However, such a scenario had never shown to be very plausible for them. When Spike was near, her hormones went into overdrive and she couldn't seem to control herself anymore. She was grateful they'd at least gotten a few meaningful conversations in over the phone, where the distance had allowed for them to use their tongues for actual speaking instead of other things.
Even after two days of more sex than probably should've been humanly possible—and the sore muscles to show for it—Buffy still wanted him. As she sat in the passenger's seat of his car on the drive back to her own apartment, it took every bit of her willpower not to ask him to turn right back around.
When they finally stopped in her parking lot, Buffy felt her heart drop in her chest. Never before had she been less happy to be home. She wished she was back in Spike's bed, snuggled against him, safe beneath silk sheets.
Instead, she had to go back to her life.
"So how exactly are we going to work this?" she asked, her eyes forward, gazing through the windshield of the old DeSoto instead of at him.
"What do you mean?" Spike asked.
Buffy sighed, then turned. "I mean, are we going to date now? I see you on weekends? Where do we stand now?"
"I don't know," Spike replied honestly, his hand running through his hair. He paused for a moment, then grinned. "I'd be perfectly fine with whisking you away to some island somewhere where no one could bother us, but I suppose that would be a bit irresponsible seeing as how we both have obligations and all."
"Yeah…" Buffy kicked at the floor in front of her. "Stupid obligations."
With a soft chuckle, Spike reached out and took her hand. "How about we just take this one day at a time then, yeah? The album's being released on Thursday, and the label's throwing a release party tomorrow night. Come with me? I promise I won't keep you out so late you won't be able to go to work in the morning."
Buffy worried her bottom lip between her teeth. She really shouldn't—not in the middle of the week. She'd already missed one day of work already, and her students didn't deserve her being a slacker just because she had a man in her life.
But she wanted to go with him. If they were going to be together and deal with any sort of challenges that could come with being in a relationship with potential for media scrutiny, then they needed to put up a united front from the very beginning.
Besides, Spike had told her that in the past, she hadn't been there enough for him when it came to things like this. She needed to show him she was willing to make a change there.
"I'll have to go to work Thursday," she stressed.
"I know. That's why I said I wouldn't keep you out too late." Spike took hold of her other hand so he was holding both of them. "We'll work it all out this time, Buffy. We want to be together, so we can make it work."
"I'm not losing you again, Spike."
"I know." He lifted one of her hands to his lips and gently kissed her knuckles. "It's getting late, luv. You should get on inside. And I'm not going in with you, because if I do, I won't go home, and I have a full day tomorrow. Tuesday and Wednesday both are pretty much nothing but back to back interviews and appearances."
"They're probably going to ask you how things are going with Eve. It seems interviewers really like that topic." Buffy frowned for a moment, having a twinge of bitterness with the memories of how many times she'd had to hear something about him and his movie star ex-girlfriend.
"Yeah, they probably are. I'm not planning to overshare with a million details, but I'm not going to lie about it either. Eve and I are over, and that's that." He dropped her hands and ran one of his through his hair again. "I guess I should probably call my publicist. He's going to have kittens."
"Because of me?" Buffy asked, her voice timid.
"No, because I dumped Eve this close to the album release and didn't give him a lot of time to come up with the best possible spin. It could be good press, it could be bad, I don't know right now." Spike reached out to her again, this time cupping her face in his hands and forcing her to look at him. "I don't regret any of this, Buffy. Don't even begin to worry about what it's going to do to my career. I don't bloody care, and neither should you. Yeah, it's something I have to think about these days, but it doesn't mean I give a rat's arse about what the media says about me. If people like the album, they'll buy it. If they don't, they won't."
"I'm not going to worry about it, Spike," Buffy assured him, placing one of her hands over his. "I'll just let you handle everything."
Spike grinned. "Good girl." He leaned in and kissed her, allowing himself a moment just to revel in the taste of the woman he loved. "We're going to be okay, Buffy," he said as he broke away. "It might be a little bumpy the first couple of days, and the tabloid stories could get pretty crazy, but they don't mean a thing. Eventually, someone's going to get knocked up by a back-up dancer or molest some set furniture, and they'll forget all about us, yeah?"
Buffy giggled. "Okay. I trust you, Spike."
"Glad to hear it. Now get in the bloody apartment before I can't control myself any longer and I have to kidnap you, take you to that island."
"You know, that's really not giving me the motivation to go anywhere."
"Yeah, that didn't really work for me either." Spike tugged her forward to kiss her again.
"I feel like I'm back in high school and my mom's going to come out and yell at me to get in the house at any moment," Buffy said before stealing another kiss.
"Better get you in before you're grounded then," Spike teased, only to capture her lips again.
Finally, they managed to break away, both panting for air. "Okay, apartment. Gotta go in."
Spike cleared his throat. "Right. I'll call you tomorrow so we can talk about the party."
"Okay. Good night, Spike."
"Good night, kitten. Love you."
Buffy smiled. "Love you, too."
She got out of the car and made it a few feet past the curb before she turned around and ran back to the drivers' side of the car. Spike rolled down the window and Buffy leaned in, her foot coming off the ground as she leaned into the car to kiss him one more time. Then, with a smile, she left, disappearing into the building.
Spike couldn't do anything but grin.
Dawn was watching television when Buffy came into the apartment, and she turned to look over the back of the couch at her sister. "Well, don't you look happy." Then, with a teasing look, she added, "And limpy."
