by Leslie North
"A gin greyhound for my…friend, please." Sam placed the order, and the bartender nodded as he turned to start pouring. Trinity arched an incredulous eyebrow at him, and he wondered if he had made the right choice by falling back on old habits. Their habit of ordering for one another suddenly didn't feel like the innocent game it had once been.
"Confident as always. How do you know I still even drink greyhounds?" she asked him.
"If the amount you put down after our wedding reception couldn't turn you off them, nothing can," Sam replied. Trinity's smile pulled against whatever restrictive measures she had put in place, and a flood of sudden warmth swept through him, warmth that had nothing to do with the alcohol he’d been served.
Speaking of servings, Sam tracked a movement over Trinity's left shoulder. "No," he instructed the bartender. "Not that one. That glass, please." He indicated the rack of highballs. The bartender nodded and traded out the martini glass he had been about to use. Trinity burst out laughing.
"Speaking of things that don't change! I see you're still obsessed with proper drinkware."
She grinned and rolled her eyes at him, and Sam felt vaguely annoyed. "There's a standard for every drink," he said. Launching into his time-honored monologue only increased the playful grimace on Trinity's face. "If I had ordered you a martini…"
"It can be both, you know." Trinity tossed her head and accepted her drink from the bartender, dropping him a conspiratorial 'thank you' that didn't escape Sam's notice. She was always making peace treaties for him before he was even aware he had started conflict. "There's no agreed-upon right or wrong way to drink a greyhound. Hell, sometimes at home I drink them out of a little Mason jar."
"Please don't say things like that," Sam groaned.
"Sometimes I even like it."
"I'm sure you do." Sam plucked up his Manhattan and raised it to her in toast. "To accepting each other's quirks," he said.
Trinity toasted him back. "To glassware—whatever shape it may take."
His eyes lingered on her as they both drank. He loved watching her throat work as she swallowed. It was one of the things he had immediately noticed about her when he first met her in college: her ability to put away drinks while making it look like the most sensuously feminine pursuit imaginable.
"You know I still don't have a favorite bar in L.A. Speaking of preferences," He drained his glass and set it down. "I always liked the atmosphere here. I like it even more now that I realize it can't be easily replicated. Most things worth having in your life are one in a million."
Trinity set her glass down and swiped at her lips meditatively. Sam didn't know for sure if it was her finger, or his words, that had suddenly banished the smile from her face. "You're romanticizing the past, Sam. Everything looks rose-hued when you know you can't get back to it. I'm sure the Manhattans aren't helping."
"I don't need their help to tell you how I feel."
Trinity blew her lips apart with a heavy sigh and scowled. "We fought here all the time too, or don't you remember?" she demanded. "Used to be that no establishment was safe."
"You make it sound like I lost my temper," Sam said. "I never lost my temper."
The bartender had returned to hover across from them; he retreated quickly now, taking their glasses with him.
Trinity's eyes sparked. "Maybe that was part of the problem, Sam. It was like nothing ever touched you. Like you thought emotions were for mortals. I wish just once you would have lost your temper." Her face softened suddenly, which was the last thing Sam expected to see. "I loved it when you would express your feelings to me," she murmured, "but the worse it got, the more you froze over, until I was in the cold, too."
Sam's tongue swept his suddenly dry mouth, hunting for the words that had come so easily to him before, but they left him hanging now. Trinity held his eyes a moment longer, before pushing back from the bar and grabbing her purse. "Charge my drink to the company card," she said. "I consider this a work meeting. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a singles' night to get to."
Trinity glanced at her watch, and Sam's eyes fell to her wrist. He didn't recognize it. It certainly wasn't the one he had given her. Before he could remark on it, or even offer up a word of goodbye, Trinity turned and tunneled her way back into the crowd.
"Damn," a voice commented behind him. Sam turned, expecting to find the bartender, and instead found Eddie sitting in the stool Trinity had abandoned seconds before. Eddie arched a signature thick eyebrow at him. "You guys break up again?"
