Oh, yeah. I’m a liar from way back.
“I gave you that box of croissants,” Sam says, coming closer, “and it was like I’d given you a box of diamonds. You were so happy. So…bright.” He stops inches from me and I tip my head back to maintain eye contact, looking at him from under the brim of my hat. “You hugged me.”
“Did I?” I ask, shooting for nonchalance, as if I don’t remember. As if a hug from me didn’t matter.
Sam’s having none of it, none of my games. None of my lies. Not now. “You hugged me. For the first time ever.”
“We’d hugged before.”
“No. I’d hugged you before. That night, you hugged me. You reached out to me, you touched me and…God, Hadley…I didn’t want to let you go.”
“But you did.” I remember the moment exactly. I’d launched myself at him, knowing he’d catch me. “You let me go and you took Abby to dinner.”
“I was freaking out. I had a girlfriend. And you were my best friend. I wasn’t supposed to feel that way about you. I told myself that I didn’t, that it’d been a fluke. But the whole night, the whole time I was with Abby, I wished I was with you and after I dropped her off…”
“You came back.” But my words are barely a whisper of sound. I clear my throat. Raise my voice. “You came back to me.”
“I had to know if it was real. I didn’t want it to be.”
I nod. “I know.”
One more thing we share, the fear of losing what we had.
“When I got there, when you answered the door and saw it was me, you smiled. It’s such a rare thing, your smile. It hit me” –he taps two fingers against the center of his chest— “here and I couldn’t breathe. It was like my heart just stopped.”
I know the feeling. I’m struggling to take in enough air right now, each inhale and exhale shallow and shaky. My heart pounding so hard I’m sure he can hear it.
That he knows it belongs to him and always has.
He lifts a shoulder. “That was when I realized it.”
He doesn’t have to finish. I know what his realization was. But I’m selfish enough to want to hear him say it. To want him to give me the words.
Even if I can’t give them back.
“Realized what?” I ask.
“That I was in love with you,” he says softly. “I didn’t know when it happened—that moment when you smiled at me or weeks or months or years before. All I knew was that it was true. And you’re right, there are no guarantees that we won’t hurt each other again, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.” He lifts my chin with his thumb and forefinger. “Give me a chance, Hadley. The one thing I can promise you is that I’m worth it.”
I already know he’s worth it. He’s worth everything.
“I want to,” I admit and my voice is hoarse. “I’m just… I’m no good at this.”
“You’re doing fine.”
“I’m messing everything up. I get too caught up in the past, in our mistakes--”
“Fuck the past,” he says, his rough tone at odds with how gently his thumb is moving over my jaw, the caress soft and warm. “Forget we were friends.”
If only it were that easy. “Sam--”
“No more past. Whatever happened between us before this moment no longer exists. You and me? We start right now. We start something new.”
No past means the choices we made during the last eleven months don’t matter.
It means our mistakes are erased.
There’s a warm, fluttery sensation in my chest. It fills me, lightens me, until I feel like I’m made of air, lifting off the ground.
Hope really does float.
“No past,” I agree, covering his hand with mine.
There’s freedom in that, in letting go of what’s been. But I can’t focus on what’s to come, either. We have no control over the future. Fate runs that show.
What we have, all we have, is here and now.
And I want to make the most of it.
“You can kiss me.”
I surprise us both. Sam draws in a quick breath, his fingers on my face tense and still.
I wait for one heartbeat. Then two. But he doesn’t move.
Humiliation and disappointment wash over me. “In case you were wondering,” I continue weakly, the Queen of Lame explaining herself. “If you could or not.”
Angling his body over mine, Sam slides his hand down and around to cup the back of my neck, the pad of his thumb brushing under my jaw where my pulse races. “You wanted to take it slow.”
I did. I definitely did.
And it’s super fantastic that he’s reminding me of that now.
“That was before we were starting new.”
“So now that we’re starting new, we don’t have to go slow?”
I lick my lower lip and his gaze drops. Lingers on my mouth. “Just not as…as slow as we’ve been going.”
“Hadley, do you want me to kiss you?” he asks and I shift closer, as if his gruff tone is a line, reeling me in.
“If you want to,” I whisper.
It’s a non-answer. One that takes control out of my hands. That will force him to make the choice for both of us.
“Tell me.”
He’s not going to make the choice.
He wants me to make it. To prove myself. My feelings.
But I can’t. I can’t tell him how I feel. What I want.
I’ll have to show him.
Grabbing him by the front of his shirt, I yank him to me as I surge onto my toes. The brim of my hat jabs him hard on the nose and I cut off his “Oof” of surprise and pain by slamming my mouth against his.
My knees wobble, my calf muscles burn and I twist the T-shirt’s material some more, fisting it in my hands to maintain leverage and balance. We stay that way, eyes open, mouths smashed together so hard I can feel his teeth behind his closed lips.
Worst. Kiss. Ever.
I fall back to my heels, stare at my hands still clutched around his shirt. “I told you I’m no good at this.”
“We could try again,” he says and I lift my head. He’s touching the bridge of his nose, rubbing two fingertips over the spot I’d hit. One side of his mouth lifts. “If you want to.”
He’s teasing me, tossing my own words back at me, and I give him a small smile in response. Then I give him what I couldn’t only a moment before.
The truth.
“I want to.” Realizing I’m still holding his shirt, I force my fingers open. Smooth the wrinkles with my palms. “This would be easier if you weren’t so tall.”
He pulls the desk chair out and then sits, bare feet planted wide. “Better?”
With a nod, I sit on his lap for the first time ever. His left arm goes around my waist, his hand on my outer hip, his other hand on my knee. I start to lean forward when I remember my stupid hat.
I’m such an idiot, bringing up kissing when I’m still in my work clothes, a day’s worth of sweat and sunscreen clinging to me. But I’ve come this far and I refuse to back down.
Must be some of Sam’s stubbornness is rubbing off on me.
I straighten and Sam’s arm around me tightens, keeping me close. I take off my hat, pull the band off my ponytail then put my hat back on backwards.