Chapter Text
Part One
Joe: Then
I’ll never forget the first time I saw her on that red carpet. It seems so cliché to say, especially when you try and tell other guys about it and you end up sounding like, ‘Yeah, dude, there was this chick that I totally spotted and she was so fucking hot and I can’t get her out of my head until I screw her.’
In fact, I wish it were that simple.
But of course, like with all things in this life, the shit had to be complicated. So from that very first moment I saw her on the red carpet, absolutely glowing in that beautiful scarlet dress, I was completely enchanted. I was sure that for the rest of my life, I would never find a woman that even remotely measured up to the absolute beauty she had radiating from her that night.
I remember my heart pounding in my chest as I chose whether or not it was going to be worth my time to even bother approaching her. I only saw her profile from a distance and I was sure that it was just my loneliness getting the best of me. Probably a million other things as well, the stress of the premiere, the production company and how truly busy I always seem to be, along with the occasional projects I still take on are having this crazy effect on me as I gazed at her. I did not recognize her, she was not an up and coming actress in independent films, but she certainly might have been someone behind the scenes, and whoever she was, she was magnanimous.
I decided to wait, bide my time as the night progressed and I lost complete track of her for a long time. I knew, after a time, that it was probably the right thing to do, just let her be this beautiful angel I saw one night on the red carpet that I would not lay eyes on again… But fate had other plans in store for me.
It was at one of the after parties following a slew of amazing premieres, a few of which I had the great pleasure of collaborating on, and I was anxious to meet some new contacts. Several interested parties were knocking down the door of my company and this would afford me the rare opportunity of meeting these people in a social setting. I had my game plan and I was ready to do this.
Within an hour I was feeling pretty good. I was two beers in, making my contacts and enjoying myself at the festival. This was always something that was a great treat for me in case there was a time in the future when I would work with these people. I saw everyone as a potential collaborator and I loved when the creative juices started flowing.
The exact moment I saw her again was probably one I’ll remember until the day I die. It was an event I wasn’t expecting, because this enchanting goddess I had seen previously on the red carpet was long gone and I had no delusions about seeing her again. I set my empty beer bottle down and turned around to order another when a fellow actor came up behind me and clapped me on the back, clearly on his way to intoxication and really enjoying the festivities. I was happy to finally meet him and we discussed the project he had brought to the festival. He confessed that he was drinking in celebration, because apparently he had been awfully nervous to bring the movie, but I assured him he had nothing to stress over.
We ended up getting along incredibly well. We had a lot of things in common, like our passion for our projects and our love for the art of it all, and I found to my pleasant surprise that we had an easy rapport with one another. I knew immediately I really liked this guy.
And that was when, out of nowhere, the vision of beauty in red appeared behind my new friend, beaming so widely that she seemed to light up the entire room. Her hair was a beautiful cascade of bright gold, her eyes as dark and deep as the earth, her smile so glittering that it made my heart skip a beat. I saw her put a hand on my friend’s shoulder, caressing it as lovingly and familiar as I had ever seen two people.
I knew right then how big of an idiot I was. I had unintentionally fallen for a woman that was already spoken for, and it made me feel incredibly sad. The loneliness swept me again. I hoped over the course of the night I could distance myself from this woman and her husband and hopefully figure out exactly what it was that was drawing me to women that were so unavailable.
But my plan wasn’t so easy to put into action. This new friend of mine was incredibly hilarious and intelligent, someone I wanted to associate myself with. And try as I might to get rid of this infuriating infatuation with my new friend’s wife, I found that the more I got to know her, the more I really, really liked her as well, which in turn, made her more attractive.
I had to excuse myself once to get away and gather my strength so that I would quit being such an idiot. These people were so clearly meant for each other that it was silly for me to even entertain the thought that there was something more to this. I had to stop it in its tracks.
Again, this was easier said than done. I tried so hard to ignore it but the harder I tried, the worse it became. The more I started noticing her sparkling wit, her delicious laugh, the way she stroked her neck when she was really listening to what you were saying, and every other mannerism, the less I tried to fight my growing adoration of her. It came to a point that evening when I was very aware that I was going to be nursing some very intense feelings for someone I was going to be spending a lot of time with.
