This is what she had wanted all those years ago. She wanted him to hold her tight and tell her it was going to be okay. She wanted to be able to tell him all her fears then maybe he’d still be here now.
She rested her head on his chest. The tears fell like rain, soaking his shirt. The harder she cried, the tighter he held her.
Finally she said, “When you left, you said we needed some space. I remember thinking, isn’t that what we’ve been giving each other? Space? We were both hurting, Sam, and instead of turning to the other to get us through the hardest time in our relationship, you turned to work, and I turned into a walking zombie.
“The problem with you giving me space was that you never came back. I should have gone after you, but I was so lost in myself that I couldn’t fathom how torn up you were too.” She looked up at him, her face streaked with tears. “My therapist has been really great at helping me see things. I just wish I had been smarter. That both of us would have been smarter. We should have fought for each other and we didn’t. Along with the baby, I lost the only man I ever loved.” The only man she still loved, she wanted to add but was afraid it was too soon after telling him about their break up.
“The thing is,” she said, gripping his shirt in her fist. “I can see we were both to blame but it’s like a piece to the puzzle is still missing. I can’t fully come to terms with what happened to us until you tell me. You never did tell me,” she mumbled into his chest.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered and kissed the top of her head. “Lil, I don’t know what else to say other than I’m sorry.” His voice hitched as he apologized for sins he couldn’t remember committing. She didn’t have to see his face to know that he was crying too.
She sank further into him as he continued to hold her. She wasn’t sure if he was trying to make up for lost time and she didn’t care. Until Sam remembered she wouldn’t get the answers she so desperately sought. But for now, for now she’d settle for being in his arms, and being held. Being the one who once carried his unborn child. The woman, Lil now realized who was still madly in love with him.
133
SECOND RATE CHANCES
CHAPTER 20
Sam held Lil well into the early morning hours. They stayed, wrapped in one another, on the couch, until the sun coming in through the window roused him.
He hated that he had caused her so much pain in the past.
What had he been thinking? How could he have pulled away from her? How could he have let her push him away?
If this was the kind of man he had turned into, he didn’t want to ever remember the last three years. A man who wasn’t there for the woman he loved in her greatest time of need. A man who had abandoned his best friends all for the sake of a job. A man who was going to marry a woman, who he wasn’t sure wanted him for him – but wanted him because he excelled and would be a great leader in her father’s company. The same man who let her father dictate his life.
He knew he’d never truly be homeless. He had Kane and Abe he could turn to. He hoped he did. Things had taken a turn for the better between them but Sam knew how much they regarded their space. He also had his father. And speaking of his father…
Sam needed to talk to him. It wasn’t that he doubted Lil. There were always two sides to every story and he needed to hear from those, other than Lil, who knew him best.
The angel in his arms started to stir. He gave her a gentle squeeze and kissed the top of her head. She sighed dreamily further into his embrace.
“Good morning,” he said to her. A smile danced on his face.
“Morning,” she said in a thick voice, a reminder of how she had spent most of the night crying.
“You want me to make some coffee?” She nodded into his chest. He continued to hold her as she burrowed herself against him. He laughed silently, sending vibrations across both of their bodies.
She picked her head up and looked at him, her eyes drawn together. “What’s so funny?”
Sam shook his head. “Nothing. I just can’t make coffee if we stay like this all day.”
Lil grumbled and pushed away from Sam but not before he caught her wrist and pulled her to him again. He placed a chaste kiss on her lips and moaned.
“That makes a better morning,” he said. She kissed him back, being careful not to open her mouth for him, he noticed. Not that morning breath would have deterred him.
Lil finally extracted herself from Sam and went to the bathroom. Sam stood from the couch, stretching his sore muscles. Sleeping so awkwardly on the couch might not have been the most comfortable, but having Lil in his arms all-night more than made up for it.
Sam pulled the coffee and filters out of the cabinet and picked up the carafe to fill it with water. He heard the shower in the bathroom cut on and he instantly pictured Lil naked, soaping herself up.
“Sam!” he heard her holler. It was nothing like how he imagined her calling out his name in the throes of passion. Why would she sound so frantic?
He ran the small distance from the kitchen to the bathroom, throwing the door open in his haste. Lil stood in front of the tub, the curtain pulled back, with her toothbrush in her mouth and nothing but the T-shirt she had slept in and a pair of panties.
“What happened?” he asked, doing his best to keep his eyes averted to hers. He would not look down at her legs, so long and lean. He would not. Okay, he did.
Lil, too caught up in whatever had her screaming to notice his silent appreciation of her body, spit toothpaste out of her mouth. She then began waving her toothbrush frantically at the open shower.
“I don’t know,” her voice said, rising. “I turned the shower on and,” she waved her poor toothbrush back and forth, up and down, “nothing! No water is coming out!”
Sam’s eyes widened. As the son of a plumber, he had a feeling he knew what the problem was, and it wasn’t good.
“Shit,” he cursed. “Lil, have you winterized the house this year?”
Lil shook her head no. “Zach normally does that for me before Christmas because the snow doesn’t get bad until then, but this year it’s come early. With everything going on lately, I haven’t given it a second thought.”
