mom all snuggled up as she read to him, and then some of him on the basketball court during high school. I found myself smiling as I walked down the line of them. I knew Mark’s life wasn’t perfect by any means, and his dad, from what I understood, was a real ass, but they seemed genuinely invested in him, if I went by the photos. Envy cut through me.
My family was great, don’t get me wrong. But there were a lot of us, so a pic like Mark and his mom all snuggled up? Undivided attention? Yeah, we didn’t have any of that. Our version would’ve resembled a puppy pileup with me on the bottom. By the time I was ten, I was in charge of packing all lunches and shepherding all my siblings to school. I wouldn’t give any of them away for the world, but sometimes I wondered what it’d have been like to grow up in a house that wasn’t a live-action version of a pinball machine, or with parents who didn’t run through three to five names before hitting on the right one when they were trying to get your attention.
As I walked, I opened every door I passed, discovering a linen closet, a small library, a laundry room.
I twisted another knob, pegging it for a guest bedroom and, for the second time in a month, crashed into a flesh mountain when the door swung wide. More accurately, the door banged into my head and I smacked into Sam on the rebound.
He caught me by the arms and righted me.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” he joked.
“I was looking for the bathroom.” I blinked up at him. “Your chest has somehow gotten even harder since the last time I ran into it. Are you wearing chainmail underneath there or what?”
“Thank you?” Sam swooped down to pick up the phone he’d dropped and tucked it in his pocket as I rubbed my head. Concern flickered through his eyes. “Shit, did I hurt you?”
“Nah, just my frontal lobe. But I don’t need it. I hear that’s where personality comes from and with this face”—I waggled my brows—“who needs personality?” Huh. Maybe I’d hit my head harder than I thought.
“You’ve got plenty of personality to spare, anyway.” Sam shrugged affably and gestured through the open door. “It’s all yours.”
I thanked him, then shut the door behind me and unzipped my pants, staring at the red patterned wallpaper and zoning out as I took a whizz. You’ve got personality to spare. Had that been a compliment or subtle shade? Did Sam even throw subtle shade?
When I rejoined the party, Nate and Eric had vanished, as well as Chet and Mark. I searched the crowd for John and internally pouted when I didn’t see him.
“Want something else?” Sam offered, as I approached him and Ansel at the bar with a heavy sigh.
“I think I might actually head back home in a few minutes. By the way, you need to ask for a refund from whatever wingman school you went to. Or at least request a remedial course. What the hell was all of that, earlier?”
Ansel laughed and flashed a peace sign. “I’m dipping out of this one.”
“Defend me, Ansel!” Sam protested. “I’ve been a wingman for you before!”
I slid my gaze across to Ansel as he wrinkled his nose. “The last time you wingmanned for me, I left alone. Remember?” He finger gunned me and walked off.
“I told him you were a good cook,” Sam countered. “Everyone loves a good cook. How was that a wingman failure?”
“But then you sat there and talked to him about draft picks for ten minutes solid.”
Sam pointed the mouth of his beer at me. “And the second you hopped in, I was going to fade into the background. You didn’t hop in!”
“I can’t hop in on draft picks because I care fuck all about draft picks.”
“Hmmm.” Sam stroked his chin consideringly. “Sounds like the two of you might not have much in common, then, because John seemed really into draft picks.”
“Great, you date him, then.”
“I’m not interested in him,” Sam said blithely, and I threw up my hands.
“You had one job.”
Sam deflated. His shoulders slumped, he hung his head, and for a second I thought he might actually feel bad, which in turn made me feel like an asshole. Then he cut his eyes smugly up at me from beneath his tousled blond curls and thick brown lashes. Except my dick misread it