At the beginning of August, Grandma Uley suffered a stroke. She was in the hospital for nearly a week. Sam and Allison went to visit her every evening after Allison finished work. Each night when they finally arrived home, they found that Leah or Sue had left food in their refrigerator for dinner. Leah baked a batch of her double chocolate chunk cookies and delivered them to Grandma personally on the day she was declared safe to eat solid food, and Grandma was so happy that she kissed Leah on the cheek.
When she was discharged, it was clear that she couldn't go home. She had regained the ability to move her left arm and leg, but she was still extremely weak. She couldn't walk, not even with a walker, and wasn't yet strong enough to transfer herself into a wheelchair. So she was moved to the subacute rehabilitation facility in Forks. She made slow but steady progress there, but after three weeks, Medicare would no longer cover the entire cost and she would start getting billed for a significant portion. It would eat through her meager savings in no time at all, so she returned home before she was able to live independently, and she continued her physical therapy at home.
Allison and Sam moved in with her two days before school started. Allison had offered to bring her to their house to take care of her, but Sam would have been displaced into the living room to sleep since they only had two bedrooms. Grandma's house wasn't any bigger, but in addition to Joshua's old room, where Allison could sleep, Sam could have a private space in the basement.
The Clearwaters all pitched in to help. Allison couldn't afford to stop working to take care of Grandma Uley, but luckily Sue was able to arrange for an aide to come four hours a day without out of pocket costs. The aide came every morning during the week, and Grandma could handle being on her own for a couple hours in the early afternoon until Sam came home. It meant he missed soccer, which made her feel terribly guilty. But there was no question in his mind that helping her was the only thing to do. Better yet, Mrs. Littlesea had finally realized that Collin no longer needed a babysitter. Collin retorted that he needed tutoring, so Leah worked with him twice a week. But the rest of the time, she went to Grandma's house with him. Seth often tagged along, entertaining Grandma with his endless chatter. A couple times a week Leah and Sam cooked dinner before Allison got home to spare her the trouble, and Sue frequently made extra food and sent it with them. Grandma threatened to kidnap Leah and Seth and keep them as her own.
Sam always walked Leah home from Grandma's house, but he no longer returned later in the night to sneak in her window. Between Sue's disciplinary methods and Grandma's shockingly acute hearing, he was certain to be caught. He made do with stolen kisses on the back porch or in the forest paths between Grandma's house and hers. And Grandma occasionally got tired and took a nap in the afternoon, leaving Sam to tug Leah into his basement "room", pull off her shirt, and lower her to the air mattress that served as his bed. He became intimately acquainted with the taste of the breasts he obsessed over, and Leah grew bold enough to touch him through his pants. But Grandma inevitably coughed or rolled over in bed, minute sounds carrying through the ductwork and reminding them of the lack of privacy, and they pulled apart panting.
Sam couldn't wait for the day they could move into their own place. Could they get an apartment together when they went to college? Or would she want to live in a dorm for the full college experience? Would Harry kill him for suggesting they live together before they got married? Would her father stand for it if he put an engagement ring on her finger first?
He danced around the subject whenever it came up. He didn't want to propose without a ring, or move too fast and scare her. So he approached their plans obliquely. They still loved to talk about all the places across the country that they wanted to explore (Leah had recently discovered the existence of a building shaped like an elephant in New Jersey that overlooked the Atlantic Ocean, and he had learned about a set of life-sized set of dinosaur sculptures in California that they had to see), so Sam segued these conversations into prompts about going to college clear across the country, and from there he'd ask about where to live. He was relieved when her answers all started with the word "we". Eventually he worked up the nerve to mention getting a place together, and she absolutely loved the idea. That led to discussions about features they'd want in their eventual home. They tried to one up each other in their ideas. He wanted a plasma screen television, minimum 52 inches. She answered they should install a home movie theatre. She suggested a jacuzzi. He scoffed and said they should have a pool. They got more outlandish. She wanted a game room. He said they should put skeeball in the basement. He proposed a dumbwaiter between the floors. She said that they should create secret passages behind the bookcases.
But all he really wanted was her in his house, be it old or new, modest or expensive, in La Push or New York City. Plus a king sized bed in their bedroom.
X-x-x-x-X
Sophomore year proceeded with no other major changes, although Rachel and Johnny began to bicker more and more. Rebecca and Bobby immediately and consistently took sides in predictable fashion, and it got to the point that they they were probably arguing with each other more than Rachel and Johnny. The topics were often as trivial as the fight about Star Wars. Half the time Sam couldn't even figure out what the arguments were about. He tended to tune out as soon as someone raised their voice, sighing and turning to Leah. She would try to play referee for a while, occasionally succeeding. Some battles ended as mysteriously as they had begun. But more and more, once the others got going, there was often no stopping them.
When they were alone, Sam asked Leah to translate for him. He didn't really know what all the fuss was about, and when he talked to the guys, they tended to crab about PMS (an answer that never failed to infuriate the twins if they were within earshot) and how girls were all nuts. Leah explained that Johnny was getting "handsy" in a way that Rachel wasn't always comfortable with, and both the twins were starting to wonder if Johnny was only dating Rachel to try to get in her pants. Sam had to admit that Johnny's behavior wasn't really helping to dispel this idea, but he knew his friend well, and Johnny definitely felt more for Rachel than he let on. Sam wanted to know why Rachel was dating Johnny if that was what she thought, since she didn't seem to enjoy his company very much. Leah sadly speculated that hanging out with them got them out of their house, where they had a very hard time staying. Everywhere they looked they saw a reminder of their mother, and sometimes it was just too much. Sam understood this completely. He had always preferred the safety and comfort of the Clearwater house to his own. But he was beginning to think that Rachel was stringing his friend along.
