Grimacing as she chewed a mouthful of the carrots that Sam had forced her to buy, Mira leaned back against the wood. Her arm came to rest behind them, fingers tangling in a carefully curled strand of Sam’s hair.
“I never thought you’d cut your hair that short,” she mused, eyes on the small park across the lot where a husky puppy bounded across the grass, dragging the kid holding his leash behind him. “And now it’s back to its length when we met.
“Time tends to do that. To hair and all.” Sam took a deep gulp of her water, turning to face Mira as her phone let out a particularly noisy vibration. Mira’s phone had been going off for the whole time they’d been stopped, and the older girl seemed to have given up on answering the texts after about the tenth consecutive buzz. So, yeah, maybe Sam had the bet a bit on her mind as she pointedly stared at the phone by Mira’s leg. “Someone you need to answer?”
Mira scowled, popping another carrot into her mouth. “Not particularly.” Her hand dropped from Sam’s hair, shooting sparks up her spine as Mira’s fingers ghosted over the thin fabric of her tank top. “Do you have any idea how much longer we have to go?”
Sam pulled out her own phone, ignoring two texts from AJ and Gerald, as well as a series of Facebook messages from Carl as she pulled up the map app. “It says like five-ish hours, so we’ll be on time.”
Mira stood up and stretched her arms with a yawn. “Cool. Do you want these carrots or have I not been healthy enough for you yet, Mom?”
“I’m sorry that I don’t want you to die,” Sam said, taking the offered bag from Mira. “Not like I can keep an eye on what you feed yourself much anymore.”
Mira’s jaw tightened as she slowly pulled her hand back. “Yeah,” she murmured. “Not sure what I’m gonna do without you in LA.”
Sam’s eyes lingered somewhere around her girlfriend’s nose, abnormally clear without the fifty pounds of protective eyeliner that she was oft to wear. These moments always left Elmira feeling almost naked as Sam wordlessly bored into her with her gaze, and Mira could never be sure whether the younger woman was saying or asking something in the silence, but the stillness would pass before she could react.
Sam’s phone was responsible for the cessation of her scrutiny this time, and Mira looked over to where Sam had left it on the bench next to her, only to have her little terrier dart over to pick it up before she could see the screen.
“Should we get going?”
Swinging the keys around her finger, Mira nodded. “I would ask if you wanted to drive for a bit, but I’m not sure that you could see over the wheel.”
“Fight me, Garcia.”
In later years, Sam would argue to Mira that it really should’ve been her responsibility to settle the bet. Elmira had been the one who had started it, three cups of punch and four tequila shots in at Sam’s birthday party following the younger woman’s graduation. After two hours of dancing with her girlfriend, shots after shots to celebrate her freedom from her family, Carl, Gerald, and admittedly Mira, had refused to let the party die.
While Carl and Elmira had rounded up the rest, Sam had found her way to the lounge chairs on the far side of the pool where Carl and AJ lay next to each other, AJ’s arm around Gerald’s shoulder even as they remained silent.
“Ge!” Sam was drunk, and she knew it, but the goofy grin she received from her high school best friend suggested that he was in the same state. “We’re going back because this party is dead.”
A quick glance at AJ. “Sorry, J.” Gerald sat up, shaking off AJ’s hand as the latter stared blankly at his college best friend borrowing his boyfriend.
“Yeah, sure,” AJ sighed, grimacing as Gerald draped his arm around Sam’s waist to support their drunk friend. “Take care of him, okay?”
“Always do, AJ.” So maybe the wink was a little much, but it was out before she could stop it, and she slung her arm around Gerald as he guided her over to the waiting group.
They hung back slightly, mainly because Sam hadn’t bothered to change out of her high-heeled boots from the performance and couldn’t seem to understand how to walk when she and Carl were around the same height. After she’d jogged ahead and almost tripped over the edge of the sidewalk for the fifth time, he allowed Sam to walk directly behind him, hands clasped onto his shoulders for balance.
“He’s not happy.” The gentleman’s voice floated back, prompting a snort from Sam as she leaned forward to place her face cheek-to-cheek with Gerald’s.
“You did kind of just leave him there, G-man,” Sam whispered, Gerald’s hair tickling the edge of her nose.
“All I did was shake his hand off.” Gerald turned to face Sam, gripping her forearms right below her elbows. “I had places to go. Besides, I left him his hand.”
“Gerald!” Sam pushed him back lightly, the boy doubling over with that rich, unfettered laugh. “You are drunk.”
With a weak approximation of a nonchalant shrug, Gerald turned and sprinted off towards their hopefully-less-tipsy friends.
After a ten-minute squabble over seating position, the group had settled around the table in the living room, cups filled with anything ranging from water to straight whiskey for Carl. Elmira was nursing a beer can, pressed into a chair that would have been uncomfortably squished for two people if its other occupant wasn’t halfway on her lap and the size of a ten-year-old. Despite Sam’s protests, Carl had given Gerald a weak — at least by Mira’s standards — vodka tonic. Hating to even witness the crime, the tiny brunette faced Elmira with the drink’s lime garnish sticking out of her mouth.
