Page 21 of A Very Oceanport Christmas
"I'm fantastic," I said.
Sam drew back with a grin, his arm still around my shoulders. "So you're not having any doubts about last night either? I got kind of worried when I woke up and you weren't here. Thought maybe you'd panicked or something."
"I'm not panicking," I promised. "You have no idea how often I've fantasized about doing exactly what we did last night."
"I never knew. I was always... I guess I was scared. I wanted you but without knowing if you wanted me back..." He trailed off, but he didn't have to say any more. I knew exactly what he meant. After all, I'd felt the same way too.
"I get it. I didn't want to lose you by doing something stupid."
Sam laughed again. This time, it sounded like he was laughing at himself. "I always figured if you were interested in me, you'd make a move. My pap always told me this story of how he confessed to my dad when he was like... I don't know, stupidly young. Twelve or something? So I thought if he knew that young, and I knew that young... you would too. But you didn't act as if you liked me that way."
"You didn't act as if you liked me that way either." So I'd seen no way but to keep my own performance up, even if it was hard. Especially whenever Sam hugged me in an overly friendly way and I had to get out of his grip before he'd notice the erection tenting my pants.
Wait, had that been his attempts at coaxing some sort of reaction out of me?
"Never took you for the type to wait for an alpha to make the first move," I said.
Sam opened his mouth to say something, then stopped and laughed again instead. "I guess you're right. That was silly of me." He let himself fall back on the bed. "I never thought that things would work out this way." His grin was huge. "I almost feel kind of giddy and I don't even care that I screwed up so hard."
I moved to lean over him, straddling his hips. "You didn't screw up. Things are going to be better from here on out, I promise." That moment, I knew in my heart where I needed to be. Not at college, but here with Sam. I placed a kiss on his forehead, feeling his warm breath puff against my skin as he exhaled.
"This feels like a dream," he murmured.
"If it's a dream, I don't want to wake up."
"Agreed." Sam pulled me down to kiss my lips, and I lost myself in him, in the warmth of his body, in the taste of his mouth. I never wanted to let go.
I never would.
* * *
Sam leftto run some errands later that day. I wasn't sure exactly what errands, and he wasn't telling, but the work at the ice cream parlor kept me too busy to think much about it either. It wasn't until we closed up shop and I found Sam experimenting in the kitchen of the upstairs apartment that I started wondering what he was up to.
Whatever it was, though, it smelled delicious. The scent of fresh waffles hung in the air. I smelled it all day down at the ice cream parlor, but this was different. Was that a note of cinnamon?
"What are you making?"
Sam looked up, a spot of white flour on the tip of his nose. Our old waffle maker sat on the kitchen counter next to him. "Experimenting with something new," he said.
"Waffles?" I approached and studied the waffle maker, kind of wishing I could look inside.
"Yeah." Sam rubbed the back of his neck, making more flower cling to his skin. He looked ridiculous. Ridiculously adorable.
"What exactly are you experimenting with?"
He grabbed his phone, unlocked the screen and held it out to me. "This morning I was thinking, what if we expanded the menu of the store? Make it a little more Christmas-y? I mean, waffles are great and all but what if they could be even more seasonal?"
"Oh, is that why you ran out earlier? To buy ingredients?" I studied the screen of Sam's phone. He'd had the browser opened to a recipe for eggnog waffles with cinnamon whipped cream. The picture that went along with it was downright mouthwatering. "You already made the cream?" I spotted a bowl sitting close to the waffle maker. That must be what I'd been smelling.
"Yeah. I had some time... I don't know if you can just update the menu like that. Maybe it's a silly idea, but I just wanted to try anyway..."
I smiled at him.
"What?" he asked.
"Nothing." I reached out with my thumb to brush the flour of his nose. When Sam had left for college, I'd worried that he might change, that I was never going to get my friend back, not really. But he was still the same old Sam, always trying to be useful in whatever way he could.
The waffle maker beeped, pulling me out of my reverie.
