“Hey you,” he said quietly, reaching forward to run two fingers down my arm.
I chanced a look at him over my shoulder, and my pulse became a stampede. He was sleep rumpled, hair mussed, and eyes still tired. “Hey.”
“Are you okay?”
I frowned, turning back to the trays of meat. Was my mental clutter visible all over my face? “Yeah, I’m great. Why?”
“You didn’t come to the garden.”
Oh. I nodded, stepping down the line. Sam grabbed a plate and followed me. “We got back late from the play,” I explained, “and Nana wouldn’t let me head out.” I smiled up at him, face heated. We had sex. Is he remembering it too? “You’d know this if you had a phone.”
Sam laughed. “What do I need a phone for?”
“So you’re not sitting out in the garden waiting for me.”
He scooped two fried eggs onto his plate. “It was worth it.”
“Why?” I asked, laughing. “Did someone else show up?”
He bumped my shoulder gently. “Seriously, you’re okay?”
“I’m good.”
“Not . . . hurt?”
Oh. If I thought my face felt hot before, when his meaning hit me, I grew feverish. “A little, but . . .” I looked over at him. His mossy eyes were studying me so intently, his lips parted. Truth magnet. I mirrored his words: “It was worth it.”
His gaze dropped to my mouth. “That’s a pretty good answer.”
“I think I’d worried you’d be weird today.”
Putting down the bacon tongs, he looked at me, confused. “Weird how?”
“Just—”
“This is what I meant,” he interrupted with quiet urgency, looking over my shoulder to make sure we weren’t being watched, “how it happened fast, and I didn’t want you to regret it afterward.”
“I don’t.”
“I’m not being weird,” he insisted, holding a very solemn hand to his chest.
I bit back a laugh at the earnest gesture. “Well I’m not being weird either.”
With a flirty grin, Sam reached up, tugging on a long strand of my hair. “Good.”
I reached up, too, pressing my thumb to his comma scar. “Good.”
seven
NANA AND LUTHER ATE like sloths. At every meal, each bite was carefully cut, poked, chewed, swallowed. Pauses were taken for sips of water or wine, and there was far too much conversation. In contrast, Sam and I shoveled our food in our faces, and then sat, waiting—staring while Luther and Nana nattered on, oblivious to our brain-melting boredom. Meals—particularly lunch—were becoming a drag, and neither Sam nor I had any patience for sitting for two hours in the middle of the day.
Plus, afterward, Nana always ordered coffee, but then had to sit and wait for it to cool to room temperature before she could drink it. At lunch, just twenty-four hours after we had sex—it was all I could think about—I looked at Sam, who, as soon as Nana lifted her hand to get the waiter’s attention to order coffee, was already looking at me with Get me the hell out of here written all over his face.
Finally, I broke: “Nana, can we go outside and walk around?”
She gave her order, and then looked over at me, concerned. “ ‘Walk around’?”
“I mean,” I amended, “just sit outside and people-watch?” I winced apologetically. “It’s hot in here, and I am super bored.”
This was enough teenage attitude to earn a lecture later, but if she let us out into the fresh air, it would have been worth it. With a tiny flick of her wrist, we were dismissed.
We didn’t wait for confirmation: both Sam and I were up and bolting from the dark, subdued restaurant before either she or Luther could change their minds.
There was a bocce court in the back garden of the restaurant, and a few small tables with chessboards. The bocce court was occupied, but Sam pointed to a chess table and I followed him over, hoping my rusty skills would return quickly.
I sat in front of the white pieces; he sat in front of the black, looming over the table. With a tiny tilt of his chin, Sam smiled over at me. “You start.”
I moved my king’s pawn two spaces and opened my mouth to speak, but stopped when I heard Luther’s voice just on the other side of the window. All of that internal flailing over our boredom, and we’d only managed to move three feet away.
Sam laughed quietly, shoulders pulled up to his ears, and he was so adorable I wanted to stretch across the table and put my mouth on his. The day before was still a