Colt didn’t know why he was hesitating, because it was already too late. He was literally between Sam’s legs. There was no going back from this. He, and she, were slick and smooth and gliding and grinding against each other. And she was all sweetness and familiarity.
The way Sam smelled and tasted? It was as though this, she, they were always meant to be. Her nipples were hard as pebbles against his chest, and she arched her back to increase the friction. But she didn’t push further. She was almost completely silent, but there was confidence in her movement, like she knew exactly what to do, and exactly what he would like. And it was tripping him out.
“Sam …” He kept saying her name between the hot, long kisses, like there was a conversation he wanted to start, but couldn’t remember where he wanted it to end up.
She twisted away, prying her lips free and Colt lifted his weight partly off her.
“What?”
Her mouth was moist, and the lower lip swollen, with what looked like a small amount of bruising at one corner, where he had sucked hard on it. A little purple mark of passion.
“Sam,” he said again. Pushing all the way up onto his extended arms, and then back onto his haunches, he looked at her, shaking his head. “We …”
“Can’t?” she finished for him. She blinked in resignation, and then sighed.
He nodded, not even believing he was doing this. His dick was hard, he was looking right at her, and she was ready for him. She was definitely ready. He could see and smell just how ready she was. Nothing would be more natural, or simpler than to nudge her legs farther apart and once again sink between them.
But then he thought of her sister, Leah, of all people. And her mother, who he called Ma Maxine, and her cousins down South who he knew almost as well as he knew his own cousins. And then, out of nowhere, he thought about when Sam broke up with the Poindexter who had taken her virginity in college, and how she’d cried with her head in his lap; cried so hard she was snotting, and sweating, and the hair stuck to the back of her neck and to her temples.
Colt had brushed it away from her face, held it away from her neck, and dabbed at the perspiration like Sam was someone in the throes of a bad fever. He remembered wanting to kick Poindexter’s ass until Sam explained that she was the one who had broken up with him, and not the other way around.
‘Then … why …?’ Colt had asked, puzzled at what seemed to be genuine grief at the relationship’s end.
‘Because it still hurts!’ Sam had wailed, dissolving into loud sobs once again.
And Colt said, ‘okay, okay,’ even though he didn’t understand.
And then he had kept her there, stroking her hair until the crying turned into hiccuppy gulps, and Sam had eventually closed her eyes and fallen asleep, head still in his lap. He sat there, legs extended, and let her sleep, and his own heart hurt, just because he knew that hers did.
Now, he reached for the corner of the bedsheet, and pulled it free, handing it to her and averting his eyes. Turning his back to her, Colt slid to the edge of the bed, reached for his boxers and put them on.
“Okay,” Sam said from behind him.
He looked over his shoulder and she was shrugging her top on, and then wriggling back into her underwear, fumbling with the garments and averting her eyes.
He began speaking, with his back still to her. “It’s not that I don’t …”
“It’s fine.”
He felt, rather than saw Sam slide off the edge of the bed.
“Lock my door on your way out,” she said.
And then he heard the slam, and a click as she locked herself in her en suite.
Colt dressed, and then sat there for a few minutes more. He heard nothing from the bathroom, and Sam didn’t come out. So he did as she asked, and locked up before he left.
Splayed.
That was the best—the only—way to describe how she’d been on the bed, beneath him when Colton decided it was time to put an end to the festivities. She was splayed beneath him, legs wide open, practically begging him to have sex with her when he decided it was time for him to leave.
Remembering it was like thinking about a story your ‘fast’ friend told you, about how she’d jumped some guy after meeting him at the bar. It was the kind of misadventure that would make you feel embarrassed for your friend, and secretly wish she hadn’t even shared the story in the first place, because you were that embarrassed for her.
Except Colton was not some guy from the bar. He was her best friend. He was the guy her own mother called when she needed someone to clean the gutters, or mow the lawn, or pick her up from the ophthalmologist when she’d gotten her pupils dilated in the middle of the day and her daughters were unavailable. Colton was the son Maxine had never had.
And what had Samantha done? She had gotten tipsy and attacked him; gotten buck-naked and practically shoved her crotch at him.
Sam moaned and ran a hand over her face, slipping the K-cup into her Keurig. She chose the strongest brew she had because it was past one in the afternoon and she was still dragging. She’d slept through her spin class and not done any of her customary Saturday errands. There was dry cleaning still to be picked up, grocery shopping to be done, and a position paper she’d promised herself she would crank out by Monday.
