Thank you for your continued support. I appreciate it.
I do not own Glee or the characters, neither do I own Chasing Christmas Eve.
Please excuse any extreme mistakes, the boys are beside me playing and chatting all through their game(distracting me).
Earlier, Mercedes had come downstairs seeking coffee, after staying up late several nights consecutively, to write.
She was getting into it too. And it felt so wonderful. Amazing, even.
But she needed the company of some living and breathing humans, instead of just her cat and her own made-up fictional characters.
She'd been hoping to find Karen or Wendy...hell, even Kitty would do. Which meant, she must be desperate indeed.
But if she was being honest, she secretly wanted to run into Sam.
It was odd to her, how connected she felt to him. Odd and...amazing.
He was so different from anyone she'd ever known. He was quiet, but not even remotely shy, incredibly smart, and shockingly intuitive.
In short, he was an enigma to her.
And she'd dreamed about his mouth on hers every night.
But she knew she needed to stay smart and cautious. She wasn't here for more of those amazing kisses, or even to let a man into her world at all.
She was here to right her world.
And then move on.
She'd met Steven a few days earlier, on a walk through the courtyard, and she'd found him funny and charming...enough to finagle her cup of coffee and muffin from her, within two minutes.
He seemed to know everyone in the building, but when she mentioned Sam, he'd suddenly gotten very busy, brushing crumbs off his chest.
Then, Sam appeared, wearing another pair of wrinkled cargo pants and a button-down, over another T-shirt that read, Trust Me, I'm An Engineer.
Most of his pants pockets were bulging with various goodies, although it was easy enough to see, that not all of his goodies were relegated to his pockets.
He gave Old Man Steven a long, indecipherable look, before turning his sharp gaze on her.
"Hey," he said.
Mercedes smiled.
"Hey," she replied.
Both stared at each other until she forced herself to move.
"Okay, well, have a good day," she said to Steven and went to walk pass Sam. "And you too," she said to him. "Happy working."
Sam's mouth quirked a little as he blocked her passage and stared down into her face.
"Thank you."
Mercedes flashed him one last smile and shifted to clear him, but he caught her hand in his.
"You cooked last time," he said. "How about my turn tonight?"
She raised a brow.
"You're going to cook?"
"Hell no. I'm going to buy. But I'll make sure there's something green and disgustingly healthy to eat, how's that?"
Steven shook his head.
"You're going about this all wrong," he said.
"Am I?" Sam asked mildly.
"Yeah. You're supposed to wait a full week before you contact her after a date, and then you text. No one asks anyone out in person anymore. It's just not done."
"How would you know?" Sam asked. "You haven't dated since the seventies."
"Hey, I get around plenty. And the rules on dating are everywhere. Don't you Snapchat? Or Instagram?"
Sam looked pained and Mercedes laughed, amused by their interaction, which, on the surface was all sarcasm and cynicism, but she could feel a deep affection between them.
They'd obviously known each other a long time.
But there was something else.
She could see a blanket of Steven's peeking out from his crate and it was the exact same blanket that Sam had on the back of his couch.
Sam took care of Steven, and that made her a sucker for him.
"You're playing it too easy," Steven told Sam. "Women need to feel chased, but not smothered, or it's over. And this one..."
He smiled at Mercedes, his whole demeanor softening.
"She's a keeper. She deserves the best." He shook his head at Sam. "You millennials think you have it all figured out, but you don't."
Sam didn't take his eyes off Mercedes, so she saw them flicker with good humor.
"Should I wait a few more days, Mercedes?" he asked.
"Well..." Far be it from her to settle this disagreement, but... "I'm only here until Christmas Eve. I don't think we've got time for games, or to be coy."
The smile in his eyes spread to his really great mouth, and she was reminded, of how that really great mouth had felt on hers.
"Is that a yes?" he asked.
"Make him wait, cutie," Steven said.
And Sam sighed.
Mercedes smiled up at Sam when he sighed at Steven's interference.
"I just think it'd be more interesting if you cooked," she said playfully.
Steven barked out a laugh.
"Darlin', you want him to burn down the building? The boy's a genius, but trust me, it's book smarts only." He pointed to his own brain. "It's all up here, see? Not in his hands, if you know what I mean."
Sam cut the old man a look and Steven cleared his throat.
"Right." He lifted his hands in surrender. "Just trying to help."
"Well, just run me over next time."
Sam looked at Mercedes.
"I'll make you a deal. Have you started on your list yet? The one you made on the plane?"
Thinking of her list, specifically number ten, Mercedes felt her face heat.
