“So this is the good life outside the Marines? Hot girls making you breakfast? Hook me up.” I forced out a laugh because joking about casual encounters with girls was normal. Wanting Sam, regretting marring the connection we’d had was something I barely understood myself and wasn’t ready to lay out in front of the guys.
"What am I? OKCupid? Close your own damn hook ups." Bo slapped his empty pack in my hand and ran off. Noah laughed like a loon and followed. Fisting the garbage, I gave chase and eventually ran Bo down close to the house and tackled him in the grass. I shoved the empty electrolyte pack down his shirt.
"I always knew you wanted me." He made kissy faces at me while I play-punched him in the face. Our fight was interrupted when the front door opened and Noah and Bo's girlfriends were standing there—awake far too early but dressed in tiny shorts and tank tops. Goddamn, summer was my favorite season. I must've stared too long because Bo slid a glancing blow across my chin.
"Stop staring at my girl, motherfucker."
"Can't. She's too hot,” I said just to screw with him. Noah had sprinted up the steps and spirited Grace inside rather than expose her to my lecherous gaze, I guess.
"You gotta learn some manners," Bo growled.
I swung to face him and put up my fists. "Yeah, wanna try to teach me some?"
He crouched into a fighting stance and we started circling each other.
"You coming in to have breakfast, or would you rather piss all over each other in a show of real animal dominance?" AnnMarie called from the door.
"I'm going to knock this fucker on his ass and then I'm coming in for breakfast," he called back.
"You get hit in the mouth, Bo, and we can't do those things we talked about last night!" She stood on the front stoop, hands on her hips. I made the mistake of turning to look at her and Bo took the opportunity to smack me right in the chin. I let him have the blow though, because I wouldn't want anyone looking at my girl either. But so he didn't think I was going to let him hit me any time he wanted, I kicked his Achilles heel and when he stumbled, I jumped over him and ran up to her.
"Leave him and run away with me, sunshine."
She just laughed and pushed me away so she could run over to him. He lifted her up and she wrapped her legs around him and gave him a kiss so hot I felt the temperature rise about ten degrees. I frowned and turned to go inside because the sight of Bo and AnnMarie wrapped around each other turned on a different kind of hunger—one that French toast wasn’t going to satisfy.
After some damn good French toast, I cornered Adam before he could take off to his music studio above the garage.
“So man, about Sam Anderson,” I started.
Adam shook his head. “You outta be careful with her. She’s fragile.”
“Are you warning me off? Because I don’t poach. Ever.” Although for Sam—no, I didn’t. I’d step aside if Adam had a thing for her.
He fiddled with the headphones around his neck, looking uncomfortable. “I like her but I don’t think she’s a good person to get involved with.”
“Is that the nice way to say she’s a bunny boiler and I should stay away or my dick may end up on the roadside?”
He snorted at this and gave me a reluctant smile. “No, it’s a nice way of saying that I don’t think Sam knows there are other men in this world. Lost her husband in Afghanistan a couple of years ago. In the three years she’s worked at Gatsby’s, she’s never even looked twice at another guy. Not before Will died and not once after. Think she’s still in love with her dead husband. That kind of fragile.”
That wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but then it also didn’t really match up with my experience with Sam. Aside from the fact she still had a metric ton of shit of her husband’s in the condo, she didn’t seem like the poor, grieving widow. She’d certainly done more than look at me. I could still feel her hot mouth on mine and the flutters of her tongue as it tasted and explored. Those weren’t the actions of a grieving widow. But Adam’s warning put me off from contacting Sam, so I allowed myself to be pulled into a day of drinking and lounging by the pool, trying to pay attention to AnnMarie and Grace’s girlfriends.
Later that evening, I settled at the far back lawn, trying to get away from the noise and crowd. Crickets chirped in the copse behind me and the sun had dropped down behind the horizon, reducing the heat of the day from muggy to slightly steamy. The crowd had thinned, and only a few hardcore folks were still drinking. One of the roommates had fired up a grill and Bo had directed me to sit on the opposite side of the pool, probably so he and Noah could lay into me. A little drowsy from the travel, sun, and liquor, I couldn't muster up any I care emotion at that point. A mosquito buzzed around my head and I nabbed it out of the air before it could settle on my skin for a snack.