Just Three Words

by Melissa Brayden

  “Have you recognized water as a necessary part of your existence, Sam?”

  Okay, how does one answer that, exactly? “Well, I need it to live. So I’m going to go with yes.” How had she not realized Tanya was a bit of a fruit loop when she’d spent time with her previously? Apparently, context was everything.

  Tanya poured her a glass of water anyway and extended it to her. “It’s more than that. Water is fundamentally transforming. It cleanses and purifies from the inside out. It can heal and nourish. I have a feeling you need more of it in your life.”

  “More water?” Sam took the glass she’d already declined. “Who knew?”

  “It’s true. Once you embrace water, you’ll harness your glow. That’s what’s missing, Sam. Your glow.”

  “Missing?” Tanya thought she was missing something? Well, join the club.

  Tanya sighed and met her eyes. “I feel horrible about how things went down with Libby. Don’t get me wrong, I fully believe that we’re meant to be together, in life and celestially, but I feel badly that your feelings might have been bulldozed in the process. I want to find a way to make it right.”

  “I’m fine, Tanya. I’m glad you guys are happy.” Not exactly the truth, but there was no way she was letting Tanya know how devastating the whole scenario was for her. How she still felt it on a daily basis: the rejection, the humiliation, the sinking feeling that she’d be alone forever.

  Tanya placed a surprised hand on her heart. “Really? I’m so glad to hear that. Libby will be, too. You know, I’ve always thought you were this awesome girl who could really pop given the right assistance.”

  Sam stared at her. “What do you mean?”

  “I can help you.” Tanya beamed. “Pop.” The accompanying hand gesture caused Sam to jump. “You know what? I’m going to set you up with Serenity’s all-encompassing Journeywoman Membership—on the house, of course. And before you know it, you’ll have to beat ’em off with a stick.” Just then, yet another tall blond person entered the room. Tanya turned. “Naomi, don’t you think Samantha could be a knockout? We just need to find her glow.”

  “And pop,” Sam supplied quietly.

  Naomi-of-the-Glamazons strode toward her with the wide stride of an Olympic gymnast and looked down at Samantha as if she were an insect under examination. “Definitely.” She placed a hand on Samantha’s cheek. “I see such potential in you. Have you found your way to water?”

  Sam held up her glass weakly and gestured with it toward Tanya. “We’re working on the water thing.”

  “What about a series of facials?” Tanya asked Naomi.

  “Would definitely tighten up those pores.”

  Oh, snap. They did not. Samantha placed a hand over her face. “Thanks. But I think I’ll be fine.”

  Naomi nodded at Tanya as if Sam hadn’t spoken. She was here, wasn’t she, in the actual room? She glanced around to be sure. “And maybe a spray tan,” Naomi added. “You’re exceptionally pale. We offer twice-a-month spray tans with all of our journeywomen memberships.”

  “Which she now has. She’s a journeywoman. A full one,” Tanya said with reverence and a triumphant smile.

  “I feel we also may need to work on integration,” Naomi said.

  Sam looked from Naomi to Tanya. “What does that mean?”

  “It’s the search for self.” Well, at least they were speaking to her again. “The relationship between mind, body, spirit, and environment. You seem to need it, and we can help with that.” Naomi pulled a multitude of brochures from her burgundy coat pocket and handed them to Samantha.

  Suddenly feeling like a glowless klutz with Grand Canyon pores, Samantha decided it was time to get the hell out of there. She handed the water back to Tanya, forcing a smile, because her mother brought her up right. “I appreciate it. I do. The advice. The uh…transformative water et al. But I’m not feeling very well, so maybe we could postpone the rest of the tour?”

  Tanya’s eyes widened. “Of course. And I’ll set that membership up for you right away. You’ll be on your journey in no time.”

  “I’d better pack. Thanks. It was nice meeting you,” Sam told Naomi as she headed blindly for the door. She’d walked into Serenity with a shred of self-worth and walked out feeling wildly inadequate yet again, as if all the progress she’d made over the last three weeks had been wiped clean.