She'd been out and about in the city, but only for short stretches at a time, so she was looking forward to exploring.
"Not yet."
"How about we knock something off your list and then eat?"
Her heart started to pound.
By knocking something off the list, surely he didn't mean...number ten...
Somehow, she managed to meet his gaze and found affectionate amusement all over his face.
He was teasing her.
'Two can play that game.'
"Sure," she said. "We'll play tourist and then eat something that you cook."
Sam laughed.
"You're a stubborn one."
"Takes one to know one," Steven said and lifted his hands, when Sam sent him another long look.
"You gotta stretch yourself," Mercedes said to Sam, mimicking his own words back at him.
He let out a rueful laugh.
"Wow, I'm really an asshole."
"So, is that a yes you'll cook me dinner?" she asked.
"Sure. What the hell."
"Oh Christ!" Steven muttered. "I better put the fire department on notice."
A little dazed, and a lot excited, Mercedes nodded and walked away, hearing Steven say to Sam,
"You told her stuff about you...like how you live here."
"Yeah," Sam replied.
"Huh," Steven said. "That's new."
"Don't go reading anything into it," Sam said.
And then, she couldn't hear anything after that, as she was beyond hearing range.
It was just as well, since no one ever overheard something they actually wanted to overhear.
Don't go reading anything into it...
She needed to remember that.
Sam hit the pub for lunch.
As usual, Fergus had the far right side of the bar open for the gang.
They were a close-knit bunch, forever sticking their noses into each other's business, fighting like cats and dogs, and yet always, without fail, having each other's back.
Artie and Kitty were there.
He was inhaling a huge plate of nachos, while she talked. Which was a perfect picture of how their relationship went in general.
"She's cute, I'll give him that," Kitty was saying. "But he's not ready for this, and besides, she's got an expiration date. And hello, she's not who she seems. She can't be."
"Babe, he's a big boy," Artie said. "And he's right behind us."
Sam rolled his eyes and leaned in to steal a nacho.
"Your reflexes are creepy," he said to Artie, before looking at Kitty. "If you want to tell me I'm an idiot, do it to my face."
"You're an idiot."
Artie grinned at her.
"I love it when you're mad at someone other than me."
"I can multitask," she warned.
"Don't I know it."
Kitty stared at Artie and then let out a dopey smile, that she never gave to anyone other than him.
"I'm about to give the inquisition to one of your BFFs. How much do you love me, on a scale from zero to burgers?"
"Burgers," Artie said without hesitation. "With bacon and cheese."
"I knew you were the one." She turned to Sam. "How are you doing? You've been working around the clock. You okay?"
He shrugged.
"You were doing really great until a few days ago," she said. "What happened?"
He shrugged again.
And she gave him a look, that said they both knew exactly what had happened. And her name was Mercedes.
"What can I do to help?" Kitty asked.
The question was proof, that no matter how much she drove Sam crazy, she was like family.
"Nothing," he said. "I'm working on it. Three nights ago, Mercedes cooked me dinner and I'm going to return the favor tonight."
Artie high-fived him.
But Kitty blinked.
"That's 'working on it'? And she cooked you dinner?"
"Burgers and salad. It was great, even if it was turkey burgers and salad."
Kitty wasn't amused.
"You don't cook. In fact, you burn water."
"Hello, Pot," he said. "I'm Kettle."
Artie laughed.
Kitty went brows up at him and he quickly returned to his food.
"I don't burn water," she told Sam.
"Okay. So I suppose, that time you pretended to make Artie dinner, but really, you ordered out, because you'd already burned your first efforts...didn't really happen. Even though it totally did."
Artie snorted, but then turned it into a cough as he caught Kitty's eye again.
"No worries, babe," he said. "You give great takeout."
Kitty had the good grace to roll her eyes.
"Fine, I'm being ridiculous, whatever. But you." She pointed at Sam. "You're the most private person I know, and you rented a place to a woman on first sight...without even knowing her last name, I might add. So you can see why I'm worried. If I did that, you'd kick my ass."
"Yes," Sam said. "But I got her knocked into that damn fountain," he said. "I feel responsible for that. I just did what anyone else would've done."
"No," Kitty said. "Anyone else would've paid her dry cleaning and sent her on her way. Period. Look, you're not acting like yourself. I'm just worried about you."
"Well, don't be."
He nodded at Fergus, as he came over from the other side of the bar to steal a nacho.
"Hey, I need a bottle of wine for tonight."
"For?" Fergus asked.
"Dinner."
"I mean for what kind of food," he clarified.
