Author's note:
Merry Christmas, or Hanukkah or whatever all the other religions are celebrating around this time of the year.
Well I am back at work…and look who is sitting there innocently: my muse.
Well time to get some new chapters out there.
Enjoy, and as always stay tuned :-)
Andy looked at herself in the mirror. "It's not going to get any better" she muttered to herself.
This morning Sam had dropped her off at her condo. He had wanted for her to come with him when he picked up his sister and her husband this afternoon, but Andy had put her food down.
She had argued that they were just coming of a cruise and wanted to catch up with Sam and relax, she didn't want to intrude. Also she needed to do some laundry and check her mail.
But Sam had insisted that they are going out for dinner and had told her to keep it casual, because they were going to eat ribs.
So here she was after trying on 20 different outfits, Andy had settled on a black jeans, a dark green flowy, long sleeve shirt and black three-inch pumps. Once again she had left her hair open.
The door bell rung and Andy went to let Sam into the condo.
"Hey" she was just able to get out before he pushed her up to the open door and kissed her senseless.
After a couple of minutes Sam broke the kiss off and went further into the apartment. Andy stood there speechless for a few seconds before her clouded mind catches up and she moves close the door.
As she turns around she finds a smirking Sam looking at her. "What was that about?" Andy asks. Stuff like that is out of character for him, but who was she to complain about such a 'hello'.
Sam frowned. "I missed you all day" As if that was the most obvious thing in the world.
Truth is that she had missed him too. Since the dinner at her Dad's they had spent every day and night together.
Andy laughed and walked over to him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Can't cope without me for more than 8 hours, Swarek?" She whispers in his ear and moves away laughing to get her jacket and bag.
"I can cope without you, doesn't mean I have to like it" Sam said with a pouting face as she came back into the living room and pulled her in for another quick kiss.
"Where is your overnight bag?" Sam questioned as they come up for air.
"I don't need it" Andy states and walks up to the front door to open it.
"You know I would always urge you to not have any clothes on" Sam says with a wink" but you will need some clothes to put on for the drive to St. Catherine's tomorrow."
"I am staying here for the night, so I will have some clothes to put on" Andy says which earns her another frown from Sam.
"Andy, why are we staying here? It would be easier to just go to my place after dinner. But if you'd rather stay here, that is fine with me" Sam says.
"No, you are staying at your place, with you sister and her husband and I am staying here." Hopefully this won't end in an argument. Andy walks back to where Sam is standing, confusion clearly showing on his face.
"What is going on Andy?" worry was clear in Sam's voice.
"Nothing is going on…"Andy placed her hand on his cheek and smiles encouragingly at him "Look I am going to meet your sister for the first time today and I just don't feel comfortable to sleep in the same bed as you, when your sister is just a couple of doors away from us."
Sam lets out a breath which he has held, since Andy said they were spending the night in separate beds. He had tried to figure out what had gone wrong.
"Andy…" But Andy cut him off with a kiss.
"Sam, please?" Andy pleads. "You need to spend time with your sister and I don't want to intrude. If it's any consolation, we are going to spend the whole day tomorrow together and if you are lucky even tomorrow night." She adds and gives him another kiss.
"Oh I am feeling pretty lucky McNally" Sam smiles at her. "Now, get moving! I am getting hungry and there some ribs with my name on them waiting for me" with that he slaps her ass lightly.
Andy try's to shoot him an annoyed look, but it ends up spotting huge grin.
On the drive to the restaurant, Andy gets more nervous the closer they get.
"Hey" Sam takes her hand and squeezes it lightly, which causes Andy to look over to him. He looks quickly over to her and shoots her a smile, before concentrating back on the road. "You have nothing to worry about. My sister will love you. She really doesn't have much of a choice, because you are the most important person in my life, and I intend to keep you around for a while"
Andy stays quiet and intertwines her fingers with Sam's. This calms her down a little. In Andy's eyes, meeting his sister is a pretty huge deal. In the past Sam has always kept personal stuff to himself, but this time around she can see that he is really making an effort to be more open and share stuff with her.
"You know, I never met anyone of Luke's family?" Andy says quietly.
"What do you mean? You two were engaged!" Sam asks surprised. He doesn't like talking about her relationship with golden boy Callaghan. In the last few weeks they had talked about a lot of stuff, but her engagement to Luke had always been an unspoken no go zone.