My new friends left early that night. They seemed to be happy on a completely different level that evening. The movie he had premiered had done very well, but it seemed to go beyond that and I never quite grasped what was going on. It was painfully obvious to me, however, that they were deeply, passionately in love.
And yet no matter of rationalizing it to myself changed how I felt about her. It was as though the harder I tried to tell myself she wasn’t that special, the more convinced I became in my heart that she was that special.
I left the festival that week with this wildly renewed feeling of hope with the soul crushing pit that was endless despair. I didn’t want this to be happening with two people I liked very, very much, but it was there and it was undeniable. Our friendship would not end soon, as I came to learn, so with every passing day, one thought became clearer and clearer.
Eventually, I knew I would fall in love with my best friend’s wife.
Joe: Now
“I’m telling you, it’s not about the right to speak your mind or free speech or any of that other bullshit,” he said vehemently as he gestured wildly to his good friend of eight years. “It’s what people with an ignorant argument use as a defense to anything, especially when they’re backed into a corner of absolute bigotry and stupidity.”
“I completely agree with you, but I feel like you’re assuming that I’m not hearing you or something,” she responded to him, rolling her eyes. “You know I think you’re right, just because I’m respecting someone’s opinion by not loudly shouting my own doesn’t mean I am agreeing with that person. I’d just rather not start drama with the other parents. It’s pointless. I’m not lowering my IQ just to scream words that won’t be absorbed anyway?”
“This is the thing about you, Sam,” he said, throwing his hands up in a mixture of defeat and disgust. “You tell me about this stuff that happens with the other loud, opinionated bi –” he stopped himself when he saw Sam’s daughter Izzie approaching. She was only seven so he knew that it was better to censor his words around her. Sam would appreciate it anyway. “Witches,” he corrected and his friend gave him an amused but grateful smile, “And I know you want to say something but it’s like you don’t have the guts. What gives?”
She rolled her eyes at him yet again, turning away from him to pour another glass of lemonade for her waiting daughter. “Joe, you would understand if you had kids,” she told him, sending Izzie on her way after refilling her cold drink. She turned back to him with a stubborn look on her face, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes. He knew she wasn’t angry or upset with him, that this was all playful, and he was okay with it. “Because you can’t just haul off and verbally assault every idiot that raises your children’s friends. Then they’d have no one to play with, they’d end up anti-social, and then they’d grow up weird.”
Joe stopped before saying anything else, considering the actual probability of that happening if Sam actually stood up for herself, but instead he chose to shake his head, no matter how badly he disagreed and simply scrunched up his dark eyes and laughed at his friend. “You’re a trip, Sammy.”
“Hello, mate!” came a third voice to the conversation. Sam’s husband Tom stepped out at that moment, carrying a plate laden with food ready to be thrown on the grill as they barbequed outside in the beautiful Michigan weather. Joe met Tom and Sam at an after party at Sundance many years back and had hit it off splendidly with the pair, working with Tom consistently in the following years while befriending the rest of the Chance-Hiddleston clan and becoming practically inseparable with the family. He was even around to help them celebrate the birth of their second daughter, Isabella, and had the privilege to watch her grow up. Joe felt that he was closer to this beautiful family than he was to a lot of his other good friends.
It was okay with him. He had yet to settle down and had no plans on doing so anytime soon. He was well beyond the appropriate time of life when it would have been logical to get married or have kids, but Joe knew he was not the ‘marrying kind,’ and probably never would be, especially at forty-seven. There had been many women that came and went in his life, and one that he had actually been with for a long time at the encouragement of Sam, who did not want to see one her closest friends single anymore. Her best girlfriend, Molly, had been married happily for five years at this point(well, technically she’d been married seven, but that was another confusing matter entirely), so Joe suspected that Sam didn’t know how to handle the fact that one of her friends was not settled and happy yet.
Sam didn’t know the truth and he hoped she never would. There was no need to do anything to jeopardize what she had with her husband. It would be unfair to everyone involved if he were to tell her that he was hopelessly in love with her. He had been since the moment he laid eyes on her at that party eight years ago.
Joe shook his head to try and clear the unnecessary thoughts from it. It something he had lived with for so long that it became common practice to cram them back into the darkest hidden recesses of his brain. He valued his friendship with the two of them far too much to ever let his true feelings come forward, and thinking about it for the millionth time that day was not going to make it any easier. So he brought himself back out into the present and stepped up to the grill, offering Tom help.
