Be nice...What a sack of horse shit.
Abby's words echoed as I drove to Sam's house for his seventh week of personal workouts. Be nice. Niceness accomplished nothing. Pregnancy hormones obliterated her common sense.
I paused on the rough brick covering Sam's front porch. The sun beat down and seared my scalp. He couldn't–
Sam cracked the door open and stepped aside. "Hey."
My eyes traveled down Mt. Muscles' white tank top and gray shorts. I frowned at his feet. "What are those?"
"You, of all people, should recognize Crocs." The failed shoe model lifted one heel at a time, which squeaked his black rubber soles on the floor. "They're awful. How do you wear these? My feet are sweating out the holes."
"Keep your personal hygiene problems to yourself." I frowned at his paddleboard-sized feet.
His eyebrows raised at my front entry statue impersonation, and a twinkle flashed in his eyes. "Coming inside, or are you eye-fucking my feet? Didn't know you had a thing for them."
He's teasing. He'd better be teasing, or those Crocs are going right up his–Be nice, Mia. I could be nice. Has his house always smelled this homey? "Yep." My feet were rooted to the spot. "I mean, no feet. Cover those mukluks. Can we talk?"
Not surprisingly, his expression turned into not impressed, and a placating whine slipped out, "Now you want to talk to me?"
"Yes." I forced a smile.
"Fine." Two thick, sinewy forearms strained across his chest. "But not if you're smiling at me like that."
The shadow lines of definition down his forearms were seriously distracting. Raised tributaries parted at the back of his hand. Fuck, those veins continued up his knuckles. He was a nurse's wet dream. Sweat dampened my armpits. Had he always had those? Who turned the furnace on outside? A breathless version of my voice rushed out, "Like what?"
"Like you're plotting my death behind those teeth." A low laugh bounced his shoulders.
My lips relaxed, which widened his grin. Sam's beard was trimmed so short, holy dimples. Sabotaging beats pounded in my chest, and I dipped my chin. The back of my neck was an ant seared under a magnifying glass. Metaphorical smoke rose off my skin. I flicked the pad of my middle finger at my thumb's cuticle. "Look, I'm...sorry, Sam." Fuck, those words stung to admit to my Crocs. More cuticle picks commenced. "I reacted badly and didn't mean to make you feel slighted. What you did with the truck was nice and–"
A rough and warm touch met my cheek. "I'm not bothered by your reaction, Mia." Sam's hand stole my words.
Too much softness clouded his eyes. I could handle his teasing. His frustrations soared my ego. Anger? Bring it. Pity and sympathy twisted my heart. Abby and Michael gave me more than enough of those, to the point there was nothing left to wring out. From him? Big fat nope. "Sam, I–"
"Do you play golf?" His head tipped back, eyes serious as they waited for my reaction. A small smile played on his lips, an invitation.
"Huh?" I blinked at the randomness of his question but nodded. My brain dissolved into the same puddle of mush it poofed into after realizing the truck wouldn't start, and Niagra Mia showed up. Whatever the fuck tethered Sam's hand to my cheek, lightening sensations floated through me. It sizzled my thoughts into sidewalk scramble eggs. Otherwise, I would've answered that I played on my high school's team. Or resisted more about accepting Sam's offer. And pounding beats wouldn't be tattooing a hole between my eyes.
"Good." A hint of uncertainty flashed in his eyes. "I've got a charity game I need to bring someone with me. So, if you go, then consider us a clean slate."
My heart balked at the word 'us.' "I'm good."
His frown creased a line between his eyebrows. He dropped his eyes and hand, but the skittering beats in my chest remained. "I get it, you don't–"
"I'm good at golf. Yeah, if it helps you out. But let's get to work before I change my mind about being seen in public with you."
In forty-five minutes, Sam demonstrated his shoulder's progress by how lower he settled into the poses. His shoulder's range of mobility was vastly improved. Showing no signs of restraint, mental or physical, he was close to not needing my help anymore.
