“IT NEVER GETS old, does it?”
I turned to face Debbie, who stood beside me with one arm crossed over her chest and the fingers on her free hand skimming the strand of pearls draped around her neck. At seventy-two years old, she was effortlessly beautiful, and I momentarily hoped I looked half as good as she did when I was her age. Her long silver hair was swept up in a chignon and pinned to the back of her head, and her eyes, as blue as the ocean, glinted beneath the set of metal-rimmed glasses perched on her nose.
“No, it doesn’t.” A small but genuine smile spread across my lips as I watched the young mother and her toddler-aged son walk out of the building, a bag full of donated groceries in her arm.
The food bank was at its busiest, the colder months and the holidays only a few weeks away bringing in a whole host of new faces. People of every age filtered through our doors, desperate for kindness and a shred of hope. It was why I loved working there. The pay was mediocre at best, barely enough to cover my living expenses most months, but Sam was right in what he had said as we’d plodded through the patches at Brown’s Orchard. Who wanted to be stuck in a career they didn’t absolutely love? Other than pain and grief, working a stressful job was the quickest way to sink yourself into depression. Thankfully, Adam’s life insurance policy and his ability to always be prepared meant I was able to do what I loved for a little while longer.
Sighing in contentment, we waited until it was only the two of us left in the small office before returning to our usual tasks. For the next two hours, I immersed myself in my work. Debbie went back to organizing the food on the shelves, making a count of everything we had, while talking about her plans for the upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. She intended on visiting her daughters in upstate New York and spending as much time as possible with her grandbabies. I flashed her an occasional smile as she rambled on, the excitement and love carrying in her voice making it difficult not to.
As I worked through our reports, filing away the donor receipts and entering them into our end-of-the-year spreadsheets, she stopped beside my desk, a blithe expression on her face. “You seem happy today, dear. I’m not sure what’s evoked the change, but it’s a nice one.”
Her words struck me silent, and as I contemplated her statement, my thoughts immediately traveled to Sam and the time we’d spent together the previous weekend. The corners of my lips tugged, and a warmth settled deep in my chest. The memory of his gentle touch and his concern when I cut myself surfaced, and as they had then, a swarm of butterflies awakened in my stomach. “I’ve met someone.” My confession tumbled out without any thought as to how it might have sounded or been received, and I quickly turned in my seat to face her. “Not in that way.” I rushed to explain, although there was little conviction in my tone. “It’s not like that.” I pressed my lips together, trying to make sense of what I was feeling. I still wasn’t sure it came out right. “I … I enjoy his company. He makes me smile and laugh.”
Debbie gave me a knowing look, her blue pools glittering under the bright fluorescent lights dangling above our heads. I decided to forego sharing how Sam and I met. It wasn’t something I spent a lot of time thinking about, and it wasn’t like we were dating or anything.
He was a friend.
Just a friend.
I repeated the words over in my head as if doing so would not only convince Debbie, but myself.
“That’s good, sweetheart. I’m glad. We all need someone in our lives who is capable of making us happy.”
“Yeah. Yeah, we do.”
Happy.
That was such a foreign concept to me, or at least it had been for the past sixteen months. A few encounters and suddenly it didn’t seem so frightening.
“So how are our totals looking for the end of this month and next month?” Debbie asked.
“Not good. We’re running low and could really use more donations. If people keep pouring in through the doors the way they have been, we’ll be out before Thanksgiving even gets here.”
“Did somebody say they were in need of donations?”
A spike in my pulse and the quickening of my heart caused me to spin on my heels. My eyes connected with a set of hazel ones, and my breath faltered.
“Sam. What are you doing here?”
He glanced at the bags cradled in his arms and shrugged. “I was cleaning out my cabinets and decided these items have been sitting long enough. Figured I might as well donate them to a good cause.” Setting the bags on the donation drop-off counter, he shoved his hands in his coat pockets. His gaze didn’t leave my face, and the warmth that gathered in my chest earlier as I thought about him was back—this time concentrated in my cheeks. If I reached up to feel my skin, I guaranteed it would be like touching fire.
“That’s very kind of you. Thank you.” I walked over to the counter and lifted on my tiptoes, peering into the bags of groceries. The items were not the usual donations we received. You know the kind—the odd cans of food nobody ever liked to eat. It was full of the so-called good stuff: peanut butter, jelly, tuna, ravioli, and even packaged goodies, such as cookies, cakes, and crackers.
My head snapped up, and as I pulled a few items from the bags, I arched a brow and eyed him suspiciously. I wasn’t buying his excuse that he had all these things sitting around, untouched. Given his circumstances, I was pretty sure he couldn’t even eat half this stuff. “And this is all stuff you had in your cabinets?”
