A Clean Slate (24 page)

“And now, technically, we have to pay those guys. Of course, we don't know who they are, and they probably don't even realize it, but since you didn't have them sign a waiver or anything…” He lifted his hands and shoulders in an elaborate shrug.

I felt even more like a fourth-grader now, one who thinks she can run with the big kids, only to get shoved down on the playground.

“Leave her the hell alone,” Cole said in a grumbly voice. I liked him more and more all the time.

“I'm sorry,” Sam said. “But you know I'm right.”

“Doesn't make you any more interesting. I'm going to use the phone.” Cole pushed his glass away and left the bar, leaving me sitting in an awkward silence with Sam.

I wondered for a second if I should run after Cole. I knew that this shoot was instrumental for the resurrection of his career, but our friendship was too new. I didn't truly know what he was like yet, whether he needed space, whether he needed hand-holding.

Sam looked utterly miserable now that he'd effectively chased his friend away.

“I want to apologize,” I said. “I really didn't know we'd have to pay the guys, and I guess I just didn't think that they would drop them.”

“It all worked out, and I hate to play the heavy like this, but it's my job. I have to represent the magazine, you know?”

“Sure.”

I had drained my beer out of nervousness sometime during Sam's slap on the wrist, and now I was left thirsty, with nothing to occupy my hands.

As if he sensed it, Sam signaled the bartender. “What are you drinking?” he said to me.

“Carib,” I said, naming the Caribbean beer. It was probably made solely for the tourists, but I liked its light, almost lemony taste. Besides, I'd sworn off piña coladas and vodka forever, and I couldn't bring myself to drink margaritas without Laney.

“So, anyway,” Sam said, probably seeing me drifting off, “I really do think you did a great job, overall. Let's just not talk about this anymore, okay?” He took a swig of the Stoli and soda he'd ordered.

“Great.” I wondered what we would talk about now that we'd removed the subject of my mess-up. Maybe I should
excuse myself, go back to my room and change for the night. There was nothing planned, though. Mella and Corrine had already said they were staying in for the evening, and I didn't even know if Cole would show up again.

“How long have you been doing this?” Sam said, gesturing with an arm. “The whole photography thing.”

“Oh, I really don't even…I'm not…I'm actually a financial analyst.”

His green eyes went wide. “Really?”

“Yeah, I was at Bartley Brothers for eight years.”

“Wow.”

I nodded. People were always impressed when they heard that.

“So, how did you switch to photography?”

“I just needed a break.” I supposed that was true enough. I hadn't left Bartley Brothers willingly, but I
had
needed a break for a long time. “And I'd always loved photography. I saw Cole's ad at the school where I took photography classes, and the rest is history.”

“He was having problems for a long time getting an assistant.”

“Imagine that.”

We both laughed, like two people talking about a friend they both hold dear, which, I supposed, was the case.

“He's been through a lot,” Sam said. “You have to give him slack if he's tough sometimes. A lot of things have happened….” He trailed off, clearly referring to New York.

“I know about it,” I said. I felt a vague twinge of pride, as if I was saying the secret password at a clubhouse door.

“Really?” He ran a hand through his damp blond hair, a gesture that seemed sexy to me. I saw those few silvery strands in the blond, giving him an appealing, worldly look, so different from the guys I usually met or hung out with. The pink scar along his jaw was intriguing, too, making me want to run my finger along its slightly jagged line.

I dragged my eyes off him and studied my beer. “He told me the other night.”

“Well, that's great. I just hope you understand that for him to tell you is a really big deal. He never tells anyone. Never. And I hope you know that it's got to be kept in complete confidence.”

“Give me a little credit.” My voice was prickly with indignation, but at the same time I appreciated his loyalty to his friend, his instinct to protect Cole.

“Sorry. If Cole trusts you, then I trust you.”

“Thanks.”

From there it became easier to chat, and Sam and I ran the gamut of topics from schools we'd attended to books we'd read to funny Cole stories. Sam was great to talk to, that booming laugh of his putting me back in a happy mood, and the minutes slipped by until we'd been talking for at least an hour. By that time, I was in desperate need of a shower and a monumental nap. I wondered how I could excuse myself and yet figure out some way to meet up with him later.

“This has been fun,” I said, swinging around on my bar stool so that I was facing him.

“Yeah, I'm glad we got to talk.” Sam turned toward me as well, and our knees were almost touching now.

There was a pause, during which something shifted between us. We looked at each other, both of us seeming to try and figure out what was happening. In my mind, I was thinking of Laney's words about one-night stands, how they're designed to be shared with men who are entirely inappropriate but who you're entirely attracted to nonetheless. Sam certainly fit the bill. Nearly a decade older than me, married already, kids already, going through a bitter divorce and living more than a thousand miles away. And yet those green eyes with the faint web of lines at their corners, the tanned, scarred jaw, the blond untamed hair—I wanted it all.
This was my self-proclaimed last hurrah, after all, the time when I should get any such instincts out of my system before I settled back down into a normal routine, a normal life, a quest for a family of my own.

