Hey, everybody! This is my first FNL fic. I started writing it when I saw the promo last week, and decided to finish it when things didn't turn out the way I'd been hoping. I'm a fairly new viewer to the show, so I apologize if I don't have the characters down 100 percent yet. I also wasn't clear if Chris goes to their school or not, so if he doesn't, pretend he does. It takes place the morning after Lyla and Chris kissed at the station.

The next morning at school, Lyla was removing her books from her locker after the final bell, eyes nervously darting down the hallway for any sign of Chris. She'd managed to evade him thus far, and would hate to ruin that when she would be home free in just a minute.

The reason she was trying to dodge Chris, of course, was because of their kiss the previous night at the station. It had been nice sure, and it wasn't like she hadn't kissed him back, but she felt like it was moving way too fast for her. She didn't even know how she felt about him, or this entire situation, or Tim…

Lyla shook her head, startled. Where had that come from? Tim wasn't even supposed to be a factor here.

Pushing the thought away, Lyla returned her thoughts to Chris. She knew he would be expecting something to come of last night, to at least discuss it with her, and she was not prepared to deal with that today. Of course, she would have to, seeing as how she had the show to do with him, but she was at least trying to prolong it as much as possible.

Suddenly hearing footsteps behind her, Lyla crossed her fingers, hoping it wasn't Chris, and turned around to see who was approaching. Lucky for her (Lyla wasn't even sure if was being sarcastic or not), it wasn't Chris; it was Tim, passing through on his way to practice.

"Hi, Tim," she greeted with a small smile; a peace offering.

She was still upset with him for his little prank, but she'd thought it over last night, and realized that she already knew, deep down, Tim hadn't been trying to embarrass or insult her. It was like he'd told her; he'd decided it would be funny and never thought past that, or considered how it would make her feel. Tim never did think things all the way through. Seeing as how she already knew that, Lyla was actually surprised she had gotten so upset with him; he just always knew how to push her buttons in a way that made her feel like she was going to explode.

She waited for him to return her greeting, but to Lyla's surprise, Tim didn't even so much as glance at her. Instead, keeping his eyes firmly focused ahead, he breezed right past her, and she frowned; had he not heard her?

"Tim!" she called again, louder.

There was no way he hadn't heard her this time, but he kept going, and Lyla felt a spark of anger. Was he actually ignoring her? What couldhe possibly be upset with her for?

She was tempted to chase after him and ask just that, but she knew she'd be late if she didn't head to the station now. Sighing, knowing that meant discussing the kiss with Chris, Lyla slammed her locker shut and turned to leave.

She'd be talking to Tim about this tonight; he could count on that.

"The maid? Matt was actually doing the maid?!" Smash demanded, before cracking up laughing and leaning over to high-five his friend. Matt just glared, not raising his hand. "Man, that's nice!"

That night, Matt, Landry, Smash, Jason and Tim were all hanging out at the latter's house, eating pizza and watching horror movie. At least, they had been, until Landry had unintentionally blurted out the details of his best friend's love life to everybody, practically sending the room into hysterics.

"For the last time, she's a nurse, not a maid," Matt snapped. "And I wasn't doing her. I… I think I fell in love with her," he confessed quietly, eyes downcast.

Instead of showing the sympathy he'd been hoping for, Matt's friends proceeded to roar with laughter, and he seethed, glaring at them.

"I'm glad you all think this is so funny."

"Man, weren't you just with that cheerleader, whatever the hell her name was?" Tim asked, raising his eyebrows. He was clearly trying to push Matt for a reaction, something none of them missed. "And what about Julie Taylor? Weren't you in love with her? Sorry if we don't take it so seriously every time you decide to declare you're in love."

Smash and Landry were obviously caught off guard by Tim's reaction, but Jason understood. He knew that when his friend had been staying with the Taylors, he'd come to see Julie as a little sister, and had quickly become protective of the girl. It had to bother him that Matt barely even seemed to give her a thought anymore.

"Oh, of course you're concerned with Julie," Matt replied through his clenched teeth, ignoring the remark about him falling in love. Jason raised his eyebrows, startled by how angry Matt suddenly sounded towards Tim. "You two did seem awfully friendly that night in the diner. Mind telling me what that's about?"

"Actually, I do, seeing as how she's not your business anymore. You've made that perfectly clear, right?"

"Where is this even coming from? Is Julie one of your conquests now or something?" he demanded, steadily growing more upset. "Is that why-"

"You have no idea what you're talking about," Tim interrupted with a sigh.

