The Inevitable Happens....Again.

So Jason is crashing at our place for the time being until we move into the house next month- no biggie, in my opinion...he's got most of his stuff still in storage, and he's helping pay the bills, so I really have no complaints whatsoever. Besides, the guy's been like a brother to me ever since he got to the ship. We're alike in a lot of ways, and have had similar experiences in our childhoods, so we watch out for each other. And, he finally apologized to Sam for trying to hit on her while she was babysitting Elise back in the day.

Samantha came over after she got off work Friday afternoon, and we hung out with all the roommates. Now that he's out of the Navy, Kevin has been staying at our place for the last week or so...though I warned him last night he's only got another week to at least develop a plan for finding a job, or doing something...there's no way he's getting by for free. So we played cards, hung out, Jason cooked, and we took off for MacGregor's to grab a drink with Zach and Adam before we called it a night. I had duty the next day, so there was no way I was going to be staying out late, and Sam was tired from a long week at work, so we both fell asleep as soon as we hit the bed. I kissed her when I left for work in the morning, and left her sleeping in my room as I headed in to work.

Duty, of course, was a load of fun as always. Thankfully, there wasn't a whole lot going on, and I had the last watch, so I spent most of the day in my rack. I called Samantha when I got off my first watch to see how she was doing, and I could tell from her tone of voice that something was bothering her.

"What is it?" I asked, and she launched into a tirade about how Brandie had once again accused her of trying to sleep with her husband, even though I had been there the whole night. We talked about it for a while, and she told me how Brandie had apologized in the end.

"Are you sure there's not anything else?" I asked...there was something in her voice that was still...off. Still, she insisted nothing was wrong, so I didn't push it. Besides, she'd be dropping by tomorrow to hang out and see about doing lunch or dinner, so I knew if something was bothering her, we'd talk then.

I took a nap after I got home, then called Sam around noon to see when she was planning on coming over. She said she'd be over around 2, and after she came in she asked me if we could go for a walk and talk. I said no problem, and we started walking towards the pool.

We chatted for a bit- she asked me how my day had been yesterday, etc, and I asked what she'd done, how things were going with Brandie, and a few other things. There was a brief lull in the conversation, and she turned and looked at me with a nervous expression.

"OK, Ted honey, I don't really know how to put this in a nice way, but I kinda just want to go back to being friends with you..." She cringed, waiting for my inevitable breakdown/ explosion/ guiltfest.

I looked at her calmly. "So, what was I doing wrong?"

She looked at me with an exasperated look on her face. "That's the thing that bothers me! You weren't doing anything wrong! I just wasnt feeling the spark any more, but I really like hanging out with you, and I don't want to lose that...but if you don't want to talk to me any more, I totally understand."

Figures. Juuuuust figures. Still batting 1.000, it seems. I looked back at her and chuckled.
"Well, that all depends. Would we be able to negotiate about it for the purpose of break-up sex?"

She laughed. "No, but what would you think if you were single, say a couple of weeks from now, and I were to call you in the middle of the night to come over and play?" She batted her big green eyes at me.

I shrugged. "I'm a guy. What guy would say no, really?" She laughed, and asked me if I still wanted to hang out with her, or if she should just go home. I told her I was going to still take her to lunch, and as we split Ginger Chicken and Mongolian Steak at PF Chang's, she told me how she'd been wrestling with the thought since Friday night, trying to figure out what I was doing wrong, why she didn't still feel the same way, etc.

At one point I help up a hand to quiet her. "You're not going to necessarily fall head over heels for every guy you meet, and maybe we're just meant to be friends instead of dating. We have a good time together, we get along great, and yes the sex was great, but if you're not feeling it, it's not fair to either one of us to try and pretend there's something there when there isn't. Besides that, I'm going to be gone for 6 months in the very near future. If it's meant to be, it'll happen. If not, we'll just be friends. Right?"

She looked at me, nodded, and smiled. "I'm surprised how well you're taking this."

I gave her a wry smile. "Let's just say I've had a lot of practice at getting dumped, getting hurt, or otherwise getting my heart broken. I'm not in a hurry to go about repeating those mistakes again."

She stuck around for another couple of hours after we ate, then headed home. I got a call from barefoot_diva a little while later, and we talked about what exactly had happened, and she made the observation that I do seem to be stuck in the same pattern pretty much time and again....and I can't seem to figure out why.

Which of course begs the obvious question:

What the hell do I keep doing wrong?