“I think I’m getting rather good at it,” Tom commented. Several years ago, when they were spending a great deal more time in the states for the girls’ school and subsequent activities, Tom had developed a passion for Americanizing himself. One of his favorite chosen ‘American past time’ activities was grilling. He was getting better but the first few attempts were somewhat disastrous, and Joe had been present for a few of them.
“I don’t know about that, dude,” Joe said, leaning over to reach into the cooler to grab himself another beer. He popped it open on the side of the table and took a deep pull from the cold beverage before he continued. “I swear the last time you tried to light the grill you set half the backyard on fire.”
“That’s a damn lie!” Tom declared, flashing his friend a guilty grin. “That was not the last time you were here. I might have done… about three times ago.”
“Nope,” Sam chimed in, walking by with a stack of paper plates and cups. “It was two times ago. My eyebrows are finally growing back in.”
Tom rolled his eyes at his wife’s teasing and Joe couldn’t help but laugh whole heartedly. They had all gotten involved in tamping out the flames. “She’s full of it.”
“I think she’s right, man,” Joe said, defending Sam.
“Thank you, Joe,” Sam said, setting the plates out and turning around, her hands on her hips as she glared at her husband. “At least someone around here knows who to make happy.”
“Give me some credit,” Tom said, throwing the food onto the grill and smiling mischievously. “Who else is willing to handle your meat?”
“Um, Dad, ew,” Emma said, having just walked out onto the porch and catching the tail end of the conversation. She was fourteen and very much a teenager, but for the most part, she was good-humored and was very outgoing. Joe remembered what it was like to be that age, so he cut her a little slack, but for the most part, Emma wasn’t a typical antisocial fourteen-year-old. He loved her to death, but this fact made her easier to like.
“Someone has to touch your mother’s meat,” Tom said unapologetically, shrugging as he turned back to the grill.
Emma rolled her eyes, looking exactly like Sam as she did so. She then eyeballed what Tom was doing and looked back up to Sam, her eyes wide and her expression caught somewhere between amusement and terror. “Should Dad really be touching the grill, Mom? Can’t you take over, Uncle Joe?”
Joe shook his head and took a step back. “If your dad wants to burn down his own house, I’m not taking any responsibility. I’m done trying to warn him.”
“You all need to shut it,” Tom said, pointing the tongs at each one of them. “Or I’ll burn your food.”
“You’re going to do that anyway,” Emma said, then looked to her mother imploringly. “Aren’t you going to stop him?”
“If I really thought your father wasn’t capable of it I wouldn’t let him anywhere near it,” Sam said, walking over to her daughter, pushing her curly red hair behind her shoulders and leaning in to give her a quick hug. Joe was close enough to hear her whisper into Emma’s ear, “Plus the extinguisher is close by.”
“I heard that!”
The two girls giggled and before Sam pulled away she reached down and quickly grabbed the phone in her daughter’s hand. She protested for a second, crying, “MOM!”
“You’re spending time with your family, not shoving your nose in a phone talking to some idiot kid,” Sam said flippantly, stuffing the phone into her pocket. “You can spend two hours off of it. I don’t want you growing up to be one of those rude ass people that doesn’t spend time with someone, especially when they’ve invited you to their home.”
“I’m not going to be one of those people, Mom,” Emma snipped. “I’d be too afraid you’d walk in and start lecturing me.”
“Then I’ve done my job,” Sam said, patted Emma on the cheek, and walked past her into the house.
Joe loved the family dynamic in the Chance-Hiddleston household. These people were genuinely happy to be together as a family, the girls got along fairly well despite their seven year age difference, they respected their parents, and in turn, their parents treated them with as much respect as they deserved. Joe didn’t see this happen very often. Most parents assumed they could take liberties without acknowledging that their children were not just mindless morons, but actual people. In his mind, that made for a much more harmonious household, and there were only a few times when he had been around for one of the meltdowns that was bound to happen, regardless of how well everyone gets along the other percentage of the time.
“So if everyone is so damned afraid of me setting fire to the yard, why isn’t anyone offering to help me?” Tom declared loudly with a chuckle. Joe could tell he actually enjoyed this little family joke instead of resenting it, which was good as well. Emma grimaced and shook her head, dodging out of the way before Tom could turn around and grab her, which he did do on occasion.
