Chapter Twenty-Three
The end of the two-week deadline Stephanie had given her loomed.
Sam needed a distraction, but she also needed help processing all of the thoughts swirling in her head.
She had texted Jordan and Dallis, and in a little over an hour, they had driven down from the city.
Once again, Sam felt gratitude for her friends.
She wouldn’t have been able to survive these tumultuous few weeks without them.
Now they were all sitting around the well-worn kitchen table, holding bottles of beer, with two open pizza boxes in front of them.
“Ugh,” Jordan said, tossing a leftover pizza crust back into the box. “I can’t eat another bite.” He leaned back in his chair and rubbed both hands over his stomach.
“That’s probably because you ate an entire pizza,” Sam teased. She wasn’t wrong. She and Dallis shared similar tastes in toppings, so they split a large pizza. Jordan wanted weird things like ham, pineapple, and jalapenos, so he had a whole pie to himself. And he definitely made the most of it.
Dallis got up and went to the refrigerator.
She rummaged through it for another bottle and turned back to the other two, a question in her eyes.
Sam signaled for another beer, while Jordan just scowled at her.
She laughed and sat down with them again at the table.
After popping the top on one of the beers, she handed it to Sam before taking a long sip of her own.
“So, are you going to tell us what happened on the date?” she asked, staring intently at Sam over the lip of her bottle. “Or do we have to pry it out of you?”
“And why haven’t we heard from you in the last week?” Jordan chimed in. “Where have you been?”
Sam shifted in her seat, her cheeks flushing as the question brought back memories of the night she had spent with Alex, and the next morning.
“Oh, you know,” she began. “It was just a date. We did the usual date stuff. We had dinner. We walked along the river.” She waved a dismissive hand, trying to avoid revealing more than necessary.
It was a sharp contrast to how she had gushed over their previous encounters.
But she knew that as soon as she told Jordan and Dallis about her week, it wouldn’t belong to just her and Alex.
She wanted to hold on to that for a little bit longer, even if she had gathered them there to help sort her thoughts.
Jordan narrowed his eyes, not buying her nonchalant, avoidant act for a second. “The usual date stuff? Sam. Come on.”
“He’s right,” Dallis said, leaning in, her gaze sharp. “You’re hiding something. Spill.”
Sam’s eyes darted to Jordan, who was watching her carefully.
His expression was a mix of amusement, laced with concern.
He had been there for Sam plus Alex round one.
He had also been there for the fallout. He knew how high the stakes were for her.
She sighed and looked down at the table.
“All right. Fine. You’re right,” she mumbled.
“Say that again.” Jordan held his hand near his ear. “I didn’t quite catch that. Did you say that I’m right?” Dallis punched him lightly in the arm before looking at Sam. He stepped back in fake alarm and petulantly rubbed his shoulder before sitting down again.
“I knew it!” Dallis focused on Sam. “I haven’t known you long, but you really aren’t good at lying.” Sam looked up indignantly, but Dallis just waved her off. “So, tell us what happened,” she pressed. “And leave nothing out.”
Sam looked down at her bottle and absentmindedly peeled at the label as she struggled to find the right words.
After a few moments, she lifted her head to look at them, a smug expression on her face.
“There are definitely things that I’ll be leaving out…
” Her voice faded as she was once again transported back to that room with Alex.
She felt the heat rise over her body as she remembered how soft and smooth Alex’s skin was, how she felt against her body, what she looked like when she…
“Oh my God,” Jordan exclaimed. “You slept together!”
Sam shook her head to clear away the images from the other night, but she still couldn’t stop the smile that spread across her face—or the blush that crept from her neck to her ears.
Both Jordan and Dallis were staring across the table at her with their jaws dropped.
Sam felt like she was on trial, or like a monkey in the zoo, or both.
“I mean, we spent the whole weekend together, and most of the rest of the week,” Sam finally admitted.
Jordan and Dallis exchanged a knowing glance, both looking at her expectantly.
Sam sighed and dropped her head into her hands as she realized she had just confirmed their suspicions.
“Wait, you knew, didn’t you?” she asked, her eyes darting back and forth between them.
