She really, really hoped his jealousy plan was on the money. Otherwise, she might end up irrevocably ruining her reputation for no good reason at all.
She jumped when she felt someone sit beside her, only to relax when she saw it was only her best friend, Willow Rosenberg. Their other friend, Xander Harris, and his girlfriend, Anya Jenkins, slid into the booth across from them. “Sheesh, Buffster, what has you all jumpy?” Xander asked. “You just about flew out of the booth when Willow sat down.”
“Nothing, I’m fine. Just fine. And dandy. Fine and dandy.”
Willow frowned and turned towards Buffy. “Are you sure? Because that didn’t sound overly convincing.”
Buffy sighed. She might as well let her friends know what was really going on before…
“Hey there, cutie? Miss me?”
It was too late, because suddenly, Spike was there beside her, his arm around her and his lips on hers. Buffy swore she could actually hear her friends’ jaws hitting the cafeteria table.
“Uh huh,” Buffy replied, unable to keep herself from blushing. She was positive every eye in the room was on her, and truthfully, she wasn’t being paranoid.
“I’m sorry I can’t sit with you longer. Promised Clem I’d let him copy my homework before seventh period. But I’m still driving you home after school, right?”
“Uh huh,” Buffy said again.
“Good.” Spike kissed her quickly before standing up. “I’ll see you this afternoon, baby.”
Buffy turned to her friends once Spike was gone, blushing more as Willow and Xander stared, completely dumbfounded.
Anya was inspecting her nails.
“Look, I know what you’re all thinking…”
“Personally, I’m thinking it’s about time you and Spike did something about all that sexual tension. It’s been driving me up the friggin’ wall for months now.”
Buffy’s eyes widened. “Okay, I knew what you were all thinking except for Anya.” She leaned in and whispered so no one but the people at her table could hear. “Spike and I aren’t really dating, all right?”
“Then why were you making with the smoochies?” Willow asked in a hissed whisper. “And what happened to Angel? I’m your best friend! I should know this already! What…what about…y’know…”
“Angel and I broke up this weekend,” Buffy said, knowing what Willow was referring to but not willing to give any further details at the moment. “But Spike’s helping me get him back.”
“By macking on you in the lunch room?” Xander asked.
“He’s going to help me make Angel jealous,” Buffy explained, deciding to leave it at that and not elaborate further on her deal with Spike. She couldn’t bring herself to lie to her friends completely about dating Spike, but she was also too embarrassed to tell them about what had happened between her and Angel.
“That is the single stupidest thing I have ever heard,” Anya announced, flopping against the back of the booth. “And that’s saying a lot. I have to spend all day listening to Xander.”
“Hey!” Xander protested. “But she does sort of have a point. With the first part, I mean. This doesn’t sound like a good idea.”
Buffy glanced down at her tray and away from the wary eyes of her friends. “Look, I need to get Angel back, all right? And this, well, this is the way to do it.”
“I’d say you’re better off. Angel’s not very pleasantly shaped. And the two of you don’t really make a very attractive couple. He makes you look overly tiny. Personally, I think you fit better with Spike.”
“Anya!” Xander exclaimed. “What have I said to you about being polite to people who have just had their hearts broken?”
“I am being polite!” Anya replied. “I’m trying to cheer her up by telling her why she shouldn’t be so upset!”
“Ahn, that isn’t…”
Buffy held up her hand. “It’s okay, Xander. Really.” She frowned at the lumpy masses of “food” on her tray. “I don’t think I’m very hungry, though. I’m going to spend the rest of lunch in the library. Catching up on…something.”
Before any of her friends could respond, Buffy rushed out of the cafeteria.
“Wow, Spike, what was that all about?”
Spike looked at the red head across from him as he took a seat at the table where he normally sat, most of his friends already gathered. “What was all what about, Vi?”
“I think she means you shoving your tongue down that cheerleader’s throat. Geez, dude, what’s your problem?”
Spike arched an eyebrow and squared his gaze at the second girl to speak. “Didn’t you try out for the cheerleading squad, Amy?”
“Only ‘cause my mom made me,” Amy replied with a snort. “Not because I wanted to get noticed by the oh so totally dreamy Captain of the football team. And speaking of, isn’t she dating…”
“No,” Spike said sharply, cutting Amy off. “She’s not. She’s with me now.”
“So perfect little Buffy Summers has lowered her standards,” snarked Faith Lehane, leaning back in her chair, her booted foot on the leg of the table. She bit into an apple, then spoke with her mouth full. “Personally, I say go, Spike. Tap that vulnerable rebound ass.”
“It’s not like that,” Spike said, although a little voice inside his head said given how he’d manipulated her into this arrangement, it was exactly like that.
“Well, I had Buffy for a lab partner once and I thought she was a very nice girl,” Clem piped up, giving his friend a thumbs up. “Good job, Spike.”
“Yeah, I think Buffy’s all right,” a small man with dark blue hair seated next to Clem said with a shrug. “She doesn’t really hang with the rest of the jock squad anyway.”
Spike smiled. “Thanks Clem, Oz.”
“Whatever,” said the man with his arm around Amy. “You bang the cheerleaders under the bleachers, Spike. You don’t make out with them in the cafeteria. That’s not what they’re for.”
“You’re an asshole, Devon,” Spike replied. “Truly, just a blot upon the male name.”
