by Aly Martinez
Something happened when I was with Sam.
I didn’t know what that something was, but it happened all the same.
He wasn’t a magical fix. I knew that the free fall was still waiting for me at the end of the night. But I didn’t feel like I was plummeting when I was with him.
“What are you smiling about?” Sam asked when we pulled up to a red stoplight. His hand sifted through my hair then gently wrapped around the back of my neck.
Like a kitten, I purred, leaning into his touch. “Mmm, the way I feel right now.” I opened my eyes to find him watching me with a content grin.
“You’re beautiful,” was all he said before the light turned green and we were off again.
Being told I was beautiful wasn’t an anomaly.
It was Sam though.
That was everything.
Less than a minute later, Sam pulled up to a gorgeous two-story brick house complete with a wraparound porch that almost made me moan. It was so quaint and homey that I instantly felt drawn inside.
“Put your gooey eyes away. This is my mom’s place. I live in the basement.”
“Oh. You live with your…mom?” I’d done my best not to sound disappointed, but judging by the sound of his laugh, I’d failed miserably.
He arched an eyebrow. “Is that a problem?”
“No. I mean… I just.” I stumbled over my words. It wasn’t a problem. Well, not totally. It just wasn’t what I expected. And suddenly, in that moment, I realized exactly how much I didn’t know about Sam. “I thought…”
I continued to ramble until he leaned over and pressed his lips to mine. He didn’t take it any deeper, and I was very aware of his shoulders shaking in amusement.
“Chill, Levee. I’m just giving you shit. It’s my house. I bought it two years ago and have been fixing it up ever since. Rest assured, my mom has her own place across town.”
I breathed an audible sigh of relief then squeaked, “It’s a pretty house.”
“It is. But it’s still a work in progress, and I can’t promise how safe my handiwork is, so don’t step on the cracks or the whole floor might cave in.” He unbuckled himself and climbed out.
“Uhhh,” I stammered as I got out, meeting him at the hood. “Seriously?”
He shook his head and looped an arm around my waist. “Why are you nervous?”
“What? I’m not.” I swayed in his arms with a herd of butterflies stampeding in my stomach.
“You haven’t called me on my shit once since you got in my car. You’re nervous. Now tell me why.”
“I’m not—” I started, but he twisted his lips, unconvinced.
“You want me to take you home?”
“No!”
He dropped his hand to my ass. “Then tell me what’s got you so distracted.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek. How the hell did I answer that?
You, Sam! You have me distracted. I’m nervous because I can’t say the wrong thing again. Not if I want you back. And, God, do I want you back.
I kept that to myself.
After backing me up, he pinned me against the hood with his body. “Levee,” he prompted.
“I have crabs!” I blurted out when the truth got lodged in my throat. “I didn’t want to tell you, but since we had sex, it’s only a matter of time before those critters get you too.”
I didn’t expect him to believe my joke, but I figured he’d at least laugh. Instead, he groaned, sliding a hand under my shirt and over my breasts—his rough fingers dipping inside my bra to tease my nipples.
“Fuck, I’ve missed you.”
“Mmm,” I moaned. Closing my eyes, I slipped a hand down the back of his jeans—strictly for balance, of course.
I whined in complaint when he suddenly stepped away.
“Get your ass inside. I need to smoke.”
“Are you crazy? I’m not going inside my stalker’s house alone.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Should you ever really go in your stalker’s house at all?”
“Excellent point. We should definitely do it in the driveway.” I reached for the button on his jeans, but he backed out of my reach.
“Jesus, Levee.” He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. “Aren’t we supposed to be talking?”
I nervously began chewing on the inside of my mouth again.
Talking was going to suck. Sex definitely wasn’t.
But sex didn’t mean I got to keep him. Talking hopefully would.
My eyes flashed to the ground. “Yeah. You’re right.”
I heard his lighter spark to life. Then his shoes entered my field vision. Threading our fingers together, he lifted the back of my hand to graze over his dick bulging behind his denim.
I sucked in sharply as his warm breath whispered over my neck.
“I’ve never in my life wanted to lose myself inside a woman more than I do with you. In my driveway. In my bed. In my car in the middle of a hospital parking lot. Anywhere, Levee.” He draped my arm around his neck then dropped his forehead to mine. “I’ve also never wanted to make something work with a woman more than I do with you. So, if talking is what I have to do, then let’s do it. But, after all of that’s settled—and I swear to God it will be settled—we’ll get back”—he roughly tugged me against him, pointedly rolling his hips—“to this.”
I’d been wrong.
That was everything.
I immediately looked away, and I did it smiling.
Huge.
Taking my hand, Sam smoked as we walked up the short sidewalk to his front door. While he fumbled with his keys, my eyes were drawn to two antique white doors that had been transformed into a porch swing.
I lifted our joined hands to point. “Did you make that?”
He tossed me a proud, lopsided grin. “If it’s in this house, I made it.”
“That’s amazing. I can’t imagine being that talented.”
He barked a laugh as he pushed his door open. “Says the woman with a mantel full of Grammys.”
“Oh, shut up. I meant talented with my hands, smartass.” I pinched his nipple.
