“Sam, that bruise is putrid,” I said, gesturing toward him while he pulled his shirt closed and buttoned quickly. He avoided my eyes. “Are you sure you don’t have a broken rib or internal bleeding, or something? Is your infusion set okay?”
“Please, don’t,” he said, his voice strained and impatient. “I should go.”
“No, no, no,” I said. It was so much easier to talk while wearing fresh undies. “I made you sleep on the floor. The least I can do is get you some coffee and breakfast. I’m sure you need breakfast.”
Sam looked around the apartment, as if he was trying to determine where he was. He eyed the ink sketch of a nude woman hanging above the fireplace, then looked back and forth between the two bedrooms on either side of the living room.
“Yeah, I should—”
“Stay. You should stay. I’ll go grab coffee and bagels around the corner at Sweet Spoon. Today we can be the people who avoid all awkwardness after getting drunk and sleeping together but notsleeping together.” I ran a hand through my damp hair and rolled my eyes. “Okay, wow. That sounded desperate. I’m not desperate. I just don’t want to be awkward. Wow, yeah, I justcan’tstop talking, and I’ve made itsoawkward.” I took a deep breath and let my hands fall at my sides. “How do you take your coffee?”
Sam smiled—why did I have to feel that smile everywhere? Hot and tingly and wonderful—and he laughed. “I could just go with you.”
“Yeah, that is a much simpler solution,” I said.
We walked through my neighborhood in silence and waited in line with the early afternoon crowd while a remixed cover of No Doubt’s “New” played around us.
There were no casual touches, no secretive glances, no easy cuddles, and I found myself edging closer to him to force an accidental embrace. I missed the affectionate freedom of intoxication.
It was ridiculous but I missed our stalled elevator, too.
“Are your rude comments reserved for boobs alone, or do you ever branch out?” I asked. “What about inappropriate ass grabbing? Lewd gestures? Catcalling?”
Sam turned his attention away from the chalk-scrawled menu board, his eyes narrowed. He stared at me for a long moment, then a smirk pulled at his lips. He inclined his head toward the counter, urging me to step up without offering a response.
Once my iced cappuccino and bagel order was placed and the barista eyed Sam, he shuffled forward, his hands firmly stowed in his pockets. This was not the road to ass grabbing.
“Almond milk latte, iced, extra dry, no sweeteners.”
“Seriously? You have a bad-ass cross tattooed on your back and you order an almond milk latteextra dry?Did you hear yourself?”
Sam handed his credit card to the barista and laughed. “I don’t eat dairy. Or wheat. Or artificial sweeteners.”
“What’s left?”
He placed his hand on my back—finally—and steered me toward a dim, quiet corner of the café. “Plenty,” he murmured before retreating to collect our drinks.
He made quite the picture: wrinkled khakis and shirt, hopelessly messy hair, heavy stubble, black eye. Somehow that didn’t deter several customers from eying him up and down, and sending longing gazes in his direction as he returned to me.
I know how you feel.
Once the caffeine and carbs hit my veins, I was a happier woman, and again capable of speaking in complete, logical sentences.
“Feeling better?” Sam asked. Too hungry to stop eating and respond properly, I nodded. “Yeah. I can tell. So . . . random question. Can I ask you about your apartment?”
Mouth still full of bagel, I nodded again.
“Do you have a roommate?” He stirred his coffee, his brow wrinkled. “Also—what’s the story with the art?”
“Mmhmm, yeah. About the art,” I said. The drawings were in every room, and though I was told it was odd to have so much nakedness in one small apartment, I did not care. “My great-grandmother, and she was a painter. She mostly painted ordinary things, like fruit, landscapes, children, but when she died, my father discovered this whole crate full of, well, you know . . . erotic art. And now I haul them around with me, wherever the wind takes me.”
“Is that a way of saying you move frequently?”
I shook my head. “No. Not really. I go where I go. After I finished college, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I knew I wanted a new city, so I moved here. I bounced around for a while, playing with a few different theatre companies, some bands, living in different parts of town, trying out the private music lesson thing, starting a grad program at Berklee.” I finished that chunk of bagel and thought for a moment. “Eventually, the wind will take me somewhere else.”
“And the roommate?”
“Oh, yeah,” I laughed. “Miss Ellie Tsai. We met in college, in the strings program. She was T-si and I was D-si. Obvious love connection. She’s on tour with a folksy pop band right now. She’s the lead fiddle. Very important role.”