  Chapter Five

  Hunter loved her guitar. She just never quite came up with enough time to play it. But when she did, it was an easy and welcome place to get lost after a long day at work. As far as guitar playing went, she had potential; at least that’s what her instructor once told her at the lessons her mom agreed to pay for when she was a kid. But as with a lot of things, she’d lost focus when puberty hit and pretty girls demanded to be stared at, attended to. That was also around the time when she’d gotten a lot of attention for her keen compositional eye in art class. As a result, the guitar fell by the wayside.

  She lamented that now, but had done her best to self-teach along the way.

  Alone in her room, she strummed away at her own adaptation of “Blackbird,” loving the melody and adding her own classical guitar flavor to the chorus. It filled her up, playing music, though she’d never been a performer or played in a band. She played for herself, and that was enough. She lost herself in the outro and closed her eyes as the last note lingered.

  “That was beautiful,” Sam said from the doorway.

  Hunter looked up abruptly and smiled, shaking her head, her face now heated. “I had no idea you were home. God. Now who’s the embarrassed one?”

  “Maybe it’s our thing, showing up unexpectedly.” Sam, still dressed from her meeting with Serenity, leaned her head against the doorjamb. “And don’t be embarrassed, please. I’ve never heard you play before. I knew you could, but I’d yet to experience it in person until now. I wonder how we’ve missed that step after knowing each other for—what? Almost ten years?”

  “It’s not something I show to people. Ever. It’s just a hobby for me around the house. Helps me unwind, drift away from the daily grind.”

  Samantha nodded thoughtfully. “I love that song you just played. ‘Blackbird.’ The lyrics have always haunted me. I don’t know what Paul McCartney was trying to say with them, but to me that song has always been about being on the outside looking in, and the painful distance that comes with it.” The way Samantha said the words struck something in the center of Hunter’s chest, and she didn’t like it.

  “You’ve felt that way before?”

  Sam smiled, but there was sadness in her eyes. “I’m sure we all have at one point or another, but yeah. I have. In high school, I was salutatorian, and though I had a few friends, I was never a part of the In Crowd. Never invited to the cool parties, you know? I secretly wanted to be. I’d fantasize about it all the time.”

  While the memory sounded like a horrible one, Hunter couldn’t help but feel something else was going on. Samantha was missing her normal upbeat, fun energy. “Did something happen today? Mal said the Serenity meeting went great.”

  Sam straightened. “Not my favorite day, no. But we sealed the deal on the account, and that’s something.”

  Hunter breezed past the work talk, because in the scheme of life, it didn’t matter. “Tell me what happened. You seem off-center.”

  “You know what? Let’s skip it. I’m in need of unattractive, comfortable clothes and some self-pity.” She pushed off the doorjamb and headed to the living room, but Hunter wasn’t done. She set her guitar down and followed right behind Samantha.

  “If I were Brooklyn you’d tell me.”

  Samantha grabbed some eggs and bacon from the fridge and tossed them onto the island. “Nope. And you’re just as much my friend as Brooklyn is.”

  “But you confide in her.”

  Sam blew out a breath. “Yeah, I do. But she’s not around so much these days, so…”

  “Give her time. Being in a serious relationship is new for her. She’ll fin
d the balance soon. In the meantime, I happen to care about you a lot, and I’m incredibly interested in your day. And I’m really sexy, so there’s that.”

  Samantha laughed at Hunter’s playful bragging. It was a specialty of hers. “So you’re saying you want to put on comfy pajama pants and watch Lucy with me for hours and love it?”

  Hunter winced. Okay, so maybe she wasn’t the perfect Brooklyn standin. “I could try. I would do that for you.”

  Sam shook her head and cracked the eggs. “You’re sweet, but it’s not necessary. You just be you, who I happen to like—most of the time anyway. And of course you’re sexy, who can argue with that? It’s not even fair to the rest of us. Want bacon and eggs? Or do you have a date?”

  “I’d sell you my mother for bacon and eggs.”

  “Done,” Sam said, pointing the spatula at Hunter. “I adore your mom. She calls me Mino’aka. I have no idea what it means, but I stand by it.”

  “It means beautiful smile in Hawaiian.”

  And God, was it true.

