Heaven and Hell (53 page)

Yep, Luci and Celeste had decided it was
time to party.

So it was time to party.

“I’ll get glasses,” I offered and began to
move.

“No, baby, I got it,” Sam murmured and moved
faster than me so I settled.

“I love this!” Luci cried, clapping her
hands together. “Everyone together! We need to call Hap!”

I grinned at her even as I studied her.

It was still there, the sorrow, not even a
little faded. My grin faltered and my eyes moved to Celeste. She
tipped her head slightly to the side and shook it once almost
imperceptibly. I nodded mine once, hopefully the same. I knew from
conversations with both of them that Celeste and Luci spent a lot
of time together in Lake Como and Celeste and I had several
conversations about Luci. Celeste saw the same thing I did. And
Celeste was at the same loss as Sam and I were as to what to do
about it.

Then my gaze slid to Maris who I saw was
looking between me and Celeste knowingly. She saw it too, she knew
what Celeste and I were communicating and this was confirmed when
she reached out her fingers and lightly touched the back of
mine.

I quickly filled the loaded silence with, “I
love it too, Luci, sweetie. So pleased you both are here.” My eyes
moved to Maris and I added, “All of you. So pleased
all
of
you are here.”

Luci shot me a half-fake,
half-genuinely-bright smile.

Then she hurried to her purse, declaring,
“I’m calling Hap right now.”

She dug in her purse.

Maris cried, “What an adorable dog!” and
bent down to pick up a bouncing, delighted beyond reason to have
company Memphis.

Sam arrived with five champagne glasses
turned down, their stems tucked between his fingers.

Luci called Hap.

And the surprise party began.

* * * * *

In my nightie, ready for bed, I exited Sam’s
bathroom to find Sam standing by the bed, emptying his jeans
pockets, dropping stuff on the nightstand.

I also heard, distant but definitely there,
Hap’s snores coming from where he was passed out on the couch.
Another indication of why he had not nailed down his own “fine
piece of ass.” Those snores would drive the most devoted woman
either to kill him in his sleep or avoid a jail sentence and leave
him.

Hap showed about four hours after Luci
called him, he didn’t have to go back until Sunday and he didn’t
drink champagne. Hap drank beer intermingled with shots of bourbon,
a lot of both and Hap was even more happy as well as hilarious when
he was loaded.

Once he’d passed out, Maris announced she
was calling it a night and Sam had loaded a very tipsy (but still
cultured) Celeste and Luci into the Cherokee and taken them to
Luci’s house.

Now, obviously, he was back.

Sam had finished with his pockets and was
pulling his shirt over his head when I asked, “Everyone
settled?”

He tossed his shirt on the floor as I
watched, tearing my eyes from the vision of his chest to his shirt
lying on the floor.

Sam always tossed his clothes on the floor
but in the morning he picked them up and took them to a plastic
hamper in his walk-in closet. I knew Kyle didn’t do this because I
heard Gitte bitch about it. I also knew Dad didn’t do it because I
had a lifetime of Mom bitching about it (as well as bitching about
Kyle not doing it when he lived at home). And I also knew Rudy
didn’t do it because Paula bitched about it to me on more than one
occasion. Cooter
definitely
didn’t do it.

Sam did.

It was another thing I loved about him.

I suspected I had Maris to thank for that
and luckily now I had the opportunity.

“Yep,” he answered my question.

I mounted the bed on a knee and when I got
both of them in I sat back on my calves and softly noted something
I’d observed as the afternoon wore into the evening and then into
the night, “I think she’s worse.”

Even as his hands worked the buttons on his
fly, his eyes came to me, locked on mine and I knew he knew I meant
Luci when he repeated a weighty, “Yep.”

“Sam –” I started but he interrupted me.

“I’ll call Vitale tomorrow. He told me he
was going to sit down with her but he hasn’t reported in. I’ll see
how that went.”

“Obviously not well,” I remarked.

Sam’s jaw clenched. Then he removed his
jeans. Then all thoughts of Luci swept from my mind.

He pulled the covers back, climbed in,
flicked them over his body then did an ab curl, his long arm
reaching out toward me. He tagged me around the waist and yanked so
I fell chest to chest into him as he settled on his back.

