Brooke thought back to her days in college and had to agree. “You got that right. Your life really seems to take on new meaning during that year. I know mine did.” That was the year that we pushed our group into the spotlight. Boy, did that change my life forever.

“So did you stay at a dorm or were you one of the elite with a sorority house engagement?” Sam teased, knowing all too well that Brooke just didn’t fit in that mold.

“Well, as much as I’d like the view at the sorority house, you’re right, it wasn’t me.”

“So then we’re both sisters of the dorm?” Sam sat up on her bed wondering if Brooke could have lived in her dorm and one time. Perhaps even in this very room that she shared with C.C.

“Ah…that would be correct,” Brooke snickered. “Sigma Dorma Thi.”

“Ohhh…we’ll have to compare handshakes sometime,” Sam teased. “Just to see if things have changed since you were here.”

“Well, you know it’s been a while since my bones graced that hall. I bet a lot of things have changed since then.” The older woman searched her memory for things that were relevant to her day and age. “Yeah, back then it was rad to have your own pager.”

“Rad?” the blonde asked. “What’s rad?”

“Slang…ah…radical…cool…totally in,” Brooke offered, trying to answer the younger woman’s question.

“Oh, you mean, bad.”

“Bad, rad…so they changed one letter. It still means the same.” The brunette held the cordless phone with her shoulder and head as she stepped out of her jeans and folded them over a chair. Her shirt was next as she disrobed, making herself more comfortable in the privacy of her own bedroom.

“Yeah, it does. Only, Brooke,” Sam paused for a second or two then continued. “Pagers are out and cell phones are in.”

“Yeah, well, at least you don’t have to go running to find a unused pay phone to find out what they want.” Brooke shook her head remembering those days. “I don’t know what was worse, having the quarter in my hand, coming up empty on finding a phone or having any phone I wanted but no change to make the call.”

The older woman lounged in her bed, clad in a pair of boxers and a tank top. It was too warm during these late summer evenings to be concerned with more than that in her own home. The satin top sheet lay in a heap near the foot of the king-sized bed as she sat near the headboard with a pillow behind her back.

Sam laughed at the woman on the other end of the telephone line. “Too funny!”

Brooke smiled as she listened to the soft laughter coming through the receiver. “What’s so funny?”

“You,” was Sam’s simple reply, “I can see you trying to be so cool.”

“Cool? Why, whatever would you mean?”

Brooke walked over to her bedroom light and turned it off. The tall woman opened the French doors leading out onto her balcony to allow the flow of fresh air to cycle through her bedroom, and then she sat back down on her bed in the same position as before.

“You don’t have to be up on all the latest words and ‘in’ things, Brooke.”

“Damn good thing. I don’t understand half of the shit I hear,” the woman muttered.

The small talk that all new acquaintances draw on are the experiences of their lives. Brooke and Sam were no different from any other as they swapped stories, back and forth, and in the process received a small glimpse of what the other was about.

“Just be yourself, Brooke. You know, I have a feeling that there is more to you than meets the eye.”

Brooke laughed at Sam’s remark. “Are you sure you really want to know who I am?”

“Why don’t you let me decide that for myself? I’m willing to have a look-see. Face it tall, dark and ominous… you can’t hide for long from me.”

Brooke smiled at the determination of her new friend. “Ominous? That’s a new one.” Brooke tried to encourage the teasing banter from moments before as she heard Sam sigh.

“I take one look in your eyes and see lots of things…lots of wonderful things.”

“Oh yeah?” Brooke asked in a whisper. “Like what? What do you see?” she listened to Sam’s soft breathing as she waited for an answer.

“I’m sorry, Brooke. Maybe I’m getting way too personal here…but I see someone who has a lot of potential in many areas. You like to come off as the strong, bull-headed type but I see that it doesn’t last for long.”

The woman didn’t know whether to laugh at Sam’s observations or just blow them off. She did neither as she answered, “Hey, I am bull-headed. Just ask my Mom…”

“Yeah, nice try, but I know differently,” Sam cut her off.

“Oh really?” Brooke asked with renewed interest as she slouched down in her bed and drew lazy circles across the satin sheet under her fingertips.

“Oh yeah. I think that there is a whole other Brooke that you don’t let anyone see. Not even yourself sometimes.”

