Heaven and Hell (14 page)

His mouth went from my ear and he agreed
over my head with a, “Yep.”

“You grew up there,” I kept telling him
about his life. “In LA, that is.”

“Yep,” he agreed again but his voice was
vibrating like he was laughing but yet not.

Undeterred, I carried on.

“You grew up in a not very good neighborhood
so within weeks of you signing your contract with the Colts, you
bought your Mom a house in Malibu.”

Sam went back to silence.

I didn’t.

“On the beach,” I continued.

Sam said nothing.

I kept going.

“Because of the lessons you learned from
your Mom, you told
Sports Illustrated
you wouldn’t accept
any endorsement contracts for products you didn’t actually use and
feel good about endorsing.”

“This is true,” he muttered, completely
unperturbed at the extent of knowledge I held about him.

I sighed.

Then I sipped more champagne.

Then another tactic came to me so I
announced, “I have a dog.”

“You do?” Sam asked.

“Yep, her name is Memphis.”

Sam said nothing but he moved away from my
back though only so he could pull me gently from the balustrade
while turning me. When he did, he took the glass of champagne from
my hand and set it on the balustrade then he grabbed my hand and
pulled me down the terrace.

I kept talking. “She’s a King Charles
spaniel.”

Sam led me through some doors and I looked
up at him, intent on my course so only vaguely noting he tipped his
chin up toward someone and when my eyes went in that direction, I
saw Luci grinning madly at us. I gave her a wave so as not to be
rude because her eyes had moved to me but I did this still talking
as Sam guided me along the outskirts of the partygoers.

“A King Charles spaniel, just in case you
don’t know, is a small dog. She’s soft all over, brown and white;
she has fluffy, floppy ears and big, sweet, dark brown eyes. But
she’s also yappy. She talks a lot, she has a lot to say and, unless
you’re her Momma, you wouldn’t get it, it would just seem like yaps
to you. She’s also overly friendly. Many people find that
annoying.”

This last was a lie. Everyone loved
Memphis.

Sam guided me to some stairs and up them.
What he didn’t do was speak.

I decided to get direct to the point.

“How do you feel about small, overly
friendly, yappy dogs?”

At my direct question, because he was a
gentleman, Sam answered it.

“I prefer big, not overly friendly, not
yappy dogs who can sense danger and bark loud.”

“I don’t think Memphis can sense danger,” I
told him. “I think Memphis likes everyone, including criminals.
Though I can’t say that with any certainty since I don’t think
she’s met any but if I had to guess, my guess would be, she’d like
them.”

“That’s too bad,” Sam muttered as if it was
all the same to him and he guided me into a room, closing the door
behind us.

Then he moved me through the dark room as I
abandoned Memphis and found another topic.

“I live in a small town,” I told him as the
room lit dimly when Sam turned on the lamp beside a bed.

“Yeah, baby, you told me,” he said
quietly.

I noted he was shrugging off his suit jacket
then I noted him tossing it to the end of the bed. Then I noted his
shirt looked even better without his jacket on. Then he sat on the
bed and instantly pulled me in his lap then just as instantly fell
back, taking me with him and twisting so we were lying side by
side, facing each other.

I was drunkenly determined to follow the
path I was on thus found nothing amiss in our current situation. I
simply settled my head into the pillows and found his eyes.

“Outside my wedding gown, which was
gorgeous, by the way, though not as gorgeous as this dress and
seriously Cooter was not worth how gorgeous my wedding gown was
but, obviously, now you know that, so outside of my wedding gown,
this is the first gown I’ve ever worn in my life. I didn’t even go
to my proms because Cooter thought they were stupid and I was
seeing him all the way back then.”

I noticed Sam’s brows had drawn together
slightly but, surprisingly, not at the stunning news I didn’t
traipse through life in fabulous gowns, instead he asked, “Your
husband’s name was Cooter?”

Excellent!

I should have started with that!

Cooter having the hick name to beat all hick
names said it all about me.

“Yep,” I answered.

“Was that his real name?”

“No, his real name was Jeff but no one
called him that.”

“Ever?”

