Twenty-one
Sprinting up the driveway, I force myself to acknowledge the setting sun and the chirping crickets. I’m at least two hours late. Though I had a surprisingly good time learning about seedlings and fluffing flower arrangements while Sam and his mom bickered, coming home late is inexcusable.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Sam dropped me off a block away and I hit the sidewalk running—no kiss goodbye, no plans for tomorrow, no nothing. I’d been far too freaked out for any of that. Since my brother started at the mill a year ago, I’ve never missed his arrival home, never missed having his dinner at least cooking if not finished when he walked through the door. Of all days to screw up, his first day back at work after being utterly devastated over our mother’s death is hands down the worst.
At least our father’s truck isn’t in the driveway. Maybe he’s at Smoke Jumpers, Granite Falls’ only dive bar, schmoozing another woman already.
I barge into the foyer and glance at the clock.
6:46.
Make that almost
three
hours late.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
James isn’t in the kitchen or the dining room or the bathroom. Seeing our bedroom door open a crack, I creep closer. The lack of Godsmack blaring from inside is alarming. My brother is never this quiet. Maybe he’s sleeping?
When I slip inside, I find him lying on his back in my bed, hands resting on his chest, eyes locked on the ceiling. “You’re late,” is all he says.
“I’m sorry.” I slip my now-dusty, pink flip-flops off and kick them under his bed. If he’s ever paid attention to the reddish dirt on the ground around Leslie’s place, he’ll know I was in the woods for at least part of the day. “I lost track of time. Want me to fix dinner really quick? We’ve got mac n’ cheese, peanut butter and jelly, some of those pizza roll things—”
“Where were you?”
“At the mall. And then I went to the library for awhile.” In the mirrored closet door, I see James watching me. He’s on his elbows now, his expression dark. Keeping my face neutral, I slip one of my sleep shirts from a hanger and drape it over my arm. “What about you? How was work?”
“I drove to the mall. And the library. You weren’t there.”
Lying has never been my forte, but I’m desperate—especially when I notice a bit of dried moss in my hair. “Maybe we crossed paths in the middle someplace?” I say, casually brushing it away. “I stopped off at the gas station to pick up a pop on my way to the library. I might have been inside when you drove past.”
James doesn’t say anything. Hoping that’s the end of things, I grab a pair of a flannel pants from his drawer and a pair of nondescript white panties from mine and practically run to the bedroom door.
“What were you doing at the mall?”
Slow, even breaths,
I tell myself. “I was looking for a job.”
He doesn’t say anything, so I push forward.
“If I had a job, we’d be able to save even more money. Plus, you wouldn’t have to worry about me being stuck at home with Dad—”
“No job.”
Taken aback by the force in his tone, I whirl around. “Why not? You have one.”
“We’re not having this conversation.”
“Don’t you want to hang out with your friends this summer? What about the Armory? If I had something keeping me busy, you could work out whenever you want.”
“No.”
“We need the money, James!”
My brother pins me with a hard look. “If I’m at the Armory, who’s gonna drive you to work?”
Sam
. “I could get my license—”
“No job, no license.”
Anger like molten metal churns in my chest. Rather than get into an argument about a ridiculous job or that I’m secretly dating his best friend, I redirect my irritation back to where it should be. “How is it fair that
you
get to have a life when
I
don’t?”
I flounce out of the room before he answers, then dash into the bathroom and lock the door behind me, checking and double-checking the lock like I always do. Closing my eyes, I sink to the floor.
Something dark and nasty sparked in my brother’s eyes when I lied about where I’d been—the same dark nastiness I’m used to seeing in our father. Anxiety crackles across my skin but I refuse to succumb to a panic attack.
James is
not
our father. I can trust him. He would never hurt me.
After what feels like an eternity of deep breathing, I climb to my feet and start the water. My shower’s going to be extra long tonight so James has time to cool off.
And then I’ll cook him dinner and lock us in our bedroom until we’re sure our father isn’t going to snap. Bed sharing will likely be involved. It always is if I let James get his way.
Maybe it’s just me, but the life I’ve been leading for years suddenly seems…off.
Twenty-two
“He won’t let me have a job or get my license or anything,” I grumble in the middle of the Shop Mart canned foods aisle the next morning. “The whole overprotective thing is starting to get old.”
