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“Fourteen. Not bad,” Sam said as he started to write the score on the napkin, but I laid my hand on top of his.
“Twenty-eight. Double word points.” I grinned. “Tie game.”
Sam scoffed and then his eyes dropped to my hand still covering his.
“Sorry,” I said, drawing it back.
“No worries.” He fixed the score and laid the pen down, letting his hand fall to his side but not before I caught him flexing it.
My own fingers had that same kind of numbness from when you placed freezing hands under warm water. I busied them with picking up the last of my fries, but the ticklish pinpricks lingered.
“You good?” he asked, taking the final bite of his burger before placing a couple of tiles onto the board. “You seem far away tonight.”
I finished chewing and pushed the basket away. “I was just thinking about next semester. Next year.”
“Of leaving?” he picked up more pieces and switched them around.
“Yes,” I said, “but also the coming back part.” If they’ll even want me back if I can’t convince Mr. Bailey not to sell our Market to some random outsider.
Sam spun to face me, placing his arm on the back of my chair. “Mullings Creek will always be here, G. It’ll always be your home.”
Will it, though?
I looked around, at everyone chatting or playing games while they ate, and my heart squinched up a bit. “But what if it’s not the same home I leave behind?”
Sam drummed his fingers on the top of my coat for a moment before responding. “Places change. People do, too. But I think home is more of a feeling than a location on a map.”
“Not bad, Holt.” I grinned. “Maybe you should go into writing like me.”
“Nah.” He spun back around and waved his hand at Ms. Donna for the check. “I’ll be quite happy just running the family farm someday.”
When she dropped the check in front of us a moment later, Sam scooped it up. “I’ve got this one.”
“You sure?”
“Yep.”
Before I could process what he was doing, Sam picked up my earmuffs off the counter and carefully slid them onto my head, pushing a couple flyaways off my forehead afterward. I froze, my boots glued to the floor.
The last time we were this close was in my den, when I so desperately wanted him to kiss me. And just like that night, I felt myself getting lost in the almost twinkling golden ring around his irises.
How do we keep getting here, Sam?
He cleared his throat and hopped off his chair, avoiding my eyes as he took out his wallet. “I’ll just go take care of this at the register.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to not read too much into the fact that normally Sam and I split the bill and what his paying for me could mean. “I’ll clean up the board, then.”
But when I started picking up the pieces, I noticed that Sam had, in fact, laid down his tiles for a final word, one threaded through two others.
He got ten points.
And I got an instant uptick in my heartbeat as I ran my fingers over his winning word.
S-O-U-L-M-A-T-E-S.
Chapter Fifteen
“I can’t put my arms down!”