“Come on, Sam,” Dallis chuckled, eyes sparkling with amusement. “We have eyes. We’ve seen the way you two look at each other.” She shrugged. “It seemed inevitable.”
“Besides, we didn’t know until you just confirmed it.
” Jordan winked, but he couldn’t hide his grin.
“In our defense, you do have a certain…chemistry.” Noticing the look on Sam’s face, Jordan leaned over to squeeze Sam’s shoulder.
“Sam, it’s really not hard to see. You and Alex have always had this…
thing, this…something between you. Even after all these years, it’s still there. Anyone can see that.”
Dallis nodded in agreement. “It’s like you two are magnets, drawn together no matter what comes between them.” She also reached across the table and placed her hand on Sam’s arm. “I’m just glad you’re finally giving in to it.”
Sam felt a lump forming in her throat from the warmth and support they were both giving her.
She pushed her chair back from the table, suddenly needing to move, to do something with her body to rid it of the excess energy coursing through her.
She began pacing the room, her steps measured and deliberate, as she tried to process everything.
“I have to figure out how to make this work,” she murmured, more to herself than Jordan and Dallis.
But they had heard her, their concerned gaze following her as she walked back and forth across the room.
“What do you mean?” Jordan asked, his voice gentle.
Sam turned to face them, arms wrapped protectively around her middle, as if trying to hold herself together.
“I can’t—” She took a deep breath, eyes pleading with them to understand.
“I have a life back in Boston. And a career that I’ve been developing for years.
” She pressed her fingertips to her temples and looked down at the ground.
“But God, when she looks at me, it’s like nothing else matters. I can’t give that up again.”
“Sam.” Jordan’s expression softened, his gaze filled with understanding and concern. “We get it.” He looked at Dallis, who nodded in agreement. “We get that it’s a lot. Of course you need time to process things.”
“And then there’s the promotion…” Her voice trailed off as she stopped her pacing and flopped back into her seat.
Jordan broke the pause first. “You heard from Stephanie?” he asked, voice carefully neutral, as if he knew how fragile Sam was in that moment.
Sam nodded, then grimaced and reached for her beer. “She called last week.”
“Last week?” Jordan looked taken aback.
“Before the date,” Sam confirmed. The label was shredding under her thumbnail, bits of it fluttering to the table, Sam still fidgeting reflexively with it.
“She wanted to know when I was coming back,” she said, voice flat.
She didn’t even need to look at Jordan to know what his expression was.
“She offered me the promotion. Officially. Director, twenty-five percent raise, profit sharing. All of it.” She vaguely waved her hand in the air.
Dallis whistled. “Damn. That’s a big deal, right?” She leaned forward, elbows propped, chin resting on her fists.
Sam opened her mouth to speak, then closed it.
Her head bobbed in a way that felt disconnected from her body.
She stared at the ring of condensation her bottle had left on the table, tracing it over and over with a fingertip.
Ever since she had started at the agency, this had been the goal.
But now, instead of feeling like an opportunity, all she had worked for just felt like an obstacle.
Dallis’s hand covered hers, warm and grounding. “You know, Sam, you’re allowed to be happy.” Her tone was gentle.
Sam almost laughed. The idea was so foreign that it was almost absurd. She thought about the past week, how the thing that had made her most happy was something she had never let herself wish for.
Dallis spoke as if she had read her thoughts. “Not many people get a second chance with the love of their life.”
“The love of my life,” she echoed. She blew out a big breath and looked up at the ceiling, studying it like the answers to the universe were going to be revealed in its popcorn paint.
Sam studied the worn table, refusing to meet their gazes.
Sam hated that Dallis and Jordan were forcing her to say the quiet things out loud.
She had spent years perfecting the art of protecting herself and her feelings by putting things into neat little boxes.
Sitting here now, feeling her two friends study her, Sam realized for the first time in years that she wanted something more than her carefully constructed life.
Her boxes were beginning to crumble. And it terrified her.
“I don’t want it,” she said, so quietly she almost didn’t hear it herself. Then, louder, with more conviction, “I don’t want it. Not the job. Not the profit sharing. Not any of it.”