I quickly filled the loaded silence with, “I love it too, Luci, sweetie. So pleased you both are here.” My eyes moved to Maris and I added, “All of you. So pleased all of you are here.”
Luci shot me a half-fake, half-genuinely-bright smile.
Then she hurried to her purse, declaring, “I’m calling Hap right now.”
She dug in her purse.
Maris cried, “What an adorable dog!” and bent down to pick up a bouncing, delighted beyond reason to have company Memphis.
Sam arrived with five champagne glasses turned down, their stems tucked between his fingers.
Luci called Hap.
And the surprise party began.
* * * * *
In my nightie, ready for bed, I exited Sam’s bathroom to find Sam standing by the bed, emptying his jeans pockets, dropping stuff on the nightstand.
I also heard, distant but definitely there, Hap’s snores coming from where he was passed out on the couch. Another indication of why he had not nailed down his own “fine piece of ass.” Those snores would drive the most devoted woman either to kill him in his sleep or avoid a jail sentence and leave him.
Hap showed about four hours after Luci called him, he didn’t have to go back until Sunday and he didn’t drink champagne. Hap drank beer intermingled with shots of bourbon, a lot of both and Hap was even more happy as well as hilarious when he was loaded.
Once he’d passed out, Maris announced she was calling it a night and Sam had loaded a very tipsy (but still cultured) Celeste and Luci into the Cherokee and taken them to Luci’s house.
Now, obviously, he was back.
Sam had finished with his pockets and was pulling his shirt over his head when I asked, “Everyone settled?”
He tossed his shirt on the floor as I watched, tearing my eyes from the vision of his chest to his shirt lying on the floor.
Sam always tossed his clothes on the floor but in the morning he picked them up and took them to a plastic hamper in his walk-in closet. I knew Kyle didn’t do this because I heard Gitte bitch about it. I also knew Dad didn’t do it because I had a lifetime of Mom bitching about it (as well as bitching about Kyle not doing it when he lived at home). And I also knew Rudy didn’t do it because Paula bitched about it to me on more than one occasion. Cooter definitely didn’t do it.
Sam did.
It was another thing I loved about him.
I suspected I had Maris to thank for that and luckily now I had the opportunity.
“Yep,” he answered my question.
I mounted the bed on a knee and when I got both of them in I sat back on my calves and softly noted something I’d observed as the afternoon wore into the evening and then into the night, “I think she’s worse.”
Even as his hands worked the buttons on his fly, his eyes came to me, locked on mine and I knew he knew I meant Luci when he repeated a weighty, “Yep.”
“Sam –” I started but he interrupted me.
“I’ll call Vitale tomorrow. He told me he was going to sit down with her but he hasn’t reported in. I’ll see how that went.”
“Obviously not well,” I remarked.
Sam’s jaw clenched. Then he removed his jeans. Then all thoughts of Luci swept from my mind.
He pulled the covers back, climbed in, flicked them over his body then did an ab curl, his long arm reaching out toward me. He tagged me around the waist and yanked so I fell chest to chest into him as he settled on his back.
His arm stayed around my waist and his other hand sifted into the hair at the side of my head, pulling it back, his fingers curling around my skull. I left one hand pressed between us on the warm, silk skin of his chest and curled the fingers of my other one around his neck.
“Your Mom sees it and she’s worried too,” I told him.
“I know,” he told me.
“I’m at a loss, Sam.”
“Me too.”
I thought about it and shared, “Missy never snapped out of it. She breathes but she doesn’t live. Do you know what I mean?”
He nodded. “You tellin’ me her story, I watched her. Switched off. Existing. Wrapping herself in other people’s problems so she won’t have to face her own.”
There it was. He’d also figured out Missy.
“Seeing Luci, now I think something should be done about the both of them,” I said quietly.
“Yep,” Sam agreed.
I sighed.
Sam was done talking about sad, worrisome things and I knew this when he started to pull my face to his.
I resisted, whispering, “Sam, your Mom’s on California time. When I came up, the light was on under her door.”
“We’ll be quiet,” he muttered, his eyes dropping to my mouth at the same time they heated, them doing both making my ni**les tingle and he put more pressure on my head.
“Sam –”
Suddenly, he rolled me and when he was on top and I got a good look at his face, I knew instantly something profound had changed.
“Learn from them, baby,” he whispered. “You got one life, never use it just to breathe.”
I stared in his face, his intensity seared into me and it hit me that he was so right.
I had one life and I lived it for seven years doing nothing but focusing on each day, each breath, not living my dreams, not seeking excitement, not pursuing happiness, not searching for my slice of heaven.
I was done just breathing.
“We’ll be quiet,” I whispered back, Sam grinned his approval then he kissed me.
* * * * *
I woke up in a bed that didn’t include Sam or Memphis.
Then I looked at the alarm clock and saw I’d slept in. Sam was either out walking Memphis or he was already at the gym.
I rolled out of bed, did my bathroom thing, grabbed my fabulous robe and shrugged it on.
I was tying the belt, my bare feet silent on Sam’s wood floors, just about to round the railing to hit the stairs when I heard it.
“I did not raise an idle son.”
I stopped dead.
That was Maris and she sounded pissed.
I was more than mildly shocked. I knew from what Sam told me and what I’d seen of her that she was not a weak woman. I had no idea how she was before Sam and Ben ousted their father. I just knew from Sam’s stories that she blossomed after that and everything about her was proof. She was happy. She dressed well. She lived well. She had a great sense of humor and an easy smile. She worked and enjoyed what she did. She was her own boss. And she raised two boys who turned into fine men.
But she was like Sam, albeit with a bit of feminine drama, she was mostly laidback, good-humored and easygoing.