DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN CSI:NY OR ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS. I DO HOWEVER OWN SAMANTHA ROSS AND ANYONE ELSE NOT RELATED TO THE SHOW.
A/N: THE VOTES ARE IN AND WE HAVE A WINNER! DANNY TOOK THE CONTEST BY A PRETTY WIDE MARGIN OVER NICK STOKES. THE FIRST CHAPTER HAS BEEN POSTED AND I HOPE YOU ALL WILL CHECK IT OUT AND ENJOY IT.
NOW HOW'S THAT FOR SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION?
For the love of Peanut
"Tap on my window knock on my door
I want to make you feel beautiful
I know I tend to get so insecure
It doesn't matter anymore
It's not always rainbows and butterflies
It's compromise that moves us along, yeah
My heart is full and my door's always open
You can come anytime you want
I don't mind spending everyday
Out on your corner in the pouring rain
Look for the girl with the broken smile
Ask her if she wants to stay awhile
And she will be loved."
-She Will Be Loved, Maroon 5
"The NYPD continues their search tonight for David Wilson. A twenty-eight year old unemployed city contractor wanted for the murder of his friend, Tim Kingsley, who was found beaten and shot death this afternoon in the Eighty-seventh street subway tunnel. Police say that moments before his death, Kingsley himself had shot and killed Aaron Clarke. A Chelsea University student who attempted to break up an apparently staged fight between Wilson and Kingsley. A spokesman with the NYPD says that the two men were running a petty robbery scheme out of various subway stations along with an unidentified female…"
Sam snorted at the last two words as they left the reporter's mouth and took a long sip of from the small straw poking out of her JD and Coke. Double the JD at that. After the day she'd endured and thoughts regarding her upcoming visit with sake infecting her brain, she felt she deserved something strong. And as she sat at the crowded bar at TGIF's, casting glances at the television mounted above the bar while waiting for her brother to return from the washroom, she felt physically ill. It was nauseating to think that an innocent young man with a bright future ahead of him, eager to play Good Samaritan, was currently lying in the freezer at the ME's office. While someone like Dave Wilson, taking a coward's way out, was running from the cops and so far, evading capture. And that Melanie Flack, an alcoholic, meth addicted, two bit hooker got off without even a slap on the wrist.
Jaded. She was incredibly jaded. There was no other way to describe the mental state she'd found herself in the moment she'd stepped foot outside of the twelfth precinct. After she'd walked away from the building the final time and disappeared around the corner, she'd promptly dissolved into tears. Large, hot tears that completely blinded her. Sobs that escaped from her lips that she hid behind the sleeve of her coat as she leaned against the bricks behind her and stifled the noise with her forearm. All the emotions from the day surging out of her at a startling, overwhelming pace. The injustice of Aaron Clarke's death. The shocking realization that someone had invaded your privacy and tossed around intimate pictures of you like trading cards. The scrutiny of IAB and the gentle, yet authoritative reaming out by your superior. Topped off by the news that someone who had ripped her own parents off, stole from strangers and the stood by while an innocent man was murdered, had walked out of the precinct a free woman. Instead of being forced to face time or to serve a court mandated stay in rehab, Melanie was allowed to continue on with her miserable, pitiful existence. There was nothing worse than someone who desperately needed assistance and refused to get it. It was impossible to help someone who didn't want to help themselves. And instead of doing her penance, she was allowed to walk around free and easy.
Something Aaron Clarke had had so viciously ripped away from him.
The moment had last no longer then a ten minutes. Long enough to shed the tears that needed to be shed and rant and rave inside of her pounding head. She was thankful that no one had been around to witness her emotional meltdown. Not even the man that she loved more than life. It had been a private moment. Something that rarely happened but she had long ago learned to cope with on her own. The near panic that over took her. The constant flow of tears and the hammering of her heart and the way her lungs struggled to draw breath. No one needed to see that. Or have to deal with it.
When her heart had returned to its normal rhythm and her breathing evened out, she'd wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her coat and sniffled noisily and simply went on her way. Cursing the unfairness and inequality of the world. Questioning whether or not she had chosen the right profession. If doing what she did for a living, and being part of a bigger picture and bringing closer to a handful of grieving families, was really what she wanted to be doing for the rest of her life. What was she achieving? What good had she done when Melanie could walk and an innocent man lay stone dead in the morgue?
