Chapter Text
Today was the day.
Today was the day you were going to cash in your favor.
Hearing the knock on the front door of your apartment, you set your drink down on the small coffee table in front of you. You smooth your clothes over your midsection and take a deep breath before opening the gray wooden door to find Sam leaning on his arm against the door frame.
“Hey,” He says to you with a cordial smile.
“Hey, come on in,” You tell him, opening the door wide as he saunters past you.
You'd known Sam for a little over five years now. You first met when your Uncle Sully agreed to let you do your high school internship hours at his office. Community service hours were a graduation requirement and allowing his niece to organize and draft e-mails for him a couple hours a week was not a problem for Sully or for his business partner, Sam Drake.
You had had a crush on Sam since the moment you met him when he flung open the door to their little office and dropped a tarnished silver bulls head the size of a microwave on the desk in front of you. He was much older than you sure, but he was fun and sweet and so damn good looking.
What had started with a couple of hours a week cleaning and filing your sophomore year had turned into over twenty hours a week helping with research and leads and even talking to some of their contacts by the time you graduated. Proving yourself as a useful member of the team (and the only one that knew how to replace the toner cartridges in the copier), your Uncle Sully and Sam had officially hired you for part-time work while you attended college.
Your attraction to Sam had grown with your friendship. As time progressed, the conversations between the two of you had gotten longer and more profound. By your first year of college, hanging out on a Friday night and having a drink or two at his place or yours wasn't entirely out of the norm. He never treated you like a kid, something that would hopefully make cashing in this favor easier.
“You want a drink?” You ask as you head into your tiny apartment kitchen.
“Yeah, sure,” Sam said, shrugging off his worn brown bomber jacket and throwing it over the back of the couch.
You emerge from the kitchen with his favorite rocks glass, half full with scotch, the ice cubes tinkling in the glass.
“Thanks, sweets,” He says, taking the drink from your hand as he sits down on the end of the couch.
“Ugh,” You groan in distaste, “I hate when you call me that.”
He takes a sip from his drink, the strong liquid making his face contort.
"So, what's going on?" Sam says, setting his drink down on the table. You move to the other end of the couch and sit facing him, your jean-clad legs tucked under each other.
“Uh, you remember last fall? When you and Sully took that Mongolian job?” You ask, picking your drink up off the table.
“The one where I got to share a jail cell with Victor for two weeks? After spending two months living with camels?”
“Well, remember when you got back, you said you and Sully owed me big time for helping you out?”
"Sure, I still don't know what would've happened first, the guards kill us, or we end up killing each other. Happily, thanks to you, we never got to find out," he says, giving his glass a complimentary tip towards you.
“I just made a phone call,” you say simply, trying to keep the red out of your cheeks.
“Oh no, finding Chloe and Cutter, that was more than a phone call,” Sam rebutts, giving his drink another sip.
It was more than a phone call. It was dozens of phone calls, e-mails and backroom visits to every shady person that ran in their circle until you found both of them in Manchester and coaxed Charlie Cutter out of his pub with the promise of an open tab whenever he was in town. It was also stress and worry, and a wad of cash promised to Chloe. But, Sam didn't need to know that. You made a phone call, which wasn't a lie, and that's all he needed to know.
“Anyway, um,” You pause, staring at your hands, wiping the sweat drops from the sides of your glass nervously, “I think I wanna cash in my favor.”
Sam's eyes narrow in concern as he sets his almost empty glass back on the coffee table.
“What's going on, sweets? You in trouble?” He says, leaning towards you, bracing his elbows on his knees.
You close your eyes and wince at the childish nickname. The last thing you wanted to be reminded of is the sizable age gap between the two of you.
“Please don't call me that,” You say quickly. “No, I'm not in trouble. I'm okay. It's just uh...fuck this is hard,” You mutter to yourself, your voice full of frustration as you slam down the rest of your drink.
“You need money? I got a couple grand stashed, and I know Victor's got more scratch than that tucked away somewhere,” He offers as you shake your head.
