A Fool To Think

Chapter Three

Martin reluctantly entered Cavatore's after Jack and Vivian. The last thing he wanted to do tonight was go out to dinner with Samantha. But he had no choice in the matter. If he refused to go, then everyone would be suspicious about why he had chosen to duck out of the tradition.

Danny would definitely see it as a sign that he knew Samantha from outside of work and then he would start asking a bunch of questions that Martin didn't want to answer. All he wanted was to sit on his couch, watch ESPN while eating pizza, and try to pretend that today never happened. But that wasn't an option.

When he got there, he noticed that they had chosen to get a booth. Vivian and Jack had slid into the booth on Danny's side, leaving him with no other choice but to sit next to Samantha. That was the only available spot. Taking a deep breath, he slipped out of his suit jacket and sat down as far away from her as he possibly could without falling out of the booth. Then he placed his jacket in between them, as if to signify an imaginary wall to divide them.

Samantha was less than thrilled when she realized that Martin was going to be sitting next to her and tried to scoot closer to Danny. Danny saw what she was doing and flashed her a smile of support. She gave him a small smile back and realized that maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to let Danny know some of what was going on between her and Martin. At least now she seemed to have an ally.

She could tell that Martin wasn't happy about having to sit next to her either, and understood why. This was an extremely awkward situation and she saw no way out. She decided to pretend that he wasn't even there.

"So Samantha, what do you think about New York so far?" Jack asked, trying to get the conversation going.

"It's cold, compared to Florida." She made a funny face. "I hate cold weather. That's why I was in Florida."

"So if you don't like the cold, why did you transfer up here?" Vivian asked out of curiosity.

"I needed a change." Sam explained. Her life in Florida was fine. But she needed a change. So she decided to try and change her life by asking for a transfer.

She had thought that if she started over in a new city she could find happiness. Little did she know that she would find Martin again. That was unexpected.

Martin had tuned out of the conversation as soon as he heard her tell the group that she hated cold weather. His thoughts immediately wandered and he found himself recalling a specific Saturday night in January that he spent with Samantha in her apartment.

"Why isn't anyone showing the scores of the Knicks game?" Martin released a frustrated sigh as he continued flipping through the channels of Sam's television. They were sitting together on her couch, cuddled up together with a blanket on top of them since her heater wasn't working again. "You have cable. So why is this taking so long to find out one simple score?"

"I don't know." She shook her head and snuggled up closer to him, partially because she wanted to be close to him and also partially for body heat.

He sighed again before turning off the television. "I guess I'll just wait until the paper comes tomorrow and find out the old-fashioned way." He smiled at her and placed a kiss on her lips. "What do you want to do tonight?"

"I dunno." She shrugged.

"Want to go out? We could go do something fun since this is our last weekend of freedom before classes start Monday." He suggested. The month off from classes for Christmas break they had was almost over and the time seemed to fly by in a hurry. "We could go out ice skating or we could go see a movie."

"Why don't we just stay in tonight?" She suggested.

"But it's cold in here." Martin pointed out.

"Yes, but it's colder out there." She pointed out the window. "You know I hate cold weather."

"Then why did you choose to go to school in Chicago?" He teased. "Why not Arizona or Florida?"

"Because this was the only good school that offered me a complete scholarship package. Not all of us can come from rich parents." She pointed out.

"No, I guess not." He kissed the top of her head.

"Besides, if I had gone to Arizona or Florida, I never would've met you."

"And that would have been tragic." He joked sarcastically.

"Yes it would have!" She exclaimed, reaching up to give him a passionate kiss.

"Ok. Maybe you're right. It would have been devastating." He joked, but knew that she was aware he was just joking around. Finding her was the best thing that had ever happened to him and he was really glad that he had decided against going to school back East.

He could see that there was no way to convince her to go outside right now but that still left him with the question of what they were going to do for the rest of the night since it was still early. "So if we stay in, what do you suggest we do to pass the time? We need to do something that will pass the time and keep us warm."

She grinned. "I have a few ideas about how we can do that."

"Oh really?" He pretended to be innocent and not know what she was talking about. "How do you propose we do that?"

She leaned in and placed a few quick kisses on his lips before abruptly getting up from the couch. "If you want to follow me into the bedroom I would be more than happy to give you a demonstration. But you have to catch me first." She started running around the apartment.

It didn't take him long to run after her since it was a small apartment, and cornered her in the kitchen. He trapped her against the wall and his mouth hungrily attacked hers. His hands roamed freely around her body, moving around her back and then over to her stomach.

"As much fun as keeping warm in the kitchen would be, I think we should move to the bedroom in case my roommate comes home from work early." Sam told him in between kisses.

