Page 7 of Chasing the Other Woman

“I don’t like him hanging around her,” I say before I can stop myself.

“You’re going to get yourself in trouble, Brooks,” Luci says, walking closer to me. She places her hand on my bicep, looking up at me. “Trust her. If you come at her accusing her of something you don’t have proof of, it’s just going to hurt her.”

I look up and see Sam looking through the bay door. Our eyes meet, and for a second, there’s an expression I don’t recognize, but then it’s gone. She turns away.

Hurt her. That’s the last damn thing I want to do. I’ve done enough hurting her for a lifetime.

“I’m not telling you what to do,” Luci says beside me. I look down at her. “She’s just…I get the feeling she sometimes feels set aside. Coming at her with an accusation about the one person who’s back at command with her probably would just make her feel more isolated.”

Damn it.

I nod. “You’re right. This is my problem. Not hers.”

Sam’s quiet on the drive home.

Over the past two years, there’s been more drives like this than there haven’t. Her quiet. Me wishing she’d either get angry or cry or anything.

Maybe not cry. But definitely get angry.

Angry Sam is a beautiful sight. Before the accident, Sam would get fighting mad at me, the world, the storms, anything. When Sam gets angry, her whole body goes into fight mode. She juts her chin, her eyes flashing with fire that makes you want to throttle her and kiss her all at once. And God forbid she uses your middle name.

Quiet Sam is the one that breaks my heart. And I’m so used to Sam being quiet at this point that I have no idea how to get back to what we were.

Her head is turned toward the passenger window, her reflection giving the illusion of looking back at me. If I were a poetic man, and the old Sam would swear I was, I’d say her reflection was her past self looking back, asking me what the hell I was doing.

“You hungry?” I ask, because it’s better than nothing.

“No.”

“Did you eat today?”

“Yes, Brooks, I ate.” She punctuates the sentence with a sigh.

“Just making sure.”

I should reach for her hand, pull it to my lips like I always have. Tell her that whatever’s happening between us, we’ll work it out.

If you come at her accusing her of something you don’t have proof of, it’s just going to hurt her.

My hand tightens around the steering wheel.

When we get home, the house is dark except for the light over the kitchen sink. In another lifetime, I’d pull her into the kitchen, turn on the radio, and dance to some old country song.

Instead, I stop in the mudroom and kick off my boots. Sam takes off her raincoat, hanging it next to mine, the sleeves touching more than we’ve touched all day.

Another memory surfaces. Me pulling her back against my chest, burying my face in the crook of her neck.

“You’re dirty,” she’d say, not making any effort to pull away from me.

“Thought that was how you liked me, ma’am.”

“Brooks.”

Sam’s voice filters in with the memory and, for a moment, I’m not sure if it’s actually her or the memory of her.

When I turn to face her, she’s looking at me with an expression that I don’t recognize, which scares the hell out of me, because I’d have sworn that I knew every expression in this woman’s library.

“Yeah?”