Heaven and Hell (40 page)

Their presence became a boon because we all
went back to my house and they helped me work toward getting ready
for my everything must go yard sale.

When Mom and Dad were off work, we all
headed over there and had a family meal that consisted of breaded
and fried pork cutlets, fried potatoes and corn fried in butter,
all of these prepared in Mom’s three ever-present cast iron
skillets. This was served with enormous poppy seed roles and
followed by strawberry pie.

When Sam’s plate was put in front of him, he
looked at it a nanosecond then his eyes instantly cut to me.

I tried to stop my laughter therefore I
snorted.

“What?” Mom asked upon hearing the
snort.

“Nothing,” I answered.

Mom glanced between the two of us then
unusually let it go.

Sam tucked in but I imagined he did it while
mentally adding about a hundred more pushups to his workout the
next day.

Dinner was good. Dinner was fun. Dinner was
like dinner always was when we all got together – a happy occasion
that we cherished because we all weren’t together very often.

Dinner was also more insight for Sam into
me, my family, how we interacted, the deep love we felt for each
other. My family talked, shared stories, laughed over history and,
without anyone mentioning it but with everyone feeling it, we
enjoyed a time when we could all be us without Cooter sitting at
the table like a big, pink elephant in the room.

Sam was involved though quietly. He
chuckled, he laughed out loud, he gave me warm looks and my family
warm smiles.

But although Gitte was Gitte, involved,
sharing her own tales not only of her times with us but of her life
with Kyle in Tennessee and her own family and friends, Sam did
not.

At all.

He wasn’t removed. He just wasn’t sharing. I
didn’t understand how he pulled it off but he definitely did.

I didn’t think anyone noticed but I did and
it was beginning to nag at me.

We left Gitte and Kyle with Mom and Dad
since they had a nice guest room and I did not and Sam and I went
home. Sam told me he needed to check in with his crew of badasses
and he went to the kitchen. I camped out on the couch with my photo
albums. My goal, sorting the pictures I wanted to keep and dumping
the pictures of Cooter.

I did not want to do this but everything in
my house had to be sifted through. I’d already given away all of
Cooter’s clothes. I’d also already boxed up his belongings and Dad
took them to his parents’ house so they could have whatever they
wanted.

But now it was onto the hard stuff and I
decided to get through the worst of it first then move onto what
wouldn’t suck as much.

The tension I felt in my shoulders just
looking at Cooter in pictures grew tighter when I sensed Sam
walking in. On the floor beside the couch was a pile of Cooter
memories as well as my entire wedding album. I didn’t want Sam to
see any of them. I also didn’t want to hide.

He’d mentioned more than once that he liked
that I was “transparent” so, as difficult as it was, I kept
flipping through the album in my lap.

Sam crouched beside the pile on the floor,
picked up a photo and studied it.

I pretended to ignore him, pulled another
photo out of the album and tossed it to the floor.

Sam dropped the photo he was studying
without a word then twisted my wedding album towards him.

I deep breathed.

He flipped it open. I flipped a page.

“Baby,
fuck
,” he whispered and my
eyes slid to him to see his head bent to look at the album.
“Beautiful,” he finished then his gaze came to mine.

I looked down to see a full page photo of
myself standing alone in my awesome wedding dress carrying my
huge-ass bouquet and then my eyes went back to him.

I liked what he said just as much as I hated
him knowing I was stupid enough to give it to Cooter which was to
say
a lot.

“Thanks,” I whispered back.

He looked down at the album and flipped a
page. I looked down at mine and did the same.

“What are you doin’ with this stuff?” he
asked.

“Giving it to Cooter’s parents,” I
answered.

“Come again?”

I knew those words weren’t directed at the
floor and I found I was right when my head turned to him again and
I saw his eyes on me.

“I’m giving all of it to Cooter’s
parents.”

“Why?”

Uh…
why?

“Why not?”

He stared at me. Then he shifted so his ass
was on the couch at my bent legs.

“You tight with them?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“It’s a nice thing to do, you givin’ them
memories of that piece of shit, but you don’t have to do it,” Sam
told me.