Sam's closed eyes fluttered during meditation, so I placed a towel over them. His nose wrinkled, and he removed the cloth. "Why do you use this smelly shit?"
I gasped and palmed my chest. "Lavender is relaxing for some people."
He sat up, then handed the towel back with a sigh. "I'm not one of those people."
My hand patted his shoulder without teasing him. "It's okay to be a work in progress, Sam."
Not that I resisted, but Sam convinced me to stay for a post-workout lunch. I turned to him sitting next to me on his island and dented his shoulder with the end of my fork. "When's Jer testing this again?"
"After the charity game in two weeks." He pushed aside my jabbing fork. I didn't notice the way his throat bobbed, the tendons tightening as he swallowed hard. Nope. His smile was contagious, though. "He thinks I'll injure it by swinging the clubs. So, you might need to carry our team."
"Team?"
"Four, but each pair is scored together." His eyes dropped to his hand wrapped around his water glass. "One team is two couples."
"Ask nicely if you need me to carry your deadass weight." I fought an urge to pat his shoulder. "I played in high school. What kind of event is this?"
"It's for charity." My heart twisted at the word 'charity.' The way he hesitated didn't help. "Sorry, I forgot it was a pair event. My ex is–"
I puffed a breath over my forkful, my stomach wondering why I waited. "Not coming. I get it."
"No, she is." He sighed and strangled his fork. "With her new beau."
Ouch. "Oh," my lips rounded the word. A quick rebound had to be a bitter kick to the gonads. "I'm sorry."
"It's whatever." His shoulders shrugged. "But thanks for going with me."
I hummed and dropped the conversation into silence, studying my plate. With each bite, my taste buds threw a celebration for his spiced pulled pork and glazed carrots. Did he make all this again?
Sam cleared his throat and blurted out, "Tell me something about you, Mia. I barely know you."
And it was for the best. The insistence in his voice quickened my heart, but I defaulted to a sarcastic, "I like long, romantic walks to the icebox."
"Noted." His smile widened. "How did you get into golf?"
Sam's casual tone implied I played all the time, but I hadn't picked up a club in three years. My golf game needed more rust buffed off than what Abe removed from the truck. "My dad."
My recent self brought up too many painful memories, so I dipped further back. I talked about Former Mia, the girl who loved summer concerts, danced under the trees, aced cheesy carnival games, and relaxed at the beach. That Mia was a damn stranger. Bittersweet lies coated my tongue and overwhelmed Sam's lunch, so I shifted the conversation. He told me about college and football when eight-year-old Sam first picked up a ball and hung my dad's posters on his walls.
Laughs left both of us at his clumsy and uncoordinated moments. I knew some, including when he ran over a Gatorade cooler at Baylor, but I didn't know Sam laughed them off. He was close to his parents and spoke with them twice a week. An only child, which I teased, "Explains a lot about your God complex."
"I can't believe I never connected you and Mike." Guilt clouded over his warm brown eyes, and he shook his head.
The sour reminder dissolved my smile. "I wasn't significant enough for you to pay attention to."
I didn't mean to sound as bitter as a scorned lover and rolled my lips in to take the words back. With a lean back, the sun from the patio door caught his hair. It illuminated the tops of his dark brown curls in a fluffy halo. Sam's eyes filled with an unreadable emotion, which he held back and studied me.
"I was too stupid not to pay attention to you."
It took a few seconds for his words to register and more for me to search for any sign of teasing in his eyes. No shadow of a doubt, no flicker of dissolution lived there. Only warm regret.
His words put my brain in a mental blender. The hot air thickened into a sauna. My lips parted, and my eyes rounded. Yet again, he rendered me speechless. His forward honesty deserved mine. Heat crept into my cheeks. "Your words, Sam. Not mine. But you're...more tolerable than I used to believe."
His hands clutched his heart, earning him a shake of my head. The grin he threw me, coupled with the warmth in his gaze, turned my stomach uneasy. I wasn't uncomfortable but...hyper-aware of his attention and proximity. Goosebumps tickled up the back of my neck.
