by Marie James
“Did you need something?”
Besides you?
“I wanted—” The words freeze on my tongue when I open the door, and he’s standing there.
“Did you need something?” he repeats.
My eyes are frozen on him. He’s like a breath of fresh air when I’ve been struggling to breathe.
“Seriously?” I look at the huge bag of food in his hand, the panda on the front staring back at me.
“How did you know I was going to ask for Chinese?”
His grin is wicked, but it’s the way his teeth dig into in bottom lip when it slides off his face that leaves me breathless. Even without his lips turned up, his dimples are on display.
“I love you.”
His throat works on a swallow, the pulse point at the center ramping up to thrum hard.
“Because I brought Chinese?”
“Because you’re an amazing man. Because you stepped up and took care of me when I couldn’t do it for myself.” I look over my shoulder to make sure my dad isn’t anywhere around before looking back at him. “Because you make me feel things I never thought I’d feel.”
“In your girly spots?”
We’re both surprised by the laugh that ruptures from my throat.
“That, too.” I swat at his arm because now I’m embarrassed, and a little turned on.
“May I come in?”
My eyebrow hitches, wondering if there’s a double meaning behind his question.
“Yes.” I step to the side, but I’m answering both questions.
“It’s good to hear you laugh, baby.”
Samson brushes a kiss against my mouth as he walks past, and it leaves me wanting more. He hasn’t pressed for sex in any shape or form since my mother passed, and I love him even more for it.
“How did you know I was going to ask you to get Chinese?”
“You mumbled it in your sleep last night.”
“I did not.”
“You did.”
“What other things have I said in my sleep?”
He looks around for my dad before advancing on me until I’m pressed against the foyer wall. “You said you’ll try anything once.”
“I’m not into threesomes.”
His face grows serious as he looks down at me. “Baby, I wouldn’t share you with a single person on this earth.”
“Do I smell beef and broccoli?” My dad’s hopeful voice rings out from the kitchen.
“Hold that thought,” he whispers before turning around. “I also got enough fried rice to feed a small army.”
“You’re alright in my book, son,” my dad says as Samson places the bag of food on the kitchen table.
“It looks like you got the entire menu,” I say in awe as the one bag seems to transition into Mary Poppin’s cloth satchel. The food just keeps coming and coming.
“Just the left side.” He winks at me as he pulls another container of rice out.
“I’ll get plates.”
We each dole out more food than we’ll ever be able to eat and sit at the table to enjoy it.
“I go back to work tomorrow night,” I mention as I reach for another serving of orange chicken. “Dad, when are you going back?”
He grunts in response, chewing a bite of food. After swallowing and washing it down with iced tea, he looks up at me.
“I don’t know that I’ll return. If I do it probably won’t be for long.”
“You’re going to retire?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“What will you do?”
Samson sits between my father and me, and I can see the apprehension on his face.
“Who knows?”
He’s in a much better place than he was days ago, but he’s like me, the sting of losing my mother isn’t going to fade any time soon. I’m terrified that I’ll lose him, too. He would never hurt himself; he values life too much, but I don’t want him in an empty house withering away in a pool of depression and sorrow.
I’m lost in my own head, so when my father speaks again, it startles me.
“Do you remember that plan Mom and I always talked about for retirement?”
“The lofty goal of starting a clinic with grant funding for the indigent people of San Juan County?”
He points his fork at me. “That’s the one. I think I want to do that.”
My heart soars. “That would make her so happy.”
“Which was always my goal.”
“She was happy with you, Daddy.” Tears clog my throat with the proclamation.
Their relationship was something I always wanted but never thought I’d have.
“She was happy with you, baby girl. So proud of the woman you became. Never forget that.”
I want to confess my failures, to tell him that I turned down dinner to hang out with Samson, but I understand for the first time with the way that he’s looking at me that they would be happy no matter what my choice was that night. It would be the same if my mother was sitting at this kitchen table with us. If she had known that I was wanting to spend time with Samson and work on that relationship, she would’ve been ecstatic about it. She knew my position on children, but she was always hopeful that I’d find a loving man to spend my life with.
I found him, Mom, I whisper in my head.
Samson’s strong hand squeezes my thigh, and it’s scary how in tune with me he is.
Today is okay. Tomorrow will be better.
Chapter 39
Samson
“I don’t think that look on your face should be happening.”
I look up to find both Dad and Pop standing in the entryway to the dining room. I’ve been spending the last two nights trying to get caught up in my classes while Camryn is at work. Our new schedule means I’m up all night at home, so we can sleep together during the day. Sleep together means exactly that. She hasn’t made any overtures, and neither have I. I’m waiting for her cues.
“What?” I shake my head, knowing that they’re standing there but unable to remember if they’ve spoken to me.
“Business and that look on your face while doing an accounting class causes me concern,” Pop says as he pulls out a chair at the table and sits down. Dad stands behind him with his hands on Pop’s shoulders.
