Claiming What's His (5 page)

“I think he did it,” Sam muttered, using the end of the pen to point out into the crowd.

Maggie stood next to Sam, reading something on her phone.  Without looking up, she asked, “Who did what?”

“Tubby Tom.”
  Sam was referring to Tom Mullings from IT.  He was wearing black slacks and a light blue dress shirt tucked into his pants and the buttons over his belly looked as if they were ready to pop. 

“Uh huh, and what did he do?
” Maggie coaxed for her to continue.

“Steal that Snickers candy bar out of Sandy’s desk drawer.
 She had been looking for it since I met her.”  Sandy Frisk was from Accounting.  Sam found that she was a very smart woman who had a degree in Biology but worked in Accounting.  She had told Sam that she hated being in a lab all day and being surrounded by nothing but petri dishes and microscopes.  So she used her minor degree and started doing accounting work which she enjoyed a lot more.

Sam couldn’t say the same thing.  Sam didn’t exactly hate accounting but she definitely didn’t prefer it.  But with her taking this job, she’ll have to bite her tongue and do a good job if she wanted that paycheck, and perhaps the chance to build a name for herself (not that she didn’t have a name and that people weren’t familiar with her).  But she preferred that people knew her from her profession, a profession where she went to school for five years and earned her degree to snoop around other people’s business (but secretly).

Maggie snickered and still hadn’t looked up, her thumbs pressing away as if she were either searching something or writing a photography book on her phone.  

“Give it up, Sam.
 It’s long gone by now.  There’s nothing you can do, there’s nothing Sandy can do.  Plus, the Snickers isn’t worth the potential headache.  Why are you worried about it?  By the way, tell me again how you gave him his nickname.”

“You see that tub-of-gut he has?
 Isn’t it obvious?  Plus, he still has chocolate at the corner of his mouth.  If you’re going to steal something, at least wipe off all of the evidence.”

Maggie lifted her head and finally glanced up, looking over to Tom.  “Man, you can see that from here?
 I can’t see anything.  And his belly isn’t
that
bad.  It’s more like… like a medium Buddha belly, if you want to call it anything.”

Sam rolled her eyes.  “Whatever.”

              After a beat, Maggie asked, ”Did you know that Princess Kate is pregnant?  And that her baby is due in July, practically any day now?  We’re about to have a royal baby!”

“Way to use your pertinent PI skills, Maggie.
 I’m trying to focus on our pool of suspects here if you don’t mind.  Plus, she already had the baby last month,” Sam murmured as she continue to scan through the crowds looking for any tell that could possibly give away anyone’s fault.

“She did?  Man, this news is old!” she snickered as Sam continued scanning.

There was loud chatter among groups throughout the conference room.  There were a group of women (whose names Sam couldn’t remember), who were talking about hair and make-up artists and how much they could make if they change their profession from what they did now to that.  Another group were gossiping about a husband cheating on his wife, another wife cheating on her husband, and another husband and wife cheating on theirs with each other.  Sam never realized that infidelity rates would run so high in a small town.  But then again, it sort of made sense to her.  A small group of men were discuss the baseball game that happened to be on last night regarding the Houston Astros and the New York Mets.  Sam caught the last inning of the game.  The Astros lost. 
Bad.

Sam was curious.  Of every gossip she heard all day regarding the announcement, she wasn’t sure which was true.  Some said that there would be pay raises, some said there would be lay-offs, and some said there would be bonuses.  It could be a number of reasons, but Sam didn’t think it had anything to do with that. 

She wasn’t completely sure, but call it a gut feeling.  It told her that the big announcement had nothing to do with any of what she heard.  She was thinking it had to be something more, something important.

And the suspense was killing her.

Sam leaned into Maggie and whispered, “Maggs, what do you think this big announcement is?”