But as expected, Izzie popped up from her spot in the yard and yelled, “I’ll help you, Daddy!” She ran over immediately and hugged him around the waist. He put one arm around her and kissed the top of her head as they discussed the grilling. Joe was quiet through all of this, playing observer to this family dynamic. There was an awful lot for him to ponder that day as he watched everyone interacting with one another.
It was nice being here, surrounded by people that loved each other, but Joe knew it wasn’t for him. He had really given it a shot with his ex-girlfriend Sharon, but they were just too incompatible and it couldn’t really be ignored any longer. Sharon had confessed to him that she had an inkling of how he felt about Sam and therefore didn’t want to compete for his affections. He couldn’t say he blamed her, and when he apologized to her about it he really did mean it. He didn’t want to be in love with a married woman and certainly not one that was married to a great guy. It might have been easier if Tom was a douche, but he wasn’t.
Sharon and I also disagreed about probably one of the most fundamental things a couple over the age of thirty-five can disagree about: marriage. I told her I wasn’t into the idea and that it really had nothing to do with me having an issue with commitment. I will commit to a woman for the rest of my life without a second thought and I might even consider the possibility of having a family with someone that I really, truly love, given the right circumstances. I am still iffy on that subject as I have yet to meet a woman that I would want to share this responsibility with.
To me, marriage is an archaic institution that predates rational thought and logical adaptation. Women’s suffrage, civil rights, equal rights, all of it has changed the outlook of the country and I have been lucky enough in my lifetime to see all of this shape our country for the better. It seemed to him like getting married was as old-fashioned as keeping a harem or stoning sinners out in the street.
However, most women, as progressive as some of them may have been, still grow up with a constant voice in their ear that is hard to get rid of once you’ve become an adult. They see their friends doing it, they fall prey to probably the only thing they are weak over, and a marriage takes place that shouldn’t.
Joe also had a hard time convincing women that he thought it was best for the women he was with not to get married. They always thought he was making it up, but he truly believed that the only ones that benefited from marriage were men. Men, in general, are not overly comfortable being domestic cannot provide the nurturing and care a woman can to everything she does, while also growing and taking care of a family for them. Men have it easy. Someone walks into their lives willingly and takes over everything, sometimes to the point where the man doesn’t even have to think anymore. There is someone better equipped to handle that small detail now.
So while a man basks in the comfort of his marriage, a woman will become a person that she doesn’t recognize anymore. She will lose herself becoming the calendar and record keeper for this once capable person. She will clean up after him and be told that that’s ‘what a wife does.’ She’ll take care of his kids and be the bad guy, she’ll nag him to help out every so often because she’s running ragged and he doesn’t have enough sense anymore to think of doing it on his own, and then she will become that horrible bitching wife that the lazy man no longer wants to come home to. The person in the end that loses everything, herself, the respect of her husband, and the fun of her youth, is the woman.
However, no woman Joe had ever met had stayed still long enough for him to express every word of this, and the only woman that would, Sam, he could not say this to. She was married and it would have been even more precarious trying to tiptoe around his feelings for her and getting it all out while still attempting to sound neutral.
It was all right to be around other families that he loved and people he cared about, but Joe really didn’t think he would meet that perfect progressive minded woman just yet, and he didn’t want to while he still harbored feelings for his best friend’s wife.
“Joe,” Tom said then, beckoning his friend over. Joe did as he was asked, coming over to assist his friend on the grill.
He gave his friend an amused smile as he fixed his dark rimmed glasses on his nose. “What’s up, man?” he asked, taking another pull at his beer and then pointing it toward the grill. “Did you need an American hand for help?”
Tom smiled widely and shook his head. “No, I just wanted to find out how the project is coming along. I sent my screenplay on to Jan and she took a look at it already.”
“Oh she did?” Joe asked, genuinely glad to hear this news. “How did she like it?”
“So far, so good,” Tom said with a chuckle. “She has a few notes but other than that, she likes the direction its headed, and as soon as we can pull together some edits she would like to start casting and preproduction.”
“Dude, that is literally the best news I’ve heard all day,” Joe said, fighting the urge to clap and skip like a school girl. “Seriously, I’ve been waiting to hear something and I was seriously hoping you had some good news for me today.”
“Well of course I did,” Tom said with a wink. “Don’t I always come through for you, Joe?”
