by Amelia Wilde
A smile flickers across Sam’s face, then disappears. “I have a job here.” Her forehead wrinkles and she shakes her head a little bit, like they weren’t the right words.
My stomach drops right into my damn feet. This cannot be happening. I can’t come to work every day knowing that she’s somewhere inside this building. I can’t live in Lockton if I know she could be waiting in every store, every bar, the sight of her enough to shred my heart into a thousand pieces.
“You’re kidding.”
Sam takes in a deep breath. “That was—that’s not really what I meant.”
“What did you mean? Tell me fast, Sam.” I hate this. I hate how much she’s making me lose control. I hate how much power the memories still have over me. I hate the fact that I can’t kiss her right now, and that’s the thing that makes me the most furious I’ve ever been.
“I’m here for a job with my landscape architecture company,” she says, the words tumbling out one after another. “We—we got a contract. For the entrance and the front parking lot. We’re redesigning it, and I—” The breath she lets out hitches just a little, and it slams me with the memory of making her breath hitch like that years ago, when we were wrapped around each other in bed, and she was riding me like there was no tomorrow.
“So you don’t work here.”
“Not—technically. Just for the next week.”
The knot in my stomach releases, but a more fucking unsettling feeling rises in my chest, a pinprick of light, a hope that has no business being there, but one that I can’t stamp out. Not now. Not when I’m looking her in the eye.
I can handle her being here for a week.
I can’t let myself think about what might happen if we run into each other again, if this feeling is as powerful for her as it is for me. It’s pathetic as fuck, being swept away like this, and every cell in my body is fighting it and giving in at the same time.
“That’s great.”
Sam flinches a little, like she can’t read my tone, and if I’m being totally fucking honest, I don’t know what I mean by it, either.
“Yeah.” Disappointment drips off the words, but she forces a smile onto her face. It kills me. It kills me and I’m still standing, still having to live with it. “It’s a really big deal for the company.” The last few words come with a small series of nods, totally unconvincing. A company. She’s with a company, with a real job, representing them here, and I’m the asshole in the hallway who just got off his shift on the factory floor.
It’s exactly what I fucking deserve, even if I can see the confusion behind the blue of her eyes. Yeah, I graduated from college. But after what I did, there was no way in hell I was going to go off and make some cushy life for myself.
At least Sam hasn’t let it hold her back.
My heart punches against my ribs, the whole thing a painful bruise. I could be with her now, except—
“I have to get going.”
Sam blinks up at me, her gorgeous lips parting, and then she presses them together again. “Yeah, of course.” She tries again with that smile. “It was good to see you, Beck.”
“You—” My throat is threatening to close up. I can’t fucking take it. So I step around her and start to walk away. “You, too,” I call over my shoulder, as I leave her behind for the second time.
Chapter Seven
Samantha
It’s like his leaving has flooded the hallway with air and sucked all of it out at the same time. I can breathe again, but my chest goes tight with his absence, with the possibility that this could happen again. I’m here for a week—what’s to say he won’t come through here again just as I’m leaving Mr. Calley’s office?
He won’t, says a small voice inside my head. Being that close to him was like sticking my hands into a fire. I can’t imagine it was any easier for Beck. The look on his face when he said it was over…
“Samantha?”
The voice comes from halfway down the hall, a head poking out of one of the other glassed-in office suites. From this angle, I can’t quite place the face, but the tumble of red hair, the on-trend glasses…
“Missy?”
“Oh, my God, it is you!”
The business-casual-clad person that bursts out of the office and comes scampering down the hall in matching pumps is a far cry from the Missy Calloway I used to know in high school. We were best friends for most of middle school and half of high school, and in all that time, I never knew her to dress up without a fight. She was the kind of girl who wore ripped leather pants to the homecoming dance and never cared what anyone thought.
She runs into me at almost full speed, throwing her arms around my neck. “Missy, how are you? I can’t believe—”
“I can’t believe you’re here!”
“I can’t believe it’s been so long!”
“How long has it been?” Missy pulls back to look at me, taking in my outfit with a glance. “You look so professional. So together.”
I give her a similar appraisal and a smile. “So do you. Since when do you buy skirt sets and pumps?”
She gives me a sheepish grin. “Since I got promoted to manager for the financial department. They only like us to wear denim on casual Friday.”
“Well, never let them change your hair.” The red curls are barely contained by what looks like the thickest hair tie you can buy, but somehow the mess looks gorgeous on her.
“I would never.” Missy shakes her head a little. “I heard voices in the hallway, and I swore one of them was yours. Who were you talking to? Are you lost in here?”
“No,” I say with a laugh that feels at least half genuine. “I’m here representing my landscape architecture firm. We’re going to be redesigning the front entrance and the parking lot.”
Missy’s mouth curves into a little O. “You’re with those people. Nice.” Then she purses her lips. “I can’t say I’m excited for construction on my way to the office, but that dirt road…”
“When I’m done with it, it’s going to be amazing.” We both laugh at that one. “I was just meeting with Mr. Calley about all sorts of possible changes. He has a lot of ideas!”
