It was one of the head cooks who started calling him Sweet Sammy, just cause of his smile and how soft-spoken and kind he was.
"He's the type," Adrian said. We were watching Sammy through the little window in the door that led to the kitchen. "Please," he continued, like I'd disagreed with him. "Get a couple beers in him, get him away from her," he said, motioning to Sammy's girlfriend who was in the back too, having just run Sammy the cigarettes he'd left at home. "He would so get down with a dude. Lay back, let you suck his dick. Can you imagine him saying no, if you asked?" I let Adrian get close to my ear. "It's probably a real fatty, too. Bet he'd moan like crazy when you licked his balls. And he'd really squeal when you tongued down to his--"
"Boys." Monica, our manager, had poked her head around the wall of the server's station. "Wanna get to those four tops sometime tonight?" She tapped her manicured fingernails on the pasteboard wall, gave us an ironic smile. "I mean, it's not like dinner rush or anything." I started filling water glasses.
I watched Sammy's girlfriend leave out the back door. Adrian took the glasses I'd filled and put them on a tray. "Trust me, I've seduced so many straight guys. It's those nice ones, those sweet ones, they love blowjobs. It's like manna from heaven. But you better get to it before I do..."
"Fuck off, Adrian," I said, rolling my eyes. I took the tray from his hand and went off to take orders.
Adrian and dated for a few weeks when I started working at Mediterranean Grill, until I realized what an asshole he was. Since then I didn't take him very seriously, but I had to wonder if he had the read on Sammy. Mostly because Sammy was all I could fantasize about since he started working at the restaurant a month ago. He was insanely cute, short and thick with a barrel chest and powerful arms, tattooed all over. It was that smile that was a killer, though. He had such an unassuming confidence about him, such a winning personality that he'd become sort of the restaurant mascot.
He seemed like the kind of guy I needed. Especially in the wake of what had happened with Adrian, which had hurt me pretty badly.
A few months went by and my attraction to Sammy only grew. Then he broke up with his girlfriend, which was a pretty big deal around the kitchen. He broke down crying right in the middle of dinner shift. Apparently she'd dumped him for a friend. I found all this out when it got back to me as rumors do in the hothouse, concentrated-small-town environment of a restaurant. I figured this was it, this was my chance, but I wasn't all that adept at seduction, never had been, and how could I try to make a move on Sammy when he was hurting?
Then came the night from hell, where we had a constant rush from the moment we opened our doors at four up until we caught both a concert and a football game that let out at seven. We were there until well past midnight, and at some point it wound up being just me and Sammy and Monica, Sammy in the back mopping up the kitchen while Monica and I tried to make the dining room look like a tidal wave hadn't just swept over the place.
I don't smoke, normally, but I needed a cigarette, so I bummed one off Monica and went into the back to puff, and Sammy came out and joined me. We didn't say much to each other at first, just leaned against the wall next to the Dumpster, enjoying the quiet and still of a late-summer night.
"How much did you make tonight?" Sammy asked.
"Over three hundred bucks," I said.
"Fuck," Sammy said, impressed. "You should take me out for a drink."
"A drink sounds about perfect right now," I said.
So we finished up and let Monica lock up and walked around the corner to Union, where we took seats at the bar next to each other. It was a little awkward at first β I'd never really hung out with Sammy, and my sexual attraction to him was getting the better of me. But one beer turned into two and then three, and by then I was loosened up and just enjoying his company, laughing about restaurant stuff, stupid customers, and our maniac head cook who liked to storm out right in the middle of a rush only to come back five minutes later, which he'd done twice that night.
"I see Adrian got the fuck out of there quick tonight," Sammy said.
"Yeah, and every night," I said. "You couldn't get that guy to do post-shift work if you stapled his nuts to the chopping block."
"I doubt he's the type who'd be into that," Sammy said, glancing at me from the side of his eye. I laughed.
"No, he's not," I said.
"Oh you guys dated, right," Sammy said.
"Yeah for all of three weeks. He'd barely let me do anything to him, would scream every time I so much as touched near his ass," I said. "Sorry, TMI, probably." Sammy shook his head, took a drag off his cigarette.
"Nah, that's what I figured. I hate that type, people who can't give up control, those ones who are always playing a game."
"That's him," I said.
"It takes a real man to back off, let somebody else drive, you know?" Sammy said.
"Yeah," I said...and got lost in my thoughts because Sammy was looking at me like he'd never had before.
"I've been so fucking horny since I broke up with Trisha," he said, running his hand over his head so that his tattooed bicep in his ratty t-shirt bulged.
"That sucks," I said.
"Yeah," Sammy said, still staring at me. My heart started to race. "It's cool. I've got discerning tastes; I don't go for just anybody."
"Yeah I'm kind of the same way. I mean, Adrian was like my one mistake, but I forgive myself."
"That's good, no sense punishing yourself," Sammy said. He punched out his cigarette. We both had about half a beer left. "Damn I should be exhausted but I'm not."
"I know," I said.
"I've got more beer back at my place. Some tequila, too. Wanna come by and hang out for a while?"
Nothing was said about sex, which made it almost hotter as we got in Sammy's little five-speed Honda and headed to his neighborhood, Sammy switching gears with his big paw and turning up metal music that was blaring out of his stereo speakers. I thought something was going to happen β in retrospect it was obvious β but at the time I didn't know for sure, and as a result my stomach was doing flip-flops and my cock was half-hard and leaking. We had the windows open and Sammy would look over at me occasionally and smile, one hand on the gear shift and one on the steering wheel, his ball cap sitting snugly over his round head, and an implacable smile on his face.