"I'm not alone,
her head is heavy on me,
she's sleepin' like a child..."
Song and Lyrics: John Mayer-"Assassin"

"I'm so sorry I'm late." Rhys huffed out, plopping into the seat across from me at the Mexican place she'd chosen for lunch. I looked up from my menu and smiled at her. "No worries. I just got here too."

"Well...good." She said distractedly, looking down at her phone before throwing it into her purse. "Everything ok?" I asked.

She shrugged and smoothed her hair back. "Yeah. Fine, fine. Just trying to ignore some things that are going on at work."

When she said that, I was struck with the realization that while she knew a lot about me due to my celebrity, I barely knew a thing about her-including what she did for a living.

"What do you do, anyway? I feel like I should know this but...I'm drawing a blank." I admitted, taking a moment to thank the waitress who had just put down glasses of water in front of us.

"Are we crossing lines here?" Rhys asked playfully, squeezing the lemon into her drink. "We already crossed the line by meeting for lunch. I figure if we're going to go into the friends' territory, I need to know more about you."

She smirked-that damn look-and said "I suppose you're right."

"So...?"

"I'm a freelance writer for a few different magazines."

"Should I be worried?" To that, she giggled. "No. I don't write for those kind of magazines so you're in the clear."

"Oh. Good. For a minute there I was scared that I was being set up and all this time you were just sleeping with me so that you could expose me as a cheater."

She laughed a little bit harder but leaned in closer to me to say whatever she was about to. "Trust me, the reasons that I'm sleeping with you have nothing to do with my job."

I felt my face flush just the slightest bit and she winked. "Speaking of...I do believe that I owe you something." She flirted, and I felt the toe of her stiletto inching its way up my leg and suddenly I was thankful that we were at a table in the back and that the place was relatively deserted so that no one could observe what was going on. She licked her lips. "I've been thinking about you since we hung up last night."

I leaned over the table with a wicked grin on my lips-she was playing dirty-and two could play her game.  "Well, I've been craving the taste of you and I'm about to just forego lunch and have you instead."

A streak of red colored her cheeks and she squealed quietly. "Tease."

"No teasing, baby." I mumbled out, "I'm completely serious." Rhys' eyes darkened as she eyed me, a contemplative look crossing her features.

A shadow darkened the table top and we both turned attentive eyes towards the figure standing at the head of the table, clearing our throats nervously. "Have you decided what you're going to order?" The waitress asked, eyeing both of us. I shot a look at Rhys, seeing what she was going to do and she kicked at me under the table, startling me. "Uhh...we're actually going to pass. Something has come up at work for me and I've gotta get out of here. Sorry about that!"

She smiled at me. "No problem! Come back and see us."

"Something came up?" Rhys giggled, grabbing her purse as she scooted out of the booth. "Do I need to do damage control before we leave here? There's a bathroom just back that way." She said with a point to the corner of the restaurant. I glanced down and then back up at her and winked. "You can fix it in the car." I told her getting up from the table.

Her eyes widened at me. "You disgust me." She murmured, starting to wander away from me. I grabbed onto her wrist and pulled her back flush against me, whispering into her ear. "You love it." I felt her shiver before pulling out of my grasp.

"I still hate you." She grinned, heading out of the restaurant. She pulled her aviators down over her eyes and cocked her head to the side as she watched me come out the door. "So I take it that we're leaving a car here?"

I shrugged. "I was only kidding. I just wanted to see what you'd say." I told her, putting on my own sunglasses.

"You know I would." She began, heading down the street towards her car. "I'll meet you at your place then?" She called out over her shoulder. I watched the sway of her hips as she walked away from me, the stirrings in my groin only growing louder with the thoughts that were swirling in my head.

I walked across the street when traffic was light enough for me to cross safely and got in my car, leaning my head back against the headrest as I tried to clear my brain. "That woman is going to be the death of me."

*

A groan tore from my lips as I rolled over in my bed, my muscles crying out from the exertion that I had put on them this afternoon.

"I can't feel my legs." Rhys mumbled out, one of said legs hitching up over my waist to try and turn me towards her again.

"Didn't we just run a marathon?" I asked, bringing a hand up to massage her calf. At the movement she moaned. "Oh my god. Don't stop."

I chuckled. "I've heard that ten or fifty times today." She slapped my chest playfully and I released her muscle. "Cocky, aren't you?" She said, placing a soft kiss in the middle of my back. "With good reason." I replied, returning to my task of massaging her legs, digging my fingers into the tissue deep.

Another sigh escaped her. "That feels so good. You don't even know."

"Why do your legs hurt, exactly?" I questioned, my fingers moving up to her thighs. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to be bent over like that for that amount of time?" My shoulders shook with laughter, trying to ignore the mental images that were conjured up from her reliving our activities from earlier.

