A/N: Here's the next chapter. Once I got into it, I kind of enjoyed writing it. I hope you like it.

When Addison left her house, she was feeling supremely confident and content. By the time she got to the practice, she was rethinking it all. She felt unsure and more than a little worried.

First of all, wasn't it awfully forward of Preston to move his bag into her room? He was making it clear that he planned on spending his remaining nights in her bed. To be honest, the thought had not bothered her when she first thought of it. But then it struck her that it was making assumptions. Granted, the assumption was correct: that she wouldn't mind if he slept with her every night until the cows came home, but it was forward all the same.

She didn't want to expect too much and she didn't want too much expected of her. They lived in different states – eighteen hours apart. Long-distance friendships could work but she was less sure about the success rate of long-distance romances. And if you add the difficulty of distance to her own unique inability to maintain a successful relationship post-Derek then there was almost no hope for them.

She needed space, time to mull this new…thing over. She didn't want to be rushed. Just because they had sex did not mean that this was forever. Did he think that they were now committed, that they were going to be together forever? Or did he just want to have sex with her for a week? Should she be insulted by that thought? Because she didn't actually feel insulted. She just felt that she should feel insulted.

So she would put space between them. It would be hard, as he was in her house, but she had a lot of skill in the avoidance area.

She had done this with Alex Karev, too. After she had kissed him in the bar, she had avoided him. She didn't have a way to explain her behavior and so she had kept her distance that day, going the opposite way when she saw him. She had kept away because she had thought that he was interested; that he would want to pursue something and she wasn't sure that she did. Avoidance had not played out well for her. Instead she had been pulled into a linen closet and shot down.

Not that that was something Preston Burke would do. Besides, she didn't have a linen closet so much as a linen cupboard, so he couldn't really pull her into it.

Addison let out a sigh as she got out of her car. She walked towards her office and Violet accosted her. "So…how's the man-friend?" she asked, looping her arm around Addison's as they walked.

"Preston? He's-oh-he's fine. Fine, good. Yes."

"Oh my God, you slept with him." She stopped in her tracks and looked at Addison with a wide grin on her face.

"Slept with – Me? No. No, well…yes. But…yes." How could she avoid the problem if no one would let her avoid it?

"How was it?" Violet had once again joined arms with Addison and was talking to her conspiratorially.

"It was good…great…fine…," she started, then realized what she was doing. "Violet! That's private. Go…talk to Cooper. He doesn't mind sharing his encounters with whatever chat buddy he's come across." It was unkind, but it solved the problem of having to talk about Preston. Violet shrunk back and Addison closed her office door.

Addison sat at her desk, head in her hands. She looked up when Naomi knocked and waved her in.

"Violet says you slept with Preston?" Naomi seated herself across from Addison and leaned her elbows on the table.

"Good morning to you, too, Naomi. How was your night last night?" Addison drummed her fingers against her chin.

"My night would sound boring compared to yours. How did it happen? Did you start? Did he? It's been a while for you, you know. I mean, wasn't that intern your last encounter? Did it go all right? Did he stay in your room? Or did he go back to that seedy guestroom of yours? And –"

"Naomi!" Addison felt overwhelmingly embarrassed. "I'm not…going to talk about it."

"Does that mean it went badly? It went badly, didn't it? Was that his fault or yours? I mean, you–"

"It was fine. It was great. We both enjoyed it. No one did anything wrong, everything…worked. And that's all you get. I'm not talking about it. Anymore. Now. I need to get ready to see a patient. I will talk to you later." She stood up and opened her door, an invitation for Naomi to leave.

"Don't think you're getting out of this, Addison. I know you. Something's wrong. Or – wait. Are you doing that thing where you're all scared of commitment?" Naomi kept talking, but Addison was now forcibly pushing Naomi out of her office. As she closed the door, Naomi called, "You'll tell me later. I'll get it out of you."