“I can’t even focus on school,” I mutter, closing the top of my computer.
“How’s Cam doing?”
“A little better each day.”
I won’t tell them that she cries every evening in the shower, thinking that I can’t tell the water from her tears.
“That’s good.”
“Where’s your head at right now?” Dad asks.
“With her,” I answer honestly.
“You really care about her.” It’s not a question. Pop knows these things just by observing what’s going on around him. He always had the uncanny ability to feel what others are feeling even when the words aren’t spoken.
“I love her,” I correct. “She’s the one.”
“That’s a big declaration.” Dad settles in the chair beside Pop, and I swear if it were possible, he’d have little stars in his eyes.
“It’s the truth.” I try to keep the smile from my face because I know where this is going. He’ll challenge my statement, ask a million questions about her and us, before nodding his head and agreeing with my original words.
“I’m happy for you.”
My head snaps back in surprise.
“What no thirty questions about how I know it and why?”
Pop chuckles, probably because he’s just as surprised.
“I don’t have to ask questions. I can hear it in your tone, feel it in your certainty. She’s the one.”
“I’m going to ask her to marry me.”
Now is when Pop straightens, and Dad’s mouth falls open.
“Son.” Dad holds his hands up as if he’s trying to calm a crazy person off a ledge. “That may be something to consider a little further down the road.”
“
When you know, you know.” I shrug my shoulders, dead set on asking her even though that thought didn’t cross my mind until a few seconds ago.
“You can’t do that.” Pop’s words leave no room for argument, but I was never one to just concede. I was stubborn as a child, and I still haven’t grown out of it.
“Sure I can,” I argue. “I wish I’d have your blessings.”
“This isn’t about blessings. This is about Delilah.”
I stare at Pop. “Delilah? My love life isn’t dependent on D. Is she against me being with Camryn?”
I didn’t get that vibe at all from her when they were down right before school started, but as my twin, arguing about everything is sort of the status quo, so I wouldn’t put it past her to have an issue with me being happy.
“Calm down,” Dad urges.
“I’m calm.”
“Your ears are turning red.”
“What’s D’s problem?”
“It’s not a problem. It’s just her turn. Lawson proposed first. She should be the first to get married.” Pop is completely serious when he speaks, but the words don’t make any sense.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“You don’t understand because you’re a man.”
Dad rolls his eyes at Pop.
“You’re a man,” I argue.
“I’m… enlightened.”
“One women’s study class and he’s a feminist,” Dad mutters.
“As each of us should aspire to be,” Pop says with pride.
“Can we stay on topic? You know what. Let’s just solve this right now.”
I pick up my phone from the table and pull Delilah up on my contacts.
“Samson?” she answers, and I feel like an asshole at the panic in her voice. “What’s wrong?”
“I forgot about the time difference, D. Sorry.”
“Okay? But it’s after midnight there, too. Is something wrong?”
“Actually, yes.”
“Is it Pop? I told him to stop eating all the red meat. His cholesterol was too high at his last visit.”
Pop frowns when Dad shoves him in the shoulder in an ‘I told you so’ sort of way.
“Pop is fine. They’re both sitting here right now, and we need you to solve an argument for us.”
“Seriously? It’s three in the morning, and I’m the only one you could think of to solve a problem?”
“I’m going to ask Camryn to marry me.”
The phone grows quiet for so long, I have to tap the screen to make sure she didn’t hang up on me.
“What is it, baby?” Lawson’s muffled question makes all three of us at the table stiffen.
My heart sinks when I hear her sniffle. I called this all wrong. Women are emotional creatures, and here I am being selfish and trying to rain on her parade.
“You love her?” My twin’s voice is soft and filled with emotion.
“I do.” My own voice is a little hoarse.
“I never thought this day would come.” She pauses again, and the sound of her blowing her nose echoes through the phone. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Really?” Pop asks before I can. “Aren’t you worried he’s going to steal your wedding thunder?”
“Wedding thunder?” I hear Lawson ask before he laughs. “The fuck is that?”
“Mouth,” Dad hisses.
“Sorry, Dad,” Lawson apologizes.
“Pop, I don’t have wedding thunder. You need to stop watching reality TV.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Pop mutters.
“All the drama on Bridezillas is magnified for ratings,” D explains.
Pop doesn’t verbally respond. He just crosses his arms over his chest and sits back in his chair.
“You won’t be mad if I ask her?” I clarify.
“I’d never be mad if you’re happy.” Delilah and Lawson whisper on the line, but their words aren’t decipherable. “I’m not asking him that.”
“You should,” Lawson says. “I think it would be fun, plus it would save tons of money.”
“What are you guys thinking?” Pop, reinvested in the conversation, perks up.
“Double wedding,” Lawson says, and I hear the slap as Delilah hits him.
“Samson is not going to want a double wedding,” Delilah hisses. “Now he’s going to feel obligated.”
“I haven’t even asked her, yet,” I remind them. “I still have to talk to her dad, and he may shut me down before I can even get the words out.”
