Player(62)

I scooped up my keys and ripped the door open.

No, he’s not, my heart answered. And I flew down the stairs, realizing what my mind had been blind to.

Those kisses and sighs and smiles? Those were mine. And I was going to go get them.



Val

I laughed at Adam’s joke, setting my fork on my plate so I wouldn’t drop it.

His smile is so nice, I thought, ignoring the sadness underneath.

He’s not Sam, the other voice in my head whispered.

When Adam reached for my hand, I felt…

Nothing. I felt nothing.

But I smiled back, determined to give it my best shot.

A month ago, I would have been over the moon to be on a date with a guy like Adam.

But a month ago, I had been a different person.

A month ago, I hadn’t known Sam.

He’s your friend. That’s all he’ll ever be to you, and you know that.

I fought the urge to sigh. It was true. I’d known this was how it would be, and I’d walked into it willingly. And now, walking away, I was thankful for what I’d had.

That didn’t make it any easier. It didn’t mean I was happy about it. It was just what it was.

Adam’s hand was warm, strong, his fingers long enough that they covered mine easily. He’d started talking again, this time a story about a little boy in his music class that kept calling castanets nutcrackers. His thumb shifted against mine in slow, easy strokes.

I was thinking about Sam.

In fact, I was thinking so hard about Sam that I thought I caught sight of him out the window in my periphery. I looked, not comprehending the vision of his face on the other side of the glass. He couldn’t be real, standing there on the sidewalk with his chest heaving under his leather jacket like he’d run a mile. I had to have conjured the apparition, his eyes liquid gold, hard and heavy on mine.

Adam turned to the window. “Sam?”

I blinked.

Sam glanced down at our hands, and his face tightened. He met my eyes again only for a split second before he took off for the door of the restaurant.

The chime of the bell was loud enough to startle me. Slowly, I turned in my seat to look behind me.

And there he was, as real as my pulse thundering in my ears and the swampy damp of my palms.

I pulled my hand out from under Adam’s, confused by my guilt, confused by Sam’s presence, still half-wondering if I was daydreaming.

“Sam?” I asked stupidly, squinting up at him like he might change into someone else if I looked hard enough.

“Hey,” he said breathlessly. His face was a dichotomy of desperation and discomfort.

“What’s up, man?” Adam asked. His smile almost completely hid his confusion. His tone did not.

Sam shifted his weight, his hands opening and closing at his sides like he was trying to grip his own reins. “Do you…ah, sorry, could I…ah…borrow her for a second?”

“Sure, so long as you bring her back,” Adam joked. A thread of seriousness lay underneath.

I grabbed my napkin out of my lap and set it next to my plate as I stood. “I’ll…be just a second, Adam.”

He tried to smile, but when his eyes darted to Sam, the veneer of his certainty cracked. “Yeah, okay. Well, I’ll be here.”

Sam grabbed my hand and took off for the door, towing me behind him like a Radio Flyer. Once outside, he pulled me in the direction opposite the window where my table had been.

“Wait,” I said, pulling him to slow his pace. “What’s going on, Sam? Is everything okay?”

He stopped, turned to face me, pinned me with a gaze that brought time to a brief, heavy halt. “No, Val. Everything is not okay.”

Worry overtook my heart. I stepped into him, touched his chest. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

He covered my hand with his own. A jolt of possession and desire shot through me at the contact. “I’ve made a mistake. A stupid, blind mistake.”

My brows drew together in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“I didn’t either. Not until you were here. I…I don’t…I can’t…” He drew a long, noisy breath and sighed it out in frustration as he sought the words. And then he reached for my face and whispered, “Oh, fuck it.”

His lips connected with mine in a shock of pleasure that slipped over me like a sip of whiskey—a long burn, a sting, the sweet taste on my tongue, warming me from my chest to every extremity.

I leaned into him. He wrapped himself around me, breathing me in until I was dizzy from lack of oxygen.

When our lips finally slowed, we were twined around each other in the middle of the sidewalk, oblivious to anything beyond the tips of our noses, which grazed each other when we parted.

“He doesn’t get my blowjobs,” Sam said roughly, drunkenly, his lids half-closed. His hands flexed, gathering the fabric of my dress in his fingers.

A laugh burst out of me. “What?”

His smile, sideways and seductive. “He doesn’t get my blowjobs. Or my smiles or sighs. He doesn’t get your body because that is mine.”

My heart tripped at the word, hanging in the air for a long moment before falling at his feet.

“I should have seen it sooner.” He searched my face like he was seeing it for the first time. “All this time, I wanted to help you find a guy who would see you the way I do. Who would want you the way I do. Who would appreciate you the way I do. The way I do, Val. Thing is, no one will. No one can. No one will ever care for you the way I do.”