Crazy Love (26 page)

“I read…constantly. I only average about three books a week when school’s in session. And I like to wander around aimlessly. I go out for a bike ride around the block and end up ten miles from home.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder, and my gaze was drawn to her dewy collarbone. I had to battle the compulsion to plant my lips on it.

“I wander, too. I do it on foot. I almost always end up at the river,” I confessed.

“I usually end up in a cemetery. I have one of those old lady bikes with the baskets on it. I always have some rubbing supplies with me,” she huffed out in amusement. “Bonaventure is amazing. By far my favorite. It’s no wonder it’s world famous. So peaceful. What a great place to spend eternity.”

“I suppose it is kind of pretty. I’d never been until Daddy’s funeral. He’s buried there.” I thought about the big Beaumont Mausoleum and the large draping trees around it. How weird was it that I didn’t really belong there?

She frowned and seemed a bit embarrassed. “I’m sorry; I should have realized…”

I waved it off. “Don’t be.” She tucked her hair behind her ears.

“My dream trip is to go to that cemetery in Paris.”

“Père Lachaise. Where Jim Morrison’s buried?” Mystified that she seemed sincere, I tried not to sound surprised. She nodded.

“And the Catacombs. I get goose bumps just thinking about it.” She stole a glance at me and chuckled. “I sound like Wednesday Adams, don’t I?”

“A little. Most women I know gush over the Eiffel Tower. Or the shopping,” I admitted.

She shrugged, unabashed. “Not me. I’m a cheap date.”

I let out a shocked laugh, and she smirked, then continued: “Shopping always
sounds
like a good idea. Kind of like Monopoly. About an hour in, and I’m bored and ready to be done.”

“No doubt. I’d much rather crawl around in caves filled with thousands of skulls than be dragged into a single boutique.” I twitched an eyebrow at her and met her ensuing smile with my own.

“So how long have you been boxing, and when do I get to see you fight?” She was staring at my swollen knuckles as she spoke.

“Well, you’ve almost seen me fight twice now,” I joked, thinking it wasn’t a coincidence that she’d been present during both of my near violent outbursts. Since she’d turned up in my life, everything seemed more intense. Like an exposed nerve. It was as if I’d been snoring at the wheel, and she’d come along and woken me up. “That’s not how I typically conduct myself, by the way. I’m no cowboy or street thug. But nobody screws with my brother but me.”

“Yeah, I get it. I shot someone in the face with a BB gun once for screwing with my sister.” Before I could demand details, she shifted the conversation back to boxing. “Seriously. How did you get into it? Is it popular at the Yacht Club?”

I scoffed. “Not so much. My family thought I was nuts. When word got out at school, I got called all sorts of names.”

“Why?” She looked genuinely confused.

I looked away, my mood clouding over at the memory of Hank’s angry laughter when he’d called me a ‘Nigger Lover.’ He wasn’t laughing a minute later when I knocked out his incisor. “I got the distinct impression they felt it was a ‘dark’ sport.”

She shot me a look of understanding. “How very progressive.”

“The attitude at the gym wasn’t much different. I was the token white boy they mostly tolerated. And they didn’t let me forget it. I was there for two years before the majority of the guys would even say ‘hello’ to me. I guess at that point they figured I wasn’t going anywhere.”

“Holy shit.” She murmured.

“Racism in Savannah is about as common as draping moss.” I shrugged, remembering how casually my great aunt referred to Athena as ‘your colored Mama.’

“So what about that sport in particular made you want it badly enough to stick it out?” She continued.

“Boxing is about speed. And strategy. It reminds me a lot of chess, but a hell of a lot more gratifying. Have you ever been tempted to punch someone in the face when they are talking to you?”

“All the time.” She elbowed me conspiratorially. “I
might
have the urge right now.”