It all came to a head at his sixteenth birthday party. Grandma Uley was doing much better by then, and his mother planned to move them back to their own house sometime during the winter break. But for now their home was empty. So it shouldn't have come as a surprise to him that Leah threw him a surprise party in his unsupervised home on the night after he turned sixteen. But they had already celebrated, so he wasn't expecting another party. Allison, Grandma, and Leah had taken him to the Lodge for dinner, and the Clearwaters had given him a brand new mountain bike when they stopped by for homemade cake from Sue. Jacob had managed to pull Joshua's bike back from the brink of death twice already, but it had been run over by a student driver in the parking lot of the school, and there was no resurrecting it after that.
The next day, a Saturday, he left Grandma's house at dusk. He hadn't seen Leah all day long; she was busy helping Collin prepare for his upcoming English and Math tests. But she asked him to meet at her house to finish off his birthday cake and watch a movie with her. He arrived right after dinner. He shouldn't have been hungry after eating the dinner his mother had prepared, but there was always room for cake. So he had two slices.
Just as he finished scraping the last of the frosting off the plate, Leah's phone rang. It was his mother. She needed him to run back to their house. Grandma's furnace was apparently blowing cold air and she thought the pilot light had gone out, but they couldn't access it to relight it since they couldn't find an appropriately-sized flathead screwdriver to open the furnace's front panel. Could he get their toolbox and bring it back?
He was miffed to have his LeeLee time interrupted. Sue and Harry were actually out on a date, and Seth was at a friend's house. He couldn't remember the last time he and Leah had been genuinely alone, and he wanted to take advantage. Instead, Leah said she'd come with him. It wouldn't be the date they'd imagined, but they could still be together. They made the short trek through the woods to his house hand in hand. She was chilly, so he took the excuse to pull her tight against his side as they walked. They made slower progress that way, but he hardly minded. He kept looking down at her, peeking at the sparkle in her eye and the happy expression on her beautiful face and wondering what he'd done to deserve her. She told him he was warm, and he slipped his hand into hers inside her pocket. Could he get away with sliding his hand into her back pocket?
He stopped her on the step of the front porch. He couldn't wait any longer; she was irresistible. He turned her around, held onto both her hips, his fingers tantalizingly close to her round bottom, and pulled her in for a kiss. She tasted sweet, like Sue's frosting. Apparently she agreed. "You're so yummy, Sammy," she giggled. "But I'm cold out here. Let's go inside."
He agreed and handed her his house key, eyeing the way her jeans hugged her. His house was just as empty as hers. Maybe he could convince her to stay here for a while to warm up.
He was right that they'd stay a while, but they weren't alone. As he entered, she turned on the light, and a couple dozen people popped up and yelled, "Surprise!" Then Leah threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly.
"Happy birthday," she whispered in his ear. "I hope you don't mind."
He looked over her head and saw Bobby, Johnny, the twins, everyone in the high school he considered a friend, and nearly all the guys from Forks with whom he played soccer or basketball. The kitchen and living room were filled with balloons and streamers, and junk food was everywhere. "How could I possibly mind?" he asked as someone turned on music.
The party was fun, seeing all his friends together in one place was even better, and he even got a few good presents out of the deal. But the best part was how happy Leah was to have made him happy. Her huge smile was the best present he could have gotten.
And it didn't hurt that she had somehow convinced their parents to leave them unsupervised. She grinned mischievously and said she might have forgotten to tell them just how many people she had invited, and Allison was coming by around midnight to make sure her house wasn't trashed and that no drunk teenagers were passed out on her lawn. But that left them with a few hours to themselves.
Sam was happy to hang out with his friends for a while, especially since Leah was never far. He was fairly certain someone had spiked the punch, though, since it tasted a little odd and several people were becoming less inhibited as the night went along. Sam switched to soda as soon as he realized it, pushing visions of an angry Joshua out of sight of his mind's eye.
Within a couple hours, the party was in full swing. Music blasted, people were spilling onto the front and back porches, and a game of truth or dare was taking over the living room. Sam spotted Leah going down the darkened hallway and got up to follow. He really didn't care to see whether Mason Stanley would be able to bench press Olivia (he couldn't). He looked for Leah but didn't see her. The lights were off and the doors open to the bathroom, his mother's room, and his own.
He stepped forward only to be tugged into his bedroom. Leah pushed the door shut behind him with a loud, "Shhh!" and locked it. Then she took his hand in hers and looked up at him, grinning. She touched the tip of her finger to her lips.
He took the hint immediately and bent down to kiss her. She pressed herself against him, and he held her by her waist. She tasted like chocolate, and suddenly he was hungry. But not for food. He walked her back to his bed.
It was one of his very favorite fantasies. There were many places he imagined making love with LeeLee, but there was something about having her here that made him dizzy. He longed for the nights he spent curled against her in her bed or in their joined sleeping bags in her treehouse. He thought of the way her pillow smelled, warm and welcoming and all her. If he couldn't stay in her bed, he wanted his own to have that smell, that particularly LeeLee fragrance that he associated with home, covering his own sheets. He wanted a real memory of her in his bed.
He didn't even have to ask her. He had been trying to figure out how to get her onto the bed without separating his lips from hers and without pushing her down like a caveman. But when the back of her knees hit the mattress, she fell backward of her own accord and pulled him down by the front of his shirt.
