I put on my own North Carolina twang. “Are you calling me greasy? In front of a prestigious Bullshitter?”
“Yes.”
“Go.” Sam sat up straighter and laid a soft, sweet smile on me. Mild in execution—devastating in result. Even with patches of hair, he made me swoon. “I’ll be fine for a couple of hours. I downloaded What Could Go Wrong? to my iPad. It’ll be like you’re here.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Yes, and if I leave, you can call Jane to see if I’m full of crap or not.”
His jaw dropped. He caught it, at the end, and tried to play it like a smirk.
“I’m tired of you, too.” I smirked myself and gathered up my things. “I can bring back a hair clipper, if you want.”
He ran a hand through the tuft at the front of his head. “Yeah. I guess I can’t run around looking like a patchy dog with eczema.”
“I’ve never seen you with no hair.”
“Me neither.” He scratched at his leg. “I think.”
“If y’all find a 666 on there, I told you so.” Ellen shot this then departed.
I turned into a teenager at the end of a date. Feet shifting. Hands flapping. Groin throbbing. “Well, okay. Call me if you need anything. I’m in your cell under…wife. You changed it during the reception.” Tears swarmed my vision, and I stared at the tile floor. Why the hell had I said that? I glanced up, and he was staring at his twisting fingers. Behold the power of Awkward Girl and her Awkward Overshare of Doom! “Sorry. Okay, bye.”
He lifted his head while I fled the room so that I could cry in the hall. I ran smack into LaTonya, who set aside her nursey stuff on a rolling cart and hugged me. More awkward oversharing ensued while I cried on her shoulder.
Ellen joined in and squeezed the both of us. LaTonya twitched and started laughing.
“Sorry, was trying to tickle her,” Ellen announced before going after me.
Ten seconds later, I’d doubled over, crying, laughing, the tickles twisting from my waist to my tummy.
“Stop! Stop, please. I’ll stop crying!”
“That’s better.”
LaTonya patted my back and said, “You’re in there somewhere, Samantha. It’s obvious to everyone how much you adore him, and he spent the whole morning watching interviews with you, trying not to laugh loudly enough to wake you. He was completely charmed.”
“Really?”
“Yes! Now go home, shower, and put on something sexy to come back in. The way to a man’s heart is through his…well…you know.”
“She knows.” Ellen set my purse back on my shoulder and handed me a tissue. “Thanks.”
“Yes, thank you.” I blew my nose. “Do you get hazard pay for when hysterical family members cry on you?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t need to work here. But if you really want to be my friend, you’ll introduce me to Daniel Zhang.”
I gave her another quick hug. “I’ll do my best.”
Ellen and I wended our way out of the hospital, a place so complicated I felt like a lab rat looking for cheese. In the quiet sterility of the elevator, I whispered, “I’m so afraid.”
“To love is to fear,” she told me.
Two sides of the same coin. The dark side churned my guts into a shapeless mass of pain. “That’s very deep.”
“I wrote it in my latest book—the thousand year old witch says it to the teenage zombie heroine when the were-peacock she loves is injured during the battle with the evil investment bankers.” She shrugged. “But I think it’s a sentiment appropriate for your situation, too.”
* * * *
I showered and blow-dried my hair. The bigger the hair, the closer to God, and I needed the Big Gal in a big way. I took LaTonya’s sage advice and put on tight black jeans, a red cashmere sweater made more for taking off than for warmth, and a black, lacy bra whose shoulder strap would subtly peek out of the neckline. I hoped the red sweater would remind him of the red sweater I’d spilled potato ball on the first time he’d grabbed my boob.
In the cab on the way back to the hospital, Ellen said that she’d want to grope me in it, so I took that as a good sign.
I’d sat on the floor of my shower and sobbed, and now, as I stepped back into Labyrinth General Hospital, I prayed that the putrid landslide of emotions had slid its way out of my system. Crying was not sexually attractive. If it did attract a man, you might not want that person.
A bouquet of red roses in my arms rendered me even more fetching. I needed all the seductive techniques I could get. Clomping on spiky black heels, I rounded the corner and knocked on the almost-closed door to his room. “Sam? I’m back, honey.”