It was for one of their clients who provided legal assistance to juvenile asylees, young people who had come to the United States fleeing countries where they were endangered by civil war, gang violence and other threats. She wanted to do well with this one, too, because it was rare that she got to do work on issues she cared this much about.
But how the hell was she going to focus on the rights of juveniles seeking asylum when all she could think about was that awful, awful image? Of Colt staring down at her naked body and deciding—at the last possible second—that he’d rather not.
Shaking her head, she grabbed her coffee mug, creamer and sweetener, hoping that coffee might clear the fuzziness from her brain and help her think of something she could say to Colt that would salvage their friendship, and her dignity.
Maybe though … maybe he’d called? She’d been knocked out since the early morning hours, after having spent a sleepless few hours staring up at her ceiling. She had no doubt that once she was asleep, she wouldn’t have heard the phone if it rang.
Taking the steps two at a time, Sam made her way upstairs. At her bedside table, her phone lay silent. Of the three calls she had gotten that morning, two were from her sister, Leah, and one from a number that she recognized as her dentist’s office, probably reminding her of her cleaning scheduled for that coming Monday. Tossing the phone into the center of the bed, she went in to take a shower.
She didn’t bother washing her hair again, and instead used her shower cap. Lathering slowly, then rubbing the exfoliating glove over her skin, Sam tried not to relive every moment of Colt touching each part that she now touched. She had areas of tenderness, around her nipples, and her lips still felt swollen.
She had been out of her head last night; out of her head and completely inside her body.
After the first kiss, she almost didn’t think at all, but moved on instinct, and out of need. She couldn’t remember a dozen fully-coherent words that she and Colt had spoken to each other. She doubted they had. The words seemed unnecessary then, but now she faltered in that belief. Maybe they should have talked before things went as far as they had. He wanted to, and she had shut him down.
By the time the shower was over, and she was gathering her fluffy bath towel around herself, her heart was beating hard with dread. How the hell was she supposed to face him?
Walking out into the bedroom, she pulled the shower cap off her head and crumpled the plastic into a tight ball.
“Hey.”
Sam squealed and dropped one end of the towel, along with the crumpled shower cap.
Colt, fully-dressed in something other than what he’d been wearing the night before, was lying across her bed, only his long legs hanging down over the edge. He turned onto his stomach and with chin propped on his folded arms, assessed her.
“You scared me!” Sam turned away, unable to show him how happy she was he was there.
“Sorry. You showered. Good.”
“Yes.”
“Brought you your coffee.” He indicated her favorite mug, sitting on the bedside table, with the coffee she had brewed before running upstairs to check her phone. “But c’mon hurry up and get dressed so we can go.”
“Where are we going?” Sam noted how cool her voice sounded, how distant, but she was unsure of being able to alter it.
She was standing there in front of him in a towel, and he didn’t seem to care, didn’t even seem to notice. Before last night, the least clothed she had even been around Colt had been in a swimsuit. And rarely even a two-piece at that. Was he that unbothered by her almost nakedness? Because she was definitely bothered by him, even though he was lying there fully-clothed.
God, she only hoped that would go away. But she couldn’t imagine it. He had been between her legs. Naked, and pressed against her. She had felt his …
“Lowe’s.”
“What?” She had lost her hold on the conversation. She turned.
“We have to go to Lowe’s. Wax ring, remember?”
He looked and was behaving perfectly normal. Like Colt on any other Saturday, happening by, and asking her to run errands with him.
“Wait,” she said moving closer to the edge of the bed as she noticed something. “Did you already go get your haircut?”
“Yeah. ‘Course. Just like always. C’mon, Sam.” Now he sounded impatient. “Let’s go before it gets too late. I know you don’t want to spend all day in a hardware store and fixing a toilet.”
“I thought you were fixing the toilet,” she said.
“I am. But you’re watching. I want you to be able to do it by yourself if you ever have to one day.”
He always said that when he helped her with anything around the house. But this time, the specter of him not being there, of her having to “do it herself one day” felt ominous.
“Okay,” she said. She grabbed the coffee mug and took it with her into her walk-in closet to pick something to wear, happy to get away from him and the confusing snarl of her emotions.