“I’m gonna have to go with Dev on this one, Spike,” Amy said. “She’s not worth it.”
Spike started to retort when he saw Buffy get up and run away from her table. He took a piece of paper out of his backpack and shoved it over to Clem. “Make sure you get this back to me before class,” he said before he got up and jogged after Buffy.
He caught up with her in the hallway before the library. “Buffy, wait,” he said, grateful when she turned around, even if she immediately glared at him.
“What do you want, Spike?”
“I saw you run out of the cafeteria. I was worried about you.”
“Well, I’m fine,” Buffy snapped.
“You don’t look fine. You look upset.”
“I am upset!” Buffy declared, throwing up her hands.
“You just said you were fine.”
“I’m…” She lowered her voice and dropped her arms back to her side. “I got dumped this weekend, Spike. That alone leads to ‘upset.’ And now my friends are getting on me for this thing with you, even when I explained to them it was just to make Angel jealous.”
“You told them that?”
“Well, yeah. If I let them think I’d actually sink so low as to date you, they’d probably lock me up in the loony bin,” Buffy replied with a snort.
Spike’s jaw ticked, but he fought to keep his anger in check. He wouldn’t get what he wanted from Buffy if he kept yelling at her. Whatever that thing he wanted may be…
“Sod your friends, Buffy. It’s your life, and it doesn’t really matter what they think.”
“But they’re right! God, Spike, this is the dumbest idea, ever. I should just go find Angel and grovel.”
“And let him humiliate you again?”
Spike watched as tears started forming in her eyes and he sighed. “Look, pet, the plan’ll work better than you groveling. It’ll have him groveling. So just give it a little more time, okay?”
“But it won’t work, Spike. Even…even if we do manage to make him so jealous he wants me back, once he does have me back, I’m still going to be completely horrible in bed, and he’ll just dump me all over again.”
“You won’t be horrible in bed. I already told you I’d teach you things.”
“What if I’m not teachable?”
Spike couldn’t stop himself from leering. “You seemed to be learning just fine on Sunday, luv.”
Buffy wrinkled her nose. “You’re a pig, Spike.”
“See, this is what I don’t get with you, Buffy,” Spike said, thrusting his hand towards her. “You tell me to teach you about sex, and then you get upset with me when I talk about sex.”
“I’m just not comfortable with it, all right?” Buffy said. “The whole subject just makes me…nervous.”
“It’s nothing to be afraid of, Summers.”
“Easy for you to say. You don’t have to have a foreign object invading your body,” Buffy said with a huff.
Spike frowned, her response so beyond what he’d expected her to say – though he did suppose she had a point. “Okay, well… Be that as it may, we can still work through your inhibitions, all right? Give me at least a little time to try this before you call yourself hopeless?”
“You’re wasting your time.”
Spike stepped closer and brushed Buffy’s hair behind her ear. “Let me be the judge of that, okay?”
Buffy felt her pulse quicken at his touch. She could tell from the way he was looking at her that he was going to kiss her again, and this time, absolutely no one was around but them.
She ducked under his arm and moved closer towards the library doors. “I actually do have some studying to do. I…I completely forgot until this morning that I have a test in my last period class today. I need to go…work on that.”
“Buffy…” Spike said, his tone letting her know he wasn’t even coming close to buying her excuse.
“Just…let me be alone right now, please? I’ll meet you after last bell, and we’ll go home together. We can talk more then.”
Spike nodded, deciding he could easily misstep if he pushed her more right then. “All right. Good luck with the…studying.”
Biting her lip, Buffy nodded before she went into the library, the doors swinging behind her.
Spike was waiting for her in the parking lot when Buffy left the school that afternoon, leaning against the passenger’s side door of his old, black beast of a car that Buffy could never understood why he drove. Personally, she preferred cute, little cars. This one was just so not her style.
Exactly like the driver.
Spike grabbed her around the waist as soon as she was close to him, lifting her off the ground to kiss her. Buffy squealed in surprise, but kissed back, astonished to note that Spike was strong enough to lift her up so easily. He’d always seemed so…scrawny.
He smiled when he put her back down, then winked, and Buffy blushed. It embarrassed her when she realized she was getting worked up over a kiss from Spike – which only made her blush more.
Spike chuckled at her, but mercifully kept his mouth shut. Instead, he just opened the door for her.
“Wow, you can be a gentleman. Who knew?” Buffy teased lightly as she got into the car.
“I’d ask you to keep that to yourself,” Spike replied with a smirk before shutting the door and going around to the driver’s side.
Buffy was silent as they left the school’s parking lot, though when Spike made a left turn instead of the expected right, she got nervous. “Wait, what are you doing? Our neighborhood is the other way.”
“We’re not going straight home,” Spike told her, though he didn’t elaborate.
“But I want to go straight home.”
Spike shook his head. “Can’t. We’ve got an important errand to run.”
“Uh…we do?” Buffy didn’t like the sound of that at all. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Spike, tell me where you’re taking me now.”
“Nope.”
“Then let me out of the car.”
“Again, no. Just sit over there, shut your gob for once in your life, and trust me.”
“I’d have to be insane to trust you.”
“And yet, here you are, in my car, pretending to be my girlfriend.”
Buffy opened her mouth to retort, but nothing came out. He had her there…
She leaned back in the seat, pouting. She’d let Spike take her wherever it was he had in mind.
But she wasn’t going to like it.