When it’s just the two of us, I pull Sam into the greenhouse. It’s quiet inside, and the air is damp and scented with soil. The open panels let in just enough light for me to make out his expression. He’s trimmed his beard, but even with it still there, I can see how tight his jaw is. I stand across from him in one of the narrow aisles.
“Hey you. Everything okay?”
“I think you stopped me from punching Kevin.”
I laugh. “I think I did.”
He bends, wiping a hand over his face. “Holy shit. That would have been bad.”
“You can’t do that,” I say quietly. “If you want to do this with me, you can’t get riled up about stupid shit like that.”
He steps forward, crowding me against one of the metal tables. “I do. I won’t.”
I start to say more but he cups my face in his hand and bends, not kissing me yet, just breathing, sharing the same air. He smells like the cherries from his drink, warm and sweet, lips stained slightly pink. When he presses forward, he tastes like cherries, too. His hand goes around the back of my neck as he opens his mouth, soft and sucking.
There’s no place to go, and he lifts me, setting me on the table and stepping between my open legs. I’m surrounded by flowers; the air is sweet and bordering on too warm, a contrast to the bite of cold coming in through the open door. He kisses me again, harder now with tongue and teeth, dragging over my lip and pulling me deeper.
Something is happening beneath the surface of my skin, bubbles of carbonation rising to the surface, electricity moving along a wire and threatening to short out.
“Do you want to try doing this?” he asks quietly.
“I do.” My fingers twist in the fabric of his shirt. “But you can’t get riled up when people talk about me—because they will.” I look up at him, looking back and forth between those mossy-green eyes. “But also, Sam, we can never speak publicly about London. If we’re really doing this, we have to start over, completely. A clean slate. If it ever gets out that you sold the story to the Guardian, it will be all anyone talks about. Even years from now, every mention of our names will include a footnote about London and what you did. We’ll never be able to move past it. They’ll never let us move past it.”
His eyes are wide, and he nods once. “No, that totally makes sense. I would never betray you again.”
I press a kiss to the sides of his mouth. “We’re almost done here, and then we can figure out what we’re going to do next.”
He growls, grinning into a kiss before dragging me to the edge of the table, and along his body. With my feet safely on the ground, he takes my hand, bringing it to his mouth to press another kiss to my palm. It turns into a bite, and he moves his mouth up my arm.
“Stay with me tonight?” I ask.
He pulls my hips to him, bending to suck my neck. “How long do you have to be at the party?”
“Maybe another hour?”
Sam steps back reluctantly. The temperature has dropped and the air is a shock after the heat of the greenhouse. Sam closes the door behind us and we turn, stopping short when we see who’s standing there.
“Dad.”
He’s not even coming to a stop; he’s completely still, as if waiting for us just on the other side of the hazy glass wall.
“Hey, honey,” he says calmly, looking between us.
I’m tempted to take a step away from Sam, but I don’t want to look guilty. My heart climbs up in my throat as I try to gauge where Dad could have been coming from and what he heard and why he would just be standing there.
If it ever gets out that you sold the story to the Guardian, I said, it will be all anyone talks about. Even years from now, every mention of our names will include a footnote about London and what you did. We’ll never be able to move past it.
Finally, Dad cuts the tension, blinking back up to my face. “Did you find Nick?”
Shrugging, I manage an even, “Someone said they saw him come around this way with Deb, but I didn’t see them.”
“I think they’re back at the party.” With a smooth tilt of his head, Dad turns