After

  “Thanks,” I said finally.

  I looked back at the mural and realized that the figures of Sam, his mother, and his brother weren’t watching the baseball game after all. They were looking up at the rainbow, which seemed to rise out of the horizon, behind Fenway Park’s Green Monster. I smiled at Sam. He was already staring at me, and for a moment, we just held each other’s gaze.

  I knew it was going to happen a second before it did. Our breath grew short. The space between us grew smaller. And then, Sam’s hand was on my cheek, brushing it gently. When he finally leaned in and touched his lips to mine, my eyes were already closed, and I was already leaning toward him.

  Sam tasted a little like Coke, but sweeter. As our lips touched, it was like someone had cranked up all my senses. I could smell something burning in the distance and the leaves turning to fall and the almost imperceptibly salty smell wafting in from the river. I could hear the chirping of the crickets and the splashes of the water and a train whistle in the distance. And Sam’s hand touching my cheek ignited every cell in my skin.

  We kissed for a long time without saying anything.

  Finally, Sam pulled back a little.

  “Wow,” he said, his nose still just a couple of inches from mine.

  I smiled. “Yeah,” I agreed.

  Sam kissed my forehead. “Mind if we just sit here for a while?”

  “Nope,” I said.

  Together, we turned and looked out into the darkness.

  chapter 16

  Forty minutes later, we were pulling into my driveway. I didn’t want the evening to end.

  “I had a great time with you,” I said.

  “Me too,” Sam said. He paused. “Listen, Lacey, I need to tell you something.”

  I turned to him. He looked worried. And all of a sudden, I realized that whatever it was, I didn’t want to hear it tonight. I didn’t want anything to ruin our perfect night.

  “Tell me tomorrow,” I said.

  “But—”

  “Is it that you have some girlfriend back in Taunton or something?” I asked, trying to sound like I was making a joke. But I meant it, actually. It would be just my luck to have truly connected with the perfect guy and to find out he was keeping something huge hidden from me.

  Sam laughed. “No.”

  “Then can you tell me tomorrow?”

  He nodded. I looked out the window at my front lawn, which was covered in a blanket of autumn leaves in varying shades of orange, red, and yellow, illuminated under the shallow glow cast by the streetlights. They reminded me of the first three colors of Sam’s rainbow.

  “My dad used to rake the leaves and make a big pile for all of us to jump in every fall,” I said. “Even when we were too old for it. Even Logan and I would jump in.”

  “That sounds really nice,” Sam said.

  “Is it weird that I miss things like the leaf pile, instead of just missing my dad?” I asked.

  “It’s not weird at all,” Sam said. He leaned across the center console and touched his lips lightly to mine. We lingered there for a minute, our lips just barely touching. Finally, he pulled back and looked me right in the eye again.

  “Lacey Mann,” he said, “you’re pretty amazing.”

  I smiled. “You’re not so bad yourself, Sam Stone.”

  He grinned. “See you tomorrow, then?”

  “See you tomorrow.”

  Sam walked me to my front door and after one last, quick kiss, I said goodbye and turned the key quietly in the lock. I smiled once more at Sam before shutting the door behind me. As I tiptoed up the stairs, avoiding the steps that creaked, I thought about how one day could make such a difference in your life. A year ago, it had been losing Dad—and my family—in a morning, in the blink of an eye. But today, it had been finding something new with Sam that I had the feeling would last for a long time.

  • • •

  At school now, everything was different. Even though we’d never said the words, never officially made some sort of declaration of togetherness, Sam and I were a couple.

  It was strange. I’d never had a boyfriend before. And I certainly wasn’t used to people staring at me in the halls with jealousy in their eyes instead of pity. It was kind of nice to be the center of a different kind of attention.

  I figured at first that Logan and Sydney must have gossiped about me and Sam, but as the day went on I realized that we were creating our own waves. And although we had agreed on the disgustingness of Jennica-style PDA, Sam didn’t seem embarrassed in the slightest to greet me in trig class with a peck on the cheek, like we’d been dating forever, or to walk me to my locker after class with my bookbag slung over his shoulder. He ate lunch with me, Jennica, and Brian and seemed completely oblivious to the stares from other tables.