  Sam was still wearing heels and a pencil skirt that showed off her legs. She’d lost her suit jacket, but her white button-up shirt was now rolled up at the sleeves. Her hair was in a professional-looking ponytail, and Hunter would have no problem freeing it from the rubber band and running her hands through—whoa.

  Major friend infraction. Stop right there. Do not pass Go.

  “It means beautiful, huh?” The smile was gone from Samantha’s face as she cracked the eggs, lost in thought.

  Hunter forced herself to breathe. A deep, cleansing breath that would center her and get her back on track, keep her present in the conversation. “Yeah, definitely means beautiful.”

  “You really hit the jackpot with your mom. Maybe it’s to compensate for your dad and all his issues.”

  “I can’t argue with that. It’s a valid theory I’ve also subscribed to myself on many occasions.” Hunter slid into one of the stools at the counter and watched as Sam went about making them dinner. Her goal was to focus on the preparation, but she was wildly infatuated with the quick, methodical movements Sam used to prepare the meal. The little flicks of her wrist were so spot-on and sexy that Hunter’s stomach flip-flopped, her skin tingled, and she was right back to square one: lusting after the unavailable. She gave her head a little shake and focused on what Sam needed. “How about a trade-off? You tell me about your day and I do something for you? I’ll unload the dishwasher for the rest of the week.” Two birds with one stone, that deal.

  “I like unloading the dishwasher. It’s—”

  “Part of your routine. I know.” A crash and burn, which meant more of the sexy T-shirt. She thought for a moment, drawing upon her tried-and-true skill set. “How about this? I’ll make you your very own Samantha Ennis website all about old movies and TV shows and numbers and fluid sexuality and a great big heart around the state of Pennsylvania.” Okay, so she was being ridiculous, but Sam seemed to need a little levity. And while she humored Hunter with a smile, it was brief. Samantha stared at her, a new sincerity in her eyes.

  “Play for me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll tell you about my day if you agree to play your guitar for me. One song.”

  Okay, that wasn’t really something Hunter was prepared to do. She didn’t play for other people. It just…felt weird. Playing music was personal.

  “I take it that’s a no,” Sam said to her lack of response. She shifted her energy to flipping the bacon. And there was that defeated look again.

  “You know what?” Hunter couldn’t believe she was agreeing to this. “Okay.”

  Sam whirled back around and raised a hopeful eyebrow. “Okay?”

  “Yeah, I’ll play for you. But first, you change clothes while I finish dinner. Then, while we eat, you tell me about your day.”

  “I think we have a deal.”

  With platefuls of scrambled eggs, bacon, and biscuits from the can, Samantha, now clad in jeans and a blue hoodie, told Hunter about running into Tanya so unexpectedly and the events that followed. Sam shook her head and studied the table. “I walked out of there feeling about two feet tall. And I know I shouldn’t have let any of it get to me, but it did. Women like that have a way of making me feel like less of a person, and lately that sentiment seems to have hit an all-time high.”

  Hunter pushed her plate away. “You mean since the breakup?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I’ve always had some stupid insecurities, but Libby did a number on me.”

  “It would have done a number on anyone to essentially be dumped on a live radio show. It was unfair and childish. But let me ask you this: If I were telling you this same story, that some woman who wore a glorified smock and worked at a spa told me that I need more restorative water in my life to increase my glow, what would your response be?”

  Sam took a moment with that and flipped perspectives. The answer came to her easily. “That she was a crazy lunatic and that you’re awesome.”

  “And if I continued on and told you that the Earth”—she consulted the brochure on the table and read from it—“was as a part of you, and aligning yourself with its gravitational pull was tantamount to your physical well-being?”

  “I’d tell you that you were a new age freak and ask what you did with my best friend Hunter.”

  Hunter raised a shoulder. “Yet you listened to them. And they’re fucking crazy.”

  Samantha laughed at that last part. “Fucking crazy, huh? Well, when you put it that way.”

  “There’s no other way to put it. Crazy spa bitches. That’s what we should call them from now on. CSBs.”

  Samantha was laughing full on now. “I can totally get behind that.”

  “We should swap all the water in their pitchers with Diet Coke and see what happens. Spa Armageddon. Attack of the CSBs. Blondes Who Kill for Water.”

