Rise

by Piper Lawson

  I turned to find Sam at my my back. “How’d it go?”

  “I need some air.” I grabbed two drinks and Sam snatched some hors d’oeurves, and we took off toward the Exit sign.

  “What did she say?” Sam asked as she followed me through the fire door and up the stairs, her heels clicking on the concrete.

  “Nothing. But David says she’s thinking about taking the part.”

  Sam laughed. “That’s incredible.” The door that said “Roof Entrance” had us busting through it. “You really could talk anyone into…”

  She trailed off as the view hit us. There were no high rises between us and the ocean and only a few taller buildings in the LA skyline.

  The setting sun drenched the entire West Coast in brilliant colors that seemed to hang in the air, painting the buildings in the light.

  I crossed to the edge of the roof and leaned over the metal railing. Sam pulled up next to me. Sounds from the streets wafted up from three stories below.

  “Doesn’t this remind you of high school?”

  I snuck an amused glance at her. “I bring you to LA for New Years, and you think it’s like home.”

  “Not the Hollywood part. You. Me. The rest of the world falling away.”

  I shifted closer to Sam.

  There was no one I’d rather share this moment with. Being here, with her, in the place dreams came true? It was everything I could’ve wanted.

  And it’s about to end.

  Our flight would leave in the morning, and would have us into Logan by late afternoon. I was surprised by how much the thought saddened me.

  “So what do you think. Any resolutions?”

  She screwed up her face. “I need to figure out what I’m going to paint next. It’s hard and I don’t know why. I never had issues creating before. When my mom died I couldn’t do anything but draw.”

  “You think you create from pain?” She nodded. “No, that's not it. Even in your darkest moments, you create from love.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was always drawn to you. It wasn't your pain I was drawn to, Sam. It was your capacity to love. The way you can create something beautiful from nothing for the people you care about. For your dad, by taking care of him when he was sick. For Titan, when we needed concept art. For me, when I sold my car. I don’t know many people who’d step up like that so selflessly.”

  Her eyes searched mine, emotion filling them. “No one has ever said that to me. I always feel like I’m a beat behind. Playing catch-up in some game everyone else is winning.”

  “There’s no game, Sam. No winners and no losers. You get knocked down seven times, you get up eight.”

  Sam exhaled, her smile fading as she scanned the horizon. “So what now? Does it all disappear tomorrow?”

  “What do you mean.”

  “It feels like we’re in some alternate reality that’s going to fall away when I wake up.”

  When I’d asked her to kiss me in the car, it’d been an impulse.

  The way she’d done it, like it was a stolen moment, an intimate one. The feel of her lips on mind was like a brand, and had left me both gratified and longing for more.

  “LA falls away,” I said finally. “You and me… we don’t have to change, Sam. We don’t need rules or definitions,” or an expiry date, I wanted to say. “It’s a new year. We can be anything we want.”

  She turned back to the view and leaned her head on my shoulder, her hair sliding against my cheek.

  But she didn’t answer, and the question hung between us like one more color in the twilight sky.

  24

  Like a date

  “You’re out of practice,” I commented as the game finished whistling and went dark, telling Max his turn was over.

  “I’m also out of sleep,” he said drily as he stepped back, shoving his hands in the pockets of his worn jeans.

  Most of the time it felt like a million years since high school. We’d both changed, evolved. We carried the marks of our losses, victories and learning.

  What hadn’t changed was the arcade Max and I’d arranged to meet at after my flight landed from LA.

  It was the same one we’d frequented in grade school, though it’d switched ownership and added a few games.

  “How was Hollywood?” Max asked, feeding a few quarters into the machine and offered it to me. I stepped up.

  “We have a lead for Phoenix. Jane Casey. She’s going to be amazing.” I thought of the voicemail from David as I started hitting the buttons.

  The little lights let off sparks of dopamine in my brain, the rush coursing through my body as my score climbed.

  Thump. Thump.

  “Remember when we made that first game?” I asked. “Your coders were college students and whoever we could get our hands on. We had no fucking clue what we were doing.”

  “It wasn’t my first game,” he reminded me. “I’d been doing it for years in my basement.”

  “True. But it only became real with Oasis.”

  He nodded, leaning back on the next machine as he watched. “Overnight we were running a company.”

  My turn ended and I stepped back.

  Max fed the machine more money. It began singing its song, and my friend started the rhythmic thumping of the controls again.

  “You ever think it’d get easier?” he asked.

  “What. Running a company?”

  “Yeah. That someday we’d have time to sleep. To sit with our families at the dinner table.” I ignored the pang in my gut. “To do this.”

  Thump thump. Thump.

  “I never really thought about it,” I admitted.

  “I did. Instead there’s more pressure all the time. Decisions everyday. People who need answers.” His hands worked the controls. “Tristan smiled yesterday. Payton maintains it happened when I put my shirt on inside out. I’m pretty sure he can’t process humor before two months.”

  “But if there was a child that could?”

  “It wouldn’t be mine.” I barked out a laugh. “How’s Sam?”

  Hearing her name had my body thrumming with energy.

