by Laura Clark
"So what are you two bickering about?" Sam bounces over the love seat, the same way Kyle did earlier.
His wavy, blond hair is slightly gelled in that perfectly messy kind of way. He is wearing a slightly fitted black polo, which perfectly hugs every muscle in his chest and arms. My eyes quickly scan down his chest, before I force myself to look away. I catch a wave of his cologne and it is driving me crazy. He looks incredible, as usual.
I sigh, once again thinking about all of the pretty college girls who will be thinking the exact same thing tonight. I wish I could go with them to this party. There is no way Kyle would ever invite me, though. I'm still shocked he hung out with us last night. Regardless, Sam and Kyle think I have plans. I need to keep up my charade.
"I'm just trying to warn lil sis about what creeps guys can be, and how she needs to be careful."
Sam shifts uncomfortably in his seat. He is, no doubt, thinking about how he is one of those creeps. Sam won't even look at me now, which irritates me. Thank you, Kyle.
"Yeah. You need to listen to your brother, lil sis," he adds, as if it were more out of obligation than anything else.
"I'm a big girl. I think I can handle it," I retort.
Sam's eyes wander over to me. He flashes me a quick, discreet smile, as if to silently say, "I only said it to benefit him." I nod slightly, returning the smile, to let him know that I understand.
"Have you seen my iPhone? I thought I left it right here on the coffee table," Kyle says in an annoyed tone. He is moving around magazines and turning up couch cushions frantically.
"Maybe it's downstairs," Sam suggests casually.
Kyle shakes his head.
"Are you sure you didn't leave it upstairs in your room?"
Kyle looks at Sam like he just gave him the best idea, and dashes up the stairs.
On his way to the kitchen, Sam walks by the sofa where I'm sitting. He leans in behind me to whisper in my ear softly, "You look nice." This, of course, gets my heart pumping so fast that I can't sit still.
After a few minutes, Kyle returns empty-handed. He looks around the family room and kitchen. He is mostly checking the same places he checked before. It's funny how you tend to do that when you are looking for something you lose. It's as if your beloved object will somehow magically appear the third or fourth time you look in that same spot.
After combing through the family room yet again, he disappears to the basement. Sam is still rummaging around in the refrigerator. I decide it is my perfect opportunity to show him how nice I really do look.
I walk into the kitchen, sneak behind Sam, and reach around him to grab another drink out of the fridge. I certainly don't need another one, since my full bottle is still sitting on the side table in the other room, but I need an excuse to be in the kitchen. I purposely do this very slowly, making sure to distract Sam during his quest for whatever it is he is looking for.
He takes a deep breath and turns his head slightly, so his nose is almost touching my neck. I love that I can distract him so easily.
"I can't find the damned thing anywhere. I swear I left it right there, on the coffee table." Kyle's frustrated tone startles us, causing me to jump back, and pull away from Sam suddenly.
This is probably not the best move because it makes us appear guilty. Luckily, Kyle is so worked up about not being able to find his stupid phone, he doesn't even notice. He is just pacing back and forth, running his hands through his hair, as if it will help jog his memory.
"Did you check your car?" I ask, trying to keep Kyle focused on his phone.
My cheeks have got to be flushed, but Kyle doesn't notice this time. I suppose I did just have my head stuck in the refrigerator. He doesn't respond to my suggestion, but I know he is looking, because I hear his keys rattling in his hand, and then the front door slams. How anyone can get so riled about losing his phone is beyond me.
"You are being very dangerous, young lady." Sam warns me in a playful tone.
"Me? Was that not your lips that were about to kiss my neck?" I ask in an equally flirtatious way.
Sam squints his eyes at me and tilts his head to the side, as if he is crafting the perfect response. A sexy, almost devious, lopsided grin spreads across his face, making my heart instantly sputter.
"You should not be taunting me like that. You know I can't resist you when you are wearing that vanilla scent." He crosses his arms over his chest, making his shirt hug his muscles perfectly.