And so I did something I rarely did. I made the first move.

I slid the fingers of my left hand down my leg, jumping the slight distance between us, and placed them lightly on his golden-brown knee. I could feel heat below his skin, the faint, soft tickle of his hair. We were frozen there for a moment, and my mind began to scream at me to pull away, make an excuse, laugh it off, because his complete lack of response made it clear that we weren't on the same wavelength. But then he shifted his glass to the other hand, reached down and placed his hand over mine. His fingers were a little cool from the icy drink, but I could feel a pulse beat in his fingers, sending a warmth through them, through me.

My own pulse ricocheted in my throat, constricting it. Was I supposed to talk now? Say something sexy? I racked the recesses of my brain, but found only a few cheesy phrases—
Interesting development, hmm? So, do you do this often?
I decided to keep my mouth shut.

“Do you miss your job at Bartley?” Sam said, breaking the heavy silence.

I blinked a few times, startled. What was he doing? But then I realized that Sam was just making conversation, that he wanted to flirt, to keep talking, to play with words. He was, most likely, being an utter gentleman. But I wasn't in the mood for a gentleman. I wanted a one-night stand. Suddenly, I knew this with a fierce clarity. I wanted to obliterate everything else. I wanted something so intense and raw and sensory that it would make me forget what I couldn't remember.

Ignoring his question, I gripped his hand tighter. “Any chance you'd want to have a drink on my balcony? We could watch the sunset.” My boldness shocked and pleased me. My heart pinged faster inside my chest.

Sam studied my face for a moment. It occurred to me then that I hadn't showered since that morning, that I must look a sweaty mess after working in the sun all day. But then I reminded myself that this, too, was supposed to be the beauty of a one-night stand—the grimy realness of sex instead of the powdered, pretty version I usually put forward for men who might lead to something in my life.

“Yeah,” Sam said, his voice low, a little hoarse. “I'll get a few beers for the road.”

I shook my head. “Don't.”

And then I took his hand and led him out of the bar and down the flagstone path, past the clear, powder-blue water of the pool, past the stone wall that kept the beach at bay and finally up the peach-painted steps to my room. A golden light seeped through the slats in the louvered doors that led onto the deck, but I didn't even bother to open them. The rest of the room was dim now that the sun was setting. The maids had made my bed, leaving the rust-red coverlet smooth.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and waited. Sam stood just inside the door, looking at me. I started to chew the inside of my bottom lip, wondering if I'd gone too far too fast, if maybe he was going to turn me down. But then he walked the few steps toward me, took one of my hands in his again and leaned forward, finally pressing his lips against mine.

I
woke up, immediately sensing that something was off but unable to detect exactly what. I blinked rapidly, seeing the bright white of the sun trying to push its way through the slats in the deck doors, hearing the slap of waves against the supports below my room. That's what it was—I was in the Caribbean. But no, something else was awry. I heard the low, heavy sound of someone breathing, and I remembered. I rolled over to find Sam on his back, one arm stretched overhead. His tanned chest was bare, the rust-colored sheet pulled up to his hips.

For a moment I considered creeping across the room to get my camera. I could take a picture and bring it home to show Laney, the way men do when they return from a fishing trip.
Here's my first one-night stand,
I would say proudly,
ain't he a beaut?

With that thought, images of the actual event began to
sting me: Sam pulling me to stand as he kissed me. Me raking my hands through the surprising softness of his silvery-blond hair. The amazing way his skin smelled like sun, making me want to bury myself in the smooth curve of his neck. Him trying to take his time, wanting to kiss and kiss and kiss, while I began pulling at his sweater, needing to get right to it. Him finally understanding, crushing my chest with rougher kisses, lifting me up, my legs around his waist. The both of us crashing back onto the bed, our clothes seeming to disappear, and finally the comforting weight of him on top of me, inside me.

We'd had sex once more before we'd both fallen asleep. In fact, it had still been early evening. I glanced at the bedside clock now. Only six-thirty in the morning. I didn't need to meet Cole in the lobby for an hour and a half. I watched Sam sleeping, his hair even more tousled than usual, lips slightly parted, head lolling to one side. Strangely, he seemed even more attractive to me. Why was that? Was I the typical female who fell for everyone she slept with? Come to think of it, I
had
fallen for everyone I'd slept with—Ted, my high school boyfriend; Remy, the gay guy; Steve, my college boyfriend; Eric, the guy before Ben; and Ben. Those were different, I reminded myself. I'd been dating those men
before
I'd had sex with them. Pleased with this distinction, I closed my eyes again.