  “So is Sam, like, your boyfriend now?” Jennica whispered as we went to throw out our trash. Brian and Sam were several paces behind us, talking about the Patriots game this weekend.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess so. It’s weird.”

  “That happened fast.”

  The words unsettled me, because I wasn’t exactly sure what she meant. “What do you mean?”

  She shrugged. “Sometimes relationships that develop so quickly aren’t really based on anything real.”

  I wondered whether she was talking about me or about her dad and Leanne.

  “But he seems to really like you,” she added hastily, as if she’d just realized what she’d said and how it had sounded. “I’m sure things are fine.”

  • • •

  The next afternoon was supposed to be our second group meeting. I’d been so caught up with thinking about Sam over the weekend that I hadn’t even sent out a reminder e-mail. I spent the whole day feeling guilty that I had dropped the ball. It was so unlike me.

  I waited in the parking lot after school, near the fence around the football stadium, wondering who would show up for a ride. Sam had offered to drive everyone last week, and he had reminded me in sixth period today. Logan hadn’t said one way or the other whether he was coming, but I figured that if he did show up, he’d get a ride from Sydney. That left Mindy, Kelsi, and Cody.

  Five minutes after the final bell, I saw Sam striding out, his Red Sox cap and leather jacket on, as usual. His bag was slung over his shoulder, and he was grinning as he approached.

  “Hey you,” he said as he reached me. “You ready to go?”

  I fell into step beside him. “We should probably wait and see if anyone else needs a ride.”

  “Sure thing,” he said cheerfully as we reached his Jeep.

  Sam started the engine, fiddled with the heat for a minute, and then pushed Play on his CD player. A song I recognized from my dad’s CD collection started playing.

  “You like Jimmy Buffett?” I asked, surprised. I didn’t know anyone else our age who did. I’d always liked “Cheeseburger in Paradise” and some of his other songs. My dad used to make goofy faces when he sang along.

  Sam seemed equally surprised. “Yeah,” he said. “You know Buffett?”

  I nodded. “My dad really liked him.”

  “Yeah?” he said. “My dad too.” He smiled a little. “He was actually a Parrothead. Official member of the Jimmy Buffett fan club.”

  I laughed. “Same with my dad!”

  “Did he go last time Jimmy played at Gillette Stadium?”

  “Yep.”

  “So did my dad,” Sam said. “Isn’t it weird to think that they sat in the same stadium at the same show? And we hadn’t even moved here yet?”

  “Yeah,” I said. Actually, I thought, it seemed stranger to me that there existed a time, in the not-so-distant past, that my dad and Sam’s dad had been out enjoying a rock concert, maybe just rows away from each other, with no idea that their days were numbered. It made me feel so suddenly sad that my throat closed up. I glanced at Sam, and the smile had fallen from his face too. I wondered if he was thinking the same thing.

  After a few minutes of wai
ting, the crowd of students flowing out from the school had slowed to a trickle, and the parking lot was nearly empty. Sam checked his watch. “Think everyone found a ride?”

  I nodded and took a deep breath, which I exhaled in a nervous laugh. “Actually, I’m really worried that no one will show up at all.”

  “Why?” Sam asked.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe everyone thought last week was really stupid. I mean, maybe they thought about it later and realized they didn’t want to hang out again with a bunch of sad people.”

  Sam seemed to think about this for a minute. “No,” he said firmly. “I know it helped. And I know people felt good about it.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked in a small voice.

  “Yes,” Sam said. We waited another few minutes, the silence hanging over us, then Sam shifted into drive. “I guess we should go.”

  I nodded, feeling discouraged. What if it was just me and Sam? I’d feel like such a failure. And I’d look like an idiot.

  As we drove, I glanced at him a few times out of the corner of my eye when I knew he was paying attention to the road. I liked how angular his face was from the side. Sharp nose, sharp chin. But he didn’t seem sharp-featured when you looked straight at him. It was funny how different people could appear when you simply looked at them from different angles.

