souls of black | fever in, fever out

chapter 129: dark paradise

"Alright, we're done," said Eric. "Thank god."
"I had a feeling that took way sooner than you guys had originally intended," Sam confessed with a shrug of her shoulders. He signed the bottom of the label on the cassette and then ran his fingers through his inky black hair.
Only two weeks in the heart of June, and Testament had just wrapped up the recording process on their new album. If nothing else, they were staring down a big tour with Megadeth and Judas Priest: at least that was according to Chuck.
The whole entire time, she had sat in with them and their producer in the whole strenuous process, such that no one's eating habits had been on par for a couple of months at that point: not even the week before their session they had attended Chuck and Tiffany's wedding over the cliffs of the Bay Area. A warm day in the last week of May and as part of a singular example, all Sam and Alex could do was linger near the back of that small crowd, near the buffet line because neither of them had breakfast that morning.
In the meantime, and with much insisting from Ruben, Sam had bought herself a beeper in the case of Scarlett calling her when the time came for her. It was all a guessing game and with something so new and so alien to her as she clipped it to the belt loop of her jeans, it almost felt as though people were watching her from the streets. Those with hard drugs in hand had beepers, not an artist holding out for a job in New York City: her blonde highlights and low riding jeans only accentuated the feeling of scrutiny. But it was something she had needed, and she need not let the prying eyes dig into her such as that.
The hunger persisted throughout them, however, and all she could think about was the effect of weed: she could still picture Alex with his big paper plate loaded up a few times over. She could still picture herself with a loaded plate, such that she wished for another one right there. Pried in every which direction even as she sat there next to Eric with the master tape right before him. The look on his face told her that he wasn't happy about something.
"Is everything okay?" she asked him in a soft voice.
"I feel like we rushed that," he confessed with a sigh.
"I think you guys sounded great, to be perfectly honest," Sam assured him. "Each song had a unique touch to it, just like the previous records."
"We rushed it, though," he pointed out as he rested the side of his head on the backs of his knuckles. "Usually we take a couple of months to record an album because we like to take tender care into our music. But that whole thing was rushed and all the songs were pretty much leftovers we dicked around with when no one was looking during the sessions for Practice What You Preach. I'm sure it'll all rear its ugly head at us once it's released out into the wild..." His voice trailed off and his face fell. She reached forward and rested a hand on his shoulder out of comfort. Eric showed her a small smile.
She never noticed his cheekbones before, so soft and round like little apples. Even though no one in that camp had a decent set of eating habits for a little while, he sure did look a little bit fuller than normal. His skin was smoother and his face was rounder, and she didn't remember him looking so soft and cozy prior to then. Or maybe it was just her point of view, given the sheer amount of days she had forewent breakfast in the mornings. She had to be there with them once the door was unlocked at eight o'clock sharp, and back out again at five in the afternoon.
To think that Black Sabbath had recorded a whole album in a single day: it blew her mind to think of such things.
Louie had a laugh when one of them brought that up in conversation in the week before: he waved his little white gloves around as if he was about to fly away into the sky.
"Look at me! I'm Bill Ward!"
"Just hope you don't get cropped out of the group photo, Lucius," Greg joked to him after that, and that warranted a laugh out of the whole room.
And ever since then everyone began referring to him as "Lucius": it didn't help matters that whenever he strode into the room, he put on the white gloves and erected his index fingers upon his head as if he impersonated the devil.
"Lucius, not Lucifer," Sam scoffed at him at one point, but that didn't stop him from his tongue hanging out of his mouth.
Alex breezed into the room right then with a hairbrush in one hand. His jet black hair dripped wet and his little plume of gray stood up on end over his forehead.
"Hey, you," Sam greeted him.
"Hey, man," Eric followed suit.
"Phew—" He took his spot there in between them. The dark circles under his eyes told her that he was beat.
"What's up?" Sam asked him.
"Just stuck my head under the hose," he said. "My head was itching like crazy and I couldn't take it anymore."
"You guys want anything to drink?" Eric asked them. "I'm like dying of thirst right now."
