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Sam chops all her hair off in one swift motion. With one slice, the last of her old job is gone, and she has a fresh start. Swiping a hand across her eyes (she’s not going to cry. It’s not like Jack’s gone forever, and Daniel and T are still there), she starts loading the crates into the trunk.
Jack’s run the best moonshining business in town for a couple years now, and she’d never dreamed he would actually get caught. But he had, and regardless, they needed to carry on.
She pokes her head into the house. “Daniel?”
“Yeah?” Daniel peers up at her, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Did you - did you cut your hair?”
“Yeah,” she says. “Look okay?”
“Perfect,” Daniel says. “You going now?”
“Uh-huh. Hopefully whoever it is doesn’t know Jack by sight.”
“I doubt it. Anyway, T and I will be here all night, so whenever you get back, we’ll be here.”
“Thanks, Danny.” Sam sets her cap at a jaunty angle, then strolls casually out to the car. She’s been with Jack a few times, at the beginning, when he’d gone to deliver the next batch of moonshine, but this is her first time doing this on her own. Daniel is pretty head-in-the-clouds, T is foreign, and she’d more than proven herself to Jack, so she’d been set up to be Jack’s successor. No one had thought it’d be this soon she’d have to take over though, and she hasn’t been introduced to all of Jack’s contacts yet. Still, it’s not like it’s 1900 any more. It’s the 20s - women wear pants now.
Sam starts the engine, and slowly shifts out of first gear.
The drive to the drop-off point is uneventful. There are butterflies in Sam’s stomach, but it’s nothing she can’t handle. Either she can pass herself off as Jack, or she’ll have to lie - neither of which she hasn’t done before.
Pulling up to the side of the road, she parks the car, then hops out. She leans against it, trying to affect the casual air of self confidence Jack always manages to project. A moment later, a woman about her age pulls up on the other side of the road.
“Where’s Jack?” the other woman asks, “and who are you?”
“Sam,” she replies, pitching her voice low. “Jack’s occupied.”
The short woman studies her. “Janet,” she finally says, offering her hand.
Sam grips it firmly. “A pleasure, I’m sure,” she says. Janet has reddish-brown hair that frames a face that looks like it was made for stern looks and rare smiles. Stop that, Sam thinks. This is business, and she’s probably not queer anyway. Janet pops the trunk of her car, and Sam starts moving crates.
Halfway through, Sam catches Janet staring at her. “Yes?” she asks, momentarily forgetting to drop her voice.
“I was right,” Janet says, a hint of satisfaction coloring her tone. “You are a woman.”
Sam crosses her arms. “Is that a problem?”
“Not at all. Just curious why you felt the need to hide it.”
“Well, when the client is expecting Jack and gets me, sometimes they’re, ah, unhappy.” Sam pushes her new blonde locks back away from her face. “It’s easier to pass myself off as Jack like this.”
“I never expected he’d go in for women’s lib,” Janet says.
Sam grins. “Neither did he, until I showed him the error of his ways.”
Janet laughs, and Sam’s face reddens. God, she wants to hear that laugh again.
They chat for a while, and the last of the sunlight fades from the sky. Finally, Janet smiles and says, “Well, it was nice talking to you, Sam. I’ll see you next time.”
“Yeah,” Sam says, and inwardly cringes at her inarticulate reply. “Good talking to you.”
Janet nods. “Do you, ah, want to stop leaning on my car?” she asks after a few awkward seconds of silence.
Sam’s face burns with humiliation. “God, I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t think.”
Janet grins. “It’s alright.” She watches Sam push herself off the car, then gets in and drives off.
Sam watches her go. “That went better than I expected.” She thinks about what Jack would say - something along the lines of “could you make it any more obvious?”, or maybe he’d just laugh.
She drives home with a goofy grin on her face the whole way home.
-
She makes three more deliveries to Janet over the next month. They always end up talking and laughing far longer than they should - once, when she got back, T was about to borrow Daniel’s car to go look for her. George Hammond is hard at work coming up with a way to get Jack out early, but until then, Sam has the business well in hand.
Daniel confronts her after that trip.
“Look, Sam, it’s really none of my business, but you should either ask her to dinner or give up. I mean, you’re so far gone on her that she’s pretty much all you talk about.”
Sam turns red. “I, um,” she stammers. “How- how did you know? About me liking girls? Did Jack tell you?”
“You could say that,” Daniel says, and wraps her in a hug. “You know T and I are going to support you no matter what, right?”
“Yeah,” she says. “Yeah.”
-
The fourth time she meets Janet for a delivery, she makes her move. Janet’s hand is so close, and she reaches out to grab it without thinking.
Janet blushes, but doesn’t pull away.
Holy Hannah!
She laces her fingers with Janet’s, and moves in closer. “Janet…”
“Sam,” Janet breathes, looking up at her with wide brown eyes. She reaches up to Sam’s face, cupping her jaw tenderly. “Sam.”
Sam’s free hand settles gently on Janet’s waist, so lightly that Janet can barely feel anything there.
They lean in, and it’s so beautiful and surreal and they both know they’ll remember this moment forever and ever.
Sam’s mouth meets Janet’s in a sweet, sweet kiss, and everything goes away.