He nodded, giving me nothing more than a shy, lopsided grin, and I was momentarily lost—lost in his smile and the way it stirred an emotion inside me I wasn’t used to experiencing.
“It’s nearly five o’clock, dear. We can unload and organize the rest of these tomorrow.” Debbie patted me on the shoulder, knocking me out of my Sam-induced trance, and moved to grab the bags from the counter.
“It’s okay. I’m going to stay for a little while longer. I want to get them all unpacked and put away, and I’d like to get started on the bags that need to be delivered to the homeless shelter. That way we’ll have more time tomorrow to bag up the items for the Thanksgiving food drive.”
She stopped and looked at me hesitantly. “I don’t know. I hate the idea of you being here all by yourself. I suppose I can stay—”
“I can stay with her.”
Both of our gazes switched to Sam, who stood with a sincere look on his face, and I realized then Debbie had no idea who he was. She studied him with assessing eyes, gauging whether to leave me with this supposed stranger.
“I mean, if that’s okay.” The ball in Sam’s throat bobbed on a steady swallow. “I don’t mind staying until she’s done and to make sure she gets to her car okay.”
Something in my stomach fluttered at his offer, his concern and his care. The food bank wasn’t located in a bad part of town, but you could never be too cautious, and his willingness to stay while I worked late was a sweet surprise.
“It’s okay.” I gave Debbie a reassuring smile. “He’s the one I was telling you about.”
I didn’t miss the way Sam’s face lit up or the recognition that soared across Debbie’s expression at my words.
“Well then.” She stared at me for another beat before giving Sam a final appreciative look and then walked off to gather her purse and coat from her desk. “I’ll leave you to it.”
After only a few minutes, Debbie said her goodbyes, leaving Sam and I alone in silence. As we stood unmoving, there was an odd feeling in my chest—a mix of excitement and nervousness at being able to once again spend time with this man. When you go so long without experiencing those little things that make your heart leap—warm smiles, kind words, gentle touches—you forget what it’s like to have someone want and need your attention. I wasn’t used to it, but that was exactly why I wanted it. I wanted him there with me, even if there was a small voice telling me I didn’t deserve this—this newfound happiness.
As I moved to collect the bags from the counter, Sam stopped me, scooping them up before I had a chance. “Where should I put these?”
I nodded toward the table we used for sorting our donations, and he immediately ambled over to it, placing the bags down before shrugging off his leather coat and removing the grocery items one by one.
Sitting down at my desk, I grabbed the donor receipt book and began writing on the white slip, my eyes betraying me and sneaking glances in Sam’s direction. His gray T-shirt hugged his torso, showing off broad shoulders and strong arms, and the muscles along his back and biceps flexed with the slightest of movements. I sank into my chair, bringing the end of my pen to my lips and allowing my eyes to linger longer than could be deemed appropriate. My gaze followed the path of his spine, settling on his narrow waist and, finally, his ass, which looked entirely too perfect in his jeans.
God, Jenny was right.
He had an incredible ass.
“So how is the hand?” He spoke over his shoulder, continuing the process of unpacking everything, and I blushed at the way I’d been unabashedly staring at him.
“Oh, um …” I tore my eyes away and returned to completing his receipt. “It’s fine. A little sore, but it will heal.”
“Let me see it.”
I tilted my head, surprised to find him right beside me with his hand held out, palm up. Without a moment’s thought, I placed mine in his. The rough pad of his thumb made a tender sweep around the wound, and my eyes fluttered closed. An electric current radiated up my arm, and I gulped at how his simple touch affected me, the intensity behind it, the way my blood burned through my veins with one gentle caress.
“It doesn’t look too bad. Just keep it clean and try to avoid using that hand as much as possible until it’s fully healed.”
“What?” I smirked up at him, not ready to pull away from whatever it was passing between us. “Are you a doctor now, too?”
He chuckled, and my insides twisted pleasantly at the low, gruff sound. “Not exactly. Let’s just say working with glass has its hazards.”
I glanced at his hands, noticing the fine lines of faded scars, small cuts, and scrapes that were a result of years of working as a glass artist. My fingers smoothed over the areas of skin, now healed and shiny, every single one a story I was suddenly desperate to hear all about.
As if capable of reading my mind, Sam pointed to a small nick at the heel of his palm. “Don't let the size of this one fool you; it hurt like a bitch. I had a tiny shard of glass embedded there for weeks and hadn’t realized it.”
“That sounds really painful.”
“It was.”