He fell between her legs, and he kissed her like his life depended on it. It certainly felt like it did. He was hard as a rock, and he was as horny as he had ever been. She just looked so good. He had been staring at her all night (and he had caught several other boys looking as well). Her jeans fitted her perfectly, and her fuzzy sweater looked so temptingly touchable stretched across her chest. From time to time she'd reach up to push her long, shiny hair out of her face, and the movement would expose the tender skin of her belly. He had wanted to kiss that little flash of skin every time it made an appearance. He wanted to do that right now, but he wasn't sure he could tear himself away from her mouth. Her lips were impossibly full and soft, and her little tongue darting out and teasing his over and over was irresistible.
God. She felt so damn good underneath him. He wanted their clothes to disappear.
She pushed at his chest, and he snuffed a little in disappointment. But then he looked at her spread out beneath him. Her hair fanned out over his pillow, her lips were flushed and red, her eyes were hooded, and her breasts rose and fell as she panted. Fuck. She looked amazing.
Then he realized she was shoving him away. His brain managed to penetrate his haze of lust. He knelt up and off of her. "Oh my gosh, I'm sorry LeeLee. I didn't mean..."
"No! Don't be sorry. I just wanted..." She trailed off and looked at a spot past his head. He wondered if she was blushing, but it was too dark to tell.
She squeezed her eyes shut, smiling to herself, and he wondered what was going on. Then she reached up, yanked him onto his back beside her, and rolled over to straddle his hips. Oh damn. Oh god. Oh yes. She was sitting right on his straining erection. He couldn't stop himself. He arched into her.
Ohhh. Was he imagining it? Or was she really warm there? His brain was frying. He was so overwhelmed with the sensations rocketing through his body that he almost didn't see her licking her lips, taking a deep breath, and whipping her sweater over her head. Oh, who was he kidding. He would have to be blind to miss such a thing.
She wore a thin camisole underneath. Without thinking, he reached out to touch the hem of the fabric. It was silky and soft, but not as soft as she was. In return, she pulled at the bottom of his shirt as well, and he awkwardly yanked it off without fully siting up. He would have been embarrassed about how smooth he wasn't if she hadn't distracted him. She swallowed hard and looked him right in the eye. "I'm gonna..." He nodded, and she pulled off the camisole. She was wearing a simple black bra underneath, and he stopped breathing. Was he imagining it, or were her breasts still getting bigger? Then he realized how tight the bra was becoming, how she was nearly spilling out of it. Oh, yeah.
If she hadn't spoken, he might have just lay mutely under her like a fool until his mother came home to check on them. "Do you want to..." she offered, almost looking shy. She wiggled a little on top of him, and he had to concentrate on not coming in his pants.
"Y-yeah." Dammit, did his voice crack? Seriously? She was such a siren, her body becoming so womanly and perfect, and he was just a dumb kid. But a dumb kid that she was allowing to take off her bra. She leaned forward so that he could loop his arms around her, and he swiftly unclasped it. Thank god he got it off without fumbling; he had had enough practice by now. He pulled the garment away and pulled her up, burying his face between her breasts. His cock throbbed at him in protest; she wasn't in striking distance any longer. But that was better. This way he wouldn't embarrass himself.
Plus he loved her breasts. He obsessed over them, maybe even more than he obsessed over her ass. He held onto her tightly and pulled a nipple into his mouth. He was far too aroused to pepper kisses on her flesh like he usually did, and judging from the stiffness of the little bud, so was she. Leah moaned in response to his delicate nips, and the sound caused explosions in his brain and in his groin.
He didn't know how long he spent licking her, kissing her, suckling at her, and rolling the tips between his fingers. She was making him crazy. Every little move she made above him, every whimper, every hitch in her breath, the way she dug her nails into his scalp. He knew she loved what he was doing as much as he did, and that was the very best part.
Or it was until she scooted back, moving her lovely breasts out of reach. He protested and reached for her, but she pushed him back firmly. Then she ground herself on his crotch, and he fell back with an embarrassing strangled noise in his throat. "I want to try something," she whispered. He barely heard her over the thumping of the music from the living room, and he couldn't manage words in response. He just nodded dumbly at her.
Then she moved off him entirely, and he frowned in confusion until she reached for the button of his jeans. Oh. Dear. God. "Is this okay, Sammy?" He gaped and blinked at her until he realized she wouldn't do anything else without his permission.
"Uh huh," he croaked.
She closed her eyes and took another steadying breath. He almost told her she didn't have to, because despite wanting this, whatever it was, more than he had ever wanted anything, he didn't want her to do anything she wasn't ready for. But then she opened her eyes and unzipped his fly. He lost the ability to speak. She tugged his jeans and boxers down far enough to release him, and then she knelt over him.
Oh god. Oh fuck. Was she... Was she... Ohhhh...
She bent down to kiss his shaft where it rested on his belly. He almost came on her face. He threw his arm over his eyes to block out the sight. Surely he would explode if he watched what she was doing. And then she took him into her warm hand.
Heaven. It was heaven. How could her little hand, her slender fingers, feel so much better than his own? Because they did. She gently and slowly explored him, running her fingers up and down, lifting him up and swirling her fingers around the base, tracing the veins with tentative touches. It was the best thing he had ever experienced. And then she gripped him in her fist and started to pump.
"Fuck..." he heard himself saying.
She stopped moving. "Am I hurting you? Should I stop?"
