Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
NOW: JUNE
The next morning, despite the fact that it dawns as painfully early as ever, begins with what is easily one of the best awakenings of Sam’s life.
Although he’s usually one of those people who finds waking up a series of little agonies, today it’s soft, lazy, his whole body feeling loose and relaxed.
He’s comfortable in a way he isn’t entirely familiar with, and rubs his head lightly against his pillow, sleepily confused by the way it feels different against his cheek than usual.
It’s only when the pillow huffs out half a laugh and sinks fingers into his hair that Sam realizes fuzzily that it’s Jake, and blinks his eyes open. He must have fallen asleep with his head on Jake’s chest; when he lifts it, Jake lets the hand in his hair slide down to his neck and says, “Hi.”
“Hi,” Sam breathes, half-certain he’s still asleep. Did that all really happen last night? The bar, and the dancing, and the conversation, and the sex. God, that thing Jake did with his—
“I turned off your alarm,” Jake says, derailing Sam’s train of thought. “Sorry. I only let you sleep a couple extra minutes, and I wouldn’t have normally. I just think it’s cruel and unusual self-punishment that you start your day with an air-raid siren.”
“’S the only way I’ll wake up,” Sam protests, yawning on it in the middle.
“Sleep right through everything else. Should be getting up even earlier, honestly, but, ugh. I can’t bear to.
” Sitting up properly, he takes a brief self-assessment and winces at Jake.
“Speaking of what a person can bear: I’d kiss you right now, but I think my morning breath might be kind of gnarly. ”
“That is decidedly mutual,” Jake says, with a little grimace, and then grins at him. “Let’s risk it.”
They do. As a result—and for the first time in years—Sam is late unlocking the deli’s front door for the staff, and comes downstairs to see, on the other side, the glaring faces of Alphonse and Eileen.
Al pulls him into a brief and surprising hug when Sam opens the door, then pulls away and snaps, “We thought you were dead, man!” as he pushes past him to the kitchen.
Eileen, even more surprisingly, seems almost amused.
“He thought you were dead,” she confides, sotto voce, when Alphonse is out of earshot.
“But I heard you copy my drink order. Hit you harder than you thought it would, eh, kid?” She cackles as she heads into the back, and Sam decides not to tell her that he gave the drink to Jake after one overwhelming sip. She seems so pleased with herself.
It was worth it, in any case, even if Alphonse does spend the next hour occasionally glaring at Sam and saying he’s glad he’s alive.
As the streaky dawn light brightens into a warm June morning, Sam thinks almost anything would be worth it for a few more minutes in bed with Jake.
And he thinks, too, that today he could face any irate customer, any grim daily total, any stupid, poisonous review.
The knowledge that Jake is upstairs, snoozing comfortably while Sam starts the day, is like a balm to all the petty wounds of working life.
As they get closer to opening, the rest of the morning shift shuffles in for their slightly later call times.
Joey’s late, grinning and sheepish, waving Sam off again when he offers to let them just take the day.
They need the money, apparently, to help defray the cost of some mysterious afternoon plans.
This element of the unknown draws the attention of the rest of the staff, who, as they finish their opening tasks, all drift towards the front to observe or participate in the ongoing attempt to get them to divulge the details.
This is why, when Jake comes down five minutes before the deli opens, everyone on shift is loosely grouped in front of the stairwell.
Even if it weren’t for the hour, or the loose, unkempt state of Jake’s hair, it’s obvious in a glance what’s happened between them: Jake is wearing one of Sam’s favorite T-shirts and a pair of his boxers, that latter of which fit him like regular shorts but very visibly are not.
Jake sees the assembled at the same moment they see him, when he’s about halfway down the stairs.
He freezes, instantly turning the unhappy gray color of overcooked meat; the staff freezes, although some of them only after their mouths have dropped open; everyone stares, aghast, at everyone.
Jake’s eyes meet Sam’s, panicked and too wide, and he squeaks, as though speaking only to Sam, “Oh, God. I… forgot.”
Sound erupts from the room, everyone seeming to decide to speak at once.
“I KNEW IT,” Joey shrieks, pumping their fist in the air. “Luce owes me twenty dollars; I knew the two of you would have to get over yourselves eventually and bone!”