So, he wasn’t going to talk about it at all? Was that his plan?
If it was, Sam wasn’t sure she was going to be able to get through the next hour of this.
“You might want to think about getting a new commode too, soon,” Colt was saying, as they walked the bathrooms section. “The one you got now’s too small anyway. I think it’s that standard builders crap that they get for practically nothing when they’re doing large-scale construction.”
“Hmm.”
“But we’ll just replace the wax ring, and the bolts and screws for now,” he continued. “Okay?”
He stooped and examined a small bin of hardware, selecting and grabbing a couple more items to drop in the blue basket.
Sam could see now where he’d gotten his hair edged-up, where the newly-shaved skin was of a slightly lighter complexion. It looked like baby-new skin and made her want to trace it with her fingertips, to see if it was as soft as it appeared.
“Okay,” she said.
Colt looked over his shoulder and up at her. “You good?”
Sam nodded, but his eyes lingered on her face.
“Why you lyin’?”
“I’m not.” Her voice rose to a petulant squeak. “I’m fine.”
“You’re prob’ly just hungry,” Colt said. “You didn’t eat, did you? Sorry I rushed you outta there. Just want to get this out of the way.”
Of course he did.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Yeah, you are. You always get like this when you’re hungry. We’ll get something to eat after we pay for this.”
He stood and took a step toward her. Sam stood her ground, just a couple of feet from him. He came even closer and looked poised to say something when, just to his right, Sam noticed a young couple—as young her and Colton—looking in his direction with expectant excitement on their faces.
People recognized him all the time, and Colt always took it in stride, nodding a greeting, but walking with purpose, so that folks seldom plucked up the courage to stop him.
Noticing the shift of her eyes, he took her hand and steered her in the direction of the cash registers, probably guessing that she had spotted some of his fans. It wasn’t unusual for him to hold her hand if he wanted to guide her in a particular direction or hurry her along, but today Sam reacted as though he had burned her with hot coal.
He felt her flinch and looked down, a frown flitting across his features. But he said nothing, heading for the self-checkout lane to take care of their purchases. When Sam reached for her pocketbook, he made a sound of impatience and stood in front of her, blocking her access to the card reader and pulling out a card of his own.
Once everything was bagged up, Colt wrenched the receipt from the printer and headed for the exit, Sam trotting to keep up with his wide strides. He didn’t even look back.
“Colt.”
The sound of her voice stopped him in his tracks and he turned to look at her just short of stepping off the sidewalk and onto the blacktop.
“What are you mad about?” she demanded.
“You think I didn’t feel that back there? When I held your hand?”
Sam looked down at the pavement, but Colt reached forward and tipped her chin up.
“You don’t want me touching you now?” he asked. He leaned in, lowering his voice a little once he saw that they were catching the attention of other shoppers making their way back to their cars.
Sam shook her head.
“No?” he asked, sounding angrier. “See, this is why …”
He exhaled sharply, and turned as though to walk away but Sam held him by the arm.
“I don’t mean it like that! I mean … I just. I …”
“You just what, Sam?”
She swallowed hard.
Colt’s expression softened for a millisecond, grew angry again, and then exasperated. He walked toward her, and Sam instinctively took two steps backward. If he had been concerned about making a scene before, he sure didn’t seem to care anymore.
She said nothing for a few moments, and looked down at her feet. Sighing she raised her head to look directly at him and finally spoke. “I was embarrassed, okay? At first it seemed like you wanted to …”
Colt gave a short laugh and then glanced up at the sky. “You kiddin’ me, right? Of course I wanted to. Couldn’t you tell?” He glanced pointedly down at his groin.
“But you left.”
“You asked me to leave.”
“Because you rejected me.” It was difficult to even say the words, and they sounded almost choked, coming out. “What was there to do after that? Watch television?”
“You’d been drinking, Sam. I’d been drinking. If we were to ever go there, it couldn’t be like that.”
Sam stared at him.
“So, you want to stand out here all day, or are we gon’ get something to eat? And fix that leaky crapper.”
Stand here all day, she thought. Because the way you’re looking at me right now … I could stand here all day.
“Let’s go get something to eat,” she said, nodding. “And then to fix my leaky crapper.”
There was so much more she wanted to say, to ask. But right now, just having him confirm that he’d wanted her too was enough.