“Ow! Shit!” he complained before reaching out to pinch mine in retaliation. His was definitely gentler, and I might have secretly wished that he had done it again. Repeatedly.
He didn’t though. He dropped his hand and flipped the lights on.
The outside of his house was amazing, but it didn’t do justice to the inside in the least. Dark hardwood floors covered the expanse of the den, and a rugged, brown leather sectional butted up against the wall, facing a flat-screen mounted above a stone fireplace. The whole area was open, and his galley kitchen sat in the back with only a granite-top bar dividing the rooms. The house appeared to be older from the curb, but inside, it was as modern as it could get.
Sam’s house definitely wasn’t the bachelor pad I’d expected. It was unnaturally clean. I had a full-time maid and his place made mine look like a stable.
What single guy keeps a house this neat?
I gasped. “Oh my God, you’re married!”
“Shh! You’ll wake up my wife,” he replied, touching his lips to my temple. “Don’t worry. She’s okay with you being here. You were on the top of my celebrity sexception list.”
A laugh escaped my throat. He waggled his eyebrows as he moved to the small table next to the door. After flipping through the mail, he extended an envelope in my direction.
“Text my address to Devon. I don’t need the SWAT team breaking down my door when he realizes I didn’t take you back to your place.”
He had a point. And, given my situation, Henry would probably stroke out too.
Upon retrieving my phone from my back pocket, I sent a message to Henry and asked him to pass the word along to Devon as well. His reply pinged in my hand, but I didn’t bother reading it before powering my phone down.
“You want a beer?” Sam asked, bypassing the fridge and heading to a sliding glass door off the back of his kitchen
.
“Sure.”
“Okay. Be right back.” He disappeared out the door.
Less than a moment later, a black lab came barreling in.
“Sampson!” Sam yelled behind him.
I immediately backed away. He didn’t exactly look ferocious, but I’d become too fond of my legs to chance having them gnawed off.
“Sit,” Sam ordered, appearing in doorway with four beers cradled against his chest.
The dog skidded to a halt then dropped to his hind end less than an inch away from me. His tail thumped against the hardwood as he eagerly stared up at me.
“You have a dog?”
“Very astute observation. Levee, meet Sampson,” he laughed, twisting the tops off two domestic beers.
“Your dog’s name is Sampson?”
“Yep,” he said before tipping the beer to his lips and offering one in my direction.
“Your name is Sam and you named your dog Sampson. That’s a bit egotistical, don’t ya think?”
“Well, the guy who does my ink wouldn’t give us matching tattoos. I was really limited in my narcissistic options.”
“Right.” I reached down to scratch behind Sampson’s ears.
“I got him at the pound a few years back. I saw the name tag on his kennel and took it as a sign.” He whistled and Sampson rushed to his side. Tilting his beer toward the couch to signal for me to sit down, he asked, “You a dog person?”
Following his unspoken order, I settled on the end of the couch, slipping my heels off so I could tuck a leg underneath me. “Yeah. I’ve always wanted a dog, but by the time I could afford to take care of one, my life was chaos. I travel way too much.”
“Gotcha,” he said, sitting beside me on the couch.
With a snap and a point from Sam, Sampson lumbered over to a dog bed in the corner, grunting before flopping down.
We both stayed silent, awkwardly drinking our beers. Small talk was officially over, but it seemed Sam wasn’t any more excited to start the heavy conversation than I was.
“You hungry?” he asked as I nervously polished my beer off.
“I’m good, thanks.”
He nodded and went back to staring into space. “Sooo…” he drawled but didn’t say anything else.
Without looking at him, I broke the silence. “Are you positive that we can’t just start with sex?”
Chuckling, he dropped his head back against the couch and turned to look at me. I met his gaze with a grin, hoping he was about to give in. Instead, his smile fell and his eyes softened.
“I’m sorry I stormed out the way I did, but I really can’t apologize for telling Devon. Levee, I have a really fucked-up past, and it terrifies me to start something with someone like you.”
Someone like you.
I swallowed hard, trying not to flinch from the sting of his words. “Oh.” I scooted to the edge of couch and slid my shoes back on.
He caught my elbow before I had the chance to push to my feet. “Hear me out. Please.”
“Yeah, of course. I was just gonna grab another beer.” I smiled tightly, but he didn’t release my arm.
With one hand, he grabbed the neck of my empty beer between two fingers and replaced it with his half-full one. “Stop and listen. That’s all I’m asking.”
A nod was my only response.
“My fondest memories from when I was a kid are when I was with my dad. I remember him spending hours running around with Anne and me in the backyard. He was so fucking funny and energetic. I swear we were always laughing with him. The problem was that my mom would sit at the kitchen window crying because she knew what would follow. My dad had been diagnosed as bipolar long before he met my mom. But he had meds, and even though they weren’t a fix-all, they helped. Just like basically everyone else who struggles with the disorder, he had a hard time sticking to the medication regimen.” He scrubbed his palms over the thighs of his jeans then dragged his cigarettes from his pocket. He glanced over at me then sighed, tossing them on the wagon-wheel coffee table—his creation, no doubt.