"Yes, we were engaged, but I never met anyone related to him. Something always came up with work and we never got around to it. So me, meeting your sister is a pretty big deal for me." Andy says looking out the off window.
"You meeting my sister is a pretty big deal for me too" admitting how he feels is getting considerably easier by the day. "I never took anyone to meet her. I never told anyone else what happened to her, except from you. Not Marlo and Not Monika." Sam took a deep breath before he continued. With his eyes still trained on the road, he can feel Andy looking at him. "So I really hope that you two get along."
Andy smiles at Sam. "I hope so too"
Andy and Sam enter the Restaurant holding hands. Since the restaurant is close to Sam's house, Sarah and Tod had made the walk up the road by food, whilst Sam was picking up Andy.
A woman wove them over to their table and Andy could immediately identify that woman as Sam's sister Sarah. Sarah is about Andy's size, has black hair and the Swarek dimples. They are unmistakably siblings.
The older woman stands up as they get to the table and smiles broadly at them. "So you must be Andy!" Sarah says more as a statement, then a question and draws Andy into a hug. "It's nice to finally meet you! This is my husband Tod." She says and gestures to the man standing next to her, who holds out his hand for Andy to shake.
All nervousness vanishes from Andy's body and she relaxes. She didn't expect such a warm welcome.
"Hi, Yes I am indeed Andy" She states before sitting down in the chair opposite of Sarah.
"Way to go Sis, couldn't wait for me to introduce you guys, could you?" Sam says mockingly and envelopes his sister into a hug. Sarah just laughs and hugs her brother back.
As they are all seated and ordered their meals, Sam rubs his hands together. "I have been looking forward to having ribs since you called on Sunday."
Andy can't help but laugh. "He hasn't stopped talking about it. Sam said it is your favorite restaurant in town and as he made the reservation he looked like a kid in a candy store"
Sam just shakes his head and rolls his eyes. "You are exaggerating that Andy"
"I don't think she is little brother" Sarah says. Before looking at Andy "As he was a child you couldn't leave him alone with ribs on the dinner table for more than a minute. They would be gone before the rest of the family would make it to the table.
As he was about four of five years old, between Christmas and New Year, Dad had made ribs. He had this old charcoal BBQ outside in the shed, and that's where the ribs always were cooked on. So Dad stood outside in the cold for a couple of hours cooking them up.
He placed them on the dining table, before going to wash his hands. As the rest of us came into the kitchen to eat there was only half left. Sammy here had decided he couldn't wait anymore and eaten them. On the floor next to him sat our dog chewing on the bones.
Our parents, of course, weren't happy at all and it earned him house arrest for a couple of days."
Andy laughed out loud. She could imagine little Sam looking up sheepishly as if he didn't know what he did.
"Will you look at that?" Sam said looking at his brother-in-law. "Our food hasn't even arrived and Sarah is already dishing out my worst childhood stories!" He said in mock horror.
Tod laughed at the younger man. "Sammy, Sammy. The first time we met you weren't any better!" Tod said and put and arm around his wife.
"Those early years where our old man was still a decent guy were great, after that well that's a story for another time." Sam says quietly and looks sadly at Andy.
She had gotten to know a little bit about Sam's father in the last few weeks. Sam never had anything nice to say about the man. Sarah on the other hand seems to be more than happy to talk about their dad.
After Dinner is served and the conversation keeps flowing. There aren't any awkward silences, just laughter at Sam's expense. But Sam Swarek couldn't be any happier than he is at this moment. His girlfriend and his sister were getting along just fine.
As dessert is served Sam notices the lack of coffee in front of Sarah. "Sarah?" His older sister looks at him questionably. "Why haven't you ordered any coffee? And also you haven't been drinking any alcohol tonight. What's up with that? It's not one of your health trips is it?"
Sarah just rolls her eyes at her ever observant little brother, before looking at her husband, who gives her an encouraging smile and a nod.
But that causes Sam's alarms bells to go off. "What is going on Sis?" He says in a demanding, worrying tone.
Andy is looking at the other three adults with confusion, not knowing what is going on.
Suddenly Sarah smiles brightly, takes her husband's hand and says "Don't worry little brother, it's nothing serious…well it is serious, but not what you imagine" Sam shoots her a warning glare, that tells her to quit stalling and give up the information she is holding back.
