Page 62 of Goldilocks

They both looked at Sam. Goldilocks inclined his head first. “Very well.”

Sam met Mary’s eyes, pleading with his own.

Mary tilted her head, regarding him calmly. “Two days,” she said.

“Two days, what?”

“You’ll let me take care of your dad for two days of the week.”

Sam pressed his lips together, biting back his objection. His gaze darted between her and Goldilocks, conflicted feelings rising within him. Whispering in the back of his head, steadily rising in volume, was Austin’s sharp voice:That isn’t what patience and love look like. “One day seems like enough?” Sam’s voice wavered, his conviction that he was doing what was best for his dad crumbling right before his eyes.

Mary turned her calm look on Goldilocks. “That’s an interesting shirt. Where—”

“Two days,” Sam said.

“Monday and Tuesday,” she bargained.

Sam bowed his head, defeated. “Fine.”

“I’ll come too,” Abby said with a smile. “I’m a much better cook than Mary.”

Mary, having won, eased up the intense stare she had fixed on Goldilocks. And when she did, she gave Sam a look. It was one that let him know she knew something about Goldilocks was strange. Not that it wasn’t obvious to anyone with eyes.

Goldilocks set his hand on Sam’s thigh, resting it there, as he drank with his free hand. And he tilted his head, listening with interest to Abby and Mary as they talked. Sam breathed a sigh of relief when they didn’t immediately turn and force an interrogation on the two of them. Whenever Sam spoke up, Goldilocks focused his full attention on him.

Sam took out his books to study, but he simply glanced over the incomprehensible words and ended up doodling columns instead.

Sam’s two drinks were gone before he rose. “I’m going to the bathroom.”

Mary and Abby exchanged a conspiratorial look. It had warning bells ringing loud and clear in Sam’s mind. “Come on, Goldilocks,” he said.

“You need an escort?” Mary raised an eyebrow.

“I’m not stupid,” he said back. And God knew what Goldilocks would say if he left them all alone together.

Goldilocks rose with Sam, following him inside. Sally waved from behind the bar as he passed, and Goldilocks examined the interior with interest. Gary was sitting in the corner, and his dark eyes tracked Sam across the room. Goldilocks turned his gaze on him, and his expression changed from mild interest to something focused and pointed. His shoulders tightened, his chin lifted, and a mounting air of challenge filled his gaze.One second, Sam thought. It took one second for Goldilocks to react to Gary when he hadn’t so much as given Fionn a second glance when they were out on the water.

Sam gripped Goldilocks’s wrist and pulled him into the hall leading to the bathrooms.

“Don’t bother with him,” Sam said.

“I do not like the way he watches you.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Sam muttered. Sam decided against telling Goldilocks he was the one who’d punched him. If he was willing to fight Adonis over an accident, then Sam didn’t want to risk an altercation with Gary.

“Wait here. I’ll just be one second.” Sam hesitated in the doorway to the bathroom, staring at Goldilocks. “Don’t cause any trouble, okay?”

“I will do as I like.”

Sam’s eyebrows rose. Goldilocks didn’t make any particular face as he said it, but his voice was firm. “Alright?” Sam blinked. “In that case, I’ll be quick.”

Sam was quick, but by the time he was leaving the bathroom, he heard voices and winced. “Please let them be too drunk to notice anything,” he muttered to himself. How did Connor bring Adonis around and not stress out about it?

Sam pushed open the door and immediately drew up in surprise.

Goldilocks stood in the exact spot where Sam had left him. Austin was there. Standing in his space with a hand on Goldilocks’s chest. Sam’s gaze stuck on Austin’s hand; the ties of Goldilocks’s hem were wound around a delicate finger.

“I promise I’m a lot of fun,” Austin said, his voice low and gentle. Almost sultry, if not for the fact that the cadence of his voice rang distinctly hollow to Sam. Austin was little more than a teenager; was he eighteen? Nineteen? Sam felt like he was watching a child trying to play an adult, and it felt so incredibly wrong. Goldilocks was too old for Austin.