"Sam." Hesitancy stole my voice, rolling my dry lips inward. I wet them with the tip of my tongue.
"So, when can I go to your guys-only class? I'm killing it in your other ones."
Thank fuck he changed the subject. "So humble. It's not that kind of class," I mumbled. Bullheaded stubbornness aside, Sam had demonstrated he took yoga seriously before his idiotic idea to attend all of mine. The guys being kindergarteners begging for a class pet by asking if Sam could come wasn't helping. "No distractions?"
"No distractions." He held up his palm in a boy scout oath. "Promise."
I closed my eyes and sighed. "Don't make me regret it." Half of me already regretted it because Sam meant one less mat space. His annoying, persistent ass earned it.
A rough, giant hand covered mine and drew my eyes open. Sam's eyes brightened with an incoming tease. "I'll behave."
Ignoring the warm comfort at our contact point, my eye roll prompted those damn dimples to appear. "I trust you about as far as I can throw you, Sam Pearson."
***
Thwack!
"Ugh," I grunted, swiveling on the balls of my feet. Paused in my twisted spinal position, I tracked the arcing ball's wicked hook left. The tiny white ball met the barrier net and slid to the green. Fuck, I was rusty. I also choked my club.
"You're choking up," Michael called out from behind me. "Stop trying to kill the ball."
Mister PR Imagemaker's reaction to me attending Sam's charity event was a behavior lecture that I zoned out during and forced range practice. Abby stopped Michael's insistence that he attend the event as a 'personal chaperone.' Like he thought Sam and I would sneak off on the back nine for our own action. I couldn't say the same for Sam's ex and her new boyfriend. Holy inappropriate tabloid images, although I appreciated the diagonal jagged paper rip between her and Sam.
At Michael's insistence, Abby and I rehomed the spiders residing in my golf bag. We dragged it out of its garage corner and cleaned my clubs until they spit-shined. I scowled at the scrutiny of me whacking at a ball here. "I'm pretending it's Sam's face."
Drawing back, more discomfort in my shoulders and waist chipped off. My aim was shit; the end of my driver toed the ball again. It took a wicked hook right that earned me curious eyes from that side of the range. I bent over with a grunt and placed another ball on the tee.
"I'm standing right here," the ass on the other side of the plastic partition called out because, of course, he came to 'practice and inspect my form.' Ye of no golf faith.
"Focus on your own game, Pearson," I muttered. "It's weak as shit." It wasn't, annoyingly.
"Better than your first shot." He smirked, then wound back and swung through with a fluid swish. His thwack sent the ball low and straight. Forward momentum and lucky bounces carried it past three hundred yards.
"Snakeburner," I teased, although Sam was right. My first shot was horrendous, followed by ten that weren't much better. On number eleven, I caught the ball with the toe of my club and shot it horizontally at his ankles. Was that impressive or a bad omen? Both?
"Mia, you need to take this seriously." From the peanut gallery behind us, Michael wagged his finger. "The press will be everywhere, waiting to pounce on your first mistake."
"Take the starch out of your shirt, Michael." I tipped my chin to my chest and glared at him from under my lashes. "Thanks for the vote of confidence on a first mistake."
"It's Sam's biggest charity fundraiser," he replied with a frown.
The 'charity' word stung me with the reminder of being fired and sank a weight in my stomach. I hadn't shared the wasteful fraud outside Midfield, not even with Michael and Abby. The more time I spent with Sam, the more I questioned if he knew. I blinked at the back of his head as he lined up another drive. A ripple of muscles unfurled before my eyes as he rolled his shoulders back. He deserved to know if he was being taken advantage of.
Michael's scrutiny was on full display as I whacked my twelfth ball. Another sharp hook right. "Fuck."
"None of that language either," the self-proclaimed etiquette drill sergeant warned.
Sam turned, the weight of his eyes on me as I exhaled and lined up another shot. "Maybe stop choking your grip?"
"Maybe stop choking your–"
"Mia."
