“Hey,” Miriam smiled up at me.
“Hi. You look great,” I said back to her.
Really she looked hot. Short enough skirt to give me a nice glimpse of her legs yet long enough to make me wish it was shorter. Those thoughts needed to go. If they didn’t, I’d be sporting a boner tent while in public. Too late. But I couldn’t look down or adjust myself, everyone would notice. One glance at Cain told me he already had.
His fucking smirk begged to be beaten.
Instead, he chuckled, tugged Flannery and started walking out.
This girl already had me tied up in knots.
As I stood there, Miriam rolled her eyes then wedged herself under my arm. It felt right with her there. Then she reached up on her toes to plant a kiss on my cheek.
“Let’s go eat,” she said softly.
Flannery chose the deli closest to us which was probably a smart idea. Airport food sucks in general but it was hard to go wrong with sandwiches, not to mention, from a deli which had been around for sixty-five years. With our orders in hand, we found a place to sit. I’d expected Flannery to launch at Miriam but instead she inhaled her sandwich. She wasn’t kidding when she said she was hungry.
“Did you not feed her in Hawaii?” I asked Cain.
“What can I say?” He shrugged. “My girl has an appetite.”
“You both can bite me,” Flannery said with a mouthful.
Cain snickered as he rubbed his hand down her back before going back to his own food.
“Hey, my parents’ anniversary party is coming up,” Cain said. “You going to be there?”
I sighed and fell back against my chair.
“Fuck. I forgot about that.”
Cain’s parents threw a huge anniversary party every year. When we were kids, Cain and I would hide in the basement to get out of being kissed on the cheek by numerous tipsy older women.
I never missed it.
Except last year.
And this year.
“I can’t,” I said finally.
“Seriously?” He cocked his head to the side and watched me.
“Man, I just took three weeks off work. Took time a few months ago for graduation. No way are they going to let me go to the party and then again around Halloween.”
“Switch it,” he snapped.
“If I fucking could, I fucking would,” I threw back. “I have meetings already scheduled that week.”
Cain glared at me. I glared at him.
It’s not that this party was even that important.
Yes, I love his parents like a second set of my own. But it was tradition. We were always there together even after Flannery came around. Adam and Kendra went with us the last couple of years, too.
Just another thing I’m going to miss out on.
Again.
“What did you guys do with the rest of your week there?” Miriam asked the second she had a chance.
I thought about giving her an asshole answer but she didn’t deserve that. I wasn’t upset with her. I was frustrated with Cain and the entire situation.
“I think they just had lots of sex.” A plastic spoon hit my cheek. I hadn’t even seen Flan grab utensils. “By the way, Flannery can get pretty violent so watch your back.”
“Not with people I like,” Flan countered.
“Not much,” I replied to Miriam’s original question, choosing to ignore Flannery’s last comment. “I swam in the ocean, took some surfing lesson, went sky diving. The usual stuff.”
“You went skydiving?” Miriam’s face got completely serious.
I nodded.
She fell back against the chair. “Why didn’t you do that when I was still there?”
“I can take you skydiving around here.” The words were out of my mouth before I thought about it.
Flannery and Cain both stared at me like I’d grown a second head or some shit. Then I realized what I’d said. Fuck the fuck, fuck. Making plans, wanting some girl to be happy and for me to be the one making her happy was shit I didn’t do.
Thankfully, Cain and Flannery had to go get through security for the flight home not long after we finished eating, so my offer to Miriam went undiscussed. Whatever was going through my mind and my body, I didn’t want them as witnesses.
“We’ll be seeing you soon, right?” Flannery glared up at me like her question was more of threat.
“Course.” I needed to figure a few things out but yeah, I’d already been getting back home as often as I could. That wasn’t about to change.
“Ok.” She reached up to wrap those deceptively strong arms around me.
I lifted her off the floor to return the favor.
“Don’t joke about getting with me,” she whispered in my ear.
“What?” I pulled back to look at her face.
“Just don’t.”
I trusted what she said but she had to know I’d want an explanation, and I knew her well enough to know that she’d text it to me as soon as she could. Dropping her to her feet, I turned to Cain.
“Don’t fuck it up, brother,” he said to me. He meant Miriam but I didn’t even know if there was anything to fuck up. “There is.”
Sometimes it creeped me out when he could read me so well. We did the whole guy hug thing, but he surprised me by dropping a wet, sloppy kiss right on my mouth.
“What the fuck!” I pushed him away.
“See ya, later, lover.”
“What is wrong with you?”
“Paybacks suck don’t they?” The asshole laughed.
Flannery did her best to keep from laughing. It was a losing battle, but she at least waited until they had their backs turned toward me before the loud cackling got out of her mouth.
I grabbed my suitcase and headed out with Miriam.
“Do I even want to know what that was about?”
“Probably not.”
“Sexual experimentation gone wrong?” She smiled over at me.
“Fuck no.”
Her expectant face won me over.
“I’ve given him hell about Flannery, and he’s getting me back because you were there.”
“Given him hell, how?” she asked as we got to her car.
