Just Three Words (Soho Loft Romances) (27 page)

“Yes.” A pause. She was vibrating with nervous energy at what she was about to say. She’d really never put herself out there to someone before. Where did one start? “Do you think maybe we should talk about it? Us?” She could feel her heart beating out of her chest, and she blinked in anticipation.

Sam looked caught. She opened her mouth and then closed it, her expression clouded as if she didn’t know quite where to go with the question. Finally, she shrugged, relaxing into a smile. “What’s to talk about? It’s just sex.”

And there you have it
. “Right,” Hunter said.

But then Sam’s smile faltered. “You said so yourself a week ago.”

Hunter nodded, solemn. Resolute. Clearly, she was on her own here. “No strings. That’s the deal. Still is.”

They stared at each other, and the silence was no longer the comfortable kind. Sam turned to go. “See you at work.” And then, as if forgetting something, popped back around the corner. “You’re the best. You know that, right?”

Hunter smiled. “Pshhh. You say that to all the girls.” Laughing was easier than the alternative.

“Please. You’re the one with the groupies.”

She shrugged. “That’s me.” But even with Samantha smiling at her, teasing her, she was beginning to understand that what she really wanted was outside her reach. Alone in her room, she lay back and studied the patterns on the ceiling as one emotion after another took its turn with her. She looked over at the empty spot in the bed next to her, the one that mirrored the emptiness in her life. An emptiness she’d been quite comfortable with until now.

She’d never wanted to give herself over to someone that way.

And now she knew why.

Because the last thing she wanted was to feel
all this
.

Samantha had to hand it to Balmy Days. When the staff at the retirement community decorated, they
decorated
. Uncle Sam hats hung from the ceiling en masse. Red, white, and blue streamers crisscrossed the common room in a twisting, twirling parade of crepe paper overkill. Miniature American flags lined the wall, and if Samantha wasn’t mistaken, there seemed to be an instrumental mash-up of “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and “You’re a Grand Old Flag” piped in on the PA system.

The holiday weekend was still a few days away, and while she and her friends had plans to spend it in the Hamptons at a summer home owned by Mallory’s family, they still had the rest of the week to get through. Sam wasn’t about to check out early and miss scrapbooking class at the senior center. She’d even managed to wrangle the other Savvy girls into joining, per her class’s request.

“Where do you want me, Chief?” Brooklyn asked, arriving ten minutes late and smiling warmly to make up for it.

“Mr. Turner has trouble with the scrapbooking scissors. See if he’ll let you do some of his cutting for him.” Then she lowered her voice. “He’s a little grumpy, so don’t take it personally.”

“Grumpy old guy. Say no more. We’re going to be best friends,” Brooklyn whispered back before heading off in search of her charge.

Samantha surveyed the activity around her. Mallory had organized the women into a sort of circle and moved between them offering tips. “I find that if you lay out your page before pasting anything down, then you have the chance to make changes to the overall design. Planning is important.”

“Yes, dear, but what conditioner do you use?” Mrs. Swientek asked. “Your hair is extra shiny.”

Mallory smiled at the diversion. “I believe it’s called Pureology.”

“I’m going to tell the nurse’s aide to order me some.”

“It won’t get you Harold’s attention,” Mrs. Guaducci muttered to her page.

“Guess we’ll find out,” Mrs. Swientek fired back. Mallory raised her eyebrows at Sam, who smiled and placed a reassuring hand on her back as she passed. “You’re doing great, Mal. Keep tossing that shiny, shiny hair.”

Across the room, as one could have imagined, Mr. Glenville hung on Hunter’s every word, which was good because when it came to scrapbooking, the girl knew what she was doing. She had great ideas for complementary color schemes and shape arrangement. The pages coming together on that side of the room were next level. “Maybe you should be teaching the class,” she said casually to Hunter, who had just finished explaining color theory to Mr. Glenville and Mr. Earnhardt, who were actually taking notes. She wore dark denim overalls with a sleeveless white shirt underneath. The half ponytail capped off her casual summer vibe. It was a really good look on her, and Samantha had more than noticed. Was it weird that she thought about Hunter that way? It seemed almost second nature, not something she could undo. A consequence of their arrangement, she guessed.

