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I sit on my bed and look over at him. “What are you talking about?”
“Son, you want to chase fame and football stardom like your shit is made of gold, and you're not thinking of how this is going to drag that girl along for the ride. You have no idea where this life is going to take you, and you're going to break her heart over and over along the way. Let her go, for now, make something of yourself, become reliable. Be better. Don't give her a chance to doubt you, because even I sure as fuck do right now. You're not good enough for her now. You’ll only hurt her, so just let her go for now, and concentrate on building your career. It starts right here in high school. You have to focus and make sure you get noticed by those scouts.”
A woman walks by up the aisle and I sit up. Her long blonde hair and frame remind me of Sam’s, and for a moment I think it's her. The distraction pulls my thoughts back to the present, to her, and her escape from my bed.
This morning, when I woke up to an empty, cold bed, it had taken all of my willpower not to rush out of the room and drag her back where she belonged. And it takes everything in me now, as I sit on this flight back to Willowcreek, not to call her. But I have to give her space, or she’ll run even faster away from me.
I end up imagining her carefully sneaking out of bed, naked. I wish I had seen her. I would have taken her back to bed and continued on from where we left off the night before, ridding her of whatever doubts that had her running from my hotel room.
I will never get enough of Samantha Bennett. I think I loved her from the first moment she climbed up the Treehouse with her dolls in hand. I felt the need to protect her then, and continued to as we got older. But as the years progressed, that changed into something else, something more.
I knew we would be good together, the chemistry was there, but she was too important to rush. I would have waited forever for her, but teenage hormones are a hell of a thing.
The day I asked her out in the Treehouse wasn’t planned. She kept stealing glances my way, and the way her body responded to my closeness told me what I needed to know. I was nervous as hell, but I played it cool.
I was secretly sweating my balls off. Sure, we’ve always had chemistry, but that didn’t mean she wanted to date me.
I had an argument with my dad the morning prior to that, and my confidence was shot, even though I put on a good show.
Sam heard how my dad treated me once when we were kids. I was supposed to meet her, but I was late and she came to my house to get me. She heard my dad tell me how useless I was—same old, same old. Since then, I made sure she never had to come back to my house for anything again.
So when I asked her if she wanted to go out, and she said yes, it felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
When she offered to let the others join us, that weight shifted to a three-hundred-pound linebacker tackling me. I laughed, but I really wanted to curse. I had to make it clear that I wanted to be with only her. That I wanted us to become more than just friends hanging out.
It took her a minute to realize what I was really asking from her. And it hurt my pride a bit. But ultimately, she said yes, and that’s all that mattered to me. I’d never expected her to want to date me.
I remember for our first date, we went to Madison's mom's bakery and got a booth in the back corner. Sam didn’t want anyone we knew to come in and see us, and I didn't mind. I wanted her all to myself.
We both got shakes and sat there for a while trying to figure out what we should be doing differently.
“Come on, Sam,” I finally say to her after a few minutes of her not knowing what to do with herself. “This is the same as always. How many times have we done this same thing?”
“It's not the same and you know it,” she counters.
I put my arm behind her on the back of the booth. “Yes, it is. It's just the same as every other Friday night we hang out together.”
She turns her whole body toward me. “Don’t patronize me, Ash. It's different. This means we…”
“This means,” I move in closer to her, grinning. “I get to hug you now.”
She rolls her eyes, “You always hug me.”
I lower my arm to her shoulder and pull her into my body. “No, it won’t be like that, I’ll get to touch you more now,” I say, running my hand up her arm and across her shoulder.
Her breathing changes. “But you touch me all the time.”
“Not like I want to, Sam.” I lean into her space, turning my face into her neck and inhaling deeply.
“Why now, Ash?” she asks, swallowing hard as I nuzzle her neck.
“It's not just now, I've always wanted you. I was just waiting for you to want me, too,” I tell her truthfully.
She pulls back to look into my eyes, and I lean in, our lips almost touching. I want her to want this. I need her to move first, to be sure.
“I’ve always wanted you, too, Asher.” Her confession makes my heart light.
Samantha is more than some fling to me. My friends want to go out with as many girls as they can, but Samantha is different.