By the time she'd walked through the front door of the noisy, packed restaurant, she'd managed to plaster a smile on her face and push all memories of the day to the back of her mind. She had met up with Adam at the bar, where he was biding his time waiting for her -and their table- by nursing a pint of beer and munching on a small basket of complimentary tortilla chips. He'd slipped off his stool and greeted her with a warm hug and a kiss on each cheek, and then helped her remove her coat. If their step father had taught a teen-aged Adam Ross anything back in the day, it was how to be a gentleman. And Sam was convinced that whoever managed to snag her brother, was one hell of a lucky girl.
She had climbed up onto the stool beside him. And Adam, with one long, curious look at her, had realized that something was wrong. Their bond, formed through years of torment and agony ad relying on each other to survive emotionally, was so strong that he could her expressions of lack there of. He could decode her body language. Even finish her sentences. And instead of forcing her to talk about whatever was bothering her, he'd simply laid a hand on the top of her head, ran it down the length of her hair, and the pressed a tender and comforting kiss to her temple.
Then he'd ordered her a stiff drink.
Best damn little brother ever, Sam now mused, and helped herself to a tortilla chip.
"Any news on our guy?" Adam asked, as he returned from the washroom, nodding in the direction of the television as he slid back onto his stool.
"No sign of him," Sam replied. "Still on the lam. Still armed and dangerous."
"They'll find him," Adam said confidently. "They always get their man."
Sam laughed and bit into her chip. "I had to burst your bubble when it comes to law enforcement, Peanut, but they don't."
"Well I for one shall remain optimistic and un-jaded," Adam declared. "The NYPD will catch up to him and he'll pay for what he did. He deserves to pay."
"So do some other people that shall remain nameless," Sam sighed and sipped her drink.
"I still can't believe Flack's dad would cut a deal like that," Adam lamented. "That he'd actually let his daughter get away with everything she's done. Helping her friends break into her parents' home. Stealing and selling some of her father's things. Robbing people on the street. Standing by while an innocent person was murdered."
"And let's not forget how she's a nasty ass meth head who makes a living turning tricks," Sam added.
Adam stared at her, the pint poised near his lips.
"What?" she asked innocently. "Was I too harsh?"
"You?" he asked and swallowed back some beer. "Never."
"I'm sorry if I speak the truth. That's exactly what she is. And the fact that her family has tried time and time again to get her help, to clean her up, and all she does is shit on them, pisses me off. And now her father tosses his name around to save her ass? Don and I go through hell with IAB and for what? So his sister can practically spit in our faces? That bitch deserves to be locked up. Plain and simple."
"Maybe this time the intervention will work," Adam said.
"Sure," Sam snorted. "And tomorrow morning I'm going to wake up and discover I can walk on water and cure people of horrific ailments by simply touching their foreheads."
"Two talents that will look absolutely fantastic on your resume, Miss Ross," a familiar voice chimed in from behind them.
Adam and Sam turned in their seats and found Sid smiling warmly at him, and accompanied by a female companion. A strikingly beautiful, statuesque middle aged woman with porcelain skin and vibrant green eyes. Her full lips were painted a rich red and her jet black hair was styled in a harsh bob, the blunt bangs showcasing her features. Both Adam and Sam recognized her. Not as a friend or family member of Sid's. But someone they'd come in contact with before.
"You really do function outside of the dungeon," Adam said. "Here I always though the rumours were true. That you perished the moment you breathed fresh air and saw moon or sunlight."
"Very funny, Mister Ross," Sid said with a smirk. "And here I was thinking the same thing about you and your computers and chemical components."
"Touche," Sam giggled.
"What brings the two of you out on a cold winter's night?" Sid asked
Sam held up her drink.
"We were craving sustenance," Adam replied. "Of the alcoholic persuasion. See, we're Ross'. It comes along with the last name. A weakness for sustenance. Of the alcoholic persuasion."
"We're lushes," Sam concluded. "Only tonight we're blending our need for booze with our need for food. What are you up to tonight?"
"My lady friend and I…" Sid nodded and smiled down at the woman on his arm. "…are having a date night. Dinner and drinks before we catch an old black and white B movie over at the Revival Theatre on East 78th. This happens to be one of our favourite places to visit."
"It's the margaritas." the woman spoke up. "They're fantastic."