“Can you really blame him?” Sam plucks the can of raviolis out of my hand and puts it back on the shelf. “You’re not exactly being honest about any of this. Maybe if he knew you were working with my mom, he’d be more open to the idea. Maybe if you told him about us—”
“No.” No way am I telling my brother about Sam—not yet, anyway—and James would connect the dots way too fast if I told him I worked at Liz’s florist shop. I won’t risk it.
“Here. Get this instead of that canned Chef Boyardee crap.” He hands me an enormous jar of spaghetti sauce.
A full serving of vegetables in every half-cup!
the label proclaims. “You know, if he doesn’t trust you with me, he’s probably not going to trust you with anyone.”
James has made how he feels about me and Sam dating perfectly clear. Rather than explain this again, I blink at the display of dried noodles he positions me in front of. Flat-end tubes, pointy cylinders, curly-cues, and bowties—all in various shades of orange, green, and paste-yellow. None of which look like the canned ravioli my brother loves. “Are you sure about this? I’ve never cooked anything homemade before.”
Sam snorts. “Boiling pasta and dumping a jar of sauce on top is hardly homemade.” He grabs a blue box of the flat-end tubes—
rigatoni
the label says—and tosses it into the cart. “You should come over for dinner this weekend. My mom’ll probably make a five-course meal to celebrate you helping her out at work.”
The warmth in Sam’s voice when he mentions his mother slips past my usual defenses. I grab a few more boxes of noodles and force myself to smile. “Your mom’s so nice.”
“Is that a yes?” He slides his cell phone out of his pocket. “Because I could call her right now. Now that she knows you, I think she loves you more than she loves me.”
I highly doubt anyone could love me more than they love Sam, least of all the person who knows him best. She lives with the side of him I’m just beginning to uncover.
“I wish I could, but I can’t.”
“Why not? Why can’t we just tell him already?”
I’m not sure how to explain without going into all the gory details of the pact James and I made. My brother will see me going out with Sam as desertion. Missing last night’s dinner was bad enough, and while I’m still irritated about the job thing, I feel awful about pissing him off. Without James, I’d be dead.
“It’s complicated,” is what I settle on. “I’m sorry.”
We walk up and down the narrow aisles, neither of us saying anything. I’ve hurt his feelings—though apparently not enough to stop him from snagging most of the cans and boxes I pick up out of my hands and swapping them for what I assume are healthier options—but I don’t know how to make things better without lying. I’m sick of lying, so I don’t bother.
“I don’t like how possessive he is of you,” Sam finally grumbles when we reach the small bakery section. He swaps the loaf of white bread I just picked up with whole wheat and tosses a loaf of French bread into the cart with it. “I’m not the only one who’s noticed, either. There were some pretty nasty rumors about you two back when we were in school. James got into a lot of fights.
I
got into a lot of fights.”
Embarrassment pricks my skin. “A lot of fights” implies a lot of people. Is this why it’s so easy to keep everyone away?
Stunned, I stare at the wheat bread in the cart. “James hates wheat bread.”
“James hates a lot of things,” Sam says, leaning against the display case. “He doesn’t own you. Why not do what you want, and tell him to fuck off?”
The bakery woman who’d been carefully lining up donuts in the display case a few feet away clears her throat and shoots Sam a dirty look. He mumbles a quick apology.
“My brother’s always had friends,” I say carefully, “but I’ve only ever had him. The way we are used to work fine, but everything’s different now that…” I hesitate, hoping he doesn’t laugh at what I’m about to say. “Now that I have you.”
The smile Sam gives me could melt the North Pole. Thank God for the shopping cart. If I didn’t have it to cling to, I’d be on the floor doing a really good impression of a swooning, love-sick puddle. I don’t even protest when he leans in and kisses me. In public.
“Yes, you do. And when you’re ready to tell him, I’ll be there.”
“Thank you.”
Though I’m giddy over what he said, I can’t tell him it’s not “when” I tell James, but “if.” He doesn’t need to know I’m still terrified he’ll dump me in a week or maybe a month and I’ll have gotten James mad at me for nothing. While being with Sam is every bit as incredible as I’d dreamt it’d be, he’s temporary.
