A/N: Hi! Posting this directly after Chappie 16! Almost done with Chappie 18 aussi. Hehehe.

My beta (Anna - god bless you) said she didn't really understand the paragraph, so if you guys have the same problemo, tell me and I'll edit it. I confuzzle you enough as it is!!!


A plume of dust billowed up in tiny delicate dances whirling in concert and both Paul and I wrinkled our noses, coughing dryly. We waved our hands about and eventually the cloud began to disperse.

Instinctively, I reached out a finger, and trailed it down the first, blank page. The parchment was crisp, dry, old and weathered. The color was like diluted cream with pale patches of browny-orange that interspersed the paper. The material was thick and textured and reminded me of witches' spell books.

Slowly I lifted my finger, and Paul turned the page deftly.

The book slammed shut and before Paul or I could react, it whizzed from our laps and flew across the classroom, slamming into the opposite wall and cluttering to the floor.

I shrieked and almost leapt into Paul's lap. And, not to completely destroy Paul's masculinity, but I'm pretty sure he let out a squeak of surprise too.

There was silence and we both let out long, shaky breaths. "Oh my God," I breathed.

Paul nodded his head. "Yeah," he whispered back.

"Hello."

Paul and I both let out a yelp of surprise. Paul's deep and mine...well, not so deep. I clapped a hand to my pounding heart.

"Bethany. Didn't your mommy ever tell you not to damage other people's property? Especially not books."

I hopped off the desk and walked – albeit on shaky legs – toward the book. Bethany was stood beside it with a big grin.

"Sorry," she said, not sounding very sorry at all.

"What are you doing here?" Snapped Paul, and I shot him a dark look. Bethany did the same. "Like mother like daughter..." he muttered, and my dark look darkened.

I turned to Bethany. "What are you doing here?" I asked in a much nicer voice.

She gave a shrug. "I dunno." I had a feeling she was in a 'difficult' mood today.

"Okay..." I said. "Paul and I are a little busy right now, doing adult stuff. How about we talk tomorrow?"

Bethany grinned. "Adult stuff means naughty stuff. Are you two sexing?"

"No!" I gasped. "No, no, no, no, no!" I took a deep breath. "No we're not."

Bethany looked disappointed. "What are you two doing then?"

I could feel Paul's grin searing a crescent shape into my back. "We're...reading. Okay? Boring stuff. Now say bye bye, Bethany. It's time for you to go bed. Bye bye."

We stared at each other digesting what I'd just said. In synchronisation, we raised our eyebrow together. Sometimes I was really dumb.

I bent over and picked up the book, brushing it off as I did so. Carefully avoiding the suspicious things that looked like squished spiders' legs as I did so.

"Whatchya reading?"

"A book," I replied shortly. Holding the book out slightly in front of me, I walked toward Paul.

"What kinda book? Does it have fairies in it?" Bethany was idly twirling pieces of chalk around her head. Using her mind, of course.

"Not unless it's got Adam McTavish in it," Paul muttered. I elbowed him in the ribs.

"No it doesn't have fairies in it. It's a boring dictionary-type book."

"If it's so boring," Bethany said slowly, "then why are you reading it?"

"Because we have to."

"Why don't you read it in the day time then? At least it won't seem as boring then."

"Because we have to read it now."

"No you don't."

"Yes we do."

"No you don't."

"Yes we do."

"No you don't."

"Bethany!"

"What?"

"What?"

"Susie?"

"Yeah?"

"You don't have to read the book."

"Oh, okay then." I was just about to put the book down when a little switch in my head lit up the bulb that flashed, 'Moron Alert! Moron Alert! Suze is being a moron!'

"Hey wait a minute!" I spluttered. Bethany giggled. Clutching the book close to my chest I said firmly, "Bethany, you have to go now, okay?"

Bethany gave a pained sigh. "But wh-y?" She whined and stomped her tiny sandaled foot. Suddenly I remembered why I didn't want kids just yet.

"Because I say so."

"You're not my mommy," she huffed.

"No," I reasoned, "but I'm the one who's taking care of you while your mommy's not here."

"Oh," Bethany said.

"Yes. 'Oh.' 'Oh' indeed."

Bethany gave another pained sigh. "I guess I'll go." She shot a look at Paul and me. "But if you two start sexing then I'll be mad!"

And she disappeared.

I gave a shudder and tried to get rid of the feeling of a million spiders marching their tiny weightless feet all over my flesh. I don't know what revolted me more: the fact that a young girl was saying 'sexing', or the idea of Paul and me participating in said 'sexing'.

"You know, she might be on to something."

"What? Having sex? Because I swear Paul, if I find out you've brought protection – no matter how considerate that is and how much I appreciate your thoughtfulness – I will be thoroughly pissed off that you'd presume I'd-"

"I was talking about reading the book in the daytime."