  When Sam and I pulled into the Lucky Strikes parking lot it was almost totally empty. There was a beat-up, dusty pickup truck I didn’t recognize and a Cadillac with a dented front end. But I didn’t see Kelsi’s car. Or Sydney’s. Even her snob-mobile would have been a relief at this point.

  “No one’s here,” I murmured.

  Sam glanced over at me as he shifted his Jeep into park and cut the motor. “Lacey, it’s still early,” he said. “Don’t worry yet.”

  “What if no one shows?” I asked.

  “Then you and I will have a great time bowling together in really ugly shoes.”

  We got out of the Jeep and walked into the bowling alley. I had never been there before. We’d never been big on bowling in my family. Come to think of it, we weren’t big on much of anything anymore.

  The entrance area was dimly lit, while bright fluorescent lights illuminated the wood-paneled lanes. There were only three people bowling: a man and a woman together at a lane toward the far end of the room, and, midway down, a man in a FedEx uniform.

  “I bet he’s on his lunch break,” Sam whispered, elbowing me gently in the side. I giggled as the FedEx guy bowled a strike and jumped up and down a few times in apparent glee.

  The deep ping of the balls hitting pins punctuated the background music piped from various old-looking speakers around the room. There was a counter near the door with lots of bowling shoes lined up behind it, and another counter farther down with a couple of beer and soda taps, a popcorn machine, and a little warmer rotating some decidedly stale-looking hot dogs. I decided I wasn’t hungry.

  “Let me introduce you to my aunt,” Sam said, reaching for my hand. A dark-haired woman was walking out from a door near the concession area. “Donna!” Sam called. She squinted toward the doorway and grinned.

  “Hey, kiddo!” she said. It sounded funny to hear Sam called kiddo. His aunt’s enthusiasm was electric, though, and I could feel myself smiling at her even before she reached us. She was about five feet eight with cropped hair, a few freckles across the bridge of her nose, and clear green eyes that matched Sam’s.

  She reached us quickly and gave Sam a hug. Then she extended a hand to me. “You must be Lacey,” she said. “Sam’s told me about you.”

  I blushed, wondering what he’d said—and when. “Nice to meet you. Thanks for letting us use your bowling alley.”

  “Of course!” she said. She glanced around, then looked back at me. “Where is everybody?”

  Sam answered before I could. “They should be here in a few minutes. And if they don’t show up, Lacey and I will bowl.”

  Donna smiled at us again. “Sounds fun! Help yourselves to bowling shoes. Sam, you know the drill,” she said. “Can I get you anything from the concession stand? A hot dog, maybe?”

  “No thanks,” Sam and I both chorused immediately. We exchanged glances and tried not to laugh. Donna looked bewildered.

  “Okay, then,” she said. “Have fun! I’ll be back to check on you guys in a bit. Sam, you know where everything is when your other friends show up.” She kissed him on the cheek. “Nice to meet you, Lacey,” she said before walking away.

  “She seems nice,” I said to Sam as we turned toward the wall of bowling shoes.

  “She’s the best. She and my uncle are a ton of fun. Our family Trivial Pursuit matches are pretty fierce.”

  I suddenly wished that I had an aunt like that. Or another family member—any family member—who wasn’t full of sympathetic looks. My uncle Paul and his wife, Sherry, came around from time to time, but Aunt Sherry was always casting sad glances my way, and Uncle Paul didn’t seem to know how to talk to any of us anymore.

  Sam led me over to the shoes and asked me for my size. A moment later, he pulled out a pair of pink and white shoes that were slightly scuffed at the toes. They were pretty silly-looking.

  “Trust me,” Sam said, reading my expression, “no one looks good in bowling shoes.”

  Just then, the front door opened, pouring a large sliver of bright sunshine into the bowling alley. I was relieved to see Kelsi and Mindy standing there, blinking into the darkness.

