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CHAPTER ELEVEN



It was beautiful, tender, soft... just as Buffy imagined it would be. She fell asleep while Parker spooned her, kissing her neck.

Then the alarm rang.

"Stupid-- ugh--" She batted a hand at the bedside table and shut it off, then backed into his embrace.

His non-embrace. His not-there-anymore embrace.

She shot up.

He's gonna sweet-talk you 'til you give it up, then move onto the next.

No. That wasn't Parker. He wasn't like that. He was probably downstairs, fixing her breakfast with the morning paper and a long red rose.

Buffy quickly wriggled into silk pajama bottoms, slipped on a tank top and crept down the staircase, calling out, "Parker?"

No answer.

He's gonna break your heart.

In a daze, she walked to the kitchen phone.

* * *

"Ow." Spike rubbed his head. "The hell?"

"Muffin."

"What?" He reached out and plucked the object from the pillow above him.

"Muffin. You want it or not?"

"Ow."

"C'mon, I didn't hit you that hard."

"Hangover." In one swift motion, he spun to look at her, then around the crisp, white, sun-drenched room, and back at Buffy. "All coming back to me." Sitting with one pale-pink pajama-covered knee up on the bed, hair in a loose bun, she was cheerfully popping muffin bits into her mouth. A raised tray adorned with fruits, coffee, juice, a bottle of Advil and a folded copy of the Los Angeles Times separated them. "More or less..."

"Hmm, let's see." She looked up at the ceiling. "You got plastered, informed me that my boyfriend was a player, then you proposed marriage and sang me a song. Milk and sugar or black?"

"Black," he said, eying her skeptically as he took the mug. "You're kidding about the... proposal thing, right?"

"Don't worry. I'm not holding you to it."

His expression didn't change. "Why you being so nice to me? And why're you so chipper?"

"I don't drink," she said pointedly. "And you were right."

"About?"

"Parker."

"Oh..." His face fell. "I'm sorry, love."

"It's okay," she breezed, shoulder meeting her ear. "I have a terrible history with men. They never choose me."

"Maybe you choose them for just that reason."

"Eat your muffin," she said with a scowl.

He looked at it, sniffed it. Smelled like bananas and cardboard. "So you and he... last night?"

"Mmhm." She tried not to dwell on what he'd said on the phone: Sure, I had a good time, well didn't you? It was fun... Nah, I got a lot to do this week. Yeah, we'll see each other around! "I'm an idiot."

"No, you're not," he said in all seriousness. "You're human."

"A human idiot."

"Don't beat yourself up, Buffy." He sat up gingerly. "You can't live your life without taking chances."

"Like letting you drive me to Palos Verdes?" She smiled, licking the crumbs out of her muffin wrapper.

"Or making terrible mistakes like that, yeah."

"I don't think it was a mistake," she said, throwing the muffin wrapper in the trash can and getting up to leave. "My dad's coming back in two weeks. You can stay 'til then if you have nowhere to go."

He watched her, dumbfounded, as she slid the doors shut.

* * *

"What am I, your fucking pet charity of the month?"

Salsa bowl and scrub brush in hand, Buffy regarded the rumpled Spike in her kitchen with astonishment. "Excuse me?"

"I don't need your pity, alright?"

She turned back to the sink, kept scrubbing. *Now* he has pride? "Who said anything about pity?"

"You did, with your pity-eyes."

"Oh for Christ's sake." She put the bowl down, cast off her rubber gloves. "Take it or leave it, okay? I really don't care either way."

He caught a glimpse of her reddened cheeks and lost his train of thought. "Have you been crying?"

"Oh good!" A bitter grin. "I get your pity-eyes now?"

"You have," he determined, and stepped forward with his hands in his pockets. "I'm sorry--"

"Don't be. Please." She walked past him. "And this isn't part of the deal."

"What isn't?" He followed her into the dining room.

"You coming and going in my house. You're a guest. There's a house for you, and this isn't it."

"Buffy--"

"Please stop following me."

"No."

"No?" She spun around. "No? Is this the start of a fun stalker/stalkee relationship? Because if there's anything I really need right now, it's a stalker."

"No, I--"

"What? What is it you want from me? I can't figure you out!"

"I can't figure you out!" he shouted. "You run hot and cold and -- And I don't bloody know!"

"You don't know what?"

"What I want from you..." He shut his eyes, looked up at her, poised at the staircase. "I don't know."

"Well, I don't have time to play guessing games." She jogged up the stairs. "Either stay or go, it's your decision."



CHAPTER TWELVE



"It's the weirdest thing," Cordelia said with a plastered-on smile as she brushed past Buffy. "I could swear loser-guy's car is still out there."

Buffy sighed. Not expecting the tornado that was Cordelia today, she hadn't had a chance to hide his car in the garage after she'd seen his note made of refrigerator magnet letters: STAYING OK. "He's in the guest house."

"Uh-huh," her smile stayed on, "And why are we sheltering the needy?"

"He was drunk, he had to crash. It's no big, Cordelia. Really."

She gasped, hand flying to her mouth. "You didn't--"

Buffy gawked at her, appalled. "No, I didn't!"

"Then you're absolved. For now." She charged through the house, Buffy at her side. "What happened with Parker? When I left you seemed pretty smoochy-smoochy."

"Nothing." She averted her eyes. "We talked some more and, he went home."

"Play-it-cool Buffy. Good for you. Now--" Cordelia hit the back room with its huge picture windows, and forgot what she was going to say.

Because suddenly, both girls were immobilized by the image of Spike in a towel, sitting down at a patio table to read the paper and munch on an apple, oblivious to their presence.

"It's... got a body," Cordelia said, shocked.

Buffy nodded slowly, transfixed. "It really does..."

"A really good body..."

"Uh-huh..."

Their heads tilted in unison.

"Everything looks so much better naked," Cordelia sighed.

"It really does..." Buffy agreed.

"All it needs is a tan," Cordelia assessed helpfully, "and an appointment with Fedeleo."

"Who?"

"My colorist."

"Yeah."

Mutual deep sighs.

He scratched his chest. "Oh, I love it when guys do that."

Buffy snorted, "'Cause itchiness is such a turn-on."

"It's not the itch, it's the 'here's my ripped pecs, and I get to touch this salty goodness whenever I want. Don't you want that privilege?'"

Buffy took a breath. "Yeah-huh..."

"Whoa, whoa," Cordy started, peeling her eyes away from the spectacle. "Reign it in, Little Miss Carried-Away."

"No," Buffy backpedaled, snapped out of her hot-bod spell. "No, I meant, just in general, not him -- he's, annoying and a jerk. And -- psychotic! Plus, creepily obsessed with someone else."

"And lest we forget, a loser." Cordelia pointed at him lighting a cigarette.

Buffy scoffed, "You were just ogling his pecs!"

"I ogle at Chico the Pool Boy's pecs too -- that doesn't mean I'm gonna elope to Tijuana or wherever and have a million babies with him! God. You know what, honey?" She touched Buffy's forehead.

"What?" she sank back suspiciously.

"I think you're having PTSD."

"A what kind of STD?"

"PTSD. Post-traumatic stress disease. My mom got it after she had me."

"Isn't that post-partum--"

"You've got all the signs. Getting in cars with punk-rock freaks, chatting up granola nerds, helping the pointless... plus your hair is really flat."

Buffy touched her hair.

"I mean, you lost the uppermost prized possession in your life. That's bound to have an effect on your mental state."

Astonished, Buffy looked at her friend as if for the first time. "You know what, Cordy?"

"What?"

"I just realized I don't want to be like you anymore."

Cordelia patronizingly patted her shoulder. "It'll pass."





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