“I thought we were gonna be closer,” Austin moans.  “I wanted a foul ball.”

I roll my eyes and drink some more of my beer.  “I bought you a baseball before we sat down.”

“It’s not the same!  You said to bring my glove in case I caught one!  You knew I wouldn’t!”

“Shut up, Austin,” I grunt.  “There’s a lot of kids that can’t even afford to come to a game, so start being a little bit more fucking grateful.”

He slams his body against the back of his chair roughly and crosses his arms sternly over his chest as he begins to pout.

I feel Abbey’s eyes digging into me like daggers.  I probably shouldn’t have used vulgarity with him.

But I just don’t care.  I’m trying to enjoy my day.

I made it a point not to talk to her during the limo ride back from the Gala, and when we got back home, I went right to bed.  I thought she called out my name, but I ignored it.  I had to focus, couldn’t dwell on her tears or how emotional we both became for that short span of time.  I had been trapped in a bubble then, captivated by her.  I’m smart enough that I won’t allow it to happen again.

I can tell that she feels betrayed though.  Betrayed because she poured her soul out to me, and I acted like I cared.  I mean, I did care I guess, but...then Trace gave me a wake up call, and I realized what my priorities were, that’s all.  She should be able to understand.  She knows how I am, how things are.  I don’t get why she’s so pissed.

She needs to cut the crap already, get used to the fact that we have a professional relationship that should never have started to cross over to something more.  It was a mistake.  She should know that.  She’s an adult for Christ’s sake.

Davey shoves his hand into my Yankees hard hat filled with popcorn and I hold it steady for him as he grabs a handful out. I ruffle his hair and smirk a little bit as he drops most of it down the front of his shirt.  He’s the easy one.  The one who can appreciate the little shit I do, like taking him to a baseball game.  

Trace and Sydney are here too, with Kristy.  Usually, I can’t stand other people’s kids but I don’t mind Kristy so much.  She’s pretty quiet, but I think that’s because Trace gives her whatever she asks for, like she’s his little princess or something.  I don’t get how he does it.  How the hell he can balance this little family life he has when things are so damn jam packed at work.  But he does though.  He’s been with Syd for years, since her daughter was barely a year old...before I even lived in New York City. I don’t get why I can’t do that too.  I’m just...too focused on work maybe?

Hell, I don’t know.

“What’s on your agenda for tomorrow?” I focus on Abbey.  She’s been reading a book the entire time we’ve been here, oblivious to what’s been going on.  I haven’t said anything.  I expect her to be bored...

Pissed at me.

“Austin is getting fitted for his soccer uniform.  I figured I’d take advantage of his mini vacation from school to get it done,” she says, not looking up from her book as she flips a page.  

“Good.  I have some stuff for you to take care of too.”

“Surprise, surprise,” she huffs.

I hear Trace snickering and it’s apparent to me that he’s been listening in.  “What’s your problem?” I grunt at her under my breath.

She finally looks at me.  “You’re an idiot.  That’s my problem.”

“Well shit, J,” Trace cracks up.  “She sure knows how to put you in your place, I guess.”

Both Sydney and Trace are laughing at what an idiot she’s made me out to be.  I feel foolish.

I really hate feeling foolish in front of my friends.

“We need to talk,” I spit at her.

“I don’t feel like talking to you,” she tells me.  “It’s my day off, I shouldn’t have to do anything that I don’t want to do.”

“Now.” I’ve gotten to my feet, giving her my most intimidating look, and I think she’s taking me a little more seriously now.  I walk out of our private box and out into the hallway, making sure she’s behind me.  

“What, Justin,” she grunts, her arms crossed as she glares at me.

“I know you’re pissed but you really need to save the attitude for when we’re alone,” I grunt at her.  “I don’t need you making a fool out of me in front of my friends, and the kids.”

“You deserve it!” she exclaims.  “Oh, please Abbey...dance with me, you’re so beautiful.”  She rolls her eyes and gives me a disgusted look.  “You’re so full of shit, Justin!”

I chuckle a little as I rock back on my heels.  “Don’t be mad because you spilled your guts to me. I know that’s the issue.  What do you expect me to do? Be your best friend?  I don’t have time for it.  I mean, I’m glad you felt you could talk to me but they have therapists for that sort of thing, you know?”