"You don't want to give her a free show?" He whispered into her ear.

"Not really." She whispered back into his ear.

"Let's go to the bedroom then." In one sweeping movement he picked her up into his arms and carried her out of the kitchen.

"Martin? Martin?" Vivian called his name again, trying for the fifteenth time to get his attention.

"What?" He was finally aware of Vivian calling his name and shook himself out of the memory that he was reliving.

"You've been out of it for a few minutes now." Vivian pointed out, gesturing to the waiter. "Ready to order?"

He looked over at the waiter and gave an apologetic smile. "Sorry. I'll just have the chicken alfredo."

"Ok." The waiter scribbled it down on his notepad before walking away from the table.

"You were deep in thought about something." Vivian noted. "Care to tell us what it was?"

"Um…" He didn't want to tell them what he was thinking about earlier and stalled to have enough time to make up a lie. "It was nothing important."

Vivian didn't believe him, but decided to let it go for now. "Well we were just getting ready get to know Samantha better. We're going to go around the table, taking turns at asking her something. Then she can ask us something."

"It will be sort of a fun way to get to know each other." Danny stated. "Since none of us know Samantha that well."

Inwardly Martin laughed because Danny was right. None of them knew Samantha very well. Even he didn't know her, and he was engaged to her for a while!

"Who wants to go first?" Vivian asked.

"I'll go first." Danny volunteered. "What's your favorite color?"

"That's the question?" Sam laughed. She was expecting some in-depth, deeply personal and probing question from Danny. But maybe he still felt bad about pushing her into telling him about Martin. "Well my favorite color is black because it goes with everything and it's classy."

"Good answer." Danny nodded. He had given her an easy question since he had already asked her about Martin earlier. "Now it's your turn."

"Do I have to ask the same question you asked me or not?" She wasn't completely clear on what the rules of this little exercise were.

"You can ask me the same question, or you could ask me something completely different." Danny responded.

"Ok." She thought about it for a moment. "What's your favorite thing to do outside of work?"

"Date, date, and then date some more." Danny immediately replied.

The whole table laughed at his answer and at the speed of his response. Vivian then decided to go next. "Samantha, where are you from?"

"Kenosha, Wisconsin." Sam replied as the smile left her face. She hated talking about her childhood or even mentioning anything connected with her hometown or her family. It was a sore subject for her.

Martin looked over at Samantha, wondering if she was hurting because of her childhood and past conflicts with her parents. When they were together, she always hated talking about her childhood or her family. She always told him that talking about it only made her more sad and angry. So they rarely ever spoke about it, but the few times they did, he managed to get her to spill some of her secrets.

Vaguely aware that he was actually starting to feel bad for her again, he built up a protective wall and tried to retain the anger and hurt he felt towards her. He shouldn't care if she was still having trouble dealing with her past.

"Vivian, I know you have a son. What's he like?" She had seen the pictures proudly displayed on Vivian's desk and couldn't help but be curious about him. She didn't really want children because of her own messed up childhood, but still loved being around other peoples' children.

"Reggie? Oh he's great. He's 15 and in high school. He's approaching that age where he's starting to discover girls, so that's definitely something that I'm not looking forward to dealing with. But he's a good boy with a good head on his shoulders." Vivian's face beamed when she spoke about her son. The pride she had showed through her face.

"Well since I guess we're just going around the table in order," Jack glanced at Danny and Vivian, "then it's my turn. I'm not creative so I'm stealing your earlier question for Danny. What's your favorite thing to do outside of work?"

"I guess that would be running." Sam answered after giving it a few moments of thought. "I love to go jogging." Unlike Danny, she didn't enjoy dating very much.

"So Jack," she thought about her question for a moment before grinning. She decided to have a little fun with her boss and watch him squirm a little. "Who is your favorite team member? Which one of them?" She gestured to Danny, Vivian and Martin.

"I um…" Jack wasn't sure how to answer this question.

"Now this is a question that I'm interested in hearing him answer." Danny grinned, high-fiving Samantha for her choice of questions.

"How come I get the hard question?" Jack complained with a grin. "Why couldn't you ask me what my favorite food was or something?"

"What would be the fun of that?" Samantha smiled and chuckled. "The way I see it, an opportunity to freely ask your superior any question rarely comes around. Might as well make the most of this opportunity. I'm very interested in knowing who your favorite is."

"No, you're very interested in making me squirm." Jack corrected her with a chuckle. "But I'll answer the question anyway. I don't have a favorite team member. I like all of my agents the same. Each of them has qualities that I like more than others, but overall, I like them all the same."

"Good answer." Sam commented as their food arrived.