He moved his arm and raised up his head, looking at her incredulously. "No! Nonononono, don't stop!" He heard desperation in his voice and wished it wasn't there, but there was nothing he could do about it.
The alarm on her face faded into a beautiful smile. The same smile that made him weak in the knees. It was a good thing he was lying down. He'd have fallen otherwise. "Okay," she answered.
And then she resumed pumping him. This time he couldn't bring himself to close his eyes again. The sight of her, topless and leaning over him, her fist wrapped around his cock, her pretty eyes locked in concentration on what she was doing, and best of all, the little dimple in her cheek as she gained confidence, he would never forget. Perfection.
He silently congratulated himself for jacking off in the shower right before he went to her house. If he hadn't just had a release (while fantasizing about, well, basically this) just hours before, he would already have come. And the longer this lasted, the better. Because life couldn't possibly get better than this. Or so he thought.
Until she licked her lips again, leaned down, and wrapped her lips around the head of his cock.
It was sheer bliss. He barely had time to register the heat, the delicate touch of her tongue, the suction, before he shouted her name, buried his hands in her hair, and exploded. He missed how her shocked eyes widened hugely as his own eyes rolled into the back of his head. He came so hard and so long he thought he'd pass out. And she didn't let up. Not until he softened enough to pop out of her mouth.
When he managed to regain enough motor control to open his eyes, she was covering her mouth with her hand. There was a little wrinkle in her nose and a slightly befuddled expression on her face. But with her top off and her hair in disarray around her head, she still looked hot. And adorable. She swallowed loudly, and then she lowered her hand to her lap. "Happy birthday?" For some reason it sounded like a question.
He grinned at her like a moron. "Best birthday ever. You really didn't have to, but..."
"Did I do it wrong?"
He barked out a laugh. "Uh, you know how that ended? That means you did it right."
She suddenly looked shy, and he couldn't fathom why. She was so damn perfect. "I didn't know what I was doing."
"You were amazing. It was amazing." He reached out for her, and she fell toward him. Ah. That was much better. She was right where she belonged: in his arms. She was tucked against his neck.
He dropped kisses into her hair and ran his fingers up and down her spine. The bare skin was sensitive, and she shivered. She threw her leg over his and squirmed a little against him, and he realized that maybe she hasn't just done this for his benefit. Wow. Was it possible? She was turned on, wasn't she?
He let his instincts take over. He didn't know how far she wanted him to go, but he knew she loved it when he kissed her breasts. So he rolled her over and reached out to gently touch one. She arched into his hand, and he knew he was on the right track. He kissed his way along her jaw and neck, then down her chest. Just as he was about to take the pebbled tip into his mouth again, though, she surprised him.
"Sammy?"
He froze with his tongue poised millimeters over her nipple. Shit. Did she not want him to touch her? Was he reading the situation all wrong? Was he completely misinterpreting her?
"Sammy." She ran her fingers through his hair. It was soft, but even through the loud music, there was no mistaking what she said. "I love you."
He didn't move. He didn't know what to say. No, that wasn't true. He knew exactly what he was supposed to say. He was supposed to say it back. But it wouldn't come out. Nothing came out, not even air. Because the sounds of the party faded into a dull roar. Her smooth skin underneath him blurred into the color of his sheets. And suddenly he felt dizzy. From the recesses of his mind came a sound he hadn't heard in seven years: his father's thick and pleading voice begging his mother for forgiveness while saying those very same words.
Reality snapped back into place as he felt Leah squirming beneath him. She was trying to get out. Oh, no. How long had he been locked in place above her? What did she think of him? Did she regret what she had said? He lifted his head and moved his arm to her shoulder, keeping her in place, and he looked at her.
Her eyes were darting around the ceiling, looking anywhere but at him. She was biting her lip, a little sign of nervousness that was completely unlike her. She was trying to shield her naked chest from him.
He felt like an ass. Because no matter what Joshua meant, no matter what he had done to Allison or to him, no matter whether his father had forever tainted those words or not, what Leah meant was pure and good. For as long as he remembered, she had only ever shown him decency, humor, kindness, generosity, friendship, and respect. And she meant all of those things and more when she said the words to him. And he felt them all right back.
Before he could return the sentiment, shrieking sounded from the living room. And then swearing. And then a shouting match ensued.
Dammit! The twins were on a rampage.
Leah slid out from under him and slipped on her bra while he searched for his shirt. He needed to stop her before she left. "LeeLee..."
But she was already gone. He followed her out to find Rachel in tears, Rebecca absolutely fuming, and Johnny protesting his innocence.
A few of the boys were snickering in a corner, and the few girls who were present gathered around Rachel to form a protective shield. Bobby was trying to tell the twins that it wasn't Johnny's fault that they looked alike.
Rebecca looked at her tearful sister, sent a withering glance at Bobby, and then slapped Johnny across the cheek with a resounding whap.
Johnny really shouldn't have felt up Rebecca. Because not only did it ruin his relationship with her sister, the incident affected Sam's too.
Leah left the party with Rachel and Rebecca, feeling the need to support her friends. She glanced at him briefly on her way out, and he knew he wouldn't get the chance to tell her how he felt that night. But it was his birthday, she was his best friend before she was his girlfriend, and she wanted him to be happy even if she herself was scared. So when she caught the despondent look in his eye, she ran back in, threw her arms around his neck, and whispered, "Happy birthday, Sammy." She was across the room again before he could answer, shouting out instructions to the assembled group to make sure they stripped the house of anything incriminating since Allison would be by to check on the place soon.
