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~*~

18 calls and still no answer.

Buffy sighed and flopped down on her bed. Maybe she was stupid, maybe she was immature; in fact, people had accused her of being both more than once. But was it really so unreasonable to want Spike to call her already?

Apparently, when it came to girls, he was no better than a sixteen-year-old boy.

But then, she’d known that. One of the many things that made her beyond dumb—she’d known how he was with girls, but she’d gone and kissed him anyway.

Kissed him. It sounded so dry, so—normal. But she knew that absolutely nothing about what had happened yesterday was normal. Which makes sense in a twisted, ironic kind of way, since it’s perfectly normal for a guy to not call a girl after they have some kind of frenzied kissing session five feet away from her parents…especially if the guy and the girl in question are best friends ten years apart.

Well, okay. Maybe it wasn’t normal. But still…she wanted him to call.

Even as she tossed clothes into her suitcase, her eyes remained on the phone. Please let him call, she prayed, even though she knew it was useless. Please, please let him call.

He wasn’t just someone she was attracted to; he was her friend, and had been for four years. Losing him to anything, especially something that was partially her fault, would break her heart.

And as they drove out of Sunnydale, Buffy was reduced to leaning her cheek against the cool glass of the car window and wonder if the terrible sensations inside her were what people talking about when they said their hearts were broken.

~*~

One hour and sixty miles later, she’d decided that it was all her fault. Well, hers and the suit Spike had been wearing last night.

She was a teenager, right? Teenagers had hormones. Seeing Spike looking beyond yummy in that suit had triggered the hormones, so they’d kissed. It was as simple as that.

The only problem, Buffy mused as she watched the Los Angeles skyline come into view, was that Spike had definitely been kissing her back—and whatever else he might be, he was not a teenager.

Which lead her to believe, once again, that she was very, very stupid.

Merry-go-round of badness. That had been how she’d described it to her mother, and she was starting to think it was a very apt description, indeed. No matter how long she thought about it—and she had thought about it for hours on end—she ended up reaching the same conclusion. Spike was the same guy he’d always been, and Buffy was short a brain cell or two million.

She slumped down in the seat. She hated being in such a bad mood. She hated feeling unsure, feeling stupid, feeling…young. It was something she wasn’t at all used to.

Ever since she’d been able to walk, she’d been treated like she was several years older than she actually was. From working in her father’s diner to her friendship with Spike, she was always just a little bit ahead of most people her age. But now she was reduced to feeling like a child, to puzzling out her emotions and the actions of others knowing that as far as the rest of the world was concerned, she was too young to truly understand.

She’d been told that before; had been told that her friendship with Spike was dangerous, that she wasn’t possibly old enough to understand what went on in a young man’s head. She’d ignored the critics, certain that they were wrong. Sure that the rapport between her and Spike was real, and that age didn’t matter.

But now she wasn’t so sure.

Why had he kissed her back? For her it was hormones, nothing more; what was it for him? Twenty-six-year-old guys didn’t have raging hormones, did they? She really didn’t think so…

And that, right there, was the problem. She didn’t think Spike had raging hormones, but she didn’t know. Because she was too young.

She sighed, shifting again in the seat. God, she felt like she was going to crawl out of her skin. Knowing that Spike was in Sunnydale and that she was leaving him behind was driving her nuts.

“You okay back there, sweetie?” Joyce asked, glancing back at Buffy.

“I’m fine,” she said softly, keeping her eyes on the scenery outside.

Hank cleared his throat, looked at his daughter in the mirror, and said, “Doyle’s going to be there. Maybe he could show you around LA?”

That got a tiny smile out of her. Doyle was her uncle, technically, but he was only two years older than she was. They’d always gotten along really well. “I guess that would be nice…”

“And Fred and I are probably going to go shopping. You know you’re welcome to come with us.”

“Mom.” Buffy almost winced at her own voice—she sounded hollow, bleak. “I’ll be fine, okay?”

If she’d told her mom that the sky was green, the grass was blue, and the moon was a big hunk of Gorgonzola, Joyce probably would have been more believing. But she’d told herself she wouldn’t interfere—so she just nodded and turned back around again, saying something quietly to Hank.

Buffy felt divided—grateful to be left alone, terrified to go without talking to someone. For the first time in her admittedly short life, she’d run into something she couldn’t handle. The irony of it all was that this was the one thing she needed to be able to handle herself.

But she couldn’t. Because she was stupid.

In a vain attempt to close out her thoughts, Buffy screwed her eyes shut and pressed her forehead against the window pane, willing the traffic to let up so they could drive into LA, into a city that for Buffy was filled with carelessly loving relatives…ones who had never been important enough to hurt her.

~*~

“I mean, ‘s not like I don’t have a life, you know? Got m’ job, an’ m’ pride, an’ up till now I had a bloody good social life…so what the fuck ‘m I doin’, goin’ out an’ maulin’ a sixteen-year-old?” Spike demanded, pounding a fist on the counter to emphasize his point. “’ey, gimme summore beer!”