"Especially the key lime ones," Sam said. "To die for. And the extra large size. The bigger the better. And that's my motto on many things. Especially men."
"Ignore my sister," Adam told them. "She has a bit of a problem," he added, then put his thump near his mouth and mimicked someone taking a swig from a bottle.
"And who would your lady friend be Sid?" Sam asked.
"How rude of me!" he exclaimed. "Introductions should have been the first thing on my mind. Although I'm surprised neither of you remember her. This is Ilona Hastings. Or should I say Doctor Ilona Hastings."
"Of course!" Sam cried and slid off her stool, a hand outstretched. "You took over Sid's care when he was moved to recovery after that nasty scare he gave all of us. I had no idea the two of you…"
"It took us by surprise as well," Sid said. "But it was a very pleasant surprise."
"Somewhere between care and discharge we managed to find something so much more," Ilona gushed, shaking Sam's hand before hugging Sid's arm to her. "Isn't love grand?"
Adam snorted and rolled his eyes in response.
Sam smiled brightly. "It definitely is," she agreed.
"These are the infamous Ross siblings," Sid introduced. "Adam is a criminalist and works, for the most part, soley in the lab. Samantha is a crime scene investigator."
"I'm a scientist without the badge and gun," Adam said, shaking the woman's hand. "I also happen to be the genius out of the two of us."
"He got the brains, I got the looks," Sam declared.
Adam shot her a foul look.
Sam shrugged. As if to say 'Well it's true'.
"I heard you made quite the impression on my not so new ME," Sid said to her.
"We had a personality clash," Sam confirmed. "But it's all good now. He made it up to my by hand delivering the autopsy results and buying me a banana muffin and a latte. We're besties now. As long as he keeps his hands to himself it's all good. My boyfriend has a small jealousy issue. It's best not to get him riled."
"And where would Detective Flack be this fine evening?" Sid asked.
"He's at his desk, slaving away. He was banished there. For being a bad boy. He's being punished."
"Ross!" the hostess cried above the din. "Booth for Ross!"
"We always reserve a booth," Sam explained as she grabbed her drink. "More room. Would the two of you like to join us?"
Sid looked down at his girlfriend. "If it's okay with you, honey bunch…"
Adam nearly spit out his mouthful of beer at the use of the pet name.
"I think that would be lovely," Ilona said, and linking her arm through Sam's, gently led the young woman away. "You can tell me all about your boyfriend and what kind f punishment you plan on handing out later."
Adam sighed heavily and gathered up his sister's coat and purse, along with his own jacket and his drink.
"Looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship," Sid commented, as he and the lab tech followed dutifully behind the two chatty, giggling women.
Samantha knew half way through dinner that she would never make it to the hospital to see Zack. At least not on that night. Somewhere between sharing a massive plate of fully loaded nachos and an order of chicken wings with her brother and downing her third double JD and Coke of the night, her logical side had decided that walking into a hospital slightly loaded was not a good idea. Besides, Zack would still be a resident in a couple days time. It wasn't as if he was going anywhere or being released for a while. That thought had brought an evil, satisfied smile to her face as she happily dug into a piece of Turtles cheesecake.
The thought that Zack had been punished and was suffering to some extent had banished the heavy, dark cloud that seemed to be hanging over her head since she'd high tailed it out of Phoenix. In the back of her mind, she had always wondered when the day would arrive that Zack would come looking for her. She had never imagined it would have taken him more then a year. And when he'd shown up at her door, she had realized how much of a legitimate threat he still was. Her first thought had been to run away. To pack whatever she could carry and take off.
But she had way too much to lose. A job that she loved in the city she belonged in. Amazing friends. A brother that she simply couldn't live without. And a man that was quickly becoming the love of her life. And of all the people around her, it was Flack that she couldn't walk away from. Because of the intensity of her feelings for him. The desire to have forever with him. The overwhelming, frightening way in which she needed him. So instead she had taken whatever steps she had needed to ensure that Zack Tanner didn't ruin her life. And Terrence Davis had been the one person she felt she could turn to. The person who could make Zack pay, and ensure that nothing ever led back to her. She didn't make cavorting with convicted felons a habit. But she knew that she could trust him.
"So do you two have any plans on getting married?" Adam asked their dinner companions, snapping Sam out of the daze she'd drifted into. Across from them, Sid and his girlfriend sipped white wine and shared a piece of molten chocolate fudge cake.
