Pitch Perfect - 15. Chapter 15: Cousin Interference

To say he was unhappy was a gross under-exaggeration. He was pissed—at Jeremy and himself. Following his angry cousin home was not in the plan for the day. Sam sat in his car taking deep breaths and trying to let his head cool down. He didn’t want things to get out of hand, which they would if he went up to his apartment now. Honestly, he wanted to give his cousin a good punch for how he was acting, but he knew that it was partly his fault. The ache in his shoulder didn’t do anything to quiet that urge, though. ‘What do they feed these kids?’

And Lucca… he’d looked confused and hurt. He even thought it was his fault. Sam couldn’t really understand that. Not for the first time, he wondered what was going on between his cousin and boyfriend.

Despite what Lucca had said, Sam was pretty sure this had nothing to do with him.

He reclined the car seat and turned up his music slightly. Sam could feel eyes on him from his apartment, undoubtedly Jeremy’s, but he needed to calm down. Focusing on humming along with the melody he tried to remind himself why he loved the stupid Germ so much.

Up until recently, his cousin had always been a good kid. Before his extended family moved away from Florida, Jeremy was beyond cute. Even though he was two years younger he’d always follow Sam around, practically worshipping the ground he walked on. If Sam skateboarded then of course he’d do that—and when Sam had expressed an interest in guitar Jeremy had insisted on playing too despite a lack of talent. At times Sam had found it slightly annoying, hence the development of Jeremy’s nickname, but after his family moved away Sam had always missed their close bond.

Sam leaned in looking up the windows of his garage apartment. He could barely make out a figure stalking back and forth behind the curtains. Clearly he wasn’t alone in his annoyance. He regretted that his Sunday off would be spent figuring out problems rather than with Lucca as planned. He breathed in and out again slowly, though, and let it go. His cousin needed him, even if he was showing it by acting like a jerk.

When he felt like he could deal with everything on an even keel and made his way up to his room.

A split-second after the door was open Jeremy was already yelling, “What the hell took ya so long?”

Man, was today ever going to be a treat.

“Either calm down or leave, Jer. I didn’t come up here so that we could argue.”

It was true—Sam had no intention of fighting. Especially since he had no clue what the problem may be.

Jeremy glared back at him without speaking.

Silently, Sam stepped out of his shoes, took his coat off and made his way past Jeremy to the couch to sit. When he settled he turned his attention back to his cousin who was jittering with agitation. “Well? You obviously have something you want to get off your chest.”

Jeremy scowled and continued to pace. “Sure, you care now.”

“That’s not fair, I tried talking to you a couple times,” Sam argued. “What’d you expect me to do? Hunt you down?”

“Yes!” Jeremy snapped before a chagrined look passed over his face. He’d probably just realized how childishly he was acting. “Okay, maybe not hunt me down…”

“Well, then what?”

Jeremy’s eyes narrowed. “Right, like my interrupting your time with Lucca isn’t the only reason you’re here right now. Let’s face it; you didn’t try too hard to really talk with me before. I know I’ve been acting like a jerk, but I’m going through a lot, okay?”

That caught Sam. Jeremy was right, he should’ve given his cousin the benefit of the doubt and persisted till he found out what was wrong. Jeremy was also spot-on with guessing his current motivations for following him. If he hadn’t interrupted just now with Lucca, who knows when he’d have gotten around to talking to him.

“Yeah, okay, today I came because you awkwardly interrupted my plans to see Lucca,” Sam admitted. “But, Jeremy, I love you. It’s not like I don’t care about your problems. What’s going on?”

The anger in Jeremy’s form leeched out and he finally made a move to sit down across from Sam. His shoulders were still much more rigid than normal, and something else was odd. Sam realized with a start that it was his frown, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his cousin give a genuine smile.

Maybe he had been a little too caught up in his own life lately…

“So what do you need to talk about?”

“Everything.” Jeremy gave half a smirk but the expression didn’t look right, there was none of his normal personality behind it. He deflated further into the chair and started talking.

Jeremy glossed over his list of issues while Sam listened—SAT prep stress, he was exhausted training to try out for baseball, he had key club responsibilities—and on top of all that he was thinking of coming out to the rest of his family and friends. He really was under a mountain of strain lately, and Sam felt for him.

Still wishing there was a way to help with all his cousins problems, Sam was caught off guard when Jeremy switched gears bringing the conversation back to him.

“And you, you’re dating Lucca, aren’t you?” Jeremy accused. Sam nodded reluctantly, wondering at the tone. “Honestly, couldn’t it have been anyone else?”