“I should’ve guessed that’s why you were down late for the door this morning,” Alphonse says, grinning at Sam and shaking his head. “I bet even death wouldn’t have stopped you, you’d just have floated down and unlocked it as a ghost, but if it was him distracting you? Completely checks out.”
“How long has this been going on?” Eileen demands, and, fixing Sam with a gimlet eye, adds, “Joanie’s going to be very displeased to be hearing about it from me, you know. Very displeased.”
“You don’t have to tell her,” Sam says to Eileen. He hasn’t glanced away from Jake, who is starting to look less panicked and more grimly resigned to his fate; there’s even a faint glimmer of amusement in his eyes.
Sam should quit smiling, probably. It’s just that he hasn’t been able to stop since he woke up this morning.
And then Jake’s smiling, too, and running an embarrassed hand over his face, and laughing the strained, slightly desperate laugh of those in situations where there’s nothing to do but laugh.
After a beat Sam starts laughing, too, and then they’re all laughing, and shaking their heads, and getting back to work.
Someone calls out, “About time, you crazy kids!” While Sam knows logically that it must have been Eileen, he can’t quite convince himself that’s possible.
Jake, with a look at Sam that says quite clearly, I am playing it cool but have died ten thousand deaths inside, turns around and proceeds back upstairs at a rather quicker pace than he descended.
He’s gone for a few minutes and then, seemingly having decided he has no choice but to brazen it out, re-emerges wearing the same stolen T-shirt, but also a stolen pair of Sam’s sweatpants.
“I don’t remember saying you could borrow my clothes,” Sam teases, not meaning it at all, when Jake joins him at the far counter. If anything, he finds Jake’s casual appropriation of his wardrobe a promising sign, not to mention upsettingly sexy.
“Yeah, well, you didn’t say I could announce that we hooked up last night to the entire staff in the most personally embarrassing way possible, and I did that anyway, so.” Jake shrugs, his smile not quite reaching his eyes. “Might be best to assume I’m a bit of a wild card.”
Mindful of the fact that they have an audience, however occupied everyone might seem, Sam bumps his shoulder against Jake’s. “You’re not really worried about that, are you? Because I promise you, it’s fine. They like you! Nobody’s going to be weird about it.”
Again, Jake’s smile looks slightly hollow; he never did, Sam remembers, like to be seen by a group with anything else than perfect control of himself.
“Thanks, that… helps. Look, can we go to dinner tonight, maybe? Somewhere less, uh, here? Not that here isn’t great, it’s just attached to your apartment, and I want to actually talk to you, not, um.
” He glances up at Sam, his cheeks flushing and his smile abruptly looking a lot more genuine, and finishes, “Not get too distracted to talk to you.”
Sam beams at him, delighted by this idea. “Absolutely. Johnny’s? After close? They’re just around the corner, and the food’s great.”
“Great,” Jake echoes. He glances around, looking hunted, before confiding in low tones, “I feel like a zoo animal. I’m going to go to work now, where no one’s ever seen me in my underwear or yours.”
“Do you not count those leotards you used to wear as underwear?” Sam smirks when Jake blushes. “Wait, do you still wear them? Because if so, I’d like to see—”
“Bye, Sam!” Jake says with finality. But he pauses, blush deepening, and then leans in and quickly kisses Sam before hurrying off.
They don’t end up making it to Johnny’s.
Around 3 p.m., Jake walks back into the diner with his hair askew and his eyes wild.
The wild eyes aren’t surprising—Jake looks like that a few times a day, most days, and often over such minor horrors as “Someone on television used an idiom wrong,” or, “The burritos at a nearby restaurant are slightly different than they were fifteen years ago.” But the hair is downright alarming, from Jake.
“Uh,” Sam says. “You good?”
“Not really,” Jake admits. “I’m kind of in a bit of a…
situation.” He runs a hand through his hair, pulling it straight up as he does so, which at least answers the question of how he came to look like he’s about to be struck by lightning.
“Weird question, but how much do you know about, like, catering?”
Sam gives him a flat look, not sure if this is a joke or not. When Jake just stares imposingly back at him, he gestures at the deli around them, and then at the delivery van visible through the open window.
Jake’s face collapses into a comical little scrunch of regret, and then he says, “God, right, sorry, I’m an idiot, terrible phrasing, of course you know about catering, sorry, I wasn’t like—”