"I have played the marriage game twice," Sid replied. "And this time I have no plans on rolling those dice again. So I will not pass go nor collect my two hundred dollars and simply accept things the way they are. We're enjoying each other's company and having a lot of fun and living life to the fullest. We're happy with the way things are going."
"Disgustingly happy," Ilona declared, and looked at her man with a bright smile on her face and love in her eyes.
Sid returned the smile and kissed her softly.
Adam gagged on his Irish coffee.
Sam grinned at the blatant displays of public affection taking place in front of her. "Well I guess it's a good thing you aren't getting married a third time, Sid," she said, as she dug into her cheesecake.
He gave a slight frown. "And why's that?" he asked curiously.
"Because I'd hate for something to go wrong and then for you to get totally polluted and fall down the stairs for a second time," Sam replied.
The entire table laugh.
"I don't remember ever telling you that story," Sid said.
She nodded and licked stray caramel off of the end of her fork. "You told me twice. Once when I first started and a vic of mine was three times over the legal limit and the second time when you and I were doing those Grey Goose shots at Hawkes' birthday party."
"Which would be why I don't remember telling you," he said. "At least the second time. If I do remember correctly, we polished off an entire bottle on our own. And after that you did that very lovely and highly entertaining impersonation of a Coyote Ugly girl on the bar."
Adam rolled his eyes and grimaced at the memory.
"Don't knock it," Sam said, using the tip of her tongue to clean the fork off. "I made nearly eighty bucks off of Don and Danny tucking bills into my skirt."
Sid and Ilona laughed at that.
"I always wondered what that would feel like to have it done," Ilona said to Sam. "Did it hurt to get your tongue pierced?" she asked.
"It wasn't too bad," Sam replied, sipping her drink. "I mean, it wasn't comfortable. They make you stick out our tongue and then they put this clamp around it and there's a hole on top and bottom of it and that's where they are piercing you. Then they shoved what looks like a short knitting needle through the holes. Bottom to top."
"And have you ever had any problems with it?" Sid asked. "Infection?"
She shook her head. "It's the healing process that bothered me. I had to gargle with peroxide mixed with water for three weeks and my tongue swelled up so bad that I could barely talk for about a week and a half. And then it was no solid foods or drinking alcohol or performing oral sex for about a month after."
Adam nearly spit his beer across the table at the mention of oral sex.
"I've heard that it makes the art of giving so much better," Ilona commented.
"Detective Flack must find that very…appealing," Sid added.
"Oh he has no complaints," Sam chirped. "Exact opposite, actually. He loves it."
"Do you mind?" Adam asked. "Like do you seriously mind? I don't want to hear about you and Don doing anything remotely sexual."
"Oh relax, Peanut," she responded. "So we have sex. Lots of sex. It's natural."
"It's also good for your health," Sid said. "It burns calories and having an orgasm is known to cure a number of ailments."
"Then I am going to live until I'm a hundred," Sam declared. "And speaking of getting things pierced. I was thinking of getting my c.."
"Don't say it!" Adam cried. "Oh my God don't even finish that sentence! You're my sister! You should not be talking about stuff like that in front of me!"
Sam snorted. "You didn't see me going all skittish when you told me about your Prince Albert piercing."
Adam flushed furiously from head to toe.
"A what?" Sid asked. "I'm not familiar with that term."
"It's the most common male genital piercing," Sam explained. "It goes from the outside of the frenulum and into the urethra."
Ilona's eyes widened.
Adam put his face in his hands and shook his head in disbelief. Appalled by his sister's loose lips when intoxicated.
"Really…" Sid said with a slow nod. Neither embarrassed or horrified by the conversation. "Intriguing."
"He even has a few tattoos and a nipple piercing too!" Sam announced.
"Sammie!" Adam cried. "Seriously…do you mind?"
"You'd never know it would you," she said, popping a piece of cheesecake into her mouth. "I mean, looking at him you might suspect the tattoos. But you wouldn't think that sweet little Adam Ross would have his nipple and his d…"
"Can you talk about something else?" Adam asked. "Please? I'll pay you to talk about something else. Twenty bucks? Forty even? Fifty? Fifty's my final offer."
"This ex girlfriend of his got him into it," Sam explained to their companions. "She was a Suicide Girl. She got him into all the weird shit."