"I'll just have some water, Eric, thank you," Sam replied.
"I'd like a beer after all that," Alex confessed, and Eric chuckled at that before he bowed out of there.
Alex ran that brush through his hair a few times and then he stopped for a second. He set his hand on his slender stomach.
"Upset tummy?" she asked him.
"I ate so much cake and cheese at their wedding," he said, "that I'm still digesting it."
"You sure made a piggy of yourself then," she remarked. "Plowing those first two whole plates as if you were starving to death."
"I swore I was," he confessed, "just 'cause we haven't really been eating all that much lately."
"You sure about that?"
"Positive."
"We're all eating so weirdly—I dunno 'bout 'muchly,' though," she remarked, and Alex showed her a small smile at that. Much like Eric, his face was slightly rounder and fuller but his body was still slender and lanky.
"Hopefully the tour'll be easier on us," he confessed as he brushed his hair some more: she spotted he had some soft but noticeable highlights at the crown of his head. When she first saw him, that single little pearl of gray was enough to age him a bit: but those made him appear younger. To think he was looking at twenty two in a few months time.
"You guys are getting so baby faced," she noted.
"Baby faced? Like how?"
"Eric's face is getting fuller and so is yours. It's like you're aging in reverse."
"I hate it, to be honest," he admitted.
"Aw, why's that?"
"I hate how we got to that point. My face feels fat and doughy."
"I think it's cute. You've always had this edge to you, Alex: this grave, serious edge. That coupled with a round little boyish face and it looks really cute."
"You know what else is really cute?" he began out of the blue.
"What's that?"
"You are."
"Oh, please," she scoffed at him.
"Well, it's true! You're cuter than Madonna in her new video, that's for sure."
"What's Madonna gotta do with it?"
"Have you seen her new video? Eric showed it to me the other day on our break—man, she got real hot real quick."
"I'll have to be the judge of that," she said in a singsong voice.
"And I said you're cuter, too," he continued, "meaning—"
"I'm as hot as Madonna," she figured.
"Hotter," he corrected as he ran his brush through his wet hair some more. She shook her head at him.
"Yeah, you'd like to think that, wouldn't you, Mr. Skolnick," she teased him. "This is all just a thing, isn't it? A thing in your head just to get to me again, isn't it?"
"Well, men have two heads—and sometimes we choose to think with only one of them," he said, "I'll admit that if neither of them do, to be honest."
"When have you thought with your dick?" She took a fleeting glimpse down to right between his thighs and the snug black corduroy around him.
"Many times! Mostly when I'm on stage, though. I tried thinking with my dick while in the studio and it came out a big mess."
She gaped at him.
"Well, see—how 'bout we flip the script on that," he suggested. "When have you thought with your—" He lowered his gaze and nodded his head. "—lady parts?"
"I don't know," she confessed.
"What do you mean, you don't know? Surely, you would know when you thought with your—your—your?"
"My what?"
"Your—clam? Cherry? Niagara Falls? I dunno."
"I don't think I have," she confessed with a chuckle.
"I'm sure you have. The way you were wanting to get close to me when we were in the pool room a while back. I'm sure that was you thinking with it."
Sam cracked him a small smile but she never said anything. Alex toss his hair over to his other shoulder and brushed the other side.
"What about when you and I made out in the car?" he recalled to her in a low voice. "Or when we did it in the hotel room with Greg? Were you using your head or something else?"
"Both," she replied, to which he stopped right in his tracks and gaped at her.
"Kinky."
"Nah, kinky would be me shoving a guitar up your butt," she jeered.
"Up my butt and not on my dick?"
"Nah, I got my hand for that," she told him as she flexed her fingers.
"Damn."
"And your dick is looking a little tight, locked away in those jeans."
"That's 'cause these jeans are kinda old," he replied, "I just happened to put 'em on 'cause my other ones were dirty."
"Dirty from coming all over the place?"
"Nah, dirty from your thoughts—where the hell is Eric?"
"I know, I'm so thirsty," she replied.
"You know, I actually look forward to the day I get my own special guitar," he declared to her.