He continued to educate me on the history of his wounds, and I sat there, fascinated, the work I was supposed to be doing forgotten. Oh well. It wasn’t like it mattered. My shift was technically over, and I was off the clock. Any time now was being accounted for as volunteer work.
“And this one,” I asked, lightly tracing the jagged line that ran from the knuckle of his middle finger to his wrist bone. It was the largest—the one I assumed had hurt the most and taken the longest to heal.
A series of beats thumped against my ribs, and I watched as his brows narrowed, as if he wasn’t sure he was ready to share that particular story.
Had I made him uncomfortable?
Moving closer, my hand still clutched in his, Sam sat on the edge of my desk, his leg stretched out to support the rest of his weight.
“A few months before my mother died, I started learning how to cut glass on my own and piece together simple things. They were small—suncatchers, mainly. Perfect beginner creations. I was never allowed in the studio unsupervised, for obvious reasons. The glass, the hot soldering irons, dangers of lead exposure. There was too much stuff a nine-year-old boy shouldn’t be touching, but I was more mature than most kids my age, and after repeated begging, my father caved. He agreed to teach me, probably more as a means to keeping us both distracted from my mother's worsening health. If we didn’t think about it, it wasn’t happening, right?”
He smiled tightly, and I’d never seen a smile filled with so much pain. My own, yes, but never on anyone else. To say it was startling would be an understatement, and in those moments, where the hurt was so clear and evident on his face, I wanted to take away his burden and transfer it to me.
Sam kept his gaze on the scar, as if seeing it for the first time, and the look in his eyes told me I’d been right. This scar wasn’t skin deep—it penetrated far beneath the surface, permanently leaving its mark on his soul.
“We knew she was getting worse. Her heart was killing her a little more every day, and there was nothing we could do to stop it. Her medication had proven to be no longer effective, and the doctors said they’d tried everything. The only option left was a heart transplant, and despite her condition making her priority and moving her to the top of the list, the call never came.”
“I’m sorry, Sam.”
He looked at me sadly. “Death happens, right? It’s natural, but it doesn’t mean it’s something we like to think about, yet I couldn’t escape it. It stared me straight in the face every day, mocking me, wreaking havoc on my emotions as it slowly stole away the one person who mattered the most.”
He inhaled a shaky breath and carried on with his story, as if he hadn’t torn into a part of me I usually kept well-guarded.
“Anyway, I thought if I made her something special not only would she be proud but she’d have a real reason to smile.”
My immediate thought was, she had. She had him and that was more than enough reason, but I felt out of place saying those words. I hadn’t known him then, and I hadn’t known her, so who was I to make such assumptions, even if my heart told me it was true?
“Did you finish it?”
“The morning of her funeral, I ran into the studio, desperate to finish. I figured if I could complete it, I’d be able to slip it into her casket so she had it with her, always. I could give her a new heart to replace the one that had failed her. Determined, I began cutting the glass, but I could hardly see what I was doing. The tears were like a thick curtain, shielding my eyes, and I struggled to keep them from falling. I was in the middle of cutting a larger piece with the bandsaw, but my hands were shaking so bad.”
I frowned, listening while he continued, all the while knowing exactly how his story was going to end.
“My hand slipped, and I didn’t have time to react. My father found me in the studio right before we were to start getting ready for the funeral. We ended up in the emergency room for six hours, and I don’t know what hurt more: my hand or that I never got to finish.”
He glanced at me.
“I never got to give her her heart.”
Oh gosh, Sam.
My fingers smoothed over his hand, his knuckles, the length of the scar, and a solitary tear slipped from the corner of my eye. The pain he’d experienced and the sadness he was currently feeling at the memory was so damn palpable it made my own heart ache. I wanted to offer him some sort of solace, but I didn’t know how. Most days I could barely handle my own grief, but for him, I wanted to try. My thumb made another slow pass along his skin, and I laced our fingers together, hoping the gesture was enough.
Sam’s breath stuttered, and I swallowed, hard, realizing our connection went beyond the realm of friendly comfort. Before I could undo the intimacy I’d unintentionally created, he tugged me forward and out of my chair. His free hand found its way to my hip, and the heat of his palm burned through the thin layer of my blouse. A tingly warmth spread over every inch of my being.
Desire and want surged between us, crackling.
My chest rose on a nervous inhale, and my nipples hardened, straining against the soft cotton cups of my bra.
As if torn between drawing me closer or keeping me at a safe distance, Sam's grip on my waist tightened. He untwined our fingers, and for a moment, I thought he was releasing me altogether, but then his knuckles made contact with my cheek, lightly brushing away the trail of wetness left from my tear.
I lifted my chin.
Our eyes locked.