"Actually, I'm encouraged." He couldn't stop replaying the moment that Trinity's face had softened in his head. "Not that it's any of your business." Sam leaned his elbow against the bar and signaled for a water. "Speaking of business, try to be on time from now on. This is twice now you've been late, or sent Trinity in your stead to meet me. It's unseemly."
"What's unseemly is that drink you just had the bartender pull from the tap," Eddie said. "Excuse me, miss? Do you work here?"
Eddie waved to an attractive female bartender, one who was clearly stationed further down. She caught sight of Eddie's gesture and immediately sauntered over—completely dropping the task she’d been attending to, Sam suspected, in favor of taking Eddie's order.
"Yes? Can I help you?" she inquired. Her eyelashes batted as if she was conveying a different question entirely in Morse code.
Eddie leaned in. "I couldn't help but notice the expert way you were pouring those gentlemen's shots earlier." He nodded toward a group of sour-looking young execs further down the bar. Clearly they had posted up at the far end of the bar for a reason, and now that their reason had been called away, they didn't quite know what to do with themselves. "How much would it cost to get me one of those?
"For you?" The pretty bartender appeared to consider his request, although Sam had the distinct feeling she had already priced it out—and the math she had used wasn't taught inside any schoolroom. "Why don't I just refill your drink, and throw the shot in for free?"
"Sounds like a deal to me." Eddie glanced at Sam as the bartender trotted off, which made Sam wonder which of them the show had really been for. "You want to do a shot with me, Sam?"
"Please tell me you don't intend to drink like this in front of clients."
"What? No, of course not!" Eddie scoffed, but he couldn't hide the way his face fell at the comment. "I thought…look, I know we're working together more closely than ever now, so talking business is unavoidable. But I thought tonight was more about you and me getting to know one another again."
"You thought so, huh?" Sam stared at Eddie's paired drinks dubiously as they appeared. "I'm not…." The word interested came to mind, but he held it back at the last moment. Maybe it was better to tread lightly with Eddie's feelings now that they would be working so closely together. In truth, his youngest brother was a stranger to him. Every motivation and subsequent action that drove Eddie to make the decisions he did was completely foreign to Sam.
"…I'm not available to discuss anything other than the onboarding at the moment," he concluded. "That I'm more than happy to talk to you about."
"Jesus. No wonder you piss everybody off." Eddie knocked his shot back as if there was nothing he needed more in that moment. Sam watched him, feeling equal parts puzzled and annoyed. What was Eddie talking about? He was the brother who pissed everybody off, not Sam.
"If you're referring to William," he said, "I've already spoken to him about the complaints to H.R. I've made my case that it's all just a misunderstanding. Our clients out west don't always get my concise brand of professionalism."
"I'm talking about Trinity, bro!" Eddie exclaimed. "Just having you around again is stressing her out big-time. Don't you think you could dial it back a little for once?"
"I don't get what you mean." Sam leaned harder into the bar, suddenly wishing he had ordered more than just a tall glass of water. "Trinity and I are finally talking again. She even stayed to have a drink with me. Would she have done that if I stressed her out?
In fact, I think I might ask her out after the next meeting." He felt confident that Trinity's date tonight would go about as well as the last one. There was no man in the world, much less New York City, who knew her as well as he did. He thought it was something even Trinity suspected to be true.
Eddie groaned, his head dropping down between his hunched shoulder blades. "Christ, please don't. Spare us both your humiliation."
"We divorced because we drifted apart," Sam argued. He realized that despite his best efforts to keep things superficial between himself and Eddie, his youngest brother had succeeded in worming his way into Sam's personal life anyway. "Believe me, I won't make the same mistakes this time. I've spent a lot of time thinking about Tri…I've thought a lot about it. I know that I fucked things up in the past. I didn't appreciate what we had until it was gone. Now that we've both achieved success in our careers apart from one another, I'm hopeful we'll be able to pick back up where we left off."