She laughed at her own joke, and if there was a shred of doubt that we were compatible, she’d just erased it. “Yeah, me too. Boxing is major therapy. When I first walked into the gym, Randall was squaring off with some dude a foot taller than he was. He dismantled the guy. I wanted to know how he did it so badly that I could taste it. Here I was, on the debate team and constantly surrounded by people who rarely said what they meant. After that, I planned to go to business school and law school. Ugh. Just all so nauseating. The duplicity of society has always exhausted me. It was…freeing to climb into the ring. Slap gloves with someone and know their only agenda was to knock me the fuck out.”

We flanked an outcropping of rocks, and the restaurant came into view in the distance. The outlandish color combinations of the mostly open-air eatery always made me smile, but the menu was astonishingly epicurean.

“Oooh…” Annie’s tone was drier than Death Valley. “Are you taking me on a date?”

“Nah.” I replied, “I thought I’d just get you liquored up and take advantage of you.”

The complex expression she wore was impossible to read, and that drove me absolutely insane.

“I like margaritas. On the rocks, with salt.”

Sam and I were on our second fishbowl margarita when we decided it might be a good idea to eat something. He’d shrugged off his jacket, and I nearly choked on my sour drink as I got a good look at his rippling muscles. Apparently his work in the gym was paying off big time.

More importantly, hanging out with him was effortless. Our silences weren’t awkward at all. I found him remarkably easy to talk to before the tequila, and after it, I had to bite back several remarks. I’d been completely wrong in my initial assessment of Sam Beaumont; he was just about the least judgmental person I’d ever met.

He was full of questions about my choice of grad school, my undergrad degree, and my past. Most of it I discussed openly. I explained that I’d gone to Mankato State for undergrad. I told him about working at Hooters which made him laugh for a couple of minutes straight.

“How many customers did you bitchslap?” he managed.

“Only two.” I replied, fascinated by how ravenous his laugh made me. I never realized how sexy laughter could be. Maybe because I knew he was laughing with me, unlike virtually all of my past experiences.

I went on to explain that I’d spent several years living with my grandparents, and since grandma couldn’t see well and grandpa was forgetful, I got involved in helping them organize their medications. Old people love to talk, and it wasn’t long before I was helping their neighbors, and after a few conversations with pharmacies, I started to consider it as a career option. From the awestruck look he gave me, Sam seemed to think this made me some sort of saint. Having met his mother, I shouldn’t have been surprised.

After I dodged the subject of my family for the third time, he finally called me out.

“I don’t get it, Annabelle. You
know
my family’s certifiable. Why won’t you tell me about yours?”

“ ‘Cause I really don’t like to think about them.” He sat back in his chair and angled his head disapprovingly. I cocked an eyebrow back at him and he folded his hands and didn’t flinch. I abandoned the staring contest, stirring my drink with my straw. “What do you want me to say? My mother’s got a major gambling problem that controls her life. On top of that, she was a slut. She chose more than one boyfriend over us kids. One time she went out and didn’t come back for three weeks. Left me with an eight year old and a four year old. I was only
fifteen,
Sam. She’d drag us all over the state from one shitty rental to another every time we got evicted. She’d drag Dylan and me to the food bank and make us carry out boxes of food so she didn’t have to spend our child support on groceries. We wanted to die we were so embarrassed. And my
Dad
? Well…he sent me birthday cards…when he remembered. I haven’t seen him since the day he didn’t arrive to pick me up at preschool. That’s my story. That’s
my
mommy and daddy.”

I could see him processing each sentence. Anger and indignation rippled under his placid features. “What about your siblings? Did you say you have a brother and a sister? Are they still with your mom?”

“Kind of. She has visitation, but my grandparents have custody. Dylan turns eighteen this year, so he’ll be free soon. Becca…well…I’m pretty sure she doesn’t stand a chance at any kind of regular life.”

I bit my lip, wishing I could take back my last comment. I could tell he wanted to press me on it, but he kept his mouth shut. He seemed naturally intuitive about me, which was a very attractive quality.

