Pitch Perfect - 7. Chapter 7: The Trouble With That Is...

Sam squeezed into the small space on the couch between Jeremy’s head and the wall. ‘Why is he here…now?” Sam wondered about the urgency behind his cousin’s arrival; it was after eleven on a school night.

Slouching, he rested his head on the back of the futon and splayed his feet out in front of him on the hardwood floor. Sam’s hand absentmindedly combed his cousin’s hair while his mind wandered home to his parents. Even from a thousand miles away their expectations bothered him. ‘Why throw your life away? What reason could there possibly be not to go to college? You know there’s no future in music- right?’

All valid questions, to a point, but Sam couldn’t stand the disappointment in their faces when he always had to answer that it made him happy. They never understood that, either. Both of his parents had gone to college, his mother was a nurse and his father an attorney. So practical. So sensible. What on Earth possessed their only son to follow the wayward path of music? What reason could there be to not have a job focused solely on money? In some ways Sam found it amusing; a gay son, they could ‘deal with’ his mother had said, but being a musician was really just Sam’s excuse to be lazy, apparently.

The aggravation he was beginning to feel subsided as Sam looked down and saw his cousin blinking up at him, obviously just waking up. “Sam?” Jeremy’s voice whispered thick with sleep.

“Yeah, I’m here.” Sam kept brushing Jeremy’s curls out of his face as he woke up, until he realized that it was an action he had adopted from his mother- then he drew his hand back quickly.

Jeremy sat up slowly and looked over at him. Sam was positive that he had stopped by to talk, but they were silent. He mirrored Sam’s slouch and they both sat quietly staring at the ceiling for a while.

In the end Sam was the first to break. In an attempt to stay on neutral subject matter until Jeremy was ready to open up Sam began by saying, “Do you know a girl named Addie from your school?”

“Yeah.” Jeremy chuckled to himself. “Everybody knows Addie. She’s so pretty, but not really that popular. There’s something a little strange about her. She’s always turning dates down all the time, always just hangs out with… Yeah, I know her, why?”

“She stopped by work today and we had a long conversation.”

Jeremy looked surprised by that information. “Really?” He murmured and Sam could practically see the wheels turning in his head. “So what exactly did y’all talk about?”

“Oh you know, school, friends, that sort of stuff.” Sam stood up heading toward the refrigerator. “Do you want anything to drink? Tea, milk, soda- something?”

“Just water,” Jeremy said and having followed in from the living room he sat at the kitchen island. “So... that’s all you talked about?”

“Huh?” Sam replied while pouring milk. He realized that Jeremy was still talking about Addie. “Oh yeah, that’s all really.” Sam turned around holding the drinks and saw Jeremy nodding to himself. “So, Germ, why are you here?”

Jeremy’s eyes flashed to Sam’s then dropped quickly back to studying the floor. He shrugged. “Do I need a reason?”

“No, I guess not, it’s just…”

“Okay,” Jeremy interrupted setting his glass down. He gave Sam a look daring him to continue.

‘What the hell is bothering Jeremy? He’s never like this. How long has he had such an attitude? Normally he’s so happy-go-lucky.’ Sam knew his initial guess had to be right, Jeremy was dealing with something serious- what other reason was there to act like that? ‘I can’t push him. If he wanted me to know, he’d tell me. My parents always forced things out of me. I know he’ll say what’s on his mind when he’s ready.’

“Well, I have work tomorrow, so I’m gonna shower and head to bed. You’re free to stay here if you want,” he said, not sure what else he could offer.

After retrieving pajama bottoms and a towel Sam went to the bathroom for a hot shower. It felt nice standing underneath the stream of water washing off the hard work of the day. He shut his eyes leaning his forehead against the tiled wall as the warm trails of water traveling down his back. The situation with Jeremy was unfortunate; Sam wondered why he had volunteered to give advice in the first place. ‘Am I qualified to give anyone guidance?’

Back in his bedroom he noticed Jeremy had decided to stay the night after all. He shut off the light as he settled himself into bed. After a few minutes of quiet Sam figured Jeremy must have already fallen asleep. However, just as Sam’s eyelids started feeling heavy he heard him.

“It’s hard to always be what people expect.”

“Yeah I know the feeling.” Sam found himself nodding in agreement even though the room was pitch black. He flicked on the bedside light so as not to feel so crazy.