"And what was your excuse?" Adam retorted. "What is your excuse for being such a nut job?"
She smiled sweetly and tapped the end of his nose with her caramel covered fork. "Demented genes," she declared. "It's the only excuse."
"Personally, I find body piercing and tattooing alluring," Sid told them. "I don't have any myself, and I doubt I'd ever get any considering my age. But Ilona has several beautiful and elaborate pieces decorating her body. And a piercing in a rather delicate private place."
Sam's eyes widened. "Get outta town…"
"Mild mannered and conservative doctor by day, wild child by night," Ilona declared.
Sam grinned broadly and pointed her fork at Sid. "You are one damn lucky man, Doctor Hammerback."
"Yes," he said, beaming proudly at his girlfriend before kissing her long and soft. "I definitely am."
Adam shook his head, both slightly disgusted and slightly amused and sipped at his beer.
If it can happen to Sid, he thought, it can happen to anyone.
It was shortly after nine when Sam and Adam, arm and arm, made their way through the gently falling snow down Broadway towards the subway station that served as the last leg home for both of them. Once there, Adam would take the north train and head uptown, Sam would board the southbound train and head into the lower Manhattan and then either take a cab or walk the four blocks to her apartment on the west side. They had had such a good time -after Adam's initial humiliation- with Sid and Ilona, that they had abandoned their plans of paying Zack his visit and concentrated on having some fun instead. It was a treat to sit around and talk about everything and anything outside of work. To enjoy good conversation and good people and to feel totally relaxed and at ease.
Of course the amount of alcohol they had consumed had played a huge role in that as well.
"I need some caffeine," Sam announced, as they neared the Starbucks both she and Adam frequented. Either together or alone. But ninety per cent of the time they found themselves taking up a table near the back, sipping lattes and munching on biscotti and either chatting or reading the left behind newspapers.
"Come on, Sammie," Adam groaned. "I'm tired. I just want to go home and go to bed."
"It's only nine!" she cried. "If you're that tired and it's only nine, then you need some caffeine too!"
"I need sleep!" he argued, digging his heels into the snow covered sidewalk as she attempted to yank him towards the coffee shop. "My pillow is calling me! My bed is beckoning!"
"A cup of coffee or a latte or hot chocolate won't keep you up all night," she assured him. "Come on, Peanut. I'm dying for some caffeine. I desperately need my fix!"
"Well go and get your fix then! I'll wait here! I go in and we'll end sitting down and it will be another two hours before I get home. I want to get to bed sometime tonight. So go ahead and get your fix and I'll wait here."
"Fine," she huffed dramatically and abandoned her attempt at pulling him along. "Could I at least have a few bucks?" she asked hopefully, holding her hand out.
Adam sighed heavily and reached around to remove his wallet from the back pocket of his pants. "Are you like this with Flack?" he asked curiously, as he plucked out a ten and placed it in her palm.
"Worse," she declared, and clutching the bill tightly in her hand, stood on her tiptoes to peck his cheek. "You want anything?" she asked, walking backwards towards the Starbucks front entrance.
"I'm good," he assured her. "Just make it quick. I need my beauty sleep."
"You're going to have to put aside a couple of decades for that," Sam teased, and sticking her tongue out at her younger brother, turned and continued on her way to the front door of the coffee shop.
Frowning, Adam bent down and scooped up a handful of snow. Packing it into a tight ball, he brought his arm back and fired. Catching his older sister square in the middle of her shoulders. "That's what you get for picking on me mercilessly since I was six years old!" he shouted after her, laughing as she turned to flip him the middle finger before stepping into the Starbucks.
He smiled to himself. Wondering how in the hell he'd ever survived so long in New York City without her.
The Starbucks was quiet and remotely empty. A young man in a Chelsea University sweatshirt and baggy jeans typed busily on a lap top at a table near the back. Various text books and binders and an extra large beverage scattered across the table and a winter jacket and open back pack taking up the chair beside him. At a table for two near the front, a couple held hands on the table top and chatted over steaming cups of coffee and double fudge brownies. Soft music was piped through the speakers mounted in the ceiling as a lone employee leaned over the counter, her elbow on the formica, chin in her upturned hand as she indulged herself in a little light reading in the form of Cosmopolitan.
