Brian Quinn One Shots

Follow Your Fire: Part 2

I meet Samantha at a diner back in Staten Island the next night. She arrives a few minutes late and I stand up to greet her with a hug "somethings never change. Sorry for being late!" She hugs me back.

I assure her it's fine "it's not a problem. I can't believe you're back in New York. The last I heard you were living in Australia." I say to her as we sit across from one another "are you still there or somewhere else now?"

"I'm actually back in New York!" She returns "been back a few weeks, Australia was great but nothing beats New York."

"Ain't that the truth" I return with a smile "well, I'm glad you're back and we can catch up. How long has it been?" I ask rhetorically.

She returns "well, pretty much since your prom weekend so what was that, 24 years ago?"

I nod "yup, that's about right." I say. I try to read her face, to see if she brought it up out of sadness or anger but she just seems happy to be here.

"Hi, are you ready to order?" the waitress comes over to ask us.

"Oh uhh, she just got here. We'll probably need some more time." I say to the women standing above us.

She shakes her head "no, no, I'm ready. I'll take a burger, no tomato and instead of french fries i'll take a side salad." The waitress nods and writes down her order so I order my own burger. When she walks away, she asks me "so, you and the guys are on a show? Please, tell me all about it! That's incredible, I don't think I ever laughed as hard as that night in Murray's backyard."

"That was the best night ever!" I laugh and agree with her, but then I go on and explain about how Impractical Jokers came to be. "And here we are, 8 seasons later."

"Wow, that is incredible. I can't believe I had no idea all these years. I'm so proud of you BBQ, I knew you'd make it." She says to me after finishing a bite of her burger.

Our food came awhile ago and I've been going on and on about our show the whole time. I've rarely eaten any of my food as I talked and she listened. So now, it's my turn to get her to talk "what about you? Whats been going on with you, I knew you went off to school in California but what happened from there?"

She sighs, but tells me a shortened version of her travels "the first two years were fun and great but something seemed to be missing. I went off and studied abroad in Spain and absolutely fell in love with traveling. I transferred my credits and finished school in France. I lived in a few cities after all that before I ended up in Brisbane the last 10 years."

"And work, what have you been doing for work?" I ask her next, a bit curious as to how she's been able to travel like that.

She blushes a bit, something I find so cute and attractive but she says "well, I've written a few things here and there."

"Like books?" I ask her, not sure what she meant.

She shrugs "not books, no. I actually write songs." She tells me.

I smile wide, feeling stupid for not have figuring that out sooner "of course you do, that's incredible! What kind of songs, would I know any? I don't know how I didn't know about this."

She pushes her plate forward, done with her food "welllllll, I use a pen name so if you did know the song you wouldn't know it as me who wrote it."

"What?! Come on, you have to tell me. What have you written?" I push her, really wanting to know. She always loved music, and I am not a bit surprised she composes songs.

She shakes her head "no, no. I haven't written in a few years now, and I've kept a low radar my entire career."

"Okay, okay. You don't have to tell me BUT" I point to her "I will scour all albums released within the last 20 years and figure out what pen name is yours and listen to your work."