Chapter Text
5:18 PM
Sam eyed the clock on her bedside table as she paced around her room. She had her headphones on - almost in spite of herself, she'd had "No No No" by Destiny's Child on repeat since she'd gotten home. "Sayin' no no no no no, when it's really yes yes yes yes yes" - exactly what she needed to be stuck in her head. Or maybe exactly what she didn't need, hard to tell.
To be fair, she didn't know if Cody was going to show up or not tonight. But then, why would he ask if she was going to be home or not? Friday night of Valentine's Day weekend, what else could it mean?
She started at a knock on her bedroom door, took off her headphones.
"Honey, I hear you walking back and forth in circles in there, is everything alright?"
"Yeah Mom, sorry. Kind of nervous."
"Do you have headphones on? I called up to you a few times."
"Yes, sorry." Sam tried not to sound too annoyed but there was a lot running through her mind right now. Her mom was silent on the other side of the door for a moment.
"Can I come in?"
Sam sighed and clicked off her CD player, and sat down on her bed. "Yeah, sure."
The door tentatively opened a small bit - Lindsey poked her head through, looking concerned.
"What's going on?"
"Nothing." Sam got up off the bed, back to pacing around.
Lindsey half-smiled at her. "Just getting some extra exercise?"
Might as well talk it out. Her mom was usually pretty cool about things and right now, who else was there to rant to?
Sam paced back over and sat down on the bed. Lindsey stepped into the room, leaving the door open and leaning against the frame. Sam reached up and deftly tied her hair back, settling for a ponytail from the hair tie she had around her wrist. Lindsey looked her up and down.
"Kind of dressed up for pacing around the room, aren't we?"
Sam looked down at herself. So maybe she had picked out an outfit for the occasion, so what? Doesn't hurt to be prepared. She smoothed down her blouse, striped in white and blue vertical lines, tucked into jeans.
She sighed out loud, resigned to the discussion. "Cody asked if I'd be home tonight. I think he might come by."
Lindsey raised her eyebrows in apprehension. "The same Cody who disappeared all summer, fall, and winter?"
"Well, technically he came back in January."
"OK, the same Cody who disappeared all summer and all fall and half of winter?"
No luck for technicalities, apparently. "Yeah, the same Cody." Lindsey shifted against the doorframe, crossing her arms. "Trust me though Mom, it makes sense why he disappeared. He got injured in Australia and had to recover."
"Uh huh, and he couldn't let you know that because?"
Damn, there was no convincing way to get around that one. Guess it was time for carefully manipulating the timeline of events.
"Well........I had kind of broken up with him, at the beginning of the school year, when he didn't come back. It was mutual, with him being so far away." She said it hurriedly.
Lindsey didn't look terribly convinced. "And you told him that?"
"Uh, yeah."
"How?"
"Um, I emailed him."
Lindsey rolled her eyes, a little exasperated. "Sam, you don't have an email address."
Right. Damn.
"Uh, I used Jess's email. Through the school computers."
Lindsey's face told Sam that she saw right through the many, many holes in that cover story but also that she wasn't going to press the issue. The vicissitudes of young love and its many mysteries occasionally required some subterfuge - having already raised one teenage daughter, she would be a fool to not remember that. And this all seemed relatively harmless.
"OK, well, why's he coming by tonight?"
"He might come by tonight."
"OK, why might he come by tonight?"
Sam looked at her lap, a little embarrassed. "Well, it's Valentine's Day weekend."
"Mmmhm." Lindsey raised one eyebrow, waiting for her to continue.
Sam sighed and got up, pacing across the room and twirling around to face her mom again. She knew she probably looked a bit cheesy, a lovestruck teenager, but then again, that's kind of what she was. "Things have just been going really well the last few weeks. Like, he was fine with us being just friends, but I don't know, some of the old chemistry's coming back? And he joined Environmentalism Club too."
Lindsey tilted her head and smiled. "Well, as long as he's an environmentalist."
"Mom, you know Cody. From swim team."
"Oh I know. I know his parents too." Lindsey pursed her lips in thought. "I wonder if that's why they both practically dropped off the face of the earth in the fall, if he was away and injured. I'd be worried sick if that happened to you."
Sam sat back down on the bed, mentally calculating the conversational gymnastics she might need to perform - she'd forgotten that her mom did occasionally talk to the Griffins outside of her and Cody dating. How much did they tell her, and how much did she have to leave out of whatever she was going to have to come up with to make sure that it all lined up without too much suspicion?
Lindsey was still looking at her curiously, but eventually relaxed her gaze and smiled. "Sam honey, if he shows up, just be honest about what you want. Try not to get too carried away, if you can."
"Of course. That's what you've always taught me." Sam did earnestly mean it that she appreciated Lindsey's guidance - plenty of her friends' parents came down too hard on either the "don't care, do whatever" or "no boys allowed, ever, til you're 30" sides of the line when it came to their teenage daughters dating.
Sam looked up at her, gave her a small smile. "Thanks Mom."
"No problem." Lindsey stood straight, stopped leaning on the doorframe. "So if he knocks on the door, what are my marching orders? Let you get it, or stare him down?"
"Gosh, don't stare him down Mom, he'd cave like a house of cards." Cody wasn't particularly tough and Sam liked that about him - he wouldn't last a minute under Attorney Lindsey Brathwaite's formidable gaze.
"How about standing passive-aggressively in the kitchen? Or I could menacingly chop vegetables?" she could tell her mom was joking at this point but best to get the story straight - the clock flashed 5:29.
"How 'bout you let me get the door and we'll take it from there?"
Lindsey smiled and turned to head back down the steps. "Sounds fair enough. Let me know if you need me, I'll be on the back porch."
She heard her mom make her way down the steps, heard the sliding door out the back open and shut. The clocked flashed 5:30.
Right on cue, a tentative, nervous knock on the front door.