She’d driven to pick me up at the airport. Something people’s families sometimes refuse to do. Even more baffling, she tossed me the keys to her red mustang then climbed in the passenger’s side.
“I may have insinuated that Flannery had a fall back option should Cain not perform to her expectations.”
“Oh,” she giggled. “So, you’re an asshole.”
“Pretty much.”
She sat back as we merged onto the highway and didn’t flinch once. Driving around LA could be a daunting task. I’d grown accustomed to it since I lived there, but Cain even held on to the ‘oh shit’ handle when he came out for a visit. Not Miriam. She acted like she didn’t have a care in the world. Like she trusted me to get her where we were going safely, and I knew then and there that I’d do everything in my power to make sure that was always the case.
Chapter Seven
I’d been in love once in my life. A fact extremely few people knew and I’d assumed that I never would be again. I liked it that way. I tried it once, it wasn’t for me. I wasn’t in love with Miriam. Not by a long shot. I hadn’t known her two weeks for god’s sake and that was shit I didn’t believe in. But fuck if I didn’t want to see her every damn day or at least talk to her. That seemingly normal thing was more than I’d wanted with a girl since high school.
The next day, since it was still the weekend and neither of us had to work, she came over early for our planned day at the beach. I packed a cooler of water because nobody wants to get dehydrated and a bunch of food since we’d be gone most of the day. I wanted to pick her up but she said all of her roommates were home, an anomaly, and she didn’t want to deal with the massive amount of activity.
Miriam arrived at my door ready for a day at the beach. She had her brown hair down, dark glasses covered her eyes and a pink dr
ess covered what I hoped would be the bikini she’d worn in Hawaii.
I pulled her inside, grasped the back of her head and kissed her. Shit. Where did that come from?
“Wow, hello to you, too,” she said when I pulled away because my phone’s shrill ring demanded attention.
“Hello.” I hadn’t looked at the ID to see who it was first. Rookie mistake.
“How’s the first day back? Get laid yet? I know it’s been a while.” Adam Burger. My other best friend, the last fifth of our group. The man with impeccable timing, apparently. And the guy I’d laid into more than once.
He deserved it.
“Fuck you, Adam.”
“I know you’re hard up right now and Kendra might get pissed, but we could possibly work something out.”
Adam became one of my closest friends in college after Cain met Flannery. Those two brought our little group together. This past summer with him and Kendra broken up…it was fucked up. They worked it out but I had no idea how he managed her.
“Did you need something?” I asked trying to keep the laughter out of my voice. I didn’t want him to know he amused me.
“Not really. I talked to Flannery. She mentioned a few things.”
Fucking Flannery.
“Yeah, well we’re heading to the beach. Can we discuss this later?” It wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have in front of Miriam. I didn’t want her to know that everyone was talking about her.
Adam snorted into the phone. “I take it you’re not alone.”
“Brilliant observation.”
“Ok. At least send me a picture or something. I have got to set my eyes on the girl that has Sam Allen dating.”
“Bye, Adam.” I slipped the phone back into my pocket so we could get moving.
This time we took my car, the horrible thing I hated because I missed my truck.
“Is Adam one of the gang back home?” Miriam asked when we were about half way there.
“Yeah. I met him junior year when Cain and Flannery started dating. Adam was one of her best friend’s along with Kendra. When they got together we all just kind of became a family. It was a rough semester. We pulled together.”
“What happened? Why was it rough?”
“Not my story to tell.”
She accepted my answer. Miriam wasn’t like other girls. Obviously since here I was dating her but she didn’t push when she shouldn’t yet wasn’t afraid to ask questions. And so fucking open about everything. It was annoying and adorable at the same time.
Once to our chosen beach, we pulled everything out of the trunk and found a primo spot not too far from the water. The sun was warm. People around us didn’t seem to notice our arrival but their laughter said they were having fun. It was the exact kind of day you wanted at the beach.
We talked about our schedules. My work was pretty standard. Sometimes I worked over though not too often. Miriam on the other hand had to leave on Tuesday and would be gone a week. I knew it was her job but damn I hadn’t wanted to hear that.
“Seriously?” I pushed myself up onto my elbows.
“Yeah. Everyone is shooting their Christmas catalogs and commercials. It’s one of my busiest times.”
“That sucks.”
“It never has before.” She pulled her glasses off giving me a glimpse of those big brown eyes. “I don’t know what it is about you, but I’d rather be with you than working. Normally, it wouldn’t be an issue. I wonder why that is,” she said smirking my way.
“Because I’m awesome.”
“That must be it.” She giggled, a sound I wanted to record so I could hear it whenever I felt like it. “Just means we’ll have to pack in all the time together that we can, right?”
I nodded.
“It’s not all bad. I think I got to know you better last week on the phone and texting than I did guys I’ve dated for months. So at least there’s that.”
Miriam was right. Having to be more conscious of communication meant we couldn’t take anything for granted. Hour-long phone calls and random texts brought us closer than I would have thought possible.
Using our limited time together as the excuse, I said I wanted to go home earlier than we’d planned to order take-out and spend copious amounts of time with my lips on hers.