"No, I don't need money."
“Don't keep me in suspense, what is it then?”
Your empty glass trembles in your hands as you take a deep breath. You want it, now you just need to say it.
“I need you.”
“Need me to what?” Sam asks, taking his glass up again from the table to finish it off.
“I need you to have sex with me,” You finally proclaim.
The glass drops from Sam's lips as he stares at you, his mouth still holding the last bit of scotch. He swallows hard, staring at you, unsure if he heard you correctly.
“Say again?” He asks cautiously.
“I need you to have sex with me,” You say, your voice steadier, calmer than a moment ago, allowing you to meet his gaze.
“Ok, I did hear you right,” Sam says to himself, getting up from the couch and heading towards your small kitchen where the bottle of scotch is still on the counter. He hastily unscrews the cap, letting it bounce into the sink, and pours a generous three fingers worth of scotch for himself. He downs half the glass in a large gulp and tops it back off to where it was a moment ago before heading back to you on the couch where he plops down on the springy cushion with a whump.
“You're talkin' about me-, me and you. Me and you, ah-” He sputters and gestures between the two of you with his hand.
“Sex, Samuel, sex. I'm talking about sex,” You say, trying to keep the irritation out of your voice.
Sam holds his glass steady on his knee while his thumb drums nervously against the side of his thigh.
"Look, if you're that pent up, I'm sure you got a girlfriend that can recommend a nice piece of battery-powered machinery for you," He suggests.
“No, no, no, no.” You shake your head in protest.
This isn't going as smoothly as you genuinely hoped it would.
Sam was a handsome devil, and he reveled in both aspects of that sentiment. Flirt with this one, seduce that one only to date the first one for a week and then ghost her by leaving the country for two months. That was just how Sam was. As easily as he slips in between the sheets, he slips back out just the same. You knew this and thought it could potentially make this really simple. Not so much.
You stand up and wipe your sweaty hands nervously on the sides of your jeans.
"Ok, before you say anything, let me get this all out. No interruptions," You raise a cautionary finger at Sam who is still eyeing you from his perched position on the couch. He nods in agreement.
"All through school I was the good girl. Softball team, top-notch grades, home by curfew-"
“A goody-goody,” Sam interjects.
“Ah! Hey! No! Quiet!” You tell him, pointing a stern finger at him in warning.
“Sorry,” He apologizes with a solemn smile.
"I always did what I was told, including not having sex. The very, very few times the situation arose, I said no. No big deal. Next thing I know, I'm a twenty-two-year-old virgin."
The tumblers in Sam's brain begin to fall into place with each sentence you say. You're a virgin? Sam thinks to himself. No, not possible. And she wants me to-? The thoughts in his head are too much as they begin to spill out of his mouth.
“Hold up a minute, Sweets,” Sam says, making you roll your eyes and throw your hands up. “Look, this is a hell of a thing to ask a person. This isn't just sex. This is your virginity you're talking about,” He says, setting his glass down on the coffee table in front of him.
“I know that,” You argue.
Sam sits forward, hunching his back and bracing his elbows on his knees. He massages his thumbs into his palms, an action that you've seen him perform many times in the office.
"Trust me, Sweets, you don't want it to be me."
“That's exactly why I want it to be you. I trust you.”
“You should wait unt-,”
“You better not be telling me to wait until the right guy comes along, Samuel Drake, because that is a big old line of bullshit that you believe even less than I do,” You interrupt him. Sam looks up from the discolored spot on your carpet that he had been staring at to finally meet your eyes.
“You're right, I don't believe it,” He admits.
Sam lets his thoughts marinate quietly in his head for a moment. You sit down next to him on the couch, waiting for him to break the uncomfortable silence.
"You're a virgin?" He verifies witlessly as if the answer will magically change.
You give your head a nod.
“I thought everyone lost it when they were in high school,” He says, talking more to himself than to you.
“Evidently not everyone,” You mumble quietly under your breath as you take a sip of your drink.
“What about that one kid? Uh, Dave? You know, you didn't?” He lets his voice trail off.