“I don’t know.
 Rumor has it that whatever the big announcement is about it has been going around for days.  I tried coaxing it out of Uncle George, but he remained mum.  I tried other tactics, but they didn’t work either.  Maybe we’re each getting company vehicles, like Convertible Mustangs or Corvettes.  Wouldn’t that be awesome?  Then you would finally have an update from that hoopty you drive.”

New company cars.  That was even more unrealistic-like than the pay raise and bonuses.

Sam rolled her eyes.  There she went insulting Sam’s car again.  It’s not that she wasn’t right, but it was Sam’s car.  Sam knew that Betty’s time was closer coming to an end, but she refused to give up on her completely until Betty gave up on her first.  She had been reliable to her for a while and she refused to let go.

Just then, the elevator pinged and an older, handsome man in a black suit with a maroon stripped tie and a tall, sexy man also in a black suit who looked like the older man but younger with a solid blue tie walked out of the car.

George Conrad, President of Conrad Financial and Maggie’s uncle, and Nicholas Conrad, Chief Financial Officer, Maggie’s cousin and George’s son, stepped forward, smiling out to the crowd that eagerly awaited the anticipated announcement.

George reminded Sam a lot like her dad, probably because he was like a second dad to her, and he helped raise her with her own dad.  Nick was like the big brother she never had, always teasing her, playing tricks on her, and threatening to beat up any guy who came close to her (or Maggie).  They both were the extended family Sam thought she’d never had, always there for her when she needed them, for the love and support she needed.  Neither her mom nor dad had any siblings whom she could call aunts and uncles.  Her dad had a few cousins, but she had never met any of them.

George cleared his throat as he button his blazer and spoke, “Attention, everyone!  Attention.”  

The chatter quieted down as everyone turned their attention towards the two men.  From what everyone had told Sam, George was a great boss.  He treated every employee with kindness and respect and seeing him up front, his stature screamed ‘
boss’.  He certainly looked and acted the part perfectly.  He was the type of boss that everyone wanted, the kind that would give you the shirt off his back, helped you when you’re in need, got his hands dirty right next to you and sat with you while you’re waiting for a table at a restaurant.

“Thank you all for coming.
 I have a couple of announcements today.  First off, I wanted to remind everyone about our annual Helping Hand Police & Fire Departments Fundraiser tomorrow night at Comfort Convention Center that supports local and surrounding police and fire departments.  I, myself, have signed up to volunteer and I already have a list of people who volunteered.  There are still some spots available so if you haven’t yet done so, please sign up.  We could use the extra help and this is for a good cause.  The more volunteers we have, the more of a success we’ll have.  There will be guests, clients, and customers coming into town for this event.  I expect many, if not all, of you to be there to help support our local police and fire departments.  This is one of our town’s biggest fundraiser in the state.  We have a reputation to uphold.”

             
Sam felt Maggie nudge her in her ribs as she leaned in, and quickly whispered, “I’m going to sign up for something and give me something to do while I’m there other than roam around.  You want me to sign you up too?  It’ll be fun.”

             
“Sure.”  Sam replied nonchalantly, continuing her suspect search.  Honestly, she hadn’t even really paying attention to the company news.  Sam had been busying scanning through the crowds trying to narrow down her pool of suspects by eliminating anyone who didn’t look guilty.  But through her thoughts, she did hear random words like “fundraiser”, “help”, “guests”, and “reputation”.  Just from those words alone (and even without telling her), she knew that this was an important event.

             
“And now… our final news.”

             
Maggie locked her fingers together in a prayer mode, squeezing her eyes shut tightly, and wished, ”Come on, new car, new car, new car…”  

             
Sam rolled her eyes and shifted them to George, thinking it would be a good idea and pay attention to his news and take a break on trying to figure out who the guilty person was.

“We have a new Vice President joining our company.
 Most of you may not have known him, but you may have heard of him since I tend to talk about him quite a bit.  It’s been a while since he’s been back, but he has agreed to move back and run as our VP, effective today.”  George picked up his cell phone, pressed a few buttons, and spoke, “Come on up.”

So the announcement was about introducing her new boss to the company.  She supposed it was something that was
announce-worthy.

