~ Fourteen ~
When the name appeared on her cellphone screen, Sam turned her back to her sister, so Leah wouldn’t see the change in her expression as she picked up.
“Yes, Colton,” she said, trying to sound weary. “What is it?”
“Jus’ callin’ to see whether you gon’ hook a brother up with those wings, or what.”
“I told you. It’s a lot of work. I’d have to get the special organic buttermilk, the right kind of panko and then the sauce alone …”
“C’mon, Sam. You know I love those wings. Nobody makes ‘em like you do. And after this trip, all I’m thinking about is …”
“Hi, Colton!”
On the other end of the line, Colt hesitated. “You have me on speaker?”
“No, you’re not on speaker. But you know Leah,” Sam sang. “Always up in somebody else’s business.”
“How much up in our business is she?”
“No, not that much,” Sam said.
“Of course not.” Colt’s tone was dry with disappointment.
They’d been bickering about it lately. The two-week deadline was long past, and Colt wanted Sam to come clean with her family. For lots of reasons, but mostly because he wanted to come clean with his; particularly with his father, who he had a relationship with that was more like brotherhood.
Sam still didn’t want to say anything just yet because she wasn’t even sure what it was she was supposed to be saying. She and Colt were … what? Sleeping together? Dating? Taking things to the next level? None of those sounded right.
It was easier for guys. They could get away with vague and meaningless crap like: ‘Me and Sam are kickin’ it on a different level these days, seein’ what’s up …’ Women didn’t receive information like that passively and without going into full-on interrogation mode. And Sam wasn’t sure her mother could be trusted not to call Colt up herself and ask him what his “intentions” were.
Sam had no idea what his intentions were. She didn’t even know what hers were. Whether he knew it or not, the last thing she and Colton needed was to invite other opinions into their already confused and confusing situation.
“Colton, what errand are you sending my sister off to do for you now?”
Leah had grabbed the phone out of Sam’s hand and was leaning against the kitchen counter, her lips twisted as though she’d been sucking on a lemon.
“Leah …” Sam reached for the phone, but her sister twirled out of reach.
Leah and Colt weren’t exactly oil and water, but they had never had a warm relationship. Leah was only three and a half years younger, and when she came along, it stood to reason that she would have become Sam’s newest little obsession—a baby sister, cute-as-a-button, like a little doll, to play with and pamper. But by then, there was already Colton; and he was a much more rewarding occupation than Leah, who only became marginally more interesting around the time Sam was six and Leah three.
That tension, of Leah wanting her sister’s attention when it was occupied elsewhere had spilled over into their tween, teen and then young adulthood years. Leah still treated Colt like an intruder, and he didn’t bother pretending the feeling wasn’t mutual. When Leah got engaged, and then married, he had been in her wedding party and celebrated as exuberantly as though marriage meant she was relocating to the moon.
“She don’ need to be cookin’ for your over-pampered ass,” Leah was saying. “Order in, or get a personal chef. Do like all your other baller brethren do.”
Sam sighed and went over to stoop in front of the car seat, set down on her living room floor, with her sleeping nephew, Kaylen, inside. At seven months old, he was beginning to resemble his father, Kieran, Sam’s brother-in-law—chocolate brown with silky jet-black hair and smooth, eyebrows. Barely a trace of Leah was visible, but it was there all right, in Kaylen’s already-apparent fiery nature.
“I know what y’all be doin’,” Leah was saying. “I watch Basketball Wives.”
Sam smiled, thinking of her trip to Philly, and her own preconceptions about the women involved with NBA players. She spent a few moments stroking Kaylen’s soft cheek, then went back into the kitchen to snatch the phone from her sister.
“Sorry,” she said. “She’s all ornery because she just lost her job.”
“I didn’t lose it,” Leah corrected loudly. “They gave it away!”
Sam wandered toward the den, and out of her sister’s earshot. “I don’t think she wanted to work anyway,” she told Colton sotto voce.
“Yeah, yeah. Can we get off your sister now, with her scene-stealing ass, and back to us?” Colt asked. “You gon’ cook for me or what? I’ll be in like around seven and I want to come straight there. But if you ain’t cookin’ …”
“Oh, are you really going to do that?” Sam asked. “Blackmail me with not coming over if I don’t cook?”
“No one’s blackmailin’ anybody. You sound like Leah. I was just saying that if you ain’t cookin’ I’ma stop and eat before I get there.”
“Do what you want to do, Colton.”
“Are you gon’ cook?”
“I don’t know!” she hissed. “I just don’t like how you’re holding over my head that I want to see you, and then using my cooking as a pawn to …”
“What are you talkin’ ‘bout? I always want you to cook, don’t I?”
Sam chewed on her lower lip. It was true. He did always want her to cook. Even before things changed between them.