“What do you mean?” Sam felt defensive. ‘What kind of problem could he possibly have with Lucca? The kid’s a saint.’ Aside from his own affection for the guy, Sam was fairly sure Jeremy had gotten along with him too. “I thought you two were friends?”

“Well…no…. I don’t know. Maybe,” Jeremy fumbled, not fully able to explain himself.

“You brought sandwiches that time we all volunteered together.”

“Yeah…”

“And he slept over here, I’ll assume it was with you and not Kellie,” Sam added.

“Yeah, I know. He did.” Jeremy sighed.

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Listen, this isn’t about me being friends with him… or not. I just don’t think you should date him, Sam. How much do you really know about him, anyway? It’s not… he’s…. ugh.” The look Jeremy gave him was imploring, but Sam wasn’t getting it. He better have more of an explanation than that, because right now his reasoning was just leaving Sam slightly offended.

“Spit it out, already,” Sam’s voice had a subtle warning. His temper was shortening fast as a headache settled in behind his eyes. Despite his tries at patience, he was not in the right mood to sit around guessing all afternoon. Not when his cousin was telling him point-blank to dump his boyfriend without any clear reasoning. “There better be more to it than you just wanting me to break up with him.”

“Of course there is.” Jeremy hunched his shoulders defensively.

“Well?”

“I think Lucca might be seeing someone else.”

With those words, Sam’s head started to pound. He could feel the blood rushing as he tried to puzzle out the meaning there. It wasn’t that he necessarily thought the statement was true, but why would Jeremy say that?

There had to be more to the story.

“Why?”

“Why?” Jeremy asked, confused.

“Yeah, why.” Sam nodded. The idea of cheating was so incongruent with Lucca’s personality that it just didn’t make sense. Why would Jeremy even suggest it? “Why do you think Lucca is seeing someone else?”

Sam’s thoughts did a double-take. Wait, was this Jeremy’s way of saying he was dating Lucca? He quickly replayed the conversation thus far and realized that it fit. That would explain his attitude lately too. ‘Shit.’ What was he going to do if his cousin was seeing the same guy? Not asking about their relationship had been stupid, but if they were dating surely Lucca would have mentioned something…

There wasn’t long to think it over before Jeremy started talking again, “Remember when I told you about my ex?” He paused for confirmation; Sam didn’t like the direction this was headed.

“Your ex is Lucca?” Sam felt a streak of jealousy; the idea of Lucca with anyone else was awful, especially his cousin.

“What? No!” Jeremy practically yelled.

‘Okay, so if that’s not it….’

“I think… I mean, I’m pretty sure that Lucca is involved with my ex boyfriend. It’s part of the reason we broke up.”

The story of Jeremy’s ex screaming someone else’s name… Lucca’s name… during sex flooded into Sam’s mind with a snap. Maybe there were worse things than Lucca dating Jeremy. Sam realized he might not own enough aspirin.

***

The espresso machine was beyond clean as Sam practically scrubbed the surface off. He knew his foul mood was coming across because Mr. Ramone had taken over on the register. Luckily, today wasn’t a shift he was supposed to work alone.

After Jeremy dropped the bomb about his suspicions of Lucca, Sam insisted he hear everything. His cousin hadn’t actually been witness to any wrong-doing on Lucca’s part, but he had been carefully studying his opposition.

Jeremy had started befriending Lucca out of curiosity and anger after the bedroom incident. Things were on-again, off-again with Jeremy and his ex, and he had wanted to get a feel for what he was up against with Lucca. That was his initial intention at least; Jeremy admitted he too fell under Lucca’s spell and eventually wanted to be real friends.

All of that had made sense to Sam. The parts that really bothered him—kept the weariness steadily behind his eyes—were the other things Jeremy had mentioned. Since he’d been studying him so closely, Jeremy had picked up on a few things. Lucca brought up this guy—Matt—in conversation, multiple times. He called while Jeremy was over Matt’s house. Matt even showed up at Lucca’s. There was no solid proof of cheating, but still his cousin insisted that was definitely something going on.

Sam wanted to pretend he’d never heard Jeremy’s pronouncement. His cousin was sharp, and he wasn’t the kind of person to make something up, or over exaggerate. If Jeremy said something was weird between them, it was. Worse, when he’d heard the whole story something about it rang true. Sam remembered his gut feeling that Lucca had been keeping a secret. Sam’s gut was telling him now it had something to do with this, with Matt, and the revelation did nothing but make his head pound.

