"Uhmmm," Buffy licked the last dribble of chocolate sauce from her fork and sat back with a sigh of contentment. "That was wonderful Angel, you'll have to show me how to cook those so I can tell my mom how when I go home."

Angel gave her one of his trademark half smiles and loaded her plate and cutlery into the half full dishwasher before pouring them both more coffee. "It's not really hard and actually, in truth, pancakes with chocolate sauce, scrambled eggs and hamburgers are about all I can cook successfully. My attempts at everything else vary, so don't be too impressed."

"But I am impressed, particularly as I'm the only person I know that can even ruin cereal someone who can cook even one very good thing becomes my newest hero."

Angel quirked an eyebrow and gave her his faint little smile again, "How exactly do you ruin cereal?"

"Well, one time I poured really stale milk on it," she paused thoughtfully, "actually it was more than once, try half a dozen times!"

Angel wrinkled his nose.

"But I finally got banned from the kitchen when I put the cereal box too close to the stove and ended up with flambéed Cheerios! I ruined four dishcloths trying to smother that little blaze."

Angel smiled; she was so impossibly cute. He wished he could tell her not to be ashamed of how terrible her cooking was on the grounds that he didn't eat anyway and that he was probably one of few guys in the world who would very happily get involved with a totally disastrous cook.

She smiled happily at him and waved her coffee mug expressively, "Thus the lesson is never eat anything food-like that Buffy has had a hand in making."

Angel looked at her semi-serious expression and promised her honestly, "I promise never ever to eat anything you have cooked and will make you breakfast every morning until you're sick of it if you like."

Buffy grinned, "Somehow, I think I get the better end of that deal." Damn this guy was great! Not only was he gorgeous, strong, considerate and had a cool car he actually cooked! Amazing.

"Remember I only cook pancakes, eggs and hamburgers, it's not ideal for months worth of breakfasts!"

"Sounds pretty perfect to me." Buffy answered truthfully as she gazed at him, yep, he was perfect all right. Which was so not a good thing.

Angel offered her more coffee as he padded across the kitchen giving her a wonderful view of all his taut muscles and an indecently cool tattoo. She drooled. Why couldn't he have some tiny imperfection, he might seem normal then and she would have far less competition. If she even made the competition as an outside chance that was.

Suddenly she wondered if he had a girlfriend, one hadn't been mentioned and there were no visible signs but that didn't mean much. Hmm, how to nose into his girlfriend status without coming on as unhinged or excessively interested? That was one to ponder, subtlety was called for and Angel with all that muscle and bare skin on display made Buffy feel very unsubtle.

Telling herself firmly that she had ages to suss out Angel as a potential boyfriend she began asking him questions about his job, hobbies, friends, how he'd met Doyle and any other inoffensive questions she could come up with. He answered most of them good naturedly as they sat comfortably in the kitchen, occasionally firing off a question of his own, usually about school, her friends or Doyle. Two hours passed as they talked, and as they talked they emptied the entire gigantic coffee pot until Buffy realized just how jittery the swamp of caffeine was making her and pushed away her last half cupful with a grimace.

Angel pulled a face and followed suit, "I'll be awake for days now." He said ruefully.

"Yeah, me too."

Angel stood up and stretched, "I'm sorry to break this up but I need to have my car fixed by tonight and although I think I can see the problem that needs to be fixed, I'm not totally sure of how much longer it's gonna take. Ideally I need to get on for a bit."

Buffy's spirits plunged a little, "Oh, okay."

"But if I fix it before this evening we could hang out a bit more?" Angel asked hopefully.

Buffy beamed at him, "Yeah sure, I'm gonna go upstairs and do some reading, come and holler if you get done quickly."

"Will do."

Buffy left the kitchen in a daze, "I think he likes me!!" she whispered to herself.

Angel stood in the kitchen for a while after Buffy left, "What am I doing?" he muttered to himself. Sure, he'd seen human and therefore off limits girls before that he thought were attractive but none of them had completely sapped his will to resist temptation, to not get involved in something so pointless. None of them had got under his skin like Buffy and he'd only met her twenty-four hours ago. There were only two possible explanations; firstly that he was in love, secondly that he was losing his mind.

He just hoped it was the second.