Rosalie gets chewed out by Tanya for being 'so boy-crazy' and the next time her fiance cheats on her, she better be ready to use up a vacation day.

"Or so help me I'll mark you as working from home and you better get the work done!" Tanya snaps, and then huffs out a short sigh. "Now … do you need a hug?" the woman asks, opening her arms.

Rosalie knew this would hurt their reputation – it's a small workplace and most of the men here thought they were just 'incompetent' when their clients didn't believe they had their parts on back-order for months. Tanya and her weren't even really friends, after all.

But she still finds herself nodding, her chin wobbling, as she presses into the other woman and trembles into her shoulder.

Coming home from work, Rosalie is even more exhausted after the fact that she went straight from the airport to the office to make it to work on time. It all comes crashing down on Jasper, standing in the doorway, his mouth pulled into a sad little line. He waits for Rosalie to kick off her heels and dump her jacket on the ground. Work had turned the air conditioning back up while she'd been gone.

She'd texted and called and he knew how well it had gone. "… I'm sorry it didn't go well, Dutch." He trails after her as she goes to the kitchen. They were having chicken. Sometimes, Rosalie forgets Jasper quite liked cooking. "But I'm not exactly surprised."

The anger had been long simmering in her chest, and now, in the comfort of her own home, it flares up. "You drove me to the airport!" she explodes, poking him in the chest.

His hands go up, but lazily, no boxing match intended as he eyes her with gruff annoyance. "You think I'm willin' to risk my balls tryin' to tell you what to do?"

She storms over to her room. "I want dinner in bed!" she declares over her shoulder.

She looks at him long enough to see him flick her a salute. "You got it."

She's stays sulky as she changes into her Pjs and flops under the covers. Soon enough, Jasper comes in with two plates. He plonks one down on her lap and climbs onto the foot of the bed with his own.

"Do you think I'm an idiot?" Rosalie asks, listlessly scraping her fork through her rice. Jasper frowns at her.

"I'm not stupid enough to think that."

"I went all the way there, and she never even saw me …." Rosalie whispers, "Maybe I'm not even …." Rosalie wasn't entirely sure what she was trying to say, and began to get annoyed with herself. "Did I ever even love him?"

Jasper shakes his head, though. "I never liked him, but you seemed to," he replies evenly, seemingly more engrossed in his meal. "You looked happy whenever he was around, like when you got your Berkin bag."

Rosalie snorts. "You think my future husband is going to make me feel like a new handbag," Rosalie says spitefully; not sure if she's entirely offended by her brother's assumption about her shallowness. Frankly, the feelings for her had been similar.

Jasper just shrugs. "I trust you," he answers simply. Those words cut her more than her materialism.

"You shouldn't have, I don't even know what I was thinking …." She knows she should be more hurt about Royce; but she's mostly embarrassed. She's mostly angry at the amount of time that's been wastd. That it'd happened under her nose, that Eli wouldn't see her. "I never know what I'm thinking."

"Yes you do." Jasper gives a short laugh. "You're one of the most opinionated people I know!"

Rosalie hums, glancing at him. "You make me sound bossy." She's beginning to feel a touch resentful.

"Yeah."

Rosalie huffs out a laugh despite herself. She thinks back on the boys she'd been with. "I never really remembered wanting boys – they just … showed up," Rosalie says softly, her chest starting to feel tight and her nerves jumping up.

Jasper's brows dart up, but he looks amused more than anything. "Think some girls would scratch your eyes out, talkin' like that."

Jasper seemed to have none of her troubles eating, Rosalie watches a few grains of rice fall onto her comforter. Usually, that would be enough to have her shrieking, but she was too deep in inward reflection to do much more than watch.

"I don't think I loved him."

The words hang in the air, for a moment. But Rosalie is almost ashamed of how easy they were to say. It should feel heavier, all the planning for her wedding, gone. The last few years of her life, gone.

"You liked him enough, once."

But Rosalie's troubled at his words – 'like', not love. "I liked that all my friends wanted him. I liked the idea of being a mother sooner rather than later. I liked that everyone thought I was so lucky …." Rosalie always liked being appreciated and admired. It felt good, to look good. And she had looked good with Royce.

"You were always talking about boys. I used to sit next to your bedroom door and listen. Thought you and the girls always had bad taste." Jasper chuckles a little, but his eyes seem disquieted, glancing up at her over his plate.

Rosalie feels a pang in her heart, then, at the image of a lonely, younger Jasper sitting outside of her closed bedroom door, wanting in and not being able to bridge the gap. For a moment, she feels an urge, an old urge, to thank him for coming out; for sharing such a vulnerable, valuable part of himself so they could support him as his family. So that he didn't have to hide anymore.

And Rosalie thought back to all those sleepovers, all those hours spent giggling over boys. She wonders if she'd been lying back then. But she shakes her head lightly – she had been having fun. She had enjoyed herself, at the time. She isn't going to pick through her memories and tear them apart, she could just accept them for what they had been.

"Is it bad that I don't care?" she asks the ceiling with a frown, "I just really liked being the leader," she had been in charge of her little girl group. Though she could laugh at it now, at the time it had felt much more dire. "I just liked making everyone agree with what I said. I don't know if I meant any of it." Rosalie knew how she'd been in high school too – mean, so damn mean, and so willing to stomp down anyone to make herself feel big.

Jasper's eyes seem to be peering through her. "What are you trying to say now?" he asks her quietly.

"Am I gay? How do I even know?" her chest feels hot, her face feels hot. In her mind, she's uncertain, and she could never stand the feeling of uncertainty very well. "I'm grown, for fuck's sake! I have always known myself!"

"Well, you don't have to figure it out right this minute! Breathe!" Jasper demands, putting his empty plate aside and leaning over to her. "Dutch, take your time. You're always trying to race to the finish line."

She glares at him, "You think that's what my marriage was to me?"

"Not exactly." Jasper's gaze is steadier than her nerves and he reaches over for her hand. "Breathe, Dutch."

But Rosalie feels angry, too angry – she shoves her untouched plate into his hand instead, sitting up from her pillows. "Don't tell me to breathe! Get that rice off my bed!"

Jasper's mouth thinned. He takes the plates back into the kitchen, and doesn't come back. Further annoyed that she had to rip her bed sheet off herself and shake them out, Rosalie comes out of her room to see him doing the dishes instead.

"I almost threw my whole life away," she says to his back.

Jasper stops the tap and reaches over for the dishtowel. He turns to her, and now he seems to be getting annoyed. "Hey – even if you had married Royce, your whole life wouldn't have been over," he says, tossing the towel and crossing his arms. "You're gonna look at our family and say you only get one chance?"

Rosalie, mulish until the end, stares at him for a very long time before she speaks, "… I know." Their parents had both lost a spouse and found another, and now her step-brother is her best friend.

"You need to tell them, Dutch," he says, nodding as Rosalie shoves her head into her hands and squats down to groan for a solid forty seconds.

When your gay step-brother is like 'what are you waiting for?' and you don't have an answer for him. Please let me know what you think!