"You know from early age, I was never able to hide anything from Sam. He was always observant and I suppose becoming a cop just enhanced that ability" Sarah said looking at Andy and then ads in a quieter voice "Sam, I am three-month pregnant"
"Excuse me?" Have I heard right? He thinks to himself.
"You are going to be an uncle!" Sarah says louder this time. Sam jumps out of his seat, rounds the table, pulls Sarah out of her chair and nearly crushes her in a hug. The dimples are on full display now.
They stay at the restaurant until they are kicked out by the owner. Andy had offered to drive so Sam could have a few celebratory drinks with Tod and his sister, who stuck to Orange juice. She drives them all home and on Sam's insistence takes the truck with her home.
The next day is rather eventless. Andy gets up early and drives over to Sam's house. They are all awake as she arrives.
They hit the road at 11am and make it to St. Catherine's by 1pm. Sarah left no room for arguments last night, as she had told Sam and Andy to pack a back, to stay at their house until Sunday.
Sam warps his arm around Andy and draws her closer. A couple of days have passed, since their arrival in St. Catherine's and Sam had shown her around town. He wanted her to properly see where he grew up.
Today, Sarah had put Sam to work and he was exhausted. At the moment Andy and Sam are sleeping in the guest room on the same floor as Sarah and Tod. But since they are expecting a baby now, Sarah wants him to renovate the attic, so that the guest room can move up there and the baby could get this room.
"I was really hoping to be wrong about the amount of work I have to put into the attic." Sam tells Andy, who turns around to face him. "I will need to stay at least another two weeks here. Question is do you want to stay as well or do you want to go home?"
Andy is quiet for a few minutes before she smiles and looks up to him. "How about this? I will spend Monday to Friday here with you, and on the weekend I will go back to Toronto."
"Sounds good to me" Sam nods and gives Andy a dimpled smile. "I knew she had an ulterior plan!"
Andy looks at him confused so he adds with a smirk "You see Tod has two left hands. He isn't very skilled with tools, so everything naturally falls to me to fix. I knew it would be too good to be true for my sister to just want me staying here!"
That causes Andy to laugh out loud. "Smart woman" is all she can manage to say between her laughs.
After a few minutes of silence Andy speaks up. "The other day at dinner you said your early childhood memories with your dad are better than the later years. What happened?"
It takes Sam a few minutes to answer that question. "Our Mom died as I was ten. After that Dad became a different person. He locked me into the shed, because I forgot to mow the lawn. A few years later he had me sleep in there for a week. At 16 I was just screwing up so I wouldn't need to spend time under the same roof as him."
"Oh Sam, I am sorry" Andy says.
"It's okay. I have made more or less peace with it. Sarah was always the one who got better along with him." Sam adds.
"Still, he is your dad, he should have known better." Andy says, snuggling closer to Sam, trying to comfort him.
"That may be, but he is dead a few years ago in prison, so it really doesn't matter anymore." Sam can't believe how lucky he is, to get a second chance with this beautiful, caring brunette. "I love you, Andy" and there it is. The three little words both of them haven't dared to say to each other since the hospital.
Andy looks at Sam very seriously. "I love you too!" She states before her lips come crushing down onto his lips.
For the next couple of hours there aren't many other words uttered by them.
Later on that night Andy is lying with her head on Sam's chest, with his arm wrapped around her.
"Move in with me!" Sam says quietly. Andy doesn't say a word and she doesn't move and Sam thinks she hasn't heard him. He is just about to say it again a little louder, when Andy moves her head so she can look at Sam.
"Sam…" She starts but is being cut off by Sam.
"McNally…Andy! I know it may be premature, since we just got back together a month ago, but we haven't spent more than three nights apart. And when we do I sleep like shit. I want you to move in with me, so I will always have a good night sleep" He says with a smirk. "Better yet, let's buy a house that we both like. I am all in and as I said you are stuck with me, for quite some time, so we might as well do it." Sam said with a determined voice. He hasn't been this sure about something in a while.
Andy chuckled. "Sam, if you wouldn't have interrupted me then you would know already that I would love to move in with you. And yes I would love to buy a house with you."
Sam let out a sigh and kissed her. "So we are really doing this?" He asked just to be sure.
Andy rolls on top of Sam and nods before claiming his lips again. Sleep was the last thing on their mind for the rest of the night.