"You do have your own special guitar," she pointed out, "that little red one you've had for ages, it feels like."
"Nah, I mean, a genuine line of guitar models," he corrected, "complete with my name on it."
"Like a fashion line?"
"Exactly! Like a fashion line!"
Eric finally scurried back into the room right then with a bottle in either hand: a water bottle in his right and a glass beer bottle in his left.
"Eric Stanley Peterson, when're you getting your own fashion line?" Alex demanded with a straight face; he set down the hairbrush and looked up at Eric, determined.
"Fashion line?"
"Yes! I'm starting a fashion line in the future. Once Testament is making bank off of this—slab of savagery, I'm gonna do it."
"Stanley?" Sam echoed him.
"Yeah, my middle name is Stanley," Eric said with a twinkle in his eye.
"As in Paul," Alex cracked as he pried off the bottle cap with two lanky fingers.
It did in fact felt as though these boys were aging in reverse, and his behavior only exemplified it. The fact Alex had been so hard on himself up to that point only added to the feeling of it all. Sam shook her head and she was about to say something to him when Chuck strode into the room right then with his leather motorcycle jacket wrapped around his body.
"What's up?" Eric asked him.
"Before we bounce, we gotta do a little 'run through' with the tapes before they go into mixing," Chuck answered.
"Mm! Oh, that!" Alex clambered to his feet and Sam followed him and Eric into the next room for a quick listen.
Only nine songs but the looks on their faces told her a different story. Eric was obviously uncomfortable; Chuck nodded along but the blank expression on his face kept throwing her; and Alex shifted his weight and folded his arms over his chest at one point.
He shook his head when "Seven Days of May" began. Sam finally looked over at him and frowned.
"What's the matter?" she gently asked him.
"This sucks," he grumbled.
"I know. Having to sit through it all unpolished and feeling the tense knots in your stomach."
"No, I mean—this sucks." He gestured to the speakers on the wall before them. He fetched up a sigh and propped up the side of his head in the palm of his hand. Sam nestled closer to him once his solo kicked in.
"I totally fucked that up," he muttered under his breath.
"You did great, Alex," Sam insisted. "Listen to that. That is a beast of a man playing."
"No—no—no—I totally fucked it up. It was kind of a hard song to play when we were demoing it last year, and it was a hard song then. And it's showing right now. It's glaring at me right now like Medusa's head."
"It's supposed to be there," she said. "It's supposed to sound like that."
Chuck's voice roared back on.
"See? You guys are as tight as ever. This is going to be fantastic. You guys are gonna kill it with this thing. It's the Nineties, Alex. A brand new decade with endless possibilities."
He sighed through his nose as their rough recordings faded out to silence.
"Nice touch with the fade," she remarked.
"That was torturous, though," Chuck said.
"I liked it," Sam insisted. "I'm sure other people will, too."
Chuck and Eric glanced at one another and Alex sighed through his nose again.
"By the way," he started again in a low voice.
"What?"
"What were you gonna say to me back there?" he asked her with a stern look on his face.
"Boys are such babies," she replied as she shook her head, to which he scoffed and rolled his eyes.
"I'm not being a baby."
"You are the baby, though," she pointed out with a little chuckle.
"Wah," he jeered with a straight face.
Sam's beeper made a soft noise and she took it off of her belt loop for a look at the little blue screen.
"It's Scarlett," she declared. "She wants to meet us—all of us—for dinner tonight up in Castro at some Thai place." It beeped again. "She says she'll be picking us up in an hour."
"Wait, tonight?" Chuck echoed her, stunned.
"That's what it says." She stopped. "Why, you got a date?"
"Yeah, I was actually planning on taking Tiff out for a ride tonight and then eating with her under the stars," he said with a little toss of his wavy hair.
"Taking her for a ride?" Eric asked him. "She's not a dog, Chuck." Alex laughed at that.
"On the bike, Eric," Chuck corrected him; Sam linked her beeper back onto her belt loop.
"I'll tell her when she shows up," she assured him. "Go take your red hot mama jama out with those tassles you got there."