"–ego. Little breathing space, please?" I grumbled. With a slow breath, I closed my eyes. The bones in my shoulders cracked as I rolled them. The tightness in my neck released as I pulled each ear to my shoulder. "Y'all are cramping me more than my worst day of PMS."
Sam fired off another short, straight-line shot. He squeezed a success fist, then shot me a smirk. A flip tugged in my chest.
"Abby," Michael's muttered words hit my ears, which meant Sam also heard. "Please tell me you'll take Mia shopping for something more appropriate."
Fuck, now my clothes? What's with the mother hen's clucking? My skin burned where Sam's eyes dragged over his shoulder. "The fuck is wrong with my clothes now?"
Any range worked to erase my golf dust, but the four of us stood on the upper-level deck area at Tophill Golf. Michael insisted on here. My ripped jean shorts and tank top were a notch down from all the stuffy polo shirts, chinos, and golf gloves sticking out of back pockets like an ass ascot. I wasn't ready to admit, especially to Sam, that my high school golf clothes were tighter than a slutty Halloween costume. Instead, I directed my efforts to curling my ponytail and putting on sunscreen.
Did they give me credit for showing restraint? Nope.
"Sam's trying to secure matching donations, Mia." Not a single wrinkle presented on Michael's white collared wicking shirt and khakis because the only fucking clubs he ever swung happened while shooing mice out of the garage.
Matching? My stomach coiled at the mention of charity donors. Michael inspected me from behind his transition glasses. His face wrinkled more than an accordion stuffed with more judgment than a Thanksgiving turkey. "You need a little more refined, less flea market flipper look."
A flare of stubbornness made me clench my teeth. I snuck a look at the back of Sam's head, tipped down for his next drive. My eyes dragged across his broad shoulders, bouncing with his low chuckle, down his tapered back, to the curve of–
Snap out of it. A trickle of sweat dripped down between my breasts. Disgusting. I squeezed my upper arms into my breasts for a more pronounced look and smirked at Michael. "Better? Now I look like Candy."
Sam whirled around and, in one step, Godzilla's frame invaded my Astroturf. His eyes narrowed, and his hand clenched around his club's grip. "Mia, do you know why I paid for her implants?"
I shook my head so fast that my ponytail became a happy dog's tail. "I will happily live my life without–"
"Because she was self-conscious about herself."
Horrible reason. Talk about feeding insecurity. "Plastic surgery wouldn't fix that."
"I argued that too." He crossed his arms, the club hanging under his armpit. "For two years, she hated how she looked. I finally broke down because it was her body, her choice."
My nose scrunched with tension. "Like you didn't complain after she got them."
"Drop it, Mia." The sunlight cast highlights on Michael's black waves as his head shook. "Nothing is wrong with him wanting her to be happy."
"It's so shallow." My mind reeled through the timeline of this ridiculousness. Chesticles were inflated–"Wait. She had surgery this year, right? So, before she left you...oh..."
She used him.
"Yeah, oh." He gave me an unamused glare. Leaning over, he picked up a ball and slapped it in my palm so hard the divots pressed into my soft flesh. "Judgmental is an ugly look, Mia. If you ever want to know what's happening with me, ask."
I squeezed my eyebrows together. What did he mean? The surface-level appearance of Sam's relationship seemed so shallow and superficial. Worse? He was right. I didn't know him well enough to judge his relationship. How long had I been judging him?
Since the moment he and Candace burst into my room and she tried to turn his dick into her lollipop. How could I have been so close-minded? Michael's frown conveyed an obvious message: our parents raised me better than this. Nate would have been disappointed too. I dropped my gaze down the length of my club.
Michael's cleared throat shifted my eyes to him looking at Sam. "Let's take a breather."
"Good idea," Sam muttered, picking up his bag and flinging it over his shoulder.
I dragged my lip between my teeth until the rattling club heads faded. Exhaling out puffed cheeks, I wiped my damp palms on my thighs. My club's leather grip depressed under my finger grip.
Abby waited until I reset my feet, drew my club overhead, and coiled my upper body. "You like him."
