Sam brews a pot of coffee and pours us each a traveler’s mug. I try to make small talk, but he gives one-word answers, so after we climb into the truck, I decide I should just keep my mouth shut. We don’t speak during the short drive to the motel, but I can see the tension in Sam’s jaw. It’s almost eight when we pull into the parking lot, and aside from a few cars, it’s deserted. I unbuckle my seat belt but don’t move. I know something is wrong.
“You okay?” I ask.
“Believe it or not,” he says, looking out the front window, “I was kind of hoping today would somehow never come.” I reach out and put my hand over his, rubbing my thumb back and forth. Slowly, he turns his hand over, and I watch as he curls his fingers through mine.
We sit there, saying nothing, and when I look up at Sam, he’s staring out the windshield, tears streaming down his face. I move over on the seat and lean against him, placing our clasped hands onto my lap and wrapping my free hand around them both. His body is shaking with silent sobs. I place a kiss on his shoulder and squeeze his hand tighter.
My instinct is to tell him it’s going to be okay, to soothe him, but I let the grief wash over him instead. Waiting it out with him. Once his body is still and his breaths are steady, I pull my head back and brush away some of his lingering tears.
“Sorry.” He mouths the word, barely a thread of a whisper. I hold on to his eyes with my own.
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“I keep thinking about how I’m almost the same age as Dad was when he died. I always hoped I had Mom’s genes, that I wasn’t cursed with his bad heart and his short life. But Mom wasn’t even fifty when she got sick.” His voice breaks and he swallows. “I can’t believe how selfish I am for thinking about this when her funeral is today. But I don’t want that. I feel like I haven’t even started to live yet. I don’t want to die young.”
“You won’t.” I cut him off, but he keeps going.
“I might. You don’t . . .”
I put my hand over his mouth. “You won’t.” I say it again, hard. “Not allowed.” I shake my head, feeling my eyes go watery.
He blinks once, looks down at where my hand is pressed against his mouth, and then back to my eyes. He stares at me for several long seconds, and then his eyes darken, black pupils engulfing the blue. I can’t move. Or I won’t move. I’m not sure which it is. Both my hands, the one clutching Sam’s and the one over his lips, feel like they’ve been dipped in gasoline and lit on fire. His chest rises and falls in fast breaths. I’m not sure I’m breathing at all.
Sam grips my wrist, and I think he’s going to pull my hand away from his mouth, but he doesn’t. He closes his eyes. And then he plants a kiss in the center of my palm. Once. And then again.
He opens his eyes and keeps them on mine as he kisses my palm once more and then slowly runs the tip of his tongue up the middle of my hand, sending a molten wave through my body and between my legs. The sound of my gasp fills the silence of the truck, and suddenly Sam is lifting me on top of his lap so my thighs straddle his, and I clutch his shoulders for balance. His hands skim up and down the backs of my legs, his fingers brushing under the hem of my shorts. He’s looking at me with an open kind of awe.
I don’t notice that I’m biting my lip until he uses his thumb to release it from my teeth. He places his hand on my cheek and I turn into it, kissing his palm. His other hand moves further up the back of my shorts, sliding under the edge of my panties. I whimper into his hand.
“I missed you,” he rasps. A wounded kind of sob spills out from me, and then his mouth is on mine, taking the sound into him, swirling his tongue around mine. He tastes like coffee and comfort and warm maple syrup. He moves to my neck, leaving a trail of hot kisses up to my jaw. I tilt my head back to give him full access, arching toward him, but the kisses stop. And his mouth is on my nipple, sucking the peaked flesh through my tank top, gently biting down before sucking again. The noise that escapes me is unlike any I’ve heard myself make before, and he looks up at me with a cocky half grin on his face.
Something in me snaps, and I pull up his T-shirt, tracing my hands over the hard curves of his stomach and chest. He shifts toward the center of the seat and then spreads my knees wider so that I’m sitting flush against him. I roll my hips against the hardness beneath me, and he hisses and then grips onto my sides, holding me still. My eyes flash up to his.
“I won’t last,” he whispers.