A/N: I'm absolutely in love with this chapter, yay! I hope you love it too!
"Can you believe her!"
"Chris, calm down," Trish said as she sat on her bed in a hotel room the day after they had gotten back from Chris's parents. Between them meeting up with that Mike guy at the mall and now, Chris had been extremely irate.
"No, I'm sorry. Did you see the way she was flirting with him? I mean, I know she's off breaking up with the dreamboat right now, but seriously, what the hell was up with her yesterday?"
"Chris, she was just talking to him, she seemed like her usual self," Trish answered. "She didn't even look like she was flirting with him. She was just being Stephanie."
"I was standing right there!"
"Yeah, so was I, Chris, she was just talking to him, it lasted all of five minutes, why are you getting so bent out of shape about this?"
"I'm not getting bent out of shape about it," Chris snapped. He ran his hands through his hair. "You just don't know her like I do. You don't know what goes on in her head."
"And you do?"
"Yes, I do. I've spent almost every waking moment with her over the past four years. I know everything about her," he said. "And I did not like what I saw yesterday."
"Chris, what has you so paranoid about it?"
"I don't like to see guys hitting on her," he told her. "I just don't. She's…Asshole, that guy, I hate him!"
"Hunter?" Trish supplied.
"Yeah, that jackass who broke her heart. I don't trust guys around Stephanie. They think…they think that just because she's funny, that she makes you laugh, that means that she doesn't get hurt. But she gets hurt and I hate to see it."
Trish smiled at him. "You're a good friend baby."
"I'm the best friend," Chris corrected. "And any guy that dates her is going to have to deal with me. Stephanie has a lot of friends, but she doesn't have a lot of people who absolutely love her. I absolutely love her."
Trish stood up and wrapped her arms around his waist. "I know you do. She's so lucky to have you Chris, and she knows that, I'm sure of it. But this deep-seeded anger has to come from somewhere. You mentioned Hunter…what exactly did he do to her?"
"I don't want to talk about it," Chris said quickly, dismissing it.
Trish frowned. "He didn't," she gulped, swallowing the lump in her throat. "He didn't rape her or anything…did he?"
"Oh God no," Chris said. "If he had raped her, I would've killed him with my bare hands, and that's no joke. If anyone hurt Stephanie, I would not hesitate to rip their throats from their necks and feed it to a pack of dogs."
"Well okay, I know now that you're very protective of her."
"Hunter just broke her heart and used her. He made her believe that he was in love with her, that they had a future together, but the entire time they were together, the ENTIRE TIME, he was sleeping around. He was using her for her money and for her power. And we took him to meet my parents, he was in my parent's home and he was lying to her the entire time. That man can rot in hell for all I care."
"Not every guy is going to be that way baby," Trish comforted him, leaning her head against his chest. "Not all guys are like that. You're not like that."
"Yeah, but there aren't too many of me," he said cockily. "It's secretly why I believe that I'm an only child. My parents totally broke the mold when they had me. I mean, perfection can't be duplicated and they didn't want to put the pressure on any siblings having to live up to me."
"There's the Chris I know and love," Trish said with a smile.
"Yeah, I love you too," he said absently.
"Well don't say that like you mean it or anything," she joked. She crossed her arms in front of her. "This really has you bothered doesn't it?"
"What? No," Chris said, shrugging off her question. "I was just wondering why they say that empty on the gas tank is really empty because you can still go after you've hit that empty sign. They should make more accurate gas tanks."
"You're such a liar," she told him. "Why is this thing with Stephanie bothering you so much…oh God, don't tell me you were jealous?"
"Excuse me?" Chris asked, genuinely perplexed.
"All of this, everything you're saying, you sound like a jealous boyfriend or something," Trish explained to him. "I mean, are you jealous that some other guy was with Stephanie?"
"Trish, I thought we discussed the fact that I've never had any feelings for Stephanie," Chris told her wearily, not wanting to have this kind of discussion right now.
"Yeah, we discussed that, but Chris…the way that you're acting…you might not see it, but I see it. I'm not saying you love Stephanie as anything more than a friend, but these feelings have to come from somewhere."
