CHAPTER 17
LILLIAN
That evening, I rested my chin on the bar top of Perch, my beer so close that the curved glass gave me the viewpoint of a goldfish. “She’s such a bitch,” I said morosely. “It’s the New York in her.”
Sam squeezed my shoulder and gently pulled me upright. “Hey, at least you weren’t fired.”
“Might as well have. She spoke to me like I was a child.” I puffed out a frustrated breath. “I don’t know what she expects, with the garbage leads they give me. Like, what the fuck?”
What the fuck? was Jacob’s newest catchphrase, and I was warming to it. It rolled off the tongue in a reckless fashion that appealed to my Taylor Fortwood side, which I was thinking of embracing. My coy message to David had been a smashing (Taylor seemed like she would have said smashing) success, and we’d texted back and forth a dozen times, with plans to meet for a second coffee later this week when he was back in Los Angeles.
While secretly messaging a man was a relatively tame rebellion in the general scheme of things, it’d given me an almost giddy high, one I had needed after my bleak employee review.
“Okay, but she isn’t firing you,” Sam confirmed, smoothing down the silver skinny tie that intersected the middle of his pale-purple dress shirt. He looked like he was ready for a photo shoot, and I had the sudden urge to run my hand through his perfectly coiffed hair and mess it up.
“No, but they’ve been laying off people. I can’t help but feel like the whole review was just documentation for when they fire me.” I propped my sandal on the closest barstool and looked around. Okay, so Sam was properly dressed. I was the one who was sticking out, my pale-blue capri pants and cardigan great for a lackluster employee review but about three rungs short for this martini and olives crowd. I watched a woman teeter by in four-inch heels and a minidress that showed way too much thigh. Was this the type of place I’d have to frequent if I were single? Could I avoid serious effort and still lure in a keepable guy? A guy like David?
“. . . which raises the question of contentment.” Sam paused and crooked a brow at me.
I’d zoned out. I nodded as if I knew what he was talking about.
“You feeling okay?” Sam peered at me with concern.
“I’m fine.” I glanced at my watch. “I can’t stay here long. Jacob has a thing at school that I’m supposed to go to.” An assembly for parents to discuss the growing drug use problem among students. Talk about a yawn fest. “One more drink. Maybe two.”
“Fun stuff. Is Mike meeting you there?”
“Not sure.” I pulled a short menu from a glass holder in the middle of the bar. There were only four items, and I couldn’t pronounce any of them. “I’m starving. We should have met for dinner.”
He ignored my dietary needs. “Have you guys discussed it any further?”
It. The Affair. The giant prickly bomb that Mike and I were skirting with increasing efficiency.
“No.” I brought the glass to my lips and took a long sip of the beer. “Let’s change the subject. Tell me a story about a boy.”
A ghost of a smile crossed his lips. “That old game?”
He used to always have stories about boys. Executives from dating sites. Stuntmen wanting ranches in the desert. Waiters who passed him their numbers on a napkin. Actors looking for one-bedroom apartments they couldn’t afford. All wooed by Sam and often with disastrous and entertaining outcomes. I hadn’t heard a story about a boy in years. But I’d take any he had, even if it was an oldie.
“Hmm.” He tilted his head, and I wasn’t surprised he had a drawerful of heartbreak stories. I’d always been a little smitten with him myself. “Okay, remember when I had that blue convertible . . .”
I drank my beer and listened to his story, and when the bartender paused in front of us, I ordered another. Soon, I was laughing.
That was the great thing about Sam. He could make you forget everything.
CHAPTER 18
LILLIAN
I woke up on Sam’s red sectional, a couch button biting into my cheek, my left leg hanging off the side. Rolling onto my back, I stared up at his tray ceiling and watched the sun-framed shadow of a palm frond move over the wood inlay. Why was I here? What time was it?
I slowly propped myself up on my elbows and looked around. Everything was in perfect order. A stack of books with a skull weighting them down. An ivory cashmere blanket, folded into thirds, hanging off the side of his saddle leather chair. Above the fireplace, two white eels swam lazily in an aquarium around black coral. “Sam?”
Swinging my feet to the floor, I grimaced at the pain that shot through my right temple. Where the hell was my purse? I leaned forward and looked along the leather shag rug, then under the coffee table. I was also missing my pants. I thrummed my fingers against my bare thighs. Tilting to one side, I looked down the long hall that led to Sam’s bedroom. The door was ajar, the light off. I needed to find out what time it was and where my purse and phone were. What had happened last night? We had been drinking at Perch . . . and then . . .
I stood and lurched unnaturally to the right, one foot stumbling over the other as I tried to stay upright. I sank onto the couch. Maybe I should lie back down, just for a few more minutes. Did I have any appointments today? What was today? Had I made it to Jacob’s school meeting?
I closed my eyes and listened for Sam’s car or footsteps. He would take care of everything.
“Damn, you’re trashed.” Sam shook my shoulder a little more aggressively than was needed. I moaned and tried to push him away. “Seriously, Lill. It’s almost ten.”
I opened my eyes and almost mewed at the sight of the Starbucks cup in his hand. “Please say that’s pumpkin.”
“It’s pumpkin.”
I sat up and reached for the cup with both hands, humming in appreciation as I took a tentative sip to test the temperature, then a long glug. “You’re a saint.”
“And you’re a mess.” He gently separated a strand of hair that was stuck to my cheek from drool. “What do you have today? Anything this morning?”
“What is it, Friday?”
His lips pinched together. “Yes, Lillian.”
“You don’t have to say it like that. My head is a complete fog. How much did I drink last night?”
“With me?” He sank back into the couch and propped an expensive monogrammed slipper on the coffee table. “Maybe three, four beers. I have no idea what you took in after you left.”
I twisted to face him. “After I left?”
He adopted the slow and annoying cadence of someone speaking to a dunce. “After you left the restaurant, I put you in a taxi and you went home.”
“What?” I had no recollection of that. No recollection of anything past Sam telling me a story about a valet at a gay bar . . . I strained to think, to capture another memory. I had seen someone there at the restaurant. Someone I knew. Who had it been? “So how did I get here?”
“You called me about an hour later and needed me to pick you up from Ladera Heights. I told you to take a taxi, but you said that you didn’t have enough cash. And you refused to take an Uber because you said Mike would see the charge.”