She sat up straighter on the couch. Of course! That is what she needed, in effect, for her love life – coaching! She needed more experienced people to come in and examine her game plan, analyze her execution, and recommend course corrections. She needed love coaching.
She picked up her phone from the coffee table and hit send without a second's hesitation. Now that she could think of discussing her situation with the girls as “coaching” instead of “gossiping” it felt much less uncomfortable.
She looked at the face of the phone and read back to herself the urgent text she had just sent out, much like a distress beacon.
“Help! Emergency Book Club Meeting needed! Come ASAP!”
Before she had even finished re-reading it to herself, her doorbell rang, and she jumped up and ran over to open it.
Karina breezed past her.
“Am I the first one here?” she joked.
Sam laughed, “Living across the street has its advantages, admit it!”
Karina smiled, looking down at her phone.
“So, you do realize, Sam – text messages aren't like telegrams. You don't get charged by the word.”
Sam stuck out her tongue at Karina as they moved toward the kitchen. She said, “I hope the others are free to come. I really need to get a handle on my date with Luke, I'd like to talk it over with everyone.”
Karina grinned, “Aha! I thought that's what this might be about. I assume that we are headed into the kitchen to get the wine and glasses, am I right?”
Sam laughed, “Right you are!”
By the time the two girls had chosen the wine they would serve and placed the bottles and glasses on trays, they heard the doorbell ring again.
“Well, at least you know that there will be someone here besides little ol' me!” Karina joked.
They carried the trays back into the living room and Sam moved to open the front door. She saw that Amy was on the front porch, accompanied by her sister Nikki, whom Samantha had not seen in years. Sam exclaimed in delight and gave Nikki a hug, leading the two women into the living room.
“Look who I found!” Sam laughed to Karina.
Karina whooped with delight, “Girl, I haven't seen you in forever! Let me go grab another wine glass!”
Amy pushed her spectacles further up on her nose, “I was spending the day with Nikki because she's here on a layover. I assumed that there would be no discussion of a book of any kind, since none of us were notified to prepare. So I thought it would be alright if she came.”
Sam laughed, “Of course! Nikki, girl, you know you're welcome any time!”
Nikki smiled, “Thanks, Sam. Wow, it's so great to see you and Karina again. Where are your other two partners in crime?”
“Hopefully they'll be here any minute! I know they'll be thrilled to see you, as well!”
Nikki, in contrast to her conservative sister Amy, dressed in bold, bright colors and looked like a spokesmodel. She was always perfectly coiffed and perfectly poised. Sam wasn't sure how many languages she spoke, but she knew it was more than a few. She was tall and willowy, and her silky brown hair perfectly matched the shade of her deep, doe-brown eyes.
“So, tell me, chica,” Karina began as she came back in from the kitchen, “how is life in the air treating you?”
Nikki had spent the last ten years working her way up the ladder as a flight attendant, being promoted to ever more elite assignments, and was now working for a private charter company that catered to the rich and famous.
“Oh, it couldn't be better,” Nikki enthused happily, “I feel like I am at the top of my game, I have everything I've ever dreamed of. I love the glamour of flying around the world to exotic places, never knowing what fabulous people I'm going to see when I walk back into the cabin. In fact, I've been thinking for a few years now that I wouldn't be surprised to see your gorgeous mug when I stepped back there!”
Karina waved her off, “Oh, yeah, private jets and all that..I think that part of my life may be over. I'm kind of enjoying just being settled down right now.”
“It doesn't hurt that she has a hunky man to be settled with,” Amy interjected, and everyone in the room cracked up.
Amy looked surprised and said, “I didn't mean that to be funny.”
The girls were distracted by yet another doorbell ring, and Sam went to the foyer to open the door, returning with Amanda and Lauren. Both of them enthusiastically greeted Nikki as well, quickly catching one another up on their lives.
When everyone had poured their wine and gotten seated, Lauren turned to Sam matter-of-factly, “Well, Sam, I assume you've called this meeting because of Luke. You want to discuss the date, am I right?”