"He needs a cowboy hat," Eric remarked.
"You mean a headdress?" Alex corrected him before he took a rather hefty swig of beer.
"I can play cowboy and Indian, thank you very much, gentlemen," Chuck scoffed as he zipped up his jacket. He gave Sam a large hug prior to his stepping out of there, the first time he had hugged her in a long time.
"I'll catch you later, li'l Sammich," he whispered into her ear.
Her father was working late and her mother was, too: nothing else to do than to have dinner with these two boys next to her and also with Scarlett.
She showed up at the studio about a minute after Chuck had rode off into the darkness on his big clunky bike and Eric locked the front door behind him: her long red wine colored velvet coat shimmered even in the darkness and her blonde hair shone like the finest of platinum under the outside lights there. Alex and Eric huddled closer to one another right behind Sam in hopes to keep warm from the incoming evening breeze, but she swore that it wasn't that cold outside.
Scarlett guided them over to her rental car, where Sam took to the front seat next to her. She felt so glamorous there sitting next to her: all she needed was a bit of art with her and she knew that the whole thing would go off from there.
Everything felt like a blur right then. It was all real. It was all really happening to her right then. She had one foot in the door at that point.
They drove up to a place which Sam hadn't seen before there in Castro Valley, one with the golden lights turned down low over them and the warm aroma of fresh wanton soup greeted them upon their entry inside of there. She peered over her shoulder to Eric and Alex, both of them with their long jet black hair and in nothing more than their little sweaters, their raggedy jeans, and their old white sneakers which made their feet look big. Indeed, the latter tousled his hair back from the side of his neck and onto his back to make himself a little more acceptable in appearance; the former simply zipped up his sweater. Scarlett guided them to the table closest to the large painting on the wall: Alex gazed up to it and those broad brush strokes all about the canvas.
Sam followed his gaze up there, and she eyed the painting itself: a peaceful scene of a pond with a series of lily pads and large white lily flowers touched with some pink. She glanced across the table to the soft look on his face. Eric looked up at it himself.
"Lovely, isn't it?" Scarlett asked them.
"I like the colors," Alex replied to her.
"Extra sweet and colorful," Sam replied, and she thought about Joey right then. She was about to strike something huge there with Scarlett and he was nowhere to be seen.
Indeed, as they dined on hot tea and big bowls of fresh hot pho that reminded her of the first time she had lunch with Frank, Charlie, and Aurora back in New York, they conversed about art: something about the art scene there in New York ready to take off and all it needed was someone like Sam herself to give them that big nudge.
"So, when will you be coming?" Scarlett asked her at one point.
"I hope soon enough," Sam replied. "I'd have to make time, though. You know because of their tour and everything."
"Don't worry about us, Sam," Eric told her as he brought his little white china tea cup up to his mouth.
"Yeah, we're gonna be touring with Judas Priest later this year," Alex added in a low voice as he held his spoon up to his little lips.
"Wow," Scarlett declared with her eyebrows raised.
"And hopefully with Megadeth, too," Eric said; he cradled his tea cup in between both of his hands.
"Yeah, you boys are really going places," Scarlett assured them both.
"We're all going places and filling our bellies with this gorgeous soup," Sam remarked as she took another bite of pho.
"You should showcase some art at shows, Miss Shelley," Scarlett told her. "Show your connection to the thrash scene here in the Bay Area and also New York."
"Have a bit of art at the next Death Angel show," she suggested.
"That'd be badass as all hell, Sam I am," Eric remarked as he downed some more tea.
They fell into silence for a moment before Scarlett spoke again.
"I already have an idea for a future gallery on your part, too. Given the sheer darkness embedded within your art."
"What's that?"
"It's like a paradise of sorts, and yet... it's dark. It's dark and tormented and yet incredibly relieving. A dark paradise."
"I like that," Alex remarked as he picked up his bowl and drank down some of the remaining broth in there.
"I do, too," Sam added as she did the exact same thing.