I love how he is pretending to lecture me. It makes me feel like a naughty schoolgirl getting in trouble with her super young, super hot teacher. I cock my head to the side, trying to picture Sam with glasses on. I wonder what he would think if I was wearing a short, plaid skirt right now.
The sound of Kyle slamming the front door rudely interrupts my fantasy. Sam appears to be having his own daydream because he is just staring at me with an amused expression on his face.
OMG. Does he know what I was just thinking about? I am flooded with embarrassment, but I remind myself that no matter how much it may seem like it, he can't actually read my mind.
"Laila, give me your phone. I'm going to call mine to see if I can find it."
I'm surprised he waited this long to do that. Isn't that the first thing you're supposed to do when you lose your phone? I probably would have even suggested it earlier, had I not been so preoccupied with Sam.
"It's in my purse on the table," I say, while nodding my head in that direction. Kyle picks my purse up and hands it to me, as if he would get some sort of disease if he actually reached inside to get my phone out.
"Really, Kyle? Is my purse really that scary?" I ask sarcastically.
He shrugs. "I don't like rooting around in women’s purses. You girls have private things in there that are none of my business." He looks away, as if he is embarrassed.
"You mean like Tampons?" I hold up a Tampon to emphasize just how ridiculous he is being. I immediately regret my dramatic protest when I realize that Sam is probably just as horrified as Kyle. I glance around the room, but Sam has disappeared. I sigh with relief, while shoving my Tampon back safely into my handbag.
"There's that and there could be . . . other stuff in there. Look, it's just better if I just don't know, okay?" Kyle truly looks uncomfortable. He won't even look me in the eye when I hand him my phone.
That's when I realize he is probably talking about condoms. Does he really think I'm carrying condoms around in my purse? Even worse, does he think I'm having sex? Geez. I know my shirt is sexy, but I don't think that I look like a slut.
Kyle shakes his head, and walks away with my phone. After about five minutes, he returns, and slides my phone across the counter to me. "There is no way it's here. My ringer is so loud, you'd hear it upstairs if it was ringing."
He's right about that. His ring tone is loud and obnoxious. It plays the Black Eyed Peas old hit "Let's Get It Started", which is a song that I used to love, before it became my brother's ring tone.
Sam strolls back into the kitchen casually, and pops his head into the refrigerator again. I guess he was so distracted before that he didn't find what he was looking for. Finally, he emerges with a bottle of Blue Moon in his hand. This gives me an idea. I grab an orange out of the bottom drawer in the refrigerator. I throw it up into the air and catch it, while smiling playfully at him.
"Orange?" I ask, while leaning back against the counter, cradling the orange as if it were a prize.
A smile creeps on his face as he nods. I watch him sit down on the bar stool, making sure his eyes are locked on me, before I turn around. I reach up into the cabinet to grab the knife and cutting board. I am exaggerating my reach on purpose, making sure the flaps on my shirt are opening just enough for him to get a glimpse.
After a few minutes, Kyle comes over and gently shoves me aside. "For crying out loud, Laila. Get a chair or ask for help." He reaches up into the cabinet, and easily retrieves the knife and cutting board for me. He sets them down before heading toward the back do
or.
"I'm going to run up to the driving range to see if I left my phone there. I'll be back. If anyone calls the home phone, just let them know I can't find my cell. Just give them your number, okay lil sis?" On his way out, he picks up my cell phone and stuffs it into his pocket.
"Eye-eye, captain." I salute him. I consider bitching about him taking my phone without asking, but decide to let it go. I'm not really expecting any calls, and I'm not going anywhere tonight anyway. I wonder if he is expecting a call from that girl, Georgia. He must be expecting a call from somebody, because I've never seen him so worked up about something so stupid as misplacing his phone.
"Are you staying behind?" Kyle asks Sam, before shutting the door completely.
"Yeah. I just opened a beer." He holds it up in the air to show Kyle. "I might as well finish it while it's still cold." Sam sounds indifferent, as if the only reason he isn't going with Kyle is because of the beer.
