47
After we left Maya, we all went to dinner then wound up back in Tennyson’s and my suite because it’s the biggest—just watching TV, not really saying anything, because everything that’s going on around us is exhausting, and sometimes talking is taxing. It’s kind of amazing though—I’ve never really had this before. Sitting on a couch with my brothers in a communal space. Oliver and I mostly hung out in our rooms, or on the SS Avoidance , or on one of the docks around the property, away from the house and all the people in it. I don’t think I have a single memory of voluntarily sitting in a common area, watching television in a fairly comfortable silence, sandwiched between my two older brothers and not feeling remotely compelled to shift away from Tennyson when my arm brushes up against him.
At one point, Tennyson looked over at me and says, “Gige, would you be okay if Ol and I go play golf tomorrow?”
“What?” Oliver says, looking over at Tens—first he’s heard of it.
“There’s a Peter Dye golf course here,” Tennyson tells him. “I’ve always wanted to play—thought you’d maybe play it with me?”
I look between them. “Why are you asking my permission?”
“I’m not asking your permission.” Tennyson rolls his eyes. “I mean, you can come if you want.”
Oliver elbows me, which is a swift and mildly painful way of telling me I actually can’t come, regardless of want.
Then Tennyson catches my eyes for the quickest sliver of a second before his eyes flicker toward Sam. Is he…giving us time together?
“Yeah.” I shrug. “Whatever, I don’t—I have no interest in golf.”
Oliver looks over at Sam, eyebrows up and hopeful. “Do you mind if Tennyson and I do that tomorrow?”
Sam goes to speak, and at the same time, his eyes go to mine—inappropriate and overt, but I suspect from Oliver’s vantage point it could have looked like Sam was gauging the room as a whole.
“No, man, of course not!” Sam smiles over at him.
“Great.” Tennyson claps his hands together. “Well, tee time is seven o’clock.”
“PM?” Oliver clarifies.
“No.” Tennyson gives him a pinched look. “AM. And it’s about a thirty-minute drive.”
“Oh, shit.” Oli frowns now, sporting his first bit of disappointment. He sighs, standing up. “I guess we should go to bed, then.” He looks at Sam, who stands up on cue.
Oliver swoops down and kisses the top of my head then heads to the door, turning back.
“See you in the morning!” he tells Tennyson brightly.
Tenny nods. “I’ll meet you in the lobby at six thirty?”
Oliver pulls a face before he nods back. “Night!” he calls cheerily.
Sam pauses in the doorway, mouths quickly that he’ll call me. I nod back and then he leaves.
I glance over at my brother, and he gives me a dumb smile. “You’re welcome,” he says.
“What?”
“Figured you two could use a day.” Tennyson shrugs. “And that I owed Oliver some one-on-one time.”
I stare over at him, and I don’t really know what to say, how to speak to this new, thoughtful part of my brother that’s emerged and I’m rapidly growing increasingly fond of.
He just gives me another small smile. It’s a nothing-y smile, and something about it stings me in the heart a bit, like—around my brain rattles the thought of how my life might have felt and how it could have been different if he was the kind of person back then that he seems to be now. He looks back at the TV and keeps watching it, and then my phone flashes with a text from Sam.
Sam:
Should I come back down?
Georgia:
Yes.
Sam:
I’ll give it 15…
Georgia:
Ok
Sam:
Should I stay?
Georgia:
Yes.
About fifteen minutes later, there’s a knock on our door. Tennyson stands up to get it without a question—even though we both know it’s probably for me—because he’s from the South and the men here are pretty well mannered.
Sam walks in a second later, holding his toothbrush, which for some reason is the cutest, sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. And the sight of the two of them—man I love, brother I once basically hated and now reluctantly adore—standing by the door of the hotel room I’m sharing with aforementioned brother on a trip we’re on together to find our father’s mistress. It’s all so absurd, I let out a quiet laugh.
“What?” Sam asks, tilting his head.
“I don’t know.” I shrug before I gesture at Tennyson. “I believe Tennyson cleared the coast for us tomorrow.”
Sam looks at him, eyebrows raised with a gratefulness that I’m learning he often sports on his face. That’s sort of his default disposition—grateful. “Thanks, man.”
