Josh had almost forgotten about his conundrum about Juliana by the time he had been in the west wing for five minutes. He felt like he had been in meeting after meeting after meeting for years now, when in reality he had only been at work for four and a half hours. When he finally had a few seconds of a break in his schedule, he sank into his office chair and took a deep breath.
"Donna!" Josh hollered into the bullpen. "Donna! I'm hungry. Is there any food around?"
Josh was greeted with silence. Donna wasn't scurrying into the office to meet his needs. Josh sighed deeply and growled in frustration, almost in time with his stomach.
"I'm not Donna, but can I help?" Sam said as he popped his head into Josh's doorway.
"That depends. Do you live to serve me and come bearing food?" Josh asked.
"Not so much, no. But I do happen to know that you have 20 free minutes. Enough time for us to run out and get a pretzel or a hotdog, you know, something to eat." Sam quipped.
"And there's something wrong with the mess?" Josh asked, shrugging on his coat despite his question.
"Eating hotdogs from a cart makes you feel like a real person. Like one of those regular Joe voters that we champion." Sam said.
"Whatever. As long as I'm eating I don't care." Josh said, walking out of the bullpen behind Sam.
When Josh saw the vendor that Sam was headed towards he forgot to breathe for a moment and he was sure that his heart skipped a beat. Momentarily, Josh contemplated ditching Sam to run the other way or attempting to hide behind a mailbox. Maybe if Josh stayed off to the side of the pretzel stand and used Sam as a buffer, Wang wouldn't recognize him and bring attention to the fact of how they knew each other. Josh's planning was interrupted by Sam's voice.
"Hey, Josh! Don't you want something man?"
Before Josh could come up with a better way to use Sam as a buffer, an unmistakable Chinese accent rang out.
"Ah! Mr. Josh!" Wang, as if using x-ray vision to look through Sam, looked past Sam to Josh. "A free coffee for my #2 customer! Mr. Josh, you tell my #1 customer that she get free muffin when she bring you back on your usual day."
A cup of coffee was pushed past Sam and Josh accepted it nodding obligingly.
"Come on Sam, let's get going." Josh prodded. If they could just leave right now, Josh could disappear from Wang's company without the mention of a certain female's name. Sam looked confusedly at Josh, puzzled as to Josh's need for speed. Sam paid for his pretzel and both men turned around to leave.
"Don't forget Mr. Josh." Wang's voice called after him. "You tell Ms. Jules that she get free muffin when I see you both next!"
Josh was silently praying that Sam hadn't paid attention to or understood Wang's heavily accented, broken English. But as Sam stopped walking and cocked his head to one side in thought, Josh knew that his prayers had done him no good.
"Josh, did he say Jules?"
"Yeah, I, uh, bumped into her here the other day. He must have remembered that we knew each other." Instantly, Josh knew that it had been a stupid lie and that Sam could see through it. Sam hadn't really moved, he was just standing in the middle of the sidewalk, listening to Josh explain and letting other people hustle and bustle around him.
"That's not really it," Josh confessed. "Juliana and I come to Wang on the weekends. She thinks that his muffins are the best in DC and I like his coffee. We've been out seeing the sights a few times, well and once we went to one of the Smithsonian's cultural events. She never wants real food, she always opts to search the city for Wang and his pretzel cart." Josh waited for Sam's reaction. He was still waiting when Sam resumed walking and walked past Josh who was still stopped on the sidewalk.
Sam took a bite of his pretzel, looked briefly over his shoulder to see is Josh was following and then spoke composedly. "I don't want you dating my sister."
"I'm not sure we're actually dating. Okay, maybe we are kind of dating. But come on Sam, we're both adults, I think that we can make our own decisions. I mean, it's not like we're planning on getting married or anything."
"Josh, stay away from Juliana." Josh was taken aback by Sam's serious tone. He tried to protest, but Sam remained unwavering and serious.
"Sam, really…You're dating Ainsley. I can't hang out with a Republican, too?"
"Josh. I said stay away from my sister. No offense, but you tend to make a mess of relationships. I won't let you make my sister into one of those messes. I know we're friends, but I want you to be absent in my sister's personal life." Sam took a breath and then quickened his pace. "I need to get back to the office."
Josh was literally left behind in Sam's dust, bewildered by Sam's forceful attitude on the subject. Josh looked down at his coffee cup. Having suddenly lost his appetite for his coffee, he tossed it feebly into a trashcan outside a shop and turned to walk on.
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