Naivete

Chapter 10
Walk All Over You

“You look….so fucking hot,” Sarah mused approvingly behind Sam as she looked herself over in the mirror. Donning very short denim cut-offs, a long-sleeved flannel shirt tied above her belly button, a very large cowboy hat and, of course, a pair of authentic leather cowboy boots she’d bought in Justin, Texas, Sam did look exactly how she’d hoped she would.

Her curly hair was teased and frizzed so that it stuck out beneath the hat at wild angles, and her makeup, overdone as any good Texas girl’s should be, was perfect.

“I’m going for a…stepped right out of a fantasy pornography film kind of look,” she teased. Sarah nodded enthusiastically.

“I think you managed to hit the nail on the head,” she agreed before grabbing her purse and heading out the door. “I’m going to meet Eric a little early. See you at the show?”

“See you there,” Sam waved as Sarah left her alone in their room. She turned back to the mirror and appraised herself carefully. Singing her song of choice on stage wasn’t the only performance she would be giving tonight, and she was more nervous than she’d ever been in her life. On the one hand, Mike was very carefully manipulating her, Sherry was misinformed, and Brent was telling the truth. On the other hand, Brent was a lying sack of shit. Her better judgment screamed that the latter was true, but she wanted…she needed to make sure. She gave herself one final, approving nod before heading out toward the coffee house.


“Christ, you look incredible,” Brent murmured into her ear. The feeling of his warm breath on her ear made her shiver, but not in the same intriguing way it had before. She hated to admit it, even to herself, but it was almost a shiver of disgust. She pushed that feeling back immediately. ‘On the off chance that he’s right …’ she thought, forcing a wide smile on her face.

“Holy shit,” she heard a loud, obnoxious-sounding voice behind her. Turning, she found herself staring into Paul’s wide, disbelieving eyes. He looked almost handsome in all black and a black bowler hat. His trumpet case hung loosely at his side. His mouth had dropped open into a large, goofy grin, and he was pointing vaguely at her hat.

“I was…I was joking, Sam!” he said. “You don’t really have to go up there and make a fool out of yourself!”

“You just wait, sugah,” Sam drawled, laying on the accent extra-thick. “I’ll show you a fool.”

Paul laughed uproariously as Karen approached with a curious look on her face. Dressed in attire not too different from what she usually donned, she looked non-chalant and vaguely bored with the whole idea. She had a guitar case slung around her shoulder. Sam scanned the room looking for Mike, but didn’t see him. ‘Never mind,’ she told herself sternly. ‘I shouldn’t be looking for him anyway.’

As she and Paul and Karen made small talk for a few moments, she couldn’t help but be ever-aware of Brent’s arms wrapped possessively around her waist. Occasionally, during a break in conversation, he would lean down and kiss her neck a little. She squirmed before she could stop herself, and Paul gave her an odd look.

After several minutes, the room was buzzing with audience members and contestants, and the mc stepped up on the makeshift stage in the corner. He was very short, and wore a striped zoot suit which was obviously too big for him, yet somehow he carried it very well.

“Okay, everybody settle the hell down. Let’s get started…”

As he went on to introduce the first act, Sam and Brent settled onto a large, comfortable chair, Brent’s hold on her unbreaking. She was distracted during the first two acts…she kept uncontrollably scanning the room, looking for Mike anywhere. He was scheduled to perform right after her, and that wasn’t too far away by now.

Her attention returned to the stage, however, as Karen took her place on a stool in front of a microphone. Her guitar sat lazily on her knee, and she strummed out a few chords before beginning her song. It was an original song, with a beautiful melody and poignant lyrics about a man who loved a woman, but the woman couldn’t settle down, and she jilted him at the altar. Nobody spoke or moved until the final chords drifted away, and then the room was filled with thunderous applause. Even Karen couldn’t hide the huge grin on her face as she bowed shyly and hurried off stage.

She smiled at Sam as she made her way over, but appeared to be distracted by something. She turned her head and looked confused, then surprised, then angry. She spoke a few tense words, then turned on her heel and stalked back toward Sam, plopping down next to her with a grunt.

“What the hell was that?” Sam inquired, eyebrows raised.

“Nothing,” Karen practically hissed, shooting Brent a look that could have – and probably would have, had Brent been paying attention – killed him on the spot. Sam looked away, extraordinarily, profoundly confused, and tried to concentrate on the rest of the show.

Soon, she heard her own name being called. Her progress to the stage was interrupted, however, by Brent tugging on her arm, pulling her toward him for a deep, passionate kiss, which illicited startled but happy cat-calls and whistles from the surrounding crowd.