Lately though, everything was so loaded. All the things she did for him as his best friend felt different now. Now, there was a tally in her head, and Sam sometimes found herself wondering whether she was being taken for granted by her ‘boyfriend’. If, in fact, that was what he even was.
“Okay, what do you want to eat?” Colt asked, lowering his voice.
“I don’t know.”
“That gourmet pizza? Joe Squared?”
“Um hmm.”
“Asiago, lamb and cilantro?”
Sam bit back a smile. “With red caramelized onions, and jalapenos, too, please.”
On the other end of the line, Colton sighed. “A’ight. So, it’ll be more like nine then. I’ll pick up the pizza on my way.”
When he hung up, Sam had to take a moment to stop smiling before going back out to the kitchen where her sister was now breastfeeding.
Colt had been away for the NBA Finals, having made the trip with two of his teammates to watch the final games in person. Sam had missed him. Before, he was away more than he was home, but she hadn’t missed him this much. And not in this way. There was an edge to this new ‘missing’, that was both sharper and sweeter. The things she missed were different, too. Before, it was the way he teased her, the way he babied her and instinctively took care of things that he complained she should be able to take care of herself.
Now, there was still all of that, but more. She missed the way she might be working on her laptop, cooking something, or watching television and would look up to catch him staring at her. He never looked away. His expression would be unchanged, his stare unfaltering, until she smiled, blushed, or turned away herself.
She missed … morning sex.
Colt was always up before the sun, because that was when he liked to run, while the air was damp, and cool. Sam never had been an early riser. She liked to sleep late when she could, and awaken gradually, slowly regaining her awareness of the world.
Colt never waited for that. She missed the way he pulled her against him when he woke up, and kissed the side of her neck, or the spot just behind her ear; how he gently slid a hand between her thighs to get her ready, bringing her awake that way. And how he finally parted her knees, sliding easily into her.
Morning sex, morning lovemaking was different than at any other time. It was wordless and slow, quiet and dreamlike. Sam always came quickly, and with her body still tingling and quivering, felt Colt working his way lazily toward his own climax. Afterwards, he kissed her on the temple, on the lips, and then covering her with the sheets, got up to shower. Sam felt she had become a necessary morning ritual for him; as necessary to beginning his day as opening his eyes.
“What did he sucker you into now?” Leah asked without looking up.
“He doesn’t sucker me into anything. And you need to stop picking on him.”
“Sure.” Leah snorted. “Remember back when you were fifteen and you worked at that fro-yo place and because he liked this nasty sludgey fudge yogurt, you’d drag it out of the storeroom and make it? The least popular flavor in the entire place and you’d make an entire vat of it for one spoiled-rotten …”
“Leah. Could we just …?”
“You’re so sensitive about him.” Leah shook her head. “I don’t know why you two don’t just screw and get it over with.”
Sam felt her face getting hot; and as luck would have it, that was the exact moment Leah looked up. Her sister’s eyes narrowed to slits.
“Samantha …” She let her vowels drag.
“What?” Sam busied herself with folding the baby blanket that Leah had rested on the sofa next to her.
“Are you and Colt …?” Leah’s mouth fell open. “Are you?”
“Leah, it’s …” Sam gave up and sighed.
“Oh my god,” Leah said. “I am so telling Maxine.”
Leah always referred to their mother by her first name, sometimes even to her face. Sam, on the other hand, could never imagine taking such liberties. Ironically, Leah was both the hands-down favorite, and the daughter their mother argued and disagreed with most often. Sam had long ago given up trying to decipher or penetrate that tight twosome.
“No, you’re not telling Mom, Leah, I mean it.”
Leah froze. “I was just joking around. Are you two really …?”
“You tricked me!”
“I didn’t trick you, trick. You’re just easy as hell to read. But I was just joking! Are you and Colton fucking for real?”
Sam grimaced. “Don’t … please don’t call it that.”
“What else would you call it?”
“You always have to make everything sound so crass,” Sam said, shaking her head. “Always, straight for the gutter.”
“Stop trying to distract me and answer the damn question,” Leah said.
“Okay, yes. We’re … it’s …”
Before Sam could even attempt to finish her confession, Leah laughed, a high-pitched cackle that caused Kaylen to jump. But then he settled back in and continued suckling, probably already accustomed to his mother’s unexpected outbursts.
Leah and Sam, though not too far apart in age, could not have been more different. Where Sam was quiet and composed, Leah was loud, brash and sometimes pretty darn close to obnoxious. As the baby of the family, all their parents’ rules had been applied a little more loosely when it came to Leah. She had been the wild-child, drinking, cussing, and riding around in cars with boys, while Sam kept her hands clean and her nose buried in books.
“So, what’s your plan?” Leah asked when she finally regained her composure.