He threw a handful of silverware into the sink wincing as it hit the side too loud. Mr. Ramone turned, wide eyed. “Everything alright?”

Sam shrugged, frowning. What was he supposed to say? Even after everything he’d heard Sam still didn’t think Lucca had cheated. But that left Sam even more confused. He couldn’t make up his mind on what to do. It’s not like he could confront Lucca about him talking to some guy. God, what was he going to do? Something was going on, and really he couldn’t do anything about it except wait to see what happened.

That his boyfriend involved was in any way with some guy who treated his cousin like crap, well, it bothered Sam. And the jealousy that practically overwhelmed him was so foreign, so new, that Sam was shocked at his own emotions.

Turning from the sink, Sam looked out at the rest of the café. The place was practically dead; they really didn’t need two people on tonight. At least that would make it easier to get Mr. Ramone’s opinion on the whole matter. As much as he hated to burden his boss, Sam really didn’t have anyone else he could go to for advice. His cousin’s mind on the matter was set and Addie was out for obvious reasons. Plus, his boss was becoming a good friend and he had such a reasonable manner Sam was sure he’d know the right thing to do.

“Mr. Ramone?” The man turned with a questioning look. “Can I ask your advice on something?”

He nodded, and Sam started to relay his problem as briefly as possible. When he was finished Mr. Ramone hummed to himself for a moment, considering.

“Well it seems as though you care for him quite a bit, that’s quite a blessing.”

“I do, yeah,” Sam admitted. “I just don’t know what to do about this. I’m getting a bad feeling, but it’s like he’s done anything wrong. I trust him, but I don’t even know who this other guy is.”

“I see your… dilemma,” Mr. Ramone agreed. He stopped for a second, seeming to choose his next words carefully. “You say you trust him, so do so. Besides, you don’t have to hunt down answers. A leopard will always reveal its spots, whether or not it’s chased.”

***

Heeding the advice given was harder than expected. Sam wanted to fully trust Lucca, but knew that if he were the one to search him out it would be to ask questions. It wasn’t his place, but he wouldn’t be able to stop himself. So, miserably, Sam waited for Lucca to come to him.

Getting through his shifts at The Perfect Cup got easier after his talk with Mr. Ramone, but as soon as he got home all week Sam collapsed on his couch. He couldn’t find the energy to deal with his other looming problems, like his mother. Or setting up the few appointments for lessons he’d gotten. Or running over to Grace Memorial to drop off the flyers he’d made for free classes. He gave his own instrument sidelong glances, wondering how long it might be before he either went crazy or wound up calling Lucca.

He’d never been this hung out over something another guy did. Ever. Not after a break up, quick hookup, nothing. ‘What’s wrong with me?’

He got up and popped in a movie for distraction. Something love-y and mind-numbing, then settled down with a bowl of ice cream. He heard someone on the stairs, and then looked up as his door opened and Jeremy poked his head in.

Jeremy’s face pulled up in disgust. “What are you doing?”

“What’s it look like?” Sam gestured with his spoon.

Jeremy shook his head, obviously inviting himself in as he got comfortable next to Sam. “It looks like my cousin is a loser.”

At least Jeremy’s good humor was back to normal. He no longer seemed like he was about to bite everyone’s head off.

“Thanks a lot, totally helping.” Sam sighed, putting his bowl down on the table.

Jeremy questioned his mood, ‘as if he has no clue what’s going on’, Sam thought. When he answered how much he was worrying over Lucca, an odd expression came over Jeremy’s face. “Why not just call him and straighten it out?”

“It’s not really that simple, Jer. There’s no proof Lucca did anything, and I trust him. Yeah, I want to know what’s going on with him and that other guy… but it’s not really any of my business, y’know?”

“I never thought of it like that.” Jeremy frowned. “I thought you’d confront him.”

“He hasn’t really done anything to confront over.” Sam sighed. “If this is something he wants me to know, he’ll tell me.”

That it made him miserable to wait it out was beside the point. Even with all the uncertainty, Sam knew his feelings for Lucca were worth it.

“Hmm... you’re right.” Jeremy nodded quickly to himself before he suddenly stood up. He strode to the door and turned around. “There’s something I have to do.”

And that was it; he was gone. ‘What the hell.’ Sam spent a little time trying to figure out his cousin’s motivations, but eventually gave up. Jeremy was acting weird, even for him, and trying to understand him lately was becoming a chore. He was done trying to figure out what was going on.

Sam paused the movie and leaned over to pick up his guitar; for the first time all week he found the will to play.