“And that’s why we need to hit some festivals,” I said, stifling a laugh. He was adorable when he got fired up.
Sam frowned and leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest again. The closed-off, arrogant look worked for him. “Or I could go somewhere that’s heard of Whitley Neill gin and takes the health codes seriously.”
I pulled my lip between my teeth and moved my head with the My Chemical Romance tune, “Helena,” as I considered his comment.
I couldn’t compete with Sam’s posh club scene and all the cocksucking, but I also knew he was at least eighty percent bluster. Probably more. He enjoyed getting a reaction from me, and for some reason, I liked giving it to him.
Sam reminded me of Ellie, but it wasn’t until now that I understood that thread. Ellie and I found each other at freshmen orientation, our eyes meeting across a herd of orchestra dorks. We shared identical degrees of exasperation for self-aggrandizing professors, made a run from the team-building exercises at the same moment, and found ourselves chatting off to the side at every opportunity. We thought alike and had the same humor, our families were the pinnacles of weird, and we immediately understood everything about each other. And just that fast, she was my person.
It was like that with Sam, sort of. We were drawn together, magnet to metal. There was something inside him that I recognized, and maybe it was something inside me, too. I didn’t know what it was or whether I wanted to find out, but quickly and without analysis, he was becoming one of my people.
“You can stare at my boobs all you want.” I lifted a shoulder. “I could be talked into another drunken dance party.”
He sat forward and folded his hands around my cup. “Where are we going and do you want more coffee before we leave?”
After stopping at his place, Sam met me in the North End for St. Anthony’s Feast, a gigantic Italian event with food, music, parades, and more food. Later, we made our way downtown to the Black Rose for an Irish folk festival. Sam passed on every snack I picked up along the way and looked mildly horrified when I offered, but he didn’t mind admiring everything with breasts.
There was no escaping the obvious: Sam was a shameless flirt. I wasn’t sure it was entirely intentional so much as it was an ingrained behavior like chewing with his mouth closed. I was gradually—grudgingly—realizing that his eyes automatically landed on boobs and bums.
Without a reminder, he’d speak directly to my cleavage.
I’d wanted to equate those habits with a lack of respect for women, but the more time I spent with him, the more I saw that argument teetering on unsteady legs. He held doors open for me and grabbed my hand when we crossed busy streets and insisted on paying for all four of my cappuccinos and said ‘pardon me’ every freaking time he blew his nose.
Sam talked about my boobs and asked for oral sex on the hour, but that was his shallow, derpy way of enforcing the perimeter. It kept me—and everyone else—far enough away to miss the sweetheart under the surface.
He rolled his eyes when I said, “You haven’t eaten all day.” I pointed to the device tucked inside his pocket. I’d seen more than enough diabetic band campers to know regular meals were essential. It didn’t make me an expert on the topic, but I didn’t mind being the voice of snacking reason. “Let’s sit down and get something.”
“I’m fine.” Sam glanced around, shaking his head as if he wouldn’t be able to find anything palatable. “Don’t worry about it.”
His words were terse, and he was stewing in obvious distress, and I probably should have backed off. Reaching into his pocket, I glanced at the monitor. Being one of my people meant I didn’t back off. “What’s low for you?”
He offered a tight shrug and some under-the-breath swearing, looking uncomfortable, and murmured, “Around the fifties or sixties.”
According to the screen, his blood-glucose was forty-one and falling. I gestured to it, meeting his eyes with a please-tell-me-you’re-seeing-this stare. “Right. You don’t like anything here.” I waved at the stalls set up around Quincy Market and he shook his head. “Is there something youdolike?”
Sliding the device into his pocket gave me an opportunity to get a little closer and run my hand down his back. I could feel all the muscular notches and grooves that I saw this morning, and reliving that memory was a bit sinful. The sin probably had something to do with my inability to stop rubbing him.
“There’s a place near the Aquarium that isn’t awful,” he said. “But it’s fine. Let’s just stay here, and I’ll get another beer.”
“That seems like not a good idea,” I said. “Let’s go, Freckle Twin.”
The city was bustling, and every corner revealed a new celebration, and this was how I loved Boston the most. It would never be New York, and the longer I lived here, the more I enjoyed that.
Sam led us to Rosemary and Sage, a sparklingly clean, shiny restaurant with big communal tables and floor-to-ceiling windows. It was mostly empty. I assessed the menu, quickly finding salad, more salad, and sandwiches filled with salads. Everything was organic and locally grown, with the origin attached to every ingredient.
Ward tomatoes. Apponagansett peppers. Langwater spinach and kale. Barden apples. Aquidneck cheeses.
“Do you see anything you’d like?” Sam asked. He sounded apprehensive.
“Yeah, I’m good with this.” I nodded toward the menu. “I’m easy.”
We ordered, and once a greens-and-berries smoothie was in his hands, the clouds left his eyes and he loosened up. He smiled, laughing to himself as if he suddenly remembered a hilarious moment. He met my furrowed eyebrow with a devious grin.
“So you’re easy?” he said. “You could have mentioned that sooner.”
“You’re such a slutty beast,” I murmured. “Drink your juice.”
Our meals arrived—caprese panini for me, wheelbarrow of vegetables for Sam. I saw an armful of greens topped with asparagus, artichoke hearts, zucchini, peppers, carrots, celery, apples, beets, cranberries, radishes, cucumbers, mushrooms, seaweed, and bean sprouts. I didn’t think it was possible to have an entire garden in one salad, but Sam proved me wrong. He went hard with the herb vinaigrette but picked a few stray red onions from the bowl and set them aside with a contemptuous glare.