  With tears in her eyes from laughing, Sam held up a hand. “You have to stop now. My stomach hurts.”

  “Fine. But can I say one last thing on the topic?”

  Samantha took a fortifying breath to regain composure and blew it out. “You can.”

  “I’ve never known anyone with more of a glow around them than you, Sam. You light up rooms when you walk into them. It’s kind of amazing to see it happen.”

  Sam paused the clearing of the plates, because it was obvious Hunter wasn’t joking anymore. What she said came from a sincere place, and that meant a great deal to Sam. Who would have thought she could feel so much lighter with just that one comment from Hunter? “Thank you.” She glanced at the ground and then back up. “You’re a good friend, you know that?”

  Hunter met her eyes. “I’m just telling you what I see every day. You’re the real deal is all. And I can’t say that about a lot of people.”

  “Well, I can say it about you,” Samantha said. “You’re probably the most genuine person I know.”

  “Thanks.” Hunter smiled and in that moment, Samantha felt something important pass between them. It was a weighted exchange that Sam wasn’t so sure she wanted to move out of. It felt comfortable, and yet so very not, at the exact same time. Was that possible?

  Hunter’s long, dark hair was down tonight. She seemed to wear it down around the house more, something Sam had noticed since they’d moved in together. The edgy hairstyles seemed to be more indicative of her outside persona. But there was a softness to the way the first strand fell just shy of her eye. They were staring at each other, and Sam realized neither one of them had said anything for a while.

  “Time to play something,” she said finally, moving them past it.

  Hunter took a deep breath. “This is terrifying for me. You should know that.”

  Samantha couldn’t remember a time when Hunter had seemed afraid of anything—or at least admitted to it. “Terrifying is okay once in a while. Now give me my money’s worth or I’m calling my lawyer. We have a contract.”

  “Aggressive, but okay.” Hunter shook her head, smil
ing, but dutifully retrieved her guitar. Without another word, she took a seat on the footstool across from the couch where Samantha sat with her legs tucked beneath her. After a brief moment to orient her fingers to the strings, Hunter began to play, quietly at first. Sam easily recognized the song, “House of the Rising Sun.” It was one of her favorites, but then Hunter knew that.

  As Sam listened, she slipped easily into the melody and even closed her eyes to soak it in, let it wash over her.

  And then something amazing happened.

  Something that hadn’t been part of the deal.

  Hunter began to sing.

  Samantha was struck, her brain on pause and her face warm because the voice that came from Hunter, though not very big, was clear and pure and bluesy and awesome. She felt her lips part in utter shock at Hunter’s raw ability. How was this possible? As the song continued, Hunter gradually gave more of herself over to it. She didn’t just sing the song, she seemed to feel it. The emotion was raw and the music soulful. Samantha experienced each note right down to her core, and though she’d closed her eyes on the first few chords of the song, there was no way she could do that now, because the woman in front of her was stunning. More than that. And don’t get her wrong, she’d always thought Hunter stunning, but when she sang, there was a whole new layer to the stunning. Jaw-dropping stunning. She was looking at Sam now as she sang, and Sam held that gaze, transfixed. Had she ever been transfixed before? She wasn’t sure.

  After three verses, Hunter brought the song to a close. The last strum of her guitar held on before the vibration of sound faded altogether. Hunter set her guitar next to her. Silence enveloped the room. She dipped her head and looked up at Sam, her eyes wide, as if she were suddenly exposed. But the trepidation shifted to concern once she took in the expression on Sam’s face. “Why are you crying?”

  Samantha hadn’t realized she was. But an effective blink told her there were, in fact, tears threatening to spill from her eyes. She blinked back against them. “I guess I didn’t know what else to do. Hunter…I had no idea.” She lifted her hand in explanation, but let it drop when the right descriptive words weren’t there. Instead, she said what was in her heart. “That was beautiful. And I’m honored that you played for me.” It was clear to Sam that Hunter wasn’t entirely comfortable with what she’d just shared. She looked nervous, vulnerable—two things Samantha hadn’t realized Hunter capable of until now. There was a lot to this woman that she was only just beginning to realize.