Pop: Chapter Ten

     "Chris!  You locked the door!" Sam yelled as he banged on the door.

    "Sorry.  Coming."

    I put down the frozen waffle box I was prepping to rush to the door.  Jim had barely been gone two minutes before Sam came down.  Sam must have taken longer with his "morning constitutional" than normal. I didn't think he ate that much yesterday.  Why can't he go at night like a normal person?  At least this meant Sam missed Jim.  I don't think Jim cleaned up that much.  While his hair looked kind of wet, but he didn't try to shave or get out a change of clothes.

    "Took you long enough.  Why did you lock the door to the living room anyway?" Sam asks as I let him in.

    "Force of habit from when I still had boarders. The party was a little weird, too.  I guess I didn't want to take any chances from meeting the neighbors."

    We walk into the kitchen, Sam looking everything over.

    "You haven't cleaned up yet.  You never work out this early if you can prevent it." Sam says, not ask.

    He has a point.  Usually, I would be wearing PJs, as neither one of us wants to catch the other naked accidentally.  Today, I was in an old T-shirt and gym shorts.  I didn't have time to freshen up any better.

    "Later.  I'm waiting to clean up because of the book signing around noon at Pulse.  It will be easier to shave and clean up for that than to have to go again just before the rehearsal dinner.  I won't have five-o'clock-shadow that way."

    "I don't see what the big deal is anyway.  You almost always look scruffy." Sam gets some milk out of the fridge while I finish up the waffles."

    "Once your beard comes in, you'll know the difference."

    I admit, I usually only shave every other day or so.  I like that 'scruffy' look.  Addie kind of does too. Most of my exes hated it, but that is how a grew up.  Until I was eighteen, I was lucky to shave two or three times a week.  My friends were shaving daily by their senior year; Pete junior year.  Then, a month or two after my birthday, my beard suddenly came in. I went from barely anything to needing to shave daily practically overnight.  At least my friends were still around to help me learn the beyond the basics of running an electric shaver over everything for a few minutes.

    Still, I preferred not shaving. Not to the point of actually growing a beard, but a mustache and a neatly cropped goatee.  It's a cliche of my generation, but I still like it.  

    "Whatever old man.  I just shaved Tuesday for Dad. I'm good to go for awhile." Sam derides me as he grabs for the waffles as soon as they pop from the toaster.

    I don't know how much DNA we share, but Sam is just a little younger than I was when my beard finally grew in, but he is nowhere near where I was. After two days, at his age, I would be needed to straighten my whiskers out a bit.  Sam is practically baby-faced with only a few spots there and about.  Also, I'm still worrying that he hasn't gotten any chest hair yet.  Sure, he might be shaving that off for swimming, but why would he leave some around his nipples?  I got my chest hair the summer after graduation.  Rick really teased my about that that summer, especially since he and our friends had theirs for over a year, or three for Pete.  To a man, each of us had stopped growing when our chests got hairy.  I'm afraid that Sam is still going to grow, and a lot, because of this. I tell you...

    The phone in the other room rings.

    "What was that?" Sam asks.

    "The phone" D'uh.

    "The landline?  I thought you had that disconnected."

    "Not yet.  Maybe later." I rush to the dinning room to get the phone.

    "Hello.  Burton residence. Who do you wish to speak to?" I answer into the phone.

    "Chris!  We have an emergency."

    "Thad? What's going on?"