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~*~

“So…when’s the wedding, again?”

Fred smiled at her cousin. “We’re thinking we’d maybe have it in either November or April.”

“November, huh? Planning on serving turkey at the wedding?” Buffy joked.

Fred laughed. “Only if you guys want it. Spike’s invited too, by the way.”

Buffy froze, one arm inside her coat and one out, and stared at Fred. The brunette smiled understandingly. “It’s not rocket science, Buffy—if it was, I probably would’ve figured it out sooner,” she added with a laugh. “But I can tell how you two feel about each other.”

“Does anyone else know?” she forced herself to say, even though her tongue felt like it was made of wood.

“Not that I know of,” Fred said soothingly. “But, Buffy—“ She paused. “Are you ever planning on telling them?”

“I have a year and a few days before I’m eighteen and the law can’t condemn Spike,” Buffy said, quiet resolution in her voice. “After that, we’ll let it be known that we—that we’re together.”

“And until then, you’re going to try and stay chaste so that neither of you gets in trouble?” At Buffy’s nod, Fred hugged her tightly. “Good luck,” she whispered, before releasing her and leaving Buffy to hurry and catch up with her parents, both of whom were already in the car.

“So, Buffy, what were you saying to Fred?” Hank asked mildly, glancing at his daughter in the mirror.

Buffy forced herself to smile brightly—not such a difficult task when she remembered that she’d be seeing Spike the next day. “Just, you know, girly stuff. Goodbye, congratulations, that sort of thing.”

“Well, I think the weekend went quite well—she deserves a congratulations. Don’t you, Hank?” Joyce asked mischievously.

“Eh?” Buffy’s father was keeping his eyes on the road dutifully.

Joyce all but rolled her eyes. “Hank, I asked you if you thought the weekend went well.”

“Oh, of course,” Hank replied. “Buffy and Spike reconciled, didn’t they?”

Yeah. She would of course choose now to start blushing like a virgin.

“Didn’t you two come to an understanding, sweetie?”

Her mother was evil, Buffy decided. Pure, unadulterated evil. “Um, yeah,” she said, wincing at how clumsy and—guilty? Yes, definitely guilty—she sounded. "We're tog—I mean, we're friends again. You know us, all with the friendliness, and…yeah," she finished lamely. "We're ok now."

Joyce smiled peacefully and turned back around. "That's good," she said, and the car was silent as the landscape outside flew back and its occupants puzzled over the problem that was Buffy and Spike.

~*~

That day dragged by; Buffy was, to say the least, incredibly eager to see Spike, which made the minutes tick past all the more slowly. In typical teenager style, she spent almost two hours on three-way with Willow and Faith, who were both bugging her about the issue.

"C'mon, B," Faith urged her. "If you're fucking him, don't we deserve to know?"

"Faith!" Willow and Buffy both yelled at the same time.

Buffy could almost see Faith shrug irreverently. "You gotta admit, Willow, she needs to spill."

"Unlike you, Faith," Buffy began dryly, "Willow respects my right to—"

"Actually, I'm kinda curious, too," the redhead blurted out.

She rolled her eyes and groaned. “Oh my God. I have two of the most immature friends on the face of the planet.”

“Being a voyeur doesn’t make you immature,” Faith argued.

There was silence on the line.

“Um, ew?” Willow offered.

“Seriously, Faith, where do you come up with this kind of thing?” Buffy inquired, grinning into the phone.

“Oh, shut up and confess, already. Did you guys get bouncy, or what?”

“What,” Buffy replied. “We…tried to be friends, but then we ended up kissing, and…” She trailed off, not really wanting to say the next part. It was stupid, but she felt like if she told Willow and Faith, then she’d somehow be betraying Spike’s confidence. It was utterly ridiculous, of course—she was a girl. She told her closest friends almost everything.

“What happened? Come on, Buffy, you’re killing me here!” Buffy could hear the springs on Willow’s mattress squeaking, which meant that she was probably bouncing excitedly.

“I kinda…sorta…maybe…toldhimthatIlovedhim,” she said in a rush.

Silence. Even worse silence than the silence that had intruded when Faith had joked about voyeurism.

