CJ arrives on his doorstep, breathless and more than a little worried about the situation she’ll find brewing inside.

She jabs a finger into the doorbell and shifts impatiently in the heels she‘d snagged on her way out. Sam swings the door open wide, staggers a little, and the look of him - unkempt, lips thin and edged white with strain - does nothing to ease the sick tension she’s had lodged in her gut since his phone call.

“CJ,” he says, and though he doesn’t sound particularly welcoming, she nudges past him anyway, catches the slightly sour smell of alcohol and unwashed male and pauses, incredulous.

“You’re drunk. I swear to God, Sam, if you called me out here at 1am because you can’t untie your shoelaces-”

“My father,” he says, a little too precisely, “is having an affair. Correction: has been having an affair for twenty-eight years.”

He closes the door and heads down the passage without waiting for a response, and CJ, who’s been Press Secretary long enough to think on her feet, doesn’t know what to say.

“Sam,” she begins, following him into the lounge and watching him pick up his drink.

“Twenty-eight years, CJ.” The bite of it is sharp enough to make her flinch; she doesn’t, instead focuses her attention on the way his throat constricts, on the fact that he’s in pain. That he called *her*.

He gestures towards a photograph on the mantle, obviously his parents, and upends most of his drink onto the floor. He spills nearly as much on himself before steadying his hand, and looks so dumbfounded by this turn of events, so delightfully *Sam* that CJ wants to smile.

“C’mon,” she says, moving toward him. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Sam stares at the carpet as she slips her arm through his, then says, “Well, that’s going to leave a mark.”
 

She decides on running him a bath, because though she’ll have to be in the room to keep him from inadvertently drowning himself, at least she won’t have to hold him up.

When she turns around, she finds him trying to unfasten his shirt. “Buttons getting to be a problem there, bucko?”

“Thwarting me at every turn,” he mumbles, and she moves a little closer. She can feel his breath against her cheek, hot and now mouthwash fresh, and she tries not to think of what her hands are doing: slipping buttons through holes that seem too small, fingers brushing over hard-won muscles and sending frissons of heat from his skin to hers. She’s just about quivering, belly clenched taut with something she’d call anticipation in any case other than this one. If he weren’t slightly inebriated, he’d sense it, might even call her on it. So she steps back when she’s done, says, lightly,

“You’ll have to fight those pants off on your own,” and hopes she doesn’t have to be there when he does.

“Just close your eyes,” he tells her when she motions to the door, and though she knows it isn’t a good idea - *really* isn’t a good idea - she closes them anyway.

She can hear the flap of his shirt falling to the tiled floor, a curse and the shush of a zipper as he removes his jeans, a slither as he pushes them down his legs. There’s the faint sloshing sound of a body slowly immersing itself in water. He sucks in a breath at the heat of it, then tells her he’s covered.

She glances over to find his eyes are on her, quietly blue, and he says, softly, “Thanks for coming, CJ.”

And she nods, quirks a smile at him, one that spreads when she notices the washcloth he’s placed rather strategically over himself - more for her modesty than his, she suspects.

All it does, though, is remind her that Sam is naked in that bathtub, that she could reach over and touch all that smooth, wet skin; that she could slide on top of him, and…

The visuals are strong enough to make her blush, and she sits down on the floor beside him to limit the view, distracts herself with conversation.

And then she remembers the question she’s wanted answered since she first arrived, and before she has time to think about the consequences, asks,

“Why me?”

He smiles, beautifully, and says, “You’re my first phone call.”

And he’s serious, enough so that nerves spring to life within her and make her fear how high the cost of this fall will be; enough to make her lean forward, tangle her hands in his hair and kiss him, anyway.

It’s a little awkward, and the bathtub presses bruisingly into her breasts, but his lips are soft and his tongue is brushing against the corner of her mouth, slipping in to thrust, slick and hot against her own. She can feel her nipples straining against the thin material of her bra, can feel that slow, liquid pull between her legs, the one that makes her want to climb into that tub with Sam and do everything she’s been imagining for years.

And yet something stops her; she doesn’t even know what it is until she pulls away and sees Sam’s face, eyes filled with desire, yes, but also the sort of unease that comes with wanting someone you know you shouldn’t.

So she pulls herself together, tells herself their little moment of insanity never happened. Pushes a strand of hair behind her ear, and pretends her lips aren’t swollen and slightly sore from the scrape of his teeth.

“I’m sure everything will be fine,” she says, and she’s not sure whether he looks relieved or disappointed. She’s betting on the former, though, and before she can spill out another platitude, hands him the soap.

Sam blinks up at her in that sweet, absurdly charming way of his, and she has to fight back the urge to kiss him again. She excuses herself, stands in the hallway with her back against the wall and reminds herself that relationships between co-workers always circle round to bite you in the ass.

She takes a moment to wipe the could-haves from her mind, the kiss from her memory, then settles back into the persona of friend and confidante; it might not be all she wants, but it’s what she’s got.

Still, as she heads back into the bathroom, she touches a hand to her lips, and feels the ghost of a kiss that never should have been.
 

~end~