"And remember: it's all up to you, too," Scarlett said, "I know how to help you and I get you places. Anyone who's someone in the art scene knows my name. Take your time but also—don't. The world needs you."
Sam had no clue as to how to respond to that last sentiment, especially with Alex right across the table from her. Granted, he wasn't her boyfriend but he did hold a soft place for her in heart. Her friend with benefits and yet she felt so close to him, and even more so with the note that she could go places in her career as Scarlett fetched the bill.
"My goodness, you fellas were hungry," she said as those two boys across the table from them leaned back in their chairs; indeed, their large white china bowls were left spotless: not a drop had gone to waste.
"Our eyes were bigger than our stomachs, too," Eric told her as he rubbed his eyes: Alex unbuttoned his jeans a little bit and Sam had to resist the urge to giggle at him.
And then she began to wonder exactly where things would go with her and him. If she was to move on back to New York City, that meant she would not only leave behind her parents once again but she would leave behind this little secret relationship between her and Alex. She had Testament around her finger at that point, too: she would have to leave them all behind. All of this also came about just when she felt comfortable being back in California as well.
To be a part of something greater than herself but also to be amongst her friends and near her parents.
And yet the promises were all there with her. Scarlett knew what she was doing and she knew how to get her career going, after she had toiled in obscurity for so long. For all she knew, Testament were going to be on top of the world with this new album, too: she had to go her own way at some point because the other alternative was staying back home with nothing else to do and no one to talk to, either.
Scarlett drove them back to her spacious hotel room there in Castro Valley, and about four blocks from Ruben's house which meant Sam could walk home if she so wished. She climbed out of the front seat and she spotted a head of smooth blonde hair near the room door: she recognized those bangs as well as those doll like features.
"Hey, Bel!" she called out to her; Belinda turned her attention to the rental car before her and she gasped at the sight of her.
"Holy shit—Sam!" She hurried over to her with her arms wide open. "Oh my god, it's been forever and a day—how are you?"
"I'm well—I've been living! I just had dinner with Scarlett, Eric, and Alex—those two fellas and I practically just stuffed ourselves silly, too."
"Damn. I brought you guys some soup for tonight because I was supposed to meet Scarlett, too."
"Really? When?"
"Tomorrow, Belinda," Scarlett called out as she climbed out of the front seat of the car.
"I don't really wanna take this soup back, though," Belinda confessed. "There's no fridge in my room."
"Really?" Sam was stunned.
"Where are you staying?" Scarlett asked her as she took her room key out of her purse.
"Across the street. It was either that or bunk on Kirk's couch for the time being. And Metallica are—cooking up something. A new album or something of that nature. Got a bunch of cameras on them, too—you know, the whole thing about giving them privacy."
"Everyone up here's making albums," Alex remarked; he stood before the open car door and stretched his arms over his head. Scarlett unlocked the room and flicked on the light switch on the inside of the doorway.
"Everyone's makin' albums and kickin' ass," Sam added onto that.
"Also, you're not gonna believe this," Belinda began again, and her expression turned serious.
"What's up?" Sam asked her.
"Remember Andy Wood? The lead singer of Mother Love Bone?"
"Oh, yeah!"
"He died."
"What!" Sam gasped.
"Seriously?" Alex gaped at her, stunned.
"Yeah, Charlie told me! He went like three months ago. Heroin."
"Wow!" Sam and Alex gaped at one another; the former thought about Joey lain out at his apartment with a needle filled with black tar and he came so close to injecting and overdosing himself.
"What's gonna happen to that band now?" Eric asked her.
"No clue," Belinda confessed with a shrug. "All Marla and I have heard is the members disbanded the whole thing and they're kind of in hiding at the moment. Seattle's not like New York or San Francisco—one of them up there goes, they feel it. Like, the shockwaves are totally relentless."
"Don't blame 'em," Sam replied, and she shook her head. "Wow. That's—That's unreal." She thought of Cliff right then. "We just saw him, too!"
"We thought they were gonna go places, too," Belinda continued.
"Belinda?" Scarlett called from the room.
"Yes?"