“That you do, my friend,” he said, giving him a clap on the back. “But seriously, how soon does she want to pull all of this together?”
“You know, I’m not quite sure,” Tom said, and then leaned over to give his youngest daughter a kiss on the head. “Run along now, Iz,” he told her, turning back to the grill and giving his full attention to the food. “She mentioned passing it along to some of the writers and producers she knows just to get a few notes before she wants to schedule a meeting for edits and rewrites. She said it could take a week or two to get all of that together and as soon as it’s done she’s getting us back on the phone.”
“A week or two?” Joe asked, incredulous. “That’s so damn fast,” he was doing some excited calculating, trying to figure out exactly how fast they could have this project together based on the time table already given. It seemed as though within the next few months they would be ready to start filming. “I can’t believe it.”
“Exactly,” Tom said with a satisfied nod. “I told you if we just push it through to the right people we’ll be leaps and bounds ahead of the game.”
“I won’t doubt you again!”
“You shouldn’t.”
Joe was grinning from ear to ear when Sam came back out of the house with the final few items for the outside table. They had apparently been expecting Molly and her husband but for whatever reason they had to cancel, as Sam was explaining to Emma and Izzie. They helped her set up the table while they talked, and Joe observed for a moment before turning back to Tom, who was ready to continue the conversation whenever he had Joe’s attention again.
“So, let’s get this going tonight,” Joe suggested. If there was anything that could get his mind off of the thoughts and feelings that he just wasn’t expressing, it was his work.
Tom and Joe had both been in charge of their own careers and projects for a long time. There were occasions when the two men would talk shop, discussing what they’d like to see out of a film, and after so many individual professional choices the two had made, they realized that they wanted the same thing out of their work, and wanted it to matter. For Tom, it was about preserving a legacy that mattered, one that he could be proud of and pass down to his children. For Joe, it was about making his lifetime of work matter, make his family proud. It wasn’t until Sam blurted out that they needed to just get together and do a project that they actually gave the idea any credence.
Several rough drafts and an all-night drinking binge later and they had come up with something somewhat workable. They went back and forth about who to submit it to for consideration when finally Tom was presented with an opportunity that he then sold to Joe. They had given it to Tom’s friend Jan almost a week ago, so to hear back this quickly was really quite something, especially when it came to the business of making movies.
Joe was ecstatic to start something new, especially with a friend. Collaboration was what he did best so this was going to be a very fun experience on a project he completely believed in.
It didn’t take much longer for the food to be ready. The girls were all settled in and ready at the large circular picnic table, so Joe helped Tom pile the food onto a plate, walked it over and started serving. Everyone was anxious to eat and excitedly chattering away amongst one another. Tom and Sam were having a discussion about the food and the fact that he was able to manage it so well. They were teasing and laughing and Tom rolled his eyes at his wife before leaning down and giving her a sweet, lingering kiss, to which the girls both cried in unison, “Ew!” Sam and Tom chuckled at them after pulling apart and instructed them to eat.
Emma was helping Izzie arrange her food on her plate, giving her tips on how to check and see if Dad actually cooked their burger all the way through. To her credit, she was trying to be quiet and not hurt her father’s feelings, but he still knew what they were talking about and he interjected loudly after a minute, causing both of the girls to jump in their seats and then wrap the entire table in the infectious laughter that followed.
It was the first wonderfully warm day that spring for Michigan and Joe realized as he sat and felt the breeze on his face that he didn’t regret his decision to purchase a getaway home here three years back. Tom and Sam had decided it was best to keep their home here for Emma’s sake back when they got married and they split their time between here and London, where Tom’s home and family was. Occasionally they travelled the country for Tom’s career or he travelled alone, but for the most part, Tom had fallen in love with the little cottage they kept for the first couple of years of their marriage. He had acclimated well to living in Michigan and really started to develop a fondness for it. Eventually, he managed to convince several of his friends to purchase land here. It was a beautiful vacation spot during the spring and summer, several lakes within a short distance in absolutely any direction. Joe had grown up close to the Pacific Ocean, but he loved the idea of having the fresh water so close by.