“Plan for what?”
“Colton is a man-whore. You know it, and I know it. Don’t let him make a fool out of you. If you have him, and want to keep him, you need to train his ass now.”
Rolling her eyes, Sam looked away.
“Do you at least use a condom when you fuck him?” Leah demanded.
“I don’t understand how you can even talk like that, right in front of Kaylen. While you’re breastfeeding,” Sam added for good measure.
“I’ll take that as a ‘no’. God, you’re stupid.”
It was true. She and Colton never used condoms. Never had. The first time had been spontaneous, but Sam doubted it even would have occurred to her. Maybe she was stupid, but she trusted that Colt wouldn’t have let them not use one if he thought it would put her at risk. And he never asked because he knew the same was true of her.
“Seriously, Sam. Do not let him make a fool out of you.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“It means, don’t be just another wild oat that he sows. If you’re going to be with him like that, everything has to change.”
“Hey, Lady Bug.”
As soon as the door swung open, Colt leaned in to kiss Sam, handing her the pizza box as he did. Lifting his head, he sniffed the air and a grin spread across his face.
“You made them,” he said. “I knew you’d make ‘em.”
“Yes, I made your stupid wings,” Sam said, submitting to his kisses along the length of her neck. She smelled like spices, and like the soapy, clean scent of her favorite perfume. “They’re still warm, so you …”
Colt didn’t wait for the rest of her sentence but took the stairs two at a time leaving Sam standing with the pizza box in the foyer as he headed up to the kitchen. Once there, he was stopped in his tracks so suddenly, it was almost cartoonish.
“‘Sup, man?”
Drew was sitting at Sam’s kitchen counter, a pile of chicken bones on a plate nearby, and another plate of uneaten wings directly in front of him.
“Drew stopped by,” Sam explained needlessly from somewhere over his shoulder. She came in and set the pizza box down on the counter. “But don’t worry, I made plenty of wings. Yours are in the oven.”
“Cool.” Colt took a second to compose himself then went to the oven, opening it and looking in. There was a plate, covered with aluminum foil sitting on the rack and he almost reached in for it until Sam nudged him aside with her hip.
“Don’t,” she said. “It might be too hot.” She grabbed an oven mitt off the counter and reached in for the plate.
“Wouldn’t want to mess up the ‘Money Man’ hands,” Drew said from somewhere behind them.
Colt bit his lower lip to prevent himself from responding and waited for Sam to set down the plate. She positioned it directly opposite Drew’s, so Colt would have to sit there, looking into his smug face as he ate.
This wasn’t what he had in mind when he sped down the Baltimore-Washington Parkway to get here before it got too late.
“Just like ol’ times,” Drew said, as Colt took a seat at the counter. “The Three Musketeers.”
“Nah, I think you got it all wrong, bruh. Wasn’t never three. It was always just two. And a tag-along.”
“Why do I have to be a tag-along?” Sam laughed. “Just because I didn’t play basketball …”
“I wasn’t talkin’ ‘bout you,” Colt said.
At that, Drew looked up and smirked.
Shaking his head, he reached for another chicken wing and bit into it with relish. The kitchen fell silent for a few moments, and Colt knew that the silence was basically the sound of Sam recognizing her blunder.
How the hell could she not know that after he’d been gone for almost a week, he wouldn’t want to roll up and find some other dude in her crib?
“I’m making a spinach salad,” Sam said from behind him. She sounded a little more subdued now, her cheeriness contrived. “Either of you want some? I can make a big one, if …”
“Bring it on,” Drew said. “After eating fifteen of these wings, I might need a little something to move it on through.”
“Colt? You?”
Colton looked over his shoulder at her, and his and Sam’s eyes met for a few long seconds. He could see the questions in hers, but he wasn’t in the mood to give anything back, so he simply stared until she looked away.
Sam made the spinach salad and set two separate bowls of it in front of Colt and Drew, then took her place at the kitchen counter next to Colt, with her own salad and the lamb asiago pizza placed equidistant between them all.
“So, how was your season, Drew?” she asked. She sounded like a parent trying to break the uncomfortable silence at the dinner table between her two difficult teenagers.
“Let’s not talk about basketball,” Drew suggested. “How ‘bout we talk about you, and your work for a change? What’s up on Capitol Hill?”
“You know, the usual nonsense.”
“I hear that,” Drew said, nodding. “You think they dissed Americans over there before? You should hear the shit that gets yelled at me from the stands now.”
“And in different languages too I bet, huh?” Sam said.
She and Drew laughed, while Colt fumed. The taste of the wings was overwhelmed by his his anger, which on some level, he realized was not even close to being called for.
