The Fall Up (The Fall Up, #1)(51)
“Can we please just get back to your story? I’m dying to know about this skeleton.”
I let out a huff, grabbed my laptop off the nightstand, and pulled up Photoshop. “So, after she covered Herman in mesh, she rolled him onto my porch with a huge smile on her face. I couldn’t even argue with her when she declared that, when the skeletons lungs were filled with cigarettes, so were mine. She made me promise to collect all of my butts and deposit them in Herman, and when his chest was full, I had to quit smoking. It was a big chest, so I agreed. I got into the habit of keeping all of my butts and giving them to her at the end of each night.” My heart sped, and my hands, which had been furiously moving over my laptop, froze. “Sometimes I forget she’s gone and I still collect them.”
“Sam,” Levee breathed. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. I like talking about her sometimes. I miss her a lot.”
I heard her shifting again, and I tried to imagine her beside me as I worked on my laptop. I had it so f*cking bad for this woman.
“I bet she was beautiful.”
“She really was.” I sucked in a deep breath and smiled through the pain. It wasn’t so overwhelming with Levee. And, if I hadn’t already been falling for this amazing woman, that fact alone would have had me jumping in headfirst. “Anyway…anything else you want to know?”
“What’d you have for dinner?” she asked randomly.
“Dinner?”
“Yeah. I’m starving. Someone, who shall remain nameless, forced me to miss dinner with his sexy stomach, remember?” She giggled.
And with that, the pain disappeared completely.
I WAS LIKE a kid at summer camp, hiding with the covers over my head to sneak my phone. Mandatory lights out had been hours earlier, but I wasn’t ready to let Sam go, even as my eyelids became heavy with sleep. Over the first few days, they had confiscated my phone while I’d been assessed. Doctor Post had tweaked my antidepressants and taken me off the antianxiety medication all together. I really was feeling better, but managing my life inside the stress-free environment of the center was completely different than managing it on the outside, where millions of people pulled me in different directions. However, I was committed to doing my absolute best, even if it meant drastically changing my life when I was able to go home.
I was supposed to be resting and relaxing while giving my mind and my body a chance to recover, but nothing healed me more than those hours I spent on the phone with Sam.
It was three in the morning before we were both so out of it that we decided to actually hang up. Even with as late as it was, I still felt the loss with a physical ache. I missed him more than ever. But, when my phone pinged with an incoming photo, it was all erased.
At some point during our six-hour phone call, Sam had been busy. On my screen was an image of Sam in a bathing suit, lounging on a beach and looking like a tattooed Greek god. Heat pooled between my legs as I got an eyeful of him for the first time in days. Then a loud laugh escaped my mouth when I noticed a picture of me behind him. I immediately recognized it. It was one of the numerous times I’d accidently made a fool of myself by falling at the most inopportune time. My mouth was hanging open, my hair flying out to the sides in the most unattractive way possible, and absolute fear covered my distorted face.
I was no longer on the red carpet where it had originally been snapped. I’d been edited out of my dress and into a bikini, but my heels still graced my feet. Only, now, they were covered in sand, and I was falling only a few feet from Sam. I’d forgotten that he was a graphic designer, and if this picture was any indication, he was really f*cking good. It was a seamless rendering that definitely gave me a good laugh, but my heart soared when I read the caption at the bottom.
You could look like this every single day and I’d still want to see you. Pick up the phone tomorrow.
I looked at that picture for over an hour, until I fell asleep with my phone in my hand and a smile on my face.
Over the following weeks, Sam and I talked every single day. Yes, via FaceTime. He also sent me a new picture of us “together” each night when we hung up. They were all different, but he always looked like an Adonis and I always looked like shit. How he found that many terrible pictures of me was alarming. But there was always a funny message at the bottom that made the momentary embarrassment totally worth it. In Sam’s nightly images, we were traveling the globe together. From the Eiffel Tower to the Grand Canyon, I’d fallen on my face all around the world.
My favorite picture of all was us in Thelma and Louise’s green Thunderbird convertible. Sam had the signature scarf around his neck, which should have been humorous, but with those tattooed forearms resting on the steering wheel, he was still sexy as hell. For me, he had used a photo from when I had been riding a rollercoaster with a little girl from the Make-A-Wish Foundation. My mouth was wide open, and a terror-filled scream was being forced from my throat. He’d even gone so far as to add a bug flying into my mouth when he’d placed me in the car beside him. When I noticed that the front license plate read Sam & Levee 4-eva, I melted.
I was falling fast for that man, and I could only hope I was taking him with me.
A month ago, I had been standing on a bridge, contemplating jumping off, but with him at my side, even just in a Photoshopped car, I’d never been happier in my life. And it scared the hell out of me. I wasn’t sure how I’d ever be able to cope if he didn’t feel the same. Drugs might not have been my problem, but I was absolutely addicted to the quiet high he offered my mind.