Things were quiet, professionally, for Tom and Joe at the moment so it was easy to steal very normal, down to earth moments like these. Sam was a very well-known author, so for her, working at home and having days like these were pretty typical. On occasion she would have to do book tours or interviews, but for the most part, she had the opportunity to demand her schedule and locations, being that she was so high in demand. Normally she wrote young adult supernatural romance, but over the last few years she had grown tired of the genre and was anxious to branch out a bit. She had several small projects on the side that she had shared with Joe, just to get his ideas, and he loved every single one of them.
Then again, he would probably never have it in his heart to deny Sam a thing.
Bringing himself back to the present, Joe realized he had missed something very funny passing amongst the family and Sam leaned over right then, wiping her eyes. She leaned over and placed her hand on his knee, and no matter how innocent the gesture was intended to be, chills ran throughout his entire body and he felt, for two seconds, the insane desire to pull her close and wrap his arms around her, if only for a second. His feelings for her ran deep and he craved any bit of contact he could ever muster out of her. He squeezed his eyes shut behind his glasses, desperately struggling to not be seen going through this very obvious struggle against himself. Everything he felt was wrong. He shouldn’t love Sam. He shouldn’t want her body against his. He shouldn’t hunger for her the way he did, thinking of her and only her day in and day out, to the point where his other relationships were affected by the love he still held onto for her. Eight years of close friendship should have been enough to draw out any of those initial feelings he had for her the moment he laid eyes on her in that gorgeous strapless red premiere dress, but if anything, time had only exacerbated his condition.
He knew her better than a lot of people did and she confessed to him that there were certain things she could talk to him about that she just couldn’t express to anyone else. Joe loved being the keeper of her secrets, holding onto the knowledge of things that others didn’t get the privilege to know.
Joe knew that he was a man lost. This knowledge was not comforting.
“Are you all right?” Sam asked, her hand still on his knee. She gave him a couple pats to bring him back to consciousness.
He shook his head to clear the confusing cobwebs so that he could appear as normal as ever. He gave her a big, warm smile, and nudged her with his shoulder playfully. He needed to come off as platonic as possible so she wouldn’t start noticing anything. Up until now he had been pretty lucky, only slipping up a couple of times here and there when it came to revealing his true feelings but Sam seemed to be none the wiser still. He was thankful for this. If he had the choice, he’d prefer that Sam never ever know that for eight years, he harbored feelings that had changed his life forever.
“I’m fine,” he answered her finally.
“You haven’t touched your food,” she noticed, nodding toward his plate.
He peered down and stared at his full plate, realizing she was correct. He had arranged it but got so caught up in his thoughts that he forgot to act normal and eat. Tom was staring over at him with a frown. “What’s wrong, mate? Is it that bad?”
Joe had to laugh at this. “No, dude, it’s not that,” he said. “I just kind of started daydreaming, my bad.” He leaned in to start eating. He was pretty hungry, after all.
“Are we not entertaining enough for you?” Sam asked with a glint in her eye. He felt his knees grow weak when she shot him a small wink and smile and he turned his attention back to his food so quickly that he nearly upset the ketchup bottle in front of him.
“It’s not that, I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
Sam frowned at him. “What’s up?”
“It’s nothing, really.”
“It must be something if you’re this distracted.”
“Really, Sam, it’s nothing to worry about,” he insisted, and he was serious about this. If she pressed any further he might reveal something that he knew would be scrutinized until she caught him earlier and demanded he tell her what was really going on. There had been so many times that they were alone together in the dark of night, talking and sharing with one another that he fought to tell her how he felt.
“Whatever you say,” she said, and turned her attention back to the table then. Emma was telling them about her idea for an English project at school, and since Joe hadn’t been paying attention to the beginning of this conversation, he found it easy to tune out and jump back into his thoughts while still trying to act as though he was interested and engaged in the conversation in front of him.
Among all the crazy, irrational thoughts that flowed in and out of his mind right then, Joe was acutely aware of how wonderful this family was, and how accepting they had been over the last eight years, bringing him right into the fold. Their kids called him ‘uncle,’ for crying out loud! If that wasn’t a sign of true, deep friendship, than nothing was. He enjoyed being here with them, observing their hilarious dynamic. They were a family that truly loved each other.
Something Joe had observed over the last year had him a little concerned, however. He knew that when two people are in a long term, committed relationship, no matter how crazy they are about each other, that passion is inevitably going to cool down and leave, in its wake, the true love and companionship that a couple is supposed to feel. He had observed Tom and Sam’s relationship over the past eight years, so he’d been privy to watching it go from the passionate honeymoon stage of a new marriage, to the warm friendliness of a couple that truly loved one another and belonged together.
