“Like dinner and a movie?”
“Exactly.” Without ceremony he leaned forward and kissed her again—long and slow. Then he let her go, getting out of the car and helping her to her feet. Sam stepped onto the nature strip, feeling flattered and silly and a hundred less easily defined things.
“Goodbye,” she said, feeling just the opposite of that word.
Scott inclined his head. “I’ll see you soon.”
Sam toed off her boots and crept inside the house. She didn’t know if Nicole had seen her kissing Scott, but no good would come out of a confrontation this late at night. She stood in the hallway and listened. It sounded like everyone was in bed. Or Nicole was, she doubted Tabby was home yet. Sam snuck into the kitchen and put the kettle on. She was so hopped up on the night’s events, it felt like she’d never go to sleep. She’d hooked up with her old nemesis, and it had been…incredible.
You drive me fucking wild, Samantha. You always have.
She grinned stupidly, not wanting to think too hard and feel for a little while longer.
Chapter 11
July 2, 2007
The signs ofwhat was coming were everywhere—the Tupperware box of hardcore painkillers on the kitchen counter, the fact that the once-crammed schedule of doctors’ visits and chemotherapy sessions taped to the fridge was now almost empty, his mother’s thinning, yellow face. She was dying and there was nothing he could do about it.
It should have been sinking in by now, but it wasn’t. Scott still didn’t believe it, though he wasn’t sure anything could make him believe it.
His mother’s relatives were arriving from Northumberland, Chelsea and Oxford. They were too polite to stay in the house, booking hotel rooms and visiting every afternoon, crowding his mother’s bed and stressing her out with their grief. Scott tried to mediate the visits, but his mum always put a hand on his wrist and said, “Shouldn’t you be studying?”
He should. His final exams were only a couple of months away and he had assignments coming out of his ears. He could have applied for grief extensions, but schoolwork was the only thing that got him out of his brain. His teachers were all taking extra time to mark his essays and his friends kept buying him Coke and hot chips for no reason. This strained generosity was his first thought when someone rang the doorbell and left a pie on his front step.
It wasn’t a British pie, covered in pastry and made to be eaten warm, it was an American pie, dark purple with a creamy whorl in the center. He assumed it was just another random gift from someone who couldn’t handle death and put it in the fridge. Two days later he came home from football training to find another pie—pink with fresh strawberries. On a whim he brought it to his mother. She smiled at the mystery of it all and she managed to eat several forkfuls, which at that time was momentous.
Scott ate the rest of the pie himself, standing in the kitchen, a steady stream of tears leaking out of his eyes. The pies kept coming after that, two or three a week, blueberry, banana, raspberry, peanut butter, pumpkin and chocolate.
“Don’t fucking eat them!” his father would bellow. “You’ve got no idea who’s sending them! There could be ground glass in there!”
But Scott did know who was sending the pies. He’d seen Samantha DaSilva creeping along his porch and laying the fresh pie on the welcome mat, her eyes darting around for signs she was about to get caught before ringing the doorbell and running away. It was hard to describe how knowing that made him feel. It made him ache. It made him lonely. It made him even more shitful for stealing her panties. It made him love her more.
Present Day
The morning afterhis encounter with Samantha DaSilva, Scott was drinking a lot of coffee and trying to come up with a romantic and creative way to see her again. He was considering the novelty value of tandem bicycles when Toby burst into his office in a rumpled shirt and yesterday’s pants. “Sorry I’m late, Mr Sanderson!”
“Scott,” Scott reminded him. “Is everything okay?”
Toby suppressed a yawn. “Yeah, great.”
Scott studied his assistant. He had black circles around his eyes and looked about ready to keel over from tiredness. “Are you sure? You can go home if you’re feeling sick.”
“No!” Toby said, his eyes stretching to what seemed like twice their usual width. “I can’t go home.”
“O…kay?”
“Sorry,” he said, clearly making a conscious effort to look slightly less mad. “If I go home, I’ll have to keep looking after them and I can’t. I just can’t. It’s too sad and loud and sad.”
“Right.” Scott took in his miserable expression and decided he’d better ask. “What are you talking about?”
Toby sighed and sat in the guest chair. “Well, you know how my parents breed Cocker Spaniels?”
“Er, not yet, but go on?”
“Well they breed Cocker Spaniels and two weeks ago, Mopsy, our prize bitch—” Toby’s blue eyes widened. “That’s a breeding term, Mr Sanderson, I don’t mean that in an offensive way.”
“Scott. I know. What happened?”