I can feel him watching me from the moment I enter the bar. My arm is slung casually around Jessica´s shoulders as we head with our group to a table and sit down. We order drinks, and the others laugh and joke, making jibes at my expense but I barely notice because my eyes have met his and time is standing still. We gaze at each other across the bar and suddenly our surroundings fade away and it is only me and him.
He has always had that power over me.
My eyes don´t leave his until Jessica pulls at my shirt and focuses my attention to something Nate is asking me. I answer his question but when I look back to the bar where he was standing, I can see he is no longer there. With a feeble excuse at best, I run to the bathroom to see if I might find him there. The room is empty when I enter so I go to the sink, wash my face and try to gather my equlibrium so that the others will not see through the facade.
I look into the mirror after drying my face on a towel and note that he is standing behind me.
I am the one to break the silence as I toss the towel into the garbage. "We can´t keep playing these games, Dean."
I can see in the mirror, gazing back at him, that my brother´s eyebrow lifts in a familiar gesture. "Which game would that be?"
My brother comes up behind me and begins sucking on my earlobe. "Cause I know one we can play."
In response, I elbow him in the stomach and push him away, harshly.
I turn to face him. "I am through with this bullshit, Dean. I am not one of your bootycalls."
My brother rubs at his stomach, some of the cockiness apparently gone from his demeanour. I, however, am far from fooled. "Come on, Sammy, I thought maye..."
His tone is almost pleading.
I cut him off before he gets any further. "Well, you thought wrong!"
"Why are you acting like this?" My brother seems genuinely confused at my anger. I have never pushed him away before. His confusion only fuels my anger all the more.
"I told you the truth, Dean, fucking all of it. That I was in love with you. You told me to leave. You threw it all back into my face. And now you want to kiss and make up?"
"I want to do much more then that..." Dean even wriggles his eyebrows as he speaks the words.
"You didn´t hear I word I said, did you?" I turn away from my brother and head for the door. His next words, however, stop me dead in my tracks.
"I am sorry, Sammy."
I turn to face him. "What exactly are you referring to, Dean?"
Dean suddenly finds that his shoes are extremely interesting and doesn´t look up when he speaks again. "I fucked up and I am sorry."
I walk over to Dean and reach out for his chin with my hand. I gently guide his face upwards until his eyes meet mine. "I got scared when you confessed how you felt. I freaked out, to tell the truth. So, I told you to leave for Stanford."
"You want me to forgive you?" Even I can hear the disbelief in my own voice.
"Yeah," my brother confesses sheepishly. "Crazy, isn´t it?"
"Absolutely mental," I concur, my mouth twisting upwards in a smile despite my better judgement.
My hand moves upwards to cradle his cheek and I trace the bone lovingly with my thumb.
"Damn it, I have missed you man." I am not given a chance to respond to my brother´s confession because he pushes me up against the nearest bathroom wall and claims my lips with his own. The kiss is animalistic, frighteningly filled with need and takes my breath away and makes my knees weak.
We are quickly interrupted by two men entering the bathroom who quickly leave when they notice us kissing in a corner. Dean looks at me with desire burning in his eyes and pulls me through the emergency exit into the empty alley behind the bar.
