Why not? - English

Prolog - Sam

This and the next two chapters serve as an introduction. It takes place at the beginning of season 10. I hope you enjoy reading it.

I took another deep breath before opening the door to the Whole Fish Coffee. As always, my brother and his wife greeted me with smiles, the twins waving happily, and I returned their gestures with a smile that wasn't really genuine. Charly rushed past me and brought two tourists their food to the table. As he passed me on his way back behind the counter, I grabbed his arm and he stopped to look at me questioningly. "Charly. Can we talk? Please!" I murmured quietly and he looked at me confused.

"Of course, Sam. Sit down," he offered me a seat at the table between the tourists and where the twins were doing their homework.

"I'd rather go for a walk, somewhere a little more...private," I told him hesitantly.

"Oh, so serious?" he asked me and a grin appeared on his face. "Did my big, perfect brother get in trouble?" he teased me, but I didn't feel like joking at all.

"Charly, please."

"Okay, okay. I'm coming." Charly grabbed a jacket and followed me out. I didn't know where to go, so I headed toward the park with my hands deep in my pockets. It was always quiet there at this time. "So Sam, what's going on? You've been pretty thoughtful for a few days, but today you're really strange," Charly observed when we had turned the corner and went down the street.

"It's...something happened and I don't know what to think about it."

"You'll have to be a little more specific if you want to hear my opinion on this."

"What was it like when you met Bronwyn? When did you know you liked her, so really liked her?" I ran my hand down the back of my neck to cover up how uncomfortable the topic was.

"Wait...is this about a woman?"

I didn't have to look up to know that my brother was positively shocked. "Kind of, yeah."

“Uhhuuu,” Charly immediately cheered with his hands clenched into fists in front of him, but I just rolled my eyes in annoyance.

"Charly, could you please stay serious?!"

"Sorry. Sure," he really caught himself and cleared his throat again briefly. "I don't know. I thought she was great, interesting and pretty right from the start. At some point it just happened that I couldn't imagine being without her anymore or to start something with someone else."

"That doesn't really help me," I sighed sullenly.

"Sam, if you've met someone you're interested in, invite her to dinner, get to know each other better, then you'll notice. You've got nothing to lose," he objected and I was about to answer him when he turned to me."Or is it a he?"

"What? No!" I replied, confused as to how he could have come up with that. "But I wouldn't say that I had nothing to lose. It would make everything kind of awkward if it didn't work out or if she didn't have the same interest for me, as I did for her. We would have to continue to work together. I..."

"Wait a minute!", Charly stopped me immediately and only then did I realize what I had said and rolled my eyes again as he continued. I never intended to go into such detail. "Work?! Are we talking about Penny or Ellie?" asked Charly, seeming a little shocked. I pulled my head between my shoulders. "No, you've been working with Penny for so long, it must be Ellie if it hit you so suddenly. She hasn't been here for long. She..."

"Penny. It's Penny," I mumbled awkwardly, interrupting his loud musings when I saw people coming towards me on the other side of the street. How could he seriously think that I was interested in a woman almost ten years younger than me?