After Hello (17 page)

I gasped, feeling like I was teetering on a ledge, ready to fall.

Sam pretended not to notice, though I knew he had. He noticed everything. “Vanessa may live in New York—she may even like living in SoHo—but her heart is still in New Orleans. Always will be.” He looked down at his hands, touching his thumbnails together. “She left her home, and she’s been looking for a way back ever since.”

The gasp I had swallowed turned to ice in my stomach. “Why doesn’t she just move back, then? Why does she stay here?”

Sam looked at me, his brown eyes almost black in the shadows. “Because you can never go back. You can only go forward.” He shrugged. “Maybe her path will loop her back to where she started, but for now, she’s here. And, for what it’s worth, I think she’s happy here.”

“Even without her heart?”

“Happiness can be close by, even if your heart is far away.”

I felt like our conversation was suddenly as precarious as the landing beneath my feet. It looked solid enough, but there were dangerous gaps between the rails, places where uncertain feet or unspoken words could slide through.

“I don’t know if I can believe that,” I said quietly.

“Then don’t,” Sam said with an equally quiet shrug. “You don’t have to believe in happiness for it to exist.”

I clasped my hands together and let them dangle over the edge of the railing. When my mom had left, she had taken a part of my heart with her, and the hole she had left behind had only grown wider and deeper over the years. I kept trying to fill it with happiness, but it never seemed to be enough.

“I believe that happiness is always there,” Sam continued, looking up and away at the faint stars struggling to peek through the night. “That’s why we have to keep looking for it. Because we can’t always see it.”

“And is that why we have to find it? Because it doesn’t always find us?”

He turned to me, the light reflecting like stars in his eyes. “Sometimes it does, though. Even when we aren’t looking for it.”

Another shiver ran through me, but this time it was a warm wave that traveled from the top of my head all the way down to the tips of my fingers and my toes. I tried to take a breath, but I couldn’t seem to convince my lungs to work, and what little air I managed to inhale smelled like Sam.

I suddenly remembered holding his hand in the elevator to Piper’s place, the brush of his thumb against my cheek, the pressure of his fingers on my leg. My skin tingled everywhere he had touched me today, a sharp prickling like my body was waking up from numbness.

“Maybe Vanessa could make us a voodoo doll of Piper that we could poke with pins until she gave Paul his job back.” I said it as a joke, hoping to bring the conversation back to safer ground and, I’ll admit, to make Sam smile. It worked: his lips pulled upward and a quick chuckle escaped. I felt like I could breathe again. Like I had been released.

He slouched against the railing, his attention shifting away from me, diffusing in intensity but not entirely disappearing. “You want to resort to black magic to complete your quest? That doesn’t seem very noble.”

“Nobility is overrated. Piper made this personal. I’m out to win.”

“Winning is overrated,” Sam countered.

“Said by the boy who wins all the time.” I rolled my eyes good-naturedly. I was glad to be back on familiar ground, joking and teasing with Sam. His earlier intensity and seriousness made me feel unsettled; I didn’t know what to do with my emotions. “Okay, so maybe the voodoo doll isn’t the way to go,” I said, feeling my way through a new idea. “But what if we’ve been looking at Piper’s request all wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve been looking for something we could frame and hang on a wall. Art or sheet music, right? And we’ve been looking for something local—or at least, we’ve been talking to people you know, like Daniel and Aces—but what if what will make Piper happy isn’t artwork at all? What if it’s something else? And she never said it had to be from New York.”

“Are you saying you want to go to
Jersey?
” he asked, his humor laced with disbelief.

I waved my hands in front of me, the idea continuing to crystallize in my mind. “No, no, I’m wondering if you think Vanessa would have one of those elaborate masks people wear during Mardi Gras.”

“You’ve been to Mardi Gras?” Sam asked with raised eyebrows.

“No, but I watch TV.”

He nodded, granting me the point, and then cocked his head in thought for a moment. “It’s not a bad idea.”

