by Josie Leigh
“Only every second we were together,” he mumbled to himself.
“You felt that way with us?” the expression on her face was now stunned; matching his that she’d heard his aside. Apparently being drunk gave her ultrasonic hearing, too.
“Um, yeah,” he cleared his throat and looked her in the eyes, tentatively reaching up to move a lock of hair that had fallen in her eye. Jason was slightly taken aback when she leaned into his hand. “I always thought I was in some incredible dream and one day I’d wake up and you’d be gone. I knew you could do so much better than me,” his gaze softened as he looked at her, his fingers twirling the piece of hair he’d moved. She was completely plastered and devastated, but still undeniably beautiful. He knew that she might try to start something with him that she’d regret in her pain. He needed to make sure that didn’t happen.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Sammy’s eyes were wide again, but this time with knowledge, as she leaned in closer to him. If she didn’t put a stop to it, she’d eventually be in his lap. Worse was the knowledge that she probably wouldn’t remember this conversation in the morning.
“I was content to stay in the dream as long as possible. I thought calling attention to it would end it faster,” he shrugged, rubbing his thumb on the tops of the hand he was still holding in comfort.
“I know how it feels to wake up from that dream,” she said as the first tear cut down her face, breaking his heart all over again. “So you won’t leave me?” she pleaded. Her face so close to his that it would take nearly no effort to kiss her.
“I won’t leave you, I promise,” Jason looked into her emerald green eyes and finally moved the piece of hair he’d been holding behind her ear on his words. Leaning back from their moment, the waiter finally set the glass of water in front of her with a slight nod. “Now, you need to drink that whole glass or I won’t let you get the panna cotta.”
“Am I talking to daddy again?” Sammy hiccupped, pulling her hands free to wipe her tears away with the back of her hand, changing the conversation from desperate to confrontational.
“I love when you call me that!” Jason exclaimed, trying to lighten the heavy mood at the table.
“Really?” she tilted her head to the side in thought. “Cause I’m actually disturbed that it keeps popping into my head. I’ve seen you naked too many times for that to be appropriate,” she said, wrinkling her nose, picking up on his desire to move away from sad topics.
“That bad of a memory?” he asked with a laugh, but Jason couldn’t resist leaning into her and whispering, huskily, “Maybe you aren’t remembering it right?”
“OH! No, those memories are all good, believe me,” Sammy slurred, blushing deeper than before at the memories that he knew were flooding both of them. It was obvious that she hadn’t meant to share that information, that her filter was currently broken. “Just the daddy stuff… it kind of creeps me out a bit…but I do appreciate you helping out with Corigan and me, really.”
“You’re welcome. I’m glad to help,” Jason leaned back in his seat and watched her gulp down the water before signaling for a refill. He longed to pull her into his lap and soothe her pain, but he knew she wasn’t ready for that. He had to be content in anything she’d be willing to offer, and right now, she needed a friend she could count on- a friend that wouldn’t leave her.
Chapter 8
“Ugh,” Samantha groaned, rolling over in her bed and hitting something solid. Her eyes flew open to take in the scene beside her… Jason. ‘No, no, no, no, NO! Not here, not today, why!?!?’ she thought, trying to remember what had happened the night before. Looking down, she was relieved to find herself dressed in her pajamas, the long flannel ones, nothing revealing. She found Jason dressed, as well. She audibly sighed her relief before grabbing her pounding head.
“Oh, good morning,” Jason whispered when he rolled over. “You made it,” he chuckled. “How’s your head?”
“Feels like a mariachi band is set up in there. Has this room always been this bright in the morning?” she answered, frankly, pressing her fingers against her temples. “How did we…?” she trailed off, motioning to the bed and looking at the ceiling. She hoped she hadn’t done anything too stupid.
“How did we end up in bed together?” he finished her question, quirking his eyebrow. “You got drunk and we had wild monkey sex, don’t you remember?” he asked, unable to disguise the sarcasm in his voice.
“Hardy-har-har,” she responded, finally rolling over to face him again. “I’m guessing the drunk part is true,” she conceded before shooting out of bed. “Shit! Where’s Corigan?” Samantha asked, rushing around her room looking for her robe. The pain of her hangover throbbed behind her eyes, but she continued in her task as if she didn’t think she was about to bleed from the ears.
“Wow! You really must have been out of it,” Jason said, astonished. “Your mom picked up Corigan yesterday so that you could have the day to yourself. She knew it was going to be a hard day for you. She’s dropping her off tonight,” he finished, sitting up in her bed, lazily, but making no motion to indicate he was planning on getting out of bed any time soon.
“Okay, so I know where my daughter is now, how do you fit into all of this?” Samantha slipped into her robe and tied it around her waist, even in her unflattering flannel pajamas she felt too exposed to Jason’s gaze.
“You really don’t remember?” Jason asked, shocked. “Think, Sammy, think hard,” his blue eyes staring into hers like they were pleading with her to remember.
“Fuck,” she said as a memory from the night before came crashing around her. “I drunk dialed you, didn’t I? I called you to come and get me…not Sara.”
“Guilty,” Jason laughed, his eyes still looked sad; like there was more she’d forgotten.