"Can't say that I do so I'll take your word for it. I'm sorry I hurt you."

"Worth it." She breathed, her own hands working into my left shoulder. I groaned at the touch. "You're right, that does feel good."

We lay there like that, each massaging the other's various limbs, and just relaxing with each other, something that we'd never really done before. "So...did you not have to go back into the studio today?" she asked, releasing the hand she'd been working on and rolling onto her back.

"I can make my own hours. I'm freelance, in a way. Just like you."

"But I'm not holding you back from anything else?"

I flipped onto my side to face her and rest my head in my hand. "Nope." Then my stomach grumbled. "Though I could use some food. We did skip lunch." I told her with a wink.

"Ahh yes. You need food." Her stomach then grumbled loudly, signaling that she too was hungry. "Guess you do too." I teased, reaching over to poke at her stomach. She giggled and grabbed onto the finger that was pressing into her skin. "I'm ticklish...please don't."

Her telling me that was of course a bad idea, because you don't tell someone you're ticklish when they're in a position to tickle. At realizing what she'd just admitted, her eyes grew wide and she tried to slink further away from me. "Don't even think about it, J."

"Don't think about what?" I asked innocently, moving closer to her with hands extended, fingers ready to poke and prod.

"I know that look. I've seen it one too many times."

"And what are you going to do, little girl? I am so much stronger than you and you're almost at the edge of the bed. Where you gonna go?"

She grinned. "I could crush you, Timberlake."

Reaching out, she yelped when my fingers gripped her sides and I began tickling her. "Unfair." She yelled, doing everything she could to get away from my probing fingers, all the while giggling uncontrollably. Her laughter was making me laugh and soon enough I gave up my game and just laughed with her.

It felt good. To laugh with someone again. To really enjoy being in another woman's company. It felt like forever since I'd felt this with Danielle.

We finally settled our laughter down and laid in comfortable silence, both trying to figure out what the next move was. Today had put us in an unusual position. We'd spent the afternoon talking and laughing, among other things, and now found ourselves in a place that we never really intended to end up when we started this thing weeks before. We were becoming friends.

"Well, should we call in for food? There are a lot of good delivery places around here."

Curled up against my side, she nodded her head. "Sushi, maybe?"

"Sounds good." I replied, placing a kiss to the top of her head before I rolled out of bed. "I'm gonna go grab the menu. Be back."

I pulled on a pair of shorts before I headed downstairs to the kitchen.

While I was fishing around in a drawer for the menu, I heard Rhys enter the kitchen and slip onto a stool at the breakfast bar.

"What's up?" I asked, not turning around, still in search of the paper. "I figured it was time to get out of bed." She said with a yawn.

"I like you in my bed, though." I replied, fingers finally coming in contact with what I wanted.

"I like being in your bed." She flirted back, grabbing the menu from my hands. "Want anything? Water? Coke? Wine? I'm pretty sure I've got it all."

"If you've got a beer, I'm good with that."

"Killians ok?"

She nodded, flipping through the menu, eyes flickering over the list of items. I didn't need it. I'd ordered from this sushi place more times than I could count. It was one of Danielle and my favorites.

I felt a shred of guilt tug somewhere in the pit of my stomach but tried to push it away. We were on the outs at the moment anyway-we'd had a fight that morning actually while I was at the studio and it hadn't ended well. She wasn't going to be back for another two weeks and I was mad about it and she'd gotten mad at me for not being more understanding about her job even when she was always understanding about mine.

"Whatcha thinkin' about?" Rhys' voice interrupted my thoughts. "Today. It's been nice. I didn't think that I needed someone to do all this with but...after today I think I do. I like having someone to talk to, especially since Danielle isn't around to do it with."

"So what we're doing is ok with you?" she questioned, pushing the menu away from her. "What do you mean? Like getting to know each other better and being friends?" She nodded yes. "Of course it's ok."

Taking the menu from her, I grabbed the house phone and began to dial. "What are you ordering?"

"Order me whatever you get. There's too much there."

"You got it. One octopus roll coming up!" Her green eyes went wide and I laughed. "Only kidding."

Our food arrived thirty minutes later and we took it into the living room and sat on the floor, making a spread of our sushi on the coffee table. With chopsticks in hand, we finally got around to our lunch date while watching Tivoed episodes of The Office, which I learned was one of her favorite shows.

I caught myself staring at her more times than I really wanted to admit to myself, and tried to play it off as just being attracted to the fact that I was enjoying her company as a friend.