This was how it used to be back when they were kids as well—him, Sam and sometimes Drew as their third. But the difference was, and always had been, that he had never flirted with Sam, while Drew always did. Drew never respected that Sam was in what Colt liked to think of as The Bubble. She was a girl, yeah. A really nice-looking girl, even. But the unspoken code was that she was off-limits. To everyone.
And Drew was constantly bucking that code, despite Colt’s covert and overt warnings. He made comments to Sam about her appearance, telling her when he thought she looked cute, teasing her about the little twitch in her walk and crap like that. Most of the time, Colt restrained himself from saying anything.
The only time it had come to a head was the end of senior year. Colt had been hot shit then, and Drew was too, though to a lesser degree. They were weighing several options about who to ask to senior prom and tossing out names in what was basically a dick-measuring contest about who could pull the hottest chick.
Neither Colt nor Drew had a steady girlfriend, so choosing a prom date was basically shorthand for choosing the girl they wanted to nail later that night at the much more important post-prom private party.
Finally, Colt settled on his choice. Her name was Kimi Alvarado. Kimi was no doubt about it, the best-looking girl in school, and a junior. Once Colt made it known that he was taking Kimi, Drew stopped talking about who he might take.
In retrospect, Colt should have paid more attention. He thought Drew’s sudden silence meant that he was conceding that he’d lost the competition. He thought that by not mentioning it, he was being generous to Drew; that he didn’t need to rub it in.
Colt didn’t even think about the fact that Sam had been talking about prom as well and complaining that she hadn’t been asked yet. And honestly, that didn’t surprise Colt much. Sam was pretty, but she didn’t try. She wore shapeless sweatshirts with leggings and classic white Nikes practically every day, never bothered with makeup and seemed not to care about her hair. And she wore her glasses all the time, not because she needed them all the time but because she was almost always reading, and they were reading glasses. She did absolutely nothing to try to distinguish herself from other girls or seek male attention.
Which was fine by Colt because he knew more than anyone what dogs most of guys were.
He had his head so far up his ass that on prom night, when he walked into the hotel ballroom at the Hilton with Kimi Alvarado on his arm in a tight, red sequined gown, he felt like he was king of the world. He hadn’t spoken to Sam since earlier that afternoon when she told him that she was getting ready, that her mother was doing something special to her hair.
Holding court at one of the tables with Kimi and two other couples, Kimi perched on his lap while Colt surreptitiously felt her up, he only vaguely wondered when Drew would get there, and which of her girlfriends Sam might be coming with.
When they walked into the ballroom together, Sam in an emerald-green chiffon dress that looked like it was made of air; and Drew wearing a tux with a cravat to match the dress, Colt still didn’t get it. Not until he saw Sam look up at Drew with an almost shy smile, and watched Drew lead her straight to the dance-floor did it sink in.
That motherfucker had gone behind his back, and asked Sam to prom. The “something special” her mother had done to her hair looked amazing, and it was all for Drew.
The entire night had gone off the rails after that. Colt never did nail Kimi Alvarado, which probably surprised her as much as it did him. He danced with her a few times, and they made out in a corner near the restrooms, but he wasn’t present. All he could think about was post-prom, and what Drew might have in mind for him and Sam.
“These wings ain’t nothin’ but the truth, Sam,” Drew said now. “I might need you to freeze some and ship ‘em to me over in Spain.”
“I’ll make you a vat of them before you go, how about that?” Sam asked, spearing a clump of spinach leaves, and stuffing them into her mouth.
“That’ll work. But I doubt they’ll make it across the Atlantic.”
And unless Colt was mistaken, Drew was staring him down the entire time, like he was taunting him. Even with his head down, focus on his plate, he felt Drew’s eyes, like they were drilling a hole into him.
But Colt had something for that ass.
“Soon as we get done here, how ‘bout you and me head downtown to Mulligan’s?” he said, looking up at Drew. “For old time’s sake. Shoot a little pool, get caught up on some things.”
Mulligan’s was a pub near Georgetown where Colt used to hang out, and still occasionally visited when he was in town. Drew, when he was home from Clemson, used to join him and they would play pool for hours nursing a single, warm beer each, shooting the breeze and sometimes picking up girls who were so easy it was like shooting fish in a barrel.
“Bet,” Drew said. His eyes held the glint of someone aware that they had been challenged to a duel.
“Am I not invited too?” Sam asked.
Colt looked at her. “Nah,” he said, his voice a slow drawl. “Just me and Drew. For some man time, baby.”
At his use of the word ‘baby’ her eyebrows lifted slightly, and her eyes darted toward Drew.
So. That confirmed that. She hadn’t told him. Well, tonight, he was about to find out, whether she liked it or not. It was one thing to want to fine-tune the approach for their families, but where other dudes were concerned—and make no mistake, childhood friend or not, Drew was ‘other dudes’—Colt wasn’t about to hold his tongue.