“Actually, I need to get my woman home,” Sam declined.
“Why? The night is young,” the woman noted truthfully but rudely.
“Tilda,” her husband muttered, taking her arm.
“Well it is,” she told him then looked at Sam. “We’d love it. It’d be an honor to have a drink with a hero.”
“Yeah, pumpkin,” her husband said with strained patience. “But maybe this hero would like some private time in a romantic place with his lovely lady.”
“Nonsense,” she shot back, indicating that the flame had died between Tilda and her hubby because if Lake Como couldn’t wake up the romance, nothing could and clearly the romance was dead between them, so dead, she couldn’t see that the romance might not be dead for everybody. Then she looked to Sam and me and declared, “Nothing better when you’re in a foreign place and you meet folks from home. Feels like you are home.”
This was an odd thing to say considering you were in a foreign place to experience that place and not be home.
Then again, Tilda was an odd woman.
But I couldn’t think of Tilda because, as this wore on, I felt Sam’s hand get tighter and tighter in mine so I felt it was time to step in before he broke bones.
“Actually,” I started my lie, “Sam needs to get me back to our hotel because I’m expecting an important call from home and I need privacy when I take it. Truthfully, we don’t have a great deal of time so I hate to be the one to rush this but do you mind awfully if I take the shot? Then we really need to go.”
“Oh,” Tilda mumbled, her face falling, “I hope everything is okay.”
“Me too,” I replied, taking matters into my own hands and reaching out to the camera that was sitting on their table. “But I’d hate for my call to come while we’re on the sidewalk or something so…” I trailed off, grabbed the camera and lifted it toward me. “Is there something special I need to do?”
“Point and click,” the man said quickly as he shuffled around the table toward Sam, dragging his wife with him.
To my shock and, apparently, seeing the visible tightening of his entire body, also to Sam’s, Tilda wrapped both her arms around Sam’s middle, plastered her front to his side, turned her head and smiled scarily at the camera. Her husband stood awkwardly off to Sam’s other side and smiled just as awkwardly.
Sam, being Sam, wrapped an arm around Tilda’s shoulders, placed a hand on one of the man’s shoulders and looked at me.
“Right, say cheese,” I called.
“Cheese!” Tilda screeched.
Her husband and Sam just smiled. I took the shot.
“One more, just in case,” I said swiftly then, “Ready, set, go.”
“Cheese!” Tilda repeated her shriek.
Sam and her husband just kept smiling. I took the shot.
Then I handed the camera to Tilda who nearly snatched it out of my hands, turning it around to look at the display even as she brought it toward her.
“Thank you, really,” the man muttered to Sam, “Kenny’ll like those.”
“They’re great!” Tilda cried then looked up at Sam and me. “Now, one with Coop’s girlfriend in it.”
“We have to go,” Sam’s rough voice rumbled.
“Just a quickie,” Tilda stated.
“We have to go,” Sam’s rough voice repeated on another rumble, this one firm and unyielding, so much so, Tilda’s body twitched and her eyes snapped to him in shock though how she could be shocked, I did not know but I was not a rabid celebrity hound who couldn’t take a hint either.
“They have to go, pumpkin,” the man murmured.
“Enjoy your meal and your vacation,” Sam said, curling an arm around my shoulders and guiding me away. “My best to your boy, yeah?” Sam finished, his eyes on the man.
“Yeah. Thank you Mr. Cooper,” the man returned.
Sam tipped up his chin to him then to the woman but he did this while continuing to lead me away.
Then we were gone.
The restaurant was a ten minute walk from our hotel. We’d been walking two when the noise came from my throat because I couldn’t continue choking back my laughter.
“I know, f**k,” Sam muttered, totally with me.
“She hugged you,” I forced out, all three words sounding strangled.
“I know,” Sam repeated then, “Fuck.”
I couldn’t hold it back anymore, I giggled.
Sam’s arm around my shoulders gave me a squeeze, I tipped my head to look at his profile and saw him smiling.
Then I faced forward again, controlled my hilarity and asked, “Now does that happen all the time?”
“People gettin’ that in my space?” Sam asked back.
“Yeah.”
“Fuck no,” he answered then finished on a mutter, “Thank Christ.”
I giggled again.
Then I sobered as something hit me, it was unpleasant, scary even… and weird.
“Uh… Sam?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I ask you something?”
That got me another arm squeeze and an, “Anything, baby.”
I pulled in a breath.
Then I reminded him, “I borderline internet stalked you.”
His voice was filled with humor when he replied, “Kia, honey, the shit you spouted last night, nothin’ ‘borderline’ about it.”
Uh-oh.
“Well then –” I started but stopped when Sam stopped our progress, turned me to facing him then pulled me loosely in both arms.
“Different,” he whispered when my eyes caught his.
“How?”
“You remember how we met?”
Uh… yeah. I’d never forget. Never, ever, ever.
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t talk to you would you have talked to me?”
Ah. I saw his point.
“No,” I said quietly.
“Right, no. You wouldn’t have talked to me. Definitely not asked me for a picture and absolutely you wouldn’t have pressed up against me.”
This was true.
“Though,” he grinned down at me, “even if you had, I wouldn’t have minded you doin’ it.”
“Sam,” I whispered.
“Seriously,” he said as he kept grinning.
I rolled my eyes.
Sam kept speaking after his grin faded and his face got serious.
“So. Different,” he whispered. “You were respecting my privacy.”