by G. Benson
Money. Ah. So they were getting somewhere. “Money?”
They both snapped their heads to look at her, as if they’d forgotten she was there. “Yes,” Sam said. “Money.”
“You get money for marrying me? A woman? Even though your family are homophobes?”
Jon laughed, the sound real and rich, even with his cheeks still washed out. “You have a way with words.”
“Yes, very.” Sam’s words were dry. “The money we came into—well, I came into, at twenty-one, was to set us up. I bought this apartment and invested the rest. However, most of our inheritance is in a fund set up by our grandparents.”
“Who were even more old-fashioned than our parents,” Jon chimed in.
“Extremely.” Sam gave a nod. “Which is hard to imagine. The trust funds have several stipulations. One,” she held up a finger, “we must have a college degree.”
“Well, look at that, I’m out already,” Jon said.
“If you let me pay—”
“No,” he interrupted Sam without hesitation.
She sighed, a second finger going up. “The second is that we’re over thirty.”
“Well, obviously I’m not there yet. But number one stops me, even when I am thirty.”
Sam shot him a look, and he pretended to zip his lip and throw the key away. Sam continued, her third finger up, her elbow resting on her knee. “The third is that we’re married. Good, old-fashioned family values. If we don’t meet these stipulations, no money.”
She blinked at Hayden, and Hayden blinked right back. “Oh.” She cleared her throat. “So you married me for money.”
“Essentially, yes. But not for me. I don’t need it.”
So why, then? Hayden glanced at Jon, who was now glowering at Sam. “Oh! For Jon.”
Jon threw up his hands, his beer sloshing. “Yes, for me. She’s going to get herself cut off from our family, completely, to get me money.”
“Jon. That’s not the only reason. I was going to go there that morning and tell them. Or get a girlfriend and destroy them slowly.”
Whoa. Sam had some malice in her tone. Was it from anger at her parents for hurting her brother or from finally wanting to be herself without worrying about her parents? Or was it all tied up together?
“It was going to happen anyway,” Sam continued, “but then I remembered the inheritance. Our parents talked about it often enough—the expectations we were to meet, the degree we needed, the responsible lives, the marriage we had to have. They even paraded around potential candidates.”
“They did that?” Hayden asked.
Jon actually laughed. “Oh, we had so many awkward dinners with other ‘suitable’ families over with age-appropriate suitors.” He made exaggerated air quotes.
Sam pulled a leg up under herself. “Remember the girl who had actually been to finishing school?”
Jon grinned. “They literally arranged for her to come over after my high school graduation. I remember even more the brother they brought over for you. Not surprised you remember the sister.”
Sam actually returned his grin, her eyes lit up, and Hayden had a weird stab of jealousy she decided to ignore.
“So you two just checked out each other’s dates?” she asked.
“All the time,” they said in unison.
“Or the older sister, if she had one,” Sam added.
“That’s actually hilarious.”
“It was.” Jon said. “As soon as these candidates left, hints that were as subtle as a hammer would start about ‘setting up our futures.’”
“The inheritance,” Sam said simply.
“Which I don’t need,” Jon ground out.
“To get you your college education, Jon. To get you some stability. It’s why I needed this marriage to happen so fast. I thought the sooner I received the money, the sooner you could get back into college. That maybe you wouldn’t have to miss any at all.” Sam moved forward, meeting his glower head-on. “You have fifty dollars in your account, and you won’t take money from me. You’ve just dropped out of school and can’t find work that actually pays you anything livable. This will help set you up. I don’t need it.”
“I don’t want your money!”
“But you need it.”
He snapped his mouth shut and looked away.
Hayden’s thoughts were racing, bouncing off each other. Sam had needed this so fast for a reason. Her thoughts ground to a halt as something occurred to her.
Hayden raised her hand and waited until they both looked at her. “Uh, sorry. But if they’re so homophobic, how is you being married to a woman legitimate?”
