summary: Sam attempts to teach Idalia to play pool
notes: I did not google how to actually play pool before writing this so it will be from memory and you will have to deal with that
On Friday nights the Stardrop Saloon was at its busiest, and on those busy Fridays, Idalia had been invited by Sam to join his friends’ weekly hangout there. They spent the night by the pool table, Sebastian and Sam taking time to play against each other while Abigail moved between the arcade machines and watching their matches. For the past couple of weeks, Idalia had taken the spot by Sam, watching Sebastian win from across the table, and enjoying just talking with them or occasionally helping Abigail get a little closer to beating the arcade high score. When she arrived today, Sam and Sebastian were nearly at the end of a game, while Abigail sat on the couch in the corner of the room.
“Idalia!” Abigail called out to her, waving from across the saloon. She joined the group, taking her usual spot beside Sam.
“Hey Ida, ” he greeted her as was usual at this point for them, while Sebastian set up a new pool game. “You ever played before?”
“Once with some friends in the city,” Idalia said, recalling an evening out, barhopping through their area of Zuzu City. It had at least been amusing to see herself and her friends get progressively worse at the bar games as they got drunker. “I was terrible.”
“Well, I could show you a thing or two if you like?” Sam said, leaning with one hand against the table, the cue in the other. “Take this game?” Idalia caught Abigail and Sebastian give each other a look, something she chose to ignore.
“Yeah okay,” she agreed with a smile.
Emily brought over their first round of drinks, and soon Idalia had a rum and coke resting on the edge of the pool table while Sam hovered behind her, ready to correct her stance. She glanced back as a prompt that he was welcome to interfere where needed, and eagerly he did. Just his presence so close to her had her stomach filled with butterflies, and the feel of his rough hands over hers on the cue made her skin feel alight.
“Angle it a little that way,” he murmured in her ear, adjusting the direction of her cue smoothly. When he let go, she only wanted his warmth back. “You’re good to go.” Sam left his hand on her lower back, ripples of heat sent up her back at the adjustment to the new touch. Idalia hit the ball with the cue, watching as it missed the pocket she was aiming for. The poor shot hardly mattered when Sam looked at it in pure confusion, the crease between his eyebrows seeming adorable to Idalia. Within a heartbeat he’d moved on, and was back sharing the cue with her to help position the next shot. The game was of incredibly low priority to Idalia, other than how badly she already wanted another after this one if it meant they could stay so close. The realisation dawned on her mid shot that she really enjoyed having Sam up in her personal space, but it was a realisation she brushed off, mentally telling herself she’d deal with it another time, when she was sober.
Sam got increasingly comfortable helping her line up each shot, and quickly the look Abigail and Sebastian had shared became understandable; Sam was terrible at pool. He and Idalia as a team lost match after match against Sebastian, and the way all three of them acted, this was very routine.
“Idalia, you should play against him,” Abigail suggested, and Idalia on her second rum and coke could agree to that.
“Let’s do it blondie,” she smiled at Sam, currently still holding her waist as he watched Sebastian sink the last ball needed to win the match.
The atmosphere between them changed entirely once Idalia was stood at the opposite end of the table to Sam, from something warm and sweet, to a competitive tension. He let her have the first strike of the match, the noise of the balls impacting and scattering every satisfying.
“Nice, nice. But you’re not winning this one,” he smirked, looking up at her from where his chin rested against the pool cue. Idalia forced herself to smile back, because the look on his face had her positively drowning in her own feelings, her face burning with blush. She took another sip of her drink, hoping the ice would at least cool her down. Sam hit the ball, and all four of them watched as it rolled right past where he’d aimed it, knocking Idalia’s next ball into the pocket, helping her far more than it did him.
“Thanks,” she grinned, attempting to focus more on the layout of the balls in front of her than how sweet her opponent was. Sam had looked entirely baffled, before laughing at his own shot. His smile alone was brighter than the sun, a slight pink tone to his own cheeks. Idalia took another sip of her drink.
The game continued much longer than any of Sam and Sebastian’s games, with Idalia missing a fair share of her own shots. At its eventual end, she had only just managed to win with a fair amount of rule bending and resets of the white ball.
“Okay, you have to teach me next week,” Sam grinned as the group left the saloon that evening.
“Let’s do it,” Idalia smiled back, before looking at Sebastian. “We might actually beat you, you know.”
“Yeah, okay,” he replied lightheartedly in disbelief that it would be possible, and with fair reason for the sentiment after witnessing Sam and Idalia’s disaster of a pool game that took nearly three times as long as it usually did for him to beat Sam.
With Abigail headed for her father’s shop, and Sebastian for the mountains, Sam and Idalia were left in each other’s company as they approached his house.
“Can I walk you home?” Sam asked. In the moment of the question, all that existed was gentle care for her wellbeing,
“I’d like that,” Idalia agreed, and Sam brought their lighthearted silly joking nature right back, offering his arm to her like they were both nobles. She took it with a smile, and as they walked her hand slipped closer and closer to his, skin brushing against skin. By the time they got to the southmost point of her farmland, Sam had decided to just hold her hand. Too shy to say anything, there had been a mutual feeling of enjoying each other’s closeness all night. Why should that end on the walk home, especially when there was no one else around?
Sam walked her right to her door, and for the briefest moment Idalia considered inviting him in, even to stay the night, but she was a lot more aware than that. There would be no coming back from that kind of thing, and that wasn’t something to start impulsively on a random Friday night.
“Thanks for teaching me how to play pool,” Idalia said on her front porch, keeping conversation going just to spend more time with him.
“I tried, I’m not very good,” Sam shrugged. “Sleep well Idalia. I’ll see you around.”
“Goodnight Sam!” she called as he left the shelter of the porch, and Sam waved back. She ducked inside the farmhouse, smiling as she watched him leave.
These were all feelings to sort out another time, when she figured out what to do about them.
