You'd think things would be different after Spike asks me out, but it's not really a huge change. I just make myself act normally around him, convincing myself it's not awkward, because he really doesn't make it like that. We both enjoyed our relationship before and don't want it to change now.

After that first day, we never talk about it. I personally try to pretend it never happened, and if Spike's personal space bubble seems to be shrinking, if he brings me iced drinks from Starbucks so I can try all the different flavors, if he eats dinner with me and Leah at least once a week, well, that's just what friends do.

I find myself spending a lot more time with the team after I move in with Leah. It's not that I don't like living with her—we get along fantastically—but now that things are heating up between her and Zach I prefer to be out of the way for the random makeout sessions. I can no longer eat at the head of the table, sit on the right side of the couch, or stand at the end of the shower. If I run into them anymore soon my bedroom will be the only place I feel comfortable. And even then… It's just best not to know.

I'm in a booth at the back of the diner after work one day, steering clear of Leah and Zach's random makeout sessions in the apartment. I'm supposed to be studying for a test I have coming up, but I'm actually just watching old Friends episodes and snickering to myself. Thankfully there's no one nearby—I have a hard time controlling my laughter sometimes.

Growing up, my mom watched every single episode of Friends. At the time I didn't think they were funny—I had far more important things to do than hang out with my mom—but I'm actually really getting into it now. It's something I can talk about with her when I call. Something that doesn't make her cry.

Anyway, Chandler's breaking up with Janice now and I am in tears, I really am, when suddenly I glance up and see Spike standing at the door watching me with this grin on his face. I blush and wave at him.

This is freaking embarrassing. Yes, Spike, this is why I said no to you. When faced with going on a date with you or watching Friends…I choose Friends.

Maybe not that bad. I had my reasons. More substantial ones, at least.

He strolls on over, all at ease and breathtaking while my palms are sweating and I'm trying to keep from grinning like an idiot. Seriously, when did I become so transparent? I used to be so cool.

"Hey, Win," he says as he comes to stand by my table.

Wrong thing to say, Spike. Win. Now I'll never be able to form an intelligible sentence.

"You look like you're having a good time," he comments with a grin, taking in my flushed face and smile.

I shrug and gesture awkwardly at my computer. "I'm watching Friends."

"Leah kick you out?"

"Well, she gave me two choices," I explain seriously. "Clear out, or risk having an X-rated scene play out in front of me between her and her boyfriend. So I cleared out."

He snorts. "I don't blame you."

"You want to join me?"

Did you really just say that? I always heard about people just blurting things out before they thought them through—never thought that was legit—but here I am, a living testament to that anomaly.

He raises his eyebrows and hesitates for a moment.

"Unless," I rush to explain, "unless you have something else to do. Are you here with someone else?" I crane my neck towards the front of the diner to try and spot his date.

"No!" he exclaims, taking us both off guard. He bites his lip and rolls his shoulders as if trying to relieve some tension. "No, I'm by myself." He shrugs and glances at my laptop. "Friends, huh?"

This is so embarrassing. He probably thinks I'm so pathetic.

I nod.

"Sure."

Well, okay then. I hesitate for only a moment before scooting over to the other side of the booth so he can slide in with me. He clears his throat and makes a point of sitting far enough away so he doesn't touch me.

"My mom loves this show," I say as we wait for Connie to come take Spike's order. "She used to watch it every day."

"How's she doing?" Spike asks. He taps some salt out on the table and starts drawing in it—a dog, a flower, a bird.

"She doesn't have too long," I say softly, making sure my voice is calm and even like I have to make it every day on shift. "She had a checkup last week and the doctor said she's got about two months, maybe three if she's lucky."

"Shouldn't you be there with her? I'm sure you could get some personal leave…"

I'm silent for a few minutes while Connie takes Spike's order, trying to gather my thoughts and figure out what we're going to talk about here. A couple months ago I wouldn't have thought it was appropriate to tell him all this, but Spike's my friend now, so…

"I'm going to go be with her for the last month," I say after Connie leaves. "And I'm trying to call her more often, email, Skype. We never got along that great, but I want her to know I'm here for her."

I'm pressed into the wall now, trying get enough distance between the two of us so we can face each other without it being awkward. He's studying me, and I know he can see all the things I'm not saying. How I blamed my mom at first for my dad leaving, because he was gone and there wasn't anyone else around the blame. How I've barely stayed afloat this last year with all the hospital bills. How, as much as my mom and I always fought, as much tension as there always was between us, I don't want to lose her. It's too soon. She supposed to be around for my wedding, to see my kids. Now she's not going to be.

"Let me know if there's anything I can do for you, when…when the time comes," he says softly, gently meeting my eyes. I can see his sincerity.