“Damn, B,” Faith said finally. “Are you fucking insane?”

Surprised, Buffy said, “Um, no. Not last time I checked, anyway. Although there was that incident with the leprechaun at the park last week—“

“Buffy, I think she’s serious,” Willow said quietly.

“Yeah, I got that,” Buffy said impatienlyt. “But I wanna know why. It’s Spike, guys.”

“Right—it’s Spike,” Faith said flatly. “He’s ten years older than you, Buffy.”

The squirmy feeling in her stomach? Definitely not of the good. “Your point being?” she asked, more coldly than she meant to.

“How do you know he doesn’t want to just fuck you and leave you?” Faith asked bluntly. “Not that I’m sayin’ I think Spike would do that, but he’s a guy, which means he’s a first-rate asshole.”

She winced at her friend’s cynicism—and at the implication she was making about Spike. “Look,” Buffy said, her irritation mounting with every word, “I don’t think he’s going to—“

“Yeah, you don’t think it. But you don’t know, B. He might be just as much of a slimy bastard as the rest of them. If you ask me, you oughta stay away from him. Sleeping with a guy like him could fuck you up for life.”

With that, Buffy’s patience snapped. “He’s my best friend, Faith. Do you honestly think he’s hung around for four years to get into my pants? Just because you’re a slut and sleep with guys who just want a piece of ass doesn’t mean Spike is like that!”

Shit. She was yelling. Her eyes darted to the door, praying that her mom hadn’t heard; the very last thing she needed was to be interrogated about what Spike was like. “Faith, I—“

“No.” Faith’s voice was just as cold as hers was, and Buffy could feel herself wincing. When Faith sounded like that, it meant she was more than just a little mad. “Far as I’m concerned, B, you and the Bleached Wonder can go to hell, if you’re not even gonna listen when I got something to say.”

When the “click” of her putting her phone down sounded on the line, Buffy winced. “So…I guess the bitch of the year award goes to me,” she said apologetically to Willow.

“No, no it doesn’t!” Willow protested. “You know how Faith is. She’s had all the relationships that end with oodles of bad, so she’s kinda jealous over you—plus, you know, Spike is really hot.”

“True,” Buffy said, sighing. She knew Willow was trying to cheer her up—but unfortunately, it wasn’t working. Stupid melodrama with stupid friends who might be right. “I just feel like—is this how it’s going to be for as long as I’m with Spike?”

“I don’t know,” Willow said honestly. “But Buffy, you and Faith always fight. Don’t you think this is maybe just you guys’ once-a-week tussle?”

“Maybe,” Buffy said, but the doubt she still felt was in her voice. “Listen, Wills, I’d better go. Stop by the diner tomorrow, ‘k?”

“Will you be there?” Willow asked teasingly.

Despite the fight with Faith, Buffy felt herself grin. “For the first half of the day, at least,” she said with a giggle.

“Good. I’ll bring Faith in the morning.”

Willow hung up before her friend could splutter a protest. Buffy glared at the phone before putting it back in its cradle. For a shy girl, Willow could be really forceful when she wanted to.

Sighing, she plopped her head back on the bed and waited for the next day to come.

~*~

Well, he definitely won the Wanker of the Year award.

He and Buffy had planned to meet up at the diner around one—but it was twelve-thirty, and he was sitting slumped in a corner booth, watching her work.

She had seen him, of course, and flashed him a smile that made him feel at least a little less like a sodding poof. Still, inwardly he was grumbling at himself. Pathetic, aren’t you, mate? Some chit ten years younger than you, an’ you’re turnin’ into some lovesick whelp over it.

But when she threw her apron off at one o’clock, he was at the door to meet her.

“Hey, pet.”

“Hi,” she said sunnily. He opened the door for her and she left. They started off along the block, same as they always did.

“So, what’s been goin’ on? Anything interesting?”

Buffy laughed. “Well, Faith and I had our monthly fight?”

“Really? ‘bout what?” God, she was beautiful when she laughed. Spike had to restrain himself from shoving her up against the brick wall and kissing her, passerby be damned. There would be time for that later.

