Chapter 5: In which Xander and Faith talk about the poem.
"All of his poems are love poems. Love is what he always writes about." Faith said for the third time.
"I'm telling you, this one is different." Xander insisted, nailing in the planks for the loft. "There's a whole different tone to 'Serendipitous Adonis' then there is with any of his previous works."
"What do you mean, 'tone'?" she argued from where she sat in the middle of the stage. "It's a love poem."
"He's never been this specific about the object of his affection before. 'Crooked smile to sun-kissed complexion'? That's pretty specific."
"I don't know," she hedged, "It's not that specific. 'Sun-kissed' is just a tan, and a lot of people have tans. And crooked smile could be anyone. There's probably millions of people who match that description. Even you."
"Me? Yeah, right. I'm not that lucky." he sighed.
There was a pause before Faith spoke. "You sound upset."
"Yeah, well..." he searched for words to explain the confusion in his mind. "Do you remember when you found out that actress you had a crush on was twice your age, and had kids? It's like that. I know that we'll never look deep into each other's eyes and fall in love, but I still kinda had that fan-girl fantasy that it could happen someday, y'know."
"Yeah." Faith replied. "Dreams are hard to let go of. But hey, at least he sounds happy, right? And you've got Spike who you could potentially see as a love interest."
"Faith." Xander sighed again, running his hand through his hair. A headache was starting to form in the back of his skull. "Remember yesterday when I told you to stop trying to set me up?"
Faith took a bite out of the turkey sandwich she'd brought for brunch, and chewed thoughtfully. "I bet if you got to know him, you'd find that he's-"
"Got a tender, soft, and gooey center?" Xander interrupted, and then grimaced. "That sounded so wrong."
"You should give him a chance." Faith said, pointing at him with her sandwich. "You might be surprised."