Chapter 55

Dawn was sleeping, her head against the car door. They had decided to leave Saturday night instead of waiting for Sunday. Buffy had called Dawn's cell phone three times, and Dawn had refused to answer for fear of not being able to lie to her sister. Knowing that Buffy would not like the fact that she had no idea where her sister was, they had decided to leave at nightfall. They had actually left much later than that.

The clock on the dashboard read almost three in the morning. They had left about twenty minutes ago, after gambling the afternoon away and dancing throughout most of the night. He hoped to be in L.A. before sunrise so Dawn could go see her sister after getting a few hours of sleep. Hopefully, no one had noticed that they had both disappeared Friday night.

Sighing, he put his elbow on the door and leaned his head against his hand. He was married, his new wife was a few hundred years younger than him and was the slayer's little sister. A slayer he had slept with for months. Sighing again, he glanced at Dawn. She looked angelic when she slept. Her lips parted ever so slightly and her chest rose and fell slowly. Looking at her made him forget all the objections a rational part of his mind was screaming. Smiling to himself, he wondered how Angel's weekend had gone. The last he had heard on Friday afternoon, Angel feared for his life.

Knowing that calling the man this late would lead to impending doom via a pregnant slayer; Will kept his curiosity at bay. Hearing Dawn shift in her seat, he looked to his right and smiled.

"Did you have a nice nap?"

"How long was I out for?" Rubbing her eyes, she rearranged her dress around her knees, pulling one leg under her.

"About half an hour."

"Going out with you is taking its toll on me. You party like a rock star."

Frowning, he looked at her curiously. "I only went to that nightclub because I thought you wanted to go."

"I thought you wanted to go."

A few seconds of silence permeated the car before both occupants started laughing. Dawn was the first to get control of herself again. "That's funny. You party hard, though, Will."

"I know it. I used to do that every Friday and Saturday. Sometimes on Thursdays, depending on how Angel felt. We were drinking buddies, party buddies, for a long time."

"Until he got chained down."

"Until he found happiness. He never wanted to live like that. A person can only go that hard for so long until something happens. You know? I couldn't do this like I used to, you'd have to carry me out of the clubs."

Laughing, she said, "I highly doubt that. I don't doubt that I can't do this all the time. What do couples do? We can't get drunk every weekend; that would be bad and indicate the need for rehab. Going out to restaurants is fun, but that's going to get old. What do we do together?"

"We could go sailing. We could go camping. In a cabin, I don't do that tent crap. We could sit home and watch movies; I could attempt to cook for you. There are a lot of things to do together."

"I like the sailing idea. Let's do that."

"Now?"

Slapping him lightly on the arm, she gave him an annoyed look and settled herself back into her seat. "Don't be dense, maybe next weekend. I've never been sailing."

"Angel and I have a yacht. It's a small yacht. More like a boat with expensive floors and cabins, actually. Anyway, we use to get a lot of booze and load it up and go out to sea for a couple days. Made Wesley all kinds of nervous; he thought we were going to get drunk and fall overboard and drown. We didn't. It was fun to watch him squirm, though."

"You're mean."

"I never claimed to be nice."

Smiling sweetly in his direction, she reached for her purse and pulled out the gummy bears she had stashed there before they had left the hotel. Offering one to him, she shrugged at his look of horror. "They're good."

"No thanks." Making an appalled face in her direction, he waited for her to hit him to change his expression.

He wondered at the odd glee he felt when he tormented Dawn. It was strange, to feel joy when she smacked his arm or looked at him with a mixture of disgust and disbelief. Making funny faces at her seemed to be just the beginning of things he could do to illicit a reaction from her. Fighting the urge to rub his hands together and cackle, he wondered what else he could do to annoy her at that moment.

Reaching across the car with lighting like speed, he grabbed a gummy bear and started reforming it in between his fingers. Sticking the sticky glob against her arm, he fought not to giggle at her shriek of surprise.

"Ewe…Will, that's gross!" Pulling the sticky mess away from her arm, she glared in his direction.

Looking at the gummy bears, she smiled evilly before quickly shoving one into his ear.

"Hey! I'm driving here!" Picking the sugary glob out of his ear, he scowled at her before throwing the offending candy in her direction. "You're going to get us killed."

Giggling, she settled back in her seat and crossed her arms. This relationship was going to turn into something fun, she thought. She could feel it.