Chapter 3

Xander had just gotten home and finished his snack, as he swallowed the last bit of Twinkie he eyed the phone apprehensively. Most of the reason he had a snack was to give himself time to figure out a way to inform his girlfriend of what had happened while still letting Willow live; while he was rather mad at her the girl had been his best friend since kindergarten and he didn't want something to bad to happen to her at the end of Cordelia's rage. He also didn't want to listen to his girlfriend tell him 'I told you so'.

Shortly after they started dating, Cordelia had worn him about Willow's crush on him. Xander, at the time, couldn't see what his girlfriend was talking about it, having been friends with Willow for so long, all he could see her as was as his best friend, if he stretched it, maybe as a sister. However, after mentally taking a step back and looking at Willow's actions objectively, especially after Buffy had shown up, Xander could sort of see what Cordelia was talking about. The change had been so subtle, that if Cordy hadn't mentioned it, than Xander would have doubted he would have noticed it before it was too late.

In every disagreement he had with Buffy, Willow always took the Slayer's side and would chastise Xander over his objections to whatever it was he was arguing with Buffy over; especially when he brought up his dislike of Buffy the vampire slayer dating what she was supposed to be eliminating.

Willow's reaction to his relationship with Cordelia was, in hindsight, another warning. While Willow appeared accepting of he and Cordelia dating; the redhead, along with Buffy had been making rude snippy comments about Cordelia ever since his girlfriend chose him over the Cordettes. Now that he was thinking about it, Xander had to wonder how much of this attitude was because of Willow's crush and how much was due to Buffy's trying to 'deal' with the crush that Xander had on the Slayer when she first showed up by attempting to push he and Willow together, while being too self-obsessed to realize that Xander no longer felt that way about her.

If asked, Xander would admit to the fact that he did have a crush on Buffy, at least the first year that she moved to Sunnydale. However, Buffy basically pole dancing, using Xander as the pole to make Angel jealous, pretty much killed Xander's romantic interest in Buffy dead in the water. Really, he only hung around with Buffy and Willow in order to make sure that as large a number of the things like Angel that killed his best bud were put in the ground.

Xander was brought out of the downward spiral of his thoughts by the phone ringing. Jumping slightly, Xander look at the phone with a certain amount of trepidation, reaching out he picked the phone up off its cradle and brought it to his ear.

"Hey Xander, want to go to the Bronze and grab a bite to eat tonight?" Cordelia asked after he said hello. Xander took a minute to think about things, and decided that staying at home a moping the state of his relationship with his 'supposed' best friends when his girlfriend want to go out and dance would not be a good thing.

"Yeah, Cordy, that sounds good, what time do you want to meet there?" Xander asked.

"Meet at five-thirty, stay for dancing for a few hours?" Cordelia put forward.

Xander agreed, wondering how much dining and dancing would be going on after Cordelia heard what he needed to tell her.