“Hadley,” Devyn says as she leads Sam into the living room, “look who’s here.”
Ugh. Yes. I can see who’s here. You don’t need to use that fake chipper, this-isn’t-awkward-at-all tone. The boy is six feet tall and so shiny and pretty it’s as if a holy light is shining down on him.
He’s hard to miss.
And it is sooo awkward.
For Sam, too, it seems, who is usually comfortable and at ease in any and all situations. His hands are in the front pockets of his jeans, and under the material of his green V-neck T-shirt, his shoulders are tense. Eggie, thrilled to have some reprieve in his life filled with estrogen, bumps his head repeatedly against Sam’s leg and Sam bends down to scratch behind Eggie’s ears, sending my dog into ecstasy.
“Hey, Eggie,” Sam murmurs. “Hey, boy.” Still petting Eggie, Sam looks up at me, his gaze skimming over me, and I remember I’m in my Friday night outfit—soft gray gym shorts and a black tank top. No bra. He clears his throat. “Hi, Hadley.”
My face burns and I cross my arms over my chest. I open my mouth but my throat is dry and nothing comes out.
“Sam,” Devyn says a bit too loudly, as if her increased volume will somehow make up for my lack of verbal skills, “would you like something to drink? Chocolate milk? Or something to eat? Hadley made cookies last night.”
I wince because, yes, my sister did just offer Sam milk and cookies.
I look up at the heavens. Seriously. Enough is enough already.
“No, thanks,” Sam says as he straightens. Eggie leans against him, his new favorite person. I glare at my dog. Traitor.
Sam smiles softly at Taylor. “Hey, Taylor.”
She squeaks in distress and clambers to her feet, her cup falling to the floor. “Up, Haddy!” Arms raised, she bounces on the couch cushion in frustration and fear. “Up, up, up!”
I lift her and she buries her face in the crook of my neck, her legs around my waist. She’s like a python, squeezing the life out of me, but her little body is vibrating and she’s making small noises in the back of her throat.
“Shh…shh…” Swaying side to side, I jiggle her. “It’s okay. It’s just Sam.”
Her grip tightens.
Taylor’s life is filled with women. Zoe and Devyn and me. Mrs. Richter. Rebekah and Christine, Devyn’s friends from the nursing home where she works as a CNA, who sometimes come over for a glass of wine and a we hate men bitch-fest. And Carrie, Zoe’s coworker at Top-Mart, a single mom of a four-year-old daughter, who Zoe and Taylor hang out with sometimes.
Taylor’s aware the male species exists, but to her, they’re out there. At the store or park or McDonald’s. In cartoon form in her movies. They’re not here, in our house, taking up too much space, speaking in their deep voices, so much bigger than all of us. So different than we are.
So confusing and heartbreaking and exciting and terrifying all at once.
“Sorry,” Sam mumbles. “I shouldn’t…” He shakes his head. “Sorry,” he says again, then he turns and walks out.
“It’s okay,” I tell Taylor as the door shuts behind him softly. “He’s gone.”
I rub her back and she lifts her head. As soon as she sees for herself that the living room truly is male-free (not counting Eggie, of course), she wiggles to be put down.
“I wanna watch Cinda-ella, Haddy! Cinda-ella,” she calls, as if Cinderella is going to step out of the TV and beat me with her ugly glass shoe until I obey the two-year-old tyrant. “Cinda-ella!”
Talk about ungrateful.
I set Taylor on the couch, where she settles back, queen of her castle once more. “Next time a boy shows up here,” I tell her as I pick up the sippy cup, “you’re on your own.”
But the joke is on me because…ha ha!... this is probably the last time a boy shows up here. I sure don’t plan on inviting one over any time soon.
I look at the door. No boys for me, at least not in the foreseeable future.
Just as soon as I get rid of the one who’s here tonight.
9
“I’ll be right back,” I mumble, avoiding Devyn’s eyes as I head toward the front door.
“Hadley…”
But I pretend I don’t hear her. I know she has questions—and, knowing Devyn, many, many thoughts, opinions and suggestions she wants to share—but I can only handle one thing at a time.
First on that list is seeing if Sam really is gone.
In the hall, I grab Zoe’s black hoodie and put it on, tugging the zipper up as I step into the muggy night. Sam’s standing at the top of the porch stairs, his back to me, his hands once again in his pockets.
I exhale soundlessly.
He’s still here. He didn’t leave.
He didn’t leave, and instead of being disappointed, instead of being resigned that I have to deal with him, I’m relieved.
My fingers tighten on the zipper. This is all wrong. I’m not supposed to be relieved he stayed. I’m not supposed to be the slightest bit happy he came to see me. Not the least bit curious as to what he has to say.
But I am. I am all those things. I’m also nervous and frustrated and angry.
Boys. They sure know how to mess with a girl’s head.
The only way to resolve this, to get him out of my head, is to send him on his way as quickly and painlessly as possible.
I pull the door shut with a soft click and he stiffens but doesn’t face me and there’s something in his posture, the tension in his neck, the way his shoulders are rounded, that gives me pause. He looks so dejected. So alone.
He’s not, of course. He’s Sam Constable, friend to everyone.
Everyone but me, that is.
His decision, I remind myself. Everything that happened between us was his doing. His choice.
But only after you’d made yours, a small voice inside reminds me.
I lick my lips. “Sam--”
“Taylor’s scared of me,” he says, his voice a low rumble.
There’s something in his tone, a note of self-disgust or maybe self-pity, and I can’t send him on his way yet.
“It’s a phase,” I tell him. “She’s been nervous around guys…men…boys” –yep, that should cover the entire human, male species— “for a few months now.”
Across the street, past Whitney’s trailer, the sun sets behind the rolling hills, leaving streaks of pinks and purples in the sky. Sam seems to glow where orange light touches him—his head, his shoulders.
Great. Just what I need. Yet another reminder that Sam is all light and goodness and everything right in the world.
Everything I don’t deserve.
Finally, he faces me but he looks over my head. His expression is unreadable. Or maybe I no longer have the ability to read him. To know what he’s thinking, what he’s feeling, by looking at him. That thought gives me an odd ache in my chest. Makes me feel hollowed out and empty.
And this, this right here, right now, is another reason why he shouldn’t have come back. Should have left me alone. Every time we’re together, every time it’s not like it used to be, it’s as if I’m losing him all over again.
“It’s not you,” I continue. “I mean, it is, but it’s not personal.” I push the sleeves of the sweatshirt up but I’m still sweating, itchy and uncomfortable from the heat and Sam’s silence. “She’s just not used to guys coming to the house, that’s all.”