Buffy stuck out her tongue. "Shut up, you."
Dawn turned around fully, sitting up with her knees on the couch. "So…things are still good, right? You guys are all with the warm fuzzy loveness?"
"Yup, warm fuzzies galore," Buffy replied.
"I'm a little surprised you came home at all. I half expected you to just say to hell with everything and spend at least the next week shagging like bunnies."
"Dawnie!" Buffy exclaimed, blushing at her sister's words.
"What? I'm nineteen years old, Buffy. I can say shagging. As a matter of fact, I've…"
Buffy held up her hand. "Don't finish that sentence. I don't want to go there."
Dawn rolled her eyes. "Whatever."
"But I couldn't have spent the next week with him anyway," Buffy said, choosing to selectively forget portions of the conversation. "I need to get back to work."
"So you're not going to quit your job and start living the fabulous life of a rock star's girlfriend?" Dawn asked with a smirk.
"No. Tempting as it may be, my job is important to me—those kids are important to me. I can't just turn my back on them."
"I know. And it's all inspiring to have a sister who's such a good role model, or something like that."
"Oh shut up, you," Buffy said. "I'm going to take a long, hot bath."
"Gotta soak all those achy, overused muscles?" Dawn called out as Buffy started down the hall.
"Bite me!" Buffy called back.
"I bet Spike already did!" Dawn retorted.
Buffy turned around and peeked over the edge of the wall in front of the hallway. "You're twisted. Anyone ever tell you that?"
"Only everyone who's ever known me," Dawn replied proudly.
With a shake of her head and a soft laugh, Buffy turned around and went into the bathroom.
The first thing Buffy noticed when she got to work the next morning was a few more police cars than usual. She pulled into her parking space slowly, hoping it wasn't another drug bust. Those always resulted in so much paperwork for her…
What she didn't expect was the rush of people who came at her almost as soon as she got out of her car, all of them yelling at her as flash bulbs went off in her face. She recognized her name in the din or intelligible questions, and suddenly a police officer was at her side, escorting her into the building as his colleagues tried to deal with the mob.
"Are you all right, miss?" the officer asked as he lead Buffy into the front office.
"Yeah, I…what's going on out there?"
"They've been camped outside for the last hour or so, and we were called in to get them off of school property. They said they were here to interview a Miss Buffy Summers. Is that you?"
Buffy nodded, her hands trembling. "Yes, but I…I wasn't expecting this."
"It's all right, Miss Summers. We'll keep them away from the building."
"Thank you," Buffy replied, not knowing what else to say in the situation. She thought maybe she should have expected something like this, but not so soon—or to this magnitude.
The police officer bid her good-bye, and Buffy walked on shaky legs back towards her office.
"What on earth did you do this weekend?" Kathy, the receptionist, asked, making Buffy stop short.
"I, um…" What could she say? It wasn't like it was really Kathy's business anyway.
"Well, you don't really have to answer, because I saw this on my way in this morning." Kathy set a magazine up on her desk.
Buffy's hands started trembling more as she looked down at the front page. There was a picture of her with Spike from the club Saturday. "Wow. They work fast."
"It hit the newsstands today," Kathy informed her, as if she were in someway being helpful.
Buffy stared at the headline, bile rising in her throat as all of her worst fears seemed to be realized.
Rock star leaves actress, caught in tryst with step-sister.
"Hey, is he really you're step-brother, Buffy? You never told me that before."
In a daze, Buffy ignored Kathy as she took the magazine and walked into her office, shutting the door behind her.
Spike sat in his living room, his head buried in his hands as he waited for his police escort to arrive so he could get out of his house and to a press conference he knew was going to be a complete media circus. He'd expected to have to figure out a way to tactfully answer questions about Eve, but if the five a.m. phone call from his publicist and the photographers camped outside of his home were any indication, he was going to have to be putting up with a hell of a lot more than that.
He'd tried several times to call Buffy, but no one was at the house, and he kept getting a busy signal from the school. Somehow, he didn't think that was a good sign.
At first, it had amazed him how quickly the tabloids had gotten a hold of this story. His publicist had told him there were photos from the club, and while that didn't surprise him, the fact that Buffy had already been identified—both with a name and as his step-sister—did.
Until it dawned on him exactly how they would've gotten that information so soon. Someone had tipped them off.
And it didn't take a rocket scientist to guess who.
He wanted to throttle her. Wring her skinny little neck… Their whole relationship had been about PR to her in the first place, and now Eve was trying to see to it she was the one who came out looking better in all of this. Spike had decided in an instant he wasn't going to let that happen. If Eve wanted to play dirty, then he would, too. Anyone who asked about the break-up would get nothing but the truth.
However, in the meantime, he had been dropped right into the middle of chaos. All he could think about now was Buffy and what might be happening to her. Were the paparazzi harassing her, too? Had she seen the tabloids?
And his biggest worry of all—was this going to change her decision to get back together with him?
They were still in the early stages of rebuilding their relationship, and something like this could be detrimental to that, Spike knew. Buffy had balked and ended things at the prospect of this. How would she handle the reality?
Spike wanted to be able to convince himself everything would be fine and Buffy would stay with him this time, but he couldn't. Instead, he knew he was going to have to face what was most likely inevitable.
He was going to lose Buffy again…
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