“Randall wouldn’t do that,” Dad says with a certainty I wish I felt.
“If she says yes, you should ask Cam about a double wedding. Date’s already set. All we’d need to do is have the invitations modified.”
“I’m not going to ruin D’s wedding by tagging along with my own bride.”
“I don’t mind,” Delilah says. “I love the idea. We’re twins. It just seems like the right thing to do, but it’s not up to me.”
“I don’t hate the idea,” I say.
“It’s not up to you. It’s up to Cam. Let us know what she says.”
“I haven’t even asked her yet,” I repeat. “I have no idea how this went from I’m going to ask her to everyone planning the wedding.”
“It’s the natural order of things,” Pop and Delilah say at the same time.
Dad throws his hands up and laughs.
“Can we go back to sleep?” my sister asks, but then Lawson says something that makes her giggle.
I hang up the phone without saying goodbye, not wanting to be traumatized if we stayed on the line a second too long.
Both Dad and Pop have wide grins on their faces when I look at them.
“So, you have your answer.” I’m smug when I look at Pop.
“Now you just have to get yours,” Dad says.
“Tell me how you plan to ask.” Pop leans forward, elbows on the table, invested and completely prepared to give his opinion if he doesn’t like how I answer.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s unacceptable, Samson. I’ll show you what I have on Pinterest.”
“Unacceptable? Aren’t the women supposed to plan the wedding.”
It’s not Pop, but Dad that speaks up on this. “You know better.”
I frown with Dad’s chastisement.
“Sorry.”
“Is she pregnant?” Pop’s eyes snap up from his phone
“What? No! Why would you even ask that?”
He turns his phone around for me to see. “It just popped up when I typed in quickie wedding.”
“She’s not pregnant. We aren’t going to have kids.”
“Pop and I said the same thing in the beginning,” Dad says. “But adopting you and Delilah was the best thing we ever did.”
“We aren’t having kids,” I repeat.
They don’t bring it up again, but I don’t miss the looks they keep shooting at each other.
“We may end up needing a triple wedding,” Pop muses as his finger swipes over the app.
“Triple?” I ask.
“Griffin and Ivy,” Pop specifies.
“Did he ask her?” He’s an asshole and no longer my friend if that man proposed to her without letting me know.
“Not yet, but I don’t imagine he’ll wait much longer. The man is obsessed with that woman.”
“She’s a great woman,” I say.
“So is Cam.” I nod in agreement. “I’m happy for you, Son. Proud of the man you’ve become.”
“I’m just glad you decided on a woman who has ties to the community. I was afraid you’d end up moving away,” Dad says. He doesn’t often get emotional or speak about things that worry him, so this is a big deal.
“We haven’t discussed future plans.”
I know Cam wants to go into obstetrical oncology, but I don’t know if that’s something she can do here in Farmington. With her mother passing, her plans may have changed. I’ll follow that woman across the world if that’s what she wants. I
can do business anywhere in the world, so long as I’m with her.
Chapter 40
Camryn
“This is unexpected,” I whisper when Samson pulls his hands from my eyes.
“Do you like it?”
“I love it,” I whisper.
The pool patio has been transformed for Lawson and Delilah’s wedding, but the cold December air has driven everyone inside the clubhouse for the reception.
“Are you poaching your sister’s romantic decorations for your own purposes?”
Samson chuckles before nuzzling his freezing nose down my neck.
“I’m doing this with her blessing.”
“Is that so?” I turn in his arms and bury my cold fingers under his jacket. “What exactly is this?”
“Do you have any idea how much I love you?”
“I have an inkling,” I tease, but the seriousness on his face when I look up sobers me.
Gone is the playful man who has been giving me goofy looks all day. In his place is the serious man who helped ease my pain from my mother’s passing months ago. Every day was a struggle, but at some point, a day I can’t even pinpoint on a calendar, I began smiling more than crying. Most days I’m okay, the ache is always there, but I know she’d want me to be happy, so I’ve been doing my best.
“Show me how much you love me,” I demand.
This is something we often do, though it’s normally done in our apartment where he uses his mouth and many other features on his body to get his point across.
“You’re making me hard,” he says with his lips against mine.
“I don’t see that as a problem.”
Everyone is in the clubhouse celebrating, which means his dads’ house is empty. I like to see the opportunity in all things.
“I didn’t bring you out here to get you naked.”
“That’s a shame.” I bite his lip until he groans, pressing his lengthening cock against my stomach.
“You’re going to ruin this,” he mutters but doesn’t make a move to pull away from me. I kiss him deeper until he’s grabbing my arms and taking a step back. “Baby.”
“Yes?” I purr, relentless in my need for him.
There was just something amazing about watching the love in Delilah’s and Lawson’s eyes as they said their vows earlier. It’s got me stuck in my feelings, and rather than jumping on a plane to Vegas, I’m hoping to use sex as a distraction.