I nod and stir up my coffee just so I'll have something to do with my hands. My laptop screen goes black.

"And your dad? Where's he at?"

I drop my head and pretend to readjust my watch so he can't see me squint my eyes and purse my lips. I face him again. "He left, three years ago. I haven't really spoken to him since."

He nods slowly, and doesn't say anything else. I'm not making any effort to hide from him that I don't want to talk about this. I don't talk about it with anyone.

We're quiet for a few minutes—I sip my coffee, he sticks a straw in the soda Connie brings him. It's funny, I never really thought I'd ever have comfortable silences with anyone but my family, especially Kaylee, but I have these moments with Spike, and Leah too, where I just decide that we're friends and it's comfortable and there's not really a need to speak. It's just…it's nice, it really is.

Eventually I wake my computer up and hand Spike one of the earbuds so we can both hear the episodes. He's the kind of person you want to watch things like this with—I'm not afraid of laughing till I'm wheezing because he's dying too, snorting into our drinks and desperately trying to keep it down so it doesn't carry right across the whole diner. I think we both know it's not working.

We move on to Seinfeld's "The sea was angry that day, my friends", and right around the time that we're both crying from laughing so hard, Connie comes over and signals that they're about to close. I glance at my watch and can't believe how late it's gotten, time just flying by when I'm with Spike. He pays for my food before I can even protest, says I can just surprise him with a muffin sometime. Or a donut, I think to myself. From the weird look in his eyes he could be thinking the same thing.

We tell Connie good night and head outside to where he's parked and my bike's chained. He stands with me while I unlock it and then grabs it without a word and starts walking to his truck.

"Um, excuse me?" I quip, following him as he gently sets my ride in his truck bed. "I kind of need that to get home."

He shakes his head and opens the passenger door, standing back like the gentleman he is. "Nope. I'm giving you a ride tonight, Win."

"But—"

"No buts." He gestures for me to get in. "I'll just follow you anyway to make sure you get home safely. Might as well just let me drive."

I roll my eyes and pretend to be angry while I climb in. "Fine. I wouldn't want you to worry."

He shrugs, his hand still on the door. "Just want you to be safe."

He doesn't give me time to reply as he shuts the door and comes around to climb in the driver's side. I try not to shiver at the blast of a/c that hits me once he turns his truck on. He notices anyway, and hurries to turn the air off. I smile gratefully and we pull out of the parking lot as the diner lights dim.

"How do you like living with Leah?" he asks after a couple quiet minutes. There's some soft rock coming from the radio and I'm trying to keep my eyes from closing as the long day catches up with me.

"It's nice," I say, pulling myself out of my tired haze. "We made a plan for who does chores, and we already got along really good before so that helps." I wrinkle my nose. "Kinda sick of her and Zach making out all over the apartment, though. I try to avoid all the places I've caught them, and it's just getting to be too many."

Spike snickers and brakes at a light he could probably have made if he'd just cut it a little closer. "Have you asked her to keep it in her bedroom?"

I shrug. "Yeah, but…she says it just happens and there's no time to make it there." I roll my eyes as I remember her solemn expression as she said this, like there really was no way she and Zach could possibly pull their lips apart for ten seconds to run to her room and close the door. "Not so sure if I believe that one."

He just laughs again and turns the music up a little, hums along to the songs he knows. It takes just a couple minutes for him to pull up in front of my apartment building. He gets out to help me with my bike.

We stand there awkwardly for a moment, I don't really know how to say goodbye and I guess he doesn't either. I'm about to just turn and walk away when suddenly he steps forward and pulls me into a hug, just for a second. I don't even have time to put my arms around him before he's pulling away. "I'll see you tomorrow, Win."

I pull my brain out of the gutter at the way he says my name and nod, gripping the handles of my bike a bit tighter than necessary. "See ya, Spike."

Most mornings that I work, I come in about an hour early to work out on the elliptical. I listen to audio books, and right now I'm listening to Jane Eyre. Team One's already been there an hour by the time I usually arrive, and they always give me weird looks when I'm smiling at something Mr. Rochester said, or frowning at Jane's pain. Now that it's getting towards the end of the summer semester, my finals are killing me, so I usually skip my workouts at work in exchange for some study time. We've all been working even longer days than usual, and I'm now positive that taking three classes this semester was insane. I have no idea what I was thinking.

I've taken up running around the neighborhood Leah and I live in now, mostly because I burn more running in a shorter time than I would on the elliptical. I'm not a runner. I'm really not—I hate it with a fervent and burning passion—but it's such a good workout, plus it's free, that I just keep doing it.

