by Piper Lawson
I folded my arms. “So that’s what happened? Shit. I had no idea high school girls were so shallow.”
“What about you?” Charlie asked, her attention refocusing on Sam. “Come on. Don’t tell me you two never…”
“No,” Sam said the word quickly. “We were friends.” Her gaze found mine. “Just…good friends.”
The background faded away and I lost myself again. Replaying nights of us lying on her bed, having flashlight wars on the ceiling and talking movies, or books. Our inside jokes at school. The way she’d wait for me at lunch, drawing on my locker in pen.
Warmth spread through my body, like they’d turned up the heat and the humidity at once.
It felt like yesterday, and I wondered if she was thinking the same thing.
“Sounds like unfinished business.” Charlie broke into my thoughts. “Know what’s great for unfinished business? Tequila.”
Charlie gestured to the three remaining shots on the table.
“I can’t put those back in the bottle, kids. So do me a solid and put them to good use.”
I watched her vanish, her long strides carrying her across the room and down the hall toward her office and the bathrooms in a matter of seconds.
“I should get going,” Sam said, straightening in her seat and stretching out her arms.
“Did you drive?”
“Uber.”
I nodded, realizing I didn’t want her to go. “I’ll drop you off. If you help me clean these up first.” I slid one of the shots in the middle of the table over to her.
She took the shot, sniffed. Sam reached for the salt and lemon, staring at me and for a moment I thought she was going to tap out.
“You don't think I will.”
“I don't know the new Sam. You tell me.”
With an impish look, she tossed it back. Then reached for the lemon as an afterthought.
“I’m impressed, Martinez. I never saw you drink in high school.”
She took a deep breath to get rid of the burning. “Well, good thing we’re not in high school.”
“No. We stopped talking after high school. Why was that, Sam?”
I hadn't meant to go there but hanging out like this felt too personal all of a sudden. I couldn't let it go.
She blinked at me, incredulous. “I spent months working up the nerve to tell you what I told you that night, Riley. And you blew me off.”
“You know how many times I tried to get in touch with you after? I sent you thirty-four texts. From a flip phone. Eleven emails. Five phone calls. Two letters stuck in your door. You were the one who cut me out.”
It’s incredible how pain can lie dormant in you for months, years. When it’s uncovered it springs to life as vivid as ever.
I forced myself to take a breath, averting my eyes to keep from looking at her, hoping the pain would ebb.
This time Sam reached for the salt, she shook it on my hand, not hers. Her gaze met mine over our joined skin. The dare in it warmed my body, the blood thrumming in my veins.
“She’s wrong, you know. Charlie.”
“About what.” My hand tingled from hers.
“That there’s unfinished business between us.”
Before I could ask her what she was doing, she pulled my hand to her lips.
Her tongue swiped across my skin. My vision blurred, the hot wetness of her mouth sending a jolt of lust straight to my dick.
We’d never been adults together. Never done body shots that’d held zero appeal for me in college.
Now, the idea of seeing Sam on some frat house table, a lemon in her mouth, had me feeling something I didn’t want to look at too closely.
She dropped my hand, tossed back the shot and grabbed the lemon with her teeth.
“Tell me something,” she murmured when she finished, her voice softened by the tequila at the edges. “Is it still the worst kiss you’ve ever had?”
My chest tightened. “Sam…”
Her thumb stroked my hand, sending prickles up my arm. “What were you thinking? When I kissed you?”
I took a breath, a dangerous feeling rising up. “Believe me. You don’t want to know.”
Her dark eyes flashed. “If you wanted to prove something, you should’ve just done what any other guy would’ve done senior year. Fuck me then tell your friends.”
I reached for a half-full water glass in front of me—someone’s, I didn’t care whose—and downed it. “I’m driving you home, Sam.”
Sam reached for one more shot and I pried it from her hand, rising from the table. “If you drink that I’m carrying you inside your house and up the stairs.”
She made a noise in her throat. “That's demeaning.”
“It might be necessary.”
I helped tuck her into her coat and walked her out to my car.
“Whoa.” She pulled up short of the Bentley, wrinkling her nose. “What are you compensating for.”
“Low self-esteem. My dick is enormous.”
Her snort echoed in the night as I got her in the passenger side and rounded the hood.
“It’s okay,” she murmured as I slid into he driver’s seat. “Because no matter what you do, or wear, or drive… I still know you.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Under the money, the success, the clothes…” The ripple of awareness hit me as I fastened my seat belt. “I know you, Riley McKay. You were mine first.”
She tucked her head against her folded hands and shut her eyes.
I stared at her sleeping form for a long moment before starting the car.
11
December
Senior year
“What did Alex want today.”
“Huh?” Sam looked up from the chemistry text she was studying at the opposite end of her bed.
“He was talking to you at your locker.”
“Oh. He wanted me to go to some party with him.”
I raised a brow. “Hope you let him down easy.”
“Why am I supposed to let him down at all?” she asked. “It’s not a crazy idea. Girls ask you out.”
