So why the hell hadn’t I slept with him last night?

My coffee machine bubbled as I looked at him, puzzled. Sam rested across my bed, still clothed.

“You got up and made coffee?”

A sly smile stretched across his face, making him boyish and free. “Hope you don’t mind.”

“Mind? You just get better and better.”

“I need caffeine to process that.” He jumped up, rumpled and fine, and came back with two cups of coffee.

“You like anything in yours? I should learn this,” he said, one corner of his mouth turning up as he blew across the surface of his coffee, taking a tentative sip.

Gah. That mouth. What it could do to me. And I’d turned down more of that?

“No sugar. Milk.” I stood and fixed my coffee the way I liked it and sat back down.

“Let me see.” He craned to look at the top of my mug.

“Why?”

“So I know the shade you like your coffee. I’ll try to match it when I make it for you next time.”

That woke me up. Next time?

Yes. Next time.

The smile we shared was (almost) better than any sex we could have had last night, and a slow-building warmth between my legs turned into a steady throb.

But one that had to wait.

“I don’t want to sound rude,” I started, taking a sip, “but I have a ton of things I have to do today and tomorrow before classes start.”

His turn to sip. Two gorgeous, speckled eyes looked up from his mug, framed by eyelashes that curled up the same way my toes were curling right now.

“I almost forgot you were in grad school.” Sip. “Why library science? Why not law?”

“You too?” I groaned.

“It’s a logical question, Amy.”

Sigh. “You want the answer I give everyone else, or the truth?”

He shot me a duh look. “Lie to me. Please. It turns me on.” He nudged my thigh and then rested his hand on it, as if it belonged there.

Throb.

“I lost the killer instinct.”

“Is that the lie or the truth?”

Smack. I backhanded his shoulder and he tipped slightly, holding his mug aloft so he wouldn’t spill. “The truth. I decided I wanted to do something a little less...cutthroat.” The real truth was that I’d learned a hard lesson four years ago.

Too much ambition took away what you wanted most.

“It’s not because of me, is it?”

Damn it. Our eyes locked. How did he know these things about me?

“Yes,” I sighed.

“Fuck.”

“Not just because of you...of us...of, well, not us. After that debate I went to nationals and got creamed. Slaughtered. And I realized I didn’t even really like the cross-examination. What I liked most was the research. So I decided I’d go into a field where you get paid to learn things and help other people do research.” I finished my coffee with a few gulps as Sam set his mug on the ground next to the bed. He stood. I copied him.

“C’mere,” he said, beckoning with open arms. Those strong hands cupped my ass and pulled me to him, the hard ridge of his bulge pushing into me, making me certain he was awake.

“I am so sorry, again, for what happened.”

“Sam, you don’t have to—”

“You’ll make a damn fine librarian, but you’d make an even better law librarian,” he added.

“Someday,” I said. We both took deep breaths, layers of muscle relaxing.

“I’ll hold you to that,” he whispered, then kissed me so well my toes uncurled and the throbbing reached my ears.

“You have school details, and I have things to do. How about we get together at the end of the week?” he said, pulling away reluctantly.

“Perfect.”

The next kiss he gave me as we parted ways had to last three days.

And it really was that good.

But the dream was even better.

Sam

Moms everywhere seemed to have decided to antagonize their alienated progeny in the same twenty-four hour period, because the second I got out of Amy’s building, my own phone buzzed with my mom’s cell phone on caller ID.

Taking a page from Amy’s playbook, I ignored it. Mom tried about every month or two to pull me back into the fold. I had to give her credit for persistence.

Empathy, on the other hand? A big old F-.

Shaking my head, I walked home, steeling myself for another sexfest. After Joe moved out, Darla and Trevor had become even more amorous. I had to wonder if Trevor bought stock in condoms, because he sure was invested in their use.

At the apartment I found Trevor sitting on the couch in his boxer briefs, staring dully at some nature show on television.

“What’s up?”

“She’s an animal,” he said hoarsely.

I looked at the television. “Elephants generally are.” Some British actor’s voice narrated a segment on the feeding habits of African beasts.

“I meant Darla.”

“Can’t keep up, Bro?”

He actually whimpered.

“Sam! Your mom called,” Darla shouted from the bathroom.

“Oh. Yeah.” Trevor added. “She called my line. Wants to talk. Told me to tell you to please call and not ignore her this time.”

Fuck.

“And Trevor,” she said in a sing-songy voice, “I have some sweetness for you.”

Trevor held up four fingers and winced.

“Four times already?” It wasn’t quite 10 a.m.

He flinched and pointed at his dick. “It feels like sandpaper.”

“Careful what you wish for,” I said, laughing. “Random Acts of Crazy pull you in.” He threw a pillow at my head and I dodged it.

Glad someone was getting some.

