster when he got out on his floor. He gave me these eyes as the elevator door was closing that felt like something tearing through the flesh in my stomach, pain shooting down my fingers, like I wasn’t just betraying him but also myself by denying him.
And I knew it wouldn’t take him long—I could see it swallowing him whole, how confused he was… So thrown, so—kill me—heartbroken, I knew as soon as we got back to our respective rooms that I’d hear from him.
Sam:
Walk?
Georgia:
I can’t
I’m sorry.
Sam:
What’s going on?
Can you just talk to me?
I don’t reply. Not because I don’t want to. Of course I want to. Not replying is harder for me than it is for him. I’m the one having to show restraint when I want nothing to do with the word.
Tennyson’s in the living room watching Top Gear on the television, so I try to distract myself with it.
After Sam’s text goes unanswered for about fifteen minutes, there’s a knock on our door. I glance over at it, but I don’t move.
Tennyson frowns. “What’s going on with you?”
I crinkle my nose at him, annoyed by his newfound awareness of me. “Nothing.”
(Something.)
He rolls his eyes and gets off the couch to open the door.
“Hey.” Sam steps around Tennyson immediately, walking toward me.
Tenny just stands there, brows knitted together in fresh confusion.
“Can we talk?” Sam stands over me.
I look up at him, and my eyes well up just at the sight of his face.
His cheekbones get extra dug out when he’s sad. I know that now. I didn’t want to know that, and I certainly never wanted to be the thing that made him sad. His eyes go bluer too. Which makes his mouth look pinker. He gets more beautiful when he’s sad, how is that fair? That’s some fucking bullshit, that’s what that is.
I try to stand firm in my wilting resolve. “No.”
“Just walk with me,” he pleads. He’s blinking a lot. “Please?”
“Um,” Tennyson says, still by the door. “I’m gonna…” He thumbs toward the hallway, then he points his finger a me. “Are you…?”
I shake my head. “I’m fine.”
So I’m not fine, actually—but not in the way where I can’t be left alone, which is really what he was asking. Tennyson nods, and the door closes with a hotel thud.
It hangs there for a second, all the tension, all the feelings, and then, like a burst dam—
“What the fuck are you doing?” Sam’s eyes are wide, heart broken inside of them.
I press my tongue into my bottom lip, trying not to cry. “We can’t do this.”
Sam stares at me, confused. “What?”
I gesture at him wildly. “You’re the guy!”
His head pulls back—surprise. “What?”
I roll my eyes. “Oliver likes you.”
“No.” Sam starts shaking his head.
“Yes!” I yell. “And I knew that, and I still let this—shit! I’m a terrible person—I’m—”
Sam keeps shaking his head. He doesn’t believe it—I’m not sure which part exactly.
“No—”
“Yes!”
Sam takes a big breath, and I see it all processing behind his eyes. “Are you sure?”
I look at him like “fucking seriously?” and then he lets out this heavy sigh.
“I’m not—I mean—nothing’s ever going to happen between him and me.”
“I know.”
Sam gives me a look. “And something’s already happened with us—”
“But it shouldn’t have!” I tell him, feeling the shame of it all up to my neck. “I shouldn’t have let it—that was so selfish—”
“So be selfish!” he yells as he shakes his head again, wildly now. AU1—he’s nervous, or afraid. “Please! Please, be selfish. For me.”
“Sam…” I cover my face with my hands. I don’t want him to see my resolve weakening, but it takes less than two seconds for him to peel them off.
“Georgia—you and me together—” He gives me a look. “This is—it’s not normal. I’m not going to find this again.”
“I know,” I concede. “But—”
“So, fuck it. It’s okay to be selfish sometimes!”
I pull a face. “I don’t think that’s true. I don’t even think you think that’s true!”
“I do now.” Sam nods, decidedly. “For you, I don’t care.”
“You should care,” I tell him. “It’s not like you not to care.”
Sam swallows and then sighs. “I do care—it’s just…” He trails. “My priorities have shifted.”
“Yeah.” I flick him a look. “I can see that.”
Sam gives me a pointed look. “They’ve shifted by necessity.”
I lift an eyebrow. “How’s that now?”
Then he shrugs like it’s simple. “You’re the priority now.”
I cross my arms over my chest, immediately uncomfortable. This is new, and the newness is unsettling. I don’t even clock it in myself that I’m placing a barrier between us with my arms—but Sam does, he stares at them, his face lightening in amusement.
“And I don’t know whether you’ve been someone’s priority before,” he says as he reaches over and gently uncrosses my arms. “Maybe the mercenary’s, but then, maybe not—I don’t know. Doesn’t matter though. You’re mine now.”
I tuck my chin, unsure. “I think Oliver should be your priority.”
“Nope.” Sam shakes his head. “He can be yours—he should be yours, and I want that for him, but you’re mine now, okay?”
I swallow heavily, stare at him with round, nervous, all in-love eyes, because fuck! That was romantic. “Okay.”
Sam Penny gives me a small smile, then kisses the tip of my nose, then over my face and down my neck, and his facial hair tickles and I squirm and I’m instantly so mindlessly happy with his nose poking into my neck that I manage to forget for a second that my happiness is terribly and intricately linked with my own brother’s unhappiness.