“You would say that,” she sneers.  “You know, you shouldn’t pretend that you don’t have feelings for me now, just because Trace caught onto it and didn’t approve.  It’s fucked up, and makes you out to be even more arrogant. We had a connection.”

“You wish we had...had a connection,” I glare, hating that my voice broke a little bit.  “I felt bad for you, I know you didn’t have anybody else you could talk to about that guy...”

“Braeden,” she snaps.

“Whatever.”  I blow it off with wave of my hand.  “Cut the fucking attitude, okay?”

“So I quit then,” she calls back to me as I start walking away from her.

It makes me stop, turn back to her.  “You’re not quitting,” I scoff.

“Watch me.”  She holds her head high and starts to walk away from me.

“Whoa...”  I hate myself for running after her.  I do.  I shouldn’t have to.  Shouldn’t care if I lose her.  My brother’s feelings aside, there’s more important things to worry about, and plenty of other people out there that would take her job.  “I thought...I thought you cared about the boys!”

She skids to a stop and whirls back around.  “I thought you were starting to care about me,” she states.

I shove my hands in my pockets.  “You work for me.  Of course I care...”

“You’re just afraid to admit that you liked dancing with me last night!” She yells.  “You can’t...you can’t just play with people’s emotions like that, Justin!  You’re not that fucking privileged!”

“So what if I liked it!”  I holler back like a crazed maniac.  “I mean fuck, you certainly tried hard enough to make me didn’t you?  Got all...fucking...nice looking in the dress and everything! It’s not my fault!”

Oh, fuck.

She’s silent, smirking slightly as she taps her foot against the ground.  “See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

She’s walking away from me again.

“Wait...wait a fucking minute!”  I have to jog to catch up with her, and I can see various people staring at me now, probably wondering why I’m acting so foolish since we’re up on the VIP level.  The headlines will read “Timberlake, Guru of Wall Street, Chases Woman Across Yankee Stadium.’  “Abbey...”  My hand connects with her shoulder, but she whirls around quickly and shrugs it off.

“I have never, ever told anybody else about Braeden.  The only other people who know about him are my family and the people I grew up with,” she snaps at me.  “And I thought...I thought you’d changed.  I thought that we made a connection, that I could talk to you.  Why are you so damn scared of that? Of letting me in, Justin?  I may not have billions of dollars, but we’re the same kind of people, even if you don’t think so.”

I ball my fists at my sides.  Fuck, I can’t believe this.  I can’t believe she’s analyzing this right now.  It doesn’t make sense.  I haven’t known her all that long, and...she works for me.  Last night was sporadic.  I let my good mood take over, impair my judgement.  I didn’t know any better.  I focused on Abbey, for whatever reason.  I let the goodness I saw in her sink into me.  I let her in.  I’ve never let anybody that close to me, not even Trace, and I’m still so fucking confused as to why I allowed it to happen.  “I have too much going on.”

“That’s a shit excuse, and you know it.  You’re scared of letting somebody get close to you.  I would know, I’m the same way, but at least I can admit that, while you stand here and act like you’re so damn bulletproof.  We both know that isn’t true.”

“I’m not scared!” I yell.

She laughs at me.

“Fine,” I slap my hands down at my sides.  “Fine! I’ll take you to dinner tomorrow night.  Will that prove that I’m not fucking scared?”

“So what does that even mean?  Are you asking me out?”  

I hate her.  I hate that she can just...manipulate me.  Why? Why can she, when nobody else can?  Not even Danielle could do that, and she was a little bit more than just some bitch I was fucking.  “I dont know.  It’s dinner.  It’s whatever you want it to be.”

“Okay.”  She smirks and starts walking back to our VIP Box.

I turn, hold my hands out at my sides.  “What...what the hell?  That’s it?”

She’s laughing again.

This was her plan all along, I’m sure.

Now I’m going to be stuck on the “date” from hell.
***************
Justin has big, firm hands. Protective hands that can make a woman feel comforted.  He smells of aftershave and some kind of clean scented cologne that I was able to breath in when I rested my head against his chest.  When he smiles, the blue color of his eyes seems to grow brighter.  It was nice, him holding me, us dancing.  His body was warm, and I could feel his heart thudding heavily inside his chest.  It meant he was nervous, but I could tell...he didn’t want to let go of me.

I felt so comfortable in his arms, that I allowed myself to tell him something I never thought I would.

And I still don’t know why I did.