“Spike, man, are you sure you should be having—“

“I said, gimme summore beer!” Spike bellowed, glaring at his friend. “You’re a fucking bartender, Xander—“

“Which means I have the right to tell you crazy drinkers that you’ve had too much,” Xander reminded him; but lucky for Spike, the brunette topped off his mug anyway. “And seriously, I think you’re talking to the wrong guy. I date Anya, remember? And I’m two years younger than you are, which makes me…”

“Eight sodding years younger than the bint. I bloody well know that,” Spike all but snarled. “But ‘s not the same when the bloke’s older, isit?” he asked bitterly. “’s never the same. ‘f anyone knew…they’d kill me.”

“Well, I don’t know about kill you…”

Spike narrowed his eyes at his friend. “They’d. Fucking. Kill. Me,” he snapped, his diction incredibly correct for someone who’d been drinking for the past two hours. “An’ I’d deserve it…’m sick, always have been.”

“Look, man, I’ve been friends with you since we were both babies, and—“

“Just shut the hell up, would you, mate? Jusht…shut…the bleeding ‘ell…up…b’fore I…’fore I…”

Xander watched with an aggrieved look on his face as Spike’s mumbled threats became less and less coherent…before, predictably, he passed out right at the bar.

“Stupid bleached menace,” he muttered in half-hearted anger. Most guys at least knew when to stop drinking, but somehow, Spike managed to keep going till he passed out right in the middle of a glass. “Hey, Joe!” he called out to his co-worked, “I’m on break.”

Joe nodded; Xander took that as his cue to toss his apron off and make his way to the other side of the bar. Thank God for burly construction muscles—he was able to hoist Spike on his shoulder with no problem.

Getting him to the back room where he could sleep it off, though, took a little work.

When Spike was finally drooped unceremoniously over one of the small, uncomfortable metal chairs, Xander straightened and shook his head, annoyed. He hadn’t seen Spike get this worked up since…well, since ever. And over a women—no, not even a woman. A girl. By a lot of people’s standards, a little girl.

And Xander was coming to hate her more every day.

~*~

”Spi-ike,” Buffy whined, “I wanna go!”

He rolled his eyes and continued to channel surf. “Really, luv, you should’ve known better than t’ come all the way over here just to try to get me to go to some poncy movie with you.”

“Willow and Faith are both busy,” she complained, “And I really, really wanna go see a movie!”

“Give it up, pet,” Spike said bluntly. “’m not takin’ you to see some dumb chick flick. M’ girlfriend’s gonna be here in ten minutes, now scat.” He almost winced at how cold he sounded—but that wasn’t half so bad as how much he wanted to duck out of his date and go with her to the movie. That alone was enough to make him determined to refuse her.

“Troy is so not a chick flick!” she exclaimed, clearly annoyed.

“It is ‘f I bloody well say it is,” Spike snapped. “Now bugger off already.”

For one glorious second, he thought that she was leaving and he was safe. Then she did the one thing that could always melt his defenses.

She plopped down next to him on the couch, crossed her arms over the chest that was partially exposed by her deep-cut red shit, and pouted. “Please?”

He shouldn’t feel this way. God help him, he shouldn’t. Problem was, he did…and God would want no part in it. Not for the first time, he paused for a second to think about precisely how horrible a man he really was.

But his girl didn’t let him think for long. She poked his arm and repeated her plea. “C’mon, Spike, please? I’m sixteen and it’s a Saturday…don’t you want me to have a social life?”

Well, yeah. Unless it involved some other rotten little bugger…which it wouldn’t, he realized, if he went with her. “Right, then,” he acquiesced, trying to ignore how much it pleased him to see her smile happily and clap her hands…trying to ignore how much it aroused him when she bounced up and down on his couch. “’ll just call Jeanette an’ cancel, then.”

“And I’ll run home and grab my stuff.” Impulsively, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek soundly. “Thank you so much!”

He waited until she’d scurried off to throw his head back and growl in frustration and disgust, trying to ignore the erection that forced him to acknowledge the truth that haunted him every day.

So long ago, that had been. Only a few months, but since then, everything had changed.

Well, almost everything, Spike thought as a pounding invaded his head. He still drank too much when he was upset, and he was still a bad, bad man.

Stifling a groan, he heaved himself upright. He couldn’t really recall why coming to LA and getting utterly drunk while spilling his guts to Xander had seemed like a good idea. Seems that when it came to running away, he wasn’t exactly a master.

Jesus tap-dancing Christ—his head felt like it was stuffed full of wool. Steel wool. Not a bad analogy, actually…

If it wasn’t for the fact that he was coming up with asinine analogies to avoid the real issue at hand.

Well, he was damn well going to avoid them for awhile longer. After all, he had things to deal with that didn’t involve the girl he was in love with and running away from—he stood up and walked towards the door that led to the rest of the bar, determined to put her out of his mind at least for as long as it took to listen to the whelp chew him out.

Problem was, when he stepped out the door, he ran straight into a laughing Buffy, hanging intimately on the arm of a man he’d never seen before in his life.

~*~

A/N: I feel completely horrible about the lapse in updates--sorry =( My computer got a worm so I didn't have access to my files for about five days...anyway, I decided that I'm going to give myself--and you guys--a little challenge. If you guys can top 25 reviews for one chapter, I'll update 2 times a week at least till the end of this fic *is shameless* So...think you can do it? There's Spuffy in the next two chaps at least ;) Thanks for all the incredible reviews--I loved hearing what you guys think!





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