The Makeover_A Modern Love Story

by Nia Forrester

  “What kind of bet?”

  “If he makes it till …” Aidan looked at his watch. “If he makes it till midnight without telling you it’s time to leave, then we go on a real date. Just the two of us. If he asks you to leave before midnight, then we go on two dates.”

  Sam laughed. “Wait. What? I don’t get how you lose with either option.”

  “If he asks you to leave before midnight and you do it, then that tells me I’m going to need at least two dates to get him out of your system.”

  “He’s not in my system,” Sam said. “He’s like a brother.”

  “Cool. So then scratch the bet, and just agree to go out with me.”

  Sam laughed again. “You think you’re slick, don’t you?”

  “Nah. Just determined.”

  “We don’t need the bet,” Sam said. “I’d love to go out with you.”

  Eleven fifty-three p.m.

  That was a respectable time to head home. In just a minute, Colt planned to put the kibosh on this whole night. After fixing her latrine, he should have just posted up at Sam’s and watched ‘Homeland’ or something.

  Watching shows like that with her was as exasperating as it was amusing. She always lost the narrative thread and asked questions that she should have known the answer to if she’d been even half-assed paying attention.

  ‘Wait, who’s Nasim now? Is it that guy who just got blown up, or the curly-haired kid?’

  What made it cute was that she always asked at a volume just below a stage-whisper, like they were in a movie-theater, instead of alone in her living room. And when something exciting looked like it was about to happen, that was always when she decided she had to leave the room.

  ‘Pause it, pause it! I have to refill my glass. You want something?’

  And then there would be an awkward freeze-frame on her television—a partly-exploded car, the main character’s face stuck in a farcical grimace, while Colt rolled his eyes. Then she’d return, settle on the sofa next to him and rest her feet in his lap, asking, ‘Where were we?’ before un-pausing the show.

  Of course, by then, the dramatic effect was lost, and Colt would have to rewind a few minutes’ worth just to get in the spirit once again. On average, it took him ninety minutes to get through an hour-long show when he was watching it with Sam.

  Colt reached for his glass of water and took a long sip. He had laid off the alcohol more than an hour ago, and now was just hoping to piss it all out, so he could be straight for his workout the next morning.

  Next to him, Janelle was still chattering up a storm. And he was dutifully nodding and responding when it seemed like a response was called for. It was funny how he’d never known this about her—that she liked to listen to herself talk. But, why would he have known that? They met in the gym, where conversation was, by necessity, kept to a minimum. And maybe the talking wouldn’t have bothered him as much if the restaurant wasn’t already so doggone loud, and if he wasn’t distracted by Sam and her summer-suit-wearing Casanova down there.

  Sam didn’t know men. She didn’t know game. But Colt did.

  Dude was not the settling-down kind. You could tell by that suit, and his watch. The suit made him look like he was harmless, and that was probably by design. But the watch gave him away—it was showy and expensive, and, Colt believed, probably betrayed his true nature. All sizzle, no steak.

  Colt wore a very sensible 88 Rue Du Rhone himself. Moderately expensive, but only expensive because it was high-quality. Not expensive because it was flashy.

  He couldn’t believe Sam was falling for dude’s bullshit. And he knew she was falling for it because she was down there at the other end of the table, kiki’ing it up with him, in between guzzling from that monster-glass of wine in front of her. By Colt’s count it had been refilled three times. Roughly twelve ounces of wine. And that wasn’t counting whatever she had to drink at Bar One.

  Yeah, it was definitely time to go. He turned to look directly at Janelle for the first time in maybe a half-hour.

  “Excuse me,” he said before pushing back from his seat.

  Maybe this was why she and Colt didn’t go out to bars together more often.

  Sam watched as he turned away from his lady-friend and began making his way toward her end of the table. There was no point making a scene about it. Colton was the stubbornest man she knew, so now that he’d decided they were leaving, that was it. They were leaving. He didn’t even have to speak. She could see his intention in his eyes.

  “What’d I tell you?” Aidan said, just before Colt got to them. “Eleven fifty-seven.”