Sam waited for a response, becoming a little concerned when she didn’t get one. She was concerned that she had offended the older woman and that was the very last thing she wanted right now.

“Brooke? Are you still there?”

The sound of Brooke’s breathing filled the air for a moment then was followed by a sigh before she spoke quietly, “Yeah, I’m still here, Sam. And, you’re right. I’ll give you that. It’s just…someone I don’t care to visit.”

Hearing this, the blonde’s heart went out to the other woman, “You know, I think I’m here to find that Brooke and help her to live.”

“I see.” Brooke was happy to hear Sam’s quiet laughter, wondering what the young blonde was doing as they talked.

“I told you. Things happen for a reason, Brooke. It’s destiny. ” Sam spoke just as passionately about fate as Brooke had heard her talk about music.

Brooke found her voice cracking a little as she asked the question she desperately needed to hear an answer to, “Destiny? You…think that…I’m your destiny?”

“Let’s just say that it’s a possibility. Crazier things have happened, right?” Sam waited a moment before continuing, trying to gauge a reaction from Brooke. “It’s like I said in that email, Brooke: I’m not trying to rush anything here. I’m just saying that things will happen along the way to show us.”

“Okay. I see your point,” Brooke raised an eyebrow suspiciously.

Hearing the trepidation in the woman’s voice, Sam bit down on her lip before asking what was on her mind, “So, where do you think fate is taking us?”

Brooke thought about Sam’s question and answered as honestly as she could, “I’m not sure. I was never one to really think about fate, Sam.”

“Famous last words. It’s there whether you believe in it or not. It doesn’t really care,” Sam let a soft laugh escape her throat to try and take some edge off of the seriousness of their topic of conversation.

“You know, Sam… if you had told me the other Sunday at dinner that I’d be having this conversation with you about fate, I probably would have laughed my head off.” Brooke laughed at the mental image of Sam trying to convince her of all of this while sitting at her mother’s dinner table.

After a minute or so, she noticed that Sam hadn’t responded and sat up straight in bed, afraid that she had said something to bother the young woman. “Sam?”

“Don’t…don’t even say that you didn’t feel something then. I saw the looks that you were giving me. Those thoughtful looks.”

“I never said that I didn’t feel something,” Brooke corrected herself. “And you’re right…those looks were very thoughtful.”

Both women had to laugh at the flirtatious tone in Brooke’s voice.

The older woman shook her head. That was so obvious. Man, you are way out of practice with this sort of thing. Brooke raked her long fingers through her dark hair.

“What did you feel?” Sam asked, feeling like she was close to getting Brooke to open up to her about what went on inside that raven-covered head of hers.

“I felt…” Brooke chose her words carefully, “That’s just it. I felt… something. I felt that I should be on my best behavior,” Brooke grinned into the phone as Sam’s soft laughter replaced the silence on the other end.

“You are a tough one, Brooke. I can see that I’m going to have to work on that.”

“I felt curious,” Brooke admitted.

“Curious is good. How so?”

“I don’t know. Just wondering, who you are?’”

“That’s simple, Brooke. I’m me. Really, I’m nobody special. Just another one of the family.”

“No. I mean, who are you that you had this…power over me to make me feel something? To feel anything.”

Brooke was now becoming confused over her own reactions to Sam over the last few weeks. Other than her immediate family, Brooke had felt nothing at all for anyone or anything. Well, except for music. No extreme happiness or sorrows had entered her life. Nothing had touched her since that night in Detroit three years earlier. Not since…

“I thought that you felt it. I was right.” The woman reached out, took the now warm can of soda off the nightstand, and raised it to her lips to drink.

Sam’s voice broke the spell of bad memories Brooke had been reliving. She shook her head as if to clear it. “What did you think I would feel?”

“Feel? I thought you might…” suddenly Sam stopped. “No way, Brooke Gordon. You are not trapping me like that.”

Brooke was momentarily confused until she thought about what she had asked and realized what Sam had assumed she meant. It was easier for Brooke to just play along, “Damn,” she snapped her fingers loudly, “caught me didn’t you?”

“Trying to…I mean, ah…yeah,” Sam caught herself before revealing any more. She could almost hear the smile coming onto Brooke’s face.

“Little flustered there, Sam?” Brooke asked as she got comfortable once again by lying on her bed, this time, on the opposite side since the sheets were cooler.