“Are you kidding? It’s a great idea!” I grinned, elated. I pushed away from the railing and gestured as the words spilled out of me. “Piper said she wanted something bold and unexpected, right? Well, there’s no way she’ll be expecting this. If it had some of those fancy sparkling crystals on it, and, oh, maybe we could find one with hot-pink feathers, and—” I stopped at the look on Sam’s face. “What? What is that look for?”

He held my eyes with his and didn’t let go. The lines in his face softened as his earlier smile returned, but this time with an unexpected shyness. “I was just thinking that I’ve never met anyone like you before.”

“Oh.” I felt heat rise in my cheeks, and I was grateful for the cool night shadows.

“You’re wrong about one thing, though,” he went on.

“I am?”

“I don’t always win.”

I twisted my lips down. “I seem to recall you saying that you can get whatever you want, so forgive me if I don’t believe that.”

Sam shook his head, suddenly serious. “I said I can
find
anything I need. That’s a long way from getting whatever you want.”

I leaned against the metal ladder and looked at Sam out of the corner of my eye. With the glow of lights from the apartments around us and the streetlights below us, Sam’s brown hair seemed closer to gold, but his eyes remained that warm, chocolate brown. The play of light and shadow on his face made him look foreign and familiar at the same time.

My heart picked up a step, and I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. The prickles returned to my fingers, my cheek, my leg. “So . . . what is it that you want?”

For a moment, his face was open and unguarded. I saw a thousand answers pass through his eyes before he managed to control his expression. He took a step away from me.

A bang on the window shattered my thoughts and made me jump.

“Hey,” Will called out, knocking on the window again. “If you two lovebirds are done out there, Paul says to come back in.”

I looked at Sam, but he was back to being all business. The vulnerability I’d seen and the closeness we’d shared was locked away. His fingers twitched on the railing, unsettled and unable to stay still. “We should go in,” he said, his tone and his words clipped. “I’ll call Vanessa about your mask idea. See if she has anything that we can use.”

He brushed past me, leaning down to step back into the apartment.

I stood for one more moment on the landing, looking up at the sky above me and feeling the tingling spot on my body where our shoulders had touched.

Chapter 26

Sam

Sam stepped into his bedroom, the phone already at his ear when he heard Sara climb back in through the window. As he listened to the ringing go unanswered on the other end, he pressed his back against the wall, grateful for the momentary isolation. It was a small apartment, and there were altogether too many people in it.

Will and Jen were still on the couch, talking, and Paul had flipped on the TV, watching the news with a glazed expression. Rebecca was wiping down the kitchen counter. He reminded himself to thank her later for that as he closed the door to his room.

The phone buzzed one more time in his ear, followed by a click as Vanessa’s voice mail picked up.

“If you know who you’re callin’, then you know what to do,” her throaty voice purred on the recording.

“Vanessa? Yeah, it’s Sam,” he said after the beep. He quickly explained about the Mardi Gras mask but didn’t go into detail about why he needed it. “Call me back if you get this message tonight, okay? Doesn’t matter what time. It’s important.”

He hung up and shoved his phone back into his pocket. He scrubbed his hands through his hair.

What was his problem? He thought back to that moment earlier in the day when he’d had the chance to walk away and didn’t. It was too late to go back and change that moment, so the only thing to do was to take his own advice and move forward.

But he wasn’t sure moving forward with Sara was a good idea. He’d seen her face out on the landing, and when she’d asked him what he wanted, he’d heard her unspoken words.

What did he want? It was the easiest—and the most complicated—question in the world. If he was being honest with himself, then, at that moment, standing there on the landing with Sara so close, there had been only one answer. And he knew she had seen it written all over his face.

He should have taken that step forward—toward her—instead of away.

But again, it was too late to go back and change it.

Story of my life,
he thought, a bitter taste in his mouth.

Through the wall, he heard Sara say something, followed by Rebecca’s muted reply, and just the sound of her voice made him close his eyes, frustrated with himself. What was it about her that made him feel like he could say whatever was on his mind to her? And why did he suddenly have so much to say?

Eighteen months he’d lived here with Paul. Eighteen months he’d worked in the city and wandered the streets, looking and searching and finding. He’d been from Battery Park to Washington Heights and all points in between. He’d met all kinds of people. But no one in all that time and in all those places had clicked with him the way Sara had.

