Notes: Thanks, That Was Fun belongs to Ed, Steve, and the rest of BNL.
_____________________
Everybody knows the deal fell through
I was hoping I could just blame you
When was it that I became so soft?
This sentimentality doesn't look good on me
I thought that you would be begging to be with me
I'm the one on my knees blubbering please let me stay...
Thanks, that was fun
Don't forget, no regrets
Except maybe one
Made a deal not to feel
God that was dumb...
_______________
No strings attached, she said.
And, idiot that I was, I believed her.
It�s just one night, Sam. Don�t worry. It�s not like I�m looking for forever or anything.
Of course she wasn�t looking for forever. She�d already found it. She was just waiting for it to notice.
It wasn�t because I had too much to drink. I�m not Josh or anything�I can hold my own on the best of nights, and last night I only had one beer. Sure, we were out at the bar, all of us, winding down from a tough day, but it wasn�t the beer that made me do it. I would have done it if I was stone cold sober, and that�s what scares me. This wasn�t some mindless night of drunken passion that I can just fling off with some lame excuse. At least, it wasn�t just that to me. That�s what it was supposed to be, but it wasn�t.
It was to her.
Well, I mean, minus the drunken. She wasn�t drunk either. She was too busy watching him, taking care of him, to concentrate too much on her own drink. She only had the one. I know. I was watching.
I didn�t mean to, you know. I never mean to. It�s just that for some reason she was looking particularly beautiful last night. It was the red shirt, I think. Red has always been her color.
CJ was the first to leave, which is unusual, but she had some early meeting this morning, and she didn�t want to stay too late. Toby didn�t last long once she was gone, and Carol and Ginger left soon after him. Then it was just the three of us left, and Josh was fading fast. He�s a silly drunk most of the time, but his silliness quickly leads to sleepiness, and before long, he was practically nodding off at the table.
I told her she could take off. She�d had a long day, we all had, and dealing with a drunken Josh was probably the last thing she wanted to be doing right now. I said I�d take care of it. But they had stopped at his apartment on the way here, and she had left her car there. It was no trouble, she assured me, they�d grab a cab back and she�d be home in a half hour.
I offered to drive them.
At the time, it seemed like the most reasonable idea. I had only had one drink, I had a car there, and maybe I�m too much of a gentleman, but the thought of sending a woman out into the night in a strange cab with her helplessly drunken boss was a little too much for me to be ok with. So I told her I�d help her get him home, and make sure she got to her car safely.
I can just imagine what we looked like, the three of us, staggering out of the bar. At some point between our table and the door, Josh�s legs decided to go out from under him, and he seemed to think that it was the funniest thing ever. So he was slung between Donna and I, an arm over each of our shoulders, laughing pretty hysterically by the time we made it to my car. We dumped him unceremoniously into the backseat, and after a minute she climbed in next to him. I raised an eyebrow at her and she shrugged.
�No sense letting him pass out before we get him back,� she explained. �It�d just make things harder for us.�
So I took my place in the chauffeur�s seat and headed out of the parking lot. They talked quietly back there for a few minutes, and I tried not to listen, but then a name caught my ear and I began to eavesdrop shamelessly.
�She called me you know,� he told her, slurring a little.
�Who�s that?� she asked, sounding a little guarded.
�Amy.� She didn�t reply right away, and he went on. �She�s back in town. Wanted to�� I caught the motion in the rearview mirror as he waved a hand around vigorously, fishing for a word, ��you know.�
�Did she.� It wasn�t a question, and the coldness in Donna�s voice took me aback a little.
Josh must have noticed too, even in his inebriated state, because he peered at her intently for a moment before declaring, �You don�t like her.�
She must have composed herself a little, because her voice was perfectly even and almost sincere as she replied, �What would make you think that?�
�I just can tell,� he said knowingly. After a minute he added, �That�s ok. I don�t think she likes you too much either.�
�Well then, it all works out perfectly,� she replied easily, but I could hear the tension underneath.
�I don�t know why you don�t like her,� he continued. �She�s�� he paused, seemingly at a loss. �I like her,� he said instead.
I pulled up in front of his apartment, and saved her from having to form a reply by announcing needlessly, �We�re here.� I stopped the car and got out, walking around to the other side to help her haul him to his feet. We made it up the stairs and then waited patiently while he fumbled through each of his pockets for his keys, with no success.
Donna rolled her eyes, smiling a little. �You�re impossible, you know,� she told him, and he grinned disarmingly at her.
�I know.�
She reached into his left coat pocket and pulled out his keyring, wiggling it in front of his face a little before she unlocked the door. We made it upstairs and into the apartment without incident, and she took his arm, steering him towards his bedroom. �I got it from here,� she said to me, and I nodded.
�I�ll just wait for you out here,� I told her. She tried to tell me I really didn�t have to wait, but I wasn�t too comfortable letting her walk down the street to her car alone, and I told her that. She shrugged, tossed a �thanks� in my direction, and led him off. I could hear them having a muffled conversation as she led him to the bed, and as he curled up under the covers, I heard him ask her to stay.
Glancing through the door, I could see her perch on the side of his bed and brush a strand of hair back from his eyes. It was an uncommonly intimate moment, and I turned away, feeling like an intruder.
�I can�t,� I heard her whisper. �You get some sleep, though, and I�ll see you in the morning.�
�Kay,� he agreed sleepily, and I heard the squeak of the bed as she stood and made her way to the door. �Night, Amy,� I heard him mumble.
She froze at the doorway, and for a second I thought that she was going to turn and say something to him, but then her face turned to stone and she gave no sign that she had heard him. Instead, she turned to me, standing by the front door, and asked with forced lightness, �You ready to go?�
I hated him then, in that moment, for the steel that had appeared in her eyes, and the carefully blank expression on her face. But that was the way he was, hurting without malice, without intent, even without realization. It wasn�t in his nature to be cruel. Just careless.