But when her head tilted backwards and she let loose her infectious laugh, pieces of hair falling into her face that I wanted to push away so that I could see the smile on her face, I knew that it was more than that. And I wondered just how long I'd been thinking thoughts like this and if she was thinking that way too.

Mid laugh, she snorted, which caused me to laugh even harder at whatever it was that Steve Carell had just said. "He is seriously my favorite person ever." She giggled, setting her chopsticks down on the plate.

"I don't know what comedy was before him." I said in agreement, stacking our plates up and getting them out of the way.

"What now?" she asked, watching me as I got up from the floor to take our dishes to the kitchen. "What do you mean?"

"What do we do now?" she repeated.

"We can hang, if you want. I've got at least four more episodes on here and all the seasons on DVD are in the movie room." I called out to her from the kitchen. I set the dishes in the sink, vowing to take care of them later, and went back into the living room.

Her eyes were lit up in excitement. "Office marathon???"

I had to laugh at her enthusiasm. "I'm up for it. I've got no plans for tomorrow. Or the next two weeks really."

"Danielle out of town?" she asked quietly, moving from the floor to situate herself on the couch. I nodded, plopping down next to her.

"Yeah. Another two weeks filming, at least. And she was originally coming home this weekend but decided to just stay." I answered with a groan-Danielle wasn't what I wanted to be talking about right now. Talking about her to another girl-not to mention a girl that I was sleeping with-felt weird. At least Rhys knew about Danielle, though. It wasn't like I was keeping her a secret.

Even so, I felt like something had changed between Rhys' and my relationship over the past day. Maybe we never should have crossed the line into being friends. From what I could tell right now, it was going to put us on a dangerous path.

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault." I replied, stretching myself out so that she could make herself comfortable against me. "I know. But I know how hard long distance...well, I can imagine how hard it is to do a long distance relationship. It's a lot of work." She sympathized.

"I've made it work before..." I began. "Come here. You're too far away." I told her, helping her stretch out in front of me on the big couch and wrapping an arm around her middle. "Comfy?" I asked, reaching for the remote on the coffee table. "Uh-huh." She mumbled, resting her head on the arm that was under her.

*

I woke with a start, my left arm feeling like a dead weight, and my left side completely asleep. I pushed up slightly, confused at first, and then realization dawned when I saw Rhys stretched out in front of me, still fast asleep. With a look around, I saw how dark it was outside and squinted at the numbers on the Tivo box, reading that it was almost 4am. How had we been asleep for so long, I wondered.

She shifted in front of me, squeezing my right arm that was still wrapped around her midsection, and I nudged at her, trying to get her to wake. We needed to move. I was uncomfortable being on the couch and my bed was calling my name.

"Rhys..." I called out softly, nuzzling the back of her neck.

"Hmmm..." she whined back.

"Babe, its 4am. I don't know about you but, I'd be more comfortable in my big, comfy bed."

"Hmphhhh."

"I'll take that as a yes. You ok staying over?"

She rolled just the slightest bit, eyelashes fluttering open and I felt my heart stop in my chest when her tired green eyes settled on me and she smiled just slightly. "Mhmmm."

"'Kay. Let's go then." We both shifted so that we could get up off the couch and I clicked the TV off.

"You can borrow a t-shirt if you want." I told her once we'd gotten to my room, fishing in the top drawer of my dresser for an oversized shirt for her.

"Thanks. I don't suppose you've got an extra toothbrush laying around, do you?" She asked, turning away from me to discard the shirt she had on, and to put on the one I'd just given her. I had to smile at her shyness-it wasn't a side of her that I'd seen before-but it was cute.

"I think so. I'll lay it out by the sink for you." I said with a grin, padding into the bathroom.

I stared at my reflection in the mirror, wondering who this person was that I was looking at. Because the person I thought I knew would never be doing this if he was with someone. What had this girl done to my head? Not wanting to think on it any longer, I pushed the thoughts out of my head, again, and looked for an extra toothbrush, setting it out for her like I'd said I would.

Brushing my own teeth as quickly as I could so she could get in the bathroom, I made sure I left the toothpaste out before heading back to bed and couldn't stop the smile from forming when I saw her already asleep in bed. Dark hair fanned out around her, she was curled on her side towards the middle of the bed, my t-shirt pulled down to her knees, and she was adorable.

Hitting the light, I climbed into bed beside her, and buried myself under the covers. She searched me out when she felt the bed dip and situated herself against me, one arm draping across my middle, and digging her feet between my calves. "Night, Rhys." I said quietly, pressing a kiss to her forehead. She tucked her head under my chin and sighed before replying tiredly, "night, J."

I mimicked her sigh, the feeling of contentment wrapping itself around me, and I didn't have a care in the world.

Not for the first time today, I wondered how this situation between us had evolved into...this.