"Oh, really? I don't? Because-"

"No, you don't," Jason decided to interfere before things got any worse. "Julie's like a sister to Tim, okay? The idea of what you're implying probably disgusts him, to be honest."

Matt, rapidly calming down, looked over to Tim for confirmation. Tim nodded.

"Sorry," Matt muttered.

"It's fine."

There was a moment of awkward silence, which Jason was quick to fill, eager to return to the light hearted mood they'd all been in earlier.

"Besides," he began, a mischievous grin on his features. "Tim's a little too wrapped up with a certain somebody to even notice other girls."

"Who?" Smash immediately demanded, grinning.

"Jason, I swear to God-"

"Lyla," Jason answered, choosing to ignore the death threat he was sure his friend was building up to. "He looooves her."

The boys cracked up, and Tim shot Jason a murderous look.

"Is that why were you avoiding her all day?" Landry question.

"I wasn't avoiding her," he grumbled.

"Yes you were," Landry snorted. "Any time you saw her, you practically ran the other way."

"I'm glad you find me so fascinating that you were apparently watching my every move."

"You just happened to be within my eyeshot a lot," he shrugged. "And, you didn't answer the question."

"Tim got his heart broken last night," Jason explained. "Lyla kissed some other guy."

"Really? Who?" Smash asked. "I thought she'd sworn off guys."

"Chris, that guy who does the Christian radio show she's co-hosting now."

"Jason! Is there any particular reason you're in such a mood to share tonight?"

"Chris?" Smash repeated with a scoff. "Tim, you could totally take that guy. You should; show him his place."

"I'm thinking if I beat up her new boyfriend for no other reason than being her boyfriend, it might make things worse, genius."

"But you can't deny that it's tempting, can you?"

"…No, I can't," Tim conceded with a sheepish smirk, cracking his friends up once again.

They had just returned their attention to the movie when only five minutes later, the doorbell rang. Tim walked over to answer it, assuming his brother had just forgotten his key again, but looked out the peephole and suddenly whipped around, looking uncharacteristically nervous.

"What, who is it?" Matt asked, wondering who would make Tim react like that.

"Lyla!" he hissed frantically. "It's Lyla! What do I do?"

"Uh, answer the door?"

"That kind of ruins my plan to avoid her, doesn't it?!"

"Tim Riggins, I can hear you!" Lyla shouted through the door impatiently. Landry snickered.

"Uh-oh. Somebody's pissed!"

Tim groaned, and, not wanting to give her time for her anger to build, walked back over to open the door. When he did, he saw Lyla standing on his doorstep with her hands firmly planted on her hips, eyes narrowed in anger.

"Hey, Garrity," he greeted her awkwardly. "What can I do for you?"

She glanced over his shoulder, seeing that all of his friends were obviously eavesdropping, and nodded her head to the yard.

"Can I talk to you outside?"

"Yeah, uh, sure."

Tim stepped onto the porch with her, shutting the door behind him.

"So, what-"

"Why are you avoiding me?" she immediately demanded.

"I'm not," he replied reflexively.

"Tim! As if I couldn't realize that on my own, I just heard you say you were!"

Knowing he couldn't lie now, Tim merely bowed his head, and Lyla softened, simply fixing him with a look of confusion.

"What did I do? I thought-"

"You know, Lyla, I'm getting really tired of having to constantly explain myself to you," he snapped without thinking, just wanting to say something that would end this conversation before he blurted out the actual reason.

Lyla reeled back, hurt, and gazed at him for a moment, giving him the chance to take it back. When he didn't, she spun on her heel and began to storm away from his house.

Tim immediately felt a surge of regret, and was surprised by the sinking sensation in his stomach. For some reason, he was getting the feeling that if he let Lyla walk away now, she wasn't going to come back.

"Lyla! Wait! Lyla, please, just let me talk to you."

"I think you said enough," she snapped, slowing to a stop as she turned back around to look at him. "I get it. I nag you, I pester you, I butt in where I'm not wanted, and you've finally had enough of it. That's fine. I'll leave you alone from now on."

"I don't want that, I don't want you to leave me alone. God, Lyla, that's the last thing I want!" he told her desperately, frantic to find a way to undo this. He thought it would be easier to just avoid her altogether now that she was with Chris, but he was rapidly realizing that he needed Lyla Garrity in his life, one way or another.

"That's the last thing you want, but you're avoiding me? Sometimes, I just…I don't get you, Tim! Why would you-"

"Because I love you!"

The words spilled out before Tim even realized he was saying them, and his heart dropped the moment he did. He had never intended to confess it to her like this, especially after last night.