“Yes!” Sam exclaimed, as if she had been about to burst the entire time, “I absolutely need to talk it out. It was very confusing...”
“But not unpleasant? He didn't do anything mean, or hurtful?” Lauren asked, looking suspicious.
Sam laughed, “Put away your claws, Mama Bear, he was a perfect gentleman!”
Nikki leaned forward eagerly, “Ooo, who are we talking about? Who was a perfect gentleman?”
“Oh, it's this super-hot guy Luke Reynolds that Sam has been crushing on for years! He just moved to Hope Falls, and they went on their first date last night,” Amanda filled her in.
“Luke Reynolds...why does that sound familiar?” Nikki mused, “Oh, wait, I know! He was in front of me in line at Sue Ann's cafe this morning when I was getting coffee. Someone called him by his name. Well done, Sam! He's beyond hot! And what a voice!”
“I know, right?” Sam smiled dreamily.
“So, what happened on the date?” Amy asked, and the rest of the women leaned forward slightly, eager to hear the answer.
“Well, it was like a fairy tale,” Sam said, sounding unsure.
“Isn't that a good thing?” Karina asked.
“It is...I just don't know whether to trust it or not.”
“OK,” Karina said, “That's fair. I think you just need to start from the beginning, tell us everything, and let us be the judge.”
The rest of the women in the room murmured in agreement.
Sam took a deep breath and dove in, “OK, here goes. First of all, he was so sweet and earnest. He told me over and over again how sexy and beautiful I was, and when he looked at me, I really felt sexy and beautiful, you know?
“And he was completely different than I thought he would be. I mean, he's supposed to be this big playboy, never taking anything seriously, keeping it all completely light. Never talking about the future. But with me, he was talking about settling down, putting down roots, having kids...”
“Wow!” Amanda said, impressed, “I knew I was right about his feelings for you, Sam!”
“So, you mean...that's not how all first dates go, then?”
“NO!” All of the women responded at once in a resounding negative, except for Karina, who enhanced her sentiment by saying, “HELL, NO!”
“Well, that's good to know,” Sam said, relieved that her instincts could be trusted, “Anyway, the best part of the date was the kiss at the end of the night. It was spectacular! I am now 100% sure that he is the right guy to help me with my 'stunted personal growth' problem.”
“Personal growth? Who is this guy, Tony Robbins?” Nikki asked, mystified.
“Well, he's not motivating the masses, per se, but he's doing wonders to motivate Sam's vagina,” Karina said with a smirk, immediately getting whacked with couch pillows by Amanda and Lauren. Nikki's forehead crinkled in puzzlement.
“Yeah, so, the thing is...I've never had sex,” Sam admitted to Nikki ruefully.
“And she's looking to change that,” Karina declared triumphantly.
Nikki's eyes widened and she exclaimed, “Holy smokes! You're a virgin?!”
Sam dropped her forehead into her hands. She groaned miserably. “And that is precisely the response that I'm afraid HE'S going to have!”
Nikki scrambled to course correct, “No, I meant
it more like...wow, you're a virgin...good job...way to stick to your guns...”
Sam looked at Nikki incredulously but all Nikki would do was smile widely.
Lauren laughed, “There's a woman who knows when to let silence speak for itself.”
They all chuckled, and then Sam continued, “For real, though, guys. I am nervous about how to tell him about my virgin status. Or, you know, if I even SHOULD tell him...?”
“You have to tell him!” Amanda insisted, all dewy-eyed innocence, “You have to be honest with him!”
Sam nodded, “Yeah, I figured. The thought of hiding it didn't feel right. But dang, the thought of telling him is so scary! How do you think I should approach it?”
“I've always found that, in any dealings, a straightforward recitation of the facts works best,” Lauren said confidently.
“But you need to be sincere with him, about your feelings,” Amanda insisted.
