"Hey Sam." Mallory O'Brien said as she stuck her head into Sam's office the next day.Sam looked up from his desk a little surprised to see her. "Hi"
"I haven't seen you in a while. Why is that?" Mallory asked sitting down in the chair in front of Sam's desk.
"Um, it's been pretty busy around here. The President's new political strategy has had us all running a little ragged." He said getting up and putting a book on the shelf. For some reason he couldn't sit still and he couldn't look her in the eye. He felt like he was lying to her. 'About what though?' he asked himself.
"I see. Well I happen to be free for lunch and will give you the honor of my company. So let's go." She said getting up expecting him to follow her.
"I can't Mallory."
"What? Look, I'm sure you can take a quick lunch." She said getting a little annoyed."It's not that, I already have plans."
"Oh you have a meeting. Ok then how about dinner?"
"Listen Mallory..."
"Ready to go Sam." Caitlin interrupted as she stepped into his office. "Oh I'm sorry I didn't know you had a visitor."
"Hello Caitlin." Mallory said formally. "My dad said you were home."
"Hi Mallory, yeah I came home about three weeks ago. Um, how are you? How's teaching?""Good, good. And how is everything with you?"
"Ok, getting back into the swing of things."
An uneasy silence fell over the group. Caitlin then broke the silence, "Sam if you are busy we can do this another..."
"No, it's ok, Mallory and I were just..."
"Caitlin is who your meeting is with?" Mallory asked a little shocked.
"I never said it was a meeting, we..."
"Sam was just going to help me out with a problem I'm having but it's not that important, I mean we can always..."
"No, no you already had plans it's ok. We can have dinner then tonight, right Sam?" Mallory stated more than asked.
"Um, well, I guess..." he stumbled looking from Caitlin to Mallory wondering why he was having such problems arranging dinner with Mallory. They were seeing each other occasionally, why didn't he want to make that clear in front of Caitlin?
"Sounds great, I'll come by around 7pm. Good bye Caitlin." Mallory said leaving.
"Mallory" Caitlin then turned to Sam after she left. "Sam if you want to have lunch with Mallory..."
"No" Sam said feeling as if the air had been let back into the room. "We have plans and I don't want to break them. I'm looking forward to it. Now if you are looking for an excuse to get out of having lunch with me..."
"Damn, you got me." Caitlin said smiling. "C'mon let's go beofre you change your mind."
TBC