  Last night after the premier she’d called to check up on her dad, speaking rapid-fire Spanish that had me noticing her expressions and gestures. The love she had for him even as she was grilling him about what he was doing, and eating.

  After hanging up, she’d crawled into bed next to me where I worked on my computer. Sam had slowly closed the top of my notebook with a teasing smile. I hadn’t stopped her as she removed it from my lap and set it on the desk, her eyes full of promise.

  “She’s addictive,” I said finally.

  “Girls have a way of doing that. Especially when they’re the right one.”

  “I don’t know about right,” I muttered. “If we were right, wouldn’t it have worked out the first time? You said it yourself. We lived in each others’ heads and ended up breaking each others’ hearts.”

  “Sometimes the right thing can be the wrong thing if it happens at the wrong time.”

  I considered. “I thought it’d be different now, with her. She wouldn’t turn me inside out.”

  Thump. Thump thump.

  “I keep waiting on that with Payton. It doesn’t happen,” Max said. “Every time I look at her it’s new. Now seeing her and Tristan... If you’d have told me three years ago I’d be here? I would have laughed you out of the room.”

  “But you don’t regret it.”

  “Not for a second. The only thing I regret is that this is the first I’ve gotten a few minutes away from Titan, and Tristan,” Max said. “Our New Years Eve was spent changing diapers.”

  “It’s the new normal, my friend.”

  “I know. But I wish I could figure out how to get some alone time with Payton. I want to get her a damned glass of champagne or something.” He eyed me up in a way that had me instantly suspicious.

  “What?”

  “I tried bringing him into the Pit and he cried incessantly.�
��

  My gaze dropped to the baby carrier in Max’s grasp, the green Hulk blanket tucked around the sleeping bundle inside.

  “Baby doesn’t like being surrounded by nerds, computers, and pinball machines… can’t be yours,” I deadpanned as I took the carrier and set it on my desk.

  A brunette head appeared in the doorway. Payton’s hair fell around her head in waves, and her long jacket had a fur collar that upped the cuteness factor.

  “Thanks for doing this, Ry. I’m strangely excited to go out for lunch, even though it’s just three blocks away. I can’t remember a time before I had drool on me and toothpaste stuck in my hair.” She grimaced, but I saw the way her gaze lingered on Tristan. “There’re diapers and bottles in this bag.” Payton set a big duffel bag on my desk. “And there’s a wrap, if you want to wear him.”

  “Wear him?” I asked, intrigued.

  Payton showed me how to strap Tristan to my chest.

  “He seems to enjoy being helpless,” Max grunted from the doorway.

  “He’s a baby,” I commented. “Even you didn’t come out of the womb self-sufficient.”

  Payton studied Tristan on my chest, pressing a hand to her stomach absently. “Call us if you need anything.”

  “He’ll be fine,” I said. “I promise to teach him only wholesome things. Math. Latin. Literature. Though I might put on the Dave Chapelle Netflix special if I hit that mid-afternoon slump.”

  Payton retreated to the door, a knowing look on her face. “Okay. We’ll be back soon.”

  They disappeared, and I went back to work in the seclusion of my cave.

  I cranked through some work I’d fallen behind on. Moved some money around to ensure payroll was looked after for the next few weeks.

  If I thought the baby would be a distraction, it was the opposite. First, Tristan smelled like sunshine and unicorns.

  Second, he’d make these little sounds when he shifted. Sighs or grunts that I could only hear.

  The little guy sleeping on my chest was like therapy.

  Not that I needed therapy.

  Note to self. Buy Tristan a pony.

  A noise in the doorway had me looking up.

  “Hey,” I whispered with a smile.

  Sam stared. “Damn. Wasn't expecting the dad vibe.” Her eyes moved uncertainly from me to Tristan.

  “I used to babysit Emily when my mom was still working, and Grace was trying to make partner at her consulting firm.” I brushed my fingers across a wisp of dark hair on Tristan’s sleeping head. He barely stirred. “You want to touch him?”

  She crossed to me, reaching out a finger to stroke his cheek. A look of wonder crossed her face.

  Note to self. Buy Tristan a Maserati.

  “I wasn’t sure when I’d see you,” I said casually.

  “You packed this in my suitcase by mistake.” She pulled a sweater out of my bag and passed it to me.

  “You came to give me a sweater.”

  It’d been two days since Sam and I parted ways at Logan.

  It wasn’t like we’d made plans. Though a text saying something like ‘I’m distracted and throbbing every second you’re not touching me’ would’ve been appreciated.

  I’d been busy catching up on work after being out of the office. I shouldn’t have been thinking about her in between meetings, or when I got home. I normally had zero issues keeping work and personal life separate, and that was when I was dating someone.

  Not…whatever this was.

  “I also made you guys something.” She opened her bag and pulled out a series of picture frames, setting each of them on my desk.

  Any irritation melted away. “These are the originals of the Phoenix concepts we sent to Epic.”

  “I was checking out the auction. It just closed. Have you looked at it?”

  I'd actually forgotten it. “Show me.”

  She pulled it up and the numbers on the screen had me blinking. “Sam. Two-hundred and thirty bids. And it finished at…” I glanced down at Tristan. “Poop.”