Sam broke away from Brent hurriedly, forcing a small, teasing smile, and made her way blushingly toward the stage. Climbing to stand behind the microphone, she took in the size of the crowd and exhaled slowly. It took her only a couple of seconds to regain her composure, and she slumped into a very ditzy cowgirl posture – her hip jutted off to the side, one hand lazily resting on it, the other hand toying with the brim of her hat.

“Hey, y’all. As some of you may know, I’m from Texas,” she began, laying the accent on extra thick and causing a giggle through the crowd. “A friend of mine suggested that I sing a song about boots. Maestro?” she said, gesturing dramatically at the DJ.

The sound of Paul’s laughter carried over everything else as the opening chords of “These Boots Are Made for Walking” began to blare through the speakers.

She sang her ass off, her throaty voice growling in all the right places to really get the message of the song across. By the time it was over, she had the crowd yee-hawing like real live Southerners, and she curtsied daintily before ambling off the stage. The entire performance had been hammish, she knew, but it was just too good, and she received a number of laughing compliments as she breezed through the crowd.

She sat down next to Brent again, smiling at Paul and Karen’s compliments, and trying not to look disgusted by Brent’s excessive praise and kisses. She decided at that moment that even if Brent had been telling the truth, even if Mike was a lying, manipulative asshole, things would definitely have to change between her and her boyfriend. Even if that meant ending things.

Outwardly, her demeanor displayed nothing but nonchalance and informality. Inside, however, she was twisted. She still had seen nothing of Mike, and he was supposed to go next. She was more nervous about seeing him in person than him missing his performance, though. She was petrified that one look from him, one lustful glance, would send her right over the edge, and she had to keep her composure until she found out the truth.

“And now, since it’s going to take forever to get this freakin’ grand piano up on stage…” the emcee was saying. “I think we’re going to take a little break before Mike Taylor’s performance.”

She suddenly and quite sharply felt Brent tense up next to her. His arms suddenly became like vices, gripping her around her shoulders so tightly she squealed aloud.

“Hey, be careful!” she cried. “That fuckin’ hurt!”

“You didn’t tell me he was going to be here,” Brent muttered, not offering any kind of apology, or even loosening his grasp at all.

“You didn’t ask,” she groaned, struggling against his grip, which seemed to be getting tighter by the second. “Brent, seriously, you’re hurting me.”

“You should have known to tell me. We’re leaving,” he said shortly, finally releasing her to stand. Before she could protest, he had her by the upper arm and was efficiently dragging her through the crowd. She was throwing arguments at him left and right, but until they passed Paul in the crowd, returning from a trip to the men’s room, Brent remained silent.

“Hey,” Paul started angrily as they brushed by him rudely, but his face quickly registered surprise as he saw what was going on. “Hey,” he said again, more conversationally than before. “Where are you guys headed?”

Sam was about to respond when Brent cut her off.

“We’re going for a little private time. Sam’s already taken her turn, there’s no reason for us to stay.”

Paul looked at her curiously, then turned back to Brent. “But, the awards ceremony happens at the end. She did such a fantastic job, she may have won something. Wouldn’t it be embarrassing if she missed that?”

Sam looked at him gratefully, then turned to Brent.

“Please, baby. You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to, but I should probably hang around until the awards are given out. Besides,” she added, sidling up close to him. “You know I’m on your side, right? I’d hate for you not to trust me.” She bit her lip and almost winced. She hated lying, even if it was to someone she was pretty close to despising at this point.

Brent sighed and looked back and forth between the two of them. “Okay, fine. I’ll take off. But I want to talk to you for a minute,” he added, looking at Paul. The two men stepped aside, leaving Sam awkwardly in the middle of a large group of people milling about. Brent returned after a second and gave her another deep, but almost angry kiss, murmured in her ear a request to hear from her later, and exited the building silentlyl. Paul approached a moment later, stifling a laugh with his hand.

“What’s so Goddamn funny?” she asked bitterly.

“Tell me you’re going to break up with that guy,” he burst out. “Tell me that this won’t ever happen again.”

“What?”

“He just asked me to make sure that you didn’t go near Mike tonight.”

Sam’s jaw dropped just as Karen reached them. “What the hell was that all about?” she asked.

“Brent kindly informed me that my job for the evening is to ensure that Mike and Sam not go near one another tonight.”

“Dump him,” Karen said immediately. “He can’t tell you who to hang out with.”

“That’s what I’m sayin’,” Paul cried, raising both arms in the air.