             
Everyone waited in anticipation to see who the new Vice President would be, extended and craning their necks to look among others.  

             
Finally the elevator slowly came to a halt and pinged.  

             
George spoke, “Let me introduce you to...”

             
Excitement and curiosity filled the office air as everyone eagerly peered over others for a glimpse of the new employee. 

             
Apparently everyone except Sam.  

She figured everyone can try and catch a peek at this person now and she could wait until later because this person was her boss after all.  So whether she liked it or not, they would eventually have to meet and work together.

              Suddenly the elevator doors opened and gaspeds and murmurs echoed the room, as George finished, “Your new vice president.”

             
Claps and ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ filled the room as the new vice president made their way out of the elevator.

             
Sam saw the top of a head walk towards the crowd as a series of ‘hi’, ‘hello’, and ‘nice to meet you’ swarmed.  She heard a man’s voice, a voice that sounded vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place where she had heard that voice from.

             
As the crowd parted, a tall, sexy, muscular man walked out of the elevator, smiling at everyone, shaking hand after hand when others walked up to him to greet themselves.

Sam saw who it was and her body froze, her eye widened, her breath caught in her throat as she whispered, “Alex.”

Alexander Conrad.

              George’s oldest son.

             
Nick’s older brother.

Maggie’s cousin and big brother.

Sam’s high school crush.

The last time Sam heard of or saw Alex was six years ago when Maggie told her that he had dropped out of college, packed up his
clothes and left town.  At the time, Sam had no idea where he was or what he was doing.  He had left no note, gave no explanation, left no belongings behind.  He never said goodbye.

How is it possible that when two people whose families are extremely close, they have not heard about the other in such a long period of time?
 

Sam had specifically requested Maggie that she didn’t mention anything about him again.  And like the best friend that she always was, she never mentioned him to her.  When anyone asked Maggie to do something (especially her best friend), she would follow through with what anyone asks to the T.  Through all of this, she had good reason.

The history with Alex started at the tender age of three when he pushed her down on the playground and made her cry.  Mitch and George were standing nearby, not doing anything, (not because they didn’t care, from what Sam found out later on), but they wanted to see what the two kids would’ve done afterwards.  Sam had kept crying until she stopped on her own.

But, that wasn’t the end of it.
 

Oh no. 

Not for Sam.

Alex had bent down to grab a fist full of dirt and threw it at Sam, sand getting trapped in her mouth and hair that resulted with her dad having to shampoo her hair six times in order to rinse all of it out.
 But, being the ‘badass’ girl that she was, she got right back up and tackled him to the ground, biting him and pulling his hair, making him cry like a little girl, even longer than she did.

Needless to say that day had left him with teeth marks, ripped skin and dirt in his hair and her with only dirt in her hair.

This was only the beginning.

Unfortunately.

When they were ten, she and Maggie were having a sleepover at the Conrad’s house.  Sometime during the night, Alex had snuck into Maggie’s room, grabbed a pair of scissors and cut off her ponytail, forcing her to sport the shortest boyish haircut she ever had for the next eight months.  All the boys in school had teased her and called her ‘one of them’.

When they were twelve, while Alex was asleep in his room during Sam and Maggie’s fright night, Sam went in with a bowl of warm water.  Then she dipped his hand in.  A few minutes later, he wet his bed.  Alex woke up the next morning in a smelly, wet spot with a grossed-out expression on his face
.   Sam woke up with a big, fat smile on her face.

Each year the two families spent the holiday breaks together, whether it was Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, or Fourth of July.  They were always together, celebrating together, and every time they were together, chaos happened, ending the day with someone either screaming or crying, at least up until they were teenagers.  After that, it was all screaming.

Sam made a minor mishap during middle school when she furiously stalked towards him to show him a piece of her mind after he had told Jeff Graham that Sam still slept with her teddy bear, a night light, and sucked her thumb.  She had been so angry that she wasn’t  watching where she was walking.  She tripped, landing on him as he fell back with her lips pressed to his.  She had been shocked that off all ways to have any sort of contact with him that that was the way it happened.

