A Fool To Think

Chapter Twenty-Six

"No I'm not." Sam refused, crossing her arms around her and taking a defensive stance.

"Well I'm not letting you stay in an apartment with a door that won't lock and a stepfather that is stalking you." Martin explained. "So you're coming with me."

"No I'm not." She chuckled. "You can't just order me around."

"Ok." He sighed. "Sam, will you please come and spend the night at my apartment? I'm worried about your safety here and I don't want to see you hurt."

"I can't just leave my apartment like this." She objected. "You said it yourself. The door won't close properly. If I leave, it will only take a few hours before everything is stolen."

"I'll take care of that." He promised, pulling out his cell phone. "I'll call the police and get someone to watch the apartment tonight. Then in the morning we can have someone come and fix up the door."

"You're going to involve the police in this?"

"Of course I am." Martin nodded. "You can't just sit around and let Tom get away with this. First he slashes your tires and now he's breaking into your apartment."

"But…"

"And please don't tell me that you're in control of everything and that nothing's wrong." He asked, knowing that was going to be her next comment. "I know that you don't want to admit that this is a serious situation, but it is."

"Martin…"

"Please Sam?" He asked. "Please just do this for me?"

After thinking about it for a moment, she reluctantly agreed. "Ok."

"Good." He nodded. "Why don't you go get anything that you'll need and I'll call the police?"

"Sure." She opened the broken door and went inside.

About an hour later, they were sitting on the couch in Martin's apartment listening to the rain pounding against the building. The police had taken Sam and Martin's statement and then agreed to watch the apartment until the repairman for the door came back.

The police officer had told them that they would check with Tom's parole officer and investigate the possibility of him being in New York. But apparently they didn't believe that he was responsible for the tire slashing and break-in because there was no evidence linking him to the crimes.

"You know I tried to tell you that the cops wouldn't be able to do anything to stop Tom. They don't even believe that he's here." Sam told Martin as he flipped through the channels of the television to look for something they could watch.

"Not yet. But they will." Martin assured her.

"Yeah. They'll believe it when it's too late." Sam muttered.

"I'm not going to let anything happen to you." He told her, wrapping his arm around her shoulder.

She let his arm wrap around her for a moment before shrugging it off and scooting farther away from him.

"Is something wrong?" He asked, confused by her behavior.

"I don't know." She shook her head.

"Well why did you pull away like that?" He asked.

"Because I'm not sure whose mind games are worse." She replied. "Yours or Tom's."

"Mind games?" He questioned. "What are you talking about? I'm not playing mind games."

"Yes you are." She exclaimed. "First you say that you want to be friends and then you kiss me like that! Then there's your whole 'I'll protect you and be your knight in shining armor' act."

"It's not an act." He sighed, knowing that the time would come when he had to explain his reasons for kissing her. Too bad he didn't really have a reason, other than he did it because he wanted to taste her kiss again. "I care about you Sam and I don't want to see you hurt—especially by Tom again."

"Ok so maybe it's not an act and you really do want to help me." She relented. "That still doesn't explain the kiss."

"No it doesn't, does it?"

"Nope." She shook her head. "Even though you mentioned that you may be dumping her, you still have a girlfriend right now and I'm not sure Caroline would appreciate it if she knew that you kissed me like that."

"No, you're right." Martin nodded. "She might not be too happy about it." Although he doubted that she would get too upset. They weren't exclusively dating. But she was a woman and women could get fairly territorial over men, even if they weren't head over heels in love with the guy.

"So why did you kiss me then?" She asked, needing to know the answer. She could deal with whatever the answer was. She just needed to know where she stood with him. His actions and words weren't matching up anymore.

One minute he seemed like he was still in love with her and wanted her back yet the next moment he was pulling away and making her see that they were only going to be friends. So which was it?

"I…" He started to explain but wasn't able to find the right words. "I don't know."

"Are we friends or something else?" She boldly asked, tired of waiting for him to explain himself. If he wasn't going to, she'd pry the answer out of him another way.