Deep and endless, his hazel pools darkened with an all too real intensity. He flicked his half-hooded gaze to my mouth, the tip of his red tongue darting out to wet his lips. The strong urge to drag my tongue along the same path hit me out of nowhere, and my heart took off in a crazy staccato.
He was going to kiss me, and I’d never felt more conflicted in my life—never been more terrified of my own possible reaction. I closed my eyes, fear and anxiousness twisting my gut in a thousand different directions, as a sudden flare of yearning took hold.
Sam moved first, the small space between our bodies all but completely eliminated as his mouth lowered, hovering over mine, ready to drop at any given second. Our lips weren’t touching, but I could practically taste him, and there was a small part of me that wanted to, badly.
Surrounded by his heat and his strength—the crisp, woodsy scent of his cologne—I waited.
I waited for a kiss that promised to destroy me.
A kiss that never came.
His cell rang, shattering the moment, and we jerked apart. What appeared to be a receipt fell from his pocket as he pulled out his phone, and I crouched down to pick it up, my eyes giving it a quick once-over and stopping as it dawned on me what I was looking at. It was a receipt. A receipt for everything he’d donated. Not the receipt I wrote him, as I’d yet to give it to him, but the receipt for everything he’d bought from the grocery store right before coming to my work.
I knew it. Why had he lied?
Not realizing what I held in my hands, Sam sighed and covered the mouthpiece on his cell as he held it away from his face. “I’m sorry. I’ve got to take this. I’ll only be a couple minutes, and then we can get to work and finish putting the rest of this stuff away.”
Unable to form words, I nodded and then watched him turn and disappear into the narrow hallway that led to the main lobby of the building. He returned a short time later, and we did as he said. In companionable company, we sorted through the donations and even completed all the bags that needed to be delivered to the homeless shelter. As we were getting ready to leave, I walked back over to my desk to grab my coat and purse and picked up the receipt.
I kept it clutched in my hand the entire time we locked up and made our way across the dark and empty parking lot. We came to a stop beside my car, and I turned to face him. With my emotions stuck between slightly hurt that he hadn’t been honest but also overwhelmed and in awe by his kind and thoughtful gesture, I passed it to him. “This um … this fell out of your pocket earlier.”
“My pocket?” His brow creased, his expression slipping and a frown pulling at his lips as it became clear what I was handing over. “Cassi. I can explain.”
Could he? I hoped so, because I was waiting, patiently.
“I didn’t have that stuff in my cabinets. Of course, I didn't. I can’t even eat the majority of what I brought.” He gave a small shake of his head and sighed, as if ashamed and not sure how to save himself from his deception. “I wanted to donate and contribute, that’s not a lie, but when I left your place last weekend, we hadn’t made plans to see each other again. Hell, I hadn’t even worked up the courage to ask you for your number. It wasn’t until I arrived home that I realized I didn’t want to find myself sitting at the coffee shop, hoping and praying you’d show up again.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me that?”
“God, I don’t know, Cass. Maybe because I’m shit at this.”
The tension lessened with his admission, understanding replacing the mild hurt I’d felt.
His mouth morphed into a timid but teasing smirk. “Who knows. Maybe I was trying to put those stalker skills to use.”
Unable to help it, I laughed, thinking back to the people-watching conversation we’d had in the café. “That’s creepy.”
“Creepy, huh?” Sam smiled, but it lasted only briefly before his lips flattened into a straight line. A lock of hair slipped from behind my ear, and with a hesitancy in his movements, he curled it around his finger, sweeping it gently back in place. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’m not used to this either, which is all the more reason I need you to be honest with me. I need to be able to trust you.”
“You can. I promise, you can.”
And I believed him. My heart told me Sam was as honest as they came, and for whatever reason, he enjoyed my company as much as I did his. Faulting him for being nervous or not knowing how to react would make me a hypocrite. I was treading water when I barely knew how to swim.
Reaching into my purse, I pulled out my phone and unlocked the screen, opening my contacts. “Let’s remedy this number situation, shall we?”
Sam rattled off his digits, and I quickly typed out a message and pressed send, hearing his cell chime from within his jeans pocket as we stood there. Grinning, I grabbed my keys from my purse and unlocked my car door, winking at him and sliding in behind the wheel.
“Don’t read it until you’re in your truck.”
I didn’t look at him as he walked away, nor did I cast a single glance in the rearview mirror as he crossed the parking lot to where his truck was located.
My phone pinged with an incoming text, and a deluge of giddy happiness overcame me as I opened the message thread, reading the message I’d sent him and his reply.
Coffee Saturday 9 am?
Sam: I’ll save you a seat :)