“Oh, God!” Samantha collapsed back on the bed and pulled her pillow over her head.
“Aspirin?” Jason asked.
“Please!” she groaned, only causing Jason to laugh harder. She felt the bed shit beside her and she assumed he’d folded himself out of her bed.
“Coming right up, Princess.”
“Ugh, I’d rather be called Sammy,” she mumbled from beneath her pillow.
Samantha felt Jason nudging her back a few minutes later. Lifting herself on to her elbows, she found him holding a glass of water and two pink ibuprofen. “My hero,” she croaked, taking the pills and popping them into her mouth before grabbing the glass from him. “Thank you.”
“Welcome,” he smiled as he took the glass from her and set it on the stand beside the bed.
“So, how did we end up in bed together?” Samantha asked, bluntly, her eyes narrowed at the thought of something more than friendship occurring. He looked at her carefully, like he was trying to choose his words. She could admit to herself now that she sometimes wondered what it would be like to kiss him again. However, she would be disgusted if she found out she’d done something that foolish on her anniversary. Was that why he’d looked so disappointed? Because he’d needed to push her away because of her drunken haze and he knew she wouldn’t be ready? She was in mid freak out when he finally started to talk.
“You drank three bottles of wine last night. I tried to sleep on your fainting couch, but it was horribly uncomfortable,” Jason indicated the cream colored chaise next to the window seat overlooking the deck. He was right. Although it was beautiful, it was definitely not functional for anything more than a foot rest.
“We have a guest room downstairs, and I know for a fact the couch in the living room is incredibly comfortable,” she offered.
“Again, you had three bottles of wine, Sammy,” he said as if it explained everything. She gave him a questioning look to let him know she was going to need more words.
“And?” she asked, waiting as she drummed her fingers on the duvet, hoping to hurry him along.
“AND…you kept saying you were going to puke, and I didn’t want to be that far away in case you did. I wouldn’t be able to
forgive myself if you choked in your sleep or something,” he shrugged, moving toward the chaise and looking out the window toward the frozen lake.
Something in his voice indicated there was still more to the story, but having the basic story satisfied her desire to fill in the blanks of the evening. Besides, she was afraid to find out what she’d said when she was that drunk…come to think of it…had she ever been that drunk before? No, she hadn’t. Only once in her nearly twenty-seven years had she drunk more than one or two glasses of Moscato or a single Sex on the Beach on an evening out. At least now she remembered why she hadn’t repeated her last drunken endeavor.
“Oh,” Samantha looked down at the bow in her robe, resigned to let it go, “well, thank you for looking after me then,” she apologized, pausing before asking, “I didn’t challenge anyone to a dance off this time, did I?” She hoped it would bring humor and their collective memories into the situation. Jason turned from the window with a grin, indicating that her plan had been successful.
“HA! No! But I did have to stop you from trying to do the sprinkler on the way to my car! It can’t have been far from your mind,” Jason chuckled.
“That’s something then,” she smiled, and then winced, grabbing her forehead. “Ugh, the pills haven’t kicked in yet.” Samantha flung herself against her pillow again.
“The pills’ll help a little, but that water, that’s what you need right now,” Jason turned slightly to indicate the mostly full glass still sitting on the bedside table.
Samantha shot him the most sarcastic look she could muster through her hang over, “Of course, da-.” She froze midsentence and looked at him, eyes wide.
“Were you just going to call me daddy again?” he said, having the nerve to laugh again. “Aside from loving it, I’m noticing you only say that when I’m telling you to do something you should be doing anyway. It’s a defense mechanism, a new one. I’ll have to file it in the back of my mind.”
“What else is in the ‘Samantha file’? Anything I should know?” she asked, sitting up again to take a gulp of water, giving him another sarcastic smile as she swallowed.
“I don’t have a Samantha file, I have a Sammy file and no, you already know everything in the file, cause it’s all about you,” Jason sat on the end of the bed and looked at her with a ‘well duh’ expression..
“Like what? The mole under my right breast?” she snorted, quickly covering her mouth in shock of her words. Was she still drunk? Why had she started with her body rather than something shallow, like her favorite movie or color?
“Going straight for the dirty stuff, huh? Are you sure you aren’t still a little drunk?” Jason’s eyes widened at the thought of that mole. She knew how much he’d loved it. Had that been why it had immediately come to mind? “Well, that, of course, but also the way you play with your hair when you are deep in thought or the way you wear your glasses when you want to look smart and intimidating,” he confessed, absently rubbing her thigh through the blanket.
Color flushed Samantha’s cheeks at the revelation that he still knew these things about her. She couldn’t believe that she was letting him caress her the way he was, nor could she believe that her heart had skipped a beat at the contact, even through the duvet.
“Sammy, I’ve known you since we were five, you don’t just forget this stuff,” he paused, looking down at the floor, as if he’d just realized what his hand was doing. “Even though I tried, believe me,” Jason stood abruptly and left the bedroom. “Want something extra greasy for breakfast? Eggs and chorizo?” he yelled on his way to the kitchen.