I nodded, my hair sliding on the pillow,
“Ever.”

“Not even when he became an adult?”

I shook my head.

“Jesus,” he muttered.

“Yep, he was a hick. He was, like,
the
definition
of a hick.”

Sam just held my eyes.

“He was a fan of yours too, considering you
were good at what you did and you played for the Colts, which was
his team. That was, he was a fan of yours until you quit and went
into the Army. He thought that was crazy. He couldn’t believe you
gave up the chance of earning that kind of money to join the Army,”
I shared.

“Kia, honey, I think it’s clear the guy was
a dick,” Sam replied softly.

“This is true,” I muttered.

Suddenly, Sam took control of the
conversation by asking, “How old are you?”

“Twenty-eight,” I answered.

“Jesus,” he muttered again.

“What?”

“You look it but your eyes say you’re
older.”

I latched onto that. “Am I too young for
you?”

He grinned but didn’t reply.

I felt his grin slide along my skin in a
sweet way but powered through it and suggested instead, “Too
old?”

He started chuckling and again didn’t
answer.

I sighed.

Sam’s arms, which I belatedly noticed were
wrapped around me, gathered me closer.

“So, this is the first time you’ve worn a
dress like that?” he asked quietly.

“Yep,” I answered, nodding my head on the
pillow again at the same time tilting it back because it was now
closer to his.

“You wear it like you were born to it.”

Wow. That was nice.

“Wow. That’s nice.”

Yes. I thought it then I freaking said
it.

Idiot!

He grinned.

Then he asked, “You think, you wear it like
you were born to it, maybe you
were
born to it?”

I blinked. Then I considered this.

Then I answered, “No.”

“No?”

I shook my head.

“Why not?” Sam asked.

“Well, because that’s crazy. I live in the
small town I lived in my whole life. I married a hick who cheated
on me and beat me. He didn’t have a college degree and worked for a
sheet metal factory and not well, if his performance evaluations
and the nasty moods he’d get into after he got them were anything
to go by. I also don’t have a college degree and, until recently,
when I came into some money, I worked as an administrative
assistant for five accountants and my job was b-o-r-i-n-g,
boring
in a way it was a wonder I didn’t lapse into a coma
daily by three o’clock. I mean, they were nice guys but seriously,
accountants and the work they did…” I trailed off and faked a
yawn.

Sam grinned again.

I kept babbling.

“I got my first passport delivered two
months ago. I had my first manicure, pedicure, facial and massage
two days ago. I think, with all that, it’s safe to say I was
definitely
not born to wear a gown like this.”

“I was born in the barrio,” Sam returned
immediately. “My father came and went as he pleased, he was gone
more than he was there but when he was there, he was more of a dick
than your dead husband. He took my mother’s money, ate her food,
drank himself sick, cheated on her openly, beat the shit outta her
and slapped my brother and me around. He didn’t work, not once that
I knew but she did. She worked hard, she kept us fed, she kept us
clothed but that was all we had and, it sucks, but you feel that as
a kid no matter how hard she worked so we wouldn’t. But, even with
all that shit, since we were kids and maybe before when we couldn’t
even understand what she was sayin’, she told his we were bigger
than the shithole that surrounded us. We were better. We were meant
to live large. And she believed we’d do it; find some way outta
that fuckin’ place. And by the time we got old enough to make
decisions, she’d been fillin’ our heads with that so long, it sunk
in. We believed her and we both worked our asses off to get out. I
had added luck; God saw fit to grant me a talent that would lead my
way. But Ma told me over and over, the talent He gave me was
fleeting and fragile and I should not rely on it so I didn’t. I
studied. I didn’t drift through college, I earned my degree. My
brother wasn’t born with something like that so he found his way
out and joined the Army about two days after he graduated high
school. He stayed in it, they gave him the means; he got himself
his degree and got on the officer track. He was going to be career
Army, that was his goal, even his dream. But whatever his dream,
like Ma said we would both do, we made it so we got the fuck out
right after high school and never looked back.”

Touched by this as well as awed, I
whispered, “That’s very cool.”