I pushed the door open. A doctor in white leaned over Sam, blocking my view.
“Is he okay?” I asked with more panic than I’d intended.
The doctor turned to gape at me, a dirty shadow of bristle covering his chin. He grimaced, the expression brimming with malevolence. But doctors don’t usually shoot hostility when you have insurance as good as ours. Motorcycle boots cradled the frayed ends of the jeans he wore. Jeans?
I took a step in. His arms locked downward, leading my eye to the pillow in his hands. The pillow over Sam’s face.
Chapter Four
We Put the ‘Strange’ in ‘Strangers’
I attacked the fake doctor. With my roses. I took a running start and launched at him. He collapsed over Sam, who made ouch noises. I bashed the roses on Fakey’s head again and again while he grunted and swore, his hands flailing backward to try to grab me. When he finally pushed away from Sam’s bed, I followed, kicking him square in the chest with my stabby heels while screaming “Hi-yah!” Miss Piggy style.
He uttered a strangled groan and landed in a heap.
“Sam!” I snatched the pillow away and searched his face long enough to see his eyes flutter open. I’d take it.
I placed a swift, nasty kick to Murderey Asshole’s ribs. He grunted, his lips pressing together to keep quiet.
Quiet? What the hell was I doing fighting him on my own? I opened my mouth to scream for help when a pillow bashed into me from behind.
“No,” groaned Sam. “No cops.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. I turned to the bad dude, but there was naught of him but his back foot fleeing the room. I snatched off my heels, keeping one in each hand as weapons, and began pursuit.
“Samantha, stop, please!”
“He’s getting away!”
“I don’t want him to hurt you. Ow!”
Damn it! I hurried back to Sam. He’d pushed himself up to sitting—guess the guy hadn’t had too much time to smother him. A shudder chased through my chest, and I swayed into a chair. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. Yes.” He took a deep breath then blew it out again, his hand over his heart. “I was sleeping. Shit.”
“And now he’s in the wind. We need to call the cops. Someone is trying to kill you, Sam!”
“No—really?” He flopped back, his eyes narrowing sarcastically at me the whole way.
I stood. “I’m trying to help, you shithead.”
He shrank away from me, the action stabbing me in the heart. What the hell was his problem? Did the moron want to die? Or did he just want me to leave?
“Can you put those scary shoes down?”
I glanced from hand to hand—I’d been menacing him with my footwear. The heels themselves were metal and pointy. I dropped them on the floor. “Sorry.”
“Close the door.”
I did as he’d bidden me and returned to his side, the blood rushing to my head and blooming into a series of sharp thuds. Oh, good—now I felt like barfing. What a welcome addition to my other symptoms—stomach upset, headache and fathomless existential anguish.
Sam licked his lips, and I gave him a glass of water.
Once he’d gotten his voice back, he said, quietly, “Have you considered that I’ve been up to no good? And that’s why someone is after me?” He drained the rest of the glass then wiped the back of his hand across his mouth
. Not meeting my eye, he continued, “If we call the police, I could end up in jail, too.”
“The police are already on this, Sam.”
“They don’t need any more clues! Or a witness, of all things.”
I slumped to sitting beside his knees. He reached his closest hand down and patted my leg. My head jerked toward our connection. He snatched his arm away.
With a heavy, anxious sigh, I pinched my forehead and denied what he’d said. I’d decided long ago to trust him. He deserved that much, even with a cracked skull. “No, Sam. You promised me the last time we were in trouble that you’d never be a thief again. I promised you that I would always trust you.” I glanced up—his eyes were skeptical saucers of deepest brown. “And I do. You may not remember how you and I found our way into this room, but I do. We’re here because we love each other, and we trust each other. I don’t believe you’re in trouble with the law, because you’re my man, and you gave your word. That will always be good enough for me. No matter”—deep breaths, Samantha—“what happens to us.”
I swiped at the tear no doubt destroying the makeup I’d so carefully applied. Ha. As if a skillful application of mascara would make him love me again. Or anew? For the second time? Fuck me.