"Stephanie has nobody but me!" Chris yelled, angry now. Stephanie was his best friend, the one person in the world who was always going to be there. And he would be there for her in the same way. He had to be. "Her family is horrible, if she didn't have me…"
"Chris!" Trish snapped, grabbing his arms. "Stop this. Jesus Christ, I wasn't accusing you of anything. Look, you and Stephanie have something special, I get that, I accept it, but the way you're acting is weird. It just is."
"I'm sorry," he said, calming down. "She's like my little sister, you know. I mean, she isn't but--"
"Maybe you should have sex with her," Trish joked, interrupting him.
Chris's jaw dropped. "Wow, it's weird how suddenly I can go from being awake to being asleep, because I'm obviously in a dream. What's that? I think I saw a unicorn in the corner, and is that a tyrannosaurus rex flying by the window?"
"Well, at least I got you to shut up."
"You can't be serious," Chris told her. "I mean, this is obviously you on drugs. Did you do some crack in the bathroom while I wasn't looking. Do you have some a needle in your pocket? Do I have to check for track marks?"
"You should just sleep with Stephanie and get it out of your system," Trish shrugged. "I mean, get in there, have some sex with her."
"I don't want to have sex with her," Chris said, grimacing. "That would probably be the most awkward thing I've ever done in my life. Oh God, I wouldn't be able to stop laughing. And then of course, right in the middle of the entire thing, she'd probably ask me if I have any Red Vines, and that wouldn't be a euphemism for anything."
"Well good, I'm glad you don't want to sleep with her. You just need to realize that Stephanie is a big girl and sometimes she's not going to need you. I don't see you with her right now as she's breaking up with Randy. She doesn't need you to hold her hand through things."
"Actually, we work on the buddy system so when we're crossing streets, we actually do hold hands. I wouldn't want her running into traffic or anything. She's liable to do it too, she's very antsy."
"I think you should go talk to her," she said. "Just go touch base. I know that she's confused as to why you've been so curt with her since yesterday."
"Do you have psychic powers!"
"No, she told me while you were in bathroom on the plane," Trish said, scrunching up her nose.
"Oh, and here I thought that you had the ability to see what we'd be having for dinner tonight," Chris sighed. "I'm suddenly disappointed."
"Go talk to her, make up, do whatever you have to do so I don't have to see angry Chris anymore. I don't like angry Chris, he's not a very nice guy."
"He's not going to be happy to hear that."
Trish shook her head and pushed him towards the door. He let her push him and then he was out in the hallway. He looked both ways, kind of stalling. He meandered down the hallway past his own hotel room and to the one right next to it, Stephanie's. It was funny how he and Trish were seriously dating and yet they always had separate hotel rooms. He just usually ended up hanging with Stephanie anyways, although a lot of nights he did spend with Trish. He didn't know if Stephanie was finished with Randy. He waited for her to show up, sitting outside her door.
"Ooh, a present, it must be Christmas. I didn't think the break-up took that long," Stephanie pondered aloud.
"It didn't, I was just sitting here, alone, like a lost little boy."
"Get off your ass, you're getting dust bunnies," Stephanie said, lending him her hand. He grabbed it and she helped pull him up. "So are you here to hear about the break-up, to be victorious and tell me that you told me that the dreamboat was not my destiny. Cause if that's the case, you better have Red Vines."
Chris thought back to what Trish had said about sleeping with Stephanie. That would have to be a discussion…no, not the having sex, the thing about Trish saying they should have sex. She looked at him strangely as he stood there thinking hard.
"Snooks, do I have to pat you down for Red Vines or something?" she joked.
"Let's go inside," he said, nodding towards the door. She shrugged and took out her key card, opening the door and letting him inside. She threw the card on the table and turned to him, folding her arms. "I'm really okay Snooks, it wasn't as bad as you're probably thinking it was. He's young, he'll find some girl and sweep her off her feet and she'll be more his type and not completely bat-shit crazy like me, not that I'm condoning my own craziness, but then they say that you can't be insane if you know that you're crazy. Not that I'm even crazy."
Chris went to bed and laid down on it. Stephanie came over and laid in the opposite direction, their heads next to each other as they stared up at the ceiling. Stephanie turned her head towards Chris and studied his profile for a moment. Nothing ever seemed so bad when Chris was around her.
"Snooks, you look like you have something on your mind, and since that's such a rare occurrence for you, why don't you tell me what has you making a face like you just saw that Pepto Bismol commercial that talks about diarrhea."