I stopped short. "Oh. Yeah. I knew that. Sure. Um, sure. Yeah. No, we could read it in the daytime. I don't mind." I was pretty sure Paul couldn't see the red staining my neck and cheeks.

"Great." In the dark I could see the white of his teeth as he grinned. "Until then, I'm sure we could find time for some of that sexing you mentioned."

I scowled and hopped off the desk. "No, Paul. Unlike you, some of us believe in waiting for the right time, and not just throwing our virginity at the hottest piece of ass we see."

I walked over to the window and put my hands on the sill. "I didn't throw away my virginity for the first cute girl I saw, Suze," he said.

"Nah, course you didn't," I said. "You waited until you could get the cute girl's best friend." I knew what I was talking about; I had seen the movies.

"Suze, I haven't thrown my virginity away at all," he said.

I sighed gustily. "Fine! You didn't throw it away. I'm sure you felt at the time that you had reached the 'right moment'. Whatever." I was halfway out the window when I heard Paul call, "Actually, I've still got my virginity." I fell face first onto the asphalt as gracefully as a drunken hippo.

Paul was leaning against the wall next to the window staring out straight ahead of him. "What?" I said in a stage whisper.

Paul didn't meet my eyes. "I'm still a virgin."

Was it just a trick of the lights, or was Paul blushing?

Oh my God... oh...my...God...Paul was a virgin! And what was more, Paul was a blushing virgin! I fought hard to quell the giddy smile and giggles I could feel bubbling up my throat.

"You're not." Indignation and disbelief were my first emotions I felt after the shock dispersed into the night sky.

"Yes I am," he said tiredly. He pushed off the wall with his hands in his pockets and headed toward the school gates. I trailed after him, stumbling a little as I went.

"But...all that...all that..."I brushed a strand of hair out of my face in frustration, trying to get my mouth around the words that were trying to get out. "What about all that sexiness you exude? My God, you're the man whose autobiography would be called, I Breathe, Therefore I Promote Sexual Awareness! And you're saying you've never, ever, not once, even participated in the act of..."

I stopped dead in my tracks as the revelation hit home. "Wow, in that case you must be a god in..."

Paul turned round and flashed a grin at me. "Oh, do go on."

I scowled but figured I didn't have anything more to lose. "I'm just saying that if you're this..."

"Sexy?" The grin grew.

"Yes. If you're this sexy when you've never even done it, then when it comes to actually doing it, you're probably...you know. Really good." I gave a shrug and tried to put on an air of nonchalance. When really, I was getting funny tingling sensations where I shouldn't have been getting funny tingling sensations.

"I believe your words were, 'you must be a god.'"

I glared. "Or, you know. This could all be an act and you could be awful. Now wouldn't that be a let down? Imagine, everyone knows you're amazingly hot. Everyone. And then you actually do it, and everyone suddenly finds out how much of a façade that all is. How you're covering for one big fat lie." I gave a hoot of laughter. "It will be your undoing, my man. No longer will you be a legend. You'll have as much sex appeal as...as..." I clicked my fingers, "as Sister Ernestine! I can picture it now..."

I went into my own little dream world as I pictured it all.

"Suze..."

I shushed him and returned to picturing it.

"Suze! For God's sake, stop gloating." I shook myself back to the present.

"Fine. I'm just saying maybe you should watch yourself. You shouldn't be someone you're not, it'll only backfire."

"I'm not being someone I'm not. This is who I am. And trust me, Suze. I'm not going to be a failure in bed. You've already had a little teaser, you of all people should know just how good I can be," he waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

"Whatever. That still wasn't actually doing it. Who knows? Maybe you don't even have the goods." I huffed past him and heard him chortle. Although, for a guy who could have a weiner for his weapon of mass destruction, I'm not so sure what he had to be so happy about.

And then suddenly his mouth was by my ear and he was whispering seductively, "Why don't you find out then? I assure you, you won't be displeased by the results."

And God help me I believed him. I don't think for a second I ever doubted his masculinity. But it sure was fun goading him.

"No thanks, I'm fine," I said breezily. I slithered past the gates and retrieved the bike from behind a large shadowy bush. Paul took it from my hands and pushed it along, forcing me to walk with him.

We walked a hundred yards in comfortable silence. Then I asked, "So all these years you've had girls climb all over you, and you haven't defiled any of them?"

Paul gave a casual shrug. "Pretty much."

"Wow. Talk about self-restraint. You should become a monk."

Paul smiled. "I'm self-disciplined, not a fool. I don't have any wish to remain celibate my entire life." He flashed the wolfish grin. "Quite the opposite, once I find the right woman. Or at least, once I actually obtain the right woman. The finding part's already done."

Blushing just a little, I ignored the obvious provocation. "Didn't realise you were such a romantic," I said. Only being half-sarcastic this time.

"I'm not a sleaze, Suze. I'm just used to getting what I want. And to get what I want – if it means enough to me – I'm prepared to use whatever I've got."