James is permanent.
Twenty-three
Sam’s house is exactly the kind of place I’ve always dreamed about living in. Surrounded by a perfectly manicured hedge of red rhododendrons, and painted the warmest shade of yellow I’ve ever seen a house painted, it looks like it belongs on the cover of Cozy Cottage Living. There’s even a picket fence.
“Are you coming?” he asks from the porch.
I clutch the small bag of groceries I offered to carry to my chest. Perfection like this is bound to be breakable. I’m afraid to get too close and have everything I’ve imagined inside crumble before my eyes. “Maybe we should drive out to the river instead.”
Sam sighs, sets his armload of grocery bags on the porch swing, and walks back down to where I’m standing frozen on the sidewalk next to his car. “Sarah,” he murmurs, leaning close. “I want to be with you somewhere other than in the middle of a forest or in the front seat of my car. They’re…limiting.”
His warm breath caresses my neck and makes me shudder and tingle. If by “somewhere” he means his bed or even a couch…he has no idea how dangerous this is for me. How little control I have where he’s concerned. How badly I want to give him what every boy wants. If I do, maybe he’ll forgive me for not telling my brother. Maybe we can stay together. Maybe the weekend looming in front of us won’t feel like a death sentence because he’ll have something to remember me by until Monday.
He reaches for my elbow and leads me up the walkway to the porch, in the door, and into the tiny foyer, where I stop dead in my tracks.
There are flowers
everywhere
. Hundreds of them. But unlike the magic she created in the florist shop, Sam’s mom has transformed their house into a mausoleum.
My eyes immediately begin to water and I choke on the thick perfume of flowers past their prime that has settled over the room like mist. Slightly drooping dahlias and lilies sit in vases on every table, oil and pastel paintings of roses line the walls, and cast iron vines snake across the archway into the kitchen. The couch and loveseat are floral, the kitchen wallpaper is made of tiny lavender and yellow pansies, and the rug under the oak dining room table is a dusky red and green flower and leaf pattern. Any leftover table space is occupied by a bowl of dried flower petals and pinecones.
As if a house stuffed with dying flowers needs potpourri.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” I gasp, “but how can you stand living here?”
He shrugs. “Every time the shop gets another shipment, we get all the leftovers. My mom has this thing with perfectly good flowers being thrown away when they’ve still got ‘life’ left in them, so don’t be surprised if she tries to send you home with some.”
Trying not to sneeze, I finger one of the doilies on the entry table—floral lace, of course—and wonder what our house would look like full of flowers. Probably still a shrine to the boxing career my father refuses to leave behind. The thought of title belts decorated in floral garlands and wildflowers sticking out of his old boxing gloves makes me smile a little. Maybe I’ll take Liz up on her leftover flowers.
“My room is far less offensive,” Sam says, a nervous smile on his face. “Unless you’d rather hang out in the rotting garden?” He gestures to the nearest vase of wilted flowers.
“I want to see your room,” I say. And I do. I can’t imagine what his bedroom looks like. Not the emo-punk darkness I used to expect, that’s for sure. Despite his intensity, Sam’s far too hopeful for that. “But aren’t you going to give me the grand tour first?”
He looks so disappointed, I almost laugh.
“Fine, fine,” he grumbles. He points to the room with the couches. “Living room. The kitchen and dining room are behind you. Bathroom’s on the way to my room. Got it?”
This time I do laugh. “That’s it?”
He glowers at me, which only makes me laugh harder. While he deposits all the groceries in the kitchen, I wander into the living room, eagerly taking everything in. This is the part of Sam I’ve always wondered about, the part I didn’t have a chance to eavesdrop on when he hung out with my brother.
I wasn’t counting on how sad seeing this side of him would make me. Where my house is a shrine to boxing, everything in Sam’s house is dedicated to his father. The mausoleum feel suddenly makes sense.
On the end tables scattered around the room, framed pictures of a man that looks strikingly similar to Sam sit beside more flowery decorations. There is a five-by-seven picture of Sam as a toddler curled up on his father’s lap next to a bowl of potpourri. A round frame rimmed with shiny brass daisies surrounds Sam as a little boy, sitting on his father’s shoulders. A collage frame with four pictures of Sam and his father in various baseball jerseys sits next to a thin vase of neon blue irises. In the last baseball picture, Sam looks like he’s around twelve. His father, smiling as always, has his arm around Sam’s shoulders.