“Yeah,” he said through a smile, “but you
don’t get me, honey. I’m here beside you wearin’ this fuckin’ suit
and I wasn’t born to be here either. But I’m here, same as you. And
wherever you are, however you got there, if it’s good, you’re meant
to be there either because you earned it or life led you there and
you were smart enough to hold on.”

Nine glasses of champagne or not, I found
this concept profound.

Therefore, I shared that with Sam.

“That’s very profound.”

His body shook mine and the bed when he
chuckled then replied, “It isn’t profound, Kia, it’s the God’s
honest truth. You’re tellin’ me the woman I met at breakfast, saw
last night and I’m holdin’ in my arms right now is a fraud. But I’m
tellin’ you you’re wrong. She isn’t. She’s you.”

That was profound too.

I studied him then shared, “I think I need
to ponder this.”

His arms gathered me closer as he chuckled
again and muttered, “Yeah, you do that.”

“I will,” I agreed, tipping my head back
further to look at him.

“Good,” he murmured, tipping his chin down
further to look at me.

Then, suddenly, I didn’t know why and
drunkenly didn’t care, I whispered, “I think I love your Mom and I
don’t even know her.”

“She’s the kind of woman you love, even if
you don’t know her,” Sam replied.

“She sounds like it.”

“What’s your Ma like?”

I pulled in breath and let it out softly
then said, “Like a Mom. She cooks comfort food. She goes overboard
with Christmas decorations. She knocks herself out for you every
birthday because, for her, that was a day that changed her life in
a way she liked a whole lot and she wants you to know it. We did
the whole stereotype thing. Kyle, my older brother, was Mom’s
little man and still is, even though now he’s big. I was Daddy’s
little girl. So Mom was the one who was tough on me and Kyle got
away with everything with her. And Dad was the one who was tough on
Kyle and I could get anything I wanted if I ran to Dad. But, when I
say tough, I mean in the sense that parents are supposed to be
tough. They were good parents, then and now. I love them both and
they both love me.”

“And how’d they feel about your
husband?”

“They hated him,” I answered instantly.

“Yeah,” he whispered.

“They tried,” I whispered back quickly, not
wanting him to think they didn’t. “That was what I was thinking
about last night when you saw me. I was thinking how I should have
noticed they were trying and let them help me.”

Sam’s face warmed, his eyes grew
understanding and his arms gathered me closer.

Then he said gently, “We’re not goin’ there,
baby, not now. Now is for us. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Okay,” I agreed readily because I didn’t
want to go there, not now, not in Sam’s arms, not after drunkenly
remembering to warn him about me and then drunkenly forgetting I
was supposed to be doing that and, instead, loving living this
moment with him, so much, there was no way I was letting it go.

“Okay,” he whispered.

And that was when I pressed closer rather
than Sam gathering me closer and I lived that moment with him,
talking about my brother, my Mom, my Dad, Paula, Teri and Missy and
listening to him talk about his Mom, his brother Ben, Luci and his
friend and brother-in-arms Travis “Gordo” Gordon.

And apparently falling asleep living that
moment with him because, hours later, still wearing my gown, I woke
up in much the same position, in his arms, pressed close and
feeling something I hadn’t felt in years. Something precious I lost
and, even precious, I didn’t notice it was missing but something I
recognized as precious instantly when I got it back.

Safe.

* * * * *

And this brought me to now, awake, in my
gown, the sun shining into the bedroom where Sam and I slept
together.

And I had done everything Celeste had told
me not to do (except gorging myself on food). I had drank too much
and shared too much.

Shit.

I pulled in a silent, steadying breath and,
eyes glued to Sam’s gorgeous, sleeping face, carefully I
disentangled myself from his body, slid away, rolled and found my
feet at the side of the bed.

Twisting the instant I did because I heard
him move, I looked to see he simply settled more onto his front and
one of his hands had gone up and disappeared under my pillow.

I let out my breath.

Then I scanned the room that also had a
tiled floor and a scattering of plush, attractive, lush,
comfortable-looking furniture but, obviously, in the bedroom it
absolutely invited you to take a nap.