“I know,” I told him.

“So, you’re not tight with them, why you
doin’ it?”

I looked at him. Then I looked at the floor.
Then I looked back at Sam.

Then I said, “I don’t know.”

“Fuck ‘em,” Sam returned immediately and I
blinked.

“What?”

“They know what kind of man they
raised?”

“I don’t know,” I repeated but that was a
semi-lie. Cooter’s Mom was beaten down and broken, just like me.
Cooter’s Dad was a dick, just like him. They knew or at least his
Mom did.

After Cooter died, Cooter’s Dad was beside
himself with grief in the way a man like him could be beside
himself with grief. He blustered and boiled over and got drunk and
told anyone who would listen that if Milo Cloverfield got anywhere
near him, he’d pull Milo’s intestines out with his bare hands.
Cooter’s Mom retreated, got even more quiet than normal and anytime
I saw her, which luckily was only briefly the day after Cooter died
and then again at the funeral, she looked at me in a way that made
my heart clench and my flesh crawl. Pain and grief mixed with
jealousy.

And Sam, being Sam, knew this and I knew he
knew it when he stated, “Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

“You did,” I reminded him and suddenly he
stood. Using his toe to flip closed my wedding album, he walked
from the room and into the kitchen.

Stunned by his actions, I stared after him
and kept doing it so I saw him come back with a big, black garbage
bag.

Then he crouched by the photos and shoved
them and the album in the bag while I kept watching. He left it at
my side when he was done, straightened and looked down at me.

“The rest go in that bag. You get done with
that shit, I burn it or I take it somewhere and dump it. You need
help goin’ through the rest?” he asked then tipped his head to the
three albums I hadn’t yet done stacked up on the floor.

“I’m not fired up for you to see my life
with Cooter in pictures,” I answered.

“And I’m not fired up to do it but that
wasn’t what I asked. I asked if you need help goin’ through the
rest.”

Okay now, wait. Weird.

He sounded testy.

I tipped my head to the side and asked
quietly, “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, and it’ll be great when you answer my
question.”

Oh man.

Definitely testy.

“I think I got it.” I kept talking
quietly.

“Gonna put on the game, you watch
baseball?”

“Not unless there’s someone wandering by my
seat offering to sell me a beer or cotton candy.”

The firmness that had set into his features
softened and his lips tipped up. Then he turned, walked to the
table beside Cooter’s easy chair, nabbed the remote and snapped on
the TV. Then he looked at the chair. Then his eyes came to me.

“This where he sat?”

Oh man!

I nodded.

Then I felt my lips part when Sam tossed the
remote on the couch at my feet, he rounded the chair and shoved it
across the living room. Then he opened the door and shoved it
outside, going with it. Five seconds later (I counted), he came
back.

Then, without a word, he retrieved the
remote, sat in the cushion at my feet, stretched an arm along the
back of the couch, stretched his legs out in front of him and
turned his eyes to the TV.

All right, it was safe to say I had no idea
what to do with that,
any
of it starting with Sam not
sharing (again) when I turned the direction of the conversation to
him and ending with the rather dramatic act of shoving Cooter’s
chair in the front yard.

I sifted through all of this in my head,
trying to decide which one I had the courage to tackle.

Then I noted, “Uh… I don’t have an HOA but
I’m thinking my neighbors are not going to be hip on me having an
easy chair in my front yard.”

Yes. I wimped out.

“I’ll get rid of it tomorrow, first thing,
on my way to the gym,” Sam replied, not taking his eyes from the
TV.

“Okay,” I said softly.

Totally wimped out.

Then I went back to my albums. It took
awhile but I got through them all, dumping all the photos in the
bag Sam provided for me all the while not sure how I felt about
that. Sam was clearly in no mood for me to disagree with one of his
decisions and one could not say Cooter’s parents were dear to my
heart but it didn’t do anyone any harm taking the high road.

Still, they weren’t burned or dumped yet and
maybe the next day Sam would be in a better mood and I could
approach him about it, explain where I was coming from and then
talk to Dad about taking them over to Cooter’s parents’ house.