For a second she looked uncomfortable—but before Spike had a chance to suss it out, her expression was normal again. “Oh, you know,” she said nonchalantly, “Faith stuff.”

Spike laughed. “Faith stuff” meant “Faith’s inherent sluttiness”. “That bint…”

“Has issues?” Buffy supplied. They rounded another corner and entered the parking garage where Spike put his car. “Yeah. Pretty much. I honestly think that—mmpph!”

He couldn’t take it anymore. Hearing her talk—it was a sign of how badly he was drowning in her, that just her voice could make him completely insane. So, he shoved her up against the parking garage wall and kissed her.

Her smaller body ground against his, her moans filled the air, as she kissed him back eagerly. Her hands slid down his back, her soft stomach cushioned his rapidly growing erection—there was no heaven better than this. Or at least, if there was, he hadn’t experienced it.

“Jesus, Buffy,” he gasped when they parted. “Can’t believe—we just—“

“I missed you,” she whispered, wriggling against him.

Was she trying to kill him? “Missed you—too—pet, you keep doing that, ‘m gonna lose it right here.”

Buffy stopped wriggling, an apologetic little smile on her face. “Sorry,” she said, glancing away.

Before he could stop himself, he reached out and caught her chin. “Not sorry,” he ordered gently, looking into her eyes. “Never be sorry, Buffy. Not with me.”

For a second, everything slowed; then Buffy nodded. “Even if I accidentally step on your foot when we dance at Fred’s wedding?” she joked.

He smirked. “’ll be wearin’ boots.”

“Boots? At a wedding?” She snorted. “So not.”

He laughed outright at that. “So will,” he teased, taking her hand and leading her away from the wall.

“Where’re we going?” she asked curiously as they got in his car.

“Well, I was gonna take us out to the beach, but then I figured, what the hell, ‘d just kidnap you,” he replied nonchalantly, flipping the radio on.

Her fingers were at the dial immediately, turning it to the ‘Top 40s’ station. Spike shuddered as some bint’s incompetent wailing filled the cab. He batted her hand away and changed the station to classic 80’s, never bothering to look down. For them, this was a well-rehearsed dance.

“So, are we seriously going to the beach? Because I don’t have a bathing suit,” Buffy said, yanking his fingers away from where they’d been resting protectively around the radio dial and changing the station again.

Spike allowed a slight smile to curve his lips. “You left one ‘f your suits in my trunk the last time we went swimming,” he told her, pinching her wrist.

She flipped her hand over and caressed his palm; for a second, he allowed himself to enjoy even that simple caress. “Oh,” she said, sounding just as happy as he did, “That’s ok, then—wait!” she yelped, dropping his hand.

Still keeping his eyes on the road—the problem with looking at his girl was that once he started, he had a rather difficult time stopping—Spike raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“Is that the gross red one?” she asked petulantly. “Because, it’s all tiny and almost see-through and—hey! You perv!”

Either she’d noticed the smile or the persistent semi-erection that was just getting worse every second. “Hey, you said it, not me.”

“Humph. Neither of us said it,” she grumbled. “But you know you were thinking it. You want to see me as close to naked as possible.”

He chanced glancing off the road to leer at her. “If I wanted to see you naked, I wouldn’t have told you ‘bout the suit in the back,” he said, running his eyes up and down suggestively. Half of him was reveling in the fact that this beautiful girl was his, and that he could leer at her without feeling like a convict—and the other half was entirely focused on the image Buffy would make in her barely-there bikini.

She returned his leer with a lascivious look of her own. “If I’m naked, then you will be too,” she promised, grinning almost impudently at him.

He forced himself to stop before he pulled the Desoto over and they did something…ill-advised. “We’ll see, then,” he said.

His tense desire melted into contentment when she laughed, switched the radio station, and laid her head on his shoulder, content to just sit with him until the ride was over.

~*~

A/N: *is proud* See? Almost no angst…I should get a medal ;) Thanks for all the wonderful reviews for the last chapter—please keep it up! Despite my busy-ness, the only thing I love more than this story is hearing that other people like it too…and also, thanks to Cordykitten for pointing out my mistitlting of chapters!





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