Sam crossed her arms. “It was stipulated by my grandparents, who passed away years ago before same-sex marriage was legal. The stipulation is marriage. It doesn’t say what kind of marriage. And my parents can’t alter that. It’s not in their legal rights to do so.”
Hayden’s mind was whirring. “So, why the charade? Why pretend we’re married for months? You have the paper. Why not just do it?”
Sam ignored Jon’s glare. “They could try and complicate it. Hire someone to sift through everything, try to prove the marriage is a lie. I doubt it could affect anything anyway, but I wanted to ensure they couldn’t slow it down or possibly expose it.”
“Okay.” Hayden’s brain was whirring way too fast. “Okay.”
“You still don’t need to do this,” Jon chimed in again. Hayden had the feeling he’d said that a lot to Sam over the last several months.
“I know I don’t,” Sam shot back. “I was going to tell them anyway. I spent all my life making sure they were happy, making sure that I met their expectations. I never wanted to disappoint them. You know how that feels. But I couldn’t let them kick you out and hate you and then praise me and say they love me, when that was all a lie. So if I was going to do it anyway, why not do this too?”
“I still don’t need the money.”
“No. Maybe you don’t. Maybe you could try for a scholarship or put yourself in debt or get a job that barely pays you.” Sam’s tone showed what she thought of that idea. “But this money is there, and it’s rightfully ours, and if I’m going to lose them anyway, I may as well get something out of it.”
Sam was blazing, her cheeks slashed with red and her eyes fierce. She looked stunning, and in that moment, more than ever, Hayden was reminded that she was doing all of this for her brother, for money. Not for Hayden. Hayden was a means to an end.
But wow, did Sam look hot.
“Right,” Jon said. “Yeah. I guess so.” He tilted his chin up, meeting that fiery, protective blaze in Sam’s eye. “I just don’t want to be the reason you feel like I do right now.”
Hayden’s breath caught at the vulnerability in his voice, and Sam’s face softened.
“You wouldn’t be the reason. They’re the reason. And this is my choice. I can come out to them and lose them and everything else. Or I can come out to them and gain some money to get you on your feet. Either way, I lose them. But I’m coming out to them regardless.” She clenched her jaw. “They set you up for everything, then stripped it away. You were sleeping on friends’ sofas.”
He sighed, but a smile was creeping up his face. “They’re going to hate that you get the money for marrying a woman.”
“Why do you think I made sure it was a woman and not a man?” The smile on Sam’s face was one Hayden had never seen before, but it had a familiar edge. It was like Jon’s—playful and confident. It suited her. “It’s true, Jon, we may not have them after this.” Sam paused, then said, “But you have me.”
He tried to smother his surprised look with a smirk, but it was more a smile. “I think that’s the most emotional thing you’ve ever said.”
“Yes. Well.” Sam picked off imaginary lint from her pants. “Don’t tell anyone.”
“I heard it too.” Hayden raised her hand again.
Sam side-eyed Jon. “Maybe we’ll have to kill her.”
Jon laughed. “I think yo
u’ll have to. She witnessed the softie deep down inside you.”
“There is no such thing.” Actual disgust was thick in Sam’s voice.
Yet, Sam was giving up her parents because her brother needed her. She was sacrificing something that was clearly important to her, since she’d stuck with it for over forty years, because she couldn’t stand the way her brother suffered.
Samantha Thomson was a softie. Well, deep down. Like, deep, deep down.
“Do they know you’re seeing him?” Hayden asked.
“They do. But we don’t talk about it.”
“Our family?” Jon asked. “Not talk? Never.”
Sam’s upbringing was sounding more and more like something Hayden herself could never imagine. Hayden had grown up in a house full of yelling with her sister, and pounding up and down stairs, and being whoever they were, as loudly as they could be.
“So, Christmas is…?” Hayden needed clarification.
“Christmas is when I will tell them. Do you still want to be there?”
Her eyes, green and deep, were impossible to look away from, let alone say no to.
“Of course.”