“Yes, he does,” Missy says with a meaningful look. This isn’t really a conversation we can have in the hallway right outside his office.
I crane my neck around her. “Do you have to get back? I lost track of time in there.”
“It’s after four!” Missy laughs. “I’m here until five, but let me at least walk you out to your car.”
She leads the way out of the hallway and through the lobby. Outside, I take a deep breath of the light September air. It’s still warm out, and I feel some of the tension release from my shoulders. My head is still spinning from the meeting with Calley…but more so, that smoldering run-in with Beck.
“Now that we’re outside—” Missy says, glancing over her shoulder one more time. “How did it go?”
For a moment, I think she’s talking about the conversation with Beck. “It was…something else.” We’re level with my blue Ford Focus. “This is me.”
“He didn’t come on to you, did he?”
Okay, this is not about Beck. Just being in his presence was enough of a come-on, even if it was more of a fight. I don’t know. I still can’t think through it.
“Mr. Calley?”
She gives me a nod, searching my eyes.
“No, I—” I can feel my forehead wrinkling. I’m trying to go over the meeting in my head, but it was so long that the details seem blurred. And, naturally, I wasn’t taking notes about Calley’s demeanor, just the laundry list of adjustments and changes he wants to make to the plans. “There were a few other people in there. We just talked about the plans.”
“Good.” Missy checks her watch. “I should get back inside, but it’s great to see you, Sam!” She pulls me in for another hug. It’s awesome to see her. I never expected to run into her here. But then, I never expected to run into Beck here, either.
Missy pulls away and tu
rns back toward the building, then spins back to face me. “Do you have plans for tonight?”
“Oh, I was just thinking I would go to my hotel and—”
“No way.” Missy grins at me, her eyes sparkling. “We have to have dinner. Maybe a few drinks. It’s been way too long to leave it like this. I want to know everything that’s happened to you since high school!”
I shake my head, laughing. “You don’t. Trust me, you don’t.” The smile on my face starts to slip a little. I don’t even want to remember everything that’s happened to me since high school, and seeing Beck is already stirring up enough of the memories I’d rather forget.
“I’ll pick you up at your hotel at eight. Where are you staying?”
“The Holiday Inn Express. Is there anywhere else in Lockton?”
“Good point. I mean, you could stay in one of the bed-and-breakfasts…”
We both burst out laughing at that one. It’s not that the B & Bs in Lockton aren’t nice, it’s just that most of them are owned by parents of old classmates, and I don’t know anybody who wants to deal with that. “All right. You win. I was just going to relax with something crappy on TV, but you’re just too good to pass up, Missy.”
She gives me a grin that reminds me of her high school self. “You’re damn right. See you at eight.”
Chapter Eight
Beckett
“What the hell was with Jacobs today?” Kirk Harris shouts at me over the din at O’Malley’s, his hand wrapped around what must be his third beer since we got here. I hate beer, but it’s cheaper than anything else, and I can drink it for a lot longer before I get stupid. Plus, on Friday night, the lines between everybody’s tab starts to blur, and I’d rather be on the hook for beer instead of some shit like Manhattans.
I take another swig of my own beer and shake my head. “Bad day, I guess.”
“He looked like a fucking sheet.”
“Left his lock-out on a catwalk.”
Kirk slaps his hand down on the table. “I tell you what, he has to get his shit together.” His eyes are bright with the drink, but his voice is barely competing with everybody else’s.
“Don’t tell me, tell him.”
“I will, damn it. I will.”
I give Kirk as much of a smile as I can work up. I’m finally feeling buzzed for the first time tonight, but something about the scene here is dull, lacking the usual vibrance that being drunk gives a place like O’Malley’s.
I never wanted to be back here.
This is the bar that everybody went to back in high school, since the guy at the door was a pushover and they cared more about selling beer than being law-abiding citizens. There’s new management now, but the decor is still the same—All-American tchotchkes pasted over the walls, the worn bar top with years’ worth of drink spills worked into the wood, the worn-out vinyl covering the cushions on the booths.
It’s fine as the kind of place you visit when you come home for the fucking holidays. It doesn’t have the same sheen when it’s just the place you go to on Friday night in your damn adult life.
I didn’t feel this way last Friday.
I felt fine about it. Fine as hell. What more does a person like me deserve, anyway? Nothing. Nothing more than a dive like O’Malley’s, with a bunch of guys who are fine, they’re all fine people, but most of them never left Lockton and most of them don’t care.
I drain the rest of the beer. This is all because of Sam. I can’t fucking believe I ran into her today. Seeing her was like seeing the sun for the first time in years. She made that hallway look like a palace, just by standing in it. And now that she’s not right in front of me, everything is colorless, bloodless, worthless.
The conversation from the table washes over me. I don’t hear a word anyone else is saying—it’s probably a bunch of raunchy shit about the women in the bar—and my attention is elsewhere.
I’m trying to find a substitute.
The women at O’Malley’s tonight are dressed up like it doesn’t matter who’s here, even though they’re standing up tall in high heels, drinks in hand, trying to make it look like they’re not scanning the crowd for the kind of guy they’re never going to find here.
