Punch Drunk Crazy

"So, Tom, what is it that you do?" This was the question Tom always, always hated being asked when he was meeting people he felt he had to impress.

Impressing people his age with his career was easy, but he was never sure how his career was perceived by others who weren't sports fans, or fans of that kind of a lifestyle. When he had met Ari's parents they cared more about the public aspect of it then the technicalities; constant travelling, lack of Internet and social privacy, et cetra. The number of figures in his bank account were more important to most people than what really came with what he did for a living. He had a strong feeling that wouldn't be the case for Sam's father.

Tom cleared his throat and glanced at Sam for a moment to find her watching him with that same small, almost nervous smile she had been giving him all night. He turned his eyes back to Chris and told him, "I play hockey. For the Caps."

He seemed relieved when he said, "For a second I thought you were going to say you didn't have a job."

Tom chuckled lightly and assured him, "No, I definitely have a job."

"Lot of travelling though I presume?"

And there it is.

"During the season yeah. Some months are worse than others." Tom didn't see the point in trying to sugar coat it or lie about it, it is what it is and it's his career, what was the point in lying?

Chris nodded slowly, took a drink of his beer before he asked, "And you like it?"

"Oh yeah, it's a lot of fun, and I consider myself incredibly lucky to get to make a career out of my passion. Not a lot of people get that chance." Sam's smile grew just slightly hearing him say that.

"That's true." Chris said, and then he looked at Sam, grinned and said, "Samantha did, the one thing she was really good at was arguing."

Tom smiled and joked, "I could see that."

"Oh she does it to you as well? Good to know." Sam rolled her eyes as Chris said this. Tom chuckled at her reaction and then Chris turned to him again and asked him, "So you're here for a while then?"

Tom didn't exactly know how to answer this question. Until my team gets tired of me? Or gets a good enough deal to send me packing? Until I'm no longer useful? Tom knew that at the end of the day the NHL was a business and he understood that being traded wasn't always a personal thing, but he tried his best to make sure that he didn't get traded. He tried his best to make sure he stuck around, to make sure that he gave them no reason to trade him and every reason to keep him.

So he simply told Chris, "As long as I can be. Looking for a contract extension at the end of the season."

"And you like this building?"

"Seriously?" Sam asked, eyebrow raised.

Tom glanced at her, but Chris continued to stare intently at him so he cleared his throat and said, "I do, for right now. Some day I'd like to have a condo or a house, but right now this place is pretty great."

Sam smiled at his response. Her father had been on her about getting a house, a home, for years, practically since she finished law school but Sam didn't see the point in one. She was one person, all that space seemed unnecessary, even when she hadn't been one person she hadn't seen the need for a house.

When Chris didn't respond right away Tom took the opportunity to take the subject off of he and Sam and lighten the atmosphere by asking Chris, a small grin on his face, "I hear you're a Bruins fan?"

Chris let out a chuckle, took a drink of his beer, nodded his head and told Tom, "Bruins, Patriots, Celtics, and Red Sox."

"Next time we play Boston I'll get you some tickets so you can see your team get beat up." Tom joked, smiling when Chris let out a loud laugh.

He tilted his beer bottle towards Tom and said, "I'd argue but they're having a shit season, and you guys are not."

Tom nodded his head in agreement, and made Chris laugh again when he said, "But at least they're not having the Habs season."

Hours later Tom found himself leaning against the post in Sam's kitchen while Chris gathered his things to head out. Once he had his suit jacket on and his suitcase by the door Tom pushed off of the post and approached Chris, holding his hand out for a shake. Chris told him, "It was nice to meet you, and thanks for having dinner with us."

Tom nodded his head, "Of course. I was serious about those Bruins tickets by the way."

"Let me know, I'm not one to turn down a hockey game." Chris told him, and Tom disappeared into the living room to look through Sam's records so that they could have a private moment.

Sam shifted from one foot to the other as she looked up at her father, and she asked, "You'll call when you're home?"

"I will. See you at Christmas, don't try to skip out on me now, I know where you live again." She rolled her eyes but smiled nonetheless at him.

She stood on her tip toes to hug him quickly and as he stepped into the hallway she told him, "See you later."

Closing the door Sam turned to Tom and said, "I am so sorry."

Tom turned to look over his shoulder at her, eyebrow cocked and he asked, "For what?"

"That. I am sorry you had to go through that, but thank you very much for doing it. I appreciate it." Sam told him, rolling her eyes as he laughed at her for how nervous she appeared now, which matched how she had been all evening. Tom wasn't sure what she was so nervous or embarrassed of, he thought that went rather well, in fact, he would go on record to say that he was certain that was the best meet the parents dinner he had been apart of.

"I didn't mind Sam. If I did I wouldn't have said yes." Tom assured her as she approached him. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her into his side as he continued to look through her records. That was when he told her honestly, "It was nice actually. I like your dad."

"I think he liked you, if that means anything." Sam said softly, smiling when he handed her a Norah Jones record.

"It does." Tom told her and she looked up at him, and surprised him by leaning up on her tip toes to kiss him softly.

When she pulled away and dropped onto the heels of her feet again she joked, "Isn't it about time you learned how to use these?"

"Why when I have you to do it for me?" He asked with a grin.

Sam rolled her eyes and she handed him the record cover, saying, "I'll show you."

So she let him pull the sleeve from the record cover, and then she showed him how to carefully and slide the record out using his palm and thumb, and then with her small hands over his large ones she guided the record, held at the edges with the pads of his fingers, onto the record player. Tom kept his eyes on her while she guided his hand to place the needle on the record and after a few seconds of crackling the song started.

