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From Part One: ‘Why does he hate me?’ ‘Who?’ ‘Onorato.’ ‘He doesn’t hate you Sam. He just tried to use you to get what he wants. Well, what his boss wants.’ ‘Does Toby hate me?’ ‘No Sammy, Toby doesn’t hate you.’ Sam looks devastated. Hair all mussed, beer drips on his white shirt, his tie coming undone. And hurt in his eyes. Blue eyes. I never noticed Sam’s eyes before. Note to self: Josh is a colleague, nothing more. Seeing me naked in the shower is not going to make him jump me in the men’s room. I mean, he’s dated plenty of women. He just happens to have a nice smile.
7am Monday morning ‘Hey you two, get in here.’ CJ’s waiting for us and motions us into her office. ‘It’s Leo and Toby’s birthday next Friday. You wanna do something?’ ‘Yeah, what d’you have in mind?’ ‘I was hoping you could get some ideas. Something they’d really hate.’ ‘Hate?’ ‘Yeah, Sam. We don’t wanna let them have a great time. They wouldn’t enjoy it.’ I don’t even pretend to understand that sentence, but Josh seems to. ‘Okay. I’ll talk to Leo.’ ‘Sam, you’ll talk to Toby?’ I still appear to be the only one of the three of us who actually doesn’t get why having a great time on your birthday wouldn’t be enjoyable, but I’ve got a busy day and so I just nod. ‘Sure.’ ‘Come in CJ.’ ‘You two talk to them?’ CJ walks into my apartment, and sees Sam coming out of the kitchen with two beer bottles. As he hands one to her, I have to ask: ‘What about mine?’ ‘One, you need to keep a clear head and two, I couldn’t carry three bottles.’ ‘Okay. Right, Leo said his idea of a night out from Hell would be either somewhere with a Karaoke machine or a room full of politicians.’ ‘Sam?’ ‘Toby said anything outdoors. Or with animals.’ They both look at me, frowning. ‘Sam, you did ask the same question as Josh, right?’ ‘Yeah, CJ! Toby said he spent enough time with the people in the West Wing without going out nights with them.’ CJ smiled. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere.’ ‘We are?’ ‘Yeah, Sam. We just need to organise a Karaoke party in the West Wing and invite a load of Senators and…’ She stops talking as her cell phone rings. ‘CJ Cregg…yeah…sure…okay.’ ‘I gotta go.’ CJ looks apologetically at us. ‘Tell me what you worked out tomorrow, okay?’ Josh seems more confident about our party-organising ability than I am, and nods. ‘Sure. Seven?’ ‘Yup. Although if I fall asleep, don’t wake me. I doubt I’ll get much sleep tonight.’ ‘Okay. Night.’ Josh turns back to me as he closes the front door. ‘Okay, how do we hire a Karaoke machine?’ *************** It’s midnight. And I’m still sitting on Josh’s floor, going through the Yellow Pages circling likely Karaoke hire companies, caterers and occasionally adding to the list of guests we need to invite. I can’t help noticing that there are particular sections of the directory which are more dog-eared than others. Take-out food places. Suit hire places. The number of times we’re expected to wear a dress suit, and Josh doesn’t have one? I want to ask, but he’s asleep, and I don’t want to wake him. The second beer ended any chance he had of staying awake with me. I turn round, carefully making sure I won’t wake him as I get up, picking my jacket off the back of the couch and walk to the door. Closing it behind me, I push it to make sure it’s closed. It is, but moments later, I turn as it opens. ‘Sam?’ ‘Night Josh.’ He smiles, half-asleep. ‘Night Sam.’ He didn’t invite me to stay over. That’s okay. I was right. He is not attracted to me in that way. Why didn’t he wake me as he left? Oh, God. Does he know I saw him in the shower? Is he scared of me? Yeah, right. I’ll just ask him. Sam, were you frightened I was gonna take advantage of you cos you had two beers? Why should he be scared of me? I mean, we’re just friends, right? We’ll do this in the morning. When I’m not standing in the hallway and he’s not walking away from my door. ****************** Okay, we won’t do this at all. I can hardly walk up to the White House Deputy Communications Director and ask him why he’s suddenly avoiding me. Which he is. All day I’ve noticed that, whenever I walk into a room, he walks out. I thought I was wrong, but I’ve walked into Toby’s office twice in the last few minutes and each time, Sam’s walked out of his. Which is next door. He’s following me. Every time I turn round, there’s Josh. Pretending like he needs to speak to Toby or Leo, or someone else I just happen to be a few feet away from. I’m half-expecting him to be next to me in the queue in the Mess. I grab my food and rush back to my desk. Half-way through my sandwich, my door opens. Okay, I can be grown-up about this. I’ll just ask him, straight out, Josh, why are you following me around. Yeah, right. That doesn’t make me seem even a little bit paranoid. ‘Josh?’ ‘Sam, you got a minute?’ ‘I have about twenty.’ ‘Okay.’ He sits down, closing the door behind him. ‘Leo and Toby are both free Friday night. So I’m seeing the President in a little while to ask him if we can have the party in the Residence.’ ‘Okay.’ He gets up, frowning. ‘Sam, you okay today? You seem a little…’ He shrugs. ‘Ah, forget it. We’ll talk about it later. You wanna come over or you want me to come by your place?’ I have absolutely no idea if the huge panic attack I’m having shows on my face. God I hope not. ‘I can come over if you like.’ ‘Okay. See ya. About nine?’ ‘Sure.’ I think I even manage a smile. So, that’s that. Sam and I are back to before. Whatever ‘before’ was. Just friends, colleagues, people who live in the same city, work in the same building. Except Sam looked like he was about to pass out when I suggested coming over my place to work on the birthday thing. And he’s been avoiding me all day. Nah, you are imagining things Joshua Lyman. Okay, tonight we’re definitely gonna talk about this. Probably. ****************** ‘Hi. Come on in.’ Sam at least makes it over my threshold without incident. He’s carrying a large leather zip-up. ‘Hi. I made some notes.’ Some? There’s gotta be half a tree’s worth of paper in that folder. I’ve changed into a sweatshirt and jeans, and Sam’s wearing exactly the same things only his sweatshirt says Princeton and mine just has a big tick on the front. Will he recognise the Nike logo? I hope so. I should have gone for something else, but this was just about my only clean non-work thing. ‘Beer?’ ‘Sure.’ Coming back into the living room, he’s already sitting on my couch, sheets of paper spread around him. I hand him the condensation-soaked bottle. ‘Thanks.’ ‘Sam, we need to talk…’ As he takes it from me, it begins to slide in his grip. My hand goes automatically to stop its descent onto the rug. The muscles in his hand tense as my hand closes on his and I wish I’d let it drop. The bottle. And the subject. He looks up at me as I walk to stand in front of him. ‘What about?’ ‘Us.’ No, I didn’t mean us. Well, yeah, actually I did. ‘Us?’ His face creases into a nervous frown. I swear he’s actually looking at the door, planning his escape. ‘Sam, ever since this morning, you’ve been acting strange. We need to talk about it.’ I watch him visibly tense, fight or flight decision being made in his subconscious. ‘Okay.’ There’s so much uncertainty in his reply I think he hasn’t yet come to a decision as to whether to run screaming from my apartment or sit and talk this out. ‘Sam, we work together…’ ‘You’re my boss.’ The words, and the tone they’re delivered in, hit me. Judging by Sam’s expression, that was his intention. ‘Sam, that’s not what this is about.’ ‘Yeah, Josh, it is.’ I can feel my anger rising. ‘You wanna tell me how?’ ‘I’ve done a heap of work towards this birthday thing! And what have you done? Nothing! And who’s gonna take the credit for organising everything? You are!’ I’m hurt and angry in equal measures. ‘You think that’s what’s gonna happen?’ Sam nods, getting up and gathering the sheets together. ‘I know it. So, here. You have this stuff.’ He gets up and shoves an untidy heap of paper in my direction. ‘Sam, what the Hell is this about?’ ‘You always do this!’ ‘Do what?’ Sam’s as angry as I’ve ever seen him. ‘Take over. I do all the work, then you take all the credit. Or avoid any of the blame.’ ‘When did that ever happen?’ ‘Onorato? It was your thing, and he used me. And he insulted me. And you knew that he was gonna use Laurie, but did you tell me? No! You let me set myself up, then you and Toby laughed at me.’ ‘Sam, I had no idea Steve was gonna come see you. And we only laughed…’ ‘Because it was me. Little Sam, slept with a call-girl. Naïve Sam, let himself be found out. It was Laurie’s graduation today, but I didn’t go because Toby told me not to. And I got her a gift which I won’t be able to give her cos Leo told me not to go within a mile of her. I can see why you work so well together, Josh. You and Leo are so similar, it’s almost frightening.’ ‘Shut up!’ Even I’m surprised at the volume and anger in my voice. ‘What?’ ‘I said, shut up! One, no-one forced you to sleep with Laurie. And two, if you wanna work in the White House, you either gotta not do things like that or face the consequences when you do.’ ‘Thanks for pointing that out Josh.’ Sam’s sarcasm is tempered with his hurt. He makes his way to the door of my apartment. ‘I guess I’ll see you in the morning. And when I hand in my resignation, I’ll definitely be facing the consequences of my actions.’ I almost don’t hear the door slam. Click here to go to Part Three Return to the X-Files Fic Index Return to the West Wing Fic Index
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