And what happened next shocked the hell out of her.

Alex opened his mouth and kissed her with the slip of his tongue inside her mouth. 

Sam’s kiss had been accidental, unintentional, not meant to happen.

His, clearly, was not.

And what made the whole situation even more shocking than his kiss was that Sam kissed him back, thrusting her tongue against his.  She was sure at that moment that neither one of them had any intention of letting that happened, but once it did, they didn’t want to stop.  Alex had been Sam’s first kiss and although the moment wasn’t what Sam had imagined (with him being who he was and what they were to each other) with the kiss being at school, in front of an audience, and much less accidental, it ended up being one heck of a great first kiss. 

The only reason they stopped had been because Mr. Reynolds, their school principal, had pulled them apart and ordered them to go to class.  That had been completely unexpected.

It was odd and strange that from that moment on her feelings for him bumped up from pain in the ass to pinch of a like.  She had never felt anything like that before.  Not with him.  Not with anyone.

Well sure she liked boys, but the feelings she had for him were… different.  Good different.

As the years passed, her feelings for him grew more and more each time they were together. 

And they were together a lot.

The taunting and the teasing never stopped, but they were a little more touchy-feely stuff than usual.

Every home football game they went to they always made out under the bleachers before and after the game and during half-time.

What could she say?  Alex was one heck of a kisser. 

It was Sam’s freshman year in high school that she knew she had a crush on Alex.  A real girl-love crush.  It took her a long time, but she realized that her feelings for him had grown over the years.  Who would’ve thought that she would have a crush on Alex?

The
Alexander Conrad.

As in her best friend’s cousin.

Every teenage girl’s crush.

Go figure.

Things continued to get hot and heavy for them for a couple of years and even though there were people who constantly kept telling her that it was a bad idea to get involved with him, Sam didn’t care.  She knew who Alex was and how he treated her and that was all that had mattered to her.

Their make-out sessions stopped during her junior (he was a sophomore in college) when he starting dating a high school senior and a total bitch named Lynn Summers.

Lynn had just moved to Comfort that summer and Alex immediately noticed her but, for some reason, he didn’t make his move on her immediately.  It seemed as if he was waiting for that right moment to approach her.  Sam didn’t realize that guys had timing, nor patience.  She had just assumed they saw, they like, they went, they take.

Their
 situation escalated when he brought Lynn to Maggie’s seventeenth birthday party.  Lynn had heard about their infamous make-out sessions under the bleachers and warned Sam off him.  Then she ‘accidentally’ spilled her drink on Sam’s new dress that she had saved for from doing random chores and jobs in order to buy and wear to Maggie’s big night.

The tiger awoken within Sam and she launched herself on Lynn, making them both fall back, Sam on top of Lynn, getting a few good smacks on Lynn’s face before an arm wrapped around Sam’s waist and she was lifted off Lynn.  Sam briefly glance back to see it was Alex.

Once she was off, he threw her (literally threw her) aside, to where Sam stumbled toward the couch, almost falling to her hands and knees (if the couch hadn’t been there).  Sam stood straight on her weak legs, accessing on the situation that had just occurred.

Why did Alex throw her aside?  Alex had never handled her that way before and it immediately scared the hell out of Sam.  This was a side of him that Sam had never seen before and she couldn’t believe he did that to her.  They have done many vicious things to one another, but never have any of them been physically rough.  This was when she began to get a little worried (and more scared than ever) that her relationship with Alex had changed.

Lynn had ran up to Alex, wrapped her arms around his waist, and looked up to him, orchestrated her sob story (with fake tears, no less), telling him that Sam attacked her first because Sam was jealous and that Sam had threatened to hurt her if she didn’t break up with Alex.  She did all that while her arms tightly clung to his waist and she turned on her puppy dog eyes.

What a bunch of
bologne!  If he had taken a second to glance at her insincere face, he could have seen the face expression.

