Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: It's a little short... but I have to be at work in five minutes... and it's a three minutes drive. :)

Enjoy!

Chapter Thirteen:

I didn't go back to sleep. Instead, I paced the hotel room endlessly, uncertain, and wanting more than anything to avoid a dream like that again.

I had called Sara and asked me be friends, because my dream was haunting me. If they broke up before the wedding, something I had a hard time believing they wouldn't do, I couldn't… handle… having her once to bury her grief and never having her again. …I couldn't handle her sleeping with me because she wasn't sure about him, and then deciding, after running from my bed, that she was now certain about him. …I knew that my stipulations might make her more likely to marry the man…

It was just a consequence I had to accept. Because the dream was honestly haunting me. Images flitted through my mind endlessly—Sara crying, Sara saying she just wanted to feel wanted… Sara making me come without her. It felt… empty. Sad and lonely and empty, and I thought that I would rather never have her than have her in that way.

I still felt slightly nauseous the next morning and skipped breakfast, filling a travel cup with coffee and heading to give my lectures, struggling to be more awake and more dynamic than the day before because Sara had said she'd been in one of my lectures today. And she was… I didn't see her until the end of the first one. She'd been sitting in the back, her hair back in a ponytail, dressed all in black. It was no wonder she blended in. But she came down the steps of the lecture bowl towards me at the end, a hesitant smile on her face.

I lifted my eyes to her, trying to look only moderately interested in her presence there. The smile she flashed me made my heart thud in my chest and my mouth go dry. …It really wasn't fair, that she could do that to me. I drew in a deep breath. "What'd you think?"

Her smile widened. "Good. …You seem a little tired though. I… seem to have come into a small fortune, recently…" She said, teasing me about the money she'd won off me, the curve of her lips delicious. "…I could treat you to a friendly breakfast?"

I frowned. "…I have another lecture starting in about ten minutes…"

"Brunch then…"

I couldn't help but smile, even though I felt like I should probably say no. But then, hadn't I said we ought to get to know each other? …Wasn't that the whole reason I'd gone with the Let's-just-be-friends bullshit? "…You free in an hour?"

She grinned. "Well, I have a lecture in about ten minutes with this boring entomologist… but after that, I've got about two hours free."

I laughed. "I hear the entomologist is pretty sexy… You sure you don't have to stay after class with him?"

She blushed, but still laughed. "I'm sure. …I'll see you in a bit." She said, as people started trailing in. I tried not to watch her, in the intervening moments before my next lecture started, but I couldn't help it… not really. She paged through a notebook apparently full of notes and I wondered if they were from the lecture I'd just given and what she'd thought. …I thought she looked as tired as I felt, but she definitely had more color in her cheeks.

…She seemed happy. Maybe I had been right, last night, when I told her that I was just complicating things for her and Jace. She seemed like this whole… friends thing really agreed with her.

I swallowed back my distaste, wondering for the hundredth time if that hadn't been a mistake. Had I completely lost her by backing off? Sure, we'd grab brunch… we'd talk… but in the end, she'd go home to him and I would what? I couldn't even push boundaries anymore because I'd claimed I'd wanted to be "friends." Fuck.

I gave the next lecture, trying to not seem "tired" this time around, and was positively excited when it ended and my audience began filing out. We walked to my car and she directed me a diner nearby where we promptly sat down and ordered—and Sara, apparently, could eat. She ordered one of those twelve meals… four pancakes, three eggs, hash browns, and three sausage links, and a muffin.

I laughed and ordered the same, though I was certain I wouldn't finish.

"So," she prompted me once our waitress had taken our orders and disappeared. "…Tell me something I don't know about you yet." I raised an eyebrow and she laughed. "You said you wanted us to get to know each other, as friends. Tell me something I don't know."

I couldn't help but smile. …Maybe this wasn't over yet. "…I'm a poker-player. When I was at UCLA, I used to drive to Vegas to win money for… fetal pigs… cadavers…"

To my great surprise, her eyes lit up. "Wow! You could have had your own mini-body farm! …I'm not so good at poker. Honestly, I'm not even sure I know the right rules."

I frowned. "…How do you not know?"

She blushed. "I… The people who taught me… we were playing strip poker. …I'm pretty sure they weren't exactly honest."

I grinned. "When was this? How old were you?"

She laughed. "Thirteen or fourteen, I think. …Young enough to think the older boys were being nice to me by letting me play."

I laughed too. "So… what happened?"

She shook her head. "Nothing… a few hands in I realized they were playing me and stormed off."

"How much had you taken off?"

"Not much… socks, pants, bra…"

"Not shirt?"

She shook her head. "No… by that time I was on to them. The last hand was proving my theory. So I walked away in panties and a t-shirt. My fo—uh… mom… caught me and thought I'd been out having sex."

I raised my eyebrows. "Did you get in trouble?"

"Grounded for a week." She replied in a tone that almost sounded like she was bragging. The waitress slid our food in front of us and she picked up her fork happily, her eyes scanning her selection with pure excitement.

"But you weren't… couldn't you have just said you got tricked?"

"And be a tattle-tale? Not an option." She decided on her pancakes and went about buttering and stacking them. "Besides… it totally upped my cool-factor to be able to say I'd been grounded for having sex."

"…Wouldn't it have been easier to just have sex?"

She snorted. "Yeah… at fourteen, it would be easier to have sex than to lie about having sex. Diseases, no availability of contraceptives, and nowhere near the emotional maturity required for such an act…" Her eyes flickered to me as she poured a generous dollop of syrup over her pancakes. "…Why? Were you having sex at fourteen?"

I laughed. "No, …No, I was not."

She tilted her head, cutting herself a forkful. "When did you…? First have sex, I mean?" She took the bite and then licked syrup off her lips. I watched her tongue, gritting my teeth.

"I… think if you want that kind of personal information, you'll have to do better than 'brunch'."

She grinned, now running her tongue over a drop of syrup still on her fork. "I think that can be arranged…"

I looked away and swallowed. Was she doing this on purpose, or did she really have no idea what that did to me?