"Tom!" The smell of evaporating alcohol was the first thing that met her. When she carefully eyed Tom a little bit better, she noticed how racked he really appeared, as if he must have been sitting in a pub for hours – which very likely had been the case. He was keeping himself up by holding onto Dani's façade.

"Dani? Who's here so late?" The deep voice seemed to sound miles away.

"Oh. Maxim's here," said Tom, heavily slurring every syllable; the name of the man to whom the voice belonged sounded bitter on his lips. "I could have known." The ex partners momentarily held the other's gaze; darker brown connecting with vivid blue and the other way around. That's when Tom's legs gave in, and he finally collapsed, the rather high level of alcohol in his blood very likely the cause. Dani instinctively reached forward to support him, but was unfortunately too late.

Tom was often described as impulsive, and still what happened then possibly never would have occurred without about twenty beers in him. Much like a small child that doesn't get what it wants and throws itself on the floor of the store in a rage to get it after all, he threw his arms around Dani's legs in a near killer-hold and began sobbing like one as well. "I love you… I couldn't marry Kathy, when I still love…"

"Tom, please…" muttered Dani with tears in her eyes, which she furiously tried to dab away with one hand while doing everything in her might to push Tom off with the other. Tom and she had had this discussion often enough; years ago, months ago, weeks ago… days ago. Tom wasn't really someone who liked losing or could hide his jealousy well. Wasn't it fair to make Tom feel what it meant to be rejected? She had been rejected so often by him; had tolerated him often enough with other women…

"Dani? Is that Tom I'm hearing there?" Maxim's voice was louder this time, and was accompanied by the sound of his nearing footsteps. "I assume yes…"

"I love you, I love you..."

"Come on, Tom, leave… And maybe you could go and sleep off your drunken stupor at home." Maxim was obviously irritated by the appearance of Dani's ex partner… and the fact that he was heavily intoxicated only made it worse. He reached down to push Tom off, Tom's reaction unanticipated. Tom namely threw himself forward and pulled Maxim with him against Dani's stone garden path, doing everything he could to hit him with his fists.

"Stay off my body, you…"

"Tom! Maxim!" yelled Dani, fruitlessly trying everything to pull both men off of each other.

"You aren't man enough for her! I seriously dare to bet that you don't even know what she likes in bed, you!" Tom's voice was suddenly ridiculously clear for someone with that level of alcohol in his blood, while he rammed his fist into Maxim's jaw. He groaned and then lost consciousness.

"Tom!" Dani's voice was smothered due to the fact she was holding her hand over her mouth in shock.

"Awesome lover, Dani," said Tom as he pulled himself up. "He can't even win from a drunken…"

"Oh, you know you're as wasted as hundred men!" She said, nostrils flared in anger. "You can sometimes be… so… Argh!" She knelled down by Maxim's unconscious body and spoke to him in a soft tone.

"So what?"

Dani turned her head in his direction again. "So unbearable!"

"I wasn't so unbearable when we together…"

"Stop! Enough!" Dani turned her tearful gaze down again upon feeling Maxim's lightly moving fingers in hers. He was slowly regaining consciousness again. It didn't seem all that serious to her. He would possibly get off with a blue, painfully swollen jaw tomorrow morning.

"Oh… Dani, you can get better!"

"And you would be so much better than him, eh Tom…" The fact that Dani was whispering didn't change the impact of her words on him.

"Dani, I love you!"

It had been enough. Dani jumped up again and took the steps necessary toward Tom, until she was with him, only a few inches apart. "Then maybe you should have thought of that before you rejected me every time again. I'm not your puppet, Tom Segers. I'm not gonna keep waiting for you for the rest of my life. I already lost quite enough of it waiting for you, hoping that what I felt was mutual, and you…"

"'Felt'"? Tom laughed. "I don't believe anything of it. Then say it in my face that you don't love me anymore, and I'll leave you alone to walk into your misfortune with your great hero. I'll never touch on it again." Dani's mouth opened and shut again a few times without a word leaving her throat. Tom didn't fail to notice that. "You can't do it, can you?" He said, the same smile on his lips.

With a brief gaze upon Maxim and a deep sigh, she eventually said after a few minutes of silence, "I don't know what I ever saw into you. You're nothing more but a silly boy who doesn't know what he wants. When something is right there for you to take, the fun is off or what? The world doesn't turn around you, Tom. I don't need you."

That was one of the few times that Tom didn't know what to say, as Dani slowly pulled Maxim up and supported him to the door, letting it fall shut behind them.

Tom remained alone in the dark, on the doorstep of the woman he loved, but who didn't love him back – or at least not anymore.

Maxim fell asleep very soon, but Dani would be awake whole the night, pondering about the lie she had told so convinced.