I need someone to take the edge off.
I’m not proud of it. It makes my stomach turn to think about putting my hands on anybody but Sam, only if I don’t do something, my head is going to explode. Other parts might follow suit.
A blonde over by the old-fashioned jukebox looks promising until she turns around, and I see that it’s a girl named Denise. Worse, she catches me looking and shoots me a poison glare across the bar. Denise liked me until a couple months ago, when I went home with her. She turned out to want more than a one-night stand, but I was upfront as hell about what I was looking for, which was a quick fuck, no strings attached. She leans over and whispers something to the brunette next to her. Okay. That’s a dead end.
There are quite a few women here tonight, but my eyes flick over all of them without really catching on anything. All I can think about is Sam’s legs in those tailored slacks, her breasts rising and falling underneath the blue top, the way the ugly fluorescent lights in the hallway caught her eyes and reflected something incredible.
I rub a hand over my eyes. “I’m going to go get another beer.”
“Get one for me, too, man.” I give Kirk a sarcastic salute and stand up from the stool I’ve been occupying. Maybe someone will turn up on the way to the bar.
It doesn’t happen.
I shove my way to the front and get two more beers from the bartender, Scotty, who also has never left Lockton for any substantial amount of time and is perfectly happy to get old behind the damn bar.
I don’t want any more beer. I want to get the hell out of here, with someone nameless on my arm, and forget that I ever saw Sam. Forget how the thought of her makes my heart pound. Forget how much I still want her.
At the table, I put the glasses down on the sticky surface. I can’t stomach the thought of drinking the beer without anything else to wash it down with. “I’ll be right back,” I tell Kirk, who couldn’t care any less. “Burger.”
I’m just turning away from the table when, through the crowd, I see a flash of blonde hair. My heart thumps in my chest in a response that comes so fast I can’t stop it. I’ve spent years trying to squash that shit, which happens every time I see a woman with eyes like Sam’s, or hair like Sam’s, or curves like Sam’s, but it never works.
Lower your expectations. At first I think it’s Denise going somewhere else, and I want to turn away so our paths don’t have to cross. I don’t need to deal with that tonight. But someone shifts out of the way.
No, it isn’t Denise at all.
It’s Sam, making her way through the crowd, her arm through another woman’s—Missy, who works somewhere in the factory offices, we went to school with her. They’re both laughing, but then Sam lifts her gaze from the floor and looks around, like she’s trying to find someone in the crowd.
Those big blue eyes meet mine and an electric shock runs down my spine.
The smile on her face changes into something else. Something between shock and desire.
I see her lips form my name.
“Beck.”
Chapter Nine
Samantha
Looking into Beck’s eyes, even from this distance, is like looking into the sun.
The crowd parts ahead of Missy, opening a pathway between us. If I wasn’t living it, I would dismiss this crap as something out of the movies, but honest to God, the crowd separates and there he is, standing next to a table, just turning away. He’s wearing a less-worn pair of jeans and a black t-shirt that hugs his biceps, accentuating his muscled arms and the tattoos that curl down one arm to his wrist. When did he get so many tattoos? He didn’t have nearly that many the summer between freshman and sophomore year in college…
My heart twists in my chest, a painful jerk. I didn’t see him after that summer. Four years together down
the drain, and I never once glimpsed him again, not even on campus. The state university we both attended had a huge campus, but you see the same people over and over. You have to try to avoid a person.
He avoided the hell out of me.
Maybe that’s when he got the tattoos. Or maybe it was when he came back to Lockton.
His chiseled jaw works, but a flicker of light moves through his eyes like I’m a pool of water in the desert.
My instinct is to turn around and walk the other way. Our meeting in the hallway at Cerberus was so charged, so heavy, that I don’t know if I can face it again. But Missy doesn’t seem to notice that he’s here. She just keeps charging toward the bar—the plan is to get drinks and then sweet-talk our way into a table—and I don’t pull away, I don’t stop her.
I should. I should protect myself from another run-in with this man who sweeps me away and devastates me at the same time.
But I don’t.
Missy is saying something to me, but her voice keeps flickering in and out, and with Beck in my line of sight, it’s all I can do to sort out any of the words.
“—used to come here on the weekends, but now he’s married to Lacey O’Collins. Do you remember her? She wasn’t in our class, but she was always super nice, a little bit big-headed I thought, but maybe that’s to be expected because she was so damn smart. She’s a doctor now at one of those practices right next to the hospital, the ones in those really nice buildings? You might not know—they were renovating them a couple years ago, but I don’t know if—”
“Mmm,” I say, because we’re getting closer and closer to Beck with every step and my heart is going wild, thudding against my ribs like a series of punches. He crosses his arms over his chest and the hair on the back of my neck stands up, a sprinkling of goose bumps rising in a trail down my spine, all the way down the backs of my arms to my fingertips. He’s the silent place in a crowded bar, and despite everything that happened, I want to press my face into the softness of that t-shirt, I want to breathe him in, I want to put my hands on his hard body and never let go.