I never counted on that, telling him, breaking down, and when I ran out of the ball room, I never expected him to follow me.  I knew he wouldn’t have much to say when he caught up with me of course.  Justin isn’t an emotional person, and I’m sure that has something to do with how he was brought up.  I wouldn’t ask questions about that.  I think talking to him about his parents death was hard enough on him.  It was nice though, to see him smile at me as I cried...tell me that it was okay, that...that I didn’t have to stop loving Braeden even if the rest of the world thought that I should.

When we hugged, that was when I knew how strong our connection was too.

Then...Trace blew the whole thing.  Mr. Trump had decided to grace them with his presence, and even though Justin was going to stay with me at first, I knew how much the meeting meant to him, and I wasn’t about to hold him back.

Now, I wonder what would have happened if Justin blew it off to stay with me.  Would we have left the party? Talked? Connected even more?

I guess I’ll never know, because Trace made sure Justin didn’t make it that far.

I thought I liked Trace at first.  He seemed nice enough, starting from that day on the elevator on out.  Whenever he dropped by the house he always made it a point to say hello to me, like he was no better than I was.  I always thought he was even more down to earth than Justin too.  When he told me I looked amazing in my dress, I even started to hold him to a higher regard.  Then I overheard him after I walked away from Justin.  He called me ‘the help,’ like I was nothing but a piece of shit being paid to babysit his brothers.

I’ll never look at the guy the same way again.  I’ve come to realize just how important social status is to people like him, and it disgusts me.  I feel like...like Justin is trapped inside of some high class bubble, that’s been fogged over just enough where he can’t see the good in the rest of the world.  I know he’s not as stuck up as he tries to act.  The very basis of his benefit told me he’d grown up just like any other kid, that he knew people in the world had problems...

Because he’d lived through some of his own.

I doubt Trace has lived through many problems.  He strikes me as the type of person who went to a fancy college, graduated, and then got a really good job.  He never struggled, he’s always had it easy, and that’s probably why he acts so casual about everything.  Justin is running shit, controlling everything, and all he has to do is sit back and watch his money pour in.  It’s a hard subject to deal with.  I can’t talk to Justin about it, because Trace is his best friend in the world, and I know if I said anything negative, it would probably just blow up in my face.

While the guys went to have their Trump pow wow, I got stuck sitting at the table with Sydney.  It was quiet for awhile.  I stared down at my shoes, and started to think about how much my feet hurt, but how much it was worth it because Justin and I had connected.  Then she decided to speak.

“I’m sorry Justin brought you.  I know you don’t really know how to act.  It’s not your fault.”

I looked at her strangely.  She was twirling the end of her long brown hair around her finger, not bothering to meet my gaze.  “What?”

“Well I saw you.  You like...broke down.  Did Justin make you upset?”

My mouth hung open for a moment, before I could find my voice again.  “I was just...we were just talking.”

“You didn’t like...ask him out or anything right?” she giggled.  “I mean, he’s a little out of your league.”

She disgusted me then, and now...feeling the way I feel about Trace, I know that they’re perfect for each other.  They’re both stuck up idiots who look down on other people.

“Don’t worry.” I flashed her a sarcastic grin.  “I was talking about work with him.  That’s all.”

“Ah.”  She patted my shoulder.  “Good to know.”
 
She didn’t talk to me for the rest of the night.  I was fine with that.

When Justin ignored me though, something hit me hard, right in the chest.  Right where it hurt the most.  It was like nothing had happened between us.  He wasn’t paying attention to me anymore, he was avoiding me like the plague, and I knew it was partially because Trace had said something to him about me.  But the other part of him, that part that wasn’t influenced by his friend, I knew, was terrified that he’d actually started to crack.

That someone had finally begun to understand him, to get close to him.

I threw it all in his face at the Yankees game.  He hated it, but it got him to admit the fact that he actually liked dancing with me...being close to me.  He was so set on getting me to believe that he wasn’t scared of letting me in, that he asked me to dinner...well, sort of.

And so here we are.

“Did Austin get his uniform?” He asks me, as he studies the menu.

Everything is in French.  Everything.  Hell, the staff even speaks French.  I think he did this just to annoy the shit out of me. It’s fucking working.  

“Uh huh.”

He looks up at me, a playful twinkle in his steely blue eyes.  “What’s the matter Abbeee?”