  “You ready?”

  Colt was standing over her now; and wasn’t even looking at Sam but just past her, over her shoulder. His posture was one of impatience, as though they were late for an appointment, and it was entirely her fault.

  “Sure. Let me just …” Sam gathered up her phone and reached down into her purse. “I should go to the ladies’ room first, and ...” She fumbled for some bills to pay her share of the food, and rounds the table had ordered.

  “No worries, Samantha,” Aidan said. “I’ve got you.”

  At that, Colt reached for his back pocket, took out his wallet and produced three crisp hundreds, dropping them on the table.

  At that, everyone else looked up and started paying attention.

  “You guys leaving already?” Janelle’s friend said. She glanced significantly at Janelle, now alone at the end of the table.

  “Yeah,” Sam said, making herself sound regretful. “I have spin class in the morning and …” Her voice trailed off.

  Janelle met her gaze evenly with a flat-eyed stare, then a completely unconvincing smile.

  “Thanks, man!” Aidan’s cousin said, indicating the bills Colton had dropped.

  Aidan smirked. “Yeah. Thank you,” he said. But his tone was dry. “That’s really generous.”

  “Y’all have a good night,” Colt said, looking at Sam.

  She wanted to remind him that she needed to go to the bathroom, but seeing his eyes, thought better of it.

  Instead, she smiled at Aidan. “Thanks for a fun night. I guess we …”

  “I got your number,” Aidan said, nodding. “I’m sure we’ll connect again.”

  As she and Colt walked away, his hand on her back, Sam heard Aidan’s voice, too loud to have been intended only for the table.

  “Colton. What kind of name is that for Black man?”

  Sam felt a hitch in Colt’s step but then he was steering her forward again, and out into the spring evening.

  ~ Three ~

  Colton waited while Sam changed, and listened to the sound of the bathroom faucet upstairs. She was probably washing off the makeup. Good riddance. He didn’t like it when she wore all that stuff. Not that she didn’t look good. Of course she did. She just didn’t look like the Sam of his memories and imagination.

  In his head, she was forever fifteen, wearing cutoff denim shorts and a baby-tee, barefoot with chipped bubble-gum pink nail polish, and helping him wash his father’s car on a summer afternoon. Her face was always flushed from the heat and she was smiling, her feet bare, her hair standing up and around her head, a mass of sweated-out perm. By the time she was seventeen, she had stopped perming it altogether, which Colt preferred.

  Wanting to take a leak, Colt stood and instinctively headed for the powder room before he remembered that he’d emptied the bowl and turned off the water supply. He turned and headed up to the second level, where, on the landing between the master and guest bedrooms he paused and glanced into the master suite. One of Sam’s mirrored closet doors was open and he could see the reflection, of her standing at her sink, washing her face.

  Bent forward, Sam had both hands on her face, making a rich lather. She had shed the jeans she wore to the bar, and the high heels. Now, she was wearing only a flimsy top and her underwear. Her legs were long, toned and solid and she had a small waist but wide hips.

  Colt felt a tug in the front of
his jeans and swallowed, continuing down the hall.

  While he relieved himself, he also talked himself down.

  So what, he’d gotten a semi while looking at a half-naked ass? So what if that ass belonged to his best friend? Sam had always taken good care of herself, mostly because he used to drag her to workouts and to run with him. She never loved it like he did, but she considered fitness essential.

  No doubt, it had something to do with how her father, Uncle Tony, had died. He wasn’t Colt’s blood-uncle obviously, but he’d been like a second father to him. When he died, obese and diabetic, a couple years ago, Uncle Tony was just shy of sixty-years-old. Sam’s paternal side of the family was from way down in the southernmost part of Virginia, and Uncle Tony had lived hard, just like his kin. Hardworking, hard-drinking, and overeating themselves to an early grave.

  Colt had missed a game in the middle of the season to come back to support Sam, her sister Leah, and her mother through the funeral. He’d been there, always at Sam’s side, holding her arm, to make sure she stayed upright.