"I waited 'til I saw the sun
I don't know why I didn't come
I left you by the house of fun
I don't know why I didn't come
I don't know why I didn't come."

Tom surprised Sam by pulling her into him, chest to chest, and swaying their bodies to the music. She looked up at him in surprise, and asked, "What's going on?"

He shrugged and continued moving them, and after a few seconds Tom asked her, "If you had to choose one artist to see live, who would it be?"

"Stevie Ray Vaughan, but he's dead… so realitistically… Norah." Sam told him, not even needing to think of her answer and Tom smiled at it. He couldn't wait until Sunday.

- - -

Sam hated the end of the week. She knew how much work she still had to get done by Sunday, before she and Tom went on their little trip that he still refused to tell her a single thing about. She had worked overtime the last three days, and so when she stepped into the elevator to find Tom about to push the button for their floor she smiled.

He grinned at her as she kicked her heels off and gathered them in her hand as the doors closed and the elevator started to go up. Tom asked her, "Long day?"

"Long week." Sam told him honestly. Her eyebrow raised when he reached out, grabbing her hand in his and pulled her into him. He leaned down and kissed her, and when she relaxed against him Tom reached out and pushed the stop button on the elevator, and Sam nearly lost her footing when they came to a quick, screeching halt. She looked up at him and asked, "What are you doing?"

"Helping you with your problem." Tom told her, as if it were the most obvious answer in the world. Her brow raised but she didn't get the chance to respond, he put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around so that she was facing the elevator wall.

Sam glanced into the slightly distorted mirrored wall at Tom and as he pushed her hair aside and pressed a handful of kisses against her neck she asked, "We can't do this here."

His eyes glanced up to meet hers, "Says who?"

"This thing could start moving at any time." She told him, trying desperately to ignore his hands dragging up her thighs, pulling her pencil skirt up and bunching it her waist as he pushed himself against her.

"That's the fun part." Tom told her, his words muffled against the skin of her neck as one hand held her firmly around the waist and the other slid down her stomach, his fingers slipping under her lace panties.

"Tom…" She was trying to protest, but the rest of her intended sentence didn't come out, not when he hit just the right spot to make her knees go weak and her breath hitch in her throat.

His fingers pulled away all too soon for her liking, and she was distantly aware of the sound of Tom's zipper being pulled down. His hands wrapped around her waist, and down between her thighs as he spread her legs just slightly, and as he braced himself with one arm against the elevator wall beside Sam's head he pulled her underwear to one side and she could have screamed when he elevator started moving again and they were forced to pull apart and pull their clothing back together before the doors opened to reveal a middle aged couple waiting on their floor to get in.

Tom and Sam rode up the remaining two floors with their new elevator guests in silence, Sam's cheeks flushed a deep scarlet, while Tom tried his best not to smile, or worse laugh. He had an arm securely around her waist, practically holding her up and she pinched the middle of his back when his hand slipped back to her back side.

As the elevator stopped and the doors opened he gave her bottom a squeeze, making her jump as she stepped out of the elevator. She smacked him across the stomach as he followed her down the hall, and Tom grabbed her hands and pulled her past her own apartment door and to his.

He had never been so grateful for Mike practically living at Kelly's so often lately as he was now, to walk his girl into an empty apartment.

He jokingly gave Sam a gentle push into his bedroom, slamming the door shut with his foot before he grabbed her hand and pulled her into his chest. He reached out and tucked her hair behind her ears and told her, his voice low and deep, "Good God you're stunning."

She rolled her eyes, "Don't do that."

"Do what? Tell you how beautiful I think you are? Because too bad, I'm gonna tell you that as often as I can for however long that I can, because I really, honestly, have never seen anyone so beautiful." When she looked up at him in surprise he told her, his voice gentle but firm, "I told you Sam, I am not him. I'm never gonna treat you the way he did, because you deserve way more."

"You keep saying those things and I'm gonna get real comfortable here with you." Sam told him with a small smile.

Tom leaned down and kissed her sweetly before he pulled back and told her, "Good. I want you to be comfortable right where you are."

"Oh yeah?" She asked him as she leaned up and kissed his jaw, and then his neck, as she slowly unzipped his hoodie and pushed it off of his shoulders. It fell to the floor and she worked on his t-shirt, pushing it up and over his head, dropping it onto the floor next to his sweater.

She placed a few sparse kisses to his shoulder and chest, before Tom told her, "Yeah, I like you being around."

He felt her smile as she kissed his chest once more before her hands slipped down the length of his chest and stopped at the button of his jeans. She worked it open with one hand and unzipped his zipper for a second time, letting the denim fall off of him and pool around his ankles.

She smiled up at him, and told him, "I like being around."

Tom smiled and leaned down, kissing her like he hadn't kissed her ever before. There was something so different in the way he kissed her this time, usually, between the two of them, there was a sense of urgency, of a need to get down to business as soon as possible, as if they might literally explode if they didn't. This time things were slow, and soft and comfortable.

There was something much more intimate about the way he kissed her, the way he unbuttoned her silk button up and carefully hung it on the closet doorknob, about the way he pushed her skirt off of her hips this time, and then leaned down enough to pick her up by the backs of her thighs without even breaking their kiss.

He placed her gently on the bed, and pulled his lips from hers as he settled in on top of her. His hands ran down her sides and her thighs as she sat back slightly and just stared at her. He stared at her so long and so intensely that Sam began to feel self conciousness, but when she moved to cover herself even just a tiny bit Tom grabbed her hands to stop her and he told her, "I want to memorize every inch of you. I want to know every inch of you."

Sam looked up at him, a small smile visible on her face as she told him, "You're something else."

Tom grinned at her, "So I've been told."