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The next morning, Josie swept into the Sun-Times office wearing a wide smile. As she passed Merkin, she glanced down and noticed that he was deeply involved with playing a game on his cell phone. She stopped and looked down at him. "Good morning, Merkin," she said.
Startled, Merkin quickly pushed some buttons and started scrolling his phone directory. "Oh. Right. Good morning, boss."
"What are you doing?" she asked, although she already knew the answer.
"Oh," he shrugged nonchalantly, "I was trying to find the number for Office Max. I noticed that we're kind of short on, uh, index cards, and I didn't want you to run out."
"Really? That's so sweet of you! And here I actually thought you were playing Tetris." Josie grinned.
"Yeah� Well� I pushed a wrong button and hey! Whaddaya know? I mean, there's Tetris. Know what I mean?"
"Yeah." Josie smiled to herself and continued into her office. She set her briefcase on the desk, raised the blinds, and watched the people and cars moving on the street below. Even now, everything about last night seemed like a dream too wonderful to be true. Her reverie was quickly interrupted by the voice of Anita from the doorway.
"Well, good morning, Miss Sunshine! Why are we in such a good mood?"
Josie turned around as Anita shut the door. Smiling mysteriously, she opened her briefcase and began pulling out papers. "Good mood?" she asked innocently.
Anita sat down and crossed her arms, giving Josie her "give me a break!" look. "Your useless assistant is playing Tetris on his cell phone, and you say, 'Oh, that's so sweet of you!'" Anita quoted Josie in a high, squeaky, falsetto voice.
"I didn't say it like that," Josie laughed.
"Anyway, you're getting off the subject," Anita persisted. "What's with the glowing face?"
Josie switched on her computer and began shuffling papers to organize her work for the day. "Nothing," she hedged.
"Liar."
"Really." Josie insisted.
"Liar." Anita paused. "You got laid last night, didn't you?"
Josie's mouth fell open into a shocked smile. "What? Anita!"
Anita grinned. "Not yet, huh? You got a hot date?"
With a deep blush, Josie looked down and began fiddling with a pencil. She answered only with a nod.
"That's great!" Anita gushed. "With who? Roger's friend?"
"If you mean the literary wrestler, no," Josie deadpanned.
"Then who . . ." Anita's voice trailed off as she realized what was going on. "Josie�" Anita grinned like the cat who ate the canary. "You called Sam Coulson last night, didn't you?"
Josie blushed again. "Yeah."
Anita sat farther forward in her chair. "And he asked you out?"
"Yeah."
Anita had been smiling from ear to ear when a thought made her frown. "What about the girlfriend?"
"They broke up," Josie explained.
"Woo hoo! I told you! So, you finally told him the truth; that's really great, Jos!"
Josie shifted uncomfortably in her chair. "Well . . . actually . . . not exactly."
"What do you mean?" Anita asked, furrowing her brow.
"I couldn't tell him the truth. I can't. Not yet."
"So he still thinks you're married?" Anita turned her nose up in disgust. "Listen, Josie, you don't want to get involved with a creep who would do something like that. I can tell you from personal experience. There was this guy�"
Josie interrupted, "I told him we're separated."
"Ohhhhh, so the whole thing with you and Merkin is over now." Anita grinned mischievously at the look Josie gave her. "Okay, okay."
Josie looked down at her hands. "The only thing is� I feel awful lying to him like this."
Anita nodded. "You're gonna have a lot of explaining to do."
"I know," Josie replied with a grimace. "I just hope he understands."
"If he really cares about you, Josie, he'll understand," Anita assured her confidently. "So�where are you two going on your 'date'?"
Josie smiled. "The prom."
Anita burst into laughter. "The prom!? Isn't that just like high school. So, uh, what are you gonna do after the prom?" she asked with a wink.
"Anita!" Josie knew that her cheeks must be scarlet. "I can't just hop in the bed with someone like that."
"Not till the second date, huh?"
Josie rolled her eyes. "Anita . . ."
"Okay, okay," Anita laughed, raising her hands in surrender. "Look, I am so happy for you. You have got to tell me every little detail."
"There's no 'got,' it's superfluous," Josie observed absently.
"What?"
"Never mind," replied Josie, waving her hand in dismissal.
"So what's the theme for the prom?"
Josie wrinkled her nose. "Barbie and Ken."
"Barbie and Ken?" Anita repeated.
"Yeah."