It was shocking how quickly the house emptied out. Soon only Johnny and Bobby remained, and since they were both nicer and well-mannered than they had displayed earlier in the night, they even cleaned up a little as they talked.
Johnny thought that after Rachel and Becca calmed down, maybe his girlfriend would take him back. Sam knew it was wishful thinking. The twins had loved how alike they looked when they were younger, sometimes making a game of tricking teachers into thinking one was the other, but in their adolescence they valued their individuality. Even if Becca decided to forgive Johnny for grabbing at her, Rachel was too hurt that he didn't know which one she was.
Sam was right. Johnny realized it on Monday when he tried to talk to Rachel during lunch. She wouldn't even look at him. Becca maintained that Johnny was a jerk on more than one level. She had pushed him away when he reached for her boobs, but he still hadn't figured out who she was until she yelled it at him.
"You seriously still couldn't tell them apart?" Sam asked after they found a new place to sit. He kept looking back at Leah, but she had her back turned to him, and she was huddled together with the twins. He had tried to see her the day before, but she had been visiting Emily in Neah Bay. Grandma missed her during waffle brunch almost as much as he did.
Johnny shook his head. "No, I mean, yeah, I can tell 'em apart now."
Sam returned his attention to his friends when he realized that Leah wasn't going to look at him anytime soon. "Good. 'Cause they look alike, but not completely alike," Sam added.
"Yeah," Johnny agreed. "Becca's more... uh... And Rachel is more... Mmm..."
"What?" Sam wondered why Johnny looked so uncomfortable. "What is it?"
Bobby started laughing. Hard. "Tell him how you tell them apart. Dude. Tell him!"
Johnny sighed heavily. "You can't tell Leah, man. Seriously. I'll never get her back that way."
"I think that ship has sailed already, and it's not like she doesn't know." Bobby shook his head.
"No it hasn't! She likes me!"
"Not now, she doesn't. Not anymore. Now that she knows how you tell them apart."
Sam was perplexed. "How?"
"Well," Johnny sighed, "I used to wait to see which one of them smiled at me and said hi all sweet like."
"Seriously?" Sam blinked. "You waited for her to point herself out, basically?"
"Uh..." Johnny scratched his head.
"He eventually figured out how they look different," Bobby snickered.
Sam nodded. "Good. Because they're not totally identical." He had trouble explaining the subtle differences, but he never had trouble identifying them.
Bobby was still laughing. "Tell him what you figured out."
Johnny covered his face with his hands and mumbled into them. "Rach has bigger boobs, and Becca has a bigger ass."
Sam couldn't help himself. He joined Bobby in laughing at Johnny. "Wait, so how'd you get them confused last night?"
Johnny was still muffling himself with his hands. "Becca was wearing a padded bra, I think. Or that's what it felt like, anyway."
Bobby could barely speak through his hysterical laughter. "And Sam, you won't believe it. This moron totally spilled his guts! He told her how he tells them apart, like it was going to make them forgive him!"
"Jeez. How much punch did you have to drink last night?"
Johnny just groaned.
X-x-x-x-X
Just as Sam expected, Johnny and Rachel were over. He didn't tell Leah about Johnny's method of differentiating the twins, but they did themselves. She joined her best friends in their anger. Sam thought the girls were all overreacting slightly, since although Johnny was an idiot, he was a nice and well intentioned idiot. Plus he was right about their respective... attributes.
But they wouldn't be pacified. And to his surprise, neither would Leah. She wasn't furious the way Becca was, but Rachel was really hurt, and Leah couldn't stand to see her friend in so much pain. He finally got a chance to talk to her by herself after they left school. She had promised Allison she'd cook dinner at Grandma Uley's, and Sam was grateful she didn't try to squirm her way out of it. She was holding herself apart from him in a way that made him nervous, clutching a book to her chest instead of keeping his hand in hers. He didn't know what to say, so he started with what he thought would be a neutral topic. "How's Emily?"
Leah shrugged. "She's okay. Had another date on Saturday with some new guy."
Sam couldn't care less about Emily's love life, but he really wanted Leah to keep talking to him. "Yeah? She like him?"
"I'm not sure. It's hard to tell, you know? Like, she talks about guys like they're amazing, but then when you ask her what she likes about them, ask her to be specific, and she can't come up with much."
Sam hadn't thought about it before, but now that she mentioned it, Leah was right. Since Mark had dumped her, he had gotten the impression she had had a string of dates that went nowhere. "She doesn't like being single very much, does she?"
"That's just it! I can never tell if she really likes someone, or if she just doesn't want to be alone. I don't really get it. The guys she dates aren't really worth her time, as far as I can tell."
"The one this weekend was another loser?"
Leah nodded vigorously. "Another dropout with no job. I don't get it. She's so great, you know?" Sam didn't know, but Leah truly believed it. "She's so nice and sweet, and really talented. She showed me some mixed-media stuff she's working on. She combines sculpture with painting and the art literally rises off the canvas. It's so cool! And she's so, so pretty! She's gorgeous, don't you think?"
Sam shrugged. He only ever saw Emily when his LeeLee was standing next to her, and other girls looked drab and dull in comparison. "I guess."
"She's probably too pretty for her own good. She attracts attention, and the guys with the guts to go after her aren't the ones that are any good for her." Her voice hardened. "But I don't get why she goes out with those creeps. She can do so much better than them, plus there's nothing wrong with being single."
