Not my best look, I’m sure, but the way Sam’s looking at me, dark and intense, the way he’s holding me, his fingers pressing into my hip, tell me he doesn’t mind. I trace my fingertips over the red mark on his nose and he shuts his eyes on a soft exhale.
Then I finally kiss Sam Constable the way I’ve always dreamed. The way I was too afraid to kiss him last time. Long, slow, lingering kisses that have Sam pulling me closer, his right hand sliding higher on my leg, his left hand moving up to press against the middle of my back, turning me toward him.
I tilt my head and deepen the kiss, my tongue sweeping over his bottom lip then into his mouth when he opens for me, my hands delving into his hair, my nails lightly scraping against his scalp. Sam makes a sound in the back of his throat, the muscles of his legs tense under me, but he doesn’t rush me. It’s as if he’s perfectly content to take whatever I’ll give him. However much I’ll give him.
Unlike our first kiss, there’s no urgency. No worry about making the most of each moment because it would never, could never happen again. This time it’s a slow, steady buzz that snakes its way through my system, warming my blood, drugging my senses until all I can feel are the spots where we touch. All I can think about is the next kiss. And the next.
Until the door opens and someone makes a gagging sound.
I jerk back, leaping to get off Sam, but it’s too fast, too hard, and I almost fall flat on my butt. Sam’s there to catch me, steadying me while I stand.
“You are so dead,” Sam tells Charlie.
Charlie shrugs, not the least bit intimidated. “You told me to tell you when Mom’s home.” He chomps off a bite of orange popsicle. “She’s home,” he says around his mouthful.
“Shit,” Sam mutters, glancing out into the hall as if expecting his mom to be there, ready to kill the both of us dead with one of her I’m-so-disappointed-in-you looks, and a long-winded, I-expected-so-much-more-of-you lecture.
Then she’d tell Sam’s dad and his stepfather about it.
And Sam would be dead for real.
Or at least grounded for a month.
“You told me,” Sam says, jerking his head toward the door. “Now beat it.”
Charlie wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. “You owe me ten dollars.”
Sam’s eyes narrow. “I told you five.”
“Five for telling you when Mom gets here,” Charlie says with a grin so smug, so superior it’s like looking at a shorter, rounder version of Max. Not good. Humanity can only handle one Max Constable among its ranks at a time. “And another five for not telling her that you had a girl in your room. Or what you were just doing.”
Sam seems to consider this little blackmail routine. “Yeah. Okay,” he says with a nod as he gets to his feet. “I’m definitely going to kill you.”
Smugness gone, Charlie’s eyes widen. He turns, but Sam’s quicker and he takes a hold of Charlie by the ear and walks him out the door.
“Owowowowow,” Charlie mutters, shoulders hunched. “That’ll be fifteen dollars,” he says, because while he may be cocky like Max, he’s stubborn like Sam. “Five more for my pain and suffering.”
Sam storms back into the room, grabs his wallet from the dresser and takes out a couple bills. Goes over and hands them to Charlie. “Here’s ten. If you get Mom out of the house for at least five minutes, I’ll give you another ten. And if you get any ideas about telling her Hadley was in here, I’ll have to tell her about that stash of magazines under your mattress.”
Charlie goes red—neck, face, ears. Guess he’s not hiding copies of People or Entertainment Weekly.
“Deal,” Charlie says, taking the money and going to great lengths not to look my way. Thank God. No eye contact needed between us after hearing about his preferred reading material, thanks all the same.
Charlie walks away and Sam steps out into the hall. Holds out his hand to me.
I take it, without thought. Without hesitation.
And then I close the distance between us and I kiss him again, a soft, sweet kiss. Because I want to.
Because I can.
30
“You should come with me. It’ll be fun.”
Sitting on the floor of Whitney’s bedroom, my back against her bed, I double-click a post on Instagram, then glance up from my phone. Whitney’s at her vanity applying mascara in the classic eyes-wide, mouth-open, face-forward stance.
“No,” I say. “I shouldn’t.”
But she’s right about one thing, Tori’s family’s annual Fourth of July Extravaganza is fun. It’s held at the lake house Tori’s and Jackson’s dads—they’re brothers and run a construction company together—built for their families to share. Each year they throw a combined party for the Fourth and there’s always live music, tons of food, games and activities, and a firework show at dusk.
Whitney sighs and caps the mascara. Meets my gaze in the mirror. “I just don’t understand why you’re being so stubborn about this.”
I’m guessing she meant to come off strident and scolding, but that’s tough to pull off when you look like a Disney princess and sound like a Southern belle.
Not intimidating. Not in the least.
As she would say: Bless her heart for trying.
“I’m not being stubborn. I wasn’t invited.”
I didn’t make the guest list this year.
I knew I wouldn’t.
But it still hurts, anyway.
Whitney waves my extremely valid excuse away then leans closer to the mirror, checking for any slight imperfections—of which there are none. I’ve yet to see her get so much as a pimple. It’s unnatural. “Tori is not going to mind if you come along.”
I stare at my phone, telling myself it’s stupid to get my hopes up. To even wonder. The last time Tori invited me to do something with her was a month into the school year last fall when she asked if I wanted to go to that weekend’s football game with her and Kenzie.
I told her I had to watch Taylor.
We haven’t spoken since.
But still I ask, “Did she say that?”
“Hmm?” Whitney asks, turning this way, then that, checking the waterfall braids I’d given her.
They’re perfect, too, if I do say so myself.
“Did…did Tori say she wouldn’t mind?”
Whitney pauses and blinks. “Not in so many words…”
I was right. It was stupid to be hopeful. To wonder.
Stupider to be disappointed.
“You mean not in any words.”
As I’d predicted, taking Whitney to Beemer’s party that night resulted in Whitney making plenty of friends, foremost among them Tori, Kenzie, and…
Me.
Although that last one probably has more to do with me showing up on her doorstep that Saturday morning and spilling my guts about me and Sam. I figured us hanging out together that night was a one-time thing. Instead, we’ve become bona fide girlfriends complete with sleepovers and braiding each other’s hair.
Crazy, I know. And unexpected. But that’s life. Always with the unexpected. You just have to go with it.
And like so many girls before her, Whitney wants all her friends to be the best of friends, too.