"Howdy, Paisley," Sam greeted cheerfully, smiling at the sight of her favourite barista.
Paisley Daniels was twenty-two and studying Kiniesiology at Columbia. What she really wanted to do be doing, was painting for a living. The girl had brought in several water colour pieces to show her favourite customers. One of which, of the Central Park fountain in the night time, now hung on Sam's living room wall. She'd given the young woman sixty bucks for it. Paisley hadn't wanted to take the cash, but Sam had literally leaned over the counter and showed the three twenties in the girl's pocket. Paisley's works were worth far more then that. Exquisite and brilliant were the two best words to describe them. And it was a shame that she couldn't seem to find an audience for her work.
Adam, through being a regular customer with his sister on Paisley's usual evening shift, had developed a school boy type crush on the young woman Sam referred to as 'coffee girl'. He was constantly staring at the petite and slightly chunky girl with her shoulder length black hair that boasted a chunk of bright pink along the left hand side. Despite her lip and eyebrow rings and the hoop that travelled from one nostril to the other, Paisley was a beautiful young woman. And had a warm and engaging personality second to no one. Adam simply couldn't get enough of her. Although he'd yet to get up the balls to actually talk to her and turned a dozen shades of red if she simply looked in his direction.
Sam didn't even think Paisley was aware of his name. The two had never spoken and Sam herself couldn't recall ever mentioning her brother by name. Or even telling the girl that he was her brother to begin with.
"Howdy, pard-ner," Paisley chirped back in a faux Southern Twang. "What brings a fine young lady like yourself to these parts at this time of night?"
"A grande caramel latte," Sam said with a giggle. "With an extra shot of espresso…"
"And no foam," Paisley concluded, turning her book over on the counter and making her way over to the cappuccino machine. "You do realize that you don't have to tell me anymore, right? I've only been making you the same thing for nearly seven months."
"Well how did you know I wasn't going to order something different?" Sam asked, as she moved to the self serve coffee urns and grabbed an empty cup that she filled with the house special.
"Because you, my dear, are completely predictable," Paisley declared, as she opened the bar fridge behind her and snagged a container of skimmed milk and proceeded to pour some into the stainless steel mixing mug resting beside the cappuccino machine.
Sam laughed at that. "Don't ever say that to my boyfriend," she said, placing a lid on the coffee and carrying it to the register. "He'd ask you what planet you're living on. How goes things tonight?"
"They go," the young woman sighed, grabbing an empty grande cup from a stack near the register and getting to work. "I think I may have an art showing coming up," she shouted over noise of the cappuccino machine as she steamed the milk.
"That's awesome!" Sam cried. "How did you come up with that?"
"One of the girls during the day bought one of my paintings and a customer saw. Well he knows someone who knows someone else who knows the owner of a small, independent gallery on the lower east side. He's got some show openings coming up and by the sounds of things, he's very interested."
"Well you'll have to keep me posted," Sam yelled back, then pulled the Cosmo magazine towards her and turned it around to face her.
"That's the new one," Paisley told her, speaking in her normal volume of voice as she prepared the latte and snapped a plastic lid on top of it and carried it over. "I saw some of the topics advertised on the front and I couldn't resist."
Sam grinned at the article in front of her. "The ten things men desperately want in bed but are too shy to ask for," she read aloud. "My kind of article. Most of them my man's either asked me to do already or I've just gone ahead and tried out on him myself. But I can guarantee you that number six is not one of the things he's desperate for."
Paisley turned the magazine back and around and checked out number six. "So he's not into the whole finger up the butt, huh?" she laughed.
"Are you insane? He is way too alpha male for that sort of thing. He'd kill me if he knew how many times I've considered just springing it on him in the middle of things."
"Hey, you never know. He could like it."
"Somehow I doubt that," Sam said, as she helped herself to a chocolate dipped almond biscotti from the jar on the counter.
"So where is the lucky man tonight?" Paisley asked as she rang in the purchases.
"At work as far as I know," Sam replied. "But who knows? He could be out cavorting with some stripper."
"Yeah right. He knows you'd rip his cajones off and feed them to him," Paisley laughed. "He's such a nice guy. Cute as a bug in a rug, too."
Sam frowned. "Are we talking about the same person? Because 'cute as bug in rug' are not the first words that spring to mind when describing him. Come to think of it, not too many people use the words nice guy when referring to him either."
