DISCLAIMER: I own nothing. These are fictional characters created by someone who isn't me, but used in an even more far-fetched situations to satisfy my own sick ends.

She had just turned on the oven to preheat it so sometime in the next hour she could be enjoying pizza with a crisp crust. This time she wouldn't be burning it; she would watch it like a hawk. She'd all but given up on pizza delivery—the guys just couldn't get it to her door still resembling warm, everyone of them seemed to get lost finding the place. It's New York; you'd think they'd get better at this. It was times like this she longed for small town life, where the pizza guy knows your name, what you like on your pizza; hell all her mother has to do is call and they see her name pop on caller ID and she has her custom order in fifteen minutes. It was just as well she heard her doorbell ring before she could put the pizza in to warm up. She was pretty sure if she hadn't burned the last one to a crisp it would have tasted like cardboard.

Standing in the doorway was a blonde headed man in jeans and a plain t-shirt under his leather jacket holding a sunflower. One perfect sunflower. She couldn't help but smile, he looked like a dejected boyfriend begging for forgiveness. His shoulders were slumped a little, and his eyes were full of remorse. She couldn't imagine what this was about, but it made her curious.

"Whatcha' got there?" she asked, leaning one arm on the doorframe.

"Can I come in?" he asked, looking past her a little, as if he might have caught her at an inopportune time.

"Uh, sure, come on in," she said, moving so he could enter the modest apartment. He shrugged off his jacket, and she took it from him, hanging it up next to hers on the coat rack in her front entry way. When she turned back to him, he held out the flower awkwardly.

"This is for you," he said as if she couldn't' figure it out for herself.

"Thanks," she took the flower and looked at him again. "Tristan, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I just thought after last weekend you were going to be pissed, and you haven't returned any of my calls," he explained, moving to sit on the couch. He looked like he was anchoring himself in case she tried to remove him from the apartment.

She smiled, and realized there were details she'd left out when she said goodnight to him last Saturday night. After finishing off their dessert at the Indian place, long after their respective dates had dumped them, he'd been true to his word in driving her home. He walked her up to the door, making sure she got in safe. They'd lingered in her doorway, making conversation just interesting enough to not let the evening end so soon. She thought about inviting him in for coffee, but was unsure as to how he would take the invitation. But not as unsure as to how she would have meant the invitation. Finally she'd gotten so flustered and frustrated with herself, she'd told him she needed to get to sleep and he left. She'd completely left out the fact the reason she needed extra rest was that she was going to be gone on business all week.

"Tristan, I was in Atlanta all week, I didn't know you'd called," she smiled as she sat next to him on the couch. "At least, not until about fifteen minutes ago when I got home and let my machine unburden itself. I was going to call you tonight, I promise," she put her hand on his knee reassuringly.

He looked from her face to her hand. He was glad she hadn't been ignoring him, but now his efforts seemed romantic instead of apologetic, and perhaps he was crazy, but she seemed to be responding to his actions. He didn't know what to say, which was uncharacteristic for him. As she removed her hand from his knee during his silence, he realized his incapacity for speech came because he didn't know what he wanted.

"Oh, well, that's good," he offered lamely. He felt her bizarre look pass through him, and he figured he just needed to get out of here. "Was I interrupting your dinner? I smell the oven," he said, standing up.

"Well, actually, I think I'm going to order out. Do you want some Chinese?" she invited him, feeling his uneasiness, wanting him to feel like he can just come over and hang out.

"Well, I, uh," he was interrupted by the sound of her phone ringing. She motioned for him to wait as she moved to grab the cordless phone off its receiver. She answered and immediately she erupted into giggles. He watched as she turned around, gesticulating as if she were having a face-to-face conversation with whoever was on the other end of the line. All he knew was she was talking about having been kidnapped and held ransom one moment and laughing out loud at how some diner man wasn't mocking movies enough for some reason. By the time she got off the phone he was utterly flabbergasted and had to stay long enough to find out what that was about. So when she hung up and immediately redialed the Chinese place his answer of "Kung Pow Chicken" rolled off his tongue when she asked what he wanted.

"Okay, so who was that?"

She looked back at him, as she rummaged around in the fridge to find some beverages for them before the food arrived. The one thing she really liked about her neighborhood was the top rate Chinese restaurant on the corner. The food would be here in about fifteen minutes due to her close proximity.

"On the phone?"

"Yeah, the obviously schizophrenic you were speaking to?"

She laughed and handed him a Coke. "That schizo is my mother, thank you very much."

"That was your mother?"

"Yeah, you sound surprised. You don't talk to your mother?" she took a Coke for herself and shut the door.