"I'm not sure anymore." He shook his head. He knew that he wouldn't be opposed to being more than friends with Sam but was now really the right time to be starting something with her again?

After all, there was a lot going on in her life right now. She had turned Alex over to the police and they were doing their own investigation into the website scheme, and now she also had to deal with the fact that her psycho stepfather was basically stalking her.

The last thing he wanted to do as add drama to her already drama-filled life. So maybe the best thing to do would be to just claim that he got caught up in the moment and ask that they pretend it never happened. The more he thought about that idea, the better it sounded.

"What does that even mean?" She asked, getting up from the couch and starting to pace around the living room.

"I don't know." He sighed, getting up and blocking Sam's path so that she was now standing in front of him. "I guess I kissed you because I wanted to. It's been a long time since we had kissed the last time and…well you were there and I was there…we'd just had a really nice dinner and I felt like we had reconnected."

"I guess I just got caught up in the moment. I saw you there and I just went for it." He reached out and grabbed a hold of her hand, not sure why he was doing that. He had just decided a few moments ago to ask her to pretend it never happened, but here he was holding her hand. He just realized that he was kind of playing mind games with her. "I'm sorry."

"So you're sorry about the kiss?" Sam asked, not sure what he was apologizing for. He was really confusing her right now because he was apologizing, but also holding on to her hand and gently caressing it with his thumb.

"No." He shook his head. "The kiss was great and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I'm sorry about the mind games. I don't mean to…I just don't really know what I'm doing right now."

"Well right now you're caressing my hand in the middle of your living room." She informed him with a small smile.

He chuckled. "Yeah, I am, aren't I?" He knew that he could always count on her to inject some humor into the situation. "I guess what I'm trying to say here is that I want to be friends with you but I also can't shake these feelings I have for you. They follow me around like a shadow…"

"Maybe I should leave then." She told him, removing her hand from his grasp, squeezing past him and heading to the door. "I can probably go stay on Danny's couch tonight."

It was nice to know that Martin still had some feelings left for her but she couldn't help being disappointed when he said that he wanted to be friends. After the kiss, she had hoped for more. But that was her problem. She was a fool to think that he would even consider another relationship with her again after what happened the first time.

"Please don't go." He called after her, wanting to make her stop. He wasn't done telling her everything and didn't want her to get the wrong impression. "Why go anywhere else tonight? You're already here and besides, Danny probably has company tonight."

"Oh yeah." Sam had forgotten about that. Knowing Danny, he probably was spending the night Diana. "Well I'll get a hotel room for the night."

"Sam…" He lightly grabbed her arm to stop her. "You don't have to leave."

"I think I do." She quietly told him. "I think that if I stay here it might ruin the friendship that we're trying to rebuild. Hell, maybe we're even fooling ourselves if we think that we can be friends again."

"What does that mean?" He asked, confused by her sudden attitude change.

"Face it Martin, we had some pretty intense feelings for each other back then and it ended badly. We can try and move on, pretend that they're not there and that we don't feel them, but the feelings are obviously still there. They might always be there."

She sighed, not looking forward to having to say this next part. "Since we're not going to be getting back together and we're going to just be friends, those feelings are going to make everything difficult. So maybe trying to be friends isn't possible. Maybe that's asking too much."

He knew that she was probably right. These feelings that he still felt for her were already having an effect on their friendship. But that didn't mean that he wanted to just abandon the whole cause.

"Sam, what if we…"

"Martin, I'm not sure there's anything left to say." She interrupted.

"I don't want you going out there alone right now." He told her. "Tom could be anywhere."

"I know, but I'll get a cab and go straight to a hotel." She told him. "I'll be fine."

He didn't want to let her go, but didn't know how to get her to stay either. "Can you at least call me once you get a hotel room to let me know that you're ok?"

"Sure." She nodded.

"Ok." He said reluctantly letting go of her arm.

"Goodnight Martin." She gave him a small smile.

"Goodnight Sam." He answered as she left his apartment.