Elmira pulled the fruit out of Sam’s mouth delicately, fingers darting back just in time as Sam attempted to nip at her fingers. “I’m pretty sure the lime in the mouth thing is only for body shots,” Mira said, glaring at a winking Isabeau across the room.
It was that redhead’s fault that she was in this predicament anyways; Bo had draped herself over as much of the couch as physically possible, forcing the rest to fill up the remaining seats as Elmira wrangled an uncharacteristically wild Sam.
“Well, maybe that can come later.” The following wink was probably a bit more adorable than Sam had intended it to be, and Mira pushed her back into the corner of the chair as Carl took his seat on the floor by the table.
Carl snorted into Gerald’s shoulder, and the latter took a deep breath, not even daring to look over as his leaned against him.
“Hey, Carl,” Bo called out in an attempt to save the poor boy from the contact. “Don’t you owe me money from freshman year with that bet on who Sam was going to get together with?”
“I…I don’t remember anything like that.”
“Mmhmm.”
“Ask me again once we’re sober, yeah?”
“Oh, please. You always forget whenever you borrow money from me.”
Carl sat up, frowning.
“You know what?” Elmira pushed herself forward, fearing things could escalate between her and Sam’s favorite people in college. “I’ll give you double or nothing on something new.”
“Isn’t that a little insensitive, gambling and all?” Elmira’s latest favorite person chimed in.
Isabeau hushed her best friend’s crush with a finger, locking onto her best friend’s eyes. “What you got, Elmira?”
“Timing on when Gerald and the sexually confused popcorn lover call it quits.”
There was a deep intake of breath as all eyes in the room turned to Elmira, who looked back up at them with a goofy grin before tapping the girl on her lap for help.
“Stakes?”
Mira thought for a moment. “Fifty bucks, cash.”
“Pssh, I thought you were some sort of badass crocodile wrangler or something.” Isabeau leaned forward. “I’m in with at least a hundred.”
“If Gerald doesn’t care, count me in.” Carl leaned back and crossed his arms. He came in soonest at Thanksgiving Break next year, with Elmira landing on the week after Bo’s wedding. When everyone had spoken, Isabeau turned to Sam.
“What about you, love?”
She trapped squeezed Gerald’s shoulder and searched those light brown eyes for a sign of anything other than the passivity they’d held throughout most of the conversation. When Gerald simply winked at her, she looked back up. “Six months after graduation.” It was reasonable, and, most importantly, it was the latest, as any supportive best friend would make their bet.
Gerald snorted, pushing himself up by the elbows. “Hell, with that much money, I’m in. At least one year after graduation.”
Bo took the final note on her phone before sending a screenshot to their group chat. Catching Sam’s look of concern, Gerald grinned. “Dude, it’s a bet I control. I’d be stupid not to get in on it.”
It was so nonchalant that it only served to increase the tightness in Sam’s gut, as if Gerald could not care less that his romantic future was essentially tied around a thousand bucks. Just as Sam began to analyze whether this meant that a) Gerald was so sure in her relationship with AJ that he figured he’d be making an easy payday out of it or b) that the relationship already felt sterile enough that treating it like a business transaction wouldn’t change too much, Carl cleared his throat.
“So I guess we’ll have a fun little party at my house this summer.” When all eyes were on him, he dramatically raised his hands. “I got the project with Pixar!”
The room filled with shouts of congratulations.
“Great job, man,” Bo said. “Try not to ménage too many trois without us.”
The night devolved into a series of drinking games that Elmira watched from the chair, trapped underneath Sam, who was doing her best to hide the fact that she was nodding off every fifteen minutes.
Elmira remain in the same position until the next morning, with Sam having turned in the night so she was face-first against Elmira’s abdomen. And no matter how much Sam wanted to just stay curled up against her crush at the time, she needed pee, so she got up and sprinted to the nearest bathroom only to find Bo asleep in the tub. With a sigh, she jogged upstairs, taking an extra minute to smooth back her hair and wipe the eyeliner streaks from her face before returning to the living room.
Gerald was sitting up when Sam rounded the corner, that particular hungover squint on his face. “Hey.” It was weak and low, punctuated by a sigh when she presented him with a glass of water.
Leaning up against the counter, Sam did her best judgmental soccer mom impression. “I really tried to stop you,” she said. “But, and I quote, ‘I am a grown-ass adult, Sam. I walked you here in these boots. Do you see how tall these boots are? They make me an adult, and adults like vodka.’”
“Fuck past me.” He finished the glass and set it on the table. “Eh, at least he secured me a nice payday.”
Sam stared as blankly as she could manage at Gerald. “You actually want to do the bet?”
Gerald nodded. “LA’s expensive.”
And that was all. No one else bothered to check on Gerald, and the only one who did so did it out of guilt.