After she finished reciting her story, Alex shifted his hard, cold eyes on Sam, making her take a small step back.  She went pale and tried to swallow the lump in her throat.  She couldn’t.

The air in the room shifted, growing thick and cold. 

Ice cold.
 

Then it hit Sam.

As she stared into his eyes and the Alex she once knew, who never once looked at her the way he was looking at her now regardless of what she did, was gone.  This was a completely new and unfamiliar Alex that Sam had never met before.

Alex believed her.

He believed the lie that Lynn told him.  He chose to believe Lynn, someone who he’s known a short period of time, over Sam, someone who he has known his whole life.

Sam opened her mouth and tried to explain in her small voice, “Alex –”

Alex leaned in and roared at her (in front of everyone), “
Bitch, mind your own business and stay out of my life!
”

It shocked the hell out of Sam.  It shook her deep down to the core, her body trembling with hurt and fear.

Never had anyone ever yelled at her, nor called her a bitch in her entire life. 

Not Maggie, not her friends, not her family, not anyone.

She’s usually very well-liked and never picked a fight with anyone, unless someone messed with her first.

Bitch, mind your own business and stay out of my life!

That had been her wake-up call.  Not again will she ever allow that to happen.  It was the one and only time she had been completely and utterly embarrassed, embarrassed and broken.

Lynn walked away with Alex’s arm wrapped around her and a smirk on her face.

Sam left with her feelings hurt (and vowed to never allow anyone to speak to her that way ever again).  Before she walked out, she turned and declared to Maggie, her voice trembling with hurt, “He and I are done.”

Lynn may have gotten away with the satisfaction (and Alex) on her face, but Sam refused to lose her dignity.  She left the party with her head held up high and her shoulders squared back, at least until she got to the car and she emotionally crumbled, having had her feelings hurt for the first time.

Never has she felt such a loss like that in her life.

That was the day Sam lost her friend, her crush, her love.

The next day as she drowned her embarrassment and sorrow with copious containers of Ben & Jerry’s (Ben & Jerry never disappointed her), he called, repeatedly. 

Over and over again.

Sam never answered.  She didn’t even move from the couch.

He wanted her out of his life and she was going to make damn sure of it.  She figured she didn’t owe him anything so there was no reason she needed to listen to him.

Maggie told her that he had stopped by the apartment several times, but she ignored it.

Things had never been the same between them since.

Then again, things had never been the same with them.

It was always one surprise after another.

Two months later, he dropped out of school, packed up his bags and left for New York (from what she had heard). 

And Sam hadn’t heard anything of him or from him, nor did she ask.

Six years later, he was back.  

There.

In front of her.

Twenty feet away.

Looking better than ever.

Oh boy.
             

She was in trouble.

              “Sam?”  She heard Maggie call out her name as she felt a gentle shake, bringing Sam out of her thoughts.  Her eyes found Maggie’s as Sam took in her worried eyes.  ”Are you okay?”  

             
Sam knew the reason for this question.  Maggie knew and heard what her cousin had said to Sam (being as it happened at her birthday party when he expressed his anger).  She hated and resented Alex for so long for what he did but even that resentment didn’t last too long.  They were blood, and blood was thicker than water.

             
Ignoring her question, she asked Maggie the first thing that popped in her head, knowing it couldn’t be true but still had to make sure, “Be honest, Maggs.  Did you know about this?”

             
Maggie’s head jerked back a little, surprised at Sam’s outburst, her brows coming together as she answered, “No, of course not, Sam.  If I knew, I would’ve told you.  You know that.  I can’t believe you’d even asked.  But, let me repeat, are you okay?”

             
For some reason, Sam hadn’t noticed what Maggie had been wearing all day.  She was wearing her favorite Angora pink top with jeans and flats and her light brown, highlighted hair tied in a ponytail with a few strands of her bangs loose in the front.  She was staring at Sam warily as if trying to read her thoughts through her face.