When I set the last album down, Sam’s voice
came at me.

“Hopeful.”

My head turned and I saw his eyes were on
me.

“What?” I asked.

“You looked hopeful.”

My brows drew together. “Sam, I’m not
following.”

“In your wedding picture.”

Oh God.

I pulled in breath.

“Now, something good happens to you, you
look surprised and like you can’t believe it and you act like
you’re preparing for it to go away. That piece of shit took that
from you too and, until I saw that picture, I didn’t get it. Now I
do. And it pisses me off.”

Well, I was glad to know what was behind his
mood except for the part about me not knowing what to do about
it.

“I don’t know how to respond to that,” I
told him the truth.

“That makes two of us, honey, ‘cause the
asshole’s dead and I can’t hunt his ass down and cave in his
face.”

Yikes.

“I survived,” I reminded him quietly and
added, “And I’ll heal.”

He didn’t speak but something was working in
his eyes, I saw it and I waited but again he didn’t give it to
me.

Instead he muttered, “Right.” Then he looked
back at the TV.

I licked my lips then pressed them together,
calling up the courage and when I had it, I called, “Sam?”

His eyes remained glued to the TV.
“Yeah?”

He didn’t want to talk, it was clear. Sam
always wanted to talk but he didn’t now and I debated pushing it
but decided against it. If he needed space, I had to give it to him
and find a more appropriate time to try to get him to open up to
me.

So I asked, “You want a beer?”

“No.”

“Okay,” I whispered got up and got myself a
beer.

This was a mistake. My body was used to
being asleep at that time and after Mom’s meal, during which I’d
consumed a beer, and compounding it with another one, I passed out
on the couch. And I did this at the opposite end of the couch from
Sam. Sam not touching me, Sam not cuddling me and I didn’t like not
having either. It was the first time Sam and I watched television
together but he was tactile. If I’d been asked to guess, I would
have guessed he’d snuggle, even during baseball games. And I
suspected his mood was what held him distant.

The next thing I knew, I was being laid on
my bed in the dark.

“Sam, honey,” I muttered sleepily.

“You awake?” Sam asked.

“Kind of,” I answered.

“Good,” he murmured then he kissed me.

His kiss was a shock, not an unpleasant one,
but one nonetheless. This was because it was not gentle; it was not
leading up to anything. It was already there, wet, hard and
demanding.

Instinctively, I gave.

His mouth took more and I gave more and then
his hands got in on the action and they took too, first my clothes
then everything else. In no time I was heated, dazed by the sensual
onslaught, pulling at his clothes to get to his skin. Sam helped,
yanking them off and when we were both naked, I went at him. We
rolled, we kissed. We rolled, fingers swept, tongues tasted, teeth
bit, limbs tangled. We rolled and more of the same and Sam, his
hands, fingers, lips, tongue, teeth not to mention him giving me
access to his body so I could use all the same, took me beyond the
need he always made me feel.

It was desperation.

And my voice dripped with it when I was on
my back, his finger rolling at my clit, his tongue rolling my
nipple, my hand cupping the back of his head and I breathed, “I
need you inside, honey.”

Sam didn’t delay, shifting so he could hook
the backs of my knees around his arms, holding me wide, he
positioned and drove in, looming over me, powering in fast, hard,
deep, oh God…
God.
It… felt…
great.

I pushed up to an elbow and reached out with
my other hand so my fingertips could graze the silk of his skin at
his chest and then down.

“You feel beautiful,” I whispered and I
meant all of him, all of him driving deep and all of him I could
feel with my fingertips.

“You like my cock,” he growled, planting
himself to the root and grinding.

Oh yeah.
Yeah.

“I love it,” I gasped.

“You like what I do for you,” he grunted,
thrusting hard and fast again.

Okay, that was better. By a lot.

“Love it, honey.”

“Beautiful,” he rumbled.

“Beautiful,” I breathed, pulled in breath
through my teeth, arched my neck and prepared for it to wash
through me.