"Fuck, you are too much sometimes," Eddie said. Then he laughed and grabbed a hold of his drink, spinning on the barstool to face Sam fully. "Listen, don't you ever wonder how Trinity and I got to be such good friends? It's because she used to call me all the time, sometimes in the middle of the night, when you guys were still married. Do you want to know what our main topic of conversation was?"
"No," Sam replied, knowing the answer was probably unavoidable at this point.
"We talked about you, Sam. Specifically you and your career, and the happy marriage you were sharing with it while your bride was calling me to cry on my proverbial shoulder. Case in point: I was the first person Trini called when she had to take the cat to the vet and put her down without you. You were supposed to be home early that night, but you got pulled into a meeting you claimed you couldn't get out of. You were unreachable."
"Cat? What cat?" Sam stared at Eddie for a long moment, trying to gauge whether or not his brother was pulling his leg. What did he have to gain from lying about a pet?
Eddie returned his stare incredulously. "Are you kidding me? The cat! Your cat!"
"Trinity and I never had a cat."
"It was the stray Trinity found in the alleyway behind the agency! She brought it back home with her! You resisted initially, but eventually caved and agreed to let her keep it. Are you seriously telling me you don't remember your own pet?"
The memory was fuzzy to Sam, but he thought he recalled something orange and vaguely feline-shaped. "Trinity has a big heart," he said finally. "But I think you're exaggerating. There's no way the death of a cat was enough to dissolve our marriage."
Eddie heaved a heavy sigh and picked up his drink. "Trini's right. You're a total lost cause."
Sam almost spat up his water. "Trinity said that?" he demanded. "When?"
Eddie smiled sadly and shook his head. "I'm afraid I'm not available to discuss anything other than the onboarding at the moment. Oh, is that the check?" he asked as the female bartender returned to slip him a piece of paper. She sashayed away, and Eddie held up the receipt to look. "Nope. Something better." He grinned and presented the handwritten digits for Sam's inspection. "Her number. Looks like you're the only one going home alone tonight, brother."
Eddie downed the remainder of his drink, slapped Sam on the back, and strolled off down the bar. As always, he left a sticky mess behind him for someone else to clean up.
Sam stared at his water, and tried not to think how out of place, and completely inadequate, it really was.
Chapter Four
Trinity
Days after her little tête-à-tête with Sam at the old bar—and days after another failed singles' night—Trinity found herself back in the same compromising position. This time, there was a booth and table involved, which meant she sat in close proximity to Sam regardless of her feelings on the matter.
And she was having a lot of feelings.
Sam leaned into her, almost as if he could read her thoughts and knew she was already unbalanced by his proximity. "I know it was you who approved this karaoke bar for Eddie," he murmured, "instead of Eddie taking the time to actually call them and setting it up himself. Well done."
Trinity shook her head, even though she knew there was no use denying it. What she was really trying to do was disguise the fact that Sam's whispered accusation, and the hot breath that it came to her on, had raised the hair on the back of her neck in aroused anticipation. Did he mean to talk directly into her sweet spot? He knew she was sensitive there.
Bastard.
"I may have gotten it approved for him, but Eddie did his research," she whispered back. Her gaze flickered across the table to where Eddie and Mr. Hikamori were laughing and commiserating as they pointed toward the stage. "It just so happens that our guy likes to belt out 80s hits with abandon. Eddie did some snooping around his more private social media pages."
"Above and beyond," Sam muttered as he sat back.
Trinity's eyes narrowed. Eddie was going above and beyond, but he wasn't likely to keep with it if he didn't get some positive encouragement soon from someone other than her. "You're just grumpy because the song bucket's stopped in front of you," she said. Sam's bright blue eyes, normally so quick to fix on an object of interest and squeeze out every scrap of information, downright refused to alight on the pail full of paper slips.
"C'mon! While we're young!" someone called from the booth over.
"Well, Sam?" Eddie prompted. He was the one sitting closest to their potential client, his arm casually draped over the back of the booth. Their client, the Japanese CEO of a tech start-up, glanced between the two brothers, obviously picking up on the current of tension that ran between them. It wasn't the first time that night that Trinity wondered what they had talked about at the bar after she left.