Yeah, right. I swear that the second the front door closes, Sam jumps out of his chair. I still have my back turned to him, as I cut the orange into tiny wedges. I can feel his body inching closer. He wraps his left arm around my waist, spreading his hand across my belly, and pulls me back against his chest. He runs his other hand up my bare arm slowly, making me shiver.
"Cold?" he asks, while burying his nose against my neck. I just shake my head. Apparently, my voice doesn't work when he is this close to me. "Don't mind me. I'm just waiting for my orange," he says with feigned innocence, while kissing my neck.
He is making it increasingly difficult to cut the last couple of pieces. I somehow manage to slice them all without cutting any fingers off. Although, I’m convinced I wouldn't feel any pain even if I did. Sam's like my very own anesthesia. His lips make my whole body tingle, while my head floats away into a lovely fog.
I turn around to face him, holding an orange slice gingerly in my hand. "Where is your beer?" I ask.
"What beer?" he asks in a joking way.
I gently push him back against the counter, and reach into the freezer to get a frosted pint glass out. I squeeze the orange and drop it inside. Sam watches me as I reach around him to snatch his beer off the counter. I pour it into the frosted cup, the same way I've seen my dad do it a million times.
"Here you go. Orange slice and all." I hand him the glass, but he just sets it on the counter, as if it is the most insignificant thing in the world.
"I thought you stayed behind just so you could drink your beer. You know, so it doesn't get warm?" I say playfully, while folding my arms across my chest.
"I can assure you, my conspiracy was not about getting my beer alone in this house." His arms are wrapped around my waist again. He keeps slipping his thumb inside the slit of my shirt, and is running the pad of it across my bare skin on my lower back. It is driving me absolutely crazy.
I almost didn't catch what he had said. "Conspiracy?" I ask, my voice cracking a little.
Sam shakes his head, and chuckles in that I know, but I'm not sure if I'm going to tell you because it is so much more fun to hold it over your head kind of way. I tighten my grip on my arms, and hold them firmly in place across my chest, in order to keep him from getting any closer.
"Fine. You win," he says in a defeated tone. He takes his phone out of his pocket and starts waving it in front of me.
"Is this some sort of Morse Code, where if you wave your phone around in a certain way, it's supposed to communicate some sort of top secret message?" I ask sarcastically.
When I look a little closer, I notice the outside of the hard-shell case has a St. Louis Cardinals baseball logo on it. It is the exact same kind of case that Kyle has on his phone.
"Wait a second." I snatch the phone out of his hand. "You hid my brother's phone just so you could be alone with me for a little bit?"
"I know. It's genius, right?" He has a smug look on his face and is beaming with pride. "And it won't be just a little bit. It takes exactly twenty-five minutes to get to the range, and then another five minutes to the course. Even if he spends no time at all looking for it, he will not be back for at least another fifty-five minutes." He wiggles his eyes suggestively, as he unwraps my arms from across my chest, and pulls me closer to him. "I can think of a lot of things we can do in fifty-five minutes."
I roll my eyes. "Yeah, I bet you can." My tone may be sarcastic, but I can't help but smile, knowing that he devised this whole plan just to be alone with me. He isn't even thinking about the fact that they are probably going to be late for their party now.
"How do you know I'll be here for the next fifty-five minutes?" I ask in a teasing way.
"I don't, but I'll take what I can get. Plus, he took your cell phone. Aren't you going to need that tonight?"
I laugh at him and nod. I certainly would, if I were actually going somewhere. "You do know that my brother is going to kill you when he finds out you did this, don't you?"
He has a devious little smile on his face that sends chills down my arms. "Why would he kill moi when the silly phone was buried in the couch cushions?" Sam grabs the phone back from me. "I think he really needs to get his eyes checked because it was right here, the whole time."
