Page 15 of Sam & Justin

“Who said I still liked him?”

“Your face.” The urge to flip her off was getting stronger. “Don’t even deny it. You couldn’t take your eyes off him during the game earlier, and you work too hard. You’ve worked too hard on this event, and you are always working with Rachel Mendoza. You deserve a night of debauchery with your high school crush.”

I bit my bottom lip. A night of debauchery with Sam sounded really good. Too bad I had no way of knowing if he was interested. But then, he had agreed to go to the after party with me, and I was pretty sure he’d been checking me out all night. I exhaled. “Okay, you win. I’m going.”

“Good.” Vanessa threw another tablecloth into the trash can. “I’ll see you tomorrow, and I want to hearallthe stories.”

I couldn’t fight the temptation anymore. I flipped her off before leaving the gym.

The moment I stepped into Timbers and Tallboys, I started looking for Sam. Unfortunately, I didn’t find him before my best friend, Gabe, found me. He pulled me over to the bar and ordered us both a beer. He started joking about how he’d not seen me all night. I wished I were paying more attention, but I was too busy trying to find Sam. Maybe he’d decided not to show up, or maybe he’d just gotten tired waiting for me.

“You’re distracted.”

I groaned. “I’m sorry. I’m just looking for—”

My words cut off when I noticed him. He was leaning against the far wall, his eyes searching the crowd. As soon as I noticed him, he looked toward the bar and saw me. He pushed himself off the wall and began walking toward me. I watched as he started to smile, watched as it grew with each step. If Gabe was still talking, well, I wasn’t hearing a single word he was saying. All of my attention was on the way Sam’s face had practically transformed when he saw me, and the way butterflies began churning in my stomach.

Maybe it wasn’t the crush I’d had on him in high school, but it was something. It was attraction, lust, whatever you wanted to call it.

I only looked away from Sam’s journey across the bar when I felt the clap of a hand on my shoulder. “I see,” Gabe teased. “I’ll catch up with you later.” There was a knowing glimmer in his dark blue eyes, and I doubted that anything I said would’ve been able to dispel them.

The moment Gabe left, his barstool was filled by the person Iwantedto be talking to. I guess Sam and Gabe had shared a look, because Sam had an amused expression on his face as he asked, “Should I remember him?”

“Probably not,” I told him honestly. I didn’t think their paths had ever crossed. Gabe had been in all advanced classes and had run a fun Dungeons and Dragons campaign back in the day. Okay, he still ran a fun campaign, though I could only ever make guest appearances.

Sam accepted my answer and flagged down the bartender. He ordered a hard cider and turned the full weight of his attention onto me. “You know you could’ve kept talking to him, yeah?”

“I know,” I assured him, “but he lives in town. I can talk to him any time.” I paused. “Besides, you’re the person I really want to talk to.”

“Is that so?”

I nodded. The bartender brought his hard cider, and we settled back into comfortable conversation. He asked me questions about my job, and I talked his ear off, telling him all of the things I did as the assistant to the city planner. He seemed amused by the stories I shared about Rachel, and I found him easy to talk to. He asked insightful questions, and soon, we were on our third drinks.

The conversations around us were fading away to nothing more than background noise as I turned his questions around on him. He talked about some of his clients, though he didn’t give me any details. I didn’t need them to see the way his eyes lit up while he talked about his career and his practice. He started telling me about one particular client of his that he was clearly fond of. He was going on about how the kid always had some kind of crisis, giving a few examples that had me almost falling off my barstool laughing.

“I’m glad you’ve found something that gives your life purpose,” I said when he finished the story he was telling me.

The words seemed to catch him off guard. “Yeah?” I nodded. “You know, Axel’s said something along those lines a few times. Always just thought he was full of it.”

“And now?”

“Well, if two people are saying it, maybe he’s onto something.” I kind of liked that I was the person that made him realize that maybe, his best friend wasn’t just spouting empty sentiment. “Does your job give you purpose?”

I’d never asked myself that question, never really thought about it. “I don’t know if it gives me purpose, but I like it. It’s a solid career, and there’s a set schedule, even if I do more hours than I’m supposed to most of the time. Good pay.” I sounded so shallow compared to him. “I don’t think all jobs have to give you purpose. Sometimes, jobs just make it where you can pay for the things that give your life meaning.”

He seemed to accept my words. “What kinds of things give your life meaning?”

“My family,” I answered immediately. “I’ve always been close to them, especially my little sister, Sophia. I don’t know if you remember her.” He shook his head, and I wasn’t surprised. She was a year behind us in high school, and she’d never come around during our tutoring sessions. “My friends. Planning and organizing things that can help people, like the fundraising goals for the reunion.”

“And the reunion itself,” he pointed out.

“And the reunion itself,” I agreed before continuing with the list of things that gave my life meaning. “Good food.”

“Good food?” Sam questioned. “Cooking it or eating it?”

“Both. My mom taught me how to cook when I was younger. She said it was important for everyone to know how to feed themselves. My sister and I each had a day where we were responsible for cooking dinner, all through high school.”

Sam looked almost pained at the anecdote. “My pops was a bit more…” he paused, like he was searching for the word. I gave him the space to find it, even though I was really curious as to what he was going to say. I wanted to know more about his home life growing up, how he’d become the boy he was then and the man he was now. “Old-fashioned,” he finally decided. I raised my eyebrow at his choice of words. “He didn’t think a man’s place was in the kitchen.”