Page 31 of Surviving You, Scotch and Sammy 1

“We’re not taking a car. Let’s go back to your room and watch a movie. No way in hell am I getting in a car that doesn’t belong to me.”

She rolls her eyes and takes my hand, pulling me along roughly. “Nobody said anything about a car, you baby.”

“No to motorcycles, mopeds, small planes, and aqua marine vehicles too.”

She smiles as we step in the far left corner. “That’s fine too.” She extends her arm out like a game show host, and my eyes stop on the vehicle in front of us. “You didn’t say anything about golf carts.”

Bubbles of laughter escape through my lips, then bending over, I cackle uncontrollably as Meg climbs into a hot pink, bling encrusted monstrosity, and she switches it on proudly, like she just climbed behind the wheel of a Maserati instead of weird battery-operated go-kart. She throws her bag into the back and turns back to me. “It’s pink, Sammy. Clearly it’s mine and not my dad’s.”

“Why do you even have this?” I walk around the kart, and climb in the other side, because really, she’s not wrong. It’s hard to deny who owns this.

“Because we like to play golf, and because he buys me anything I want. I don’t like to play golf, but Daddy likes it when I come out on weekends and spend time with him. So I got this.” She presses her foot down on the pedal, and my hands instantly reach out for anything to hold. This kart has no seat belts and no doors. I might die tonight. We roll out of the garage and brazenly zoom across the lawn in front of the house. It’s like she’s not even trying to be discrete.

It takes us a full thirty minutes to get across town, with Meg’s shimmering high heels pressed to the floor and us reaching dangerous highs of fifteen miles per hour, but we giggle the whole way and by the end of the wind-in-my-hair, edge-of-my-seat, adrenaline-filled ride, my worry and anxiety about being caught are replaced with exhilaration and excitement to see Sam and the guys play.

We pull up and Meg parks her cart in a space near other cars, like we’re legitimate drivers and deserve a space, and with continued giggles, we climb out and she grabs her bag. She takes my hand in hers as the loud music booms through the thin walls. People that I know from school spill through the doors, moving in or moving out, hanging on each other as they giggle the way Meg and I do.

“I can hear him.” She looks at me and bounces her brows. “Does he kiss as good as he sings? ‘Cause that raspy voice makes me wanna kill you and claim him for myself.”

I burst out laughing again, even as unfamiliar tingles spread low in my belly and my legs turn to jelly. “He really does.”

We walk through the large doors, then my eyes stop on the band at the front as they play their instruments and Sam holds the microphone close to his mouth. As though he already knew I was here, his eyes lock me in place as his sweaty hair hangs low. ‘She was the perfect to my faults. The beauty to my black.’

Meg’s hand squeezes mine again. “Jesus, Sammy. He’s breaking my heart.”

I frown, though I don’t take my eyes off him. “Why?”

“Because the majority of women in this world will never find a man that looks at them like that.”

‘She’ll marry me someday, ‘cause the heart knows what it knows, and she’ll listen to the beat.’

Sam winks at me slowly, as his chest fills and empties on each new line he sings. His shoulders and hips sway with the melody, and his right foot taps the tiny wooden stage. Prying my eyes away from him, I look to the rest of the guys. All four sets of eyes are on Meg and me, and I wonder if Sam changed the lyrics to the song simply because I walked in? Something got their attention, and it wasn’t our talking. This place is packed to the brim, and people move around us, knocking us around as though the sway of the collective has the room moving like a ship.

Angelo watches me with a soft smirk, like he’s happy I’m here, because that’ll make his best friend happy. Luc just smashes away at his drum kit, but he sticks his tongue out at us because he’s crazy. His smile is huge and flirty, and though he blows us an air kiss, he doesn’t miss a single beat with his drum sticks.

Marcus glares at us, strumming his guitar and piping in with a few sung words with Sam, but his fiery eyes burn us to the floor. And by us, I mean Meg. Marc has been nothing but a sweet, albeit quiet, guy since I met him. He’s never once looked at me the way he’s looking at Meg now, and frankly, if he did, I’d probably cry.

Meg waves at them, as though she doesn’t even notice Marc’s glare. She tugs on my hand and we turn away and start moving across the room. My eyes continue to move back to Sam, and I smile when he sings ‘I love you,’ and I just know he threw those words in randomly, because they didn’t even rhyme or fit. But that’s okay, because my heart somersaults anyway, and I have to clench my fists closed before I point at my heart to tell him I love him too. Stupid teenage hormones.

Meg drags me to a tall table, and throwing her bag down, she grits her teeth when the bag thumps heavily and booms even above the noise the band makes.

“Um… What’s in your bag?”

She shrugs her shoulders casually, but her smirk says otherwise. She unzips it, and when she pulls out a large bottle of expensive scotch, the music stops instantly, and my eyes snap back to the guys.

Sam shakes his head. “No.”

The entire room stops swaying, and the crowd gets mad that their music stopped. Luc starts beating on the drum kit again, then Marc and Angelo join in, but Sam lifts his guitar over his head and sets it down near Angelo, then he jumps down from the stage and walks toward me quickly. He grabs the bottle from our table in one hand, then he pulls my hip with the other until I crash against his chest. His mouth comes down onto mine indecently. We don’t make out at school like this, so his brazen public display has me blushing, even as my tongue darts out to touch his.

He groans against me, squeezing my hip, then he pulls back and rests his forehead against mine. “You look beautiful, Ricci.” He drops another kiss on my lips. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Thank you. You guys sound good.”

“I wrote a song for you. Did you like it?”

I giggle against him. “I don’t think that was my song. The words didn’t even rhyme.”

His face shoots back from mine, scandalized and mock offended. “What are you saying? My writing sucks?”

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