“But I don’t say yes.” Probably because Sam was becoming my favorite person. The girls I’d flirted with, kissed, teased, faded away.
In fact, the more time passed since Sam had transferred in, the more it felt like she’d always been there. Sometimes Max would come to my house for dinner when I could drag him off his computer, but Sam was becoming a staple, smiling at Annie’s jokes and complimenting my mom’s cooking.
She went back to her textbook and I prodded her with my foot. “Sam, come on. You already have A’s in every science course. You’re going to get into any school you want for pre-med.”
Whatever she'd fallen behind in on account of her family tragedy and the subsequent move she'd more than made up since.
“What do you want me to do.”
“Draw me,” I said, shifting closer to her.
“No.” She toyed with the cuff on the thin sweater the color of blackberries. She'd always preferred baggy clothes, but lately, she'd at least started to buy things in her size.
“Why not?”
“I don’t draw live models.”
I shifted up on my knees, covering her eyes with my hands. “Then draw me from memory.”
She tried to hide the smile, her hands going to my wrists. “What. You think I just sit around thinking about you?”
“Why not? I think about you.”
She pulled my hands away. I watched the flush creep up her face until she broke my gaze. “I need to study.”
That flush had me thinking well after I went home that night.
For weeks I’d lain in bed staring at the ceiling, picturing the way she’d chew on her lip when she was distracted. How her fingers twirled a pencil. The way she’d adjust her backpack at school when she was trying not to comment on something ridiculous.
Tonight was the first time a crazy thought entered the realm of possibility…
Did she think about me?
&nbs
p; I was used to girls being interested, but this was Sam.
In my mind she was too cool for any guy. Definitely for Alex.
But seeing her with him today reminded me she was still a girl.
And maybe one day she’d decide she wasn’t too cool for someone.
I managed to hold in my feelings for weeks after that, needing the right time to tell her. But being seventeen and spending every waking second around someone who looked like her, who made me feel like she did, was a special kind of hell.
When I saw the poster for winter formal, I knew I had to move. I felt it, like some cosmic wave.
Sam’s dad and I never exchanged more than a few short words in passing. Today when I knocked on the door, though, he broke all the rules when he said, “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
I sat on the couch across from his chair, wary. “Sure thing, Mr. Martinez.”
“It’s been a difficult time for Samantha. With her mother’s death. You’ve been there for her.”
“I’d do anything for her.”
“Did Samantha tell you she was the one to find her mother when she died?” My stomach dropped. “She came home from school early. She called the ambulance, stayed with her until the paramedics arrived, even though it was already too late.” I swallowed, trying to process. “No child should ever have to see death. To feel that kind of suffering.”
“She’s strong, Mr. Martinez.”
He rubbed a thumb over his trimmed mustache, as if reassuring himself it was still there.
“Before everything, Samantha was a wonderful swimmer. For weeks after, she didn't want to swim. Didn't want to do anything, speak to anyone. The first day she asked to go back to the pool, I was relieved she was showing an interest.” He shifted back in his seat, crossing an ankle over the opposite knee. “When the lifeguard noticed her lying facedown in the pool, he dragged her out. He had to use compressions to get her breathing again.”
My heart stopped. I couldn’t picture Sam purposely hurting herself.
But she did have dark moments. And maybe once, right after her mother…
Could I rule out that she’d been in that place?
“She needs a friend.” The emphasis on the word friend cut through the numbness that’d taken me over. “Someone to be there for her. Who cares for her in a way that’s healthy.”
“I’d never hurt Sam.”
“Relationships can be destabilizing, especially complicated ones. High school is complicated enough for Samantha given all she’s been through. She has a bright future ahead of her, if she can find her way back to her path. Do you know what I’m saying?”
I shook my head, slow. He was wrong about Sam. She was fine. Stable. She had to be.
“I’m asking you to be what she needs, instead of asking her to be what you need.”
No. The reaction streaked through me as his meaning became clear.
This man who’d had his family ripped apart was asking me to care for the one person who meant more than anyone safe.
Keeping my feelings about Sam to myself felt like trying to hold vapor in my hands. If he’d asked me to bottle it for his sake, I would’ve rejected it.
But he was asking me to do it for hers.
12
When the stakes are high
December has a way of turning the world holiday-obsessed. Sure, after Halloween you see bits of it. Red and green in the stores.
Next come the elves on shelves. Then the pop artists covering classics in every corporate lobby.
Now, with two weeks until the big day, the counter-sized Christmas tree in the kitchen at Titan had emerged. It was decorated with red balls and crowned by a Darth Vader ornament where the angel should be.
At Titan, my rhythm had nothing to do with Christmas carols wafting through stores. Or the sudden crisp, coldness in the air.
I’d spent the weekend working, working out, and finishing my shopping on Amazon before the shipping deadline.
I wondered what Sam was doing since I’d dropped her off Friday.
I didn’t have to wait long to find out.
Monday afternoon, Sam had sent me electronic copies of five watercolor paintings.