Lyla gaped at him in shock, raising her hands to cover her open mouth (her jaw had literally dropped), and slowly began to pace around, not saying a word. Tim swallowed anxiously, clenching his fists nervously as his stomach twisted into knots.

"Lyla," he finally said, his tone practically pleading with her to say something. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you-"

Lyla whipped around, looking up directly into his eyes, and Tim was startled to see tears forming in hers. Hearing he loved her made her feel that bad?

"Lyla, I'm-"

"Do you mean that?" she asked shakily, reaching up to brush her tears away.

"What?" he asked. Of all the things he'd been expecting her to say next, that was not one of them.

"Do you mean that?" she repeated. "Are you in love with me?"

"Of course I did, of course I am," he told her, frowning. "I wouldn't have said it if I didn't mean it, Lyla. Why do you always think I'm using some line on you?"

"Because it's hard to tell you with you sometimes," she sighed distractedly, before launching into her next question. "Tim, I still don't understand. Why would you avoid me-"

"I saw you with Chris, Lyla. I went down to the station last night to apologize to you for being such a jerk, and I saw you kissing him."

"You came to apologize?" she whispered in surprise. "Those flowers we found…those were from you?"

"Yeah," he told her shortly. "So, I just realized that you finally got tired of wasting your time on a screw up and found somebody better. I thought it would be easier for me to deal with if I just cut you out entirely, but it's not."

"Wasting my time? Tim, I don't think I'm wasting my time with you," Lyla told him fiercely. "And I don't think you're a 'screw up.' If I did, I wouldn't have come to see you after that prank you pulled. I would have just ignored you altogether. But I know you're worth my time, that's why I did. And to be honest, Tim, that wasn't even a huge deal to me. At the time, yeah, it hurt me, but I know you didn't mean anything by it. It's just…you make me so mad sometimes, the way nobody else does, and once it starts building, I can't stop it. Everything you make me feel is kind of like that," she admitted. Tim wondered what she meant by that.

"I kind of did mean something by it, actually," he confessed.

"You did?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.

"I guess…that was me trying to get your attention," he said, recalling what Jason had said when he was on the phone. "Trying to tell you I like you, like we're in third grade or something. I love you, Lyla. I have for a while now, and I've just never known how to handle it. And I'm sorry," he repeated, staring down. "I don't want to make you uncomfortable, and I won't bring it up again-"

"Tim, you don't get it!" Lyla exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air. "That is the last thing I want."

"What?" he asked, his head snapping up.

"You're not a waste of my time, you're not a screw up, you're not making me uncomfortable. I…Tim, you…"

Lyla sighed, not finding the exact words for what she wanted to say to him, and suddenly, did the last thing Tim would have expected; she threw her arms around his neck, reaching up, and crushed her lips against his.

Tim's shock quickly passed, and he gripped Lyla's hips, holding her to him tightly as she turned her head, deepening the kiss.

They only pulled away when breathing became an issue, and Lyla kept her forehead resting against Tim's. His eyes looked up to meet hers, and she just smiled.

"Lyla, I…I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but, what about Chris?"

"Chris is nothing, Tim. When I saw him after school today, I told him that nothing was going to happen with us, because I already had feelings for somebody else, and that wasn't fair to him."

"But what about-"

"The kiss? Yeah, it was nice," she admitted. Tim furrowed his brow, starting to loosen his hold on her, but Lyla reached down and placed her hands over his, keeping him in place. "But that's it. Nice. When I'm with you, on the other hand, I can't even begin to come up with enough adjectives to describe it. Remember what I said about how angry you make me, and how uncontrollable everything feels when I'm with you? That's the point; you make me feel Chris is safe, but, I think it's time I started taking chances. That's what I want, Tim, you. I have for a while now, I think I was just waiting for you."

"Really?" he asked, raising his eyebrows. She nodded.

"I needed to know that I could trust you, I guess. I needed to know that you could get it together and be the guy I thought you were before I took a chance on you. And I needed to be able to trust myself."

"Why would you not trust yourself?"

"Because of the whole thing with me feeling uncontrollable with you. After everything that happened with Jason last year, I was just scared of becoming that person again, and it was like I thought being with you would do that. And," she added thoughtfully. "I guess he was part of it too. I was scared of hurting Jason again. To be honest, I kind of still am," she confessed, glancing to the house.

Tim and Lyla were both suddenly startled by the sound of the window being jerked open, and they looked over to see Jason sticking his head out the window with a cheeky grin.

"What the hell are you doing?" Tim demanded, as Lyla blushed furiously, staring at her shoes.