“Screw straightforward and screw sincere,” Karina disagreed, “This is a moment that is crying out for a little levity. Maybe try something like, 'Hey, Luke, did you ever watch Star Trek as a kid? If yes, did you ever have the urge to go where no man's gone before?' Yeah, I think that's a good one.”
Amy jumped in, “If you are going to employ the Star Trek reference, I do think that you should include it in its entirety by encouraging him to BOLDLY go where no man has gone before!”
The room erupted in laughter, and Amy proudly pushed her glasses up on her nose as she said quietly, “Thank you. That comment I did intend to be funny.”
Amanda concluded, “The truth is, you will know when the moment is right. You can't always plan a conversation like that.”
Sam nodded thoughtfully, her fingers unconsciously brushing against her jawline, as they had been doing throughout the meeting.
“OK, girlie, what's up with how you keep touching your face? Spill,” Karina insisted.
Sam blushed, “Oh, was I? I didn't even realize. I guess it's just that I can still kind of feel the sensation of where his stubble rubbed against my face when he kissed me.”
Nikki winked and said, “Wait until your inner thighs are tingling like that, then you'll really have something to smile about!”
Amy, taking a page from Lauren's book, hit Nikki with one of the couch pillows, and Karina exclaimed, “My soul sister! My partner in snark! I love it!”
After the laughter died down, Amanda turned to Sam, asking, “So the real question is...have you heard from him yet today?”
Sam grinned widely and pulled out her phone. She swiped at it a few times to get to the right screen and then turned it outward to show it to the group, explaining, “He sent this to me first thing this morning.”
The text message she had received said, “Good morning, Beautiful. Hope you have a fun Sunday. See you tomorrow, and remember – I always want one.”
“Hmmm...” Karina purred slinkily, “What does he always want one of?”
Sam blushed again, “A kiss. Last night, before he kissed me, he gave me grief because I was just walking away before stopping to talk at my door, and get a goodnight kiss. I said I didn't know he wanted one, and he told me that, for future reference, he always wanted one.”
Amanda clutched her hands together in front of her chest and swooned, “How romantic!”
Amy said regretfully, “I feel left out, I'm the only one that doesn't even know what this gorgeous man looks like yet.”
Karina snorted, “I'm sure Sam still has a poster or two lying around.”
Amanda added, “Here, let me pull up his profile picture on the Mountain Ridge website.”
When she had Luke's face centered on the screen, she handed the phone to Amy. Amy nodded admiringly, “Oh, yes, he is an almost perfect physical specimen. I can see why you would be so attracted to him.”
Nikki added with a wink, “And, hey, Sam, if you're not sure what to do with him, I have plenty of ideas.”
Sam immediately jumped in, grabbing Amanda's phone and pronouncing decisively, “He's mine.”
Nikki threw her head back and laughed uproariously, “Oh, Sam, I was kidding. But if you feel that protective of him, I'd say that's a very good sign, wouldn't you?”
Sam smiled, a little proudly, “That's true. I've never had any possessive romantic feelings about anyone before, never felt like I had the right to call someone my own.”
“How do you like it?” Karina asked.
Sam grinned more broadly, “I think I could definitely get used to it.”
--- ~ ---
As Luke pulled up into the driveway of his Mom’s home for Sunday dinner, he was having a hard time wiping the smile off his face.
All day long he had worn the largest, most silly grin imaginable. He had just walked around all morning, smiling for no reason. Well, that wasn't strictly true. There was a reason. A very beautiful, sassy, red-headed reason. Sam.
He had barely slept the night before. Every time he had closed his eyes, he saw Sam. Sam at the restaurant, Sam in his truck, Sam smiling, Sam laughing, Sam’s eyes widening right before he kissed her. It was like a Sam slideshow running on constant repeat in his brain, or a movie montage playing to some silly pop song. And he wasn’t complaining in the least, on the contrary, he loved it.