"Oh, did you see that one with the little girl ballerinas doing the Pepto Bismol for kids commercial? That's terrible. Who thought that would be a good commercial. On the other hand, the commercial with the cat making the charts, that's some good stuff."
"Now you're giving me indigestion."
"Not upset stomach."
"No, and not diarrhea either," Stephanie said. "So Snooks, what's with the face?"
"Nothing, Trish and I were just having this discussion and it was weird, and she said some weird things that stuck with me."
"Don't tell me the blonde bombshell is into S&M or something and wants to be your mistress. I don't see you as a submissive."
"Nothing like that…also eww. That's a disgusting thought…but it does involve sex."
"Oh no, I'm sorry Snooks, but this is the reason that you have guy friends. That's the one area off-limits to me. I do not want to hear about your sex with the blonde bombshell. Those input images to my brain that cause it to short-circuit and then I'm pretty much useless."
"Trish said that WE should have sex."
"Again, I don't want to think….wait, who's the WE in that sentence?" Stephanie asked, her voice hitching.
"You and me."
"She was joking right? I mean, something like that, you're joking. A guy's girlfriend doesn't say that unless she wants…oh, I'm not into that Snooks, sorry, none of THAT for me thanks. I think I'd rather have Twizzlers than do that, and you know I hate Twizzlers with a passion. Actually, I'd rather eat that gross stuff on Fear Factor than think about doing that with you two."
"Ugh, no…although," Chris said, tapping his chin, then shaking his head. "No, just us, just the two of us. She was joking…but maybe we should just do it and get it over with. That way, when people think we should be together, we'd be like, 'Tried that, it sucked.'"
"Um, hate to break it to you, Snooks, but if you were to sleep with me, it would be the best you've ever had," Stephanie said smugly. "I should really get an award."
"It'll be like that Seinfeld episode where they had sex to save the friendship."
"Jerry and Elaine dated each other though," Stephanie pointed out. "We have never dated each other. Save for my crush on you when we started being friends, nothing remotely physical has passed between us."
"I taught you to wrestle, that was physical."
"Yeah, but it wasn't like we were wrestling naked."
"Maybe we need to have sex to save the friendship," he told her, turning his head to face her. "Sex to save it."
"Why does it need saving?" she inquired. "Are we so bad off that we're resorting to sex? Is our banter so dated and boring that we have to cover that up with kisses and touching? Have I failed you as a best friend? Do I need to retake my best friend training? I'll have you know I spent six weeks training to be your best friend and they were difficult."
"I was angry with you for flirting with Mike yesterday," he admitted.
"I wasn't flirting with him, I was speaking to him, but I wasn't flirting. He wasn't even that cute. Besides, why would I flirt with him? I had no reason to do so."
"I'm just…it was just…disturbing."
"You just hate to see me around guys Snooks. That's just par for the course. Where do you think they came up with a saying like that? Par for the course…weird. I know what a par is, but…oh wait, no, no, I get it now. Whew, there's another one of life's little mysteries solved." Suddenly before Stephanie knew what was going on, Chris was on top of her, pinning her to bed. She looked up at him with wide eyes. "Okay, okay, if you want to know what it means, I'll tell you, you don't have to get violent."
"What if I were to kiss you right now?" he asked her.
She pursed her lips before speaking. "I'd think I was in a movie."
"And if I were to have sex with you?"
"I'd think I was in a porn movie," Stephanie answered with a smile.
Chris laughed and rolled off of her. "I knew it would be weird!"
"So you really don't have any Red Vines anywhere on you?" Stephanie asked.
"And I knew you'd ask about the Red Vines," Chris sighed. "I knew it was a crazy thing that Trish was thinking we should get it out of the way. Do we have sexual tension?"
"Do we have any tension?" Stephanie asked.
"I have a little tension between my shoulders, but my chiropractor works that out every other week," Chris said. "I told her it would be weird. Should I kiss you and see if it's weird?"
"No because I'm not even pretty right now."
"I knew it would be this way. So weird, this entire business of being best friends with a girl."
"Well if it really means that much to you," she said, grabbing the hem of her t-shirt. "I'll go a round with you right now."
"You're sweet," he said, punching her lightly in the chin. "But you don't have anything I want."
"Oh, you wish you could see is more like it Snooks. You wish."