“There you are,” a voice says a few minutes later.
Lifting my head, I nod a greeting. “Morning, George,” I say, making sure to restrain any curve that might try to work its way onto my mouth. This is not an appropriate place to let my real feelings show—not to anyone. Especially not with my father due to walk through the door any minute.
“I’ve been looking for you.” George puts his things on the table and takes a seat beside me. “I spoke to the woman I know from the morning show you asked about. She’s definitely interested in interviewing Sam. The whole Siren Sam angle won her over. There’s a spot open in the second week of December if he wants it.”
“Fantastic.” The rebuild of the app is nearly finished, thanks to some connections I have through a previous client. Sam’s been recording extra meditations to add. He’ll be ready to relaunch a couple of weeks from now—that will be mid-November. The timing couldn’t be more perfect. “I’ll pitch the idea to Sam and see how he takes it.”
We haven’t spoken about the possibility of him going on TV since we first started working together. But he’s made such great progress, working slowly but steadily through every task I’ve set. Maybe he’ll be open to the idea of going for a spectacular finish. “Thanks for putting the feelers out for me.”
“Happy to help,” he says with a nod. “How was your weekend?”
Satisfying. It’s the most complete word I can come up with. This was the third weekend in a row Sam and I have spent together. It was hours spent sprawled on his couch. My head in his lap, his fingers tangled in my hair. It was Sam teaching me to make his mum’s special shortbread. It was the heady sound of his pre-dawn moans on Sunday when he woke with my lips wrapped around his cock. Being with Sam is fun and comfortable. It’s a bone-deep kind of satisfaction I’ve never come close to experiencing even once in my life.
I spend most of my nights in Sam’s bed now. Sleep comes easier with his arms around me and his breath against my skin. Sometimes he talks me to sleep, but not always. I’d like to think it’s because I’m getting better at going to sleep on my own, but I still need the app whenever I’m not with him. It turns out putting my burden down of my own accord is harder than I thought it would be.
I’ve also started going to more of Sam’s classes and I’m even actively participating in some of them. After weeks of listening to his instructions over and over, my brain seemed to decide it was time to go ahead and follow them. It took a while for me to even realise what was happening. The surprising part is, I’ve been okay. Or, mostly okay. I still jolt out of the meditation partway through sometimes, when my thoughts start to overwhelm me, or turn too dark. In those moments, my eyes snap open, searching for Sam, using his presence to ground me in the present. I don’t know if he knows, but I suspect he does.
He seems to have some preternatural sense for what’s happening in his studio. Occasionally, he’ll move around the room, sitting with a particular student for a few minutes or adding variations to the class. I’ve seen students thank him with tears in their eyes, their bodies languid with emotional release.
Sometimes, when I open my eyes, his gaze is already on me, right where I need him.
And I do need him.
More than he needs me, though I doubt he realises it.
Sam’s anxiety is real, and it affects his life in lots of major and minor ways. But still, underneath all that, there’s an integrity about who he is that makes him seem so… whole. He makes me want to be whole, too.
“My weekend was good.” Even as I say the words to George, I know my smile has gotten away from me again and I rein it back in. “You?”
“Fine.” George returns my smile, but where typically his is genuine and mine is forced, this time it’s the other way around. “We were supposed to have dinner with friends on Saturday night,” he tells me, “but the whole thing got cancelled when their son came down with a fever.” He gives a resigned shrug. “This is what happens when all your friends have kids. I swear, sometimes it feels like Alice and I are the only married couple in the world who aren’t part of the nappy patrol.” A chuckle follows but there’s a hollowness to it.
This isn’t the first time George and Alice have mentioned the sudden proliferation of children amongst their friends, and the urging of their families to hurry up and join the herd. Perhaps the pressure is getting to be too much.
“Do you think you’ll have kids?” I ask, pouring us both water from a carafe on the table.
He hesitates before letting go of a ragged sigh. “At this point, I honestly don’t know.”
I’ve never seen George so unsure of anything and I hate the idea of him being pressured into such a life-changing decision. “Well, there’s certainly no law saying you have to pop out rug rats because everyone else is,” I tell him, hoping to be a voice of reason in the pro-baby madness. “It’s a big decision. There’s no rush.”
He glances up, his mouth tight. “Right. No rush.” He picks up his phone and opens his calendar, putting an effective end to the conversation.
I’m left with a feeling of wrongness. If George’s concerns were a nail I was trying to hit, I’m pretty sure I’d be cradling a sore thumb right about now.
“How are you and Sam?” he asks with a sidelong glance. “Alice tells me you two make goo-goo eyes at each other every time you’re in the same room.”
“We do not,” I say, huffing out a laugh. “Goo-goo eyes are strictly a girl thing. We are seeing each other, but I don’t know what will happen after we finish working together.” Or how my father will react when he discovers how far gone I am over a man who has to psych himself up to leave his own house.
George shakes his head with a wide grin. “Mate, you are denying the inevitable. I’ve seen the way you’ve been these last few weeks. All smug and shit. You can’t tell me this thing with Sam isn’t serious.”
“Who is Sam?”
I jerk to attention at the sound of my father’s voice.
George pulls an oops face before turning to my father with an overly cheery smile. “Good morning, Mr Whitmore.”
“Good morning,” is the grumbled reply.
Glancing between us, George pushes his chair back. “I’ve forgotten some paperwork in my office. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
