Punch Drunk Crazy

Sam was fidgeting so Kelly asked her, "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah I'm fine." Sam said with a nod of her head.

"Don't be nervous, really. They're great and even the ones who are mildly catty are too busy with each other to bother anyone else." Kelly assured her, giving her a pat on the back as they approached the door to the wives room.

"Ready or not." Sam mumbled to herself as Kelly pushed the door open.

Every woman in there had on some kind of player jersey or sweater, even the kids had on tiny jerseys. Sam was now wishing she had let Tom bring her home one of his jerseys. She felt even more out of place than ever now and that didn't even include the fact that every pair of eyes seemed to be on her now.

Kelly cleared her throat and made the introductions, "This is Sam, Sam this is everyone."

Sam smiled and waved politely and followed Kelly to a set of seats beside a brunette watching warm ups. Kelly leaned over Sam to speak with the brunette, who then stuck her hand out to Sam and introduced herself, "Hi I'm Emma, TJ's wife. You're Sam, like Tom's Sam?"

"I am." Sam answered shyly.

"It's so nice to meet you! I've been dying to meet you, I was so jealous when Alex and Brooks said they got to meet you last week." Alex and Brooks, the two teammates she had spent most of their Halloween night talking to. Sam remembered them. As Sam's eyes wandered around the room Emma followed and informed her of who was who even though Sam knew she wouldn't remember them all.

The game had just started when two women took the seats behind Sam, Kelly and Emma. One, tall, blonde and model like, tapped Sam on the shoulder and asked, "Samantha right?"

"Sam, yes." She hated being called Samantha.

"I'm Carly, and this is Amber." Sam nodded and smiled politely.

Emma inserted herself into the conversation long enough to tell Sam, "Carly is dating Brooks, Amber is engaged to Matt Niskanen."

"It's nice to meet you both." Sam offered up, friendly as can be.

"We heard that Tom is quite smitten with someone and we just wanted to meet this girl- woman. Tom has the tenancy to pick…well… interesting girls- women." Sam could already see where the conversation was going. She was mildly insulted by the insulation that she might be anything like the girls Tom had dated before her, but she just reminded herself that these women didn't know her. It was however the constant correction of girl to woman that bothered Sam.

Amber leaned closer and asked Sam, "So what is it that you do? Matt mentioned that Brooks said you were a paralegal or something."

Sam normally would have scoffed that the subtle dig. She knew Amber knew damn well that she wasn't a paralegal, she could tell by the smile Amber sent Carly.

Kelly told them, "She's a lawyer actually. Private law."

"Private law, really? Isn't that for… well… experienced lawyers?" There was a handful of snickers from the gallery that was crowding around them at this point.

"Sometimes. Sometimes you work hard and get lucky." Sam stated, doing her best to let things roll off of her shoulders.

"I'd say. I mean, what are you, thirty four?" Sam simply turned back around and stared out at the ice, cutting the conversation off.

Or, at least cutting herself out of it. She could still hear Amber and Carly whispering behind her but she didn't her best to ignore it. That was until she heard one of them ask the other, not so quietly, "What do you think he sees in her?"

And the other respond with, "Come on, you don't think Tom is thinking he's gonna get locker room brownie points for dating an older woman?"

That was when Sam picked up her bag and got up, ignoring both Kelly and Emma telling her to stay and ignore it. She was done ignoring it.

She got lost three seperate times trying to find the bathroom in tears when finally a security guard took pity on her and walked her to one, and from there she went inside, locked herself in a stall and cried.

She wasn't sure why she let what they said get to her like that. Maybe it was a projection of how she really felt. Or maybe she just didn't know how she really felt. Sam didn't know, she didn't know much of anything anymore. Things had been so much easier before they had decided to go 'public' with their relationship. Sam should have known this would happen. If her own best friend couldn't accept it how could she expect strangers to?

She stayed in the bathroom stall for the rest of the game and when she heard the final buzzer go off she got out, splashed her face with a handful of cold water, dried it off and left the arena.

She got all the way home before she received a text from Tom Where did you disappear to?

