Punch Drunk Crazy

Sam was sitting in her office staring at her computer screen. She had a pile of papers on her desk that needed sorting and looking through but she couldn't bring herself to do it. It was nearly eight, she was supposed to have left two hours ago and yet here she was still sitting at her desk long after everyone had gone home.

Fridays never seemed like Fridays anymore.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when a call came through Skype on her laptop. She looked down to find it was Paula so as she hit accept and the call came through Sam asked, "What are you doing up? Isn't it like three in the morning there?"

"I just got home, saw you were logged in figured you could use the company." Paula told her and it was then that Sam saw how done up her friend was.

"Good night?" Sam asked her with a small smile and a quirked eyebrow.

Paula nodded, "I went out with a guy from work."

"Franternizing with the boss huh?" Sam asked her.

Paula's brow quirked this time and she asked, "How did you know he was the boss?"

"I know you Paula, you don't date anyone equal or below you in the work place." Sam told her and when Paula shrugged Sam added, "Then again you don't date either so…"

"Well maybe that's about to change." Paula told her softly.

"Say what? He must be pretty spectacular to have changed your dating ways." Sam stated, wanting to know more about this mystery man in her friends life.

"He is. He's really great actually. I haven't... Sammy I haven't felt anything like this since Drew was alive." Paula told her and Sam's smile grew a little bit. Paula had done a complete 180 after her long time, high school sweetheart had passed away eight years ago. She spent a long time 'finding' herself and she found she liked hooking up more than she liked relationships.

"I am so happy to hear that. What's he like?" Sam asked her, glancing at her phone when it buzzed and lit up with an incoming text. It was from Tom, she felt guilty not checking it but she wasn't going to be rude.

"His name is Martin. He's French." Paula paused, shot Sam a look when she giggled and said, "Yes, I see the irony of a French guy with a Massachusetts girl in Germany."

With a grin Sam told her, "I think it's adorable."

Paula rolled her eyes and then she changed the subject by asking, "How's it going with the hottie next door?"

Sam shrugged, "We went for a walk and frozen yogurt last week."

"A walk and frozen yogurt? What is he a dog?" Paula joked and Sam rolled her eyes but she chuckled at the same time. Curiously Paula asked her, "Hold on, which neighbor are you talking about? The two guys in the corner apartment?"

"Yes…"

Paula then asked, "Which one? They're both cute, and funny and deliciously yummy."

"Stop rhyming you weirdo." Sam told her, and then she stated, "Tom."

"Which one is that?" It was clear to Sam that Paula didn't get to know the people in her building when she lived there.

"Tall dark haired one." Sam explained and Paula dropped her phone.

"Sweet jesus, seriously you have no idea how jealous I am of you now."

With a quirked eyebrow and an amused look on her face Sam asked her, "Are we already over Martin?"

"Please, Martin is attainable, a kid halfway across the world is not. But, just to be real for a second, if I was still living in that apartment and I was as sexually frustrated as you are… ooh." Paula told her, giving her a grin and wiggling her eyebrows for good measure.

"You need professional help." Sam pointed out.

Paula shrugged her shoulders, "This is true, but we are not talking about me. We are talking about you and hot neighbor."

Sam rolled her eyes and said, "I haven't seen him since."

"If it helps I never saw them." Paula told her, and Sam already knew that. If Paula had seen them more than once or twice in the year she lived there Sam would have heard all about them, and Tom had told her they didn't see much of Paula, among other things about her friend. Paula then asked her, "So what are you doing at work?"

"Working?"

"At eight at night? Bull. You're avoiding something you avoider." Leave it to Paula to be half a country away and still be able to call Sam out on things.

Sam sighed and admitted, "I'm too wound up to go home and be alone again."

"So call hot neighbor." Clearly Tom's new name was going to be hot neighbor now.

She sighed again, tucked a stray piece of her long coppery hair behind her ear and told Paula, "Maybe Lauren's right."

"Please tell me what, because Lauren is never right about these things. She shouldn't even get an opinion on sex honestly." Paula stated honestly and Sam couldn't help but chuckle. She admittedly thought the same thing from time to time.

Still, Sam told her, "About it being desperate, and stupid, and probably a totally disastrously bad idea."