His arm stayed around my waist and his other
hand sifted into the hair at the side of my head, pulling it back,
his fingers curling around my skull. I left one hand pressed
between us on the warm, silk skin of his chest and curled the
fingers of my other one around his neck.

“Your Mom sees it and she’s worried too,” I
told him.

“I know,” he told me.

“I’m at a loss, Sam.”

“Me too.”

I thought about it and shared, “Missy never
snapped out of it. She breathes but she doesn’t
live
. Do you
know what I mean?”

He nodded. “You tellin’ me her story, I
watched her. Switched off. Existing. Wrapping herself in other
people’s problems so she won’t have to face her own.”

There it was. He’d also figured out
Missy.

“Seeing Luci, now I think something should
be done about the both of them,” I said quietly.

“Yep,” Sam agreed.

I sighed.

Sam was done talking about sad, worrisome
things and I knew this when he started to pull my face to his.

I resisted, whispering, “Sam, your Mom’s on
California time. When I came up, the light was on under her
door.”

“We’ll be quiet,” he muttered, his eyes
dropping to my mouth at the same time they heated, them doing both
making my nipples tingle and he put more pressure on my head.

“Sam –”

Suddenly, he rolled me and when he was on
top and I got a good look at his face, I knew instantly something
profound had changed.

“Learn from them, baby,” he whispered. “You
got one life, never use it just to breathe.”

I stared in his face, his intensity seared
into me and it hit me that he was
so
right.

I had one life and I lived it for seven
years doing nothing but focusing on each day, each breath, not
living my dreams, not seeking excitement, not pursuing happiness,
not searching for my slice of heaven.

I was done just breathing.

“We’ll be quiet,” I whispered back, Sam
grinned his approval then he kissed me.

* * * * *

I woke up in a bed that didn’t include Sam
or Memphis.

Then I looked at the alarm clock and saw I’d
slept in. Sam was either out walking Memphis or he was already at
the gym.

I rolled out of bed, did my bathroom thing,
grabbed my fabulous robe and shrugged it on.

I was tying the belt, my bare feet silent on
Sam’s wood floors, just about to round the railing to hit the
stairs when I heard it.

“I did not raise an idle son.”

I stopped dead.

That was Maris and she sounded
pissed.

I was more than mildly shocked. I knew from
what Sam told me and what I’d seen of her that she was not a weak
woman. I had no idea how she was before Sam and Ben ousted their
father. I just knew from Sam’s stories that she blossomed after
that and everything about her was proof. She was happy. She dressed
well. She lived well. She had a great sense of humor and an easy
smile. She worked and enjoyed what she did. She was her own boss.
And she raised two boys who turned into fine men.

But she was like Sam, albeit with a bit of
feminine drama, she was mostly laidback, good-humored and
easygoing.

At her tone I learned she
was
just
like her son. In other words, she could get
pissed
.

“Ma, Kia’s up,” Sam returned on a low growl
I still heard from my position on the stairs.

“So?” Maris replied and I started backing
up.

“I’d say we’d talk about this later but
we’re not fuckin’ talkin’ about this later. We’re not talkin’ about
this at all,” Sam declared.

“Do not use that tone and language with me,
Sampson August Cooper,” she snapped.

“You’re standin’ in my kitchen, in my home
talkin’ about my life with my woman awake upstairs. Do not fuckin’
tell me how to behave in my own goddamned home,” Sam shot back on a
continued, infuriated growl.

Now I was even more shocked. Shocked
stone-still. Sam loved his mother. I couldn’t believe he was
speaking to her like that.

“Of the many things I’d like to know,
now
I’d like to know why you’re so concerned Kia is going to
hear us,” Maris stated.

“That’s none of your business either,” Sam
returned.

Ohmigod.

“I don’t like that, Sam. Kia is –” she
started.

He cut her off, “My woman and my business.
Not yours.”

Yikes.

“I cannot believe you just said that to me,”
Maris whispered, sounding hurt.

“I did.” Sam didn’t hesitate to confirm.

Ohmigod!

Maris was silent.

I decided to tiptoe back to Sam’s room.