“See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?” he quipped, and I smiled at the subtext in his boyish eyes. We’d both coated our fragile centers with a twisted sense of humor and no small amount of flirty innuendo. But my truth still lurked beneath, like some sinister stranger watching through the window. I knew I needed to say “I haven’t even begun to talk about how hard it was.” I should have said “Just wait till the first time you touch me the wrong way or say the wrong thing while we’re making out.” I should have told him right then about my hypnotherapy and that thanks to fucking Travis the Pedophile, I hadn’t been close to anyone except Nick. Nick, who’d knocked me up and dumped me the second that I’d miscarried. Leveling with Sam about my suicide attempt might also have been the polite and ethical thing to do.

But I didn’t say a word. I was fucking falling for him, and I wasn’t ready to kick him to the curb, even though he deserved a head-start toward the exit. Because I
wanted
to believe. I wanted to pretend, for at least a little while, that we were heading off on a romantic sunset voyage instead of hauling ass straight for an iceberg.

What came out of my mouth instead wasn’t incredibly productive. “I can’t believe how good this food is! I expected fried shrimp and French fries.”

Though the food really was impressive, we both gave up halfway through our heaping plates. They were blaring a Jimmy Buffet tune and we were about to bail on the remnants of our oversized drinks when Jayse, Dale, Randall, and Patience sniffed us out.

“Hey! Look who it is!” Randall feigned surprise as he approached our table. “Where’s my drink?”

“You can have the rest of ours,” I replied, trying to hide my relief. Sam’s serious face had resurfaced right before Randall announced their arrival, and I was done discussing the past.

“Since when can’t
you
get through a margarita?”Jayse chided me. I tried to choke back my annoyance with him. He’d been ditching me for “better people” a lot lately. I knew I was his best friend – we had matching little black heart tattoos for the love of God – but Jayse had a very hard time discussing his problems. Instead, he tended to tamp them down with careless sex and strong cocktails. More frustrating than the way he’d been treating me was that he’d pulled some fickle crap on Dale. He’d been chatting online with other guys, and his over the top flirting with every man he met was pissing me off. Dale was great for Jayse, and like me, he didn’t know what to do with
great
.

“These are our second fishbowls,” Sam announced and Jayse did a double take.

“Two whole drinks! Annie Clarke! Look at you having a good time! Someone call a press conference because they must be having a snow day in hell!” Sam flashed a white smile at him. Sam had no idea how tense things were between us, and Tipsy Jayse was even more abrasive than regular Jayse. I was relieved when Patience led him off toward the open-air bar. Randall and Dale took seats across from us. A band began to tune for some live music, and the scene was morphing from bar and grill to just plain old bar.

“How’s it going?” I called to Dale over a musician droning ‘check…test one two’ repeatedly into the microphone.

“Oh, I’m about done with
his
bullshit.” Dale’s freckled face twisted in distaste that wasn’t aimed in my direction. We both looked over at Jayse, who was already chatting up a male bartender. Jayse flipped his curls out of his eyes, his dimples on full display. As his BFF, it was my job to save Jayse from himself, so I stood and leaned down to Sam.

“I’ll be right back,” I said near his ear. His hand was on the nape of my neck in an instant.

His eyes danced when they met mine, and his full lips curved playfully. “You’d better.”

His aggression took me by surprise. That voice of his was so deep…so…hot. He released his hold on me, and I was caught off guard at how aroused I was. I’d been up close and personal with Sam that night in my room and knew just what I could expect wrapped up in those boxers of his. Feeling warmer by the second, I wanted to ditch everyone and drag him off into the dark. With a last lingering look at his broad shoulders and bulging denim, I thrust myself toward the bar. I planned to school Jayse about his behavior as quickly as I could and get on to something
a lot
more gratifying. I walked up in time to see Jayse playing with a cell phone that wasn’t his.