Yes, a bright yellow Lamborghini.
Seeing his car, for some reason, I deflated. Not totally but I felt it.
This was not to say it was not a cool car, it definitely was. And this was not to say I didn’t look forward to my first ever and probably only ride in a freaking Lamborghini, I did, I definitely did.
This was to say it was expensive and flashy to the point of being a shade off trashy and I did not see Sampson Cooper this way. This car screamed, “Look at me! I have money! I have fame! I am important! Bow to me, all you minions.”
Okay, maybe it didn’t say all that but it said enough of it to make me, for the first time, wonder about a Sam who stayed at an expensive hotel, owned an expensive tuxedo that had been tailored for him and ate at restaurants like the one he ate at last night. I didn’t pay, Thomas did and refused to even discuss it (my debt to him and Celeste was growing by the day) but I knew it was expensive and when I say that I mean, if you think of the most expensive restaurant you’ve ever been to, it was more as in a lot more. One bottle of wine was more than a three course meal at a normal expensive restaurant, so it was that expensive.
And the Sampson Cooper I had in my head from all I knew about him and his life before I met him and the man I’d been in the presence of three times who’d been real, who cursed when he felt like it, held my hand when he saw tears in my eyes, that Sampson Cooper, or Sam, did not have a flashy car that screamed, “Look at me!”
He opened my door for me and, with his long fingers wrapped around my bicep, guided me gently into the car, making sure I cleared my skirt and was settled in before closing the door.
I glanced through the interior as he rounded the hood and vaguely wondered how he’d get his tall, sizeable frame in it then I looked out the windshield, weirdly despondent and suddenly not nervous or even excited about the evening.
Very weird. Very stupid. And also judgmental.
But there you go. Men were men and, just like Cooter but for Sam in a bigger, showier way, they all found their ways to prove they had a big dick, even Sam Cooper.
It wasn’t until Sam burst out laughing that I realized he’d folded in beside me and he’d been there awhile.
I turned my head to look at him.
Okay, I was suddenly nervous and excited again. This was because he might want the world to know he had a big dick but he was unbelievably gorgeous while he was doing it.
He stopped laughing but kept smiling at me when he declared, “It’s Luci’s.”
“What?” I asked.
“The car,” he answered and I felt my lips part.
Jeez, was he in my head or what?
Sam kept speaking. “She has five cars and she insisted I use one and not rent one. She also insisted I stay with her. I won on having some privacy and not spending every minute I wasn’t workin’ having Luci in my face about all the things Luci gets in my face about, and, baby, there’s a lot of that shit. I gave in on the car. I see from your face I shouldn’t have. Then again, I didn’t know I’d meet a beautiful blonde who’s the only beautiful blonde on five continents who would not get off on sittin’ beside me in a car like this.”
“I didn’t –” I started to deny through a lie.
He kept smiling, though bigger, and interrupted through it, “You did.”
“I –”
He leaned toward me, his hand reached out, his fingers curled around the side of my neck again and I shut up.
“You did,” he said gently and kept going, “and I don’t care because I agree. This car is not me and it’s good it’s not you either. But,” the smile came back, “wait ‘til it goes. This ride screams euro-trash and anyone who’s got a hint of class feels like an ass**le sitting in it but when it purrs, it makes it worth it.”
“Okay,” I whispered and I whispered because I couldn’t get my voice to go louder. There were three reasons for this. One, he was touching me again. Two, it hit me he called me a beautiful blonde. And three, I really wanted to feel that Lamborghini purr.
“Buckle up,” he murmured, let me go and turned away.
I buckled up. Sam turned the ignition and the car came to life.
I sighed with deep content and I did this audibly.
Sam burst out laughing again.
I bit my lip to stop myself from doing anything (else) stupid as Sam backed out of the spot, still chuckling and my mind turned to Celeste’s advice because I was getting the distinct feeling I was not holding anything secret.
I pulled myself back on track when we were away and I did this by asking, hopefully casually, “Uh… Luci, that is, Luciana owns five cars?”
“You can call her Luci, I’ll say it before she says it and when she meets you, she’ll definitely say it.”
This was a somewhat weird comment but I had no time to decipher it or ask because Sam kept talking.
“And yeah, she owns five cars. She’s loaded. Her parents are loaded, she’s a trust fund baby and, on top of that, before she hooked up with Gordo, she was a model. A successful one. You see her face, you’ll probably recognize her.”
Oh man. I wasn’t sure that was good.
Sam went on.
“Sayin’ that, about ten seconds after you get over it, you’ll see she’s not a Luciana, she’s a Luci.”
“How is she a Luci?” I asked.
“She’s a Luci because, regardless if she’s sittin’ beside a catwalk at a fashion show in Milan or sittin’ on your deck, drinkin’ a beer, she always acts like she’s sittin’ on your deck drinkin’ a beer.”
I felt my heart flutter because I liked that he liked that because I was the kind of girl who knew all about sitting on a deck drinking a beer and not the kind of girl who knew what it was like to sit beside a catwalk at a fashion show in Milan. And I felt slightly less nervous because I liked that Luci was like that. It was only then I realized that part of my anxiety was about meeting Luciana, going to her party and being amongst her set which was not my set.
But the way he described her, at least she was.
“So, uh,” I started cautiously, “what does she get in your face about?”
“The better question is, what doesn’t she get in my face about?”
I looked from the view of the road, the brilliant blue of the lake stretching out on one side, sharp rises of green mountains dotted with gray stone on the other, to Sam.