I didn’t even get started. This was because
Maris broke her silence.

“You cannot go on like you are.”

What did that mean?

“I can do whatever the fuck I wanna do. It’s
my life, Ma. You gave it to me but that doesn’t mean you get to
lead it.”

Um…
ouch.

“You have no focus, Sam, no purpose, no
drive. You’re drifting through life. That is not my son,” she
returned instantly.

“Honest to God?” Sam fired back and I knew
by his tone she’d pushed him close to the edge. “You do not know
what I got or what I don’t got, Ma. And I’m tellin’ you whatever
that is, it’s none of your damn business.”

God, I needed to get out of there.

So I did. Carefully rushing back to Sam’s
room so as not to make any noise, I stopped in it and frantically
tried to figure out what to do. Then I noticed the floor was empty
except for the rug. As usual, Sam had picked up his clothes and
taken them to the walk-in. So I went to the closet and rooted
around in the pile of Sam and my tangled, dirty clothes. I got a
bunch of darks, enough to make a load and headed out.

On the landing, I called, “Maris, see you’re
up. I know you just got here but I’m doing a load of darks. Do you
have anything that needs to be cleaned?”

Memphis yapped and ran up the stairs to meet
me halfway.

Hap grunted, “Fuckin’ A, am I at a bus
depot? What’s up with all the noise?”

I made it to the bottom of the stairs and
saw him hanging over the back of the couch, scowling. I smiled
brightly at him and hoped he was hungover enough not to notice it
was forced.

“Morning, Hap,” I greeted cheerily.

“Fuck,” he muttered, flopped back and thus
disappeared.

I kept the grin pinned to my face as the
clothes I was carrying, my dog and I turned into the kitchen.

“Morning,” I said to both occupants, neither
of whom were hiding that they were still pissed. So I thought it
safe to let my fake grin fade and venture, “Is everything
okay?”

Maris looked to the floor.

Sam came to me, wrapped his fingers around
the back of my head and pulled me in and up to my toes then
commenced in laying a hard, short, closed-mouthed kiss on my
lips.

He let me go but didn’t move out of my space
when he muttered, “Hittin’ the gym. Be back in a couple of
hours.”

A couple of hours?

Sam didn’t mess around working out. I knew
this because he was never back before an hour was up and usually
didn’t return for an hour and a half. The same with when he
ran.

But a couple of hours, never.

“Okay,” I whispered then kept trying, asking
softly, “You okay?”

“Great,” he lied, moved away, jerked his
chin up at his mother and disappeared behind the stairs.

I looked to Maris. “Did I interrupt
something?”

She was watching the back of the stairs, the
residual anger on her face now mixed liberally with concern.

She wiped it clean, looked at me, gave me a
small smile and didn’t lie so much as evade when she answered,
“We’re family. We talk a lot. We share a lot. And sometimes we
fight though luckily not a lot. It happens, we get over it. My
Sammy’s like his Mama. We sometimes rub each other the wrong way
but it doesn’t last long. Promise. Now do you want coffee?”

She was trying to change the subject.

And I was still reeling from what I heard,
the tone, the words and most especially that it now seemed very
clear that Sam was intentionally keeping something from me.

So, cautiously, I replied, “Love some,
Maris.” Then I moved toward the utility room but stopped when I
came abreast of where she was across the kitchen from me and I said
quietly, “But if you ever need to talk,” her eyes came to mine,
mine locked on hers, my heart clenched and my mind made a
terrifying, split-second decision. Therefore I continued on a
whisper, “I love your son. But I know he can be annoying. You want
to talk, I’ll listen and while I do, you’ll know nothing you say
will change the way I feel about Sam.”

Her lips had parted, her eyes went bright
with tears and I decided I was done. I’d been fearless, taken a
risk and threw it out there.

Now it was time to get the fuck out of
there.

So I dipped my head to the clothes in my
arms and asked, “Any darks?”

Maris shook her head.

I nodded and muttered, “Okey dokey.”

Then I got the fuck out of there.

* * * * *

I had pushed the footstool aside and pulled
the Adirondack chair up to the railing of Sam’s deck so I could
rest my feet on it.