"And, now call me truly outrageous for even suggesting this, but Samantha… what if it isn't? What if this is exactly what you need right now? What if Tom is exactly what you need to fill that emptiness in you, in more ways than one." Sam couldn't help but shake her head in amusement and let out a small chuckle. She knew Paula couldn't keep herself from adding something dirty into her advice even once.

Sam let out a puff of air, and then she admitted to Paula, "We kissed."

"After the walk and yogurt?" Paula asked her in surprise. Sam was definitely not the kind of girl to kiss random guys. Sam wasn't quite as conservative as Lauren, but she wasn't quite as confident and sexually advanced as Paula. She was a good mix of both of them, it was what balanced their three way friendship so well.

Shaking her head Paula told her, "Two days before that. Him and Michael, the other cute roommate, were over and we were drinking and Michael left and I told Tom to stay and… yenno…"

"And you didn't take him to your bedroom right then and there? Good god Sam, I am so beyond impressed with your self control." Paula told her with a near astonished look on her face.

"Actually… I totally would have, was about to suggest it and then he said he didn't want to stay and do that when I had been drinking and he went home." Sam smiled gently when she said this, remembering how impressed she had been with Tom in that moment.

"That's so adorable I might actually puke...then again that could be the copious amount of Tequila I poured down my throat tonight also." Paula joked, and when Sam rolled her eyes she assured her, "Seriously Sammy, he obviously likes you. Just go home and invite him over and have your way with him… or don't, invite him over and get to know him. Just invite him over."

- - -

You home?

The smart part of her brain was screaming at her asking her what in the hell she was doing but as she downed the rest of her wine glass Sam was able to drown it out as she placed her phone on the counter beside her and crossed her arms over her chest as she waited for a response.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when her phone buzzed against the quartz counter top, and she started to panic when she read Tom's text.

I am. Are you?

She took a moment to look at herself in the reflection on the mirror in the hallway, she fluffed her copper hair, did a lipstick check on her teeth and even fiddled with her bra to make sure you could see just a hint of cleavage under her v-neck shirt before she text Tom back.

I hate drinking alone.

She hit send before she could convince herself otherwise and she leaned her back against the counter, tapping her bare foot on the floor as she chewed on her thumb nail. She never got a response, but no more than a minute and a half after sending the text there was a knock on the door.

She took in a deep breath and pushed away from the counter, and once she put her hand on the doorknob she took in another one. As she pulled the heavy white door open she smiled gently to find Tom standing on the other side of it.

As she let him into her apartment Sam took a good look at him. Dark wash jeans and a white-shirt that had a small hole at the neck. His dark hair was slicked back the way it usually was; he managed to do so in a way that didn't make his hair seem greasy or stiff and Sam was always intrigued by it. He looked over at her with his blue eyes and if she had no sense of morals left she would have dropped her skirt that minute.

He smiled gently and asked, "So… were you lonely and drinking or just lonely?"

"What would you say if I said both?" She asked him softly, glancing up at him for a minute before her eyes went back to looking down at their feet. He wondered for a moment why she could never seem to hold his gaze for very long.

"I'm here aren't I?" He asked with a smile, and curiously he followed her as the music stopped. When he saw where the music was coming from; a little record player sitting on top of a shelf that was now open and full of albums he couldn't help but ask, "Seriously?"

She glanced over her shoulder as she carefully flipped the record and smiled, asking, "What?"

"I didn't know people still used those things." He told her as he picked up the stack sitting beside the record player. He was flipping through them to see what they were. Mostly blues and jazz. A lot of Clapton and Fitzgerald. Not even close to his type of music.

She let out a chuckle and she turned to face him as she said, "Yes, we do still use these things."

"So blues?" He asked her curiously.

She shrugged, "My dad was a big blues and jazz guy. Which is funny because my mom, she used to sing in the kitchen and it was always, always Hank Williams."

"Hey good lookin, whatcha got cookin? How's about cooking something up with me?" Sam reached up and tried to cover his mouth with her hands as he started belting out lyrics.

He let out a laugh and she told him, "Don't quit your day job bub."