 

The two-freckled man was leaning over me. He was saying something kind and reassuring, but there was a hesitancy to his words, something he was concerned about. Why couldn't I hear them? What was it? He sat back and I focused on those two freckles under his left eye. He tried to smile, tried to make me laugh, but my face felt stiff. His image kept fading in and out in an odd way.

He was surrounded by white—the white of his clothing, the white of his skin, brilliant white walls. He seemed to go
fuzzy for a moment, so that all I could make out was the vivid blue of his eyes, the dark of his hair, and then his face would zoom into focus again and I could see the finer details—those two freckles, the thick eyebrows, the way he smiled reassuringly.

Whatever he was saying, I suddenly didn't want to hear it any longer. It was too hard, too depressing. I wanted him to stop talking. Why didn't he stop already? But his lips kept moving and moving. I felt helpless, as if I was sinking away from him, into some dark space. He was still there, though, hovering above me, still saying the words over and over, just in some different form, trying to explain something.

I felt someone rubbing my shoulder from behind. What the hell? Was he here? But then it came to me—Sam. I had only dreamed of the two-freckled man.

I feigned sleep, making my breathing slow and heavy, but Sam kept up the gentle caress of his fingers on my bare shoulder. It was a kind, lulling touch, but why, exactly, was he doing it? Wasn't he supposed to be gone now? Shouldn't I never set eyes on him again? Wasn't that how one-night stands worked?

I tried to think back to the random guys Laney had slept with over the years. There were a few she'd gone to breakfast with, but for the most part she was out the door early, or they took off themselves, never to be seen again, leaving Laney lots of room for embellishment when she gave me the play-by-play later that day.

I lay there, feeling the soft stroke of Sam's touch, and at the same time trying to calculate what I might look like at the moment. I'd never dried my hair yesterday, just put a hat on my wet head, so it was probably misshapen and frayed. Meanwhile, the minimal mascara and lip gloss I'd applied yesterday morning could never have survived. Basically, I figured I looked like a particularly nasty “before” picture from a magazine makeover spread. Maybe if Sam left soon,
before I was “awake,” I could avoid the embarrassment. Then it struck me—I'd
have
to see him. All day today and all day tomorrow. If Laney and I were still on speaking terms right now, she'd flunk me for my first fling effort. I could just hear her sighing, saying,
Kell, you don't have a one-nighter with someone you work with!

The room was getting hotter as the sun shone through the louvered doors with growing force. The ceiling fan overhead spun lazily. I wondered how in the hell to get Sam out of my room without having to face him just yet. Meanwhile, his fingers kept up their gentle manipulations, now moving from my shoulder to my arm. I opened my eyes and stretched my eyeballs to their greatest capacity in an effort to see the clock on the nightstand: 7:40 a.m. Shit, shit, shit. Twenty minutes until I had to meet Cole. Sam, of course, wouldn't have to be ready until nine-thirty with the rest of the crew, so no wonder he wasn't up and rushing around as I should have been.

I let another five minutes crawl by before I decided there was no way around it. He'd have to see me now. We'd have to speak.

I pulled the sheet up to my cheekbones before I rolled over, hoping for a casual, veil-made-accidentally-of-bedding look that would hide most of my face.

“Hi.” My words were muffled by the cotton.

“Hey.”

I hated him for a second, because, if possible, he looked better than the night before. His green eyes were sharp and clear, his white teeth revealed by his pleased grin.

“I have to get going. I need to meet Cole in fifteen minutes.”

He made a murmur of disappointment. “I'd try to talk you out of it, but after the lecture I gave you guys last night about losing money, I'd be a hypocrite.”

He smiled at me, and I tried to smile back, though of course, he couldn't see it from beneath my sheet. We lay there silently for a second. What was I supposed to say?
Should I acknowledge the fact that this man had contorted me into a human pretzel only hours ago? Or did one simply act as if nothing had happened? I tried to dredge up some of Laney's stories, but I couldn't remember anything about this part. Why hadn't she told me it would be so awkward?

“I really didn't expect that to happen last night,” Sam said. Well, that was one way of broaching the subject. He laughed. “I mean, I came down to the bar to bitch at you guys and…” He laughed again.

“Yeah, well, I hadn't exactly planned it, either.” It came out snippy, and I tried to add a little giggle at the end, but it sounded like I was choking on my bedsheet. “I really have to go.”

“Sure.” But he wasn't moving. Why wasn't he moving?

Oh Christ, I couldn't get out of bed and walk around naked in front of him. It struck me somewhere in the outer reaches of my mind that I'd done a lot more with him last night than simply trot naked through a hotel room, but I couldn't shake my overwhelming sense of shyness.
Leave, leave, leave.
I lifted his wrist and looked at his watch. Seven forty-five. Shit.

