Page 22 of The Backtrack
Damon’s eyes widened. “The guy working the counter could barely hide a gag when I ordered it, so it’s not only me who’s judging you, just to be clear.”
“What did you get?” Sam had already made her way to the kitchen and pulled out two spoons.
“I ate a burger at the bar.” Damon pulled a chair out at the kitchen table and sat. “You know me, more of a savory than sweet person.”
Why was she mildly delighted about that phrasing,you know me? Yes, shedidknow Damon, didn’t she? Sure, they hadn’t ended up dating in real life, but they’d been best friends, and maybe they could be close again. Sam decided to sit, too.
“Pearl stopped in for an early lunch and told me you could use some sugar,” he added.
“Mmm,” Sam said at both the ice cream and the fact that Pearl had probably meant this as a bit of a double entendre. She handed Damon a spoon, and he carefully scooped a bite without any gummies. He brought the spoon to his mouth, and she tried not to stare as his lips wrapped around it. She shoved a spoonful into her own mouth and looked away.
Sam didn’t want Damon to have any inkling that she was attracted to him, even though she very much was. But when she looked back, he licked his lips and watched her. She wondered briefly if he was having similar feelings. But then he asked, “How’s the cleaning coming?”
Well, if hehadany attraction to her, he wouldn’t be thinking about Clorox wipes. She raised the cup of ice cream. “This is the fuel I need to finish my room,” Sam said. “Thanks for bringing it.”
How long would he stay? How long would she have to stare and wonder if his mouth tasted like sugar? She was fairly sure she could go a stretch without Damon noticing any longing in her eyes. But still...she couldn’t pretend forever.
“Need any help? I have a bit of time before I head back.”
A bit of timesounded like fifteen, twenty minutes tops. And after a sleepless night, she wouldn’t mind him lifting the trash bags out of her room and carrying them outside. She wouldn’t mind seeing the way his arms looked when he did that, either...
“Sure.” She took one last bite of her ice cream, left it on the counter and walked down the hall. Damon followed, just like he used to when they were kids. Except now, the smell of his coconut shampoo and the vanilla from the ice cream shop made her want to turn around and get a spoonful ofhim.
When he came into the room, he eyed the band posters first, then her corkboard. He stopped at a picture of himself.
“It was pretty metal of me to match the rubber bands on my braces to my red-tipped hair.” He licked his teeth as he stared at a photo booth shot of them from the high school fair. “Metal pun intended.”
“They were a good look. Almost as killer as the shiny shirts you used to wear.” She nodded to the marching band photo—the one they’d taken the night of their almost-kiss. She wondered if he ever even thought of it.
“I’m offended that you didn’t mention my studded belts, but oh well.” He shrugged. “You, on the other hand... Looking at you now, I don’t think anyone would guess that you were an emo chick in high school.”
“An emo chick?” Sam parroted back. Something about his tone when he’d said that gave her pause, like maybe he missed the black lipstick and heavy liner. “Emo is a state of mind just as much as it is a style.”
“Are you telling me you’re still secretly into Evanescence?”
Her mouth opened as “Bring Me to Life” started in her head, along with the bizzaro vision she’d had of them kissing. “Anyone who doesn’t like Evanescence is lying, obviously.”
“Oh, obviously.” He grinned. They shared one of those tense and knowing moments they kept having. Luckily, Damon broke it for them. “What’s left to clean?” he asked.
Sam sat on the ground and slid open the bottom drawer of the desk, which was heavy with photo albums. “I don’t really know what to do with these.” She took one out and opened the front, and the plastic sheet covering the first row of photos wrinkled with her touch. Baby photos of Sam being cradled by Pearl, and her mom smiling tightly next to them. Even then, when Sam was small and helpless, Bonnie hadn’t known how to be around her.
“You don’t want to keep them?” He sat next to her on the floor and took another album out of the drawer.
“I don’t have a place to put them,” Sam said. She didn’t want to tell Damon that her only solid ground was, size-wise, the equivalent of a dorm room. “And I’m not sentimental.” She wasn’t, really, not about her mom, at least.
Damon flipped open the album in his hands and there was a photo of them at Damon’s thirteenth birthday. He’d had a family pool party and wore board shorts. Sam was in a one-piece covered by an oversize Daffy Duck shirt. They both held up peace signs, and Damon’s teeth glittered back with the unmistakable metal braces he’d hinted at earlier.
“Can you believe we weren’t popular in school?” he asked.
“We weren’t?” she joked back.
“Okay if I keep this one?” he asked, but he’d already tucked the photo into the back pocket of his jeans. He wanted a memory of the old them. A photo of Sam and Damon when they were best friends. Something about that made her chest warm.
“You can digitize these, you know,” he quickly followed. “Get rid of the bulky album, but have them on your laptop, or whatever. You don’t want to forget how well ballet flats paired with cargo pants.” He held up the photo album and, as he did, a little booklet fell onto the carpet.
Sam reached for it at the same time as Damon, and their fingers met. Damon pulled back, but the spot he’d touched burned. She tried to ignore the sensation by pulling the little book close to her chest to inspect. When she turned it over, there was Damon’s handwriting.Sam’s Travel Bingo Card. He’d drawn an airplane, an island and a detailed rendering of an Egyptian pyramid. When she opened the card, there was the bingo board where Damon had outlined specific travel goals Sam had shared with him.
See the Aurora Borealis