On our days off sometimes Leah and I run together. She talks the whole time, about Zach and work and Spike, while I'm just trying to breathe—talking is a bit of a stretch and definitely not a priority. I do my best to listen, but when she gets to Spike I sometimes muster up the strength to argue. I said no, he's moved on, and I'm…well, I'm stuck, but I don't tell her that. I think she knows, though.

I've always had trouble with that kind of thing—I think every guy is "the one". I'd hardly even considered Spike like that before he asked me out, but now I am. Leah says it was just a sign that the perfect guy's right in front of me and that's what it took for me to see him. I try to ignore her and stay in denial.

It's a Friday night a few weeks after SAMO Day—Spike Asks Me Out Day—and Zach's coming over for dinner. Usually I have to leave when he comes over, but he actually has an early shift tomorrow and can't stay the night, so I get to eat dinner with him and Leah. Sometimes it can be a little awkward, but I like Zach and the three of us actually get along pretty well.

I offer to cook dinner while Leah's getting ready. We decide on spaghetti, garlic bread, salad, and a chocolate silk pie. Leah's in charge of drinks for she and Zach.

I'm just combining the spaghetti noodles with the meat sauce when Leah comes out, all decked in a flowy dress and putting in some red earrings.

"Mm," she moans as she takes on some of the scents. "Smells good."

"Thanks," I say, giving her a smile as I take in her outfit. "You look nice."

She nods, popping a cherry tomato in her mouth and glancing over my jeans, sweater, and bare feet. "Spike's coming too, you know."

"What?!" I shriek, dropping the lid to the meat sauce and burning my arm with the steam. "Leah!"

She smirks at me and takes a wooden spoon from my hand. "Might want to go get dressed."

I glare at her, knowing this was her plan all along, like some sort of double date, and shake my head. "You know what? No. This is just four friends having dinner together. I'm not going to turn it into something else just because you want it to."

She rolls her eyes and uses a fork to scoop a sauce-covered noodle out of the pan. "At least put on some socks? Maybe a pair of earrings?"

I stomp off to my room in a fury. This is just like Leah, to try and set Spike and me up on a date in just such a way that she can watch. Well, it's not happening. I made my own bed, I'm lying in it, and no one, especially not Leah, is going to drag me out of it.

Despite my mental protestations, I find myself changing into a dark blue tunic and putting in some dangly earrings that kind of clink together and sounds like bells. I spritz myself with some perfume and even put on some mascara. Big guns, people, big guns. I grab my favorite socks—the ones with a bunch of multicolored pocka dots—and pull them on, no point in putting on shoes in my own apartment.

Zach gets here first and walks right in like he owns the place, all "where's my Leah bear?" and more disgusting crap. I make a point to stay in the kitchen while the two of them eat each other's faces on the couch. I'm losing my appetite already. It could be nerves at Spike coming, but I'm taking the low road and deciding to just blame someone else here.

When the doorbell rings I drop a metal spoon into the pot of hot noodles, and proceed to burn my fingers when I try to fish it out. By the time I've rescued the spoon and run my fingers under some cold water, Leah's clearly irritated with me.

She comes storming into the kitchen and, grabbing me by the shoulders, proceeds to propel me out the door into the living room. Spike and Zach are talking, and they look up as we come rushing in.

Thank you, Leah, for making what was already an uncomfortable situation for me even more awkward.

I immediately decide that Spike and I are kindred spirits because, while Zach and Leah are dressed to the nines, he's just wearing jeans and a button down, blue plaid this time and, yeah, all colors are his color. He grins at me when he sees me and leaves Zach mid sentence while Leah suddenly abandons me and goes to whisper something in her boyfriend's ear that makes him give her a very heavy look and a really tight, hungry hug.

"Hi, Win," Spike says, coming to stand in front of me, apparently unfazed by Zach and Leah's embarrassingly obvious PDA. I desperately try to keep my brain from melting at his grin. He pulls a bouquet of flowers suddenly out from behind his back. "I brought you a housewarming gift."

"Oh, Spike, thank you! I love flowers." I grin at him as I take the bouquet and take in a deep breath of the fresh scent. "What about Leah?" I quip, twisting the plastic wrapping around to keep from throwing myself into his arms to show my thanks.

He shrugs and quirks his eyebrows at me. "I think she's getting plenty of gifts over there," he says, pointing a thumb behind him to where Zach and Leah are now pressed against the wall.

I grimace and nod my agreement. "You know, you're probably right." I take another sniff of the flowers and gesture toward the kitchen. "I'm just going to put these in some water. You can stay here with the lovebirds or…"

"I'll come with you," he says decidedly.

I pull out a vase from under the sink, one that I got after my dad left and my mom's brother brought flowers to maybe help her feel better. She started crying right away because Dad would always bring her flowers when they were first married. I took the flowers, and the vase, and never gave it back.