“You look really pretty.”
I searched his face. He was staring at my tits.
I giggled. “Thanks.” I got to my feet and righted the room—a hurricane in dirty boots had upset the place. I tossed the weaponized pillow to the far corner with extreme prejudice.
“I think I might know what’s happening,” I told him.
He sucked in a breath, and I crossed back to his bed. “Not totally—more of a guess, really. But I just don’t feel secure talking about it here. That guy could’ve planted a bug in the room.” I shivered—the place had taken on a sinister vibe that somehow matched the cold equipment and ugly furniture. “Anybody could have.”
He made an impressed face, his tired eyes alighting. “Now you’re thinking like me.”
I cocked one shoulder in my best Mata Hari impression.
I got a dimple for that. “Thanks for the flowers. And by that, I mean thank you for saving my life by using them to beat off a thug.”
“You’d do the same for me.” Sam—Old Sam—had brought me flowers all the time.
He thumped his hands on the bed. “Now I’m curious. What have I been up to? If I’m gonna be murdered, I want to know why.”
“You’re not going to be murdered! I’m not leaving this room until you come with me.” One of the benefits of being a movie star is that you have no day job or anything, and I wasn’t set to begin filming my next project for a week or so. Thank goodness it was local, or else I’d just have had to back out.
“What the hell happened here?”
I swiveled to see LaTonya surveying the room with horror. Rose petals covered every square inch of Sam’s immediate area, the battered stems scattered across his feet.
“I wanted to make the room romantic for Samantha,” Sam said with a wink to me.
Winking at me? It just wasn’t fair that he could play my heart like a harmonica this way.
“But I made a mess of it,” he finished.
She shook her head and said, “I am not cleaning this up.”
“No!”
“No, ma’am,” we assured her simultaneously.
LaTonya took his vitals and declared herself pleased with his progress. “Your doctors will come by tomorrow morning to check up on you, and then, if they like what they see, we’ll release you.”
“Yay!” I said.
She bustled away, and I got on hands and knees to clean up the flower carcasses. I may or may not have deliberately placed myself ass first in Sam’s eye line. When I finished and rose again, the dimple had definitely noticed. I yanked on my sweater to expose more cleavage before I leaned over the bed to clean up the petals and stems there.
“Sam?”
“Yes?” Heh heh—he sounded breathless.
I licked my lips and dumped the last of the unfortunate flowers into the trash. “If you want to talk about…anything—I’m here. I mean, you’re going through a helluva thing. Or I can call one of your dude friends.”
He stared at me blankly.
“After I remind you who they are.”
He looked off into space, a glimmer of the panic that came and went flashing in his eyes. “I— I don’t know what the hell to say to anyone. But…thanks. You are very nice to talk to. It makes me feel better when you’re here.”
My heart exploded into joyous song. Yes! Maybe I’d win him back by locking him in our apartment and never letting him see anyone else! Wait—had I just become the Beast and him Beauty?
I smiled gently and put my shoes back on. He leaned over and surveyed me from head to toe. “How tall are you?”
“Five feet.”
“I have a mini wife.”
“I prefer the term ‘Hobbit’.”
His eyebrows zoomed upward. “You like Lord of the Rings?”
“Duh, I’m awesome.”
For a brief moment, he looked at me as if he thought I was, too.
* * * *
I held my breath as Sam walked slowly into our apartment. I don’t know what I expected would happen. Wait, yes I did. Sudden memory return, embraces, words of love, hot sex on the living room floor. Then on the couch. In the bedroom. On the kitchen island. That’s how we’d broken in the apartment when we’d gotten the keys. Disinfecting the kitchen had been less fun, although it had led to more dirtying.
None of that happened today. “Wow,” was what he said upon taking in our eighteenth floor luxury apartment.
I put our bags down and closed the door behind us. I sagged with relief—we were home. A new home, with a confused husband in it, but better than nothing. “You found it, certain I would love it. I do.”