"I was going to wait until tomorrow to give this to you but come on in here—"
Belinda bowed into the hotel room, which in turn left Sam alone with Alex and Eric. She scurried closer to Alex and he tugged down his shirt and hid his full stomach. He gave his hair a toss so most of it lay over his shoulder. Even though Eric stood right there right next to them, neither of them cared either way.
"Can I kiss you?" he asked her in a soft voice.
"I dunno, can you?"
"May I kiss you?" he corrected himself.
"May you?" She lowered her gaze to his body. To feel him against her skin again.
"May I please kiss you?"
"There you go!"
"There who goes?" Belinda called out from the doorway.
"Damn it," Alex grumbled with a bow of his head.
Belinda sidled over to the two of them and handed Alex the container of soup.
"Here, eat this," she told him.
"Why?"
"Because it's yummy and you are, too," Sam blurted out, to which Eric laughed out loud as he headed into the hotel room with Scarlett.
"I just ate the biggest bowl of beef pho, though," Alex decreed. "I feel like I'm carrying a big fish bowl in my belly right about now."
"Well, I've got nowhere to go with this soup, though," Belinda pointed out. "And Scarlett is using her allotted time to talk to me, too."
"Which means I can go back to my dad's house," Sam followed along.
"Right! And it's chicken noodle, too. Got big noodles."
"We already ate a lot of big noodles," she pointed out. "But you don't have to eat it right now, though, Alex."
"I wanna see the look on his face, though," Belinda confessed. "It's homemade."
"Oh, man," Alex groaned as he cradled the container in both hands.
"I can tell you about it," Sam told her. "My dad's house is only a few blocks from here."
"What're Eric and I gonna do, though?" Alex asked her.
"Come with me," she told him with a toss of her hair and a slinging of her handbag over her shoulder.
"After eatin' all that, I ain't walkin'," Alex sneered.
"I'll carry you if I have to," Sam promised him.
"Yo, Eric! Come on!"
Eric bowed out of the hotel room.
"What's up?"
"Sleepover at Mr. Shelley's house," Alex remarked as he kept one hand on his belly.
"It's only four blocks," Sam told them.
"Only four blocks," Eric teased her.
Indeed, as she led them along the sidewalks of those four blocks, the two of them lingered behind her at a much slower pace.
"C'mon, you fat boys," she teased them.
"I'm not fat," Eric retorted in a mocking tone.
"Not fat just big boned," Alex called from the rear, which brought a laugh out of Sam. She didn't care one way or the other: she looked down a major life changing decision, and she had to relish what time she had with the two of them at that moment.
She unlocked the front door for them and turned on the light: once the lamp was switched on, Eric collapsed back onto the couch on the side of the room. Alex ran his fingers through his jet black hair and the little plume of gray at the crown of his head showed itself like a little radio antenna. Sam watched him take a spot there at the kitchen table with the container of chicken noodle soup before him.
"Like I said, you don't have to eat it right now, Alex," she told him as she shut the door behind her.
"You're looking at me as such," he confessed to her, and she rolled her eyes at that. She took her spot there at the table right next to him.
"What?" he asked her still with a dazed look on his face. She had lured the two of them into her lair in the woods as if ready to fatten them both up, except there she wanted to keep them firmly around her finger for a little bit longer. She stood up and sauntered over to the silverware drawer for a spoon.
"Eat! Eat! You're skin and bones!" she proclaimed as she handed him the spoon.
"Me?" Alex was taken aback by that.
"Yes, you."
He sighed through his nose and he took the spoon from her. She returned to her spot there, and she folded her arms over the top of the table and watched him. He blew on the spoon's head even though it obviously wasn't hot, and then he swallowed down that whole bite. He let out a low whistle and leaned back in his seat.
"No, Samantha—I can't," he begged with a pat of his belly.
"Eat it, Alex."
"Samantha, if I eat another bite, the ancestors back in the home country'll wanna put me up on a spit and roast me on an open fire 'cause I feel like a turkey."
"Alright then, stop being a baby," she scolded him.
"I'm not being a baby!"