However, there was a tendency for some people to forget what it was that brought them together in the first place. This was how most marriages started to fail, because they forgot what it was they loved about each other and allowed life to happen around them as they became different people apart, instead of together. Joe didn’t want his friends to go through this. He knew, as an outside observer, how much they truly, deeply loved one another and he hated for them to lose sight of it, no matter how much he loved Sam in his own selfish way. It was another reason he hated the institution of marriage. After a while, two people, once madly in love, came to a point where they knew that unless they wanted to cause a huge fuss, they were stuck together. This makes the average person feel desperate and trapped, no matter how happy they might have been at one point.
Sam’s light was flickering and it killed him to see it happening. He fell in love with that beautiful, vibrant woman he’d met at Sundance, the woman who could light up a room simply by walking in. she was sharp, powerful, and enigmatic, and he knew from the moment he saw her that she was a force to be reckoned with.
Lately, Sam’s smile had faded somewhat in its brightness. She tried to lay low, not saying much and turning inward instead. Her vivacious charm was dying somewhat and it broke his heart every time he watched it happening in front of him. He loved Tom and respected the man for everything he did, but it was in this that he was most unhappy with his friend, because for all of his attributes, Tom wasn’t even noticing what was happening in front of him. Tom was always anxious to discuss work, his next project, what he was going to get to do after what he was doing now, and he realized that over the past year, Tom was falling more and more into his work versus being a good husband and lover to his fading wife.
It hurt Joe physically to think that Sam was wilting underneath the tyranny that was marriage.
For now, though, everyone was playing happy and he was happy to play along as well. For the most part, this family loved each other and there was nothing that could change that. Their girls were in no danger of feeling unloved, because so frequently their parents were affectionate and vocal with their love and admiration. It was impossible for these girls to question whether or not their parents loved them. That much, at least, was sound.
Joe stood up after finishing his lunch and offered to take in the girls’ plates. They thanked him loudly and somewhat obnoxiously, to which he chuckled and shook his head. He rinsed them off in the sink and set them down, turning around to clear his head, if only for a moment before he returned to the party.
It took him so long to get back outside that Sam and Tom came in, laden with dirty dishes, and frowned quizzically at him. “Is everything all right?” Tom asked him, walking over and filling the sink up.
“Yeah, man, I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?” Sam interjected. “You’ve been real quiet today.”
“Can’t a man be quiet? Damn!” Joe said, trying to sound teasing.
“Whatever you say,” she said with a shrug, walking back out the door.
Joe rolled his eyes and turned back to Tom, who had an amused expression on his face. “What’s her name?”
“What?” Joe asked, completely startled.
“You don’t have to tell Samantha about it,” he insisted, turning around as he rolled up his sleeves while the sink filled with soapy water. “You can tell me the truth. You have a woman on your mind, eh?”
Joe bit the inside of his cheek, willing the fear in his eyes to dissipate. His friend was giving him a fantastic excuse for his silence, an excuse that wasn’t actually a lie, so he jumped at the chance. He adjusted his glasses and then rolled up his own sleeves, walking over to help with the dishes.
“You got me, man,” he said noncommittally. “But honestly, I’d prefer not to talk about it. It’s just too complicated right now.”
Tom nodded in understanding. “Aren’t they all?”
Sam stepped into the house right then and frowned. “Aren’t who all?”
“Nothing, I love you,” he said simply, giving Sam a wide, mischievous smile.
“I don’t know what you two are talking about, but I already know I don’t appreciate it!” she scolded.
“Damn, woman, we’re doing your dishes. And I cooked!” Tom said, raising his soapy hands out of the water to show her.
“Oh, poor baby,” she said with another roll of her eyes. “All the other times I’ve cooked and done the dishes because you had something that absolutely couldn’t wait.”
Tom gave her a sheepish smile and turned back to the water. Sam made an exasperated sound and left the kitchen. The moment she stepped out Tom laughed and shook his head. “But hell if I don’t completely adore that woman.”
Joe smiled wide, happy to hear this sentiment. Unfortunately, as Joe was about to observe over the coming months, it was the last time things would be easy-going and happy.