As Tom wandered into the kitchen to fill two glasses with the bottle of wine that was open on her counter Sam dropped onto the couch. Once he joined her on the couch and handed her glass to her he asked her curiously, "So… your parents."

"What about them?" Sam asked him, eyebrow raised.

"I was just curious. You know… what they're like and stuff." When he asked this she smiled gently. Part of her was a little heart warmed at him wanting to know about her patents. She knew she shouldn't have, but she liked that he was asking these questions. It showed her that if he was only interested in hooking up once and walking away he was putting in a lot of effort into getting to know her.

"Well… what do you want to know?"

He told her, "What they do for a living, that kind of stuff."

"My dad's a lawyer in Boston, family law. He used to always say he'd never be out of work because it didn't matter what was going on in the world people would always be lining up for divorce." She told him and when she smiled he let out a chuckle. Made sense. She then told him, "My mom doesn't work, never did. I lived with her my entire life, and she moved all over depending on where her latest boyfriend was."

"Your parents are divorced?" He asked her curiously.

She nodded, "Yeah, since I was six. I mean it was kind of cool when I was younger because I got two houses and two rooms and two Christmas' every year, but it got old pretty quick."

"So did you go to Boston for school because of your dad?" Tom asked her curiously.

All she said was, "Sort of."

So he left it at that, he wasn't about to push her, especially when he didn't need to. He changed the subject and offered up his own family background, "I have two brothers. One older, one younger."

"Your poor parents." When he cocked his brow Sam explained with a smile, "If they're anything like you, your poor parents."

Tom let out a laugh and shrugged, "I mean we weren't that bad."

With a smile Sam asked him curiously, "Do you all play hockey?"

"We did, we all loved it as kids. We had a backyard rink and we were always out there." Tom told her.

She stated, "That's cute though, that you grew up such a stereotypical Canadian."

Tom laughed and told her, "I guess so. I was always trying to play with guys like five years older than me because my brother and his friends were always out there."

"And so what, that's how you became such a big strong hockey playing boy?" Sam asked him with a smirk that made Tom smile.

He told her, "Man, not a boy. I'm a man."

As she got up to refill her wine glass Sam glanced over her shoulder at him and she challenged him, "That remains to be seen."

She had finished filling her glass and she turned to find Tom standing directly behind her, so close that she bumped into his chest. She looked up at him, through her thick, mascara coated lashes, and he stared down at her, towering over her, but he didn't move and she didn't look away.

He put both hands on either side of her on the kitchen counter, boxing her in, and he leaned down just enough so that they were a little closer to eye level. Sam bit down gently on the inside of her cheek, as her hazel eyes stared into his blue ones. She brought one hand up to his chest, pressing her palm gently against him but she didn't push so Tom took it has a good sign.

He straightened up a little, pulled one hand off of the counter and placed it on her hip. His touch was soft and his hand was warm and Sam continued to stare up at him. She wasn't sure if she was challenging him to go further or he was challenging her to take back her previous statement. She didn't voice it as he shifted so that he was pressed against her side, she knew he knew that she could feel him against her, she wondered if that was why he moved to her side or if it was just a coincidence.

His hand travelled from her hip to the middle of her stomach, and his fingers slipped underneath the waistband of her high waisted skirt, brushing against the bare skin of her stomach where her t-shirt had ridden up. Her hand that wasn't against his chest came up and rested against his forearm and Tom wasn't sure if that was a warning to stop or not.

So his blue eyes watched her intensely as his hand slipped underneath her skirt, his calloused fingers and palm brushing against her skin causing her to break out in goosebumps. Tom was surprised that Sam kept her eyes on him and as his fingers touched the top of the lace material under her skirt her breath hitched in her throat.

His voice was low, his eyes staring at her intently as he told her, "Let me show you how much of a man I am."

She let out a breath as his fingers slipped below the lace of her underwear. She kept her eyes on his for only a moment or two after that, before her heavy lids closed and Tom leaned closer to her as she leaned her forehead against the crook of his neck and she brought her hand up to his neck and around to brush through the hair at the back of his head.

His hand stopped moving and she let out a whimper. Slut she thought. Tom smirked and he asked her softly, "Do you want me to stop?"

He was surprised when she looked up at him and told him, "Please don't."