"Pull one," Sam said.
The straw in Trinity's (incorrectly made) greyhound nearly shot down her throat. She pulled back quickly with a spluttering cough, drawing three pairs of concerned eyes as she fought to regain her composure. "I'm sorry?" she asked as she scrambled for a napkin. "You want me to...you want me to pull a song for you?"
"Yes." Sam's eyes on her were unblinking, and their familiar icy-blue hue sent a shiver of longing through her. She still fell asleep every night thinking about those eyes. "I trust you," he added.
"It's not really a matter of trust, but thanks for the vote of confidence," Trinity muttered as she dipped her hand inside the bucket. And I think you might be needing that vote of confidence more than I do, she mused as she drew her hand back. "'This Kiss.' Faith Hill." She showed the slip of paper just in case there was any doubt. Eddie rocked forward with a startled bark of laughter; Hikamori looked less certain of the pop country standard, but grinned as he took in their expressions. He must have known he was in for something good.
"He's going to sing?" Hikamori asked in surprise. Trinity glanced sidelong at Sam. She was also wondering the same thing.
"I'll sing it," Sam said. "If you accompany me."
His eyes locked on Trinity, and she could barely believe what she was hearing. Did she really just watch Samson Jameson not only agree to, but personally suggest, a karaoke duet? "You're on," she said. She nodded toward the stage. "And it also looks like you're up."
"We're up. Come on."
Sam grabbed her and pulled her out of the booth. Trinity slid after him, still too unnerved by his sudden change in behavior to focus on their linked hands. What on earth had come over him? It's not like he had all that much to drink. Sam never overindulged, and tended to thumb his nose at the people who did.
Which was why Trinity received her second surprise of the evening when they arrived at the stage. She handed the DJ their slip of paper; the DJ took one look at Sam's rigid posture and poured him a heavy, complimentary shot into a rocks glass, courtesy of the bar's fireball overstock. He passed the drink to Sam and urged him on with a nod toward the stage.
"Wrong glass," Sam muttered as he downed the fireball in one swig.
Trinity forked her fin
gers. "We'll need two mics, please," she said. The DJ handed her a second one, and she climbed up onto the stage after Sam.
The music started up almost immediately. Trinity glanced wildly between screens, still trying to get her bearings. It had been a long time since she sang karaoke—which, compared to Sam's never, she supposed wasn't that bad. She heard Eddie hoot from the VIP booth, and could only hope Mr. Hikamori was equally enjoying himself in the moment.
Maybe there was no hope for Sam. He looked even paler than usual, and the shadows beneath his chiseled cheeks seemed to deepen the closer the lyrics came to lighting up. His tongue darted out to wet his lips, and he raised the mic to his mouth.
"I don't want another heartbreak, I don't need another turn to cry…"
Trinity's jaw fell open. She had never heard Sam's singing voice before—hell, she hadn't been certain he even had one. He never sang to himself in the shower, and he never hummed along to the radio, not even when a song they had danced to at their wedding came on. The deep baritone that came out of him now was better than she could have possibly imagined. How had he hid this side of himself from her all these years?
Sam wasn't even looking at the words on the screen. He was gazing around the room, tracking the delighted expressions he saw and appearing to gain confidence with each sweep. Trinity caught his eye and grinned encouragingly. She started swaying to the beat, even going so far as to put her arms up reverentially as Sam's rich voice massaged Faith Hill's lyrics. Someone in the VIP booth started clapping—her money was on Eddie—and soon the whole bar was joining in. An older man wearing a cowboy hat got up and pulled the woman he was with to her feet. She followed along beside him in a line dance, laughing gaily. Trinity noticed the matching rings that glimmered on their hands every time they clapped in sync.
Something inside her clenched at the sight, something she had thought long-buried and forgotten. Sam nudged her, and for a wild moment she thought he meant to call attention to the same couple—but he was only cueing her to start in on the next verse. Trinity shook out her shoulders and started in.