Page 42 of Sam & Justin

I reached the motel in record time. I could see his car, parked by a set of rickety metal stairs. He hadn’t left yet. I exhaled as I parked beside him. I climbed out of my car and made it to the third step before realizing that I didn’t remember what his room number was. I’d been there, but I couldn’t remember the room number. I’d left his cell phone number on the kitchen counter, so I couldn’t just text him and ask. I didn’t know what time he planned on leaving, but I had nothing else to do with my day.

Well, I was supposed to go to the school and help Vanessa with clean up, but this was more important. I wasn’t going to regret not helping tear down centerpieces and putting away tables, but I knew that if I didn’t wait for Sam to come out of that room, I would regret it with every fiber of my being. I would look back on it every day and know that I’d messed up and missed an opportunity.

Fate had intervened again, making it where he hadn’t left yet. It was my turn to make the choice, and I chose to wait. I chose Sam. I went back to my car and rested against the hood. I stoodthere for fifteen minutes before Sam appeared, lugging his duffel bag. I pushed off of my car and started toward him.

The moment his eyes met mine, he smiled one of those smiles that transformed his face. “What are you doing here?” he asked as he walked closer to me.

“I couldn’t let you leave without a real goodbye.” No, that wasn’t it. That wasn’t why I was there. “No. That… Fuck, I’m bad at this.” I always had been. It was why my dating history was nothing more than a long string of failed relationships.

“Bad at what?”

I could do this. “I don’t want this to be goodbye.” The words spilled out in a rush of syllables without enough breath to separate them.

“What?”

Clearly, it hadn’t been enough breath for him to understand what I was saying. I took a deep breath and forced myself to calm down. My heart was pounding against my rib cage. At least I knew that he wanted to keep in touch. This wasn’t a big risk. Knowing that didn’t make it easier.

“I don’t want this to be goodbye,” I repeated, deliberately slowing down my words.

Sam looked at me strangely, like he didn’t understand me. I had said it clearly, right? I’d enunciated. I hadn’t rushed my words out so they sounded like an incoherent babble. This time at least.

“I got work tomorrow,” he finally said, shaking his head.

I blinked. “I know that. I just… I don’t…” Great. I was stammering and tripping over my words. I could be calm and collected, delivering a speech to my former classmates, but I couldn’t get actual words out to him? Actually, I hadn’t been that calm and collected before the speech either. Only after I started. Which meant that maybe I’d be a bit calmer, a bit more composed, after I started this, too. I could do this. I really could. “There’s something between us, something more than the physical.” Surely, he felt it too. “I’m not alone in that, right?”

“You’re not.”

I knew I wasn’t alone in feeling that spark between us. In feeling like this could be somethingreal, distance be damned.

“Then I don’t want this to be goodbye. I want to figure it out. Keep in contact and… God I don’t even know what I’m saying.”

Sam laughed and dropped his duffel bag on the cracked concrete. It landed with a soft thud. A moment later, his arms were around my waist, and he was pulling me close to him. I’d watched enough sappy romantic movies to know what came next in the script, but I was still surprised when his lips met mine.

It was an answer. It was a nonverbal way of showing me he understood what I was saying, even if I didn’t. This wasn’t an ending.

That was what I got from the kiss, from the simplicity of it. A goodbye kiss should taste bittersweet. It should be full ofyearning, of longing, of missed potential. The kiss we had now was light; it was airy. This kiss spoke of new beginnings, of promises, of a future that we could build together.

When he pulled away from the kiss, I knew that was what I wanted. I didn’t know what the future would look like. I didn’t know how we could build something when he lived hours away in King’s Bay, but I knew that I would figure it out. Thatwewould figure it out. If it was something we both wanted, and that kiss told me that it was, then we would make a plan.

“This isn’t goodbye,” Sam said quietly. “Meant what I said in my note. Don’t want to go another twenty years without seeing you.”

“Just without seeing me?” I questioned, raising my eyebrow at him.

Maybe I had read too much into the kiss.

He pulled his bottom lip between his teeth. “Can think of another few things I definitely don’t want to wait another twenty years to do.” He gave me another soft kiss. “Things like that.”

“So, you’ll come visit?” Sam faltered. I knew how he felt about Gomillion, but I hadn’t realized how much of a hurdle that would be in figuring out our potential future. “Or I could come visit you?”

Sam exhaled. “Both,” he said after a beat too long. “Ain’t going to make you do all the heavy lifting. We can both visit each other sometimes.”

I liked the sound of that and rewarded his answer with another kiss. Every single kiss felt like it was going to be the last one, and I didn’t want it to happen. But last kisses and goodbyes were inevitable, and he eventually stepped away from me.

“It’s time, isn’t it?”

Sam bent down to pick up his bag. “It’s that time. Already checked out, and I gotta hit the road. Need to get settled in before work tomorrow.”

“Will you text me when you get there? Just so I know you made it safely?”