1 | Almost Happy ▷ Sam Wilson | ✓

24 - MAKE A DAY OF IT

THREE DAYS LATER, THINGS WERE BACK TO NORMAL. At least, that was when Sam felt it was safe to swing by again, tentatively knocking on the door instead of using his key, being greeted by an embarrassed looking Nicky who greeted him with a soft apology.

"We're good," he replied softly, stepping into the loft and shoving his hands into his pockets, watching as Nicky leaned agains the dining table, neither of them sure whether to acknowledge what had happened or just pretend nothing happened.

Because they were both cowards, they decided on the latter.

"You didn't have work today?" Nicky asked, his question falling flat, but he was trying.

"No, something happened with Jen, I don't know what, but she said she had to take care of some things, whatever that means," he explained, shrugging and crossing his arms; Nicky caught the movement, and there were times when Sam wished the man wasn't as hyperaware of everything around him; it wasn't the best trait for someone who tended to overthink.

"What about you?" he coughed, motioning towards the younger man who seemed to have just returned back home, his purple polo shirt bearing the same gray fuzz from the jacket hanging on one of the chairs.

Nicky raised his hands before dropping them against his sides. "Had some cancellations, and the people who come see me don't always see me weekly. Though I do worry about some of them..." he trailed off, glancing towards his patient files sitting on the table.

"If you're busy, I can go," Sam said, jerking his thumb towards the door, unsure as to why he had even bothered to swing by in the first place.

"No, you're fine, I wasn't really working," Nicky said, and he was clearly lying, casting a glance back towards his room, "Do you wanna get out of here, do something? I need to get out more."

Sam nodded. "Yeah, sure. Anywhere you wanna go?"

Nicky shrugged, rubbing the back of his head. "I don't know...honestly, I don't really go much anywhere, I order takeout, I drop by the park every now and again, there are these little kids I talk to, not the ones that Rhett plays baseball with, these are even younger than that...I don't really do much outside of work."

"Being a psychologist is a pretty full time job," Sam reasoned, and Nicky smiled brightly, glad that someone understood that his job wasn't as simple as most people thought, though it faltered when he thought back to his other job which took up most of his time in actuality.

"What'd you use to do when you did have time?" Sam asked, genuinely curious about the man; despite his jokes about high school, he honestly didn't remember him much, memories coming back in bits and pieces, though there wasn't much for him to remember.

Nicky bit his lip, shaking his head. "Just stayed home or..." he trailed off, thinking back towards the times when Terran would take him out to have some fun or just get away from his family.

"Or what?" Sam asked, trying to sound even more curious than he actually was, though that was truly saying something, as he was honestly interesting.

Nicky tried to play it off, shrugging. "Ah...I just knew this one guy who I actually stayed with after I graduated, before I met Rhett, and we used to go around, get me out of Harlem for a bit, that's why I wound up in Brooklyn. But, I mean, we usually went into the city, stuff like that."

"Where did you go?" Sam asked, and it felt like he was trying to coax a deer out of hiding with how slow the process was going, getting a little out of the man each time.

Nicky shrugged again, and he rubbed the back of his head. Truth be told, he hadn't gone to visit those places much—or at all, really—since Terran had left. Gone. But he could tell that Sam was really trying, and he wasn't in the mood to make things harder for the man; he had no right after what he had put him through the last time.