“We need to turn off the water.”
“Sam,” Lil said in a shaky tone. “What’s going on?”
He ran his fingers through his hair. “Lil, you might have a frozen pipe somewhere. If we don’t get the water off and one of the taps gets turned on from inside the house, it could burst. I’m going to go out to the meter and turn the water off.”
“Okay,” she said. “What do I need to do?”
Sam closed his eyes and took a long, deep calming breath. “Put some pants on before I say fuck the pipes and take you straight to bed.”
Sam wanted to laugh at Lil’s dumbstruck expression. He knew it wouldn’t bode well if he did so he sprinted out of the bathroom to the living room where he put his shoes on without tying them. He grabbed his coat and headed out the front door to the meter buried in the front yard.
He took one step outside and froze. Not just because of the chill in the air, but because snow was everywhere. At least a foot or so deep covering the lawn.
“Lil,” he yelled. He heard her footsteps as she ran across the hardwood floor. He knew she was behind him because of the sharp inhale of breath she took and the adorable curse word she let slip.
“Get the shovel,” Sam said. “This isn’t going to be as easy as I thought.”
~~~~
After Sam and Lil had shoveled their way to the meter, he turned off the water to the house. They then went inside and turned on every single faucet to determine where the frozen pipe might be. In the kitchen, water trickled out, unlike the other taps in the house. Sam had located the problem.
He called his dad to come over and help. As a retired plumber, Paul Travers had been the best in the biz. It could have been because he was one of the few plumbers in Fair Haven but, as far as Sam was concerned, he was the best.
In the
midst of the plumbing disaster, Lil nearly had a nervous breakdown when she had gotten an unexpected call from a client needing a last minute ordered filled before Christmas Eve. With no way to take a shower, and no way to tell her client no, Lil had no choice but to go into the office and fulfill her customers wishes.
“I hate to leave you with this,” she said as she tied her hair up on top of her head, then wrapped a scarf around her neck.
“I called Dad,” Sam said. “He should be over in a bit.”
“Are you going to be okay? You know, by yourself here?”
Sam laughed. “Lil, if I made it through this morning seeing you in nothing but that damn t-shirt, I’m pretty sure I’ll be okay by myself. I’m a big boy.”
Lil licked her lips and Sam smirked.
“Go,” he urged, helping her into her coat. “I’ve got this.” He spun her around and pulled her tight against his chest.
“Tell your dad I’ll pay him,” she said, her mouth inches from his.
He kissed her on the lips, silencing her words. “You won’t. You know Dad won’t take your money. Now,” he said, giving her a flirtatious smile. “Go make pretty pictures. I’ll be here when you get home.”
“You will?” she asked.
Sam nodded and kissed her once again. This time, his tongue slipped into her mouth. Her hands tightened on his shoulders. He pulled back and tucked a stray piece of hair that had fallen across her forehead.
“If that’s okay,” he said. “I mean, I don’t have to stay the night again, I just thought maybe we’d do something tonight. Dinner or…” He shrugged. Honestly, he hadn’t thought that far ahead. Sam only knew he wanted to spend all the time he could with Lil.
“Yes,” she said in a small voice. “I’d like that.”
Sam grinned; her saying yes and the smile that graced her face was enough to make him feel warm all over. With another kiss, they said goodbye. Sam now had a plumbing problem to sort out.
~~~~
Three hours later, Sam stood next to his father who was under Lil’s kitchen sink. He sat up, careful not to hit his head on the cabinets. He wiped away the grease and pipe dope from his fingers with the rag he carried in his back pocket on all of his jobs.
“You did good, son,” Paul said standing up. “If you had been able to turn on the water to make coffee I have no doubt it would have burst.”
Right. The coffee. Sam had long forgotten about making the coffee.
“Thanks, Dad. And Lil says thanks too.”
His dad brushed the thanks away with the wave of his dirty rag. “I’d do anything for that girl,” he said. With a wink he added, “and you too.
“I’m going to go ahead and winterize her pipes while I’m here,” Paul commented. “Don’t want it to be worse next time. At least the house isn’t on a slab; it's a little more bearable.”
For the next several minutes, Sam assisted his dad in securing the pipes for the onslaught of a freezing winter. They worked in a compatible silence that drove Sam crazy. He had all these questions for his dad but he couldn’t bring himself to ask any of them. Deep down, Sam was afraid of what his dad was going to tell him.
“So,” Paul said, before Sam could open his mouth. “You think maybe you’ll bring Lil by the house tomorrow night for the Christmas party? Everyone would love to see her.”
Sam had forgotten about his dad’s yearly party. Even with Lil bringing it up the night before. “I’ll ask her.” He wasn’t sure if she’d agree to go or not. Considering the last one she had been to, Sam had announced to all of his family and his dad’s friends he and Lil were going to be parents.
“Things seem to be going well for you two,” Paul said.
“You could say that.”
His dad grinned, one that said he knew his son was full of shit. “Uh-huh,” he replied. “Lil call you this morning and ask for your help?”
Sam scratched the back of his neck and looked down at his feet. “I uh…stayedthenight.”
Paul’s smile grew. “Run that by me again.”
