Page 78 of So Wild

“I uh, just came up with it, but I think it’s for the best.”

Edgar sighed. “So do I. It’s a shame things couldn’t have been simpler.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know you care about Samantha and I know she cares about you. I was hoping you two would resolve your situation before she tried to auction your virginity or you moved away, but it seems it’s too late for that. Or too soon, more likely.”

“But…what?” Scott rubbed a knuckle across his smoke-stung eyes. “Do you think Samantha likes me?”

“I know she does,” Edgar said airily, lighting another cigarette. “Unfortunately, she’s stubborn and you’re shy and you’re both young. It doesn’t seem to be the right time.”

“I’m not shy, and I know how I feel.”

Edgar laughed. “I’m not attacking you, Scott, I’m just saying there’s an uneasiness to you that’ll smooth away with time. And Sammy’ll grow up and realise she doesn’t have to throw her whole weight into everything she does. Then I believe you’ll both be ready for something real. After all, you two were drawn to each other from the first. Maybe if your father…” He broke off and for the first time since Scott had known him, he looked angry.

“Did something…did something happen between you and my dad?”

“Not my place to tell you,” he said, gazing toward the road. “Not my place at all. Especially, now your mum’s gone. God rest her.”

Scott wanted to press him, but he knew Mr DaSilva wouldn’t say anything else. He felt lonely all of a sudden, lonely and tired. He wanted to go to visit his mother, but knew it was a stupid impulse. There was nothing at the cemetery except the remains of someone who could no longer talk to him. Scott ground out his cigarette. “I should get going. Thanks for the smoke.”

Edgar clapped him on the shoulder. “Not a problem. You need to be a friend to yourself now. Find a way to get the bad out and the good in. It’s what your mother wanted. It’s what all good parents want for their kids.”

“Right,” Scott said, with no clue as to what that meant.

“I mean it. Go back to London, make some new friends, have some lovers, but make sure you find something to run towards, not away from. Then you’ll be ready to come home.”

“Ah, sure…Mr DaSilva.”

Edgar smiled. “You don’t believe me, but you will. And I’ll tell you something else—when you come back, Sammy will still be here. She’s a homebody, beneath the wild.”

Scott laughed because he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t believe Mr DaSilva. Sam was the most restless person he knew and he bet she’d be gone from Brunswick as soon as she turned eighteen—but he wasn’t going to tell her father that. “I’ve already liked Samantha for ten years. That’s too long to have a thing for a girl who doesn’t like you.”

Mr DaSilva gave him a sad smile. “Not when it matters. Come see me before you leave for London, okay?”

Scott agreed, but he didn’t. He packed his bags that night, wrote his father a letter and took a hundred-and-fifty-dollar taxi to the airport. As he sat by the departure terminal, awaiting his flight, he listened to the The Kills and decided the first thing he’d do when he got to London was lose his virginity.

Chapter 15

The day waslong and full of errors. Sam couldn’t stop thinking about Scott, passed out on his fancy hotel bed fully clothed with a Sharpie vagina on his cheek. She wondered if he’d woken up, wondered if he’d gone to the police. She wondered if he hated her. It shouldn’t have mattered,shehatedhim. He’d not only suckered her into a date, he’d had the nerve to be amazingly, heart-stoppingly good at eating pussy. Like, he’d almost made her lower half dissolve like a bath bomb.

Still, she refused to let herself dwell on that. At least no more than twice a minute.

Thankfully, she didn’t fuck up any tattoos, but everything outside that was a shitshow. She overcharged, she undercharged, she dropped coffee and stumbled over loose floorboards that had been there for a decade.

“Are you on drugs?” Gil said when he busted her chewing absent-mindedly on a corner of a tattooing magazine.

In a way, Sam supposed she was. Lust was a drug and while she still had no idea what todowith her infatuation whenever she wasn’t hot with anger, she was tingling at the memory of Scott’s tongue lapping warmly between her legs.

Nicole hadn’t asked what she’d done when she got home from the Windsor and Sam hadn’t told. She’d found her sister buried in paperwork—deep in the process of trying to ensure no one else could propose the heritage application she’d rejected. Sam didn’t feel it pertinent to mention that she—a twenty-seven-year-old small business owner—had resorted to revenge pranking their old neighbor once again.

A vagina. Why had she drawn a Sharpie vagina on Scott Sanderson’s lovely face? Sure, Nicole hadthoughthe was trying to help his old man grift them out of their building, but had she learned nothing from buy­scott­sanderson­aroot.com? On a practical level, pranking him was stupid—he could have retaliated by coming after the house twice as hard. On a personal level…did she believe Scott was only dating her because of their building? Or that he’d posted Nicole’s pictures on the school website? And if she didn’t think he was guilty, why didn’t she talk to him instead of lashing out?

When had she cultivated the idea that Scott was some posho asshole who deserved pranks? Her dad hadn’t encouraged that kind of behaviour. Growing up, he’d frequently sat them down for talks about peaceful protest and never making an enemy of anyone—even people you disagreed with.

It wasn’t until that afternoon that Sam considered her mother. She tried not to consider her mother, considering her mother had run away and ceased to considerher, but Madeline DaSivla seemed irritatingly relevant to her situation.

For one thing, she’d left, and despite denying having abandonment issues whatsoever, neither she nor her sisters were what you’d call ‘romantically successful.’ She herself struggled to maintain relationships past six months, Tabby was even worse and Nicole had a boyfriend every day of her life from fifteen onward. But that wasn’t the most pressing point; there was the fact her mum loved pranks.

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