Tenny nods, moving toward his bedroom, then flicks Sam and I a look. “Try to clean up after yourselves this time…”
With one hand, I cover my face; with the other, I flip Tennyson off. He laughs and goes to his room.
“Hey,” Sam says, smiling at me from the door.
“You brought your toothbrush.”
A little flicker of confusion breezes over his face. “You said I was staying.”
“Yeah, you are—but you don’t have anything else, just your toothbrush.”
“I have a couple of other small things. Circular. In my pocket.”
I squash a smile. “But no spare clothes.”
His eyes fall down my body. “I didn’t think I’d be needing them…”
I shake my head, quite sure. “You won’t.”
We have sex in the shower, because we didn’t get to the other time and I’ve thought about it nonstop ever since, and fuck—he’s magnificent, everything about him. How he breathes, how he moves around a room, him washing his hair after—art.
“What?” he asks, toothbrush hanging out of his mouth.
“I don’t know—you, with your brushing your teeth in just a towel—” I swallow.
He lifts his eyebrows, waiting for more. “Yeah?”
I shrug. “It’s like we’re actually together…”
He lets out a single laugh, as though it’s a funny thing to think. He puts down his toothbrush, spits out his toothpaste, wipes his mouth, then takes a step toward me. “Georgia.” He puts a hand on my waist. “We are actually together.”
I tilt my head because I want to see if he’s leaking any signs of nervousness, but he isn’t.
“Are we?” I ask as I walk out of the bathroom and into the bedroom, pulling some pajamas out of my duffle bag.
He follows after me, a little smile flickering over his mouth. “Yeah…”
“ Together -together?” I clarify as I look over at him.
He nods once. “Yep.”
And I make sure I’m watching him closely before I ask this next one: “Like, exclusively?”
His chin tucks, brows furrow—surprised, maybe even a bit offended. “I mean, I fucking hope so…”
I hold my pajama top against myself, and it’s a shield for a person I don’t need one with. “Well, I don’t know what you have going back on in California.”
He pulls a face and gestures to me. “Do you have shit going back on in England?”
I raise my eyebrows at him. “I do not.”
“Okay.” He shrugs defensively, and I mirror him and say “okay” back too.
Sam presses his hand into his mouth—something to say, trying to figure out how to say it—and he breathes in through his nose. “Listen.” His eyes find mine. “There are girls I’ve hooked up with before, right—and then there’s you.”
“Who you’ve also hooked up with,” I tell him playfully, but he’s not playing. His eyes are serious.
“Don’t say that. We’re not hooking up.”
“We literally are.” I roll my eyes. “We just did. Twice.”
“No.” Sam gives me a stern look, which is a sexy thing to do to someone, and I don’t know why, but it probably has roots in paternal issues. “We just had sex twice. We don’t hook up. We’ve never hooked up—it’s not the same with you as it was with them.”
I give him a long-suffering look. “Why?”
“Because.” He shrugs as he reaches for the pajamas I’ve still got clutched to my body. He takes them from my hands. “I’ve met you, and I’m different now.”
I scoff, roll my eyes, hope that it’s enough to distract from the fact that my fucking traitor face is blushing without my permission. I want the scoff to be enough for him to think that I think it’s silly and embarrassing, not endearing and somehow incredibly sexy. But it doesn’t work; he just watches me—stares, really—as he bunches up my tank top before he slips it over my head.
Is he—he’s…dressing me?
He gets my pajama shorts, bunches them up too, then kneels down, nudging my ankle so I raise my foot. He pulls my shorts up, then stays there knelt down as he smiles up at me, face all perfect and pleasant.
“Am I lying?” he asks calmly.
I reach for his hand, pull him back up to his feet. I pretend like I’m trying to figure it out—like I don’t already know—as if Sam Penny isn’t just a giant, open book of a man, waiting for me to read him and pore all over his pages.
I slip my arms around his waist.
“No,” I tell him.
He pushes some hair from my face, nodding a little bit. “So, yeah—we’re together.”
I swallow once. “Okay.”
He pokes me in the ribs. “ Together -together.”