“You probably want me to go,” he said.
Finally!

He rolled off the bed and stepped into his clothes, dragging his hands through his hair a few times. Then he kneeled on the bed, leaning over me, reminding me of the two-freckled guy. For a moment, the images of those two faces—Sam's and then the man from my dream—disoriented me, both of them in front of my eyes, one shifting into the other and back.

“You okay?” Sam said. “I could call Cole and tell him you're running late, say you're not feeling well.” His forehead was wrinkled with concern.

Despite myself, I was touched. “No, no. I'm great. Thanks for last night.”

Were you supposed to thank your partner for random sex? Was that somehow implying that I thought him a whore? Or was I the whore? This was all so confusing.

Sam leaned closer and kissed my cheek. “You are a wonderful, wonderful woman.”

I opened my eyes, and we looked at each other. Why did he have to be so damned cute, so fucking sweet? Why did he have to live in New York and be way too old for me and have kids already and be in the middle of a divorce?

God, maybe I
was
the kind of woman who fell for everyone she slept with.

 

The next few days were a tangled blur of poignant victories and wistful goodbyes. Over it all hung intermittent layers of confusion and loneliness and, when I let myself see it, a healthy dose of fear.

The victories came into my life via Cole, whom I now viewed as one of the kindest people on the planet, albeit under a tough, spiky exterior. He'd been reprimanded by Sam for letting me take those shots, yet whenever Sam turned his back, usually to make a phone call, Cole handed me the camera and told me to give it a go. To the rest of the crew he would say, “Anyone who tells Sam she's taking these shots will be personally executed by me.” They all smirked and kept their mouths closed. They all loved him by now, just as I did. It seemed Cole was back in his element again, back to his place on top of the mountain.

I loved the heavy, sharp-edged feel of the camera in my hand. I loved calling out instructions to the models, the stylist. I loved turning my head, squinting at the sun and asking Cole what he thought about doing it this way or that. We'd begun to get a sense of teamwork, sometimes silently knowing what the other wanted. It was the type of teamwork that many financial analysts had with their colleagues who followed the same stocks—though of course I'd never shared that with Attila—and so the whole exercise was poignant for me, knowing I'd have to quit. I really had to.

During the lunch break, I'd stolen away from the group,
and taken a seat at a picnic table outside a local bar. I'd decided to figure out my finances, instead of skating by, assuming that the chunk of change in my bank account would last forever. Using the back of a postcard, I scribbled down my monthly expenses, the wages that Cole was paying me, the ridiculous amount I'd spent on clothes at Saks, and finally the cash I had left from the severance package and the sale of my house. I did the math over and over, trying to shave off a few pennies here and there, but the conclusion was inevitable. I could last another few months, but after that time, I wouldn't be able to afford rent or utilities. I certainly wouldn't be able to buy any more clothes.

And I had to look at the bigger picture, too. In six short months, I'd be thirty-one, only four years away from my self-imposed married/kids/country house deadline. But at the rate I was going, I was well on my way to a basement apartment and a houseful of cats. So I knew I'd have to say goodbye to my job with Cole and get back on the clear path I'd set for myself. There was simply no other way.

I ordered a beer then and, trying not to cry, toasted the quickly approaching end of my “hobby” of a job.

Meanwhile, I also had to say goodbye to Sam sooner than I thought. I'd assumed he was on location the entire time, but as it turned out he had only one more day with us. That morning after he left my room, I dived in the shower, slapped on as much makeup as possible, threw on a sundress that was, in actuality, way too dressy for work, and ran out to meet Cole.

When Sam arrived an hour later with the rest of the crew, he gave me a secret smile, a quick squeeze of my hand, but nothing else that might embarrass us, something I profoundly appreciated. What would the rest of the crew think if they knew he'd been throwing me around like a sack of potatoes only hours before? Sam looked even more gorgeous in shorts and a baseball cap than he had naked in my
bed that morning. Was it me, or did the guy just get better looking?

We were shooting at the Baths on Virgin Gorda that day. At one point, I was making my way over the huge boulders that littered the beach, searching out a site for later in the afternoon. I concentrated on keeping my dress down and my ass covered, on making my sandaled feet grip the slick stone. I climbed over one monstrous rock, slipped down the other side and picked my way through the wet sand, looking for that perfect spot. I had just found someplace interesting and was lifting the light meter to check the reading when someone or something grabbed my arm. I gasped as I was pulled backward into a dark space, one of the caves that lined the beach.

“What?” I said stupidly. I'd had enough flashbacks of the two-freckled guy and the old Kelly to wonder whether it was happening again. I struggled to stay conscious, blinking furiously. And there was Sam, grinning like a little boy.

“I needed to see you,” he said.

“Jesus, you scared the shit out of me.” My heart drummed against my ribs.