Sam wandered around Jack’s living room. She’d offered to meet him at his place before their date because it was closer to the restaurant, and now she was indulging her curiosity while he finished getting ready.
That was mildly irritating—it wasn’t like they were going anywhere fancy and he needed time to get dressed up. Still, if the worst thing she could say about him was that he sometimes ran a little late, things were going pretty well.
She paused in front of the bookcase and checked out his reading preferences. There was a lot of non-fiction, biographies mostly, a few true crime books. All stuff she didn’t mind reading herself, although she liked to throw in some fiction too.
“Hey.”
She turned to see Jack standing in the doorway, and she smiled. “Hey, yourself. Ready?”
“Yeah, come on.”
In the car, he launched into a retelling of his last client meeting, with a woman who was so stupid she was almost a cliché. It sparked a memory, and when she finished laughing, she said, “You know, Levi once—”
“Levi,” Jack interrupted flatly. Sam turned to look at him, startled.
“What?”
Jack sighed. “Nothing. It’s just, you talk about Levi a lot. And it seems like you’re always doing stuff with him.”
She frowned. “Well, he’s my friend. A very good friend. We’ve known each other for years, so we have done a lot together.” She tried not to wince; Jack didn’t know she and Levi had sex, so he wouldn’t read anything into that, but the implication was very clear to Sam. Levi would have laughed.
“I know. I just—I don’t like that you spend so much time with another guy, even if he is just a friend.” Jack’s jaw was tight, and Sam swallowed.
“We haven’t talked about exclusivity yet,” she said carefully. “And, to be completely honest, even if we are exclusive, I’m not going to stop hanging out with Levi. He’s one of my best friends.” Although she would stop fucking him.
A pang shot through her chest. She and Levi had been fucking for a long time. It would be weird not being able to touch him that way; even when they were just hanging out, watching TV, she liked to snuggle him.
“I guess.” Jack sounded distinctly unenthusiastic. “But about exclusivity—I definitely want that.”
“Me too,” Sam said, ignoring the weird feeling in her stomach. She knew what she had to do.
# # #
Levi opened the door to a nervous-looking Sam. “Hey. What’s up?” She followed him into the living room and stood in the middle, looking lost. “Want a drink? Sammy?”
She started. “No. Nothing to drink. Um. We need to talk.”
“Are you okay?” Levi’s stomach plunged. “What’s wrong?”
She drew in a deep breath, let it out, and said quickly, “Jack and I have decided on an exclusive relationship.”
Levi’s chest tightened. “Oh. Well, congratulations. That’s what you were hoping for when you started this, right?”
Sam nodded slowly. “Yeah. And Jack’s great. I just—it means that you and I—we can’t—”
“Yeah, I get it.”
They stood there; for the first time ever the air between them was awkward. Levi hated it.
“You know….” He broke the silence, and Sam jumped. He hated that, too. “You know, we never really got a last time together.”
She blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Well, the last time we fucked it was just.... And now you’re with this guy. So we never had a goodbye.”
“Goodbye?” Sam sounded panicked. “No, Levi, I don’t—”
“Shh,” he soothed, reaching out and enfolding her in his arms. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’ll never be goodbye between us. I meant a goodbye to that part of us. It just feels weird, unfinished.” He rubbed a hand up and down her back, feeling old and tired. His chest hurt. His head hurt.
“Yeah.” She sighed, leaning into him, and he absorbed the wonderful peace and warmth that Sam brought him. Everything inside him relaxed, even as his stomach sank, knowing things were going to change. “It feels weird.”