Chapter 3: Stacey

I set down my crossword puzzle and sighed. I was currently on the train from New York to Stoneybrook, a trip I have had the pleasure of taking so many times I couldn't even begin to count them.

I was heading to Stoneybrook for several reasons. One was that my mother and my step-father Sean lived in Stoneybrook with my little brother Patrick, and I often visited them in the summertime since I was attending school in New York, which is where my father, my step-mother Samantha, and my little sister Alisa lived.

The second was for the BSC Reunion. I was excited and nervous about this prospect, as the only person I had remotely kept in contact with from grade school had been my friend Claudia, and even she and I had drifted a lot since high school.

Claudia was even going to school in New York, but we both went to different schools and I chose to live on campus at Columbia, so we only saw each other a few times a year. I supposed we might see each other more now that I was going to NYU for grad school, and would be closer to her. But, maybe not.

It was amazing to even think about what my friends from grade school might be up to. I knew I myself had changed, so much. College was an enlightening experience for me, on so many levels. It wasn't just the academics or the idea of being pushed into the "real world" and having to fend for yourself. It was a growth, a personal growth that I suppose different people reach at different times in their lives.

When I was 13 I certainly wouldn't have imagined myself wanting to be a college professor, but that is exactly what I am planning on doing. Things that were important then seemed so juvenile now.

One thing that I supposed hadn't changed (much anyway) was that I have always been boy-crazy. I dated a lot in high school, some were more serious than others but for the most part I could never keep my focus on just one guy. There was Tom, Steve, John, Paul (and George and Ringo of course…just kidding!) and Trey…Trey was the serious relationship from high school. He and I met in calculus class junior year, and he was so smart and so incredibly hot in that studious way. Unfortunately, math was about the only thing we had in common. But we enjoyed making out a lot, so it lasted for a long time in that well, for lack of better words, we were both horny teenagers.

At first college seemed to be a repeat of high school, I had met a few girlfriends and we hung out at a particular fraternity a lot, in which I was able to flirt with many boys.

However, after about the first month or so my freshman year I met two important men: my best friend Jonathan Clark, and Kyle Lambert. I had gotten a bit of the acting bug in high school, and had participated in many stage shows. This continued in college as well, and I met both during my first show at Columbia, "Into the Woods." I played Cinderella and Kyle and Jonathan both played the princes. Kyle was my prince; so naturally, it was a "hook up" in the making. Kyle and I were together for the rest of the year, but broke things off at the end of the school year. We were going different places for the summer, and somehow we both knew that it wasn't going to last through the summer. Kyle was great; he was a very romantic guy. We shared many firsts together, and I truly think of him as my first love.

My best friend in the whole world is Jonathan Clark. I also met Jonathan my freshman year during our first play together. Jonathan is tall and skinny with dark brown hair and eyes. He looks like he could be a model. So, you may be asking, why aren't we dating?

Well, Jonathan's boyfriend Dave probably wouldn't like that for one and two Jonathan is like a brother to me. I feel like I can talk to him about anything. Even though I have a couple of close girlfriends from college, Jonathan really is my closest friend. He's a realist, so he always tells me how it is. At the same time, he always knows where the great parties are (and the cute boys, straight or not!).

And, I have a boyfriend now. We've been dating for awhile, and…it's pretty serious. At least, serious as far as Stacey McGill relationships go.

It all started about a year ago. The summer after my junior year, I opted to stay in New York so that I could do an internship. Basically, I assisted one of the local high schools by aiding their summer school math classes. It was a paid internship, which was nice, and the hours were nice so that I still had the weekends open to go out and have fun. I was especially excited by this, because now that I was 21, I could fully partake in the NYC nightlife.

I had gotten permission from the university to stay in the dorms for the summer. For one, it was closer to the high school, and two, the last thing I wanted to do was move back home with dad, Samantha and Alisa. While I love Alisa dearly, I didn't think spending the entire summer at home with a four year old was my idea of fun.

Anyway, in order to stay on campus I had to stay with a roommate. We didn't really interact much, as Heather worked nights and I worked days. We got along all right, but weren't about to become best friends or anything. Heather was on the soccer team and attended soccer camps during the day, and worked at Bloomingdale's nights and weekends.

So, one night early in the summer, Jonathan calls me up. He says, "Anastasia (he just LOVES to call me by my full name), we are going out tonight." I raised my eyebrows. "Oh, we are?"

"Yes. Kelly has informed me that there's a fabulous new martini bar opening near Times Square and we my dear have free passes to their VIP lounge!"