"Whatever goes with Cheetos," Artie said, making everyone laugh, because, they all knew Sam had the appetite of a twelve-year-old boy.
Just then, Sam's phone went off with an unfamiliar number and he hit ignore, knowing it was either a reporter or someone who'd hunted down his number, wanting him to invest in some crazy idea.
"You're still being hounded?" Shamus...Fergus' younger brother and co-owner of the pub asked, refilling their waters.
He was an all-around troublemaker and chick magnet.
Sam shrugged.
"I should probably reconsider changing my number."
"No!" Artie, Fergus, and Shamus all said, at the same time.
Kitty rolled her eyes.
"Pigs. All of you," she said, just as a text came through from that same unknown number.
And sure enough, when Sam opened it up for everyone to see, it was a marriage proposal...along with a picture of a pair of bare breasts. Pierced.
There was dead silence for a beat, but Shamus recovered first.
"See?" he finally said. "You can't change your number, man. You need this. We need this."
Later that afternoon, Sam was in his office, with two large screens working, as he crunched some new formulas and numbers, when Cindy called, giving him a blast from the past.
"Hey," she said. "Checking in on things."
Things being their project, of course. It used to be, that she called just to hear his voice, because she missed him.
But things changed.
"I'm not trying to apply pressure," she said, when he didn't answer right away. "I really just wanted to see how you were doing."
They hadn't made it as a couple...which was one hundred percent his fault...but they'd managed to maintain a friendship, even with all the baggage and miles between them.
She was important to him.
His relationship with her, the one they had now, where they supported each other through thick and thin, without the layers required of a romantic relationship, meant a lot to him.
So when she said she wasn't trying to apply pressure, he knew she meant it.
But he felt it anyway.
He'd failed her, in a big way.
The biggest way a man could fail a woman.
He hadn't cheated on her with another woman, but he sure as hell had cheated on her with his work.
Work was, and always had been his mistress, and she'd left him for it.
But he couldn't go back and fix that.
Even if he wanted to, he couldn't.
And he didn't want to.
She was so much better off without him.
And so was Mercedes.
"Sam?"
"I'm here. I'm fine."
He blew out a breath and shoved his hands through his hair. By some miracle, Cindy had forgiven him of his many mistakes and she still loved him.
In her own way.
In any case, it was her pattern to call, whenever she was stateside for a few days, which in itself, was rare these days.
"Where are you?" he asked.
"DC." She paused. "What's wrong?"
"I've got some problems in the software, but it'll come."
"Maybe you're working too hard."
"No, I..."
"Sam..." Cindy let out a low laugh. "Let me rephrase. You are working too hard."
"You've been overseas. You don't know what I'm doing or not doing."
"Wanna bet?"
She laughed again, but there was something in the sound, that said she wasn't actually amused.
"I was with you, Sam, remember? For four years. I know exactly what you've been doing. Eating, sleeping, walking, and talking work 24–7."
"I've had to," he said carefully. "There are glitches in the..."
"There are always glitches, Sam. It's part of the process, and part of the challenge on which you've always thrived. I have complete faith you'll figure everything out."
This wasn't comforting in the least.
It was actually the opposite of comforting and only served to make him all the more edgy, because, what if he didn't work everything out?
What then?
He'd have to tell her, that once again, he'd let her down...
"Stop," Cindy said, more gently now, all amusement gone from her voice. "Stop beating yourself up. You'll get this, Sam. You always do. Work always wins in the end with you."
"Ouch," he said, but couldn't take offense, because it was true.
Work did always win.
His personal life always lost.
"You know what I mean," she said softly.
"Yeah."
"Listen," she said. "I'm thinking of skipping Christmas in Cali this year. My folks flew here to meet up with me for a few days, and then I'm thinking I might head down to Miami."
"What's in Miami?"
Another pause, and this one had him taking his gaze and hands off his laptop and pausing back.
"What," he asked, jokingly. "You've got a guy in Miami?"
Her voice was regretful.
"Sam..."
"Wow," he said. "You do." He nodded. "Okay, then. Well, good. Good for you."
"Do you really mean that?"
"Yeah." And he did. Even more than that, there was in fact, a small surge of relief going through him. "Who is he?"
"A doctor in the Docs Without Borders Extreme organization I work with."
'Shit!' Sam swore internally. It was a noble cause, but probably, yet another man who would put his work before her.
"Cindy..." Sam started.
"Don't worry about me, Sam. I'm okay, I promise."
"I get that. But if something changes and suddenly you're not okay, then I'll..."
"...kick his ass," she said with a smile. "I know. I'll keep that in mind. How about you?"
