Page 42 of Offside

“What do you think?” I snickered, making him laugh along with me.

It was a real shame–Sam was a good guy.

When we weren’t forcing it, we got along pretty well, and our humor seemed to match a lot. It was the pressure of needing to be closer that made it so hard–look how well we were doing all on our own.

A little pit started growing in my stomach.

Even if it wasn’t romantic, it felt wrong to be feeling anything close to happy with Sam here. It felt like he was fixing some of the loneliness I was feeling, but that he’d never fill the hole–no one could.

That hole was Metal-shaped, and only he was large enough in my mind to fill it perfectly.

Sam finished putting everything away, and I thanked him again, but he lingered. He didn’t move to leave right away–nothing close to the man who bolted out of here a week ago.

I was intrigued.

But then again, the last time I was intrigued, I flew too close to the sun and got burned.

“Hey, uh,” Sam started, slowing down his breathing like he was nervous. “If you’re not doing anything tonight, I was thinking maybe we could hang out? Ash has a thing with Thayer, and I was mid-rewatch of The Clone Wars, and I know you like Star Wars, so I was thinking maybe you’d want to watch with me?”

That wasn’t…

He wasn’t asking me on a date, right?

I’d never been asked on a date before, at least not by anyone that wasn’t Metal, and his asking was just confirming what we were doing that night. I wasn’t really sure what it sounded like, but he never said the word date, so maybe it was just him trying to be friends?

“You’re not uh…you’re not asking me on a date, right?” I asked nervously, huffing out something close to a laugh to make this seem casual.

Sam’s eyes widened, and his face paled. “No!” he said quickly, his muscles going so tense I could see the shift in his arms. “No, not at all. Just a friend thing. Just–I’m kind of a fucking nerd, and it weirds Ash out, so I’m forced to be nerdy alone. Kinny mentioned you liked Star Wars, so I figured maybe we can be nerdy friends together–stop bugging other people with it.”

Right.

That made sense.

That made way more sense than my straight teammate asking me, who he also thought was straight, on a date.

“Right,” I trailed off, nodding along to accept his offer anyway. “That sounds nice… I just, uh…I don’t want to watch Clone Wars, if that’s okay. We can watch something else, but not that.”

Even now, I couldn't bring myself to watch the show I was watching with Metal, with Sam. He was perfectly nice and just wanted to hang out, but I would start crying if Sam didn’t make the same little sound effects Metal did during lightsaber duels.

And I would have died if Metal did come back, and I'd have to tell him I was further into the show now because I was watching it with someone else.

“Yeah, that’s cool–I like all nerdy shit, so dealer’s choice,” he offered, shrugging as he took a seat on my couch.

The same spot I’d imagined Metal a hundred times now.

Fuck–this was going to be so hard.

Chapter 19

Sam

Hanging out with Landon so much was… complicated. I enjoyed it, but I also enjoyed hanging out with Knight all the time, so of course I did.

The problem wasn’t me–it was Landon.

Landon would let himself have a little fun, but then almost mentally chastise himself for doing so. We’d be having a great time, I’d let him bully me into Italian for dinner, and then we’d watch one of the Star Trek movies, but halfway through, he’d get sad and mopey, and that was that.

I was careful–I tried not to recommend things that we used to do as Metal and Knight, because Clone Wars did not go how I thought it would. I thought for sure he’d jump on that because we were in the middle of it, but it only made him sad and mopey.