“Especially lately.” Jeremy sighed. Then turning toward Sam he asked, “Hey, if I tell you something you’d keep it to yourself, right?”

“Of course, we’re family. It’s not like I have anyone to tell anyways.”

“That’s true.” Sam saw the smirk before his cousin turned serious again.

“I’m gay,” Jeremy breathed out.

“That’s great!” Sam tried to put enthusiasm and shock into his voice. He thought shock seemed appropriate; act as if he hadn’t seen Jeremy kissing another boy-check. Sam also wanted to be happy and excited for this revelation, but he knew being gay was sometimes difficult, and a hard life was really the last thing he wanted for Jeremy.

Whatever he had sounded like must have been different than he expected because Jeremy let out a loud snort followed by laughter.

“What?”

“Nothing, I knew you’d say something like that,” Jeremy chuckled. “It wasn’t what I really wanted to tell you. I mean… in a way it was. But, I’ve known for a while that you were gay, so I figured you’d take it well, but the fake enthusiasm was too much.”

Sam wasn’t totally surprised to hear Jeremy already knew about him, he was open about it, and honestly his mother had a pretty big mouth. “So if that wasn’t it, what did you want to talk about?”

“Guys.”

Now it was Sam’s turn to be amused. “Yeah? What about them?”

Jeremy launched into a long story about a boy who had only just recently become his ex. They played sports together and had been dating for about six months when the asshole had apparently decided to cheat on him and lie about it.

“Wait a second,” Sam stopped him during the middle of his explanation. “How can you be so sure this guy cheated on you? Did you see him?”

“We were…” Jeremy hesitated answering and his cheeks turned pink. “Well, you know. So he called out the other guys name right in the middle and then I brought it up and he told me things wouldn’t work out with us.”

“Wow,” said Sam, not sure if it was because his kid cousin was old enough to be having sex or shock because Jeremy chose such a jerk in the first place.

Jeremy nodded and continued. The guy Sam had seen him with at the party was his ex-boyfriend. They still had a lot of contact through school, and the night of the party he had stopped by because he was upset and needed to talk. After the kiss Sam had witnessed they had fought again, and now their relationship was tenser than ever.

‘How could he date someone who would act like that? Jeremy is so much better than that jerk.’ Sam knew he was personally lucky when it came to men. Almost all of his exes were genuinely good people and that was definitely the case with his first boyfriend, Jared. It was a shame that his cousin couldn’t have the same positive experience. ‘Maybe he got the bad one out of the way early on...’

“I want to try talking to him,” mumbled Jeremy into his pillow, obviously half asleep by now.

“Who?”

“The… the guy. That… other…” Even though he was sleep talking at this point Sam understood what he meant.

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea, Germ. You’ll just wind up hurt again.” Sam was going to say more but he could see the steady rise and fall of Jeremy’s chest and knew it was already too late; he was gone. ‘I’ll have to remember to bring it up again tomorrow,’ Sam thought before reaching over and shutting off the light.

***

Talking again had been more difficult than Sam had anticipated. When morning came he went to school way before Sam was even awake and functioning. Work was hectic most of the weekend and all the intentions Sam had to warn Jeremy were more or less forgotten. Not that it matter much anyway, even if he had remembered they never crossed paths at home. It was odd; the rest of the family saw enough of each other, but Jeremy seemed perpetually busy.

Wednesday morning Sam worked an early shift then spent the rest of the day with Clara, an upright bass player he met through the shop. ‘She’ll be a great practice partner- it’s nice to meet someone else who takes music so seriously.’ Her technique was absolutely flawless, which made sense since she practiced hours every day. While playing and chatting at his apartment that afternoon Sam had learned Clara was trying out for the Philadelphia Orchestra at the beginning of March.

The only unfortunate thing was that she was strictly into playing classical music. Sam had nothing against playing Beethoven and Shubert, but his true love affair was with the blues. Playing again was refreshing; it helped Sam to refocus on why he was in Pennsylvania in the first place. ‘I don’t want my move here to be meaningless, I need to find people to jam with seriously.’

Originally any music related job would do. At the age of fifteen Sam only wanted to learn as much about piano, guitar and vocals as possible. Now he had a more concrete goal in mind. Blues. The bar and club scene in the Philadelphia was great, and he was relatively close to New York too. If he could get a good trio or quartet of musicians together they could start playing shows. Lots of performers had unrealistic goals of making it big, but in the long run Sam hoped to be a studio musician who taught lessons for extra income- he had no unrealistic illusions.

