Heaven and Hell (Heaven and Hell #1)(33)

His mouth went from my ear and he agreed over my head with a, “Yep.”

“You grew up there,” I kept telling him about his life. “In LA, that is.”

“Yep,” he agreed again but his voice was vibrating like he was laughing but yet not.

Undeterred, I carried on.

“You grew up in a not very good neighborhood so within weeks of you signing your contract with the Colts, you bought your Mom a house in Malibu.”

Sam went back to silence.

I didn’t.

“On the beach,” I continued.

Sam said nothing.

I kept going.

“Because of the lessons you learned from your Mom, you told Sports Illustrated you wouldn’t accept any endorsement contracts for products you didn’t actually use and feel good about endorsing.”

“This is true,” he muttered, completely unperturbed at the extent of knowledge I held about him.

I sighed.

Then I sipped more champagne.

Then another tactic came to me so I announced, “I have a dog.”

“You do?” Sam asked.

“Yep, her name is Memphis.”

Sam said nothing but he moved away from my back though only so he could pull me gently from the balustrade while turning me. When he did, he took the glass of champagne from my hand and set it on the balustrade then he grabbed my hand and pulled me down the terrace.

I kept talking. “She’s a King Charles spaniel.”

Sam led me through some doors and I looked up at him, intent on my course so only vaguely noting he tipped his chin up toward someone and when my eyes went in that direction, I saw Luci grinning madly at us. I gave her a wave so as not to be rude because her eyes had moved to me but I did this still talking as Sam guided me along the outskirts of the partygoers.

“A King Charles spaniel, just in case you don’t know, is a small dog. She’s soft all over, brown and white; she has fluffy, floppy ears and big, sweet, dark brown eyes. But she’s also yappy. She talks a lot, she has a lot to say and, unless you’re her Momma, you wouldn’t get it, it would just seem like yaps to you. She’s also overly friendly. Many people find that annoying.”

This last was a lie. Everyone loved Memphis.

Sam guided me to some stairs and up them. What he didn’t do was speak.

I decided to get direct to the point.

“How do you feel about small, overly friendly, yappy dogs?”

At my direct question, because he was a gentleman, Sam answered it.

“I prefer big, not overly friendly, not yappy dogs who can sense danger and bark loud.”

“I don’t think Memphis can sense danger,” I told him. “I think Memphis likes everyone, including criminals. Though I can’t say that with any certainty since I don’t think she’s met any but if I had to guess, my guess would be, she’d like them.”

“That’s too bad,” Sam muttered as if it was all the same to him and he guided me into a room, closing the door behind us.

Then he moved me through the dark room as I abandoned Memphis and found another topic.

“I live in a small town,” I told him as the room lit dimly when Sam turned on the lamp beside a bed.

“Yeah, baby, you told me,” he said quietly.

I noted he was shrugging off his suit jacket then I noted him tossing it to the end of the bed. Then I noted his shirt looked even better without his jacket on. Then he sat on the bed and instantly pulled me in his lap then just as instantly fell back, taking me with him and twisting so we were lying side by side, facing each other.

I was drunkenly determined to follow the path I was on thus found nothing amiss in our current situation. I simply settled my head into the pillows and found his eyes.

“Outside my wedding gown, which was gorgeous, by the way, though not as gorgeous as this dress and seriously Cooter was not worth how gorgeous my wedding gown was but, obviously, now you know that, so outside of my wedding gown, this is the first gown I’ve ever worn in my life. I didn’t even go to my proms because Cooter thought they were stupid and I was seeing him all the way back then.”

I noticed Sam’s brows had drawn together slightly but, surprisingly, not at the stunning news I didn’t traipse through life in fabulous gowns, instead he asked, “Your husband’s name was Cooter?”

Excellent!

I should have started with that!

Cooter having the hick name to beat all hick names said it all about me.

“Yep,” I answered.

“Was that his real name?”

“No, his real name was Jeff but no one called him that.”

“Ever?”

I nodded, my hair sliding on the pillow, “Ever.”

“Not even when he became an adult?”

I shook my head.

“Jesus,” he muttered.

“Yep, he was a hick. He was, like, the definition of a hick.”

Sam just held my eyes.

“He was a fan of yours too, considering you were good at what you did and you played for the Colts, which was his team. That was, he was a fan of yours until you quit and went into the Army. He thought that was crazy. He couldn’t believe you gave up the chance of earning that kind of money to join the Army,” I shared.

“Kia, honey, I think it’s clear the guy was a dick,” Sam replied softly.