And I was glad (OK, not entirely...) it wasn’t me. Amy wasn’t ready, and I wasn’t going to take advantage of her like Liam had. Sleeping with a crying girl was a serious low.

Not that I’d consider Liam above it.

So one of my bandmates, a guy I’d considered one of my best friends, had been Amy’s first, and he’d done it on prom night. And never said a word.

For four years.

Was this why Liam had encouraged me to tell Amy how I felt? Guilt. Liam was capable of guilt.

Fucker damn well ought to feel guilt.

I had no right to feel this way. I knew it. I’d blown it four years ago and if Amy sought comfort in an old friend’s arms, who was I to—

Hello. Of course I was pissed. Being Mr. Reasonable was all fine and well when I was with a sobbing Amy, but right now?

I wanted to punch a wall. Yet another missed chance at something special with her. Years lost. Prom lost. Virginity lost.

Because I was lost.

I’d called in those few weeks before prom. Once. And her mom took the message.

Amy never called back.

We’re all lost in our own ways.

Bzzzzzz. My mom.

Especially my own mother.

Knowing I shouldn’t do it, I answered anyhow.

“Sam. Thank God. Don’t you realize that if you don’t answer your phone, I assume you’re...” She sounded like Amy’s mom. Is there some sort of training you get in the hospital after you give birth to perfect the art of nagging?

“What’s up, Mom?”

“It’s your father.” It’s always my father.

“What about him?” I asked, gruffly. The comment Amy’s mom had made floated into my mind.

“He’s sick.”

“No shit.”

“Don’t use language like that with me!” Her voice got shrill.

“Don’t call me and tell me what to do. You know the rules.” Two years ago I’d cut her completely out of my life with a letter that detailed my exact boundaries. My therapist at UMass health services had helped me craft it. Mom was like a toddler; I’d had to constantly remind her of the rules and make her follow them, but she still, occasionally, pushed it.

“He’s really sick,” she pleaded.

“His liver?” I guessed. A fifth of hard liquor a day would make any liver scream.

“No.” Her tone told me the answer was really yes. Ah, the lies. “He has pneumonia.”

“Poor guy. Bet his ribs ache. I know how that feels.”

Silence.

“Something else I need to know, Mom? Because I need to get to work.” Another lie, but least this one was mine.

“Work?” she asked, chipper. Change the subject when reality gets uncomfortable. “You have a job?”

“Yup.”

Impatience came through the line. “What is it, honey?”

“I’m a stripper,” I said, suppressing a dark laugh.

“Oh, you joker,” she giggled, as if we were best buddies, as if she hadn’t stuck by my father through what he did to me, as if she hadn’t betrayed the very essence of who I was and who she was supposed to be for me.

Black was white and white was black. I would tell the truth and not be believed. She wanted me to tell a lie and be believed.

Mirror opposites.

“Anyhow, nice chatting, Mom.” A lie.

“What about your father?”

“What about him?”

Her voice fell to a hush. “I’ve never seen him like this, Sam.”

“Did he ask for me?” The void inside me expanded as she hesitated, likely crafting an answer that would feed the lie.

“Um, he would if he were more rested, you know.”

“Bye, Mom.”

Click.

Chapter Nine

Sam

They don’t actually want me. That’s one of the only reasons why I can do this kind of work. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that working as a bachelorette party entertainer is back breaking work. You could read the looks in the eyes of the women at these parties and know that they were drooling over something other than the actual guys in front of them. What they were really doing was projecting their fantasies onto us. What they really wanted was the guy that they already had back home to want them the way that they pretended to want us.

Pretend? Yeah. Pretend.

They were pretending to want us. The hooting, the chanting, the hands on my bare skin, the fingers that tucked dollar bills just far enough below the waistline to tease and try to titillate, it was all pretend. It was fun for them, at least. And it was fun for me, too.

My parents would tell me I was going to Hell for all this.

I’d have to tell them I wasn’t just going there. I was the tour operator. And the nightly show.

Who wouldn’t want a bunch of women grabbing them? Who wouldn’t want a crowd of women who were in a place for the sole purpose of watching you move your body, and bare your skin, so that they could entertain themselves with a little fantasy that looped around in their mind? But it was their guy’s face that they imagined; it was their fantasy men whose hips thrust toward them, whose legs were bare, whose chests heaved for them.

Once I understood why these women were here, why they wanted to touch me, I could work it. I wasn’t Sam anymore – I was their Paul, or Keith, or Mark, or John. I was the guy they wanted to be with, the guy they wanted to want them, and once I wasn’t Sam—I could do damn near anything. You want that extra bit of strength in my hips when I push up against you? I’m right there, babe. You want me to flash you a wicked grin and wink, and pretend that I’m gonna do you later on? No problem.