He’s smirking.  He has his little plan.  The plan that reassures him he’s going to push me away by annoying the fuck out of me.  Well, I’m about to beat him at his own game.  “Nothing, I’m just trying to make up my mind.”

“I know you can’t read this shit.”

I roll my eyes.  “Right, and I’m sure you decided to take me here, just to prove some kind of point,” I scoff.

He shrugs, looks down at his menu, and tries to hold in his laughter.

“What is the point anyway?” I speak up.  “That I can’t speak French? That I’m not as good as you and your stupid ass friends?”

He scowls.  “It was a joke, coming here.  I was going to explain the menu to you anyway.  What crawled up your ass?”

“Nothing,” I huff.  “Just...never mind.”

“Bon soir.”

The waiter is here, smiling pleasantly down at us.  I look up at Justin and he’s looking at the waiter seriously.

“Quel est votre meilleur vin?”

I have no idea what he just said, but fuck...fuck I hate that he’s all intellectual.  The fact that his french dialect is mixed with a slight southern accent also makes him even more adorable and I don’t want to think that way about him.

“Ah, Monsieur,” the waiter smiles. “Je recommande la Romanée-Conti . C'est une Bourgogne du sud de la France. Très exquis.”

I stare at the waiter like he has three heads.  Justin is chuckling under his breath.  I hate him...

But I like him even more.

“Excellent,” Justin smirks at the waiter. “Nous allons prendre une bouteille, avec votre meilleur plateau de fromages de commencer.”

“Droit de suite, monsieur.”  The waiter does a little bow, and leaves us.

I stare at Justin, who is smiling at me like he’s accomplished a great task.

“What the hell did you tell him?” I ask, slightly flabbergasted.

“I ordered some wine and cheese,” he says, nonchalantly.

“How many languages do you speak?”  I shake my head a little as I gaze down at the menu again, determined to figure out my selection on my own.

“Six...well seven if you count Latin.  But nobody counts Latin anymore.”

“Jesus,” I sigh.  “I can barely figure out what Lucinda is saying half the time.”

“I have Rosetta Stone at the house.  You can start using it,” he tells me.  “It’s really easy.”

“No I think I’ll stick to English.” I roll my eyes.  “We do live in America, in case you’ve forgotten, oh wise one.”

He chuckles and rolls his eyes.  “I have to know the basic five languages.  Half of our clients are in Europe and Asia.  I’d be lost if I didn’t know what they were saying.  That’s how they get you...you know? Screw you over when you can’t fully understand what they’re saying.”

“Does Trace speak them?” I ask.

“No,” he laughs.  “He’s still trying to get past Spanish.”

“No surprise there.”

“Hey, he’s all right,” Justin nods.  “I can speak enough for the both of us.”

“Yeah.  Lucky for him.”  I roll my eyes.

He cocks his head to the side.  “What’s your issue with Trace?”

“Oh...he just thinks he’s above it all, that’s all.  It’s kind of like how you try to act, but deep down, you’re not really as stuck up as you try to make people think you are.”

He stares at me for a moment.  “Where’s this coming from?”

“I’m not deaf.  I heard what he said at the gala.”

He sighs and rubs his face with his hands.  “So that’s what this is all about?”

I shrug.  “It’s about a lot of things.”

“Look, Trace was in the moment,” he defends.  “It was a big night.”

“It doesn’t give him the right to talk me down like a piece of trash.”

He won’t meet my gaze.  “I didn’t agree with him, okay? You’re more than...just the help.”

“Did you tell him that?”

He’s quiet.  “Does it matter?” He whispers.

I let out a disgusted laugh.  “Typical.”

“Hey, I’m fuckin’ sorry all right?” He says, in a harsh whisper so other people won’t overhear.  “I’m here aren’t I?  With you?  I don’t care what he thinks.”

I just shrug.  “You’re only here to prove some kind of point to me.  Hell, maybe I was wrong for pushing you into this.”

“I wouldn’t be here unless I wanted to be,” he confesses.  “I guess...okay so I was scared.  I might have been scared, I mean.  Now I just...I’m glad you pushed me.  I want to be here, with you.”

I look up at him, shocked.  I don’t get it.  He went from ignoring me, to fighting with me, to..smiling, speaking French, and being completely content in my presence.  “What?”

“That...that night, when we danced, it just...it did something to me,” he says gently.  “I don’t know.  I just...I never really felt that way about anybody before.”