"Right." Anita paused. "Are you gonna dress up like a Barbie doll?"
"Yeah, I guess I have to, huh?"
After another short pause, they both met each other's eyes and burst into giggles. "Okay, I have to know. Which Barbie will you be?"
"I don't know." Josie didn't know much about Barbie dolls. "What would you do?"
Anita's eyes twinkled. "I'd be hooker Barbie."
Josie shook her head and laughed. "You are incorrigible! Come on, be serious."
"Why not newspaper reporter Barbie?"
"Yes, of course!" Josie paused and frowned. "Wait a minute�do they have one of those?"
"How the heck should I know? They have one for everything else, why not a reporter? You know, deep sea diving Barbie. Ice fisher Barbie. Tattoo artist Barbie�"
"Hooker Barbie," Josie added dryly.
"Exactly," Anita agreed.
* * *
Swiping a dot of pink paint from his cheek, Sam looked away from the Barbie convertible backdrop he was working on and scanned the maze of students and decorations for the thousandth time, searching for Josie. This time his efforts were rewarded; his eyes found her and locked themselves on her. He knew he should go to meet her, but he found himself unable to move or even think coherently.
All he could do was watch her, completely unaware that paint was dribbling steadily down from his upturned paintbrush onto his hand. She was enchanting as she moved shyly through the crowd of young strangers. Sam watched her tuck a few blond curls behind her ear as she stepped gingerly over some paint cans and stammered, "Oh, excuse me . . . sorry."
When she finally noticed him, Josie greeted him with a wave and a warm smile that made his heart pound. As he watched her make her way towards him, Sam thought of a line from an e.e. cummings poem: "lovers alone wear sunlight," finally understanding just what the poet meant.
A second later, he faintly heard something hit the ground and then the pressure of a hand on his arm and the sound of a student's voice jerked him back to the present. "Mr. Coulson? Mr. Coulson, are you okay?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine," he replied, nervously running a hand through his hair, realizing too late that it had been covered with paint. He closed his eyes in shock, knowing he must now have a streak of bright pink paint in his hair. 'Smooth, Sam�really smooth,' he thought to himself. Then he looked down to notice that his paintbrush lay in a hot-pink puddle on the ground. Sam almost laughed out loud as he bent to retrieve it.
When he straightened again, he found himself face-to-face with Josie. "Oh!" he exclaimed in surprise, not expecting her to be right in front of him. "Hi."
Josie blushed and averted her eyes. "Hi," she replied softly.
She met his eyes again, and they both stared at each other, not knowing what to say. Sam's eyes wandered down to her pretty, doll-like lips, and he could think of nothing he wanted to do more than to . . . but he couldn't, he quickly chided himself. Noticing that Josie had an amused grin on her face, he asked, "What?"
Josie pointed to his hair. "Is this a new look for you?"
Sam smiled good-naturedly. "Why? Do you like it?" he teased.
"It's very avant-garde. But I wouldn't have gone quite so�pink." Josie wrinkled her nose impishly.
"No?" Sam asked, pretending to be hurt. "Looks better on the Barbie convertible, I guess."
"Yeah."
There was another pause as they smiled at each other. As he realized they'd been staring at each other longer than was proper, Sam broke eye contact and cleared his throat. "Well� Um . . .we better get to work." He ran his eyes down her figure in an innocent appraisal of what she was wearing. She had on worn, comfortable-looking jeans, a yellow T-shirt, and old sneakers. "Looks like you're ready to get dirty."
Josie grinned as she slid an elastic band off her wrist and swept her hair up into a messy ponytail. "Now I am. Where's my paintbrush?" she asked, sliding her hands into her back pockets.
Sam reached over to the worktable and grabbed a brush, dipped it into the pink paint, wiped the excess on the side of the can, and then handed it to Josie. "There you go. Have at it. I obviously don't have any expert painting advice to give," he quipped, motioning to his pink hair and hands.
Josie laughed and turned to the backdrop, kneeling on the ground to paint the "underside" of the car, just above the back wheels. Seconds later, Sam was inches away from her, working on an area just above the rear fender. He was near enough to allow her to feel his warmth, and Josie found herself having to take a deep, calming breath. Suddenly, she felt a drop of paint plop onto her forehead.
"Oops, sorry about that," Sam apologized. With a sexy, sheepish smile, he turned toward Josie and swept his thumb across her forehead to remove the paint.
