Nara Malone

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Just joining me? Catch up on the Greyhound Summer story here.

I think the seasons must have changed a couple of times before we got to Sam’s trailer. Walking through his door was like walking into winter; I could feel hoar frost forming on my skin. Of course, he tipped his head back and said ahhh, while I was looking around for a parka. An air conditioner big enough to cool the Capital Center was jammed in the living room window.

I’d already sent Mia a text letting her know, I was staying with Sam tonight. She could have warned me about the polar conditions.

“Where do you keep the snowsuits?” I couldn’t stop my teeth from chattering and the words came out in little bursts like a bad cellphone connection.

“I’ll be your snowsuit.”

“That sounds like it will require getting naked.” I hugged myself tighter and his arms went around me.

“That little bit you’re wearing can’t be making much difference one way or the other.”

Which was true, a tank top and Mia’s little denim skirt didn’t cover enough of me. And after the ride home in the van, there wasn’t much Sam didn’t know about my body. I leaned into his warmth.

Sex is okay, but getting naked and going skin-to-skin with someone is so stressful that the pleasure rarely makes up for it. I just keep thinking about things like my boobs being too small or my hip bones jutting out like an old cows. If I don’t make any noise he’ll think I’m frigid. If I make too much he’ll think I’m a slut. The only plus this time, was that I didn’t have a backpack full of neglected homework assignments too worry about. With all that going on, it’s hard to throw yourself into sex. Guys don’t seem to have that problem.

Sam was kissing my neck and I couldn’t get the picture out of my head of that little boy in the Christmas movie that gets his tongue stuck to a lamppost.

When Sam spoke, his voice made a pleasant vibration, right where my chest pressed against him. “You’re thinking too much again.”

I nodded.

“I have a cure for that.”

“Death?”

“Only if you say it in French.”

“Huh?”

He led me back to the bedroom. There was another, somewhat smaller air conditioner churning out frost. I figured the cure must involve freezing my brain cells.

The hall light illuminated the room enough for me to see a blanket on the bed, the thin summer variety, but I was beyond getting picky. I kicked off my sandals and dove for the bed as Sam peeled back the covers. Only instead of drawing them up over us, he was tossing them toward the floor. I made a quick grab and latched onto a corner of the blanket before it could disappear.

There was a brief tug-of-wills. Sam had one corner of the blanket and I had the other. He gave a little tug and I tugged back. He flipped on the light switch without letting go. That’s a handy thing about trailers, everything is always within arm’s reach.

He gave me an are-you-okay look. I gave him a please-don’t-take-the-blanket-look. I don’t think he understood my look.

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Just joining me? Catch up on the Greyhound Summer story here.

I didn’t love him. At least not in the van.

I was nervous when the guys carried that last equipment out the back door, and Sam turned to catch my hand in his. He’s one of those people who like to touch all the time. I’m not.

When Sam took my hand all the words in my brain clotted. When he tugged me closer, until we were chest-to-chest, put his arms around me and just looked down at me with that smile, I think my blood clotted too. There wasn’t any getting to my brain. I had that buzzy-bee feeling your brain gets when you stand up too fast after having too much to drink.

He pressed his forehead to mine. Our noses touched, but he made no move to deepen contact with a kiss. His hands didn’t roam. If he’d done any of those things, my heart might have kept beating, but it went still, because it was more than sex he wanted. I couldn’t give him more than sex and anything less than where he was headed held no appeal.

You’re taking us up, too high, is what I wanted to tell him, we’re headed for a plane crash — no survivors. But I didn’t say that, because no one ever says what they are really thinking when they are thinking about getting naked together.

“Breathe,” he whispered.

I did.

“You think too much,” he said.

I grinned at that.

He rocked with me, his hips, pressed to mine, a sway like a dance without moving our feet. He turned his head so his cheek rested against my forehead. Thinking was getting harder and so was Sam.

“I’m leaving Monday morning, Sam.”

“This is, Friday night,” he said, turning and leading me to the door, “Monday is a hundred years away.”

Maybe he was right about that, because the drive back to his trailer took a week. There were seven stoplights and it took a day to get through each one, because Sam kissed me through the duration of each, with one eye on the lookout for green, while his tongue and his hands stopped time.

Just joining me? Catch up on the Greyhound Summer story here.

I went back to the table,  grabbed my purse and checked my cell, sure enough, there was a text from Mia. 

“Went home. Sick  kid. If Sam can’t give u a ride call.”

I ducked out front to call and found out it was nothing serious, just an upset stomach. I didn’t want to drag her back out to get me, so that meant I was spending the evening with Sam and the band.

I learned something — Sam was absolutely the kind of guy to take advantage of a situation. He used every tool in the seduction techniques book and he made up a few more. He used the audience to help him get me back on stage with him. He used music to sway me. His hands lingered every time he got a chance to to touch. His eyes were never anywhere but on me.

By the time we were playing the last set, my head was so far up in the clouds, I couldn’t remember why I was resisting him. Then we got to the last song. That song!

The song was so old my grandparents probably danced to it in high school. And when the first line of lyrics brought the rest back to memory, I knew why he couldn’t tell me what it was.

I picked up the harmony and Sam looked right in my eyes as he sang. The band knew, the audience probably knew, it was an invitation, a question: would I?

The answer was something I wasn’t sure of anymore.