Sam started considering how he might go about finding a good group of people to play with after Clara left that night, and he was still debating over it the following day when he went into work. Most of the first step was already taken care of; it would be easy enough to listen in on the open mic musicians at the shop to see who was promising. Finding dedicated, reliable people and getting them to form a group was another obstacle entirely.

Mr. Ramone had been right in saying Thursdays were the slowest night of the week, Sam decided. There was more than enough time to clean the whole café in between the few customers that stopped in. He thought more about forming a band and how to recruit people as he headed over to the piano. Since there was only one couple sitting drinking coffee and he could hear the door if anyone else came, Sam started to ad lib a mid tempo blues melody. After a few improvised songs he heard the chime of the door from behind him and turned to see a familiar face.

“Addie!” Sam stood striding over to the counter. “How are things going?”

The petite girl looked up from her phone and smiled. “Good.”

“What can I get for you?”

“Hey, listen,” she said disregarding his question completely. “I wanted to ask you about something.”

He wondered what she could possibly have in store for him, but he guessed there was something she wanted by the twinkle in her eyes. ‘I guess there’s only one way to find out…’

“Shoot.”

“Well, I was hoping that you might be open to meeting a great guy and going out on a date?”

That question was enough to spur an internal, and involuntary external, groan. Being set up on a date felt tacky to him, was he giving off desperate relationship vibes to this girl? He was only nineteen and had just moved there so of course he wouldn’t be dating anyone. ‘Even if dating was at the top of my list of things to do I could go out and find a boyfriend myself.’

“I’m not sure that I’m a blind date kind of guy,” Sam answered skeptically; he didn’t want to come off as rude because he really did like Addie. Maybe the guy she planned on introducing him to wouldn’t be too bad.

Addie bit her lip. “Actually, it wouldn’t be a blind date. I told him to meet me here today, he should be here any minute.” She glanced again to the sleek silver phone in her hand.

‘Crap.’ Sam sighed deciding to give up on this battle. “I guess it doesn’t really hurt anything to just meet.” Addie looked up hopefully. “But, I’m not going to promise anything, okay?”

“Yes!” Addie leaned over the counter to give Sam a surprisingly tight hug for someone her size. “I’m going to wait for him outside, he’s never been here before,” she said before practically skipping toward the exit.

‘Well, that was easy,’ Sam mused as he watched her stand waiting outside the glass front. ‘If only it was that easy to make everyone happy.’

Sam leaned forward against the case displaying the cafés baked goods. He had a clear view of Addie who stood alone in the cold for several minutes before she started waving furiously to a passing car which had to be her friend’s because it pulled into the lot.

He watched transfixed as the car parked and a thin boy walked up to Addie. The kid looked genuinely happy to see her and they hugged. From what Sam could tell the boy was fairly good looking, which made him wonder again why they were being set up. ‘I guess that’s just Addie,’ Sam shrugged to himself.

For a few minutes Addie stood talking animatedly to the boy while he appeared almost defeated, then as Sam looked on Addie pointed to him. The boy looked up and their eyes caught momentarily. ‘Whoa, what green eyes.’

A second later the kid looked back to Addie with an expression of pure shock causing Sam to laugh. After that they were both talking and gesturing like crazy. Bemused, Sam wondered if the same stunt had been used on this guy as him. He probably hadn’t realized that by going out to coffee with a friend he was agreeing to meet some new guy.

Eventually they turned together, both walked into the café. Addie took the coats and sat at a table in the far corner near the window, and the boy walked hesitantly up to the counter. As he got closer Sam realized right away how attractive he actually was. With his hat off he could see that his hair was the palest shade of blond and it fell loosely over his forehead and over his ears. His skin was also a pale cream color, but he had a light dusting of pink on his cheeks from the cold. Then there were his eyes, which even from far away were striking, but as he got closer Sam noticed they were pure jade in color- not like most people’s eyes which had some variation. ‘Way to go Addie.’

“Hi,” the boy said meekly as he finally arrived at the counter. He brushed his hair nervously behind his ears. “I’m Lucca.”

Sorry for such a long wait.  I'll try to write faster, but honestly my life's a little hectic right now.  I promise to keep writing though