- - -

When Tom left the locker room with Mike he located Kelly, standing with TJ and Emma, but no Sam. A quick look around told him she wasn't within eyesight so he sent her a quick text before following Mike.

Once Mike was done greeting Kelly Tom cleared his throat and asked, "Where did Sam go?"

Emma and Kelly exchanged looks, which all three of the men around took notice of. Kelly cleared her throat and told Tom, "We don't know."

Tom's brow raised, "What do you mean? What's going on?"

Emma sighed, pulling the attention to her before she looked at Tom and told him softly, "She uh… it was a rough night."

His brow stayed raised and Kelly informed him, "She kind of left like ten minutes into the game. We couldn't find her, we assumed she went home."

"She went home… ten minutes into the game." Tom repeated slowly, before he rolled his eyes and asked, "How bad were they?"

"Hey man-" Mike started, likely about to try to defend their teammates other halves.

Kelly however put her hand on his chest to stop him but it was Emma who told Tom, "I probably would have cried my eyes out over a bottle of wine and ice cream if I were Sam."

Tom sighed, pulled his keys from his pockets and left without so much of a word to anyone. He slammed his car door when he got in, probably burnt rubber flying out of his parking spot and drove faster than he had before all the way home. What the hell had he been thinking? What right did he have to even ask Sam to do that? He should have introduced her to the wives himself, made it clear he wasn't going to take any of their catty bullshit. This was exactly the kind of shit that got him in trouble in his other relationships.

He took the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator, two steps at a time and before he knew it he was knocking on Sam's door. She didn't answer, but he knew she was in there so he pounded his fist against the wooden door louder than before. So loud that her neighbors door opened and an elderly woman stepped outside.

Tom apologized, "Sorry ma'am."

"She came home an hour ago, seemed very upset. " She was giving him a look, as if she knew it was his fault. But before he could say anything she closed her door again.

This time Tom didn't bother with knocking, he simply turned the knob and was relieved to find it unlocked. He stepped inside the apartment and slipped out of his shoes, closing the door quietly and calling out, "Sam?"

He went all the way down the hall, stuck his head into her bedroom to find it empty. So he pushed the bathroom door open and found Sam in a tub full of steaming water and bubbles. He leaned against the door frame and watched as she desperately avoided looking at him at all costs.

He spoke first, soft and low, "Hey."

"Hi." She mumbled quietly.

He pushed off of the door frame, shrugged his suit jacket off and laid it over the toilet seat before he sat down on the floor next to the end of the tub. He told her, "I'm sorry."

Sam shook her head, "No, I am."

"You? What do you have to apologize for?" Tom asked her incredulously.

She sighed and told him, "I really tried. I'm sorry I took off."

"It's okay."

"I stayed for the game. I listened to it in the bathroom." Sam told him quietly. She laughed at herself and mused out loud, "I don't even know why I got so upset over it all."

Tom reached out and grabbed her hand, slipping his fingers through hers before he lifted her hand up and kissed the back of her hand softly. He told her, "Don't apologize. I never should have asked you to do that… I never should have made you meet them on your own."

She shook her head, "It wasn't that bad."

He shot her a pointed look, "You didn't even stay to finish the game. I know you Sam, it would have taken a lot to bother you enough to leave."

"I don't want to talk about it." She said softly. She didn't know her own feelings over it anymore, once upon a time she had been so sure about Tom and Sam was starting to think her opinions were changing to mirror everyone else's.

It was as if Tom sensed that, his voice was soft and low, full of regret as he said, "Okay."

So he got up, grabbed a towel from the closet and her robe, setting them on the toilet seat before he left the bathroom.

Sam had assumed that he left so when she left the bathroom and wandered into the kitchen to find him sitting in the living room she nearly jumped out of her skin. He chuckled, she didn't. So Tom got up and approached her, and when she turned to the counter to grab her glass from earlier he wound both arms around her and hugged her tightly.

For a moment she leaned back against him, right up until he spoke softly into the shoulder of her robe, "Whatever it is that's going on in your brain… don't listen to it."

"Tom…"

"I'm serious Sam. Whatever was said tonight, ignore it. We know how we feel, what's the point in even listening to what other people think? They're not in this relationship. So what if they don't understand it?" When he said this Sam turned in his grasp to face him.

