“Oh, we can still do that. Just no getting naked,” Dana said with a wink. “I don’t want Maisie to roll back the tape and see us rolling around on the floor.”
“As if I’d have sex on this floor,” she stated.
Dana laughed and moved out of her grasp but kept Samara’s hand in her own.
“So, what are you in the mood for? History? Fiction? New Orleans? Biographies?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Really, nothing. I just want to be with you. I don’t care where we are.”
“Okay. Well, canIrecommend something?”
“I guess.”
“Hold on a second,” Dana replied and disappeared into an office or something because Samara was left standing in the middle of one of the aisles of a bookstore at three-thirty in the morning.
“Are you robbing the place but leaving me here to take the fall?” she joked.
“No, I’m doing this.”
Above her head, Samara noticed there were lights now that danced along the ceiling before they settled and looked like tiny stars.
“Maisie has been hosting these lock-ins for kids once a month.” Dana explained when she reemerged and looked up with her. “They show up with sleeping bags and flashlights and get to read books for a few hours before their parents pick them up. She installed these about six months ago. I thought they were pretty cool. I know you won’t have sex on the floor, but any chance we can just lie down on it? I don’t have any sleeping bags with me, unfortunately.”
When Samara looked at her, Dana had some stars on her face. She touched one of them softly and nodded. Dana smiled at her and moved to sit down right in the middle of the aisle. Samara joined her, and soon, Dana was lying down, with Samara snuggled against her side, resting her head on Dana’s chest.
“So, what was your mom like?” Dana asked.
“Wow. First date, and we’re already going there, huh?”
“We don’t have to.”
“No, it’s okay,” she said and ran her hand under Dana’s shirt, needing to feel her skin before diving into this conversation. “She wasn’t perfect, but she was my mom, you know? I told you that she wasn’t a stage mom, and that’s true, but there were times where it felt like that to me a little bit.”
“Like when?”
“When I was fourteen and wanted to take a break, but I got an offer that she wanted me to take. I argued with her, but she told me that it would get me to the next movie and the next one after that. I gave in.”
“You didn’t want to do it?”
“No, but she was right. It was my first role that wasn’t really a kiddy thing, outside of the show, so itwasimportant, and it was only six weeks of work. After that, I got to take a full month off, and we went on a fun family vacation to the beach, where she just let me be a teenager. I kissed my first boy on that vacation.”
“Oh, you did? Should I be jealous?” Dana asked, wrapping an arm tightly around her.
“No,” she replied, chuckling a little as she looked up at their fake night sky. “He tried to use tongue. I shoved him.”
Dana laughed then and said, “Ah. So you werealwaysa pain in the ass?”
“Yes, pretty much. But it was a great vacation. I miss her.”
“What happened to the guy who hit her?”
“He went on trial earlier this year. He’s been held without bail since it happened because he drove on a suspended license. He had three DUIs before that, so they had it taken away. That asshole decided to get into a car after a night out drinking, and he killed my mom.”
“You and your sister were okay?” Dana asked, kissing her forehead.
“I got away with two broken fingers and a few scratches. My sister broke her collarbone and had a nasty cut on her leg, but my mom took the biggest part of the hit, and she didn’t make it.”
“I’m so sorry. I wish I could’ve met her.”