As a matter of fact, he wasn't tired at all, not even a little. He would gladly spend every night like the one before. If he couldn't actually BE with Sam throughout the night, then dreaming of Sam was the next best option. Sleep? That was a far distant third.
Luke supposed that it stood to reason that if Sam could get drunk from their kiss, then he could get high from it. They had some incredibly potent chemistry.
Luke smiled. And it honestly wasn’t even just the physical side of things that were giving Luke this 'flying high' sensation. It was that the more he got to know Sam the more he liked about her. Hey, who was he kidding? The more he loved about her.
Sam was one of a kind. She had traveled the world and experienced things other people could only dream of. The flip side of that coin was that she had also handled pressures that most people couldn’t have dealt with. She had enjoyed a multitude of successes, and handled them with as much grace and poise as she had her few failures. Everyone thought that the challenge of being a 'good sport' was to be a graceful loser, but in Luke's opinion, it was 100 times harder to be a graceful winner, and he'd seen almost every single person he knew fail at that task at least once, including himself. Everyone except for Samantha. She was unlike anyone he had ever met or seen, truthfully.
But, despite all her worldliness and poise, when she was around him she seemed almost innocent, inexperienced somehow. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. She seemed like a babe in the woods, awe-struck by every new thing she saw. He smiled. That was another of the many things he was coming to love about her.
Another of these things was the incredibly real quality she had about her. He loved that there was no pretense with Sam, she said what was on her mind. He never felt like she was trying to be anything she wasn’t, she just was Sam.
Walking up the wooden steps, he opened the front door and was greeted by his nieces and his nephew cheering his arrival with the chant, “Uncle Luke, Uncle Luke, Uncle Luke!”
He stepped through the threshold and was immediately and gleefully attacked by Bailey and Ariel and Christopher.
He trudged into the living room, a child hanging on each leg and one on his arm. He pretended that the weight was too much for him, causing him to stagger around and ultimately fall to the ground. The kids dog piled on top of him. He began to twist and turn, never letting them get too solid of a hold on him so that they couldn't impede his movements, pretending to be transforming into a monster.
He rose to his hands and knees, and in a deep and somewhat ominous growl, he bellowed, “Here comes the monster!”
The kids squealed in delight and mock terror.
“Do you know what monster I am?” he growled.
“The tickle monster!”
they squealed in their high-pitched, youthful voices, scrambling up and scampering out of the room.
“That's right, here comes the tickle monster!” He yelled, rising up and lumbering after them. A giggly chase ensued, one that led him all through the house.
This was yet another of the many reasons that Luke needed to come home. Little moments like this couldn’t be experienced when you lived thousands of miles away, and yet, when you came down to it – that was all that life was really composed of, was little moments like this.
Luke wanted to be here to see his nieces and nephews grow up. He didn't want to exist in their memory as just a face on the computer screen, and an attendee at their graduation ceremonies. A signature on their birthday cards. He wanted to really, truly be their uncle.
And, when he started his own family, he wanted to be close enough that his brothers would fill that role for his own children. Again, a picture of Sam pregnant with their child popped into his head, and he couldn't fight the grin that spread across his face. The vision seemed so real it stopped him in his tracks and he shook his head a little.
“Monsters don't smile!” Ariel informed him indignantly, and he realized he'd gotten lost in his thoughts and broken character.
He looked down and her, curled his fingers into claws and cackled, “Oh, but they do when they are thinking about tickling little children!” Ariel's eyes widened and she shrieked with laughter as she ran into the next room.
After fifteen more minutes of chasing the kids, Luke realized that even former Olympians with punishing training schedules had a relatively short shelf-life when it came to chasing kids around the house. He was already worn out.
“Alright rugrats,” he informed the kids regretfully, “I think Uncle Luke has had enough. Remember he’s an old, old man you need to take it easy on him.”
His youngest brother Bobby slapped him on his shoulder and laughed.
“Oh, don't get me wrong, I can still take you down, baby bro,” Luke smiled as he turned and put him in a head lock.
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