"Where are your chopsticks?" he asked and retrieved them as she pointed to the appropriate drawer. "Yes, I speak to my mother, but not like that. It's more, proper," he chose the last word, deciding it fit.

"Well, proper is never a word that described my mother. We're best friends, I tell her everything. And then some," she added, smiling genuinely as she thought of her mother as she leaned over and flipped the oven setting to off.

He nodded, wondering for a moment what it would be like to have that kind of relationship with either of his parents. It wasn't that he never spoke to them, but they never really talked. They fell into conversation that remained unbroken even as the delivery guy came and handed off the food.

"So, tell me something," he said, after downing some Coke to wash down the mouthful of chicken and rice.

"What?" she said, her mouth newly stuffed with a bite of egg roll. She did put a dainty hand up over her mouth to hide the sight from his eyes, the contrast of manners making him shake his head in amusement at her.

"I think I'm going to get you a Miss Manners book for Christmas," he laughed, and she lightly punched him on the bicep.

"Fine, fine, what I was going to ask is this. Were you serious?"

She swallowed and looked at him indicated she didn't follow what he meant. "Serious about what?"

"About not dating anyone."

She sat back, taking her soda with her as she relaxed and took a break from the food. She wasn't sure if she had meant it, though it always seemed a viable option.

"Well, I don't know. Maybe for a while. It's nice to be alone, hanging out with friends, not having the torture of dating on your hands, you know?"

"It's a necessary evil, though."

"But I don't need sex like you do," she chided.

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?"

She rolled her eyes. "What do you think it means?"

"You think I go on dates just for sex?"

A more pointed look from her this time. "How many of these girls would you say you didn't sleep with?"

"I never slept with Amelia. Or Heather," he added, as if proud of remembering the last one.

"Ooh, wonder why," she laughed.

"What about you?"

"What about me?"

"You're saying you don't have sex with any of your dates?"

"First dates? No way. And most of the set ups I've been on are completely out of the question."

"Huh."

"What?" she looked at the pure amazement on his face, as if this were some new concept to be grasped. "Tristan?"

"It's just, if what you're saying is true, when do you ever, you know?"

A deep red blush crept up from her neck until it hit the top of her ears. Her cheeks flamed crimson and she once again admonished herself for the recent rash of blushing she was doing.

"Oh, I see," he realized from her blush what she wasn't going to say. A smile spread slowly over his features, clearly happy with himself for making her react so strongly.

"Shut up," she warned, holding out a chopstick towards him as if it were a weapon. He had no doubt that she might try and use it as such. When his smile turned to an involuntary laugh that he just couldn't hold in, he was suddenly met with a chunk of garlic chicken hitting his cheek. He looked in surprise, and within moments, bits of flavored chicken were flying across the couch, along with egg roll and pot stickers. A full-fledged food fight was on and when they ran out, they were laughing so hard they couldn't see straight, doubled over at the absurdity of their actions.

Not being able to resist after they calmed to a point that they could pick up the mess, her still emitting small choruses of giggles, he asked one more question.

"So, what exactly do you use?"

She smacked his arm, shaking her head in the process. "I'm not going to discuss this with you," she said simply.

"Aw, come on," he pleaded.

"Nuh-uh. Don't you need to be going, you'll be late for your late night sex date," she chastised him.

"I'm here with you, I'm not running off to meet some floozy," he pointed out.

The way he said it, it caused a chill to run down her spine. The line between just friends and the kinds of thoughts she had about him when she caught herself daydreaming at work or on the subway home was becoming blurrier. Things like the topics of their conversations, the tone of his voice when he said certain things, they way he just seemed to appear when she was thinking of him; everything became unclear. There was always an air of thus unexplored possibility in their exchanges.

"Oh," she managed.

"Do you want me to get going?" his voice still in that tone; the fog inducing, blur filled tone.

"Uh, well, it's getting late," she mustered her wits about her and tried to think logically. This whole evening, while enjoyable was just confusing her.

He nodded and stood again. "I guess I'll see you around," he pulled on his jacket and she moved to open the door for him.

"Yeah, I'll give you a call," she promised, standing awkwardly before him. He looked down at her, smiled despite the awkwardness—perhaps because of it. He nodded and she moved closer to him. Suddenly her arms were around him, and he felt her hug him tightly. He put his arms around her as well, returning the hug.

"Thanks for the flower," she whispered, before letting him go and watching as he stepped out into the hall. She watched him wave and turn down the hall towards the elevator before shutting the door behind him, turning the lock slowly before heading back to the quiet of her apartment.

AN: this was sort of a transitional chapter, but I feel still important. I hope you enjoyed it. By a small miracle, I didn't have to go into work today and I got more chance to write. The next chapter will be up as soon as I can get it done.