Sam inhaled and said slower, “I stayed the night.”
“Oh you did?”
“It’s not what you think, Dad. Lil…she told me about the baby.”
The smile on Paul’s face dropped. “Oh, son. I’m sorry.” He laid his hand on Sam’s shoulder and gave him a gentle squeeze. “How’d you take the news?”
“What part? The part where she told me I was going to be a father? I was going to have a baby? Or the part where she told me that I pulled away and gave her space and never came back?”
He watched his dad’s head lower, unable to meet his eyes.
“It's true then?” he questioned. “I left her?”
“Sam,” Paul said, sighing. “You were both hurting. Lil, I don’t know what was going through Lil’s head. I can’t begin to imagine. But you? Yeah.” He nodded. “You pretty much let her grieve on her own.”
“Fuck,” Sam mumbled. His dad finally met his stare and what Sam saw nearly did him in. His dad looked at him, not like a father proud of his son, but of a man who didn’t respect him.
“Did no one try to talk to me? Make me see that the best thing that ever happened to me needed me?”
“We did but…you wouldn’t hear it. You said Lil would come around when she was ready to. You weren’t going to push her. She needed time and so did you. Personally,” his dad added, “I’ve always thought it was a bullshit excuse, one I’m not sure is the whole truth but then again what do I know?”
Sam braced himself for the biggest question of all. The one that he feared knowing the answer to. The one that could honestly, break him at this point.
In a tone barely above a whisper, Sam asked, “Dad? What kind of person am I?”
It felt like minutes passed before Paul answered him. When he did, Sam was thankful his hands were braced on the bathroom sink. Without it, he would have surely fallen at his father’s words.
“Not the kind I raised you to be.”
145
SECOND RATE CHANCES
CHAPTER 21
Lil had to take it slow on the roads on her way home from work, but her heavy foot had other intentions. Sam was waiting for her at their house. At her house, she corrected herself. But still. It was like it used to be. Him arriving home before she did. A date night in the works. She wondered what he had planned. Would he wine and dine her? Take her to their cove down by the river? Or would he settle for a relaxing evening at home? She quickly nixed the relaxing evening idea. She was pumped to get out of the house, to be seen around town with him. Hold his hand, steal kisses as often as she could.
She pulled into her driveway, excited for whatever the night brought on. What would she wear? What would he wear? Had he gone home to change, or better yet, to pack a bag to stay over? Lil was getting ahead of herself in thinking that he wanted to stay the night. Technically he already had. Twice. But, those weren’t premeditated. They just happened. Tonight, however. Tonight they were playing a whole new ballgame.
Slowly so that she didn’t slip – because Heavens knew she didn’t want to end up in the same predicament as Sam – she walked up the few steps that lead to her front door. She opened the door, the urge to call out ‘honey, I’m home’, almost too good to pass up. The words caught in her throat when she saw Sam, leaned against her kitchen bar, his foot crossed in front of the other, doing something on his phone.
He was dressed in a pair of brown trendy loafers – ones Lil couldn’t help but admire on his feet. They might not have been his signature ratty Converse, but they made her think he had put in a real effort to try and impress her tonight.
His shirt was a blue oxford button down, with the first two buttons undone and his white T-shirt peeking out underneath. And his jeans were dark denim, faded from the thigh down just past the knees. Because his hair had gotten a little longer than he was probably used to wearing it now, he had tried to style it with some kind of gel. It had that I-tried-to-make-it-look-messy look. Lil a
pproved.
Sam took that moment to look up from his phone and smile at her as she shut the door behind her. He pushed off the bar and had a swagger in his step as he closed the distance between them. Lil on the other hand, was unable to move. She hoped she had at least closed her gaping mouth.
His grin turned into a smirk that had Lil wanting to spend the whole night in his arms, in bed, doing things that people did in beds. Or couches. Wherever. She wasn’t going to be picky. He undid the buttons of her coat and slipped his hands inside, tugging her closer until his mouth pressed against hers.
Lil had missed this. This feeling of completeness from the man she loved. That wonderful feeling of having someone waiting for you when you came home from a long day at work. To be kissed like she was the most important person in the world.
“Hi,” he whispered against her lips.
“Hi,” Lil repeated, unable to get much else out.
“How long do you need to get ready?”
“Depends. Where are we going?”
Sam helped her out of her jacket and hung it on the hook for her. She laid her purse down on the couch and flopped down, grateful to be home at last. Grateful to be coming home to him.
Sam took a seat next to her, his hand moving gently up and down her thigh.
“When was the last time you went to Rusty’s?” he asked.
Lil thought it was an odd question but she answered none the less. “I don’t know. A while I guess.”
“I thought we’d start there. I know Rusty would love to see you.”
Lil nodded. Rusty’s would work. It was their familiar old stomping grounds. Besides, she’d love to see Rusty herself.
“I hope your dad fixed the plumbing because if not, I’m afraid Rusty’s will be the only place we can go to tonight.”
Sam laughed, his eyes twinkling when he did. “Everything is good to go and he even winterized the pipes for you.”
“He did not!” Lil exclaimed. “Sam, I could have paid him for that.”
Second Rate Chances Page 14