Love in the Time of Serial Killers(63)



He was starting to push himself up to his feet, but I grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pulled him to me instead, crushing my mouth against his. It didn’t start out as the most graceful kiss—I think I stabbed his cheek with my nose—but what it lacked in finesse it made up for in feeling. I mean it I mean it I mean it.

His hands were in my hair, cradling the back of my head as he deepened the kiss. But then he pulled away, and I saw his gaze dart nervously behind me. “Shit,” he said. “Conner and Shani, six o’clock. Or your twelve o’clock. I have no idea how this works.”

“I don’t care,” I said, and kissed him again. We were both getting rained on at this point, but I didn’t care about that, either.

I did manage to pull away and straighten my shirt—somehow, there was a warm imprint on my side in the exact shape of Sam’s hand—before Conner and Shani walked up. I wasn’t a total PDA psycho, although my brother of all people would deserve it after the tableaux of love he’d subjected all his social media followers to over the years.

“Get a room,” Conner said as they walked up, but he was grinning. He turned to Shani, reaching into the pocket of his cargo pants, and for a minute I worried that he was going to propose right there, which would’ve been awkward. But instead he withdrew his wallet, pulling out a twenty-dollar bill and slapping it into Shani’s outstretched hand.

“You called it,” he said.

“Called what?” I demanded, although it was pretty clear from the gleeful thumbs-up she gave me exactly what Conner had meant. This was why if I had my way, I wouldn’t tell them anything. To the extent I’d ever dreamed of my own wedding—which was approximately never—it had always been a courthouse affair for health insurance purposes where we told no one and continued to live in separate houses.

At least Conner wasn’t still freaking out about the proposal-that-didn’t-happen. He seemed back to his usual relaxed self as he started gathering all the food and putting it back in the cooler. The rain was coming down harder now, soaking through my shirt and plastering my hair to my cheeks, but Conner seemed to have no sense of urgency. Meanwhile, I was dying to get out of there for numerous reasons, only the least of which was the rain.

“Uh,” I said, “I’m probably just going to get a ride with Sam . . .”

“Yeah, get outta here,” he said, waving me off. “I’ll text you tomorrow about coming over to go through Dad’s room.”

A task I was emphatically not looking forward to. “Sounds good.”

Sam had already stood up, offering me his hand to pull me to my feet. I could’ve dropped his hand immediately after—it’s not like I needed to be led through the park like a child—but it felt nice, his warm palm against mine, our fingers interlaced. He pulled me closer to him as we half ran toward the parking lot, sheltering me at least partly from the rain with his body, and we were soaked and laughing by the time we climbed into his truck.

“So,” he said.

“So.” I gathered my heavy, sodden hair in a ponytail at the nape of my neck before releasing it again. The adrenaline was coursing through my body with such intensity that I could power this car myself if I could figure out how to plug in somewhere. “Are we going back to your place, or do I have to ravage a public school teacher in his truck?”

“I’m glad one of us is thinking of my role as an upstanding community member,” Sam said. “I can’t say that’s where my head was at.” He turned the key in the ignition, the truck bouncing over a divot in the pavement as he backed up and drove us home.



* * *





?SAM AND I barely made it inside his house before we were all over each other, clothes quickly discarded in a trail to the bedroom, where we made it to a wall, at least, if not the bed.

“Tell me this doesn’t feel casual for you, too.” Sam’s hands circled my wrists, pinning them gently to my sides, as he kissed his way down my neck. “God, Phoebe. I like you so much.”

I’d been about to make a joke, with the dim part of my brain that was even capable of rational thought. Something about how we were at least up to neutral professional by now, although nothing about this felt neutral or professional. But Sam’s declaration lodged somewhere in my chest, feeling somehow bigger even than if he’d used the word love.

“I like you, too,” I whispered, and then his tongue was in my mouth and I didn’t think about words again for a while.



* * *





?SAM TRIED TO convince me to stay the night, but I was worried about leaving Lenore that long.

“Not that she pays any attention to me,” I said. “But she’s actually using the litter box and I’m convinced she’ll stop just to be a brat if I’m not there to monitor her.”

“Sounds about right.”

We were lying in his bed, his arm under my neck, his fingers idly playing with my hair. It would be so tempting to roll over and go to sleep, but it seemed important to make this distinction somehow, and not just because of the cat. One of my fears with having a boyfriend—if that’s what Sam was—was losing myself, focusing so much on the relationship that I let go of important parts of me. And then if the relationship ended—when the relationship ended, an insidious voice whispered in the back of my head—would I be able to find those parts of myself again?

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