She asked softly, "Because what if they're right?"

"They're not." He told her firmly.

Sighing Sam put her palms gently against his chest and said, "I just… I don't know anymore."

"Know what?"

"This is gonna be a constant thing; this reaction, this having to explain things. I just… don't know if it's..."

When she trailed off Tom finished for her, "Worth it?"

She nodded slowly and asked, "Have you even told you parents about me?"

"Of course I have!" Tom told her, his voice raised slightly as he defended himself.

"Do they know that I'm thirty?" She asked him calmly.

He didn't speak right away, that was an answer that in of itself to her. She didn't need the verbal answer but Tom needed to say it, "I told them you were older than me… but not by how much."

"This is what I'm talking about." Sam said softly, and when Tom raised his eyebrow she continued, "We skirt around the subject with the people we shouldn't have to. This was fine before, when it was just sex, but now that there's feelings involved it… I just don't think this is a good idea anymore."

"What because of a couple of fucking idiots my teammates call girlfriend's? Bullshit Sam. You don't think I'm tired of having to explain this to people too? That I'm tired of getting the same reaction from people that you get? But I brush it off, I don't care about it because I know how I feel and I'm confident about how I feel about you." Tom told her, his voice firm but also gentle at the same time. Sam hated when he spoke like that. She hated it because she loved it about him.

"Does that really matter? Does it make that big of a difference?" She asked him, watching as he turned his blue eyes to her and she had never seen someone manage to look so angry and so upset at the same time.

"It does to me! Sam I-"

She knew where he was going, what he was going to say and two weeks ago she would have loved to hear it. Now however she simply interrupted him to speak quietly, looking at his chest instead of his face as she said, "I think you should go."

He was silent as he stared at her, as if waiting for a smile to appear on her face that he knew, deep down, would never come. Tom continues to stare at her even though she continued to stare at his chest. Finally he spoke softly, "Sam…"

She didn't respond, she didn't look up at him, she didn't react at all to her name coming out of his lips in a near plead. So Tom finally sighed, and he turned away from her, grabbing his suit jacket off of the back of the couch and he left her apartment, leaving the door hanging wide open.

The sound of his own apartment door slamming shut caused Sam to jump, pulling her out of her trance she approached her own door. She glanced over at Tom and Mike's closed door before she closed her own and leaned back against it, hands against her elbows, tears finally welling up in her eyes.

As they started to fall Sam slipped down the length of the door and onto the floor, where she put her head in her folded up arms, resting against her knees which were pulled to her chest and she cried.

When Tom had walked into the apartment Mike turned over his shoulder to look at him. His brows raised in surprise when the door was slammed, and not a word was spoken between the two of them as Tom disappeared down the hall, slamming his bedroom door behind him as well.

He paced the floor of his bedroom, tugging at his hair, and uncontrollable level of rage rumbling through him. He reached out and slammed the closet door shut loudly, hoping it might dissipate the anger inside him but it only made it swell and hammer within him.

He was leaning against the dresser, knuckles white from gripping the wood, practically shaking in anger when there was a single knock on the door before it pushed open and Mike walked in.

"Trying to get us another noise complaint or what?" Mike joked.

Tom didn't even turn to look at him when he said, "Shut up dude."

Mike held his hands up in a surrender fashion, the joke was an attempt to gauge just how far gone into the land of anger Tom was and Mike could conclude he was beyond gone.

So Mike sat down on the edge of his bed and asked, "You wanna talk?"

"Do I want to talk? No, I want to go knock some faces in that's what I want to do. What the hell was I thinking? Why did I think throwing her into that fucking group would be a good idea? I should have seen this coming." Tom mumbled, slamming his fists against the top of his dresser.

Mike jumped slightly at the noise, and he asked him, "Saw what coming?"

"Sam just dumped me." Tom told him, and when Mike's brows raised he nodded his head and exclaimed, "Because Brooks and Matt couldn't keep their fucking girlfriend's on a leash."

"Dude-"

"Don't. If you're about to defend any of them after what happened today just get the fuck out."