"Money is a powerful aphrodisiac but flowers work just as well," I quoted. Though who I was quoting, I didn't know.

"Have I ever used money to seduce you, Suze?"

"Yes."

Paul chuckled lightly. "Okay, guilty on that account, then. That was only at first though. Then I realised you weren't like all the other shallow girls I've come across in my travels."

"I know, it must have been hard for you to actually work at getting someone to like you. You poor, poor man."

"I'm learning," was all he said.

I snorted, but only half-heartedly. Because he was learning. He was getting more and more Jesse-like as the days went by. Next he'd be trading his gleaming BMW in for a glamorous white steed.

Although, that was pretty doubtful. There's no room to make out on a horse. However I'm sure Paul would have found a way.

"Alright. We've established you're saving yourself for the right girl. Once you find her – and once you marry her, obviously – how many kids do you want?"

God knows why I asked him. But I was genuinely curious. I'd never really seen this side of him. Glimpses of the genteel Paul were starting to peek through his shuttered inner-self, and it was intriguing and enticing.

Paul tilted his head in contemplation. "As many as you want."

I raised an eyebrow. "As many as your wife wants."

Paul leered knowingly and I made a noise of dissent. "But how many would you like?"

"Three," he said instantly, and I was taken aback at how certain he sounded. He continued: "I want the eldest to be a boy – the protective big brother – and the other two to be little girls. Twins, if that's the way it is. And they'd play dress-up and gossip together, and they'd let their brother play with them too. Even though he'd act like he was too cool." Paul grinned and his eyes took on a far-away glint. "And the boy would be a scientist. And he'd work at NASA, or be a soldier in the Marines, then write a series of novels about life in the Marines. And the oldest girl would be a designer, and her sister would be an author, or an actress."

I smiled at the image, picturing his kids as he went on. "What would they be called?" I asked, my voice as dreamy as Paul's.

"The boy would be Mikey, or Charlie. My oldest daughter would be Jo, and the youngest would be Little Suze. Or Susie Jr."

I felt a smile begin to spread and then quickly reined it in. Paul turned his head to me. "How about you?"

I almost said, "I want what you want," because his life sounded so wonderful. Instead I said, "I pretty much want the same. I could always picture a boy and two girls. The dad would look after the boy, whenever I took the girls shopping, or whenever the girls were busy being girls. And sometimes my husband would take the girls out, and I'd hang out with my son. Teach him kick boxing or play video games with him."

Paul grinned. "What about their professions?"

I frowned. Usually my fantasies stopped there at the kids. "I'm not sure. I'd want them to be whatever they wanted to be. But I could picture my boy doing something that earned him lots of money. And he'd buy a house in Europe somewhere and fall in love with a beautiful woman who loved him the instant she saw him, and vice versa. And though his sisters would tease him about it, they'd love him for going all gooey and girly over love at first sight."

A light breeze tugged at my hair, and the stars twinkled overhead as if they were listening to every word being spoken.

"My big girl – she'd be called Maria – she'd be a big city chef, and go to lots of dinner parties and meet a sophisticated young man, who'd fall in love with her food, and cheekily ask her to cook him a meal at home, so he could make sure she wasn't using microwaveable meals. And because she'd be such a character, and she'd be strong and stubborn, she'd rise to the challenge and cook him a meal."

I grinned as I pictured it all, suddenly flooding into my mind as if it had been waiting there in the back of my mind, just waiting to be released.

But she'd say it was on her terms, and that she'd only cook him a meal at her home. And then they'd end up cooking it together in her kitchen, and before they knew it, they'd be head over heels in love.

"And then my little girl. She'd be a college teacher, or a university lecturer. On Astronomy or Physics, or something smart. And she'd have millions of admirers – her students, colleagues, everyone. And she'd always complain to me that she thought she'd never find anyone to love. Until, poof. She found someone. Some man she met at a museum, or in a café. Who asked her for her help because he was lost or something. And then they'd bump into each other again and again until they decided that it was obviously Fate bringing them together all those times, and they'd go on a date. And then they'd go on another one and another one. And that would be it. They'd run away to some exotic island and get married."

There was silence for a moment except the gentle plodding of my sneakers on the sidewalk.

"Wow. Big bad Suze is a big bad romantic."

I gave a big sigh. "Yeah, I guess I am."

We reached my house and Paul opened the garage and wheeled the bike into it, all without budging an inch. I took a step forward when Paul said, "It's a shame." He was stood with the big black book tucked under his arm, and his eyes gleaming with honest contrite, which almost pulled me with startled curiosity from my dazed state of mind.

I turned round and blinked at him. "What is?" I asked.

In the dark, his expression was lost, but I knew he wasn't smiling or frowning or showing any expression. It was just his eyes that gave him away as they shone with the moonlight.

"That those dreams about your future will have to remain just dreams. Ghosts don't tend to make brilliant husbands or parents, you know," he said softly. And disappeared just as softly.