“Oh please, he asked me to have a threesome with him and some other girl. I wouldn't even have sex with him, I don't know what made him think adding another person to the mix would change my mind. Part of the reason I broke up with him,” You share with Sam as he stares at you in disbelief.
“You never told me that,”
“Yeah, well, it's not something you really broadcast to the world,” You say, staring intently at the rip in your jeans as you pick at the fraying strands of denim.
“And uh, tell me one more time why it's gotta be me,” Sam asks you.
"Because there is no one else I trust more than you with this. You're one of my best friends, and I know you won't hurt me or let things get weird between us," You state your case to him.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“I was kinda hopin' my ruggedly handsome features would have played into it at least, you know, a tiny bit,” He says, his voice thick with fake disappointment.
“Shut up you ass, you know you're hot,” You tell him, kicking him playfully in the knee with your bare foot.
“I'm more than twice you're age, Sweets,” He says softly.
“You are also eight inches taller than me, the sun sets in the west and calling me that is not helping!” You say as you stand up from the couch, your frustration getting the best of you and you feel your courage begin to slip away.
"Here's the deal," You lock eyes with Sam as you stand in front of him, the last bit of your courage on deck. "You owed me a favor, I wouldn't waste it on something that wasn't important. And I know it's a big one, which is why I'm asking you. Now, I'm gonna go in my bedroom. If you wanna help me out, that's where you'll find me. If not, just remember to put your glass in the sink on your way out like usual, and this conversation never happened. I love you, I trust you, and I really want it to be you...but I'll understand if it can't be," You finish strong and pad towards your bedroom.
“Holy goddamn shit,” Sam says in a low voice as he watches you walk into your room and sit on the edge of your bed with your back to him. He leans his head back against the couch and closes his eyes. This wasn't what he expected from today and nowhere near what he expected the favor he owed you to be.
The fact that you were still a virgin blew his mind. He really thought everyone lost it when they were in high school. He did. Well, if he had actually gone to high school, he would have been. He was 16 and Crystal was 17. Thinking about that night in the deserted park pavilion now years later, different details stand out in Sam's mind. The way Crystal's eyes averted him as he slipped out of his boxers in front of her for the first time. The rush that he was in for it to happen. The voiceless nods she gave him the many times he asked if she was okay while he thrust into her. All these little subtleties of nerves smack Sam in the face.
I never remembered her acting that nervous that night. How'd I not notice it? Oh wait, I know, I was a little bit preoccupied with finally getting laid. And that was with me knowing it was her first time.
Scenes of you at a bar float through Sam's head. Some random guy buying you drinks, dwindling away your willpower. You take him back to your bed or you going to his, and away your virginity would go, not a thought or a care for it from the man you give it to. Sam's brow furrows as he pictures it.
And knowing her, if it's not me, she'll just do it to get it over with. And the asshole she's with won't treat her the way she should be treated for her first time cause she won't tell him she's a virgin cause it'd scare him away.
She's 22, his conscience pipes up, his inner angel of reason reminding him that twenty-two is less than half his age.
But she's 22, a voice says with a hormone dripping purr inside him. Sam wasn't a saint, he was just a guy. So, of course, he'd checked you out a couple of times discreetly and obviously when your Uncle Sully was gone. He'd noticed the plump, round curves of your breasts and hips, the ghost of a navel underneath one of your t-shirts, the smooth skin of your legs as they hung over the arm of a chair in the office while you were on the phone. The thought of his hands traveling over your tight denim-clad ass while he took one of your breasts between his lips made his blood run hot.
And all I have to do is walk into that bedroom.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck me," He mutters under his breath as he runs his hands through his hair. Sam stares at the short hallway that leads towards your bedroom.
She deserves better than me for this, he thinks as he stands up. Sam grabs his glass off of the coffee table and heads towards the small kitchen. He swallows the last bit of scotch left in the bottom of the glass and sets it in the sink.
But it's her favor, he resolves and heads towards your bedroom.