“Um, sounds amazing,” she yelled, her eyes closed, tightly at the pain from her hangover. “I’m glad that’s one thing you never forgot.” Following him to the kitchen, she wondered what she’d find if she let herself open the file in her head marked ‘Jason.’ Shaking her head, she stamped out that thought and went about making some coffee.
**
Jason stilled when he heard a noise coming from his bedroom upon entering the kitchen of his condo later that morning. Still thinking about how vulnerable Sammy had been the night before had distracted him from realizing that his alarm hadn’t needed to be disarmed, and he was sure he’d set it when he left the previous evening. Slowly, he stalked through his kitchen and living room, through the hallway and finally seeing a familiar figure hunched over his dresser. Her long blonde ponytail was glittered with grays, and she wore a floor length broom skirt and a brightly colored vest over a white t-shirt.
“Mom, what are you doing here?” Jason growled, immediately suspicious of her presence.
“Well, I figured I’d help with you with your laundry, since you’re always at her house,” Jamie answered, depositing rolls of clean socks into the drawer.
“That key is for emergencies only, mom. Besides, I can do my own laundry, I’m nearly twenty-seven, not five,” Jason moved in front of his mother, blocking her access to his sock drawer. “You need to stay out of my dresser,” he said, coolly.
“Why? Afraid I’ll find this?” she asked, holding up the small, white leather jewelry box. “Why do you still have this? I thought you sold it years ago.” She dangled the box away from her body as if it were diseased.
“That’s none of your business, mother,” Jason sneered, snatching the box from her hand and shoving it into the pocket of his green cargo pants, before catching a whiff of something on the air in his bedroom. “What smells like garlic and ass?”
“It’s this new salve treatment Sven gave me for my femur issues,” Jamie said, as if it was important to him to know this information. “And it’s garlic and patchouli, Jason, no need to be rude,” she tsked.
“OH! Did Sven say why the last one didn’t work?” Jason raised an eyebrow.
“You know that I found him not long after you ‘reconnected’ with your ex-hussy,” she started, putting reconnected in finger quotes. “He says her lotion is throwing me out of whack. You always smell like her now, since you are constantly with her,” she rolled her eyes. “Sven says that’s why your spleen is so out of balance now,” Jamie folded her arms on her chest leaning against his closet door, shooting him a smug look.
“I see,” Jason bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing at the notion that the Swedish Rastafarian healer his mother found on Craigslist had any idea what he was talking about and wasn’t trying to scam her. “So Sven says I smell like Sammy’s vanilla shampoo? And I have an unbalanced spleen?” Turning away, he tried to get his burst of laughter under control again, his shoulders shaking from restraint.
“Stop that!” she screeched, pushing him in the back. “I’m serious!” she growled. “He said to put some persimmon fibers in your shoes and it will help. They are only eighty for a pack of seven, or one hundred for an eight pack. I’m happy to get them from him for you,” she sighed. “Of course, you could just stop spending time with her and her bratty little clone,” his mom offered.
“That’s not possible! Besides, Corigan looks more like Caleb than Sammy,” Jason protested, knowing after last night, he wasn’t going anywhere.
“If you ask me,” his mom started again, even though he hadn’t asked her. “I think she caused that whole thing so you’d have to come back to her. She’s always been trying to take you away from me,” she huffed. “Ever since she was five, you’ve always wanted to spend more time with her than your own mother,” Jamie shot him her ridiculous ‘woe-is-me’ look. The appearance of this look signified her desire to play the victim in all of this and it broke the last of his resolve to get along with her until she decided to leave for the day.
“That is the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said, mother,” Jason seethed with anger at his mother’s words and stormed out of his bedroom toward the front door, yelling over his shoulder. Forcing himself to unclench his fists and jaw before he continued was not a simple task. He paced his living room, trying to calm down. Yet, finally, the words he was fighting to suppress spilled out of his mouth, “Sammy planned
for a drunk driver to kill her husband and seriously injure her on a day I happened to be working?! Did you really just say that?” Jason spoke clearly through his anger before turning to see that his mother had followed him to his door. “Do you really think that little of her? Do you really think that’s something anyone is capable of orchestrating? Save the fact that she didn’t even know I was a paramedic, mother!”
“Of course she did! Everyone did! I know she kept tabs on you. I don’t think she’s ever moved on,” Jamie sulked, following him through his condo.
“Right, so getting married, starting her own business, having a child with her husband and moving out of Covington were all ways of keeping tabs on me?” he asked, throwing his hand in the air in exasperation.
“That’s what she wanted you to think, Jason. Don’t be so naïve!” she wagged a finger at him.
“I’m going to say this once, mother, so you need to listen,” he paused to collect his thoughts before continuing. “Sammy moved on from me, big time. She wasn’t waiting around to forgive me for what she thinks happened. Hell, she kicked me out of her hospital room the second she saw me,” he said, stopping to take a deep breath and looking his mother square in the eye for the next part of his speech, “ I’m the one that hasn’t moved on. I’ve had to claw my way back to friendship with her and now that I’m there, I’m not leaving her. If you can’t understand that or support me, you can leave.” Jason finished and illustrated his point by opening the front door for her.