It’s the most recent picture of the two of them together in the room.
Everywhere I turn, I see another picture of this man, Joe Donavon, who is every bit as handsome as Sam in an older, chiseled sort of way. I let my eyes skim the framed set of medals and pins, a picture of his father wearing a bulky tan and cream-colored camouflage vest, helmet, and sunglasses, with a rifle slung over his back, and candid pictures of Sam’s mother and father together looking pretty close to our age. The two largest pictures hang over the brick fireplace. One is of Sam’s parents and Sam as a little kid—the kind of picture I used to wish hung on the wall in my house, though I’d wished for different parents. The other is of his father in a military uniform with a flag in the background. His steel-gray eyes, even more stunning paired with the uniform, stare back at me, searching and intense, so like his son’s.
On the mantle below the two pictures is a box holding an American flag folded into a neat triangle and a gold medal the shape of a star commemorating his death.
Behind me, Sam takes a slow, uneven breath.
“How did it happen?” I ask softly.
“His helicopter got shot down in Afghanistan. They were trying to get some of their guys out in the middle of a pretty nasty fight. They almost made it, I guess. He got the helicopter up and was on the way out when it happened.”
I relax into Sam when he pulls my back to his chest and rests his chin on the top of my head. “He’s so handsome,” I say. “You look just like him.”
“My mom says the same thing.” He kisses my hair and gently turns me around to face him. The sadness in his eyes is like a knife to the chest. “So can we go to my room now, or do I have to show you the backyard and garage, too?”
“We can go to your room.”
He reaches for my hand and leads me down the short hallway. “I used to make up excuses for why you’d have to come over with James. They were all pretty lame.”
“I’m here now.”
“Yes, you are.”
We’re at his door, which has a small dry-erase board nailed to the front. “Off at 8. Be good!” is scrawled diagonally across it in red marker. I hadn’t noticed at the florist shop, but even his mother’s handwriting is flowery.
“Be good, huh?” I give him the flirty smile I’ve been practicing.
“Mmm-hmm.” The heat in his eyes burns my skin. He slips his arms around my waist and kisses a path from my ear to my throat. “We’re
very
good together.”
I agree. Not that I can tell him this, because I’m about to pass out from how good what he’s doing feels. All of the sadness from a few moments ago quickly melts away. Thank God he’s fumbling for the doorknob behind him or else I’m going to tackle him to the floor right here in the hallway.
We stumble through his door mid-kiss. Already, I’m thinking about how hard it’s going to be to keep my clothes on and whether I actually
want
to this time. Before today, our touching has been tentative exploration at best—backhanded caresses, palms sliding beneath shirts, fingertips skimming the most private of places. I can tell he’s holding back, maybe even trying to get me used to the idea of being touched. He doesn’t know how badly I need this. How much I’ve come to crave his hands on my body, loving instead of hurting.
I don’t want him to hold back anymore.
My hands go to the hem of his red t-shirt and tug it upward. He breaks our kiss to yank it over his head. The fabric hits the wood floor with an anticlimactic
swish
but I hardly notice, and not just because Sam is standing shirtless in front of me for the first time. The flowers in the living room seem trivial compared to what surrounds me now.
Scanning his room, taking in what’s been so carefully placed inside of it, I realize just how little I know about the boy I’ve been in love with half my life.
Against the far wall, a full-sized mattress perches atop a massive frame made out of the same oak as his floor. There is a steeply slanted desk under the window with an ancient laptop sitting on top of it and a bar stool tucked beneath.
On the wall opposite the bed, a short oak bookshelf houses Calculus and Physics textbooks with little orange “USED” tags on the bindings, a snow globe filled with petrified wood, several rolls of paper, and a ton of what look like architectural magazines. A corkboard with pictures, assorted notes, and a few letters tacked to it hangs above the bookshelf.
The immaculate condition of his room isn’t a surprise, but the four enormous blue prints tacked to the wall in lieu of posters, and the dozens of intricate pencil drawings of buildings and bridges and houses covering the rest of his walls are.
