“We’re good,” Zach said, before he ordered another round for them all.
Sam leaned closer, his eyes scanning her face. She’d made up her mind, but she realized her breathing hadn’t returned to normal. “They’re gone, but we can leave if you want to.”
“No, I—you have more experience with this than I do.” She swallowed. “We can do whatever. You wanna stay and rage, we can stay and rage. The DJ hasn’t played a single slide yet. Cha-cha or electric.”
Sam was quiet for a moment, running his teeth over his bottom lip. Amanda wanted to hug him, then kiss the hell out of him, but she was sure someone else would photograph that. Sam glanced around the room before he took off his cowboy hat and scratched the back of his head. He let out a breath and slid the hat back into place. “Let’s get out of here.”
“’Kay.” They said a quick goodbye to Zach and Evie and waved to Brit and Delfi, who were still fucking shit up on the dance floor.
“Where should we go?” Amanda asked as they pulled out of the dirt parking lot. She wasn’t sure if she’d succeeded in keeping her voice light. She didn’t want to leave the bar and she definitely didn’t want their night to end early just because location number one turned out to be a bust.
Sam let out another deep breath, a little more pained this time, a little more frustrated. He was not okay.
“If there was one place around here. One place you had to show me. Where would that be?”
“We’d need a helicopter,” he muttered. Amanda burst out laughing.
“Excuse me, what?”
“I’d show you the whole valley from the air. It’s beautiful, but we’d need a helicopter. I’m good, but I’m not gonna charter a helicopter on short notice good.”
“So much for the Pleasant name. Can’t even get a spontaneous helicopter. What the fuck am I going to tell my family? You made promises, Sam.” She smiled wide until he glanced over at her, a smile spreading across his gorgeous face. The smile faded after a moment though and he was quiet. Amanda decided it was a good idea to give him some time just to be in his head. God knew she could use a moment to pull it together after their speedy exodus from the bar.
They drove back to the ranch. Amanda tried not to let disappointment overtake her, but to her surprise Sam drove past the lodge. They drove deeper into the property, up a dirt road, up a slowly rising incline. About halfway up the hill there was a lone cabin. The lights were off, but from one of the windows she could see a fire going in the fireplace. They drove past the cabin and further past a small clearing. The ride continued on and on and seemed to go all the way up the foothills into the mountains. Sam cut the engine, then tilted his head a bit.
“Come on.”
Amanda climbed out and followed Sam to the back of the car. They leaned against the trunk and she could immediately see why he’d brought her there. It was butt-ass cold out, but you could see almost the whole ranch from where they stood and what felt like almost every star in the sky along with the enormous waning moon. They stood side by side, only touching arm to arm. For the moment it was enough.
“I don’t really have a place,” Sam said quietly.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t have a place. Usually when I come back I go to the house and I go to the ranch. I don’t, like, go out much and all my childhood spots aren’t really private.”
“People don’t see me,” she said suddenly, since they were back to confessing things.
“In what way?”
“People actually don’t see me. I mean, it’s partly my fault. Well, no, it’s entirely my fault. I’ve made a habit out of being invisible. It didn’t occur to me that people would be trying to pap you in your hometown. No one ever cares what I’m doing. Definitely not enough to sneak photos. I’m sorry that happened.”
“I didn’t expect that either. A lot’s changed in the last couple of weeks.”
“It’s amazing what one statue can do.”
“True. Not complaining, but looks like there’s some adjusting to do. Just wasn’t prepared for it. Wasn’t prepared for you either.”
Amanda moved off the car and stepped between his legs. Sam didn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around her waist. The warmth of his body broke through the cool night air surrounding them. She watched his eyes as they focused on her lips. She couldn’t help but think about what it would be like to feel his mouth between her legs.
“So what do we do?” she whispered.
“We try to keep this private until we don’t want to keep this private anymore.”
“We could do that. It’s not hard.”
She saw an eyebrow go up under the shadow of his cowboy hat. “It’s not?”
“No. Do you even know what Daniel Kaluuya’s girlfriend looks like? Mahershala’s wife?” Sam paused and she knew he had a vague sense ’cause he’d probably met them at a thing but... “See. If you saw them on the street you wouldn’t know.”
“You have a point. But . . . I don’t want to keep this private.”
“You know that’s enough for right now though, right? Like, it means a lot to me ’cause I know you’re serious. I’m not ready to be photographed. I am not a photographed kind of girl. And it’s not ’cause I don’t think I’m beautiful—”
“Oh, I know. Remember, we spent a good chunk of the morning protecting this beautiful face,” Sam laughed.
“It’s not a