All of my hurt disappeared as I watched something far worse appear on Sam’s face. I didn’t necessarily want to encourage his habit, but I’d have done anything to erase that pained expression.
“You want to take this to the porch swing so you can smoke?” I asked, folding my hand over his.
“Yes. But I need to stop compromising your breakup with lung cancer. So no.” His lips twitched as he intertwined our fingers. Groaning, he continued. “There were times when my dad would disappear to his workshop in our backyard for a week or more. It was a way of life, and Anne and I learned to stop asking questions. Despite all of his shit, he was a great dad.” He squeezed my hand and pointedly held my gaze as he said, “I miss him a lot.”
That does not sound good.
I’d figured the whole walk down memory lane was to set up Anne’s story. But I was quickly realizing that, unfortunately, she might not be the only stop on the ride through Sam’s self-proclaimed fucked-up past.
He ran a hand through his hair. “When I was fifteen, Dad lost his job and went into one of his typical lows. No one really paid it any attention. We were overly used to it by then. Mom used to have us deliver his dinner out to the shop. He wasn’t always as patient with her as he was with Anne and me. When he was up, Mom was the center of his universe. When he was down…he was a fucking dick.”
He lifted my hand to his mouth as I waited on pins and needles for what I prayed wouldn’t be the ending I feared he was about to give me.
“Anne was twelve and thankfully spending the night at the neighbor’s house the night I found him hanging from the rafters. I knew he was dead as soon as I opened that door. But I still frantically tried to save him.” He sucked in a deep, agonizing breath then dragged me onto his lap. Holding me as if I were the only thing anchoring him to the present. “Levee, that’s why I told Devon. I’ll never forget those seconds when I was the only one in that room, begging the universe for help to save him—help that was never going to arrive. I just couldn’t risk that I’d be alone in that room with you too. Someone else needed to know. I couldn’t be solely responsible for losing someone else. Not like that.”
Ice chilled my veins as a reality sliced through me.
Oh God.
I couldn’t let that happen either.
Sam really can’t be with someone like me.
“I HAVE TO go,” Levee said, scrambling off my lap.
I had just dredged up memories I’d spent my entire life trying to forget in order to explain my past. I had close friends who didn’t know about the skeletons I’d pulled from the closet and all but put on display for her. And now she was darting?
“Where the hell are you going?” I bit out entirely too roughly while pushing to my feet after her.
She began messing with her phone until it powered on with a chime. “I have a busy day tomorrow. They rescheduled my concert in LA for tomorrow night. I should probably head home. I’m taking off on vacation for a few weeks. You know, rest and relaxation and all that jazz. I’ll just call Devon for a ride.” She lifted the phone to her ear.
Fuck.
That.
“Put the phone down, Levee,” I growled.
She squeezed the phone between her shoulder and ear and lifted the empty beer bottles off the table. “I’ll just put these in the trash.” Then she flittered to the kitchen, grabbing a rag off the side of the sink and wiping away imaginary dirt from my spotless counters.
What hell is she doing?
“Levee?” I called, but apparently, Devon had just picked up.
“Hey. Can you come get me?” she asked quietly, but not quietly enough, because I’d heard the quiver in her voice loud and clear.
And that was all it took to get my legs moving in her direction.
Her back was to me, but I reached over her shoulder and snatched the phone away from her ear.
“Hey!” she shouted, spinning to face me.
My nerves were still raw and exposed from the little journey back in time, but I was mainly frustrated beyond belief.
With my gaze locked on hers, I lifted the phone to my ear. “Hey, Devon. I’ll bring her home in a little while.”
“No, the fuck you won’t,” he barked, but I pressed the end button.
She swallowed hard and pasted on a sweet smile that definitely belonged to the Levee Williams.
It just didn’t belong to my Designer Shoes.
Not at all.
“Sam, you don’t have to take me back. Give me the phone. Devon can be here in a few minutes.”
Tossing her phone onto the counter, I took a menacing step forward.
Her eyes grew wide as she backed away. “Sam, I have to go.”
I sucked in a calming breath that did nothing to quell the frustration brewing inside me. “No, you don’t. You’re freaking out about something, so open your mouth and tell me what that is.” I continued to advance. “I spill my darkest secrets and suddenly you have shit to do tomorrow? Well, guess what, Levee? I have shit to do tonight. And it starts and ends with you.”
Finally, she’d exhausted the space in my kitchen, and her back hit my sliding glass door. “I don’t know what to say. I just need to go,” she said so matter-of-factly that, if it hadn’t been for the tear that rolled down her cheek, I might have believed her.
I caught the tear with the pad of my thumb and slowly lifted the moisture into her line of sight. “Liar.”
“Sam—”
“Whether it was on the bridge or in a hospital room not even two hours ago, your tears have always told me the truth.” I dropped my damp thumb to her lips. “These are not as honest. Don’t tell me you’re fine. Don’t tell me you have to go. Don’t tell me that everything is okay. Just tell me the truth your eyes are so desperate for me to hear.”
She held my gaze for only a beat longer before she broke.
Completely.
As she threw her arms around my neck, the waterworks came full force. Scooping her off her feet, I carried her to the couch, settling with her on my lap.