I purposefully shove all those dismal thoughts to the back of my mind as I fill the vase with water and plunge the flowers in, shifting them around till they look decent. This kind of bouquet is my favorite—all mismatched, no roses, just lots of color and good smells. I set the arrangement on the kitchen table and go back to the stove to mix the pasta again. Spike leans against the doorjamb and watches me.

"You want something to drink?" I ask as I rummage through the cabinets to find a bowl to dump the spaghetti into. "Leah's got beer in the fridge, or there's tea, or Coke." I open the fridge to try to find something else. "Orange juice?"

He chuckles and grabs one of my Diet Cokes out of the fridge, the one right next to Leah's birth control. "This is good." He comes over to the stove and takes an appreciative sniff. "Smells good."

I shrug and dump the pasta unceremoniously into a green bowl. "Probably nothing like your ma's, but it's okay." Then I bite my lip. It's kind of weird for me to call his mother "ma"; any normal friend would just say "your mom", "your mother", "your old lady".

But then he smiles at me and I feel like maybe I said something right.

"Still smells good," he repeats, leaning back up against the fridge while I whirl around trying to pull everything together last minute. Salad's dumped into its own bowl, I rummage up some Italian and ranch dressing, even find some croutons. Spike starts taking dishes and putting them on the table without me even asking, and I have to grin at him for that. No thanks to Leah, who's still grinding Zach into the wall.

Everything's finally pulled together, table all set, and Spike and I stand awkwardly at the kitchen door, neither one of us wanting to go break up the little makeout session taking place a couple feet away. Finally I shrug. "Maybe if we just sit down and get started they'll join us after awhile."

Spike considers this and finally nods. "Better than having to get in between them."

I grimace at the thought and we sit down next to each other to dig in. He makes some joke about his ma making noodles and I snicker into my water glass and almost pour Italian dressing onto the table. He grins back at me and proceeds to dump some crouton crumbs all over his placemat.

I'm surprised at how fast Leah and Zach decide to join us. Leah pulls out her chair really loudly and sits down hard next to me, giving me a nasty look. "Thanks for waiting for us, Win."

I give her a look and she has the grace to smile sheepishly. Zach, on the other hand, seems to have found himself newly empowered and talks even louder than usual when he tells Spike about his new Ford. I'm grateful when Leah steers the topic back to something more interesting, like monster truck rallies; Spike just can't get over the fact that I've been to a few, even some by myself just for fun.

"You two should go together sometime," Leah suggests nonchalantly in between bites of garlic bread. "You can protect each other from the drunk, horny masses."

I blush all over and focus an intense stare on my water glass, but Spike gets us out of that awkward situation really quickly. "You and Zach could come too. Great bonding experience."

Leah snorts and takes a long swig of beer. "I'm around crashing cars enough as it is—don't need to go see a show about them with a bunch of drunken A-holes." She runs her hand steamily down Zach's back and does something that makes him jump in his seat. "Already got a drunken man right here."

Zach rolls his eyes and makes a point of finishing off his beer. "Not quite, babe. Just a few more."

I shift uncomfortably and tap my nails against my water glass, trying not to squirm at all this talk about alcohol that almost always inevitably turns to me not drinking any. But Leah steers clear of it this time, and we move on to favorite movies.

After dinner Leah dishes up some huge pieces of chocolate silk pie and we all go into the living room to play poker. Zach makes some comment about strip, but I discreetly pinch Leah's thigh until she groans—she plays it off as a moan of disappointment—and says nah, maybe next time.

After a couple hours—and about $30 later—Leah stretches dramatically and throws an arm around Zach, saying he'd better "put her to bed" before she just falls asleep on the floor. Spike and I share a look, both rolling our eyes, and he says it's about time he should get going too.

I walk him out to his truck, giving Zach and Leah some time to make it to her bedroom before I sneak back in.

"So," Spike says softly, leaning up against his truck, "did Leah let you know I was coming ahead of time?"

I snicker and shrug, tracing figure eights on the asphalt with my sock-covered toe. "About five minutes before. She's really on top of things like that."

He grins at me, clears his throat and shrugs. "There's a monster truck rally next weekend. Wanna go?"

I really can't tell if he's joking or not. But what the what. "Well…you really wanna go?"

His eyes light up like maybe he was joking before, but he's not opposed to the idea now that he knows I'm serious. "Y—yeah! I'll look it up, see how much tickets are. You think Leah and Zach would wanna go?"

I shrug. "I'll ask her, but I kinda doubt it. Doesn't really seem like their thing."

He nods slowly and gives me one last slow grin that makes me grind my toes hard into the ground. "I'll see you tomorrow, Win."

" 'Night."