I step around Sam and examine the nearest blueprint. It’s a house, I think. Bigger than mine and definitely bigger than his, with a huge master suite and several smaller bedrooms and bathrooms set like spokes coming off a long hallway. There are marks for windows on every exterior wall—dozens of windows. The small, hand-printed details are just large enough for me to read that the huge living room has vaulted ceilings and the kitchen counters are made of granite.
“My future house,” he says, sheepishly. “If I can ever afford to build it, that is.”
I drift over to the corkboard, admiring several of the sketches along the way. I recognize the picture of Sam, Alex, and my brother standing on a boulder in the middle of a clearing because an identical one sits on the dresser in my bedroom. Last summer, as a graduation present for Sam and James, the three of them went camping deep in the woods. Real
Survivorman
stuff. I remember pleading with James to let me go with them, and for a few days, I thought he might relent. Puppy dog eyes always slay my brother’s resolve.
Things had been quiet around our house for much of that month, though, so he decided it’d be safer for me to stay home than share a tent with three teenage guys. I have a scar that runs from my belly button, across my chest, and around the back one of my shoulders from that weekend—the unfortunate result of me trying to run away from my father. He caught me, tore open my shirt, and taught me a lesson with his leather belt when I screamed for help.
That was the last time James left me alone.
Next to the picture, a stark piece of university letterhead catches my attention.
Dear Mr. Donavon,
Congratulations! It is our great pleasure to offer you admission to…
“You were accepted to UCLA?” I practically shout, whirling around to face him. “Sam—why are you in Granite Falls loading freight?!”
Sam shrugs and looks out his window instead of at me. “I couldn’t afford the tuition. Plus, with my dad gone, my mom needs me.”
“But this means you’re super smart,” I say, jabbing my finger at the letter. “Your mom will understand. Go apply for a bunch of scholarships and tell them you change your mind! I’ll talk to James. Maybe if we go down there with you after I graduate, we can share an apartment and save you money on room and board.”
His glare, a harsh mixture of fire and ice, stops me cold. “Would this be before or after you tell him about us? Because I sure as hell won’t let you share a room with your brother if we get an apartment together, Sarah.”
My mouth falls open. Daydreams of us wandering the streets of sunny Los Angeles blur and fade until all that’s left is an incredibly hot, pissed off boy standing by his bed, looking vulnerable in the face of unrealized dreams.
I’m across the room, in his arms, and pressing my lips to his before either of us says another word. Sam always tastes so good—like icy mint toothpaste. My hands skim his stomach, feel their way across his hard chest to his shoulders, and fist the dark waves of his hair at the base of his neck.
When he tosses me onto the wide bed and lies on top of me, my ability to think shatters.
For the next couple of minutes, he barely lets me breathe. I pluck at the clingy fabric of my shirt, wishing I’d worn something loose like flannel pants instead of my cute, but way-too-tight-for-kissing-a-hot-boy jeans. Neither have stopped Sam from touching me, though.
Feeling every inch of his back beneath my palms, knowing how much he’s loving my touch, makes me crazy. I can’t feel enough, taste enough. My fingertips dig into his shoulders, pulling him closer, deeper. I imagine how pale my hands must look against all that tanned skin—
Wait.
A grin I can’t contain spreads across my face. “Roll over, please.”
“What…now?” He frowns. “I kind of like what we’ve got going this way.”
When he tries to kiss me again, I laugh and push on his chest. “It’ll just be for a second, I promise.”
“Fine, fine.” Still grumbling, he untangles his body from mine and flops onto his stomach next to me. “Is there a massage involved? Because I might forgive you if there is.”
I roll onto my side and let my fingers trail from the small of his back up his spine to the place my gaze has already settled. I wasn’t imagining it that night in the forest. Sam Donavon has a tattoo, and holy crap, is it sexy.
I trace the front blades of what I can only assume is his father’s helicopter, captured in perfect, miniature detail on Sam’s shoulder blade. My fingertips circle the gun sticking out of the side door, touch the tiny man wearing a helmet inside the cockpit, and trace the letters of his father’s name and the date he died beneath, which look like they’ve been burned into his skin.