The images she’d created for me—for Titan—were stunning. Color drawings of the Phoenix and her posse, plus the villains of the regime that had taken everything from them.
We'd spent ten minutes on the phone while she’d explained her vision to me, an edge of nerves in the low voice as familiar as my own.
“I thought the Phoenix would be more interesting with a vulnerable side. Because contrast is important. Strength isn't as strong without weakness. Light isn't powerful without dark.
“I wanted their world to be post-apocalyptic but with little glimpses of what it could be again. In Epic’s version everything was gray. I wanted to show weeds growing at the edges of the compound. Because nature always finds a way.”
It was fucking perfect.
What wasn't fucking perfect was I’d submitted the images to Epic Monday night. Now, on Wednesday, I’d yet to hear anything back.
Finally, as I was getting a Red Bull from the fridge, my phone dinged with a response.
“Shit.”
I started through the Pit to my office, catching sight of a meeting in the conference room. Two weeks after Tristan’s arrival, Max had started to make semi-regular appearances down here.
The three coders scattered at my appearance, and I dropped into a seat next to my friend.
“Epic’s seen the concepts. They aren’t going to use them.” I showed him the brush-off email.
I waited for him to grunt, or glare, or huff. Instead he just folded his arms over his chest. “Then I guess that’s that.”
“What do you mean.”
“If you haven’t noticed, we have a facial recognition interface to complete for Omega. On the line of business that’s actually our business.”
I let out a half-laugh. “So we’re just tapping out.”
“I’m tapping out. I can’t do this, Ry. I only have so many hours a day and between the new game and Tristan and Payton…I can’t work around the clock anymore.”
I was grateful Max had discovered some kind of work-life balance.
Why the hell couldn’t he have found it a month from now?
I shoved out of the chair and stalked back to my office.
After everything I’d done to get Sam on this, Epic was saying thanks, but no thanks. It wasn’t about the money. It was that we were on mile one of a hundred mile race, and Epic had quit before they even began.
I’d seen my share of failed blockbusters. The thought of Phoenix becoming one of them sickened me.
I had promised to let Sam know when I heard back. Still, I hated typing out the text to let her know.
Two minutes later, my phone rang.
“What happened?” Sam started without saying hello.
Since Monday, I’d been wanting to hear her voice. But I’d been hoping to do it with good news, not bad.
“They’re not using them.”
I expected her to swear, or commiserate.
Instead she said, “You sound edgy as hell.”
I glanced at the stack of Red Bull cans in my recycling bin. “Why do you care.”
She hesitated. “Meeting everyone at LIVE on Friday…it showed me what you and Max are part of. And I care about that.”
“Awesome.” I was being a dick but couldn’t summon Nice Riley today. I didn’t know if it was the news from Epic, or Sam’s voice on the phone, getting under my skin like an electric current.
“So what. You’re just going to sit in your office and sulk for the rest of the day?”
“Men don’t sulk. They brood.” But I didn’t want her to agree, to hang up and decide it wasn’t worth it. “Got a better idea?”
“Actually, I do.”
“When did you take this up?” I asked as we carried our rented compound bows toward the set of targets.
“After
high school. Once you get the hang of it you can’t beat it for stress relief. I haven’t been since my dad got sick but I used to go once a week.”
We picked an empty target at the indoor range. Not hard to find in the middle of the day. “So what,” she started. “You thought some big studio would take my art and email back to say ‘sure no problem we’ll use it, thanks for pointing out ours sucked’?”
I grimaced, looking over at her as I pulled my rented bow out of its zippered container.
“Pretty much.”
Sam stripped out of her short leather jacket, revealing a black long-sleeve sweater. That, coupled with the way her hair was twisted up into a ball on the top of her head, had me thinking of French girls and badass ballerinas.
Which was not helping my mood.
She took a spot at the line. “You know better than to expect some film studio to fall at your feet.”
“Actually, a lot of people fall at my feet. I’ve grown accustomed to it.”
A smirk started on her full lips.
She let the first arrow fly, a practice, and it landed in the second circle from the middle.
“You want some pointers?” she offered.
I grunted. “I’m fine. I have done this before.” Twice, in gym class.
I followed suit, mine landing near the outside edge of the target.
She nodded toward the target. “Let’s make this interesting. Five arrows. I win, you go to LA and sell the studio on using my images instead of theirs. And you don’t come back until you do.”
I shot her an incredulous look. “They’re already onto scripts. Directors. It’s done, Sam.”
She lowered her bow and turned back toward me. “You want me to say you’re right and there's no way you can change this.”
“I am right. It's fucking over.” She didn't have a clue what she was talking about.
“You’re stubborn. Almost as stubborn as Max. But I’m not giving up you.”
“Why not.”
“Because you didn’t give up on me.” Her eyes were serious on mine. “You told me I could do this art, and you were right.”
“You’ve been watching too many Disney movies. This is different. It’s not a ‘dig deep and you’ll find it’ deal. It’s me against a Hollywood studio.”
