Plugging in her ear-buds, Sami reached over to Lynn's hand with her own and squeezed it tenderly, which drew a smile from Lynn.
They were taxiing and about to take off from LAX for the final leg of their flight to Maui. Sami's insides was aflutter with excitement for this trip; hell, except for moving to New Orleans for college, the furthest that Sami had ever been from her home near Jackson, was to Birmingham, so yes, Sami was excited by the trip.
Feeling the big jet lift from the runway, Sami's eyes took in the blue waters of the Pacific, while her ears heard the earthy tones of Etta James, singing only as Etta could do. Looking to Lynn as she leaned back in her first-class seat, Sami's thoughts returned to the other thing that had her stomach aflutter.
The awfulness of the scene with Charlene, and her being 'outed' by the girl she once loved like a sister.
That New Year's Day, after Charlene had screamed Sami's lesbianism to the family, Sami had run up the stairs, slamming her door and throwing herself onto her bed, her hands shaking with the urge to strangle that bitch, Charlene.
Oh sure, Sami could've fired right back, dropping Charlene into the grease as well, but for once in her life, Sami chose not to do that; was it because at the bottom of it all, she still had deep feelings for Charlene? Sami didn't know that, but she did know that it this case, turnabout wasn't fair play.
Sami heard the car door slam shut, and heard Charlene drive off, spinning her wheels and trying to throw gravel at Sami's new car. Thankfully, she missed. Sami heard the muffled conversation, downstairs, between her parents, and Charlene's parents, finally pulling a pillow over her head and ears.
The winter sun was setting when the soft knock at her door awakened Sami; automatically, Sami said, "Come in," and was greeted by the sight of her dad, a small smile on his face.
Sami felt the heat rush to her face in embarrassment and shame, turning her face from her pops.
"Mom fixed you a plate of supper and has it in the fridge, baby, you know, if you're hungry," Sami's dad said as he sat on the corner of Sami's bed.
"Thanks, pops, but I'm not feeling very hungry right now, okay? Maybe later," Sami replied.
The silence was deafening in Sami's childhood room.
"Sami, just so that you know, about what's going on between you and your cousin; well, mom and I just want you to know that nothing will ever change the fact that you're our babygirl, and that we love you as you are, for who you are," Sami's pops said.
"And just so that you know," Sami's dad continued, "your cousin's accusations in front of us wasn't right; it wasn't right to do that, to embarrass you like that, and its not like she told us something that we hadn't already sorta figured out for ourselves," he said, patting Sami on her leg, gently, fatherly, his touch, a tonic for Sami's troubled soul.
Turning her head to face her pops, with her mouth open, in shock? Sami just stared at him, wanting to say something but her mouth just not working at the moment.
Smiling, Sami's dad pulled his babygirl to his body, his long, farmer-muscled arms wrapping around her, protectively, his voice trying to soothe her crying.
"Sami, you're just too pretty of a woman not to have beaus lined up clear back to Memphis; when you avoided dating in high school and at college, well sugar, your mom and me might be country, but we've still got a few brain cells between us," chuckling a bit while his hand patted and smoothed Sami-girl's blonde tresses.
Sniffling, but still keeping her head against her pops' chest, Sami said, "And you and mom, ya'll are okay with that?"
"We're okay with you, Sami-girl, we're okay with you; and if that's who you are, then, yes, we're okay with 'that', as you say," planting a soft kiss to his babygirl's head, afterwards.
They held on to each other for a while, neither talking, both letting the moment go where it will.
"Hungry, munchkin?" Sami's dad finally asked, breaking the silence.
"I could eat," Sami admitted.
"Yeah, you always could do that," Pops jokingly said and giving Sami a good-natured shove afterwards.
"Yeah, well, it's all that slave labor you had me do as a kid," Sami teased back, pushing back at her pops.
Hearing them walking down the stairs, Sami's mom walked in from the porch, and without a word, hugged her beautiful, golden-haired daughter, closing her eyes and thanking the good Lord that they had Sami in their lives.
Despite the horrible end of the old year with Charlene, it was an outstanding way to start a New Year.
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Sami absolutely fell in love with Hawaii and had she been able to, she would have pressed the rewind button on her life to the beginning of their trip so that it would never end.
She got her very first taste of 'Maui Wowie' through Lynn's friend, Pete, and knew, instinctively, that all other weed would forever pale in comparison. She and Lynn played golf, played with a couple of local college students, and of course, played with each other, neither tiring of bedding the other.
For Sami, however, one of the most touching evenings of the whole trip was the evening she and Lynn spent with the two ladies, life-partners, who lived up the road from their rented condo.
As Sami played with their dog and listened to the conversation, her heart ached for what she felt 'might' have been the future for her and Bonnie, had the fates dictated otherwise than what had happened on that horrible night that she lost Bonnie.
As much as she loved Lynn and Ali, she knew that they would, one day, be that couple, not she and they; and she knew that to think otherwise would be setting herself up for the heartbreak of all heartbreaks.
But for however long it would last, she could not deny the love in her heart for her two girls.
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Sami had to pinch herself, at times, to check if she was really awake, and to see if all of this good fortune had, indeed, really happened to her.
By the time she left her two loves in Hawaii and had returned to the City, she had become an officer of their corporation, had been given the green light to pursue her website idea, and had been offered Ali's French Quarter apartment to rent, for her own space.
The girls' friend, Sharon, wasn't exactly moving with speed in her search of an apartment for Sami; oh, Sharon had taken Sami on several 'look-sees' at places, but none of them met the criteria of Sami.
After the third or fourth such outing, Sami realized that Sharon was more about trying to get into Sami's pants than she was about finding Sami a place to live. Not that Sharon wasn't a 'bedable' commodity; she was good-looking, had a great body, and as sexed-up as any woman Sami had been around. Bitch was constantly horny, Sami thought, and seemingly always on the prowl for cock or pussy; Sharon was an equal opportunity slut, for damn sure, Sami had figured out.