“We would never want to replace you, Sam,” Mr. Glenville reassured her. “But maybe your nice friend could assist and come with you each week.” He put his arm around Hunter, who met Sam’s eyes, shrugged, and smiled widely.

“Well, I have a lot on my plate,” she told Mr. Glenville, patting his hand. “But I’ll be by every once in a while if it’s okay with Samantha.”

“And it is,” Sam chimed in. “You’re always welcome to help out. Lend your particular
skillset
.” She winked at Hunter, who glared back playfully.

“So do you have a Facebook account?” she heard Mr. Glenville say as she drifted away.
Perfect.

Next, she moved on to Brooklyn and gruff Mr. Turner, who seemed to be engaged in some sort of heated debate. Not good at all. Seeing Samantha approach, Mr. Turner raised his hand and pointed at Brooklyn. “This blond girl thinks I need to put more photos on each page, and I think she needs to mind her own damn business.”

Similarly, Brooklyn raised her hand. “I think Mr. Turner needs to suck it up and listen to my advice because one lonely photo in the center of the page is boring. There are lots of layouts to play with here, and he should explore them. Just my creative input.” She crossed her arms and sat back in her chair.

Samantha shot Brooklyn a
what the hell
look. But, fine. She could solve this. “Mr. Turner, maybe you’d like to work with Hunter, and Brooklyn can help Mallory with the group she’s—”

“No, no, no,” Mr. Turner said in annoyance. “We’re doing fine here. She’s just spirited is all. I’m spirited, too.”

“Yeah, leave us be, Sammie,” Brooklyn said, smiling proudly. “We’re the spirited table.”

“Clearly.” Understanding their unique camaraderie, Samantha smiled. “Then I’ll let you two work.”

It was turning into a great session. The residents had a palpable energy about them when new people came to visit. It warmed her heart to see them so reinvigorated, and she was grateful to her friends for doing her this favor. As they filed out at the end of the allotted class time, Brooklyn and Mallory went about helping Samantha with the cleanup. She gathered the glue sticks from the various tables and returned them to the large plastic bag, all the while keeping one eye on the front of the room. Hunter still sat quietly with Mr. Earnhardt as he took her through each page of his scrapbook and explained the significance of each memory he had shared with his late wife. Samantha looked on, struck by the way Hunter took the time to quietly ask him questions and compliment the work he’d put into each page. It was a heartwarming exchange.

“She’s good with him,” Mallory whispered to Sam.

Brooklyn nodded. “Hunter’s a softy. Most people miss that about her.”

Samantha’s heart clenched in her chest. The scrapbook was important to Mr. Earnhardt, and Hunter understood that. She cared. The class was over and she surely had other places to be, but it was clear she was in no rush to clear out. This man had her undivided attention.

“What you don’t realize,” Mr. Earnhardt imparted to Hunter, “is that life is not as long as you once thought it would be. Time flies by and you have to devote those minutes to the precious cargo in your life.”

“The precious cargo,” Hunter said. There was something about Mr. Earnhardt and his approach to things that resonated with her. He was kind, yes, but it was more than that. He just seemed to get things, at least in retrospect, and she could learn something from the stories of his life.

Wise and gentle: that was the best way to describe him, and Hunter took his words to heart. You know, when you thought about it, he was right. It seemed like just yesterday she was starting her freshman year at NYU, and here she was all these years later, closing in on thirty. Where had the time gone? Outside of her career, what did she really have to show for it? What roots had she put down?

“Do you have any regrets?” she asked him as he closed the scrapbook.

“Oh, quite a few,” he said, without preamble. “But the biggest would be not marrying my Martha sooner. Then we would have had more time together.”

Hunter nodded. “And why didn’t you?”

“Oh, I was stubborn and young. Kind of a horse’s ass when it came to serious matters of the heart. Martha was right there in front of me the whole time. Just took my sweet time noticing.”

Hunter nodded. “Thank you for sharing your stories with me.”

He smiled then, his eyes crinkling at the sides. “I probably bored your socks off.”

“Well, I’m not wearing socks, so we’re good there.”

Mr. Earnhardt laughed. “You’re a pretty girl. Do you have a fella you go around with?”

“I do not. No fellas for me.”

He took a minute and then, “Oh. Like Samantha. She used to have a
girlfriend
.”

