“A couple of them, yeah, but not like I missed everyone here.”
“What about your dad?” I ask.
Before Sam can answer, the girl working the order window appears with our onion rings and fries.
“Here you go,” she says, all chirpy and cheery, setting them in front of Sam. She’s cute, with short, dark hair and light brown eyes. But if she keeps batting her lashes that hard, the force is going to lift her straight off the ground. “Anything else I can get you?” she asks him, completely ignoring me.
“We’re good,” he says with a smile. “Thanks.”
Old Sam would have prolonged the conversation. Would have puffed up with pride, his ego inflated to have a cute girl flirting with him. Old Sam would have flirted back.
Sometimes I think he did it to bug me. To see if he could make me jealous.
It did. He could.
But New Sam turns back to me before she’s even walked away.
Major points for New Sam!
He moves the cardboard box so it’s between us and lifts out the containers of ketchup and ranch dressing—ketchup for the fries, ranch for the onion rings.
“Dad was pretty pissed when I told him I wanted to come back here,” he says, as if we weren’t interrupted, “but it’s not like he can force me to live with him. I never should have moved in with him in the first place. He works all the time, and when he was home, all he’d do was get on my ass about school.”
This, too, is new. Old Sam never said anything bad about his dad. Always choosing to make him out to be some prince among men.
“I’m sorry,” I say, because I know how important it was for him to believe the best of his dad.
“It was my own fault. I knew what he was like.” He dips an onion ring into the ranch. “I knew a week into the school year going there was a mistake. I just…” He pops the entire onion ring into his mouth. Chews and swallows. “I didn’t know how to fix it.”
“You mean you didn’t want to admit you were wrong.”
It’s Sam’s greatest flaw.
Goes hand-in-hand with his stubbornness.
Everyone likes being right. For Sam, it’s more like an obsession.
Picking up another onion ring, he shrugs. “It wouldn’t have made a difference. Mom and Dad both said that if I made the move, I’d have to stay the entire school year.”
He could have tried to talk them out of it. Could have whined and begged and complained and harassed them until they gave in.
If he had, he could have come home sooner.
I guess whining, begging, complaining and harassment are beneath New Sam.
And I realize what I’m doing. Looking for differences in Sam. Trying to figure out if all of this is a waste of time. If we should even attempt this now with all the months and distance that’s kept us apart for so long. All the choices we’ve both made.
But as we share fries and onion rings, Sam making me laugh with the story of the first time he tried surfing, none of that matters. Because no matter how much has changed, so much has stayed the same.
Sam is still the same sweet, stubborn boy who invited me swimming all those years ago. Who broke through my walls and became my first real friend. Who shared his friends with me. Made me a part of their group. Who accepted me.
The same boy who’s had my heart from the very start.
And that’s something I don’t think will ever change.
27
He hugged me.
When we got home from Mary’s Trading Post, Sam walked me to my door and gave me a brief, platonic hug.
Like he used to. When we were just friends.
And then he straightened, smiled as if he was super pleased with life in general and himself in particular, and told me he’d call me later and went on his merry way.
Leaving me staring after him wondering what had just happened.
Not that I wanted him to do more. I mean, it was my idea to take things slow, so it was a relief he didn’t kiss me.
It’s already been well established I don’t do my best thinking when he kisses me.
But there’d been a moment, right before the hug, when I’d been certain he was going to. That he wanted to.
And maybe a small part of me wanted him to as well, because I’d raised my head, my eyes drifting closed as anticipation, nerves and excitement warred inside me.
All of which shriveled up and died in embarrassment and disappointment when he wrapped his arms around me instead.
After his quick squeeze, I’d half expected him to pat me on the shoulder and call me dude.
Now, I glance at Sam as we turn onto the street where he lives. It’s been five days since then and we’ve gotten into a rhythm. All part of our Try Something New plan. True to his word, Sam talked to Mr. G. and I’m back to working with Kyle, but Sam drives me to and from work, like he used to. But instead of texting me every night, he calls and we talk for at least an hour.
And until today, when he asked if I wanted to go to his house after work, we haven’t hung out again.
Which is good. The whole take-our-time thing. My idea and all.
I just hadn’t thought it’d be quite so…confusing.
Or that I’d want to pick up the pace a little.
We pull up the driveway to Sam’s house, and though it’s a hot, sunny summer afternoon—the opposite of cold, dark and snowing—I’m reminded of the last time I was here.
I push the memories aside.
Not thinking about that night. Not, not, not.
Sam parks in front of the left stall of the four-car garage and we get out to the sound of a basketball being dribbled. When we round the corner near the fenced-off court, Charlie tucks the ball under his arm and waves.
Sam had mentioned that Charlie had grown, but I’m unprepared for how different he looks. He’s taller and thinner, his face losing its little-boy softness. His dark hair is longer, too, and flopping in his eyes.
“You need to call the police or the army or something,” I whisper as Charlie jogs toward us. “Some strange, alien invader has taken over your brother’s body and is turning him into” –I pause and give a dramatic shudder for effect— “a middle-schooler.”
Switching the cooler he uses as a lunchbox from his left hand to his right, Sam shakes his head. “Can’t stop adolescence.”
“We could try. For Charlie’s sake. God knows puberty has ruined more than one nice, sweet boy, turning him into…” I wrinkle my nose. “Well. You know.”
“A teenager?”
“A teenage boy. It’s a sad, sad time.”
Sam leans down. “Oh, I don’t know,” he murmurs into my ear. “We’re not all that bad.”
I turn my head to look at him, my throat dry. With him this close, grinning down at me in a knowing way, all broad shoulders, wide chest, flat stomach and tanned, toned arms, I can’t help but agree.
Or at least, my hormones agree. They’re all for teenage boys—especially this one.
Puberty doesn’t just do a number on the males of our species.
“Hey,” Charlie says to Sam when he reaches us. “Want to play one-on-one?”
Guess he’s over being pissed at Sam. And Charlie sounds the same, thank God. His voice isn’t any deeper and there’s no cracking yet. But he’s still so different. So changed. Is this how Sam felt when he saw Taylor after so long?