Sam was exhausted. After attempting to kill (not really, but after five days of reading the most boring, tedious book in history thanks to Cliff's recommendation) the mailman, Sam and Diane had retreated to her apartment, where they started to watch, appropriately enough, the VHS version of War and Peace.
Sam hadn't made it more than five minutes when his snoring began to drown out the sound of the characters' dialogue. Diane, ready to turn it off, stopped herself when she started to get caught up in the moment. It was a really pretty dull movie, she conceded.
But what Sam had done for her...no one had ever done anything like that before in all of her life. Yes, there had been suitors with more class, more intelligence, more money than Sam. But no one had ever quite captured her imagination the way Sam Malone had.
Her mother had chortled when she'd told her that she'd fallen for a ballplayer. Diane wouldn't know the first thing about baseball, and to her chagrin, Diane's mother had quickly been proven right.
But what her mother couldn't have predicted- what no one could have predicted- was that while Diane knew zilch about baseball, this particular evening she learned an awful lot about a certain ballplayer. And that man, how far he'd grown in such a short period of time, the lengths he went just to make her happy, his willingness to sit down for a dinner with that...that dud, Sumner, well, while Diane may not have fallen in love with the sport, there was a certain former player she'd become quite smitten with.
Money was one thing. Yes, she'd had suitors try to buy her affection, but at the day they were shallow, self-absorbed and immature. Not that Sam wasn't also those things, but he had something very different that those boys did not ever have a chance of getting. He'd won her heart, and it was easy to see why.
She finally turned off the tv, not wanting to go any further than her stretch of the couch. Sam, by this point, was leaning on her and quite involved in his deep slumber. It was quite apparent he wasn't going anywhere, and so neither would Diane.
It was kind of a pity. Sam loved to flirt and endlessly try to seduce Diane.
Maybe, just maybe she would return the favor.
"Sam?" she grinned and nudged him. He offered no response, so she grabbed the throw blanket and wrapped them both inside of the comfortable edges.
Oh well. There was always the morning. If Sam had made it those five difficult days of reading War and Peace, then certainly she could wait until the morning.
She glanced over at him again. He looked so darn cute, so appealing, that she could tell it would be a long night. If he should happen to wake up before morning...well, she'd make it worth his while.
After all, it was growing clearer and clearer to her that he most certainly was worth her while.
She kissed his forehead, put her hand on top of his, and closed her eyes, praying that morning would quickly arrive.
Fortunately for them both, Sam wasn't quite a sound sleeper...
tbc