She smiled. “Yes, like that.”

Mr. Earnhardt raised his eyebrows and tossed a glance Sam’s way. “Are you two…?”

“No, sir. We’re just friends.”

He nodded and stood, pushing slowly off the chair, which took quite some effort. Hunter followed him up and held firmly to his upper arm to assist his progress. Once he was upright, he turned to her. “You might think twice about that. There’s no sweeter girl than her.”

Hunter’s eyes settled on Sam automatically. She was laughing at something Brooklyn had said, and her eyes shone brightly the way only Sam’s could. “Yeah,” she said absently. “There’s no one like her.”

Hunter, Samantha, and Mallory split a cab back to Soho after seeing Brooklyn to the train. Hunter hopped in first, followed by Samantha in the middle and Mallory after her on the outside. The ride was a quiet one, as the day had been long. They each seemed lost in thought, taking in the darkened city streets as they flew past.

The cab’s backseat failed to provide much room, which meant Sam pressed against her side with each bump and curve in the road. It wasn’t a horrible sentence. And there was Sam’s hand, sitting unobtrusively on the seat between them. It was an instinct to cover it with hers and intertwine their fingers. At the contact, Samantha turned to her, a look of question on her face. But it was the way she squeezed Hunter’s hand in reply that caused her heart to beat faster. And it was the smile on Sam’s lips that made the butterflies in Hunter’s stomach zip and take flight. As darkness cloaked the cab, Mallory wouldn’t see the contact.

No. This was just for them.

*

Midweek hit, and with it came big happenings. Samantha read her morning email with a mixture of shocked celebration. New in her inbox was a company-wide email from Mallory instructing them to pick up work on—wait for it—the Foster Foods account, sans a few of the smaller projects. “For real?” she asked Mallory, peering around her monitor to see her friend better. “They’re back?”

“They’re back,” Mallory said, smiling. “I don’t know all the details, but I got a call from Royce at the close of business yesterday. They’re not a hundred percent out of the woods, but apparently some sort of infusion of cash has revived the corporation. Or at least the biggest parts of it.”

Her mind hurried to catch up. “So this means, the past due invoices?”

“You should have payment today.”

Oh, sweet Anderson Cooper. This was a fantastic turn of events. This meant she didn’t have to lie awake at night, finding corners to cut and ways to trim the fat off the already bare-bones budget. But there was one catch. “What about all of the business we’ve brought in since then? Can we handle the new influx of work in the midst of a monster account like Foster?”

Mallory came around her desk, coffee in hand. “Well, that’s what I’ve spent my morning trying to figure out. I think we can, but we’re going to need all hands on deck.”

Samantha interlaced her fingers and flexed outward. “I’m ready, Coach.”

Famous last words.

By the close of business, Samantha felt like she’d been hit by a truck. Hours of data entry, a tedious trip to the bank that’d taken way too long, a conference call with their benefits provider, the processing of payroll, and the generation of fifteen million invoices had left her body tight and her mind hazy.

In the midst of it all, she was aware of Brooklyn and Hunter working on storyboards across the room while Mallory made client call after client call. Yes sir, the day had been a perfect example of the kind of hard work that had slowly made them one of the
Who’s Who
firms in the advertising world.

“Hey.”

Samantha blinked at her screen, mildly aware that someone was speaking to her. “Hmm?” she said absently.

“I said, hey.”

Hunter.

Samantha swiveled in her chair, and as her eyes settled on the woman before her, the world seemed to spark into color again. She blew out a breath and smiled. “Hi, you.”

Hunter smiled back. “You haven’t moved from this chair in I don’t know how many hours.”

She blinked and checked the clock, surprised by how late it already was. “There was a lot to knock out.”

“And now it’s knocked. So let’s go.” Hunter inclined her head in the direction of the door. Samantha looked around, noticing for the first time that it was just the two of them left in the office. “Yep. You’ve even outlasted Mallory, which is tough to do.”

“You must have, too.”

Hunter laughed. “I went home two hours ago. I’m back now for you.” She was right. Samantha vaguely remembered Hunter calling good-bye to her. And now she wore workout clothes. Sleek, form-fitting workout clothes. Sam swallowed.

“Where is it you want us to go exactly?”