Well, he didn't have to twist my arm after that. So, later that evening, after I had changed my outfit about five times, I finally was ready to go. I wanted to look chic, but not slutty. That turned out to be more of a challenge than I had anticipated. I had settled for a pair of tight black flare pants, and a dark blue tank top that said "diva" on it in rhinestones. I topped it off with some tall black boots. I pulled half of my hair up and clipped it with a barrette. I added some silver hoop earrings, applied a bit of makeup and just as I was finishing applying my lip gloss; a knock came on the door.

Jonathan looked fab as always, and along with him was Kelly (a mutual friend of ours) and a friend of Kelly's I hadn't met before, Andy.

When we got to the bar we quickly made it up to the VIP lounge. It seemed that Kelly had won the passes on one of the radio stations here, because the VIP lounge had a table set-up with prizes and such, and one of the local DJ's was broadcasting from the event.

We claimed a booth and ordered some drinks. I have diabetes, so ordering a martini turned out to be more difficult than I had anticipated, since most of the choices included something with sugar. After speaking with the waiter though I was able to choose a sugar free appletini, which tasted divine.

Jonathan of course, was scoping the room for guys. Suddenly I heard "damn, that DJ is hot!" and I turned my head to where the DJ had been standing and my mouth dropped.

He was gorgeous, that was clear. He was average built, had very clean cut dark brown hair, and had the most sparkling blue eyes I had ever seen. He kind of reminded me of someone, but I couldn't place it. I finished my martini and filled with a bit of liquid courage I decided to go over and talk to him.

As I made my way over to the table, I saw that the station was an adult contemporary station that played dance music. I listened to it somewhat frequently, so I glanced at the table of giveaway stuff and saw they were giving away a trip to Mexico. I figured, might as well try, and filled out one of the entry forms.

"You look ravishing darling," a familiar voice said softly in my ear. I jumped, startled and found myself face to face with the hot DJ.

"SAM?" I yelled somewhat loudly as Sam Thomas nodded but shushed me at the same time. "It's Sammy T, actually," he said as I rolled my eyes at the mention of his official "DJ" name.

Sam Thomas is my friend from middle school Kristy Thomas' older brother. We had both had crushes on each other when we were young, but never anything serious. I had always thought he was cute then, but he had definitely gotten hotter since then.

Sam explained that he had gone to a broadcasting school (which I sort of remembered Kristy mentioning in an e-mail awhile back) and had done some internships and fortunately through some good contacts had landed a job as a DJ during what he called "PM Drive." That meant he was on the air from 2p-6p, but he was working this remote after his shift.

I told Sam what I was up to, and one of the engineers motioned that Sam needed to get back on the air. He said to me, "hey, we're all heading over to a friend of mine's after this. You and your friends are welcome to come. We'll be leaving in about an hour."

I looked over at my friends. They had been watching my every move and I had no doubt in my mind that they would love to go to this party.

I nodded and made my way back to the table and told my friends everything. Jonathan nearly fell over when I told him I knew the hot DJ.

We drank another martini, and then followed Sam over to his friend's place. A good group of people were hanging out, and Jonathan quickly found a hot guy to chat up that he was positive wasn't straight (this was Dave, his now current boyfriend actually). Andy and Kelly had wandered off, which left me to fend for myself. I headed towards the kitchen and found myself handed a shot glass from Sam.

"Shot?" I nodded. I wasn't the biggest fan of shots but I saw Jonathan and his new friend joining us and I figured one couldn't hurt. We all took the shot.

Well, one shot turned into several, and I remember flirting with and dancing with Sam, and talking to Jonathan and Kelly at various times but after that my mind started to draw a blank.

I woke up the next morning, fully clothed in a bedroom I did not recognize and immediately began to panic. Suddenly the door opened and Sam walked in, holding a glass of water and a bottle of Aleeve. I relaxed, but only slightly.

"Where am I?" I asked. Sam handed me the water, which I took thankfully, since my throat was insanely dry, and set the pills down on the nightstand next to the bed. Sam sighed. "My apartment."

I nearly spat out my water. "Did we? I mean how-" Sam laughed as I glared at him. "Stacey, nothing happened. Do you remember how much you drank last night?"

I thought. I knew I didn't remember everything I drank, so it must have been a lot. I shook my head. "Well do you remember insisting on coming back to my place so we could be alone?"

My eyes widened. "I did?" I squeaked. He nodded. "Did we…" Sam shook his head negatively. "I was tempted, believe me. But I knew it was the alcohol talking, and I wasn't about to take advantage of the situation, no matter how much you begged me," he teased as I groaned.

"So, how did we end up here then?" I asked. "Well, I wasn't about to leave you at my friends, there were too many drunk guys around who could have taken advantage of you. So, I told your friend Jonathan that I was taking you back to my place so you could sleep. I promised him I'd take care of you," Sam stated.