"Whaaaa!?"
The club slipped through my loose fingers. It hit the plexiglass behind me with a loud smack. The metal head clanged on the cement, and the grip bounced on my Astroturf square. I wanted to crawl under it. What level of hell was this? 'Cause it felt like the penthouse. I hadn't recovered from her accusation that he liked me, and she dropped that gutter bomb?
"I'm so sorry," I said to the startled older couple in my ball's impact zone. Their glares said enough. With a heel spin, I whirled around and fisted my hips. "Abby!"
Her palms flashed with her apologetic smile. "Sorry. Don't talk on the backswing."
"Don't talk blasphemy," I corrected. "Or I'll be puking in a toilet before your next round. And before you correct me, I know you're grateful for the reasons to puke."
"It hasn't been that bad." Pursing her lips, she shot through my diversion, "And don't change the subject. You like Sam."
"What exactly between this–" My finger pointed between my chest and his empty spot. I gripped the club she picked up and handed to me. "Read likes? He's barely tolerable, he–"
Her warm hand cupped my elbow, and her voice dropped to a whisper, "Because you let him affect you, Mia."
If the casual person said those words, I would've laughed or ignored them. Or, more likely, I would've insulted their intelligence level. But Abby was my third-eye observer. No matter what the context, she saw through my smokescreens of bullshit.
Annoying as fuck. In my silence, her smile widened. Glimmers of satisfaction shone in her eyes. She caught the midday sun in them. She didn't need to say anything because the words were written all over her face: I'm happy for you.
"Mia." Back from his Sam recess, Michael offered Abby a glass of lemon water. "You should apologize."
"I..." I leaned down and picked up my club. One look at Abby's smile showed it wasn't going away anytime soon. "Pfft. Fine."
I found Sam returning with glasses of water in a peace offering. I picked my thumb's cuticles with rough tugs. "Sam? I'm sorry. That was uncalled for."
He shoved a water glass in my face. "It was. I only wanted Candace to be happy in her skin."
Cold condensation wet my palm. "I'm getting that impression."
"Again." His eyes narrowed. "What pisses me off more is you didn't ask. Why are you so fucking closed off?"
Very valid reasons, none of which I could explain unless he wanted a repeat meltdown. Hot tears wet my lashes and clumped them. I blinked at my water glass, stirring with the straw and fighting to hold them back. "I'm not an easy person to deal with. I get that, Sam."
A gentle touch captured my chin, Sam's thumb and index finger. He lifted my gaze to the warmth in his. "You make it sound like getting to know you is a bad thing."
"It is." My skin tingled under his touch. "Trust me, you don't want–"
"Trust me," he interrupted with a tense grasp. My lips parted when his thumb dented my skin with pressure. It didn't hurt. He held me with the security of...holding me. "I do if you'll let me."
I swallowed the cotton patch that sprung up in my throat. Ten sips of water weren't enough. My voice still cracked, "I...I'll try, Sam."
He had better luck asking me to lasso the moon to test if it was Swiss cheese, but I owed him an attempt.
"Good." His finger skimmed over my lower lip in a gentle touch that collected a drop of water at the corner. My lips parted from the soft brush of skin. When he drew it back, I couldn't breathe, let alone think. Another bead of sweat trickled between my breasts. Fuck, don't tell me I have a praise kink. Let me maintain some dignity.
A jackhammer version of my heart punched a fresh hole in my chest when his mouth closed around the pad of his thumb. Warmth pooled in my belly. A beat pulsed between my legs as his lips pursed and popped off his thumb. Shivers trailed down my spine when the corners of his mouth curved.
The air between us incinerated as Sam leaned over. His hot breath rushed over my lips, and those damn goosebumps erupted on my skin. The thundering beat of my heart made it difficult to ignore the prickles of awareness from his closeness or how it filled me with a yearning to drop my gaze and blush. Only his teasing smile kept my eyes locked on his. "You're trembling, Mia. Looks like my game isn't weak as shit."
Awww, they're getting closer. And have a date! Kinda.