Instead, he opens his office door in time to hear Joey holler, “SAM! That weird guy from earlier is back! He wants to talk to you! He seems weirder than before!”
Yeah, Sam, go ahead and hire the sweet, awkward college student who can’t keep their foot out of their mouth for three seconds, Sam thinks sarcastically to himself as he hurries up to the front.It’s not like you know anyone you’re worried about mortally offending. What could go wrong?
He’d never say it out loud, of course; it wouldn’t be kind, fair, or needful. Anyway, Joey’s particular brand of unfiltered honesty is never malicious. Sometimes it’s even helpful.
Today, though, he says, “Why don’t you go ahead and take off for the night, Joey?” when he gets to the front. He’s prepared to offer an explanation and to finish their closing tasks, but he doesn’t have the chance; they’re out the door in ten seconds flat, calling a thank-you over their shoulder, clearly afraid he’ll change his mind given half the chance.
“Sorry,” Sam says, with a slight wince, to Jake, who looks a bit wild around the eyes. “They can be a bit blunt. They didn’t mean anything by it.”
Jake blinks at him, clearly thrown, and then, realization dawning: “Oh, that? No, that’s fine, that’s whatever. I am weird. And weirder than before. Call ’em like they see ’em, who couldfault them for that?” There is a brief pause, after which Jake adds, in a faint, despairing sort of voice, “And also hello.”
“Hello,” Sam says, trying to fight down the urge to smile.
“Right,” Jake says, before Sam can add anything to that single word of greeting. “The thing is, I was going to be so normal about this, I psyched myself up all afternoon. ‘Be normal, Jake, don’t make it weird, it’s going to be so much weirder if you’re weird about it, these things happen, apparently, and it’s not like it was onpurpose!’” He takes a deep, shaky breath as Sam, slightly alarmed now, shifts his weight in impatience to know what’s going on. “But then I walked in here and remembered, oh, right. I can’t do it normally, because I can’t do anything normally, because you have to be normal for that! So I have to just…tell you, right now, even if it’s weird and bad, and let the chips fall where they may. It’s my only move. Right?”
“Uh,” Sam says, lost, “I’m…not sure, to be honest. You’re acting like you sold my organs on the black market.”
Jake snorts out an obviously unwilling laugh, then runs a hand over his face, then groans. Sounding mortified, he takes a huge breath and, too fast, says: “The thing is I just moved back to Cleveland, because of—reasons, it doesn’t matter—but I’ve been in Los Angeles for ten years, okay? So you have to believe me when I say I didn’t know, I didn’t know you lived here, I would have found another place, anotherneighborhood, I swear!”
Sam feels his eyebrows climb. “What are you talking about?”
“Christ, Jake,saythewords,” Jake mutters, clearly to himself. Then, louder but like he wishes it wasn’t actually audible, “I moved into the buildingbehindthis one, Sam. Like. The one directly behind it. Like we’re?—”
“Neighbors,” Sam says, his eyes widening very slightly. “Again.”
“I’m not a stalker!” Jake waves the hand that isn’t on his cane frantically as he says this. “And this isn’t some kind of weird—I don’t know, Hitchcockian nightmare scenario! It was an accident! And I’llmove, okay, it just might take me a second to scrape the money together and Iknewwe’d run into each other again before then and it would be more awkward if Ididn’ttell you?—”
“Hey,” Sam cuts him off, unable to entirely keep the laugh out of his voice. “Slow down; you don’t have to move.” He runs a hand briefly through his hair, noting regretfully that he’s at least three weeks overdue for a haircut, and probably looks like the sort of guy who doesn’t believe in deodorant or regular showers. “And I don’t think you’re planning toRear Windowme.”
“Rear Window!” Jake slaps a hand to his forehead. “That’s the one, I couldn’t remember the title, all I could pull up wasThe Birdsand I knewthatwasn’t it.”
“Yeah, admittedly, if you have to Hitchcock me, don’t do that one,” Sam says, grinning. “If nothing else, the health code violations?—”
“I’m not going toHitchcockyou,” Jake starts in the same moment, and then, glancing up at Sam’s face, pauses. “Wait. You’re…joking, aren’t you?”
Sam nods.
“Because…this isn’t as big a deal to you as I thought it was going to be?”
Sam nods.
“And…it’s not going to be weird?”
Sam shrugs, and then, when Jake raises incredulous eyebrows at this non-response, crosses his arms over his chest and admits, “I mean, I can’t promise that. I don’t think anyone who works here would describe me as normal?—”
“We wouldn’t!” someone calls from the back. “We’re not liars!”
“Case in point,” Sam says with a sigh. “So, you know…odd, but fine? Should be fine. Can’t think of any reason it wouldn’t be.”
This seems to stun Jake into silence for a moment. Then, very quietly, he says, “Are you sure?”
Their entire history flashes before Sam’s eyes in an instant, brilliant and wretched by turns. Every shining, perfect moment; every brutal, devastating choice; every action that felt so right at the time. Every consequence.
“I’m sure,” he says, and smiles when Jake does before jerking a thumb at the menu. “You want anything? We’re closing up, but I can throw something together for you out of the case.”
“Oh no, that’s… No,” Jake says quickly. Sam notes with interest that he’s already edging backwards towards the door, like a spooked horse. “Thank you, but I have dinner at home, and you’re closing, and I said what I wanted to say. I should go.” He pauses, and then slaps a hand against his forehead again as he adds, “Hell, wait. Hold on. I came in here originally to say that there’s a big van that says ‘Silverman’s’ in what’s supposed to be my parking spot? And to be honest with you, given the givens here, that’s whatever. I would have street parked for the next thousand years to avoid having this conversation. But if you don’t move it before tomorrow morning, my landlord will definitely have it towed, and that doesn’t seem?—”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Sam says, turning an incredulous eyebrow towards where Joey was standing a few minutes ago and then remembering he sent them home. Shaking his head, he turns back to Jake. “Sorry. Joey delivered an order to the Katzenberg shiva earlier, and they promised me they’d parked it in our spot when they got back. I should have checked, though, because they’re painfully bad at rememberingwhich spot that is. I’ll talk to them, and obviously move it myself right now, and, seriously, sorry for the inconvenience.”
