Page 162 of Smoke and Glitter

Sam is the first one to speak. "Better distraction?"

I laugh, still breathless. "Your methods are improving." I reach for the coffee, discover it has gone cold and make a face. Sam asks what is wrong, and when I tell him, he says that is what I get for abandoning a perfectly good beverage for international phone sex.

"You participated."

"Enthusiastically."

I pull his shirt closed around me again. The joke could carry us out of the moment if I let it. Instead I look at him on the screen. "I needed that. Not just the sex. The part where you asked and waited."

Sam goes quiet, but he doesn't look away. "I want to know what you want."

The sentence lands harder than I expect. I tell him it was annoyingly good, and his mouth pulls at one corner. "I can make it worse if you need me to."

"Please don't." I smile despite myself, and he does too. Then he tells me he misses me, plain enough that there is nowhere for either of us to hide inside the sentence. I tell him I miss him too.

A few minutes later Sam is falling asleep in Chicago while I am finally getting out of bed in London. I prop the phone against my coffee mug long enough to find clean clothes, and he keeps his eyes closed while telling me the shirt is still his. I button it over my tank top before ending the call. "Come get it."

His eyes open. "I plan to."

By the last week of the extension, the remaining tour work starts leaving my hands. Priti sits across from me one afternoon with her laptop open between us while I hand over the final routing. She asks good questions, writes down the answers and catches one logistical issue before I mention it.

When we finish, she closes her laptop. "I've got it from here."

Normally, that sentence would trigger an immediate inventory of everything she might not have considered. Instead, I look at her for a moment.

She waits. I open my mouth, then close it.

Priti smiles. "That looked painful."

"You have no idea."

"I'll call if I need you."

There are four things I remember on the train home that evening. I type the first one into an email, stare at it and hear Priti telling me she's got it.

I delete the draft.

Sam

Colt comes into Vibes alone and stays on the same stool through half a coffee. I can feel him watching me while I work. Normally, Colt will talk through anything. Today he rotates his cup against the bar and lets the silence get irritating enough that I finally look up.

"You've been staring at me for twenty minutes."

His eyebrows rise. "Because you've been weird for a week."

"I need to ask you something."

Colt's expression shifts, but he keeps both hands around his cup. "Then ask."

I look toward the back bar even though there is nothing there that requires my attention.

"I need help picking out a ring for Autumn."

When I look back, Colt is staring at me. His coffee stops halfway to his mouth before he sets it down carefully.

"Okay," he says, dragging the word out just enough to annoy me. "Now we're talking."

"Don't make this a thing."