“What way?” I rasp.  Fuck, this is sudden.  Really sudden.  Why is he saying this stuff? I pushed him into this, sure, but only because I knew he was afraid.  Now he’s just talking..so weird.  Like, he has feelings for me.  Real ones.  I’m not ready.

I’m not ready at all.

“I dont know.”  His cheeks turn red and he returns his gaze to the menu.  “I’m terrible at this shit.  I just want to enjoy dinner with you, okay?”

“I..um...” I suck in a breath.  “Yeah.”

The waiter brings us the wine and cheese, Justin rambles something off to him in French, and then he points to me.  “I’ll tell him what you want.”

“I’ll tell him,” I grunt.

Justin holds his hands up, defensively.  “Okay,” he chuckles.  “Be my guest.”

I study the menu hard for a few moments.  Eeny, meenie, miny, mo...  “Um, cervelle de veau,” I pronounce slowly to the waiter.

“No, no,” Justin laughs and waves his hands.  “No, don’t get that.”

“Why not,” I sneer.

“Believe me,” he laughs again, before looking back at the waiter.  “Elle aura le chateaubriand. J'aurai le ragoût de lapin,” he says with a nod.

“Magnifique,” the waiter smiles, collects our menus and goes on his way again.

“Thank you,” I say to him sarcastically.  “It’s nice to have somebody around to make my decisions for me.”

“Hey, I was trying to help you,” he says, still laughing.  “You were about to order calf’s brains.”

“What?” I cough a little and have to take a long sip of wine, the very thought of that sort of food making me feel queasy automatically.  

“I told you,” he smiles.  “You better get on that Rosetta Stone.”

I glare at him as I put my glass down.  “Screw you.”

We pick at at cheese plate, and Justin tells me a little bit about each piece, and what region of France they are from.  He knows a lot about France, but I’m sure he’s been there many times.  It’s actually interesting though, to learn about the different types of food I’m putting into my mouth.  I wish I could be as cultured as he is.  I think it would actually be kind of fun...traveling places, learning about everything.

But I’m not a billionaire.

Our dinners arrive, and our wine glasses are refilled.  Justin smiles at me slightly as he digs into what he tells me is some kind of rabbit stew.  My dish is some kind of beef tenderloin mixed with a white wine sauce.  It’s fucking delicious.  I hate that he got this exactly right.

He always gets everything right...

Well, except when it comes to his family.

A pastry cart comes around for dessert.  We both have cream puffs, laughing when we both go for the exact same one.  He lets me have my pick first, and then he gets his.  We eat the remainder of our dinner in peaceful silence, and when the check comes, Justin puts his credit card in and hands it back to the waiter before leaning forward and smiling at me.  “What next?”

I chuckle.  “I thought we were just having dinner.”

He shrugs.  “Thought it was a date.”

I look down at my lap.  This is...getting to be too much.  Oh god.  I can’t.  “I um...”

“Hang on,” he holds up his finger.  “I think it’s this week...”  He pulls his Blackberry out of his pocket and quickly types something into it.  “Yeah...I thought so.”  He smirks as he puts it back in his pocket.  “There’s a cool street festival going on in Little Italy.  You wanna check it out? I’ve missed it the last two times around.  They usually have some cool art.”

It’s just a street festival.  I mean, we can go there as friends.  I shouldn’t turn him down.  He’s trying.  He’s making an effort and that’s really heathy for him, the boys, and me.  “Yeah, okay,” I say weakly.

He smiles.  “Great.”

We leave the restaurant and Justin hails a taxi.  Within twenty minutes we are down in the heart of Little Italy.  It’s been a while since I’ve been here.  Charlene likes it.  We’ve been down here for brunch a few times, when she could get me out of the apartment anyway.  It’s a much different atmosphere down here tonight though.  The streets are crowded, bands, vendors and street performers are scattered everywhere.  Shop doors are propped open, their interiors welcoming.  

“Cool huh?”r32;

He smiles at me, like he’s having the best time, and I can’t help but return the same type of smile.

I guess...I mean I guess I’m starting to have a lot of fun too.

I don’t even notice that he’s taken my hand until we’re deep into the heart of the festival.  By then, it’s too late for me to pull away, and...and I’m not sure if it’s the best thing, but...I don’t want to pull away from him.  We stand and watch some Italian clowns put on a show in the middle of the street.  At one point, one of them pulls a quarter out of Justin’s ear.  He’s completely unprepared and it gets me to laugh so hard that tears start to pour out of my eyes.