It featured a sunken living room straight out of the sixties. The walls were white, but the furniture and art popped in gorgeous tones of aqua and yellow. A custom round couch dominated the depression, enclosing a fire pit slash table, with stairs leading out. “Nice bar,” he said with a laugh. Set into the wall, it had a mosaic tile back and full sink—the works. “This place is groovy.”
I laughed. “Yeah, it’s pretty damn neat. Hard for me to believe that I actually live here. I was a secretary when you met me.” I hoped I’d never lose that sense of gratitude—when you lost that, you became a rich asshole who thought they deserved things just by existing. “This all seems like a dream still.”
“You’re telling me.”
Meowr!
We turned as one to spy the bundle that had jumped onto the back of the sunken couch—Captain Taco. I made a move to pick him up, but he ran straight to Sam, squawking all the way.
Sam bent over, but I scooped up Taco so that Sam didn’t have to slosh his brain around. I passed the small, black furball over to his daddy, who laughed as he took him in his arms. “Sam, Captain Taco. Captain Taco, Sam.”
“Nice to meet you, sir.” Sam ran his fingers through the fuzz on Taco’s head while the cat flopped in total abandon.
The more Sam grinned and petted, the more jealous I became. If I meowed and pooped in a box, would Sam touch me like that? Sam draped the feline over his shoulder, just like he always carried him around pre-brain-squishing. My heart squished right then, too.
I gave him a tour. First, his office—a painting workshop that had the best light in the whole place. Then the kitchen, laundry, pantry. Finally, I showed him the master bedroom. Damn, it was a sexy room. It was done in a Spanish style—all four-poster, heavy, dark wood set against whitewashed walls with sumptuous carpets of red and cream to embrace your feet. Or naked backside. We’d put that to the test the first night here, right in front of the fireplace.
A little over a week ago.
I turned away, unable to look. I couldn’t breathe around the anvil in my throat for a moment or two. “I’m going to sleep on the couch,” I told him. “It�
��s not fair to you to do anything else.”
“No!” He took a step toward me. “No, you take the bedroom.”
“You are ill. I won’t hear any argument. At least let me take care of you…please?” Jesus—way to beg, Samantha.
But it worked. He nodded and sat on the bed. Taco leaped off Sam’s shoulder to settle onto the duvet.
“Bouncy,” Sam said admiringly.
I nearly ran from the room. We’d had so much fun going bed shopping—testing the give of the mattresses, embarrassing ourselves to onlookers and salespersons alike. This all seemed like a horrible sci-fi movie, or like I was a ghost who saw and remembered her life, but was watching everyone else carry on without her. Maybe he was the ghost, and me the tortured widow.
I ran him a bath in the giant Jacuzzi tub, put towels on the warmer—am I a fancy beotch or what?—and laid out flowery-smelling soaps. From inside the bathroom, I yelled out, “I’m going to order some lunch. You enjoy a nice bath, but be careful of your bandages—they can’t come off for another couple of days. I’ll find you some clothes, too. We’ll get you fixed right up.”
Turning to fetch him a robe, I gasped to find him directly behind me.
“Thank you,” he said.
His words jumped from one tiled wall to the next, jangling my insides, already all mixed up. “Of course.”
He looked down at me as if he was going to say more. The bags under his eyes made him seem both older and younger. Not taking him into my arms right then may have been the hardest thing I’ve ever done. “Oh!” I said, my voice small, pathetic, laced with angst. “A razor. If you want it. I’ll put it on the table next to the tub.” The tub sat dead center in the room, made to look like a claw-foot, but with every modern convenience.
I fled, leaving the door open a crack so I could hear if he needed anything. The urge to stay engulfed me, but I wasn’t his mom—if he needed help, he’d ask.
While he bathed, I ordered a soup and sandwich I knew he’d like from the deli down the block. You don’t really consider all the small domestic things you learn about a person, you know? But I warmed to remember stuff like roast beef on rye. Running from criminals was exciting, but boring, everyday life like running for health was so much better. Well, not that much better. Running was a sucky, yet necessary evil for an actress who wanted to work. But Sam usually came with me, teasing and spurring me on like Rocky Balboa’s trainer.
The Wrath of Dimple Page 4