Was it because he knew that she was literally here today, gone tomorrow? Did knowing she was just passing through make it easier to trust her? Was he giving her bits of his story, his past, so that when she left, she would take them with her?

He drew in a slow, deep breath. He pulled his hands away from his head, his face, and concentrated on stopping the trembling in his fingers.
Don’t look back. Gotta keep moving.

“Rebecca?” Sara’s voice was clear, close to the door to his room. “I just wanted to say thanks. For being so nice to me.”

He cocked his head, listening, hating the lift he felt in his chest knowing she was just on the other side of the wall.

“What’s this?” Rebecca’s voice wasn’t as close, but it was still as clear.

“It’s a coupon for a free manicure at Knives and Nails. I know it’s not much, but . . .”

“You don’t need to give me anything. Honest. I can’t take this.”

“Then don’t take it,” Sara said. “Trade me for it.”

Rebecca laughed. “Sam has you trading now?”

Sam rolled from his back to his shoulder and pressed his ear closer to the wall.

“Maybe.” Sara’s voice was a touch defiant.

“I don’t think I have anything to trade. Well, wait—let me see . . .”

Sam heard the faint sound of Rebecca rummaging in her purse, of keys clicking together.

“Ah, here. What about this?” Rebecca asked.

There was a brief pause, then Sara said, “You’re sure you want to trade that?”

“For a free manicure at the best salon in the city? You bet.”

“But it’s so pretty—”

“It’s not really my style.”

“Okay. If you’re sure. Thanks.”

“You already said that,” Rebecca’s voice held a smile.

“I still mean it,” Sara said.

“Hey, Paul,” Rebecca called out. “Where did Sam go? He didn’t leave, did he?”

Sam stepped back from the wall and ran his hand through his hair one more time. He opened the door and reentered the living room. “Nope, still here.”

Sara hurriedly shoved something into the pocket of her jeans.

He offered her a curious look, but she didn’t quite meet his eyes.

“Good,” Rebecca said. “I didn’t want to leave without saying good-bye.” She leaned in and kissed Sam on the cheek. “Take care of your brother for me, okay?”

Sam glanced at Paul, who had leaned back in his chair, his eyes closed and his hands folded on his chest. “I will.”

“And take care of Sara, too. Make sure she gets home okay,” Rebecca continued, pulling Sara in for a quick hug. She leaned close and spoke in a mock-whisper. “And forget about Piper, sweetie. She’s not worth your time.”

Sara’s eyes darted to Sam, and even though she said, “I know,” he saw in them the determination that she would finish the job.

“Jen,” Rebecca called out, looping her purse over her shoulder. “It’s late. Let’s go.”

Jen didn’t look up from where she and Will were kissing on the couch, but she waved a hand indicating that she would be happy to be left behind.

Rebecca rolled her eyes. “Oh, for the love of—” She crossed to the couch and yanked the back of Will’s shirt. “She’ll call you tomorrow.”

He coughed and rubbed at his throat. “Enough with the manhandling, Becky.”

Rebecca swatted him on the back of his head. Jen laughed, and the two friends swept out of the apartment with a final wave at Sam.

Will scooped up the remote from the coffee table and stretched out on the couch with a grin that would have made the Cheshire Cat jealous. “Well, aside from the whole losing-my-job thing, this turned out to be a pretty nice day.”

Sara giggled behind her hand.

Sam nudged her elbow with his. “Hey, so I had to leave a message at Vanessa’s. Do you want to wait for her to call back, or—”

She shook her head. “I promised my dad I’d check in with him—in person—once I was done with dinner. I . . . I don’t suppose you want to come with me?” Her green eyes were bright with hope.

“To meet your dad? That seems a little sudden.”

She narrowed her eyes in mock anger. “No,
not
to meet my dad.”

“What? You don’t think I’m good enough to meet your folks? Are you ashamed of me?”

“Should I be?” she countered.

“Not today.” He looked over at Will, who had kicked off his shoes and was flipping through channels on the TV. “Hey, Will? Sara and I need to run an errand. Keep an eye on Paul for me, okay?”