�You bet,� I told her, playing along. Maybe she believed me, thinking I was too far away to hear anything. Maybe she knew I was lying and didn�t care. Either way, I could see the relief in her eyes as she realized that I wasn�t going to say anything about it.
We made our way down the stairs, and when we emerged into the night, we discovered that it had started to snow. Just tiny flakes, here and there, nothing that would amount to much, but I turned to her and saw her eyes sparkling and her face lit up like a child�s. She tipped her head back to look through the trees at the gently falling flakes, and it was suddenly as if the rest of the night had never happened, as if she had never been so content in her whole life as she was in this moment.
She turned to me, and her smile was brilliant. �I�ve always loved the first snowfall of the year,� she said. �It feels like a new beginning.�
She had parked quite a ways down the street, and we walked slowly, enjoying the sight of the snow dancing under the streetlamps. We got to her car and she turned to hug me. �Thanks, Sam,� she whispered, and I was sure she wasn�t just talking about walking her to her car.
�Anytime,� I told her sincerely, and held her for a moment before letting her go. I smiled at the light dusting of snow that had settled on her shoulders, and reached out to brush it off for her. Her eyes caught mine, and held, and there wasn�t time for me to react before her lips were on mine, and her arms were back around my neck, and everything that had just a moment ago made sense to me was lost in the snowy winter wind.
She pulled back eventually, catching her breath, and I shivered at the chill air that took the place of her warm body. She noticed me shivering and quickly slipped her arms inside my coat, wrapping them around me again and leaning into me so that she could whisper into my ear.
�Come home with me,� she said, and even though it sounded like a statement, it was a question, and her eyes did the asking.
�Donna, I�� I began, but she touched two fingers lightly to my lips before I could continue.
�It�s just one night, Sam,� she told me. �Don�t worry. It�s not like I�m looking for forever or anything.�
Her voice was teasing, and the sparkle the snow had brought to her eyes was still there, but there was something deeper in her expression, something that I couldn�t name, but that spoke to me of desperation, and a deep desire to not be alone on this night, of all nights. That was what should have scared me off, I know, but it was actually that anxiety that drew me to her, that made me realize I could not refuse her this comfort she so urgently needed.
So I didn�t answer her, but I kissed her back, softly, and she smiled up at me and slid her arms out of my jacket. She gave me a light push towards my car, telling me to follow her, and I hurried back down the street.
If I was going to turn back, that was the time, as I drove behind her to her apartment, gazing blankly at her taillights ahead. Because somewhere on that ride a line was crossed, some invisible line that marked the point of no return. By the time we slipped through the door of her apartment, the moment for no had already come and gone.
There was no awkwardness, no uncertainty, not then. That would come later. There was only the taste of her mouth, and the sweep of her hair as it feathered across my chest, and her soft cries that filled my ears. And then after, as I lay tired and complete in her arms, there was the silk of her skin beneath my cheek, and the steady beating of her heart that slowly lulled me to sleep.
I knew then that it meant nothing.
It wasn�t until the morning that I realized what a fool I had been.
I was under no delusions. I knew what I was to her. I knew that I was a distraction, a replacement, the next best thing.
I had thought that she could be the same to me. But then I woke to see the early morning sun filtering in through the window, and I felt her warm body curled up in the circle of my arms, and her breath tickling my neck, and I couldn�t imagine waking up another morning without this. I closed my eyes then, savoring the moment, and then reality struck.
There are some things that lie unspoken between friends, because they need no words. They are lines that exist without being drawn, and they are never to be crossed. One of those lines is the rule that if your friend is in love with a woman and has been for as long as you both have known her, you do not, ever, for any reason, in any situation, make any kind of move on her.
That line had been crossed.
In a big way.
So I did the only thing I could do. I left.
I was never that guy. The one who wakes up in the morning and dresses quietly, gathers his things and sneaks away before she wakes up. I always hated that guy. I love to wake up beside a woman. I love to watch her sleep in my arms, and I love to see her wake up and roll over to give me that sleepy hi there smile. It wasn�t that I wanted to leave. I had to.
Because there is no way that, left in my hands, this thing would end at one night. No, if I had my way, there would be a lifetime of mornings waking up in that bed, in those arms, to those eyes.
So I�ll go home now, and I�ll take a shower, and change, and then I�ll head to work. And I�ll go into Josh�s office and give him a good hard time about the hangover he�s bound to have. I�ll come out of his office, and catch her eye, and on the outside we�ll have a perfectly normal laughing conversation about his sensitive system. And under that, in our eyes, there will be the other, unspoken conversation.
Why weren�t you there when I woke up?
I had to go.
You didn�t.
No�I really did.
Why?
Because�I�m falling for you, and I can�t let that happen.
�Why?
Because you love him. And someday you�re not going to be working here anymore, and it�s not going to be a scandal anymore, and you�re going to have your first kiss with him, and it will be magic. And then one day sometime after that, he�s going to tell you that he wants to spend the rest of his life with you, and you�re going to tell him the same thing, and then you�ll be married, and you�ll have brilliant and witty children, and you�ll grow old together. And you�ll be happy. I can�t give you that. So I left. Because it was one night. You weren�t looking for forever.
And the words won�t be spoken aloud because they don�t have to be. Because before and beyond that one night, we were and will be friends, and with friendship comes an understanding of the things we cannot bring ourselves to say.
Neither of us was looking for forever, but I found it.
My forever will be seeing her with him and being powerless to stop it, but not really wanting to anyhow. Because with him she will be happy in a way she could never be with me.
They are each other�s forever.
Maybe someday I�ll find mine. Maybe she was it.
I�ll never know.