  That was the kind of relationship they had.

  So, he had no cause to be looking at her with lust in his heart. More than likely, it was residual sexual frustration from having not gone home with Janelle.

  He had just about convinced himself of that when, after he finished, washed his hands and made it back downstairs, he saw that Sam had pulled on black leggings. Standing with her back to him at her kitchen counter, she was pouring a glass of wine. From behind, she looked almost as good in those leggings as she had in just the panties.

  “Hey,” she said, turning when she heard him approach. “Want one?” She held the glass aloft.

  “Nah. I gotta drive back in a few.”

  “True.” Sam took a long swallow and headed for the living room.

  Colt followed, feeling inexplicably heavy-footed. Like he hadn’t been here a million times before. Like he didn’t routinely fall asleep on her sofa in the middle of a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, and drool on her sofa cushions.

  “So,” Sam began. She had taken her favorite spot in her large brown suede armchair that had seen better days, and curled her legs beneath her. “What was all the cock-blocking about?”

  Colt almost tripped over the coffee table, before sinking onto the sofa. “What?”

  “I wanted to stay, Colton. And you just barged into my conversation and …”

  “Wait. Hold up. When you say cock-blockin’ you mean you were about to go home with that nigga?”

  “Don’t say that word.” Sam closed her eyes and shook her head. “You know I hate it when you use that word.”

  “Okay, fine. Lemme rephrase that. You were about to go home with that knocka? That clown. That …”

  “I get your point. And probably not, but you didn’t know that! What if I were to come up to you and Bambi and drag on your shirttail and mess things up for you?”

  “I wouldn’t have thought about it that way. If you wanted to jet, that would be the move. Plain and simple.”

  Sam shook her head again, clearly disbelieving.

  “But let’s get back to this whole cock-blockin’ comment. I mean, you do that shit, Sam?” He leaned forward. “Meet dudes in bars and then just … what? Let them …” He broke off, finding himself unable to even voice the thought let alone imagine the pictures that went along with it.

  “I have … experiences,” she said vaguely, not meeting his gaze. “I mean, I’ve done some things. Haven’t you? I mean, I know you have.”

  “It’s different.”

  “How’s it different, Sir Sexist?”

  “If I go home with a woman, I don’t worry about my safety. I don’t worry that she might overpower me, rape me and then slit my damn throat in the middle of the night.”

  Sam pulled back. “God. Graphic much?”

  “Because that’s the kind of shit that happens out here. To dumb-ass chicks who meet strangers in bars and take them home.”

  “Why’re you getting so heated? It’s not like I’m a virgin.”

  “I know. But I …” He stopped.

  But he just didn’t think about it. The idea of Sam having actual, real-ass sex with some dude, the idea of her fucking some dude, he had avoided by not thinking about it. It was like a literal black hole in his consciousness—a sensory deprivation chamber, thankfully devoid of sight, sound, and everything else.

  In college, she lost her virginity to some kid in one of her study groups. A nerdy dude who wore khakis and top-siders. When she told him—or rather when he pried it out of her—Sam hadn’t given any details, thank God, other than that she had finally “done it.” He’d seen the difference in her for weeks; a new awareness of her body, and sensuality in her movement. The kinds of changes that happen when a woman discovers her sexual power.

  Colt remembered going out and shooting hoops till he was exhausted, and then calling a girl, whose name he didn’t even remember now, to come over so he could exhaust himself another way. He remembered eyeing the dude Sam told him she’d slept with and considering backing him up and telling him to leave her alone, except that everything he might say would be such a cliché: ‘you leave her alone, she’s a nice girl,’ or ‘you better not hurt her, or I’ll kick your ass.’

  None of that seemed to apply, because he saw Sam with dude, and how he treated her like a queen. If he treated her right, then Colt had no cause to complain.

  And if they were having sex, well … Colt would just not think about that part.

  That had been his habit since, when men would enter and leave Sam’s life. And it was easy most of the time, because he wasn’t around for much of it, and the men were always temporary. There had been the one knucklehead who had lasted almost two years. Some dude she didn’t talk about much, who’d been around during Colt’s rookie year.

