A/N Another chapter down. This fic's all written, just needs to be typed, so don't worry about this being an abandoned fic, cause it's all written just needs to make it from my notebook to the computer to music blared as they walked down the boardwalk to the bar. He groggily rubbed some sleep from his eyes, she had all but yanked him out of the comfortable bed. He smiled as he watched her dance her way in, and up to the bar. She ordered a beer and he ordered his usual scotch. "Do you ever drink anything else?" She questioned him. He shrugged.

"Occasionally bourbon."

"I mean not whiskey."

"Do you have a problem with whiskey?" He teased, taking a sip.

"Drink beer." She told him holding up her glass. "Cheers." He clinked the small tumbler against her bottle.

"Too many bad parties." He told her with a grin. "Besides, what's the point in drinking something unless a whole bottle of it can put you completely out?" She laughed.

"You should dance." She told him as she set down her drink next to him.

"Who else would watch your precious beer?"

"You really should." She said making her way to the dance floor.

"No, I should stay put." He called to her, the words lost in the din of the music and the crowd. He tapped the tumbler on the bar and the bartender came over to refill it.

"She's a looker." The bartender commented as both men watched her dance.

"Yeah." He admitted as he watched the small body move.

"You two been together long?" The bartender asked him, and he shook his head.

"Not together at all." He drained the scotch and the bartender refilled it again.

"You two look like it. Real comfortable around each other, y'know? You can bicker without stepping on each others toes." He smiled at the bartenders comment.

"We're just good friends." He told the old gruff man.

"Your choice or hers?" He almost choked on his scotch.

"What do you mean?'

"What I mean is I've seen couples on their honeymoons that don't look half as in love as you do-you're smitten by her, and she looks like she wouldn't turn you down." He shook his head.

"Is it that obvious?" He asked the bartender who nodded gravely, as if he was telling him he had only a few days to live.

"So obvious here's a double of liquid courage, on the house. Make a move" The bartender refilled the tumbler and walked off as she reappeared.

"Making buddies with the barkeep are you?" She teased as she picked her beer up again.

"Yeah." He commented into his scotch.

"So are you going to dance or not?" She asked him, swilling her beer.

"If the music slows down." He told her, watching the crowd, looking anywhere but at her. He took another gulp and as it burned down his throat he though t that the bartender was right, it was liquid courage, with each sip he felt more and more like actually going out on the dance floor and making a fool of himself for her.

"It's getting hot in here, wanna go outside?" She indicated the giant patio area that hung for out onto the beach, and he got up, laying down the money for two scotches and a double, despite what the bartender had told him. She leaned over the railing, watching the moon play on the waves, gently sipping her beer.

"You look upset." He told her, mimicking her pose over the railing.

"Just thinking." She shrugged.

"You actually do that? Here I was believing that you didn't know what the word meant." He teased her, and she smiled.

"It's rare." She lapsed back into silence. "I don't know what to think anymore." She admitted after a long pause of staring at the ocean. "I keep thinking I should love Woody, but I don't feel it. I had three guys ask me out in there and I turned all of them down because they weren't my type." He laughed.

"Your type?" He questioned, knowing that she had no set type, that she'd dated all types of guys. The surfer boy that had followed her from California was certainly different from Woody who was certainly different from some of the other boyfriends he had seen her with over the years.

"I don't know, I just wasn't attracted to them. Besides I'm here with you, and you're not exactly being a social butterfly, I don't want to exile you to the couch unless you've got someone else's bed to share." He smiled softly. It was almost a chance for him, as if she was sidestepping that she didn't want to date anyone while she was here with him. That he was the one she was with and that it didn't matter who asked her out, she was here with him.

"So would Woody be your type?" He asked, trying to elicit her feelings for the detective, trying to gage if she really cared for him, of she cared for the farm boy in the same way she cared for Nigel and Bug.

"Yes." She paused. "No." She paused again. "Yes and no. I like him, I really do, but he wants to be something, he wants a future. He wants a white picket fence, a house in suburbia, a happy wife with loving kids. I think I want that, but I keep thinking about it, and it's almost like a nightmare."

He grinned. He could never see her being a soccer mom, carting kids around in a minivan. No, she was a free spirit, her children would wind up being the crazy rebels just like her, try as Woody might to tame her, she was untameable. "I don't even know what I'm going to have for dinner," she continued, "Much less what I want twenty years from now. And we've been toying with each other, dancing around romance for how many years now? I know he likes me, or at least he did, I really hurt him when I turned down his ring, I don't know what to feel about him though."

He put a consoling arm around her. He put all thoughts of romance aside, right now what she needed was her best friend, nothing else. "I don't think I ever really loved him, he's the one I thought I could trust most, but he thinks to much about risk verse reward, he's always so much the methodical cop, he wants to be so much, and I don't want to hold him down." She drained the rest of her beer, and he noticed a stray tear trace its way down her cheek.

He gently wiped it away as he heard the music slowing down. He finished his scotch feeling the warm burn give him strength. "Lets go back inside." He suggested and she followed him in, his arm around her. She nestled against him as she fling her arms around his neck, and they swayed to the music. He caught the bartender's sly smile as they danced and he smiled sadly back over her shoulder.

"You know, I asked you first, not last, I never asked Nigel or Bug, or Lilly, I asked you because I knew if nothing else you're the easiest to talk to. You're my best friend, you know that?" She asked, lifting her head up from where it was resting against his shoulder.

"Yeah." he said, meeting her eyes. "Only your best friend would put up with all I have." He said and she grinned. He dipped his head ever so slightly down, and he felt someone shove into his back, and their lips met.

Even if it only lasted for an instant, it felt as if he had been zapped with lightning, ever hair on his body was on end. It was something that he had never felt before. The kiss was over before it even truly began, but it was more than enough to make him think. As the song ended, he caught the bartender's wink as he walked back from the porch area a tray of empty glasses in hand.