"I managed to grab a cab and get you back here just in time. I tried to get you some water, but you passed out on the bed before you could drink any. I can't imagine how bad of a hangover you must have."

I grimaced. "It's okay, it's my own fault," I said, as I thankfully took an Aleeve to hopefully help with my pounding headache. "Ohmyoghs, my insulin!" I yelped suddenly, frantically looking around for my purse but Sam grabbed my hand. "I gave you your insulin shot Stacey. I remembered that you needed it, and you had taught me how to do it," he replied.

I simply stared at him in disbelief, then looked at him with admiration. Here was a guy, who had every opportunity to have his way with me (and apparently drunk me was willing even), and yet he remained a gentleman. On top of that, he seemed to have genuine concern, and took care of me. He even remembered that I needed an insulin shot. I had a sudden thought.

"Oh God, please tell me I didn't puke," I said, mortified of the thought of Sam having to clean up after me. Sam chuckled. "No, you must have passed out before you had the chance."

I sighed of relief, then laughed, then groaned from the pain in my head. Sam immediately sat down next to me in concern.

"Are you okay?" he asked, as he starting rubbing my shoulders. I relaxed. "Yeah, I just need to lay down." I did, and Sam looked like he wasn't sure what he was supposed to be doing.

"Would you lay down with me?" I found myself asking. Sam looked down at me, and smiled. "Of course," he replied as he found a comfortable spot next to me, and with my permission wrapped his arms around me. I snuggled up close to him and found comfort in this moment. Just me and Sam, holding each other.

It wasn't long after that night/day that Sam and I started dating. It was kind of interesting, because the Sam I knew when I was 13, was such a goofball…Sam today, well he could still be a goof but he had grown a lot.

We discovered we had more in common now than we did when we were young. It was nice, because our sense of humors played off of each other very well, and that is something that I find very important in a relationship. He mirrors my laid back attitude but we enjoy different things. Sam's a big radio geek, which I guess makes sense since that is his career of choice, and I'm such a math geek. And business too. Sam always teases me about reading the New York Times everyday just to check out the stock market and other issues with the economy. But, I say, it's good to have a good sense of what's going on in the economy, locally and globally.

We had been together for a year now, and it was just so great. It feels very good right now, and I don't think I ever really understood love before until now.

The strange thing is…we haven't really told anyone about us. Both of our parents know, but that's it. Sam wanted us to have time to just be us, without outside interference. At first, I thought he was being silly and wanted to call up Claud and say, "guess what?!" But now I completely understand why he felt that way. We've been able to connect in a way that's so strong and amazing by just being us, and not having to hear what other people think, or have to go on group dates…we just were able to focus on us.

But, we needed to tell everyone what was going on now. For one, it had been long enough and two; there were now circumstances that would not allow anyone to not know.

Okay, that sounded a bit bad, like we're having an "oops" baby. No, no babies for me yet!

You see, this summer I was supposed to move into an apartment that I would be sharing with a roommate from NYU. Well, my roommate-to-be opted to drop out of the program last minute, and I couldn't afford the apartment on my own. I realized I'd probably have to ask my parents for help (which I didn't want do) until Sam suggested that I move in with him.

I didn't even have to hesitate with my answer, I said yes right away. In many ways, it made sense. I practically lived there already anyway. I had my own closet space of stuff, my own drawer in the bathroom…many of my pots and pans had made it over to his place since he wasn't much of a cook but I was.

And, deep down I was sure that he was "the one." I didn't see us getting engaged any time soon, we're just not ready to think about planning a wedding right now but I was pretty sure that eventually, likely once I graduate from my program at NYU, we'd be getting married.

The problem was, telling our parents. I had told my dad before I left, and let's just say he wasn't too pleased. He kept asking if I was sure I was going to marry this guy, and I said yes, eventually. Then he went on and on about not wanting me to get hurt, and what if I decide he's not the one…and my response was "at least then I'll know before we get married."

I knew I had gone too far…dad looked crestfallen. He knows his and mom's divorce has been a huge impact in my life. He just looked at me with hurt eyes and said, "I know you're going to do this with or without my permission, so you do what you want to do."

Now, I knew I was going to have to have the same conversation with my mother, and I was not looking forward to it. I love Sam, and he loves me. And we've already had sex (besides, he wasn't my first anyway) so what's the big deal about living together? I think that whole waiting until marriage thing is crap. Sure, it was fine years and years ago when people got married at 16. But now people wait until their 30's! And now we have better contraception methods to prevent unwanted pregnancy.

Whatever. They just announced that we've arrived in Stoneybrook. Time to face the music and see what mom says. At least mom doesn't live in New York. She doesn't have to visit me at our apartment if she doesn't want to.

Sigh It's definitely going to be an interesting weekend.