"Belinda couldn't take it home with her, though. Someone has to eat it and I'd hate to see it all go to waste."
"It's either that or have it go to my waist," he scoffed.
"Eat it," she insisted as she shoved the tupperware towards him.
"No!" He pushed it back towards her.
"Eat it!" She shoved the container back at him, to which he leaned back in the seat with his arms folded over his chest.
He stood up and she followed him into the next room. He whirled around and she latched onto the crotch of his jeans, much to his surprise.
"He—Heck—Hell—Hello!"
"Don't make me stick my fingers in you," she taunted him.
"How exactly will you stick your fingers in me?" he sputtered.
"That's for me to know and for you to find out." She let go of him.
Eric then reached forward and slapped Alex on the arm with a rolled up newspaper.
"Ow!" Alex lunged forward at the impact.
"Knock it off," Eric scolded him.
"Why'd you hit me?" he demanded.
"Stop," Eric snapped.
"Why'd you hit me?" Alex repeated.
"To get you to stop. She's trying to come through to you somehow and so you should listen to her."
"You could've done something else."
"Like what?"
"Spank me, I dunno."
"Spank you?" Eric chuckled at him.
"Wait did I say that?"
"Yeah, you did." Sam giggled and lingered closer to him. His body was warm, and from what she could tell, rather silky from all the soup. She set her hands on his shoulders and massaged him.
"You need to relax," she told him. "You're all tightly coiled—I mean, I'm feeling you right now, you're all tense."
"Yeah, Alex, chill out for a little bit," Eric advised him. "We're done recording the album and the producers are taking it from here. Let's just relax and eat some more soup."
"I'm so full, though," Alex insisted; Sam came closer to him with her hand on his stomach.
"Yeah, you are," she said in a soft voice, "and—I'm sorry I did that to you. I only did it just to test you."
He sighed through his nose.
"This might be the last summer we get to hang out together," he declared.
"Literally," she told him, and she thought about the last Christmas she spent with Joey back in New York; "I mean, you guys might take off and I might, too."
"You guys ought to have a summer of banging before things start getting crazy," Eric suggested as he lay down on the couch and tucked his hands underneath his head.
"We can just go on over to Anthrax's house and do it," Sam said.
"Go on over to Anthrax's house?" Alex laughed out loud.
She moved in closer to his face and parted her lips a bit. His body was warm and soft, even as she hung right before him with only an inch between them. She brought her hands down to the small of his back, and her lips to the side of his neck. He smelled like ginger and that soft cologne she had grown so acquainted with in the past several months.
He treated her to a soft mellow groan from his throat.
"That is pretty good soup, too," he told her.
"The chicken noodle?" she asked him, to which he nodded. She kissed the side of his neck again, and then she led him into her room. Of the three of them, he had eaten the most that evening: Alex lay down flat on his back and with his jeans unbuttoned and his shirt lifted up. Sam peeled off her top and then she took a spot on the edge of the bed next to him. A part of her wanted to touch his silken skin there on his waist but she also wanted him to lay there and digest it all.
He looked up at her with a dazed expression plastered across his face.
"You look really cute right about now," she remarked.
"I look cute?"
"Really, really cute."
"Who's cute?" Eric called from the next room as Alex stifled a belch.
"Alejandro here," Sam replied with a slight toss of her blonde highlights.
Eric burst out laughing at that. She leaned over Alex's lush body and nudged his hair out from his eyes.
"I can't believe you're actually going places with your art now, Samantha," he told her in a low voice. "Like it's the real thing now."
"I can't believe it, either," she confessed as she planted a little kiss right onto his soft sensual lips. Even in the dim light, she could make out the sight of the downtrodden look on his face. There was no way they could go any further right then and there, aside from the full on make out session, not with the heavy feeling in his stomach and ultimately his heart. Not with the tears which brimmed his deep eyes.
But he showed her a little smile at that.
"You guys'll kick ass," she assured him in a low voice as she slipped her tongue into his mouth, the deepest kiss she had given him at that point and one that put her kisses to Joey in the backseat, "I promise."