  Sam grinned.

  “I'm giving the money back to you.”

  “No!”

  I shook my head. “You get that is your art, right? Sam, why don’t you want to be credited for this? It’s amazing work. You could do more of it. Get millions of eyes on your talent. Get paid for it consistently.”

  “No,” she said, firm. “This isn’t who I am.”

  I thought about her anonymous profile.

  I’d been meaning to bring it up, but it hadn’t seemed like the right time.

  “The auction got me thinking, though,” she went on, gesturing to the framed drawings. “You didn’t say anything about Epic needing the originals, so I thought Titan might like to have them. For the office.”

  I put a hand on Tristan’s back as I leaned forward to study each image in turn. My chest expanded, from the emotion of seeing them up close and from what she'd done.

  Each of the images was mounted in a silver frame, matted with pale ivory so the colors stood out even more.

  “Sam,” I murmured as I straightened. “The team’s going to love them.”

  “You think?”

  “Let's find out.”

  I carefully picked them up and carried them out to the conference room in the Pit and spread them out on the table. The developers crowded around, and I added the printouts of the images Sam had already done.

  Excited chatter started and Sam and I exchanged a smile I suddenly couldn’t hold in.

  Her energy, bold, bright, vibrated through every part of her. Shone through her eyes.

  This was what she should be doing. Not selling abstract paintings by pandering to rich old men.

  And she loved it. Even if she said she didn’t, it was obvious in every line. Every brushstroke.

  “We should do something,” I blurted.

  “Tonight?”

  I surprised us both by saying, “Dinner. I told you I’d show you my townhouse. And my cooking repertoire has expanded since high school. I might have something to rival your ropa vieja.”

  “Really.”

  I crossed back to the table, raising my voice. “Guys. Tell Sam I can cook.”

  “He makes a mean sourdough toast. With a range of artisanal spreads,” Jimmy added at my look.

  “He’s good at ordering,” Thea said helpfully. “He always chooses the best catering places. And pays for it.”

  Sam’s hand played with the edge of her sweater as she watched the exchange.

  “Ry, we’re supposed to call marketing in five minutes,” one of the project managers called.

  I checked my watch. “We can do it in my office.” I jerked my head toward my office and Sam fell into step with me, putting distance between us and everyone else.

  Max’s words echoed in my head. The right thing can be the wrong thing if it happens at the wrong time.

  “Come over,” I said. “Witness the wonders of my kitchen, after which all of my fingers and sixty-five inches are at your disposal. With high-def theater surround sound.”

  Her mouth twitched at the corner. “Dinner and a movie. That sounds suspiciously like a date.”

  I nudged her with my hip. “As much as I’d love to negotiate with you, it’s not in the cards for today. Just say yes.”

  Her gaze ran over my body and I had to fight the urge to press her up against the wall right there.

  “If it makes it feel less like a date,” I offered, “we’ll eat steak and then I’ll eat you. Deal?”

  “I don’t know how you can say that with a straight face.”

  “It’s a gift.”

  25

  Mi sirena

  I’d always had some vague notion of wanting a partner, a family. When women asked me if I wanted to get married, have kids, it was an easy ‘yes’.

  But it had never felt as palpable as it did now.

  Maybe because none of them were the one you pictured having it with.

  I flipped through shirts in my closet, sett
ling on a dark blue one and shrugging into it.

  The moment earlier with Sam and Tristan had stuck with me. I considered it as I buttoned the shirt, staring into the mirror. My hair looked dark brown, still wet from the shower, instead of its usual red.

  Once I’d gotten teased for my pale skin. The freckles that came out in the summer were long gone in the middle of winter.

  I’d gone through a period of hating my looks. Then liking them. Then at around twenty-five, I realized looks didn’t matter.

  Chemistry’s not about looks.

  It’s the way you can smell someone and want them. The way they make you feel, just by occupying the same space and time.

  With Sam…I wanted to be where she was. For as long as she’d let me.

  I put on a playlist and took out the steaks I’d bought on the way home. “Your Love” by Outfield blasted from the speakers as I started to make compound butter. Thank you, Epicurious.

  I also started the sweet potatoes. Minutes later, I put the steaks on. They sizzled in the pan, and I turned them until they were seared to perfection.

  Everything was done at eight sharp.

  Now what?

  I walked to my kitchen and peered out over the street. No sign of her.

  Was she driving? Taking a cab?

  The door rang and I jogged down the stairs to let her in.

  I opened the door. “Hi.”

  “Hey.” Sam peered back at me, a smile curving the corner of her lips. She held up a paper bag. “I brought dessert.”

  She unzipped her coat, and my gaze dropped to her clothes as I helped her out of it.

  A sweater, and caramel colored leggings that matched her eyes.

  “Sam?”

  “Yeah?”

  Her shampoo hit me, the scent going straight to my groin.

  “You are dessert.”

  With a grin, I led her up the stairs.

  “I can’t believe you live here,” she offered from behind me. “I figured after growing up in an old house you might be sick of them.”

  “No way. I love old houses. The way they creak, the attention they need, it’s like living with another person even when you’re single.”