  Other than that, if there were men in Sam’s life, they were like ghosts, a series of names that meant little: Eric, Jeff, Daniel, Jerome … whatever. Dudes who remained vague and whose stints in Sam’s life were briefer than the length of a basketball season.

  “I mean … how many dudes we talkin’ ‘bout?” he asked now.

  “How many women have you slept with?” Sam challenged. “And if you say it’s not the same, I will throw this wineglass at your head.”

  “Well it’s not.” He sat back again. “But for real. How many?”

  Sam stared at him. She downed the rest of her wine, and her eyes seemed to pierce right into his, behind his, and deep into his confused mind. She chewed on the corner of her bottom lip.

  “Colton.” Her voice was quiet, and her expression suddenly solemn.

  “What?”

  “If I ask you something, will you promise to tell me the truth?”

  “Of course. Always.”

  “Okay, but this time you might be tempted not to. So, I want you to promise.”

  He shrugged. “I promise.”

  “Were you …” She looked down at her lap then up at him again. “Tonight, when you saw me with Aidan …”

  “Was that his name? The joker with the ugly-ass watch?”

  “Colton.”

  “Okay, go ahead. Was I what?”

  “Jealous.”

  Colt blinked and swallowed back the instinctive denial.

  Fuck it.

  “Yeah,” he said, finally, looking off to an area just above her head. “Little bit.”

  Sam stood and came toward him.

  Colt froze when she stopped, standing between his legs. She straddled him. Her knees on either side of his thighs. She lowered her weight, so she was on his lap.

  “Sam.”

  “What?”

  “We can’t …”

  “I was jealous too,” she said, talking over him, her words tumbling forward in a rush.

  Colt looked up at her and she gave a little one-shouldered shrug.

  His looking up gave her the opening she seemed to be looking for, because before Colt knew what was going on, Sam
had cupped his face in both her hands and was kissing him. She tasted like wine and her skin had the vaguest scent of flowers.

  Colt’s hands went up as well, gripping and anchoring themselves in her hair. And so help him, he kissed her back.

  It was now, or never.

  Upstairs, while washing her face, she’d seen him. Through the soap and the water on her face, she’d spotted Colt on the landing through the bathroom mirror. He was looking at her in a way Sam had never seen him look at her before. With longing.

  It should have come as a surprise to her, because Colt was like a brother. Or at least that was what they said aloud to other people. But really, he never had been anything close to that platonic. Not to her. For her, at least, the ‘like a brother’ story was a line, and a lie. He was her best friend, but always, beneath the surface, he was something more.

  It was the ‘more’ that always tripped her up, because they had never touched each other intimately, never kissed in any way other than as close friends. They hugged all the time, she kissed him on the cheek and he on her forehead. They snuggled sometimes on the sofa, and she rested her head on his lap while they watched movies. He’d tickled her, roughhoused with her, and even carried her over his shoulder once or twice as a joke.

  But for Sam there had always been something else, timid and hiding deep inside her, waiting, and wondering what would happen if she did what she had just done.

  What happened was, Colt kissed her back. Without a second of hesitation, he kissed her back.

  And after untangling themselves from her hair, his hands fell lower, and gripped her ass. He pulled her tightly against him, and Sam pressed down into his erection, making slight undulations until Colt groaned into her mouth, like a rebuke.

  His tongue was hot, and smooth, and tasted like alcohol, and spearmint. His facial hair grazed her skin, and his lips moved expertly, manipulating, teasing and tasting hers. There was no awkwardness, or shifting around, no trying to read each other’s wants and needs. They both just seemed to know.

  Sam reached down and slid her hands under his shirt, waiting to see whether he would object. But he didn’t. Instead, Colt nipped her lower lip. She smiled and he made a sound not unlike a growl, shoving her top up and out of the way, and leaning forward to take one of her nipples in his mouth. He rolled it over his tongue, licked and nipped at it, while his hand palmed her other breast, his thumb mimicking the motions of his mouth.