"I couldn't help overhearing that last bit from my position by the couch, where I was innocently watching the movie and certainly not eavesdropping, and I just wanted to reassure you, Lyla. Don't take this the wrong way, but I am completely over you. The only way the two of you are going to hurt me is if you keep making whatever this thing between you is a lot harder than it needs to be. Seriously, watching you pine for each other is physically painful."

"Uh, thanks," Lyla responded awkwardly, obviously still embarrassed.

"Thanks, buddy, that was helpful. Now, can you and the three stooges behind you get the hell away from the window?"

Jason merely chuckled, rolling away and shutting the window behind him, and Lyla looked back up at Tim, a small smile playing on her lips.

"Okay, apparently that wasn't a problem after all. You really love me?" she asked again.

"I do," he promised, softly pressing his lips to hers.

Lyla sighed happily as they pulled away from each other, before looking into Tim's eyes with a more nervous expression.

"What?" he asked anxiously, feeling his stomach clench. She couldn't have already changed her mind, could she?

"I…I can't say it back, not now. And it's not because I don't feel it, because I think I might, but I don't want to rush into things. It's what we did last time, and I think that's part of why it ended so badly, and, if I say it now, I just feel like it's not going to mean anything. I want the moment to be right."

"I'm in no hurry," he reassured her.

Tim leaned down to kiss her again, but Lyla lightly pulled back. He raised his eyebrows and she smiled, letting him know nothing was wrong.

"There's just one more thing," she told him. "Last time, our relationship, if you can even call it that, was based on lies and dishonesty, and I think that's one of the things that bothered me the most. So this time, I want us to be completely honest with each other, okay? It's the only way this is going to work."

"I wasn't really planning on lying to you about anything," he told her, chuckling. She playfully whacked his arm.

"I assumed as much. It's just that we haven't really been talking much, and I was wondering if anything happened to you lately that I should know about," she shrugged. "Kissing Chris is pretty much the only thing I have to tell you, but you already knew about it."

Tim was about to tell her that nothing that would really be of interest to her had happened, when he suddenly recalled the stolen money that was still stashed in the living room, and cringed. Damn. Why did he have a feeling this wasn't going to go over well?

"Well, that was sweet," Smash commented with a laugh, plopping down on the couch.

"Like a scene out of a romantic comedy," Landry agreed.

"You been watching a lot of romance movies lately?" Matt asked, snickering.

"Just with Tyra!"

"Speaking of you and Tyra-"

"No, no speaking of me and anybody. The subject here is Tim and Lyla, okay?"

"Yeah, okay. You're off the hook for now. Speaking of-"

"You WHAT?!" came a sudden, hysteric shriek from Lyla outside, startling them all. "Why would you do that, Tim?! How could you possibly do something that stupid? What were you thinking?! Were you even thinking at all?! If he doesn't kill you, I'm going to!"

"You know," Landry chuckled, briefly glancing out the window just in time to see Lyla fiercely slap Tim on the chest. "I really think those crazy kids are going to make it."

He dropped down into the recliner by the chair, just as Smash started laughing quietly to himself.

"What?" Jason asked.

"Nothing, it's just…Lyla's really hardcore on the good girl thing now, right?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Well, uh…what if she doesn't believe in sex before marriage anymore?"

There was a moment of surprised silence, before they all crumpled into helpless laughter at the thought of Tim being forced into celibacy.

"Bad for him but good for the team, though," Matt choked out around his snort of laughter, nearly rolling off the couch. "Can you imagine how he's going to attack the other players once the sexual frustration really sets in?"

"Maybe I can give a demonstration now."

They all whipped around at the sound of Tim's voice, and saw him standing by the door with his arm wrapped around Lyla's waist, glaring dangerously at them all. Lyla, though, was laughing as well, which made it impossible for them to stop, and Tim finally broke and chuckled quietly.

"Okay, very funny. Now, everybody out," he ordered, nodding to the door.

"What? Why?" Landry whined.

"Because I don't want there to be any witnesses when I kill him," Lyla answered with a grin, resting her head on Tim's shoulder.

"Whatever, you guys just wanna make out," Matt grumbled playfully, gathering up his things.

The boys all left, and Lyla grinned as she curled up against Tim's side, winding her arms around his waist.

"I wasn't kidding, you know, I really am going to kill you for this."

"Hey," he laughed, pressing a kiss into her hair. "At least I'll die happy."

In case anybody is wondering, this actually isn't a one-shot, I have several more chapters planned out. I'm really enjoying writing this fic, so I hope you enjoyed reading it!