He clicks the switch on the side of the phone, to turn the ringer back on. That's when I realize he had slipped away, right about the same time that Kyle was calling himself on my cell phone. How very sneaky of him.
"You must have been shaking in your boots when Kyle called his phone.”
"Yeah, I had to adjust, but when you're badass like me, you think pretty quick on your feet. I slipped into the bathroom and turned the ringer off, just in time. I swear the damned thing buzzed right after I flicked the switch." He pauses for a moment. "It really was a pretty simple plan, though," he says with a satisfied smile on his face.
I laugh to myself because he sounds like the bad guys at the end of an episode of Scooby Doo. They would explain how they almost got away with their evil plot, had Scooby and the gang not ruined everything.
"We should probably call him, to let him know we found his phone . . . in the couch cushions,” I add sarcastically. “I would feel bad if he spent the whole night looking for it."
"You're probably right. I didn't expect him to get so upset about losing his stupid phone in the first place. I guess he's got it pretty bad for Georgia."
"Yeah, it sounds like he kind of does."
"Hey, can we let him sweat it out just a little longer?" he asks.
I am still staring at him, the way a scolding parent would.
"Please?" he whines. "I finally have you all to myself. Plus, he's probably almost to the range by now. I'll call in about ten minutes, okay?"
I nod reluctantly. I must admit that he's pretty cute when he begs. "Okay fine, but you just assumed that I'd want to make out with you the whole time while he is gone?" I walk back into the family room with my full, unopened drink. I eye my other drink that is probably warm by now. I'm not even sure I want anything to drink tonight.
An old re-run of The Facts of Life is on now. This must be some sort of ’80s sitcom marathon. Sam doesn't follow me at first. This makes me a little nervous because I was only teasing him. What if he thinks I am seriously pissed at him?
He takes his time, but he does eventually make his way back into the family room, now carrying his beer. He looks nervous. An uneasy feeling settles into my stomach. I am unsure what to do. I could just tell him I was only joking, but for some reason I don't. I just sit there, completely frozen, as I wait for him to say or do something.
"I went ahead and called Kyle. He was pretty relieved. He wanted to know if Georgia had called." He looks down at the phone. "She called twice. I don't really know what's going on between the two of them, but it's definitely something."
He is keeping his distance from me, and his voice is a little shaky. This is a completely different side to Sam that I've never seen. His eyes are so big and hopeful that if they could speak, I'm pretty sure they would be apologizing right now.
I smile to let him know that I'm not holding any grudges. "Well, then you better get over here because according to your calculations, he's going to be home in less than twenty-five minutes," I say, pretending to examine the non-existent watch on my wrist.
I've never seen him look so relieved. He immediately settles down onto the couch next to me, and carefully stretches his arm behind me. I scoot my body closer and rest my head gently on his shoulder. We sit here quietly for a few minutes staring at the television.
He is not making any attempts to kiss me. I'm kicking myself for letting him think I was actually mad at him, because now, he seems extra cautious. I don't want him to be cautious. I want him to be dangerous. Like a drug, I am already craving his kiss, even though we only started kissing each other yesterday. Who knew that I would enjoy kissing this much after the whole Ricky Schrater fiasco?
He starts playing with my hair, twirling it around his fingers, as we watch Jo and Blaire get into some sort of disagreement on the show. Blair turns away from Jo and crosses her arms. She looks furious, but Jo smiles, and the audience is cracking up. It's funny how all of the comedies used to have laugh tracks. It's almost like the producers thought the viewers were so dumb that we wouldn't know when we are supposed to laugh.
Sam leans down closer to my shoulder. "You smell so good, Laila. You always smell so good, like a vanilla cookie." He nuzzles my neck playfully with his nose, and moans as if he is actually eating a delicious cookie.
I decide that I can no longer stand it. So, I boldly press my lips against his, to let him know that I'm not mad at him. He hesitates for a second, but eventually his lips relax. He's very careful not to get carried away, though. This is probably a good thing, considering my brother will be walking through the door any minute now.