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Chapter Five



Anya was waiting for them on the porch when Buffy, followed by Spike, pulled into her driveway. Excitedly, she waved to her friend as soon as she jumped out. “Look what I got!”



Anya smiled and made her way over to Buffy who was gesturing to her car like Vanna White. “Very nice Buffy. It’s so you.”



“Isn’t it though? I love. And it’s all thanks to your boyfriend,” Buffy gushed.



Spike chuckled as he sauntered up to the pair, “Not so much me as Buffy. She caught on fast and knocked the guy down a few hundred on the car.”



Anya looked at Buffy, impressed, “Very nice. Go Buffy. Do you feel empowered now?”



“I do. Let me take you guys out for dinner, please? As a thank you. I insist.”



Anya laughed, “Why are you thanking me?”



“Cause you lent out Spike to me for the day.”



“Oi, what am I? A servant? I told you, it was no problem and you didn’t have to pay me-“



“Listen bleach boy, I want to, so accept my gratitude in the form of dinner all right?” Buffy said firmly, with a slight teasing tone.



He nodded and smiled at her tenderly. “Okay.”



Buffy beamed up at him, getting lost in those blue eyes of his. So like Doyle’s and yet somehow different. She’d thought when she’d first noticed his baby blue’s that it would be hard to look at him and not think of Doyle, but she only looked in Spike’s eyes and thought ‘Spike’.



“So,” Anya said, jarring Buffy out her stare fest with Spike, “Where are you taking us?”



“How about Chinese?”



*****************



Lying on his back and staring up the ceiling with Anya sleeping peacefully next to him, Spike found his mind drifting.



To Buffy.



Anya had commented that night at dinner how nice it was to see Buffy laughing and smiling so much; that it had been a long time since she’d seen it.



Spike hoped it had something to do with him. He hoped, but he wasn’t betting on it. He opted not to ponder why he was hoping it was him that was the cause of her smiling and frequent laughing. And it was with that hoping he was doing, that his mind rested on something unsettling.



Buffy needed her hedges trimmed badly.



She had commented that night that she’d been putting it off and putting it off and then kept forgetting about it. Her white picket fence needed some painting done to it too, something else she’d neglected and then put off.



With his mind made up, Spike planned to pay Buffy a visit tomorrow and help her do all those things she’d been neglecting. He’d just nonchalantly run it by Anya in the morning and he knew she’d think he was being wonderfully sweet again. Especially when he told her while they were having sex. She gave into anything then.



*********



Buffy opened the door, surprised to see Spike standing on her doorstep. “Spike, what are you doing here?”



He grinned, taking off his sunglasses, “What kind of welcome is that?”



“I didn’t expect to see you – did you forget something?”



He shook his head, “Nope. I decided to trim your hedges and paint your fence.”



She shook her head, “No, Spike. I can’t ask you to do that.”



“You didn’t ask me, I offered.”



“Well, I can’t let you offer – are you pouting?”



“Yeah, I am. Is it working?” he grinned unrepentantly.



She laughed, “Is that how you get your way with Anya?”



He shrugged, “Sometimes. Come on, kitten, let me help.”



“Spike,” she said on a sigh, “I don’t know.”



“Really, it’s a benefit to you to say yes.”



“Yeah, but—“



“No buts.”



“My but you’re stubborn,” she said, raising a brow.



He pointed at himself, “Me? Have you listened to you? You’re arguing with me while I’m standing out here in the blistering heat.”



She laughed again, “Blistering? You’re standing under the awning. And it’s far from blistering. It’s a cool seventy-five.”



“I’m from the Mother Land, pet. This is blistering.”



“Then it must be too hot for you to do all that yard work—“



“Okay, okay. I lied. It’s not blistering, but I could really go for that lemonade you made for the party. Got any?”



Regarding him for a minute with a slight ‘You’re a pain, you know that?’ face, she stepped aside and let him in.



**************



Buffy Summers-Doyle was absolutely adorable with paint splattered across her cheek. So adorable in fact, he couldn’t help but lean over with a big grin on his face and tap her nose with the tip of his paint brush, leaving a little white dot on the tip of her nose.



“Hey!” she giggled, “What was that for?”



“Because you’re adorable,” he blurted out. Her eyes widened at the same time his did after that comment flew out of his mouth and he rushed to gloss that over. “I just meant that I think you are cute. I thought Willow was a cute bird too, but it doesn’t mean that I’m going to leave Anya, because she’s the one I’m with and –“



“Spike.”



“Yeah?”



“It’s okay. No reason to make a big deal out of it. I’d like to think we’re friends, you and I.”



“Definitely friends,” he agreed. Though God woman, I can’t stop missing those curves underneath those baggy, paint splattered overalls.



“Did Anya know you were coming over today?” she asked lightly, the slight lilt to her voice letting him know she was slightly concerned about it. She focused on the fence before her, painting with long strokes up and down as she gripped the brush in her fist.



“She did,” he said, gulping slightly. His traitorous mind was going in overdrive with the words ‘long strokes’ playing out in his mind in connection with ‘Buffy’.



“Maybe when she’s done with work she can come over and I can treat you to dinner again?”



“Maybe I could – I mean, we, as in Anya and I, could treat you to dinner.”



She looked at him slightly perplexed, “Why? You trimmed the hedges, mowed my lawn and now you’re helping me paint—“



“You made me lunch,” he told her huskily, getting lost in the green of her eyes. The thought, she’s an angel came unbidden in his mind. My angel.



“That hardly seems adequate enough for all you’ve done for me over the past two days.”



“Then I will let you make it up to me.”



“How?”



“You can come with me tomorrow.”



“Where?” she asked hesitantly.



“I need to pick up some things for a 55’ Chevy I’m redoing for a ‘client’. It’s always so tedious to actually have to order parts and such, so maybe you could keep me company.”



“Spike, I don’t know. I mean, we’re friends and all, but don’t you think Anya would be weirded out by us spending all this time together? She’s my best friend and I don’t want her to get the wrong idea.”



“Buffy,” he said shifting so he could look at her fully, “There is no wrong idea to get here. Especially since you’re aware of the ‘wrong idea’ that could be gotten. Neither one of us would do anything to hurt Anya, right?”



“Right,” she nodded definitively, chewing on her bottom lips.



God, he wanted to take that lip between his own lips . . . “Right. So, hey, we’ll run it by Anya if you feel better about it, okay?”



“Yes, please.”



“Okay, then that’s what we’ll do,” he said, turning back to the fence.



“Spike—“ she started and then stopped abruptly.



“Yeah?”



“Thank you.”



“You don’t have to—“



“I know, but I want to. You’ve been so nice to me. Just please tell me it’s not pity you’re feeling for me?”



He turned back to her, shaking his head, “No, kitten, no. God, no, that’s not it at all. I—“



She pressed a finger to his mouth and he resisted the urge to suck it in his mouth. “That’s all I need to know,” she whispered, meeting his eyes for a brief moment before turning back to the fence and resuming painting.



Spike too, turned back to the fence and thought, I’m drowning.





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