Kissing Sam was nothing like kissing Bobby or Mark. Not even close. Kissing them was pressing your face up against your own forearm compared to this. Oh man. This. ThisThisThis. When she kissed Sam, it was closing your eyes and opening them to find yourself in outer space. Kissing Sam was the universe. It was the Internet. It was a miracle. The part that was most astounding was that her brain switched off to pure white noise, and as she leaned in, she didn’t obsess about the mechanics of her tongue or where the rest of her body was in relation to his.
Penny felt the contour of his jaw under her hand and couldn’t believe she’d gone this long without touching it. Sam rolled over her, propping himself up so he wouldn’t squish her body with his. He hung for a bit and—Oh God—he was so pretty that it was unfathomable that he could even see her. It was inconceivable to Penny that his eyes served any function other than to be admired. He kissed her back with urgency. Her hands traveled around his waist. Sam was startlingly skinny. The slightness was new. His skin was warm and there was a refinement in the economy of his build. Sam’s stomach was smooth. Penny wanted to run her fingers up and down her own sides to check what she felt like. She suspected her love handles were too fleshy or lumpy in contrast, but when his hands migrated to her middle, Penny shivered. It felt so good to be this close. Sam fell onto his side, wrapped his leg around hers, and drew her in deeper. It made no difference where he started and she ended. Until it did. When his hands moved under her shirt, she stiffened. Penny didn’t have a bra on.
Responding to her hesitation, Sam changed course. He kissed her lightly and moved his hands from her front toward her back. It reminded Penny of when people tripped slightly and started running to pretend they hadn’t.
Penny pulled away to get some air. Sam’s hair had fallen in his face and his lips were swollen.
“Whoa,” he breathed, and rolled onto his back.
Penny wondered what would happen next.
He reached for her hand under the cover.
“So . . . ,” he said.
Penny rolled onto her stomach and faced him, admiring his profile. He had an elegant nose. She wished she could explore his body and inspect him. Learn him and memorize him. That way she’d know what to miss when he was gone. Sam was heartbreakingly, hauntingly beautiful. It made her heart hurt. This couldn’t end well.
“I think I should go,” she said. She didn’t know why she said it. Penny wanted to take it back, but that’s the thing about certain words. They broke spells. She searched Sam’s face for meaning, yet felt too self-conscious to keep staring. Penny wished he would text her about what was going on in his mind, tell her in some way that this made sense.
He sat up, frowned, and then nodded.
? ? ?
“Are you kidding me?” When Penny got home, Jude leapt out of bed and rushed to her. She grabbed Penny by the shoulders.
“Where the hell were you?” Jude shrieked.
Penny stared at her. She was mystified that somehow her roommate’s rage had built in her absence.
“I thought you were dead. I texted and called.” Her blond hair was tied up in a lopsided ponytail, and she was still wearing yesterday’s mascara.
Penny grabbed her phone from her back pocket and held it up feebly. “It died,” she said.
She examined Jude’s face for clues. She looked unglued but not necessarily angry.
“I thought you hated me,” Penny reasoned.
“You’re an idiot,” said Jude, scowling. “Of course I hate you. I’m furious at you. I figured you’d gone to your mom’s, but your laptop was here and your charger.”
Jude walked over to Penny’s desk and pointed. “Then I realized your pouches were here with your backpack, and that’s when I started to get hysterical.”
She turned to grab her phone off her pillow. “See,” she said, showing Penny her outgoing calls. “Six times I called you.”
Penny sat on her bed, dazed. “Jude, did you sleep at all?”
“No, asshole,” she said.
“Mallory had some guy over, so I got home at one and you weren’t here, which is fine. Except then I texted at one thirty and again at three, and when you were still gone, I couldn’t sleep. Jesus Christ, Penny, what the F?”
Penny went over to Jude and hugged her fiercely.
“You scared me,” said Jude quietly. Penny held her tighter. People scared Penny all the time. Like her mom and even Sam. It meant she loved them.
? ? ?
“The dumbest thing happened,” said Penny. They were lying on Jude’s bed. “My mom OD’d.”
Jude turned to Penny, horrified. “Holy shit. What?”
“No, no, no,” Penny corrected. “She’s fine. It is the stupidest thing. She overdosed on weed brownies at her birthday dinner, lost her mind, and had to go to the hospital.”
Jude fell silent and then erupted into laughter, which made Penny laugh.
“I only got back,” she said, skipping over the detail of spending the night at Sam’s house and making out with him in the morning and bolting like a dork.
“How is she?” Jude asked. “Poor Celeste.”
“She’s fine,” she said. “I met her shit-kicker boyfriend. Who’s handsome, younger than her, and was wearing these insane Lucchese cowboy boots.”
Jude smiled. “That’s so Texas,” she said. “How’d she seem?”
“I didn’t see her.”
“Penny.”
Jude nudged her. “Can you do me a favor? Can you tell me this story the opposite of the way you’d tell it normally? Start at the beginning and don’t leave anything out.”
“No, that was everything,” she said. “Her boyfriend called, said she was in the hospital. I figured you were too pissed to come with me, so . . .” She took a deep breath. “I called Sam and he drove me.”
“Okay, Sam we’ll get back to,” Jude told her. “You should’ve called me anyway, you know. Possible dead mother calls for a cease-fire. Even you have to know that.”
Penny continued. “Anyway, I get down there to discover that in true Celeste form, she was totally fine. She was in the hospital for no reason on her fortieth birthday other than that she’s a needy, messy monster.”
“Come on,” said Jude. “I’m sure she wasn’t stoked to be there.”
“I don’t care!” said Penny. “I’ve had it. As soon as I heard she wasn’t dead, I turned around and came back home.”
Jude’s mouth hung open.
“You didn’t talk to her? After you drove all the way down there?”
Penny shook her head.
“But, Pen, you’re the one who ditched her on her birthday.”
“I’m over it,” said Penny, throwing her hands up. “I’m done worrying about her. She’s the mom. I’m sick to death of looking out for her and being paranoid she’s going to do something dumb.”
If anything, Celeste was lucky she hadn’t gone in to visit her. Penny would’ve strangled her.
“Okay,” said Jude. “Well, thank God nothing truly bad happened. We all make mistakes, which, by the way, you might know something about.” Jude shot her a meaningful look. “It wouldn’t kill you to give your mom a break.”
Except that maybe it would.
SAM.
Sam measured out the flour. He hadn’t made hamantaschen in a while. Brandi Rose loved the prune ones best, so he was making those. It was time to go see his mother.
As he threw the mixer on low speed, his mind wandered to Penny. Dark eyes. Hands pulling him closer by the belt loops of his jeans. Her breath hot against his throat.
Jeez. What was that?
Sam recalled the impossible softness of her skin. The way her hair fanned out on his pillows as if she were floating on top of water.
But then she took off.
Sam didn’t know where to go with her and how far. Maybe Penny changed her mind. Maybe she’d tried it out and realized—to her horror—that she’d made a mistake and decided that they were better off as friends.
It would make sense if she were skittish, given the events of her life. But she’d been the one to kiss him first. Sam’s mind flashed back to the way her lips yielded to his and the sigh that escaped when his mouth brushed her shoulder.
When the cookies had cooled, Sam drove over to his mother’s. He took the left into Forest Park, through a cluster of mobile homes that had been built before the highway in 1964. He wiped his sweating hands onto his jeans.