Sam picked up on the edge in her voice. When had Emily's dates gone from losers to creeps? "Did something happen? Is she okay?"
"Oh," Leah huffed, "Nothing that bad, I don't think. It's just, she goes out with guys who expect a lot for a little, you know?"
Sam didn't know. "Huh?"
"Like, they buy her dinner, and then they think she owes them... physically." And Sam finally understood why Leah was so guarded today. Over the weekend, the male species had collectively made it clear that they were after one thing and one thing only: Johnny's unwelcome groping of Becca, Emily's latest jerk of a date, and even him. He had acted no better. He felt ashamed. She had given a gift of herself that went well beyond physical pleasure, and when she opened herself to him and told him she loved him, he had frozen. While his feelings for her ran deeper for her than he could ever express, more than she could possibly understand, it was also true that ever since puberty's hormones took over his body, a part of him felt only pure and uncomplicated lust for her. Even now, an unquestionably inappropriate time to be thinking of sex, he was looking forward to the moment they'd arrive inside and she'd shed her fluffy winter coat to reveal her fitted sweater. And ever since he had figured out exactly what she looked like under those enticing tops, he found himself mentally undressing her in the most awkward of circumstances. But he while he tried shake his mind free of such thoughts (and in the attempt, only made them worse), she kept talking. "She doesn't necessarily agree, but they make her feel bad about it. I try to tell her that being treated like that: it's not right and it's not okay. But then the next guy treats her the same way, and she seems to think that's just the way it is."
"Is she..." Sam knew that some girls didn't really have a problem with that, and some even felt the same way or were casual about sex to begin with, but he didn't know how to ask without sounding like an ass. "... okay with that?"
"No, she isn't. Not really. She's a romantic at heart. She wants a knight in shining armor to ride up on a white horse. She wants flowers and chocolates. She wants grand gestures. She wants tall, dark and handsome to put her up on a pedestal. She wants a diamond solitaire on a platinum ring and a white wedding. She wants somebody to fall head over heels for her and think she's the center of the universe."
Sam didn't think he was much of a knight or that he was particularly handsome (he also knew that for some reason Leah disagreed about this last part), but he was pretty sure that Emily wanted someone to feel for her like he did for Leah. He cherished her as much as he wanted her. "And instead she got..."
She spat out the name like it left a bad taste in her mouth. "Mark. And a bunch of guys just like him."
"So what, she keeps dating more guys hoping one of them will be turn out to be 'The One'?" He put his fingers up in air quotes.
"I guess. But she's got crappy taste, and you don't need to be psychic to know that none of them are. I just don't get why she can't just stay single."
Sam tried to imagine dating a different girl every weekend, and he failed. There was nothing appealing about it; he could search the world, and he'd never find another LeeLee. Even if he could find another girl as beautiful, as generous, as smart, as funny, and as kind (he highly doubted this was possible), nobody else would get him the way she did. Then he tried to imagine Leah dating a string of other guys, and it made him nauseous. Thinking of her with anyone but him made him kind of crazy, and he really couldn't feel bad about his jealous streak since it was what gave him the guts to go after her in the first place. But he knew that any number of guys would jump at the chance to be with her if he ever screwed things up. He promised himself that he'd never screw up, not like that, and he hoped that if he somehow did, she'd take her own advice and stay single until he could fix things between them. "Is that what Rachel's going to do?"
"Rach? I think she will. Johnny kind of..."
"Fucked up," he filled in.
She laughed, and he loved it. Even if it was at the expense of their friends. But then her face fell. "Well, yeah. But what I meant was that he kind of broke her heart."
"He really likes her, you know. He didn't mean anything bad, I swear."
She sighed heavily. "Mean to or not, you don't hit on a girl's sister and expect her to laugh it off."
"I know, but they're twins! He thought Becca was her! It's not like he knowingly did it."
"Yeah, that's not going over so well. She just... she really liked him. Look, here we are." She nodded ahead of them.
Crap. They were already going up Grandma's driveway. He tried to figure out what to say in the seconds he had left before they weren't alone any longer. He should have figured out a segue to their own relationship. Back to how he felt about her. He felt silly just blurting it out, plus he didn't know exactly what to blurt out anyway.
Before he figured it out, she was inside and hugging his grandmother.
Grandma and Leah basically talked nonstop until Allison came home. Grandma sat at the table chopping vegetables and grinding spices together while Leah stood at the stove. He wanted to pull her aside, but what he was actually supposed to do was to strip all the bedding and take it down to the basement laundry, which he did. While the meal was simmering and the linens were in the wash, he and Leah both joined Grandma at the table, but still the chatter didn't stop. She ate with them as soon as Allison got home, his mother immensely grateful for the warm food awaiting her after a long day of work. As Sam rose to walk Leah home, Grandma grabbed Leah's hand and yanked her down for another hug. She looked over Leah's shoulder and grinned at him. "This one's a keeper, Sammy. You make sure she gets home safe."
They walked back in silence. Sam couldn't figure out where to begin, and Leah was apparently all talked out. He wanted to reach for her hand, but they were stuffed deep into her pockets, and the way she walked so stiffly beside him, he didn't feel comfortable slipping his hand inside. He adjusted her backpack in his grip instead. With every step they took, he felt the right words, whatever they were, slip farther and farther away.