“He’s out back,” Karen said, gesturing vaguely at the back door of the shop. “He’s ‘relaxing,’” she added mockingly as Sam headed in that direction.

A blast of cold air hit her hard as she opened the door, and she shivered, wishing she’d thought to bring a jacket or sweater or change of clothes or something. She saw Mike quickly, leaning against a wall by a dumpster, in his hat and a long green trenchcoat, smoking a joint. He exhaled sharply, indicating that he was aware of her presence, but refused to look at her.

“Hi,” she said shyly, removing her hat and covering her bare tummy with it as she hesitantly stepped toward him.

“Hi,” he answered shortly. “I can’t believe you brought him.”

“Boy, jump right into it, why don’t you?” she half-joked, trying to buy herself a little time to formulate her answer.

“Were you hoping that he and I would see each other, and there would be a fight? Is that what you want, Sam, for two guys to fight over you?” He looked at her now, flicking the remaining roach into the alley.

“No!” she said defensively, unsure where his anger was coming from. “You heard me invite him last week. How strange would it have sounded if I had said, ‘Oh, wait, never mind. The competition is still on, but you can’t go?’”

Mike just sighed and shook his head a little, still looking directly at her. She began to feel a shudder, but tried to convince herself that it was from the cold air, and not the intensity of his gaze. He took a step toward her and she instinctively moved forward a bit herself.

“Listen, Sam…what happened yesterday…” he stopped, looking away for a moment. Sam held her breath, waiting for him to tell her it was a mistake, that if he could take it all back if he could, that she shouldn’t get her hopes up, anything to indicate that it wasn’t as spectacular as it had felt.

“It was really great. It was something I’ve been…wanting for a long time. I hope that you’ve given some thought to what I said, and that you’ve realized that Brent is lying.”

“Stop,” Sam interrupted, holding up one hand. “Before you go on, I need to know something. I really, really need to know, before I can go forward with anything, with you or with Brent. I need to know what happened between the two of you.”

Mike grimaced and sighed. “We were all friends. Me and Brent and Tom and Trevor and Aaron.”

“I met them, yeah. But Sherry was the one who told me you were friends.”

One of Mike’s eyebrows raised a little. “You’ve been doing your homework, haven’t you?” he smirked teasingly.

“Shut up,” she said, trying to hide her smile. “Continue, no more interruptions.”

“Anyway, we were all friends, and Brent and I had this class together…Baroque or something…and the professor was a horrible old bastard. Brent was having a really hard time in the class, even with my help. One day, there was this big test, one which Brent had not studied for at all, saying that it didn’t matter, he’d fail anyway, blah blah blah.”

Sam nodded, very much able to picture those words falling from his lips.

“Right after the test, before the professor graded it, Brent went up to him and asked him to give him a break, saying that things had been rough with his family – a flat-out lie – and that he hadn’t had the time or energy to study. The professor saw right through this excuse, and actually graded him lower than he’d scored. He had earned a D, the professor gave him an F.”

Sam grimaced. “Yikes, that’s harsh.”

“Well, the guy was no bullshit. Brent is…all bullshit,” he finished with a laugh. “So Brent tells Tom and Trevor and Aaron, all of whom had had that professor at some point and hated him just as much, and those four…they stick together like glue. And together, they have about the same IQ as glue. They decided to get back at the professor. See, the old dude had this ancient Stratovarius violin. Kept it in a case in the back of the classroom. It was his pride and fuckin’ joy. Occasionally he’d break it out and play it. Probably 150 years old, still played like a dream. Beautiful.”

Sam smiled a little at his dreamy recollection of the instrument.

“So, anyway, being the upstanding young men they are, they decided to steal it. Possibly more inane of them was to talk about it in front of me, the quintessential ‘good guy.’ Now, bear in mind, I didn’t like the professor either, but I also knew that that instrument belonged with him, not with them. I tried to talk them out of it, but they did it anyway. One night, they stumbled into the dorm I shared with Trevor, drunk as fuckin’ skunks, and waving the thing around like a prize.

“After about a day of watching them mistreat it, fuck around with it, and damn near break it a few times, I decided to do something about it. Call me a squealer, a stool pigeon, or whatever you want, but I told the professor.”

He paused as if that were the end of the story, and Sam shook her head, confused. “That’s not so bad. Why would you be so reluctant to tell me about that?”

“What you don’t know, my dear,” he murmured, stepping a little closer and leaning in conspiratorally. “Is that your dear boyfriend got kicked out of school for it. Ruined his life, it did.”

“And is that your fault? He was the one who fucked up,” Sam pointed out.

“Ah, indeed. He fucked up again pretty soon after by trashing my car and trying to beat the shit out of me.”