~ ~ ~
Later, when Jon had finally peeled himself off the floor after several more beers, Hayden padded out from the shower, her hair still damp. The couple of beers she’d consumed had left her head fuzzy. Frank was nowhere to be seen; he was probably upstairs on Sam’s bed.
At least he got to be on Sam’s bed.
Hayden’s cheeks burned at that errant thought. Now was not the night for that.
The living room was empty, and Hayden grabbed the beer bottles off the coffee table, the remains sloshing in the bottoms, and dumped them in the recycling. No light filtered down the stairs, no sounds of someone from up there. But that could mean that Sam was asleep. It had been a weird, emotion-filled evening, after all.
In fact, Hayden would never have thought Sam could spill her thoughts like that. Looking back on it now, she almost felt guilty for having witnessed it.
No wonder she’d waited to tell Hayden. She’d bared herself completely.
Would she have disclosed so much to anyone? Or did Hayden get that much information because they were friends? Would someone else have been told to stand with Sam at the Christmas dinner and act the loving spouse because she wanted to get money and left it at that?
Would they have been told about the shame that had eaten Sam alive for the last year?
Hayden pressed her palms into the cool granite of the kitchen counter. A shadow moved on the balcony.
For a moment, Hayden hovered in the kitchen, unsure what to do. Go out there and see if Sam needed someone nearby? Or had she gone out there to be alone? Hayden went back to her room, and emerged back in the living room with her coat tugged on over her sweater and pajama pants. Hopping on one foot, she tugged her socks up over the bottom of her pants, almost falling over but catching herself with a hand on the wall.
She looked ridiculous. A mirror wasn’t even necessary to tell her that. But it was going to be damn cold outside.
The door slid open smoothly, barely making a sound. Hayden slid it closed behind her and crossed her arms, her fingers in her armpits. The cold was like a slap, biting at her cheeks, and creeping into any open space in her clothes. The light from inside washed over the balcony in a faint, golden glow. Sam was leaning against the rail, a tumbler glass of something in her hand. Her breath fanned out in front of her, a white mist that drifted away into nothing in the still night. Below, cars passed, the sound muffled.
Sam gave no indication of wanting Hayden there, but she gave no sign of irritation either. She just stared out over the street, her lids heavy. Her profile was going to be locked in Hayden’s brain forever—that strong nose, her cheek kissed pink by the frigid air, lips dark from the same. A scarf was wrapped around her neck, her hair fanned out over her forehead and down against her ears. It was mussed; it had started to grow out.
Stunning. Hayden almost breathed the word, an ache deep in her stomach at the thought.
She looked absolutely stunning.
“Do you want me to go?” In the silence of the night, in the moment, Hayden had no option but to whisper.
A second stretched on forever, until Sam gave the tiniest shake of her head, her gaze still on the outside world.
Hayden walked over, mimicking Sam’s pose, her elbows on the rail, a barely perceivable gap between their arms. Gloves would be heaven. But Sam shifted, barely perceptible, so that they were closer together as she took a slow sip of her drink and didn’t move, and Hayden wouldn’t have gone to get those gloves for any promise of warmth. Her fingers trembled and she clenched her hands into fists. It wasn’t from the cold.
Sam was breathing softly next to her, and Hayden could make out the sweet scent of whiskey. Sam shifted her weight again, and their shoulders and hips were flush, an entire side of their bodies sharing heat.
The flutter in Hayden’s stomach sped up. She turned her head to watch the planes of Sam’s face, the slope of her cheek. Closing that gap would be so simple, to run her lips over Sam’s jawline, up over her cheekbones. Her eyes were that slash of green in white snow, something fragile forcing its way into the world.
When had Hayden turned poetic about a pretty woman? She swallowed. “Are you okay?”
Sam didn’t turn to look at her, and Hayden was actually relieved she didn’t, because she didn’t know if she could stop herself from surging forward and kissing her.
Why hadn’t Hayden let herself enjoy those few times they’d kissed for show? Or had she, and just not thought about it?
“Yes,” Sam breathed.
“I don’t believe you.”