So he just kept glancing at her, hoping inspiration would strike. Instead she just distracted him. The air was cold and damp, and she was getting chilly. She zipped her coat up all the way, flipping the collar up to cover her neck and chin. She hunched her shoulders, and then just her nose was peeking out above the collar. She looked adorable, like the cutest turtle he had ever seen. Her skin had lost the deep tan of summer, so when they passed a streetlight, he saw the pink flush in her cheeks. Then he thought of the deep, rich pink shade that her lips had been when she'd put her mouth on him, and every other thought flew out of his brain.
Suddenly he was hard, and he tried to adjust himself without her noticing. He was jammed into his pants at an uncomfortable angle. He fell slightly behind her using a muddy pothole in the ground as an excuse, but that just gave him a nice view of her round ass peeking out from beneath her jacket. She glanced back at him before he could shift his erection, and he was certain she had seen him checking her out.
She turned quickly away, and he struggled to find something to say. Should he apologize? Make a joke about how hard it was to ogle her in winter outerwear? Should he tell her how hot she was? Or at least how beautiful? Should he tell her how completely addled his brain was because of her? How he couldn't form a coherent sentence because she rendered him speechless? That he dreamed about her waking and sleeping, not only of stripping off all her clothes and making her feel as good as she did him, but of doing so every day for the rest of their lives? He had developed a particularly intimate and embarrassing fantasy of their wedding night, of pulling up her long white dress around her waist, yanking her panties aside, and burying himself inside of her without even getting her undressed.
He wanted her so badly. It was even worse since he knew the bliss of being inside of her mouth. Maybe he really was as shallow as she was afraid he was. He was thinking with his dick instead of his brain, and his heart was caught in the middle.
Before he knew it, they were standing on her front porch. She turned to take her backpack from him with a little, "Thank you," and the second he saw her pretty lips emerge from behind her collar, he couldn't help himself.
He bent down to kiss them. It started off gentle and sweet, but he wanted more of her, so much more, and soon he had dropped her pack and had his arms around her. She hesitated, but then one of her hands found the back of his neck, and the other tightened on his arm, and he deepened it. She tasted so good. He teased her tongue with his, sucked her plump bottom lip into his mouth, and gently nipped at it, making her gasp. The sound went straight to his groin. "LeeLee," he groaned. She responded by licking tenderly at his lips, and he remembered that same tongue laving the crown of his dick, and he ached for her. He lowered his lips to her jaw, to her neck, and she hummed in her throat. He felt the vibration.
Then she whimpered his name, and something about her tone broke through his lust and into his brain. He pressed his lips to hers once more, then he pulled back. She needed to know. He had to tell her. "LeeLee, I..."
The door flew open. "Hi, Sam!" Seth called out brightly. They yanked themselves apart, and Sam glowered at Leah's interfering brother. Then he noticed the boy shifting his eyebrows up and down, and he realized he was getting a warning. Harry was coming.
Sam grabbed her bag and shoved it in her arms, and then he realized he should have kept it to use as a shield so her father couldn't see the hard-on he was sprouting. Dammit. He needed a longer jacket. He turned around and threw a goodbye to a stunned Leah and a suspicious Harry, who had appeared behind Seth in the doorway. Then he ran off.
The minutes ticked by impossibly slowly as he waited for bedtime. He had followed the rules for months, kissing her goodnight on her front porch rather than scaling the trellis and entering her room like he wanted to. But now was not the time to obey. He knew that she was starting to doubt his feelings for her, and he refused to let it go on any longer. She was too important, more important than anything and anyone, and he couldn't stand knowing she might be hurting because she didn't understand that.
But he did need to wait until Allison and Grandma went to bed before leaving the house. Normally his mom went to sleep relatively early; chasing toddlers all day long was exhausting, and she had to get up early every day. She never even got a break on the weekend any longer since she worked the desk at the resort. But tonight she took forever, lingering in the living room chatting with Grandma, who was an insomniac.
When the women finally went to bed, Sam didn't even wait until he was certain they were asleep. He crept out the door silently and picked his way to her house. As he approached, he could tell that lights were still on due to the distinctive glow on the ground. Even Leah was still awake. The little light on her desk was on, although he couldn't tell where she was from his vantage point. And he was dismayed to find Harry and Sue sitting at the kitchen table together. There was no way he could climb to the roof; the access was much too close to the kitchen window. So he crept behind the tree that held her rarely-used treehouse, and he watched and waited.
Harry and Sue must have been having some kind of romantic evening. Sue was sipping a glass of wine while Harry's was on the table in front of him. He had his wife's feet in his lap and was massaging one while saying something that made her laugh. It looked sweet, but Sam couldn't wait for it to be over.
He waited... and waited... and waited. He spotted movement in Leah's room, and it turned out to be Seth. He must have been hanging out with his sister, so it was probably just as well that Sam didn't interrupt them. He didn't want an audience, after all. Harry and Sue kept laughing and talking. Eventually Leah's light went out, and he vaguely saw her shadow as she climbed into bed. Sam got cold, and eventually he had trouble feeling his toes. And still Harry and Sue remained in the kitchen. Eventually Sue stood, and he perked up from where he was slouched against the tree. But no, she was just getting more wine. Dammit! Why couldn't Leah's parents storm off angry or something? Or at least get more amorous and take their conversation to the bedroom? Oh, eww. Sam shook the thought out of his brain before it got any farther.
When he couldn't feel his fingers in his pockets or anything below his ankles, he gave up and went home. He'd just have to tell her the next day.
