He ignored my dietary needs. “Have you guys discussed it any further?”
It. The Affair. The giant prickly bomb that Mike and I were skirting with increasing efficiency.
“No.” I brought the glass to my lips and took a long sip of the beer. “Let’s change the subject. Tell me a story about a boy.”
A ghost of a smile crossed his lips. “That old game?”
He used to always have stories about boys. Executives from dating sites. Stuntmen wanting ranches in the desert. Waiters who passed him their numbers on a napkin. Actors looking for one-bedroom apartments they couldn’t afford. All wooed by Sam and often with disastrous and entertaining outcomes. I hadn’t heard a story about a boy in years. But I’d take any he had, even if it was an oldie.
“Hmm.” He tilted his head, and I wasn’t surprised he had a drawerful of heartbreak stories. I’d always been a little smitten with him myself. “Okay, remember when I had that blue convertible ...”
I drank my beer and listened to his story, and when the bartender paused in front of us, I ordered another. Soon, I was laughing.
That was the great thing about Sam. He could make you forget everything.
CHAPTER 18
LILLIAN
I woke up on Sam’s red sectional, a couch button biting into my cheek, my left leg hanging off the side. Rolling onto my back, I stared up at his tray ceiling and watched the sun-framed shadow of a palm frond move over the wood inlay. Why was I here? What time was it?
I slowly propped myself up on my elbows and looked around. Everything was in perfect order. A stack of books with a skull weighting them down. An ivory cashmere blanket, folded into thirds, hanging off the side of his saddle leather chair. Above the fireplace, two white eels swam lazily in an aquarium around black coral. “Sam?”
Swinging my feet to the floor, I grimaced at the pain that shot through my right temple. Where the hell was my purse? I leaned forward and looked along the leather shag rug, then under the coffee table. I was also missing my pants. I thrummed my fingers against my bare thighs. Tilting to one side, I looked down the long hall that led to Sam’s bedroom. The door was ajar, the light off. I needed to find out what time it was and where my purse and phone were. What had happened last night? We had been drinking at Perch ... and then ...
I stood and lurched unnaturally to the right, one foot stumbling over the other as I tried to stay upright. I sank onto the couch. Maybe I should lie back down, just for a few more minutes. Did I have anyappointments today? What was today? Had I made it to Jacob’s school meeting?
I closed my eyes and listened for Sam’s car or footsteps. He would take care of everything.
“Damn, you’re trashed.” Sam shook my shoulder a little more aggressively than was needed. I moaned and tried to push him away. “Seriously, Lill. It’s almost ten.”
I opened my eyes and almost mewed at the sight of the Starbucks cup in his hand. “Please say that’s pumpkin.”
“It’s pumpkin.”
I sat up and reached for the cup with both hands, humming in appreciation as I took a tentative sip to test the temperature, then a long glug. “You’re a saint.”
“And you’re a mess.” He gently separated a strand of hair that was stuck to my cheek from drool. “What do you have today? Anything this morning?”
“What is it, Friday?”
His lips pinched together. “Yes, Lillian.”
“You don’t have to say it like that. My head is a complete fog. How much did I drink last night?”
“With me?” He sank back into the couch and propped an expensive monogrammed slipper on the coffee table. “Maybe three, four beers. I have no idea what you took in after you left.”
I twisted to face him. “After I left?”
He adopted the slow and annoying cadence of someone speaking to a dunce. “After you left the restaurant, I put you in a taxi and you went home.”
“What?” I had no recollection of that. No recollection of anything past Sam telling me a story about a valet at a gay bar ... I strained tothink, to capture another memory. I had seen someone there at the restaurant. Someone I knew. Who had it been? “So how did I get here?”
“You called me about an hour later and needed me to pick you up from Ladera Heights. I told you to take a taxi, but you said that you didn’t have enough cash. And you refused to take an Uber because you said Mike would see the charge.”
“Why would I care if Mike saw the charge?” This made no sense. “Where’d you pick me up from?”
“Near Fox Hills. Shitty area. I hit a pothole that fucked up my alignment.”