“Yeah, yeah,” he blushes.

“You should have seen the look on your face.  It was cute,” I nudge him, as the little performance ends.

“I was going to be a clown,” he chuckles.  “Just didn’t work out so well for me.  The stock market got to me first.”

“You’d make a good clown,” I say with a silly smirk.  “You already have the curly hair..you’re tall, you have big feet, you know...if you worked on your sense of humor a little more, you’d be set.”

“Nice.  You know, I think I happen to be a very funny guy.”

“Hmph.”  I roll my eyes.  “I think Austin’s jokes are probably funnier than you, and they’re pretty bad.”

“That hurts.”  He holds his chest with his free hand.  “Really, Abbey.”

“Shut up,” I chuckle.

He smiles at me, squeezes my hand tighter as we start to wander through the street vendors.  Justin is really into art, I already knew that.  He points out the different things on display to me, telling me where they come from and what type of significance they hold in Italian culture.  Again, it’s interesting to learn about it all.  It’s like he’s teaching me something.  It’s a side of Justin that is never revealed to anybody else, and he’s sharing it with me.

I feel myself slipping.  Melting away into him.  I find myself hoping that the night will slow down, because I don’t want it to end.  I don’t want tomorrow to come, to face the prospect that Justin probably won’t be like this with me after tonight.

Justin buys a couple of small things for himself, and a few little Italian toys for the boys.  One in particular is especially for Austin, and I’m glad that Justin thought of him tonight.  

“He’s always asking me for skeletons,” he smirks as he holds the little figure in his hands.  “Hopefully he’ll like it.”

“I think he will,”  I say gently.

We’ve reached the end of the marketplace.  It comes out onto a pier.  The moon is shining down on the water, making it glisten magically.  “It’s nice tonight,” I whisper.

“Yeah, it did turn out nice,” he agrees.  

We take a seat on a bench overlooking the water.  He doesn’t say anything for awhile as we gaze out, and neither do it.  It’s peaceful, doing this, just like it was peaceful being with him that morning in the park.  I realize...it’s the two of us that makes our moments peaceful.  We don’t need to say much sometimes.  We can just...be, and have a nice time.

It was the same way with Braeden.

But...Justin isn’t Braeden.  Justin is...Justin and for the first time I can look at him and say that...that I might just like him a whole hell of a lot.  The guilt isn’t with me so much now.  It’s like something is telling me it’s okay, that I can let go, that I’ll be fine and Braeden will be at peace no matter what I do.

“Did you have fun?” He asks me after a while.

“Yeah,” I nod with a small smile.  “You know a lot of useless shit, but it was interesting.  I’d never bother to look into France or Italian art on my own.”

He shrugs and laughs.  “Yeah I just...before the boys came I was on my own mostly when I wasn’t at work.  Sometimes my friends would come to the house, but on the weekend I would go to museums and art festivals.  It took my mind off of things that I couldn’t talk to anybody else about.”

I know he means his parents, not talking to them, leaving them behind to come out here. I can’t imagine that pain he deals with...not having been able to say goodbye to them before they passed away. “Do you miss them?” I whisper.

He sucks in his bottom lip and continues to stare out at the ocean.  “You have no idea how much.”

I feel my eyes fill with tears, and I quickly sniff them back.  “I think I might have an idea.”

He looks at me finally.  I see the tears on his face.  It’s a first, but I won’t point it out to him.  “Justin...”

He reaches out and touches my face.  “S-sorry,” he says, sniffling.  “I’m...I shouldn’t be doing this.”

I just shake my head.  “You can.  You should.”

Then he’s leaning in, and I’m closing my eyes.  I feel his lips crash into mine seconds later.  It’s a kiss that’s so deep, so strong, like he’s doing it with every emotion in his whole body.  I don’t stop him.  I let him break the kiss, and then I open my eyes, covering my mouth with my hand.

“Abbey I...I’m sorry.”

His eyes are wide now, like he doesn’t know what the hell just happened.  Fuck I don’t know either.  “Why’d you do that?” I whisper.

He licks his lips.  “Because I...because I care about you,” he confesses.

I can’t say anything.  If I do, I’ll probably break down.  I feel the tears on my face, and don’t bother wiping them away, before I pull him close to me, and kiss him back, slowly, gently.

We don’t stop.