"I don't know about that. He's always such a sweetie when he comes in here. Doesn't say much though. I guess he's just the strong, silent type, huh? I never got the chance to thank him for clearing those tables for me last Friday night when that rush came in. Or for leaving me that ten dollar tip. One minute he was slaving away, the next I turned around and he was gone."
"Oh my God!" Sam cried when she clued in to what, and who, the young woman was referring to. "Jesus, no! That's not my boyfriend! That's my little brother!"
"Seriously?" Paisley asked.
"That was my younger brother Adam," Sam told her.
"I just assumed 'cause of the two of you are together so much that…"
Sam shook her head. "No. That's my brother. My boyfriend was the one that came in with me last Saturday night."
"Really tall, kind of big? Blue eyes you can see clear across the room? Had on a Mets cap? That one?"
"The one and only," Sam said.
"You're damn lucky," Paisley declared. "He's a hottie."
Sam just smiled and nodded in agreement and handed the younger woman the ten dollar bill.
"So your brother, huh?" Paisley asked as she accepted the money.
"Younger brother. Adam. He works at the crime lab too. As a criminalist. Or a lab rat as some people like to call him."
"So he has a steady job, doesn't live at home with mommy and daddy…"
"Daddy is dead," Sam said. "Mommy and step-dad lives thousands of miles away. Thank Christ. And before you ask, no. He doesn't have a girlfriend."
Paisley's brown eyes sparkled with excitement. And hope.
"Got a pen?" Sam asked. "And a piece of paper?"
The young woman nodded and snagged a pen from a cup sitting near the register, then tore a piece of receipt paper out.
"This is the name of a little Italian bistro that is just to die for over on Lex and West 67th," Sam said as she jotted the information down. "Adam is off next Friday. I will make a reservation for the two of you. Seven o'clock sharp. All you have to do, my dear, is show up. Think you can handle that?"
"Absolutely. But why…"
"Because my brother is too chicken shit to make a move," Sam declared, tucking the piece of paper and the change from her ten into Paisley's hand. "Sometimes, I have to take matters into my own hands. You'll be there?"
Paisley nodded energetically.
"And so will he," Sam promised and gathered up her drinks. "Ciao, bella. Same time tomorrow night."
"Thanks, copper!" Paisley called out with a giggle as the petite brunette breezed out of the shop. "And thanks! You know, for your brother and all..."
"Anytime!" Sam shouted back and pushed her way out onto the snowy street. Where her brother was pacing the sidewalk, shivering furiously, his hands tucked into his pockets. "Cupcake," she said and handed him his coffee.
"Does Danny tell you everything?" Adam asked, accepting the drink and nodding his appreciation.
"Our pillow talk gets quite intense," Sam joked. "By the way," she looped her arm through his and sipped her latte. "You've got a date next Friday."
"I've got a what?" he asked, gagging on his coffee and coughing noisily. "With who?"
"Just call me Little Miss Matchmaker," Sam chirped. "Consider it your Valentine's Day present. I've set you up. Dinner at La Cantina. Seven pm."
"With who?" Adam asked. "Don't tell me that…"
"With coffee girl," Sam replied cheerfully. "Who else would it be?"
"Sammie, you didn't…"
She beamed up at her brother and stopped walking and kissed his cheek noisily. "I love you, Peanut," she said. "I just want you to be happy."
"I appreciate that and I want to be happy, too. But you didn't have to…"
"Yes," she interrupted. "I did. I did it for you."
"You little shit," he grumbled.
"You'll call me to thank me next Sunday morning," Sam told him. "After she's practiced numbers one through ten on you."
Adam frowned and stopped in his tracks. "What's that suppose to mean?"
"It means be prepared. Play safe. I don't want to be an auntie anytime soon."
"Okay…but what do numbers one through ten mean?"
Sam grinned and released her arm from his and turned to face him. "That's for me to know, and you to find out," she said as she walked backwards. "And trust me, Peanut. You WILL thank me."
And with that she gave a loud, piercing giggle and turned her back on him and started off down the sidewalk. "You coming or am I walking alone here?" she called out.
Adam sighed heavily and took a swig of coffee before doing the only thing he could do in response.
Follow dutifully behind.
Thanks to everyone that is reading and reviewing! I appreciate each and every one of you! Please R and R folks! It makes my day!
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