She jumped at the idea saying kissing me had become her new favorite thing to do.
She tasted like coconut, my new favorite flavor. I might even have to start drinking Pina Coladas, it was that fucking good.
It’d been years since I’d just kissed a girl with no expectation of what would come next, what I wanted to come next. And it felt good. Her tongue was soft, her lips smooth but demanding when she needed more.
Miriam was a different kind of girl. She knew what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to ask for even if she didn’t use words. And damn it, she knew how to kiss. Once again I had to pull back. Much more and one of two things would happen. I’d embarrass myself and make a big mess right there on my couch or my dick would explode. I’d take option one if I had to, but the second I wanted no part of.
I hated that she’d have to drive herself home, but she reminded me that she was a big girl and had been doing it herself for a long time. Even worse, I wouldn’t be able to see her again before she left. Which sucked the most.
Miriam sent me a text before I woke up on Tuesday morning letting me know she made her flight and she’d call me later. I’d asked her to do that. When she called around lunch I couldn’t answer due to a meeting I’d been pulled into about Internet security at our company. As one of the better IT guys, security fell on me. The CEO’s were paranoid assholes and already had the best firewall in place. They had constant virus scans going, and the internet was locked down so tightly that I’m pretty sure no one would be able to google anything with the word hole in it and come up with results. They needed to calm down.
After work, I tried calling Miriam back and got voicemail. Finally around ten my time, one in the morning hers because she went to New York, my phone rang with her name popping up.
“Hey,” I said falling onto my bed. I’d just finished changing into the pajama bottoms I liked to sleep in. Without her here there weren’t a lot of reasons to not turn in early. I wasn’t hitting it right then but soon.
“Hey.” She sounded off.
The urge to wrap her in my arms until she fell asleep overwhelmed me.
“You ok?”
“Yeah. Just tired. The time difference always does that to me. Then I was on set all fucking day with this idiot…doesn’t matter. I’m glad to be talking to you now.”
“Yeah, sorry about earlier. I got pulled into a meeting.”
She said she understood before a big yawn took over.
“Maybe you should go to bed.” Even though it was the last thing I wanted her to do.
“I will. I want to tell you something first.” The silence killed me after that sentence. “I’ve been on set with this guy who thinks he has serious game. He doesn’t. He’s a douche. Anyway, to get him off my back I told him I have a boyfriend.”
This time I think my silence made her nervous. Boyfriend? Me? Is that something I wanted? Something I could do? No idea on any of that and my brain froze. Locked right up so there were no thoughts coming or going.
“Ok so, don’t worry. I just wanted to mention it in case it came up.”
“How would it come up?” That really wasn’t the question I should’ve asked first.
“Things sometimes appear online. People talk. I don’t know. I just…as I said, I don’t like keeping things from people I’m seeing.” Still I didn’t say anything. “Sam?” My name hung in the air. “Look, I wasn’t making any declarations about you. The whole reason I said anything was so you wouldn’t think what you’re thinking right now. I just wanted him to get off my back, ok?”
Those moments of silence taught me that I wasn’t as bothered by the thought of being someone’s boyfriend, Miriam’s boyfriend, as I would have thought even if I wasn�
��t actually ready to wear the label. And I pretty much wanted to break that dude like a twig for bugging her. Those two things freaked me the hell out.
“It’s ok, Miriam. I don’t know where my head was.”
“Me, either.” She grew quiet and if I weren’t listening so hard I would have missed the small sigh. “Someday maybe we can figure it out together. But, I really am tired so I’m going to try to get some sleep.”
“We could—”
“I said I’d rather sleep right now,” she said again, this time with more force behind her words.
Shit. She was getting angry.
“Miriam—”
“Night, Sam.”
She hung up. I didn’t. A queasy feeling took over my stomach like I got as a kid and knew I was about to be busted on something I did wrong. Usually it involved Cain so at least then I had someone to take some of the punishment with me. But I didn’t do anything wrong as far as I could tell.
Questions rambled through my head. I wanted to call Cain, but he’d probably be asleep since it was late there. I didn’t know what else to do though. I felt like such a girl calling my best friend with boy problems. Which is exactly what I was doing only I had girl problems. In my defense, I rationalized that I’d been out of the dating game for so long and hadn’t bothered to care whether a girl got mad at me or not. My mom raised me to be a decent human being so I didn’t fuck them then push them out of the car at forty miles per hour, but things were always clear in the beginning and feelings weren’t part of the equation.
“Bored already?” Cain answered and thankfully didn’t sound the least bit sleepy. I hadn’t woken him up and if he’d been with Flannery he wouldn’t have answered.
“What are you talking about?”
“I know a certain model is out of town for one day and you’re calling me in the middle of the night.”
“Sorry, Grandpa, I didn’t know you’d have your dentures out already.” Wait… “How did you know she’s out of town?”
“Flannery. Apparently, they text daily. So, what’d you do?”
Taking a deep breath, I told him about the entire exchange between Miriam and me. Since he knew literally everything else about me, I didn’t feel weird about it.
Up for Everything (Up for Grabs #3) Page 6