  As Sam was helping Kelsi and Mindy pick out bowling shoes, Cody arrived, eyes downcast. As the five of us were heading toward the lanes, the door opened again, and Logan walked in, tailed a few steps behind by a sullen-looking Sydney.

  Relief washed over me again, along with an unfamiliar sense of gratitude for my brother, who didn’t look at me as he walked quickly toward the shoe counter.

  “Hey, man,” Sam said to my brother as he walked over to the shoe counter. “Hey, Syd.”

  They both nodded, but neither of them said anything. Typical. Too cool to talk to anyone. But, I had to give Logan credit for being here. And, I supposed, I had to grudgingly give Sydney a little credit too, even if she didn’t belong here. But clearly, she and Logan were a package deal.

  After everyone was fitted, we headed to the lanes and picked two adjoining ones on the right. Donna came over and asked us if we wanted anything from the snack bar. Logan ordered two hot dogs. Sam and I shared amused looks, but neither of us said anything. I liked that we were on the inside of a private joke. The hot dogs arrived a few minutes later, along with a hot pretzel for Cody and three Cokes for the girls. I tried not to giggle as my brother gazed in horror at the shriveled-looking meat like it was something from another planet. It was even funnier when, unaware that he was being watched, he shrugged and bit into a hot dog anyway.

  Sam, Kelsi, and I were in one lane, and Mindy, Cody, Sydney, and Logan took the lane beside us.

  Neither Kelsi nor I had bowled much before, so Sam took a few minutes to patiently explain technique. He showed us how to grip the ball, how to take steps forward to support our weight, and how to aim for the center pin by angling the ball in slightly from the side. He demonstrated three different styles for us and got strikes each time.

  On Kelsi’s first turn, she knocked over three pins with the first ball and another three pins with the second. Sam grinned and told her she was an excellent student. She blushed and sat down. I glanced at the lane next to us, where Logan and Sydney had each knocked over eight pins, and I wondered how my brother was so good at this. Maybe I would be too.

  I stood up, took a deep breath, and put my fingers into the purple, glittery ball I had picked out. I tested its weight and hesitantly carried it toward the lane. I took a deep breath, moved my arm back like Sam had shown me, and then took a step forward as I moved my arm forward and released the ball.

  It dropped into the gutter almost immediately.

  I groaned as I watched it make its way down the edge of the lane.

/>   “Nice gutter ball, Lacey,” Sydney piped up, laughing. Sam rolled his eyes. “It took me forever to learn to bowl,” he told me. “Here.” He got up and touched my arm lightly. “I’ll show you.”

  I picked up my ball and we walked to the lane. “Put your arm back,” Sam said.

  I grasped the ball tightly and did what he said, stepping back with my left foot, like Sam had showed me. I was just about to ask him what to do next when I felt his warmth right behind me.

  “Like this,” he said softly, his breath grazing my ear as my cheeks flamed. He was so close that I could feel him, yet not close enough to be touching my back. Every single hair on my body was standing on end. He placed his right hand over mine, and I was so electrified by his touch that I nearly dropped the ball. Thankfully, I didn’t.

  “Okay, now,” he said. “Let’s do this slowly once to practice. Don’t let go.”

  I knew he was talking about the bowling ball, but for a second, I wanted to tell him not to worry, that I would never let go. I glanced around and realized that everyone was watching us.

  Slowly, with his right hand resting on mine and his left hand gently clasping my left hand, Sam guided my right arm forward, urging me, “Step forward with your left foot, like I showed you.” He took the step with me, his much longer left leg shadowing my leg and his arm guiding mine forward.

  “Just like that,” he said in my ear. Then he cleared his throat loudly, glanced around, and stepped away, as if he’d just noticed that everyone was staring. “Um, nice job, Lacey,” he said. “You’re a natural. Now let’s try it for real.”

  I knew my face was on fire. I glanced around and quickly returned my attention to the ball and the lane in front of me. I closed my eyes for a minute and tried to center myself. Repeating Sam’s words in my head, I stepped back, then stepped forward, slowly swinging my right arm in one fluid motion.