Her skin tingled from his touch, and Josie knew her knees would have given out if she'd been standing up. She fought to keep her head on straight. "You might just be the messiest painter I've ever met in my life!" Josie looked up into Sam's wondrous green eyes and laughed.
Sam shrugged in response. "It used to be a good thing," he joked. "My dad never made me paint the house in the summer. Our windows and shrubbery always ended up matching the house."
Josie dabbed the tip of his nose with her paintbrush. "This is to match your hair," she supplied in explanation, grinning widely.
In response, Sam countered, "This is to match my nose," sweeping his brush softly across her cheek. Soon, they were both laughing and dabbing each other with paint, getting more on each other than on the backdrop.
Two hours later, Sam and Josie walked towards the parking lot, each covered from head to toe with splotches and streaks of hot-pink paint. Once they were free of the crowd of students, Sam looked over at Josie and studied her profile. He wondered how much she actually felt for him. Was she ready for them to have a relationship?
He understood that she might be hesitant to get close to another man after separating from her husband. But then again, he reasoned, she seemed to readily accept every opportunity he offered for them to be together. So, as they walked, he reached out and took her hand in his.
Josie felt her face flushing as Sam clasped her hand and intertwined his fingers with hers. This had to be a dream, she thought, because it couldn't possibly be real. She knew that at any moment, she'd wake up alone in her bed, lost in a sea of small, needlepoint pillows, instead of being near this wonderfully sweet man.
Neither of them said a word as they strolled slowly through the parking lot. 'This is the loveliest feeling in the world,' Josie thought, and she was sorry when she spotted her car and realized that at least this part of the dream would soon be over.
When they reached her car, Sam remained silent, and still hadn't released her hand. Josie fished in her pocket with her other hand for her keys and unlocked her car door.
"Josie," Sam said softly, running his thumb over her hand. "Did you have a good time?"
She was intensely aware of his closeness and the movement of his thumb against her hand. She turned and met his gaze, very appreciative of the fact that all the paint on her face covered her deep blush. "I had a wonderful time," she told him.
"You have a little paint on your face," he said jokingly, with that smile that always made Josie shiver.
"At least we match," Josie smiled back.
Sam gazed deeply into her eyes and murmured, "Yes, I think we do." Sam released her hand and reached up to touch the side of her face with his fingers. "Till tomorrow night?"
"Yeah." Her voice had failed her entirely, and her reply was nothing but a whisper.
Sam slid his fingers down to her neck and leaned closer to her. For Josie, everything had become a complete blur. Her senses were filled with him: his touch, his smell, his voice, his eyes. She had never been this close to a man, and she felt a dizzying combination of fear and anticipation.
Josie sensed that he wanted to kiss her, and she herself wanted him to more than anything. But�her conscience managed to speak to her despite the heady rush of feelings. She had lied�indeed, was still lying�to Sam, and she couldn't let him do what he was about to do before she'd given him nothing but the truth. Lydia would "graduate" in a couple of weeks, and then Josie could tell Sam everything. Until then�
"Sam," she breathed, drawing back a little. "I can't do this."
Sam connected her hesitance to the only thing he could. "God, I'm sorry," he said, withdrawing his hand and combing it shakily through his streak of pink hair. "I know you're probably still getting over Merkin."
Despite the serious nature of the situation, Josie had to steel herself against laughter at the idea of needing to "get over Merkin." She also felt terrible because Sam, as usual, thought this was his fault. With a warm smile, Josie reached out and boldly reclaimed his hand. "Sam, I am completely over Merkin," she assured him. "And I want to be close to you so much that I can barely think."
Sam tipped up one corner of his mouth to form that perfectly sexy grin of his. "It's good to know I'm not the only one."
Josie marveled at the idea of a man, especially this man, being so attracted to her. "You really feel that way about me?" she asked in disbelief.
Sam laughed. "Josie� I bowl gutter balls and paint myself hot-pink when I'm around you," he said, gesturing to himself for emphasis. "Did you think that I was really that much of a hopeless klutz?"
"No one's ever felt that way about me," Josie mused aloud.
Sam's laugh faded into a look of concern. "Is that why things didn't work out with Merkin?" he asked.
You idiot, Josie told herself. You're supposed to have been married, remember? "Oh," she stammered nervously, "well, Merkin . . . of course."
Sam cocked his head to the side and studied her for a few moments, then told her in a voice that made her melt, "From now on, you should never doubt that I am incredibly attracted to you."
* * *