"What about me?" he asked.
"You putting yourself out there at all?"
He thought of Mercedes and could almost see her smile, and hear her laugh. He could feel the touch of her mouth to his...
"You need to get back on the bike," Cindy said.
"So I can hurt someone else?"
"Sam..."
He closed his eyes.
"Sam..."
"What do you want me to say?" he asked.
"That I didn't destroy you for all other women."
He laughed.
"It wasn't you. It was me. We both know that."
"Bullshit! I was needy as hell."
"And I was an oblivious, self-centered asshole. That hasn't changed."
"You were never a self-centered asshole," she said. "Oblivious...maybe. But it's how you're wired. You're programmed to concentrate on a problem until it's fixed, and until you do, you can't easily concentrate on anything else. You need to accept that about yourself. You're working your ass off on this drone project, to get meds and personalized doctor care, delivered to tiny corners of the world. It's a big deal."
"Other people have big-deal jobs and they can successfully manage to keep a relationship."
"You can too," she said.
But, could he really?
He'd seen no proof of that.
And yet, there was no denying, that he wanted to do just that with Mercedes.
"Are you sure you're okay with me not coming home for Christmas?" Cindy asked. "I know it's a rough holiday for you."
It wasn't rough, so much as lonely.
His mom always flew back east to visit friends. And he'd spent his last few Christmases right here with his friends.
But he couldn't deny he'd felt something was missing.
He scrubbed a hand down his face.
Christmas was two weeks away. He had plenty of time to think about it later.
"I'll be fine."
"Because you always are," Cindy said.
At that, he smiled.
"Yeah."
"I'll be there in January though," she said. "And I'm not rushing you, but...is there any chance you have a projected date for the prototype? We'd said January and I was hoping that was still the case. I've got some heavy-hitting investors interested in helping me fund the program, once we get it up and running, and they're pressuring me for an estimated start date."
Tension set in Sam's shoulders.
He could feel the burn across the back of his neck.
And in his gut.
"Yes," he said. "January works. But say, end of the month."
That gave him a cushion he needed.
'Only until Mercedes left,' he told himself.
Then, he'd get caught back up. Which, in no way helped to alleviate the pressure he was feeling now.
"You sure, Sam?" Cindy asked softly.
He got the question.
Once upon a time he'd disappointed her. Was he going to do it again?
"I'm sure," he said.
"I have faith in you," she replied. "You know that, right? You're the guy who can do anything he sets his mind to. Anything at all."
She blew him some kisses and then she was gone.
Sam tossed his phone aside and dove back into work. This was a normal habit for him.
But then, he stopped and looked at the clock.
This wasn't a normal habit.
Also not normal...he didn't have to stretch his brain, to try to remember what else it was that he was supposed to be doing.
He had a date.
With Mercedes.
He headed straight for the door and yanked it open, only to stop at the sight of Christian standing there, keycard in hand, to let himself in.
"You got food?" Christian asked hopefully.
"Yeah." Distracted, Sam waved to the kitchen. "Nancy restocked me. Help yourself."
"Where you headed?" Christian asked.
"Date," Sam said and Christian reached out to block him from leaving.
"Whoa!"
Sam gave him a look.
"Come on. It hasn't been that long."
"Actually, yeah, it has. And that's not what I meant. You trying to get laid tonight? And before you bust out my teeth for asking, take a good look at yourself."
Sam looked down. He was in knit boxers...only.
Christian grinned.
"You know what? On second thought, by all means go just like that. But first..." He took out his cell phone and took a pic. "Looking good, man. The gym's really paying off."
Sam flipped him the bird and went through the door that took him directly into his apartment.
A two-minute shower and a quick toss of his closet later, found him on the third floor, knocking at Mercedes' door.
She opened up and swept her gaze over him from head to toe.
"Nice," she said. "But I preferred your first outfit."
He just blinked, and she smiled.
It was the kind of smile that could light a guy up from the inside out, the kind of smile that also had her face coming alive.
"Karen had me add her on Instagram," she said, "And she reposted a pic that someone named Christian posted. He's your business partner, right?"
She leaned in.
"Seems as though, you really do put your gym to good use."
"Excuse me a sec," Sam said.
He pulled out his phone and hit a button on his security app. This would set off an internal alert, that would go straight to his security company.
Run by Artie.
In two minutes or less, Artie's men would storm Sam's apartment in full kickass mode and scare the ever-loving shit out of Christian.
"Everything okay?" Mercedes asked.
He smiled.
'Payback's a bitch.'
"Everything's great."
Stay safe!