X-x-x-x-X
Unfortunately, the longer he waited, the more awkward it became. He could feel Leah pulling away from him. She was there, of course, but she didn't make herself available in the same way. He realized they were never really alone anymore. At first he thought it was a coincidence, but eventually he knew it had to be deliberate on her part. Someone was always there. Always. Seth, most commonly, or the Black twins. Collin even. Her parents, his grandmother, his mother. Their only time to themselves was during their walk to school, and that was only for the few minutes between him arriving on her doorstep and passing in front of the Black house, where the twins joined them. During those moments she talked about everything and nothing. At first he didn't want to interrupt her, trying not to be rude. Eventually he figured out that she was nervous, and she didn't let him get a word in edgewise to calm her down. During school there was no privacy, and every afternoon she fled to Collin's house to tutor him or went home with the twins, supposedly comforting Rachel in the wake of the breakup. She came to Grandma's house as expected on Wednesday, but after helping him make dinner, she disappeared out the door without letting him walk her home. And in the evenings, Grandma never went to sleep before one in the morning, and he kept falling asleep in his basement room before he could sneak out to talk to her. He thought about sending her a message, but this was not something he wanted to IM or text to her even if his mother had sprung for the function on his phone.
By the time the weekend rolled around, he felt like the gap between them had widened into a chasm. He hadn't gotten more than a dozen words out of her all day long. He blamed the twins as much as he blamed himself. He was pretty sure they had lumped him in with Johnny and were badmouthing him. It hadn't helped that he had tried to defend Johnny in front of Becca earlier in the week; after all, Johnny had stood by him when he was doing nothing but making enemies, and he owed his friend that much.
That afternoon he couldn't even find her to walk her back to her house or bring her to see Grandma Uley. Then Grandma and his mother kept him busy with little tasks and house repairs until bedtime. But by some miracle, both women went to bed before midnight.
Sam was out the door like a shot. He sprinted to her house without bothering to tie his shoes or put on a jacket, a truly stupid move seeing as cold rain was falling steadily. He was shivering and his lips and fingers were blue by the time he reached her house.
And Sue, of course, was sitting at the kitchen table in her scrubs eating dinner. Great. She must have gotten home after an evening shift at the hospital. Her plate was full. She had just started.
Screw it. He would get in trouble, then. It was worth it. She was worth it. He'd only have a little time to get to her since Sue would undoubtedly hear him climbing. But he only needed a few seconds.
He tried to be quiet anyway, but it was impossible to be truly silent. Especially since the rain made everything slippery and his fingers were frozen and nearly useless. He nearly fell off the trellis and slipped o the roof. But his racket meant that Leah heard him coming too, and she had the window open before he got his fingers on the sill.
Her eyes were wide, her hair mussed around her head, her lovely lips parted in surprise. She wore a button up flannel shirt that probably wasn't meant to be sexy, but it exposed a bit of her cleavage in the V at the top, and she looked entirely kissable and loveable and gorgeous. The rain that had rendered him uncoordinated was hitting her, too, and the little patch of skin he could see at the top of her chest was getting wet and was tempting him. He literally shook his lustful thoughts from his brain so he wouldn't get himself in the same situation he had been in the last few times he should have told her how he felt.
He spotted movement behind her, and shit. It wasn't even Sue. It was Emily. She was climbing off an air mattress to kneel next to her cousin and stared at Sam in slack-jawed amazement. "Leah? What's going on? Sam?"
Sam ignored her just as he ignored the footsteps he heard approaching through the closed door.
He didn't have time for a real speech, so he answered her words with his own clumsy ones, picking right up where she had left off while they held each other in his bedroom. "I do too, LeeLee. I'm sorry I didn't say it earlier." Sue knocked at the door, and then it was open, light spilling in from the hallway. "You're just so pretty I can't think straight sometimes. I can't remember how to put a noun in front of a verb in front of an object. You're so wonderful and amazing, and then there's me. I can't remember English around you sometimes. I can hardly remember my own name. There's only yours. Sometimes it's the only word I know. It's because you're so... you..." He gestured at her helplessly, unable to express himself any better. "You make me totally crazy in the best possible way. You make me lose my damn mind." Harry appeared in the doorway in an old robe alongside his wife. "I can't figure out how to say it better, so I hope you get it."
Now it was her turn to be speechless. She just nodded at him wordlessly, and he grinned through the freezing water that dripped into his eyes and made her blurry. "See? That's one of the reasons I do. Because you get me."
"I do," she finally whispered back, and she reached out for him, leaning out the window and soaking herself too. He thought he spotted Seth joining his parents in the doorway somewhere behind Emily, but then he didn't see anyone else but Leah. Because she had her arms around him, and he had his arms around her, and then he was kissing her with his frigid lips.
It was perfect.
And then he registered her parents yelling at both of them to get inside and shut the window. He didn't bother. He didn't need to be warm or dry. All he needed was for her to understand, and she did. So he let her go, because he didn't want her to freeze to death. He pressed his mouth to hers one more time and turned to jump off the roof.
He heard Emily shriek while Sue and Harry yelled, but mud broke his fall. His shoes were probably ruined, and one was stuck in the muck, but oh well. He backed away enough to wave at her from the ground with what was surely an asinine grin that she probably couldn't see since it was so dark. She laughed and waved back and blew him a kiss. "I do, LeeLee, never doubt it!" he yelled.
"I love you too, Sammy!" she answered back. He jogged away, so icy on the outside that he could barely get his limbs to cooperate, but warm on the inside, because she loved him.
X-x-x-x-X
A/N: Thanks again to my beta, Babs81410. This story will be on a very short hiatus while I go on vacation, but look for the next chapter in the first week of October.