Addison watched as Violet attempted to stealthily walk to Naomi's office and sighed for what seemed like the thousandth time that day. She had had enough of the rumor mill in Seattle. At least this one was limited to two women (and maybe Cooper, depending on how needy and sad he was feeling on a given day) instead of an entire hospital.

Her phone rang and she saw that it was Preston. She grimaced slightly as she answered, "Hello, Preston."

"How's work going this morning? Is everyone missing your dashing counterpart from yesterday?"

"Work is fine and you actually have been the topic of conversation quite a bit this morning. But, um, I'm kind of swamped at the moment," she said as she surveyed her empty desk, "so I will have to talk to you later. Have a good day!" She felt guilty as she hung up the phone before he could respond.

Cooper knocked on her door and Addison nodded him in. "Good morning, Addison," he said, leaning against the wall. "Violet tells me that you slept with Preston."

"Yes, yes I did, Cooper. It was a fabulous evening. He started it by kissing me, but then I kissed him back and brought him up to my room. Then we had sex. After that, we fell asleep. Then he walked to the grocery store to make me breakfast. Anything else the vultures wanted to know?" she practically spat it out, so frustrated with the whole thing.

"Actually, I was just going to say congratulations. He seemed like a really nice guy. But…I'll let Naomi and Violet know. I'm assuming they're the vultures…," he trailed off and let himself out as Addison silently seethed at her own blunder.

Once patients started coming in, Addison calmed down a little bit. She started to feel like she had the situation under control, she was forming a plan. On her lunch break, she stayed in her office, eating a yogurt that she had grabbed from the fridge on her way out. Anything to avoid the conversations that would most likely ensue if she went to the break room.

Preston called again when she was licking the last remnants of strawberry yogurt from the spoon.

"I know you're busy," he began before she had time to say hello, "so I thought that I could make dinner for us tonight and we can just have a quiet, relaxing night. No stress, just a calm evening at your home." Addison felt like there was an irritated undertone in his voice and she honestly didn't blame him.

"Um…," she bit her lip, not really having an excuse prepared. "I'm working late." She rolled her eyes at herself and then felt her heart drop as Preston sighed on the other end.

"Well, I'll see you when you come home," he said, and she heard the phone click as he hung up.

Addison was good at avoidance, she just wasn't good at dealing with the repercussions.

She busied herself for the rest of the day, pushing any thoughts of Preston out of her mind. Violet and Naomi avoided her office, but she could see them occasionally looking in at her and whispering.

At half past eight, Addison let herself into her house quietly. She saw Preston sitting on her couch, doing a crossword puzzle. He looked up at her and asked, "TV show that had it's Dey in court? Dey is spelled –"

"D-E-Y, yeah, that's L.A. Law. Cooper loves that show." She bit her lip. "Well…I'm just going to grab something to eat quickly then go up to bed."

"Sleep well," he said as he wrote in the answer.

Addison saw that there was a chicken breast wrapped up in the fridge and felt a rush of guilt again. He had made her dinner and she had been horrible to him. She moved it aside, along with her guilt, to grab an apple.

"Good night, Preston," she said, climbing the stairs. When she entered her room, she saw that Preston's bag was gone from her room and that it was back to the way it was before they had slept together. She felt sad and lonely.

When she woke up in the morning, she saw that she was still alone and when she inhaled, she could no longer smell Preston in her sheets. She dressed without really paying attention to what she was pulling out of her closet and didn't even see what she was wearing until she sat in her car. Luckily it matched, so she at least felt confident in her ability to unconsciously pick out clothing.

Preston had gone out running so she hadn't even seen him. He had left her a note, like the previous morning. But nothing about this morning was like the morning before.

The only positive thing about her avoidance plan was that she realized she didn't actually want to avoid Preston. That didn't really help her now though.

Avoidance was something she wanted to avoid.

A/N Again: I don't know how Naomi and Violet will behave and I can only hope Cooper will act the way I wrote him in this chapter. The LA people are sometimes (okay, always) tricky for me to write. I hope you liked it!