Blissful Surrender (Bliss #3)(12)
Author: B.J. Harvey

If my parents’ deaths taught me anything, it was that life can change on the turn of a dime so you have to live it like it could be your last day on earth.

If only it were that easy.

Chapter 6: “Playing With My Heart”

Sam

I’ve had two glorious days off work after a six shift stint. Two days that included me sleeping off a rather large hangover in Helen and Rico’s guest room for half a day, then the other half of yesterday was spent having a mental health day on my couch watching television cop dramas. Yeah, I know. Don’t ask!

Now, it’s my second day off, my last before I return to work, and wouldn’t you know it, I can’t sleep in for the life of me. It’s 10 a.m. and I’ve been up for at least a few hours. First, I put on my running gear and go to work out in Lincoln Park. Then I grab a cleansing smoothie from my favorite café and get home thirty minutes later, planting myself on the wooden stool at my kitchen counter to read the newspaper. I know I can read it online, and a lot of people probably do, but there is something about the smell of a broadsheet newspaper … the smudging of the newsprint on your fingers, the folding of page after page giving you that indescribable smell that’s full of memories, moments in time you’ll never forget.

From my place in my small kitchen, I start hearing a weird vibrating type noise coming from my bedroom. I have a moment of sheer horror flash before my eyes then I remember that

a) I live alone.

b) I’m a thirty-two year old woman, so who the f**k cares that I have three vibrators, one vibrating egg, and a vibrating pair of underwear that Helen bought me on a dare.

c) I didn’t use my sex toy collection last night because I fell asleep on the couch in the middle of Castle.

d) The noise is not going away by me sitting here considering all the different vibrating toys I have in my top right drawer.

Right …

I jump up and run into my bedroom just as the noise stops. What the f**k! Now I’ll never know. I scan my room for anything suspicious and come up empty.

Then the noise starts again. I drop to my hands and knees, crawling around looking for the source of the ghost vibration, and giggling because now I’m thinking of what happens to sex toys after they die.

Helen would have a field day with this conversation.

I realize the sound is coming from my bed, so pulling back the comforter to an empty bed, I lift my pillows to find my phone vibrating like a kid at Christmas. I lunge for the phone and roll over onto my back at the same time, feeling pretty good about my ability to answer the call and do a side roll at the same time.

“Hello?”

“Sam, is that you?” I hear a deep male voice rumble down the phone. My heart stutters for a minute before he continues. “It’s Ryan. Sorry, did I disturb you? I called before, but there was no answer.”

I let out the breath I was holding in. Why was I suddenly hoping it was Sean? Why would Sean ring me anyway?

Oh shit, Ryan’s waiting. “Hey, Ryan, sorry, how are you feeling?”

“I’m a little better.”

“That’s great, Ry. Glad to hear it,” I reply, not hiding my happiness at his recovery. He definitely had me worried last time I saw him at the hospital. Unfortunately, it wasn’t his physical recovery I was most worried about.

“Yeah. Hey, listen … I’m at the hospital and they’re discharging me today. I need a favor.”

A lot of thoughts rush through my head. What if he wants me to look after him? Or needs me to do something illegal? Would he ask me to do something illegal? It’s bad enough that he told me in very vague terms that the break in at the club was most likely just something made to look like a robbery. What’s done is done though, and if I have information pertaining to a crime that may or may not have taken place, as an officer of the law it’s my duty to pass that information on. Which is exactly what I’ll do in the morning when I go and speak to the detectives investigating the case.

“You still there, Sammy?” he asks when I go silent.

“Yeah, Ry, just waiting to hear what you need.”

“I hate to ask but …” he hesitates, making me more anxious. I don’t realize that I’m gripping the phone tightly until the plastic exterior starts digging into my skin. “Um, are you able to give me a ride from the hospital? I, uh, I can’t ring Sean and I, uh, haven’t got my wallet or keys on me because everything was at the club when I got brought in.”

Oh, thank you, Lord!

“Oh, sure, Ryan. Of course. What time do you need me?”

“An hour? Is that okay?”

“Absolutely. I’ll see you in the waiting room in about an hour then?”

His voice loses its tightness and he’s back to sounding relaxed and worry-free (for the moment anyway). “Thanks, Sammy. I knew I could count on you.”

“See you soon, Ry.” I end the call and drop my phone onto my pillow beside me. Am I living in some alternate dimension all of a sudden?

Is this like Lost Season 6 where there was a parallel universe and there are really two Sams? ’Cause if there are and she’s in the past … god, there is some advice I’d like to give Alternate Sam on her future and the decisions she’s due to make.

For our first date, Sean had told me to wear something comfortable. It was a Saturday lunch date and he’d told me nothing about his plans, so I’d dressed in a pair of tight, black, hip-hugging jeans and a white graphic tee that I’d picked up from a vintage store a few weeks earlier. I finished off the look with a rainbow colored scarf draped once around my neck with the ends hanging down. Hey, cut me some slack, it was 2003 you know!

Sean arrived a few minutes early, knocking on my dorm room door just before lunch. When I opened the door to greet him, I had to take a few moments to catch my breath. He’d gelled his hair into a sexy as hell faux hawk and had paired a crisp green polo shirt with a pair of loose fitting khaki pants. Think Justin Timberlake in his early solo days and you’d be right on the money. Suddenly I wasn’t feeling nervous about the date, but I was keen to race out the door before my best friend and roommate Helen could see him and start drooling. And to be honest, I wanted to be seen in public with the man who looked like sex on legs.

You see, having been avidly pursued by Sean for the weeks beforehand, I was excited about the date. In fact, I’d been a bouncing hot mess of anticipation all week. Helen was about ready to lace my water with downers just to get me off my high. But nothing was bringing me down, not even calls from my mother wondering why I had only gotten an A- on a term paper could dull my shine.