Her eyes widened as she took in this information. This surprised her more than anything. Brent never seemed like the violent type…but then again, that little scene he’d caused inside the coffee house had pretty much supported that aspect of his personality.

“So,” he said with some finality. “You want the nasty, horrible truth?”

Sam nodded quickly.

“See, ever since that time, Brent has sworn to make my life as miserable as I made his. It’s very ‘arch-nemesis,’ almost cute if it weren’t so fucking childish. Chances are, Brent saw you talking to me that night at the bar. Chances are, he only talked to you because you were talking to me. Chances are, this entire relationship has been a ploy to get you to stop hanging out with me.” Here he turned to Sam and looked at her carefully. “Chances are, Sam, that he’s been seeing someone else this whole time.”

Sam’s expression remained unmoving, but tears were threatening to spill over onto her cheeks. She hadn’t expected that. She had suspected that Brent was lying, even getting his friends in on the action. But this? That his feelings for her were totally false, only stemming from his childish desire for revenge? That was too much. That was a low blow.

“I don’t think I believe you,” she said simply, looking at him directly. “I don’t think I believe that there hasn’t been anything behind the things he’s said to me.”

“It’s possible,” he said flippantly. “But I wouldn’t put it past him. He’s done it before.”

He looked at her and saw the tears finally escape, then winced. “I mean, I guess it could be real. But really, what reason do you have to believe him?”

“How about the fact that he was so demanding of my time?” she asked bitterly. “How about the fact that he wanted to spend every second with me. If he was doing that, how would he have room for another woman?”

“It seems to me that it’s a pretty good excuse,” Mike reasoned gently. “That by behaving that way, you would say those exact words, and fool yourself into thinking that he was being faithful. And frankly, Sam…if he is seeing someone else, it also seems to me that you’re the other woman.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Sam choked out.

“Because I’m your friend.” At her incredulous gaze, he continued lazily. “Regardless of what happened between us yesterday, I’m still going to be who I am around you. I’m not going to change the way I treat you just because you know that I’m in love with you.” The words rolled off his tongue so easily that Sam almost didn’t catch them. “I’m still going to give it to you straight.”

Sam nodded and sniffled, then paused a moment, overhearing the emcee demanding silence and asking for Mike’s presence on stage. She looked at him a tad regretfully.

“That’s your cue,” she said lightly, and began to head inside, but was stopped by Mike’s hand on her lower back. She turned toward him, and as she did so, his arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her close to him.

“For luck?” he asked teasingly, a small smile on his face. Without missing a beat, Sam leaned up and kissed him briefly but sweetly on the mouth. At the contact, her stomach flipped and she felt his arms tense momentarily, but she managed to put aside all dirty thoughts for the moment and concentrate on the information she’d just been given.

“Break a leg,” she murmured as he walked through the door. She watched his back as he entered the room and sighed, happy and unhappy at the same time. She was happy, so happy, that Mike hadn’t considered the incident of the day before a mistake, that he had been upfront with her about the hatred that existed between him and Brent. However, she was unhappy that Brent may have been lying to her in many more ways than one. Her face contorted into one of deep contemplation as she considered it all.

Suddenly, a sharp, metallic noise rang through the alleyway, startling her to the point of jumping and shrieking. She turned to see a dark, familiar figure stalking toward the parking lot, an empty metal trash can rolling on the concrete behind him, with a dent about the size of a foot in the side. She closed her eyes briefly and sighed.

“Fuck me,” she whispered.

“Gladly,” an amused voice said from the door. She looked up to see Karen standing there, looking at her with an odd expression. “What was that about?”

Sam took a deep breath and launched into a very abridged version of the entire story. “And now,” she finished, her voice beginning to shake again, “Brent knows about me and Mike, and while I couldn’t give a fuck about what happens between me and Brent, I’m afraid of what Brent will try to do to Mike.”

Karen merely nodded, following along carefully. “Wow,” she said finally. “Sounds like the shit has hit the fan.”

“Yeah,” Sam groaned miserably.

“Don’t worry about anything, okay?” Karen said reassuringly, putting her arm around Sam’s shoulders in an uncharacteristic moment of tenderness. “Now come back inside, Paul is about to go blow his own horn.”

Sam giggled and followed Karen into the shop. Now was a time for enjoying herself, despite the craziness surrounding her. She would deal with Brent in the morning.



A/N: So, there you have it. Sorry if it seems anti-climactic at all, but I thought it was a fairly appropriate thing to have occurred between Mike and Brent. What does everyone think? Comments, please!