“And then he just asked you to go with him as his girlfriend to London? For his cousin’s wedding?! Wow, this is so worth not having our girls night,” Willow giggled.
Buffy smiled, she had the phone pressed up to her ear with one shoulder and was talking to Willow while she folded and packed her things in a suitcase. “Yup, and I said yes.”
Willow gasped, “You didn’t!”
“I did. But it’s not like it’s going to be so incredibly horrible. I mean I can really use the money, and my mom is going to need help with the hospital bills and all of it, so it’s actually pretty good timing. But seriously I would have never expected something like this to happen to me.”
“How is your mom doing by the way?” Buffy heard the concerned tone in her friends voice and sighed heavily.
“I don’t know, Wills, I don’t know. I’ve only seen her once in the hospital and after that I just talked to her on the phone and she said everything was fine but I just can’t help but think that she’s keeping something from me. Something’s wrong and I know it, Wills.”
“If you’d like I’ll visit her when you’re in London. Besides, Joyce was always like a second mother to me.”
“Thanks Wills, you’re a great friend and I hate leaving her in a hospital. You know I hate hospitals with a passion. I was kind of even considering on not going so I could stay with mom.”
“It’s fine, Buffy. I’ll be with her, and what’s more, after what Angel did I think you should take a little time off. Besides, Spike doesn’t sound so bad either.”
“Willow no, I know exactly what you’re thinking and it’s not going to happen. I told you that I’m not ready to date yet. And I sure as heck don’t believe in love or romance. At least not like you and Oz have it.” She closed the suitcase and laid down on her bed, sighing contentedly.
“I know, sweetie. But this could be good for you. Even if it’s just pretend. At least he won’t treat you like dirt and there’s no attachment afterwards because you weren’t actually a couple.”
“Well, I guess. But I’m not going to get involved with him, Wills. First of all, I don’t have a very high opinion of him. I’ve never even met him before today and let me tell you getting coffee spilled all over yourself because of the guy doesn’t leave you with a very good first impression of him, and lest we forget he is my boss. Which is reason enough not to do this in the first place.”
“Oh pfft, you’re only seeing the cons here. What about pros? You get to fly in a plane, probably a private one at that if this guy is as rich as you say he is, all the way to England. You get to go to a wedding, and let’s face it, us girls love weddings, and you get to be the pretend girlfriend of a hot guy for around a week and come back with no strings attached and move on and get paid for all of it! Buffy, as much as I love Oz, even I wouldn’t give up a chance to do that.”
“I guess you’re right. Well, I better get going, I need to get some sleep if I’m leaving at 1:00 am to get on that plane. Bye.”
“Bye Buff. Don’t worry, everything is going to be great.”
With that she clicked off the phone and went straight to sleep, forgetting to set her alarm clock in the process…
***
Buffy groaned, hearing someone knocking on her apartment door loudly. Who could it possibly be that didn’t know a woken up Buffy was a grouchy Buffy? Pulling the covers off her bed, she looked at the clock flashing 1:05 at her angrily in bright red letters. Now she was really mad. Who would wake her up at this ungodly hour and for what reason in hell?
They knocked again. She growled and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. “I’m coming!” She pulled off her warm bed covers and trudged to the door in her bare feet and her tank top with matching pajama shorts. She pulled open the door, ready to give the person, or people on the other side hell for disturbing her at this time of the night, or day? Didn’t matter.
“ ‘Ello pet.” She froze while Spike raised his eyebrows and looked her up and down, smirking. “Nice outfit, although I’m not sure the security people at the airport will appreciate you walking around like that.”
Buffy just stood there. ‘ Oh god, oh god.’ She glanced at the clock again and her eyes went wide. It was 1:10 and she had forgotten to set her alarm clock to wake her up. “Oh god.” Her eyes went wide as she stared from him to the alarm clock. She was standing in front of her boss with nothing on but her pajamas that didn’t really look so much like pajamas but something you would only walk around in while your closest friends were there, but not complete strangers or your boss! “I have to change. I forgot to set my alarm clock! Wait here.” She started running away then turned around and slid back across to floor. “Or come in.” She started to run away again, then turned around running backwards. “Do whichever, just wait for a few minutes!”
Spike looked at her amusedly and walked in after she disappeared into her bathroom and sat on the couch, surveying his surroundings. He decided to walk around and look at some things, besides, girls always took a long time anyway so it wouldn’t really matter.
The apartment was actually quite cozy, it wasn’t as big as his but then again he never really liked his apartment that much because of the size. Who needed a huge apartment when you were the only person living in it? She had a nice sized telly and a large couch close to the door in front of the television. You could see into the kitchen that was nearby and there was a big window to the left of it. He looked at the pictures standing on a shelf that was lined from top to bottom with books and some movies. It showed a younger looking Buffy along with a redhead and a brunette boy with a goofy grin. Actually he’d seen a picture of that guy somewhere before. Oh, now he remembered, Anya had a picture of him on her desk too. ‘ Must be Xander,’ he thought. There was another picture, this time showing her and someone he assumed was her mother smiling brightly at the camera.
“I’m ready to go.”
Spike turned around to see Buffy wearing a knee length skirt that flowed freely around her legs and a tank top with a jean jacket over it. “You look good, luv.”
“Thanks,” Buffy said awkwardly. Did he just do what she thought he did? Yeah, he complimented her.
She grabbed her suitcase and locked her apartment before starting to walk to the elevator. Spike tried to take the suitcase from her but she just looked at him, frowning. “I can carry my own suitcase, thanks.”
He just held up his hands in surrender. “You know, I would have expected you to bring more luggage.”
“Well, I’m not like every other girl. Sorry to disappoint,” she said in a huff, blowing a strand of loose hair off her face. Spike just stared at her. She was most definitely not like other girls.
Fifteen minutes later they were at the airport and Buffy had found out that Willow had guessed right. He did have his own private plane. She started to look around in awe once she got on. It was of course, white with leather seats and a large flat screen television that was pulled down close to the front of the plane, there were also little cabinets with champagne and some other ridiculously expensive things.
“Take any seat you want, pet.” He tilted his head to the side to get a better look at her reaction, he rarely used the plane and he had never brought anyone else onto it, not even family since he hadn’t used it to go to England before.
To his surprise she turned around with her hands defiantly on her hips. “You know I have a name. It’s Buffy, or Elizabeth. Whichever, but it’s not pet, luv, or any other pet name you have.” She turned around and walked to a seat in the middle, on the right side.
With a sigh he sat down across from her. “You really don’t like me, do you?”
“So far you haven’t exactly given me a reason to,” she replied with her nose defiantly raised.
“And I haven’t given you one to hate me either.” He leaned back in his seat and kept staring at her with a serious expression.
“I’d say getting coffee spilled all over me because of you is reason enough. Besides, don’t take it personally; I don’t like most guys in general.” Now she had her arms crossed and was looking out the window at the starry night sky, the plane already having taken off.
“I’m guessing you haven’t had the best experiences with men?”
Buffy let out an unladylike snort before replying, “You guessed right.”
“Well, we’ll have to change that.” He gave her a genuine smile before doing what she had previously been doing and looked out the window.
Buffy rolled her eyes and looked at him skeptically. “You can try.”