The corner of Sam’s mouth twitched up. “I am.”
“Okay.”
Hayden thought they’d drop it and turned to look back over the street. The air was foggy down below, the light from the streetlights glazed.
“I’m not used to sharing like that.” Sam hesitated over her words, and Hayden turned back to look at her. Even as she didn’t want Sam to meet her eyes, something in her longed for her to turn and actually do so at the same time.
“Have you talked about it at all? Since last Christmas?”
Sam shook her head and raised her glass, taking another sip. Ice clinked as she did so. Why she needed ice, Hayden had no idea. The air would keep it cool enough. Sam’s bottom lip shone from the liquid when she lowered the glass and Hayden wanted to suck on it, to trace her tongue over the softness.
“Not even with Jon?”
“No. We—he finally showed up days later. I said sorry, but that was all. We moved on.” Sam twirled her wrist, the ice clinking in the glass again. “We don’t really talk about things, in my family.”
Hayden had gotten that idea. “So you’ve just lived with that shame you felt?”
Sam sucked in a breath and gave a nod. “I deserved it.”
“No, no you didn’t.” Hayden spoke in a rush of words. “Sam, no.”
“I did. I wouldn’t normally have spoken so much tonight. But I—I wanted Jon to know.”
Had Sam spent the entire last year punishing herself for what had happened? Hayden thought she might have.
“I think he knows,” Hayden said. “I think Jon knows you more than anyone.”
“You may be right.” Hayden watched the bob of Sam’s throat as she swallowed. “But I don’t think you would have done anything like watch your family throw your sister out.”
Hayden sucked in a slow breath. “No. Maybe not. But I’ve done other things.”
Sam’s gaze was still so steadily not on her and Hayden ached, then, for that green to be focused on her, caution be damned. “Like avoiding your mother completely?”
The words were like a slap, even with a soft tone.
“I—” Hayden gritted her teeth, at a loss after that.
“I noticed, even before what happened that night, that you avoid being alone with her. Or avoid her in gen
eral. It’s subtle. You have good excuses—Javi, helping your grandmother. But I noticed.”
No judgment was in Sam’s voice, but shame burned Hayden’s cheeks all the same. She wanted to deny it, but what slipped out was, “It’s too hard. To see her like that. I watched her decline for a year, and I think it just took it all out of me.” Sam took another sip, and Hayden wanted to take the glass and finish off the last of the amber liquid. Her neck was starting to twinge, but she didn’t want to look away from Sam. “I hate seeing her like that.”
“I completely understand. But you still do what you can for her. I let my brother get tossed into the cold for the crime of something I was equally guilty for.”
“It’s not a crime,” Hayden hissed.
Sam nodded, and there was nothing bitter about it. “In my family, it’s the greatest there is. There are people in jail for fraud in my family, people who have done completely reprehensible things in the name of making money and covering up their tracks. Affairs and bribery and worse. But being gay?” Sam clicked her tongue. “And I stood by and watched them reject him.”
Her voice cracked, and Hayden wanted to pull Sam into her. Sam had said that again and again, and Hayden imagined she lay awake at night playing that scene in her parents’ house over and over in her mind, the shame coursing through her veins, leaving her heated and sick.
“I don’t apologize for my actions, Hayden. My choices are my own. But that?”
Sam stopped speaking and Hayden turned further to face her, one elbow left on the railing and her body almost against Sam’s.
“Everyone makes mistakes, Sam.”
Finally, Sam turned, her eyes alight with tears that weren’t falling. Her gaze flicked to Hayden’s lips, once, before it went back to her eyes, and Hayden thought the bottom may have dropped from her world. “I don’t.”
And Sam surged forward, all warmth and whiskey-tinged breath. The arm not hindered by the glass slipped under Hayden’s coat, fingers digging into her back and her face hot in the crook of Hayden’s neck. All Hayden could do was wrap her arms around her and pull her closer, wondering as she did when Sam had last hugged someone. Her nails were sharp, even through the sweater, and the answer could only be: far too long.
