A/N: Thank you Jasmine for reminding me that today was indeed saturday, lol. Here is chapter 2. Hope you enjoy and thanks again for all the reviews.

Hayner - A couple of days later

"Okay, I get the whole driving on the left side cause England is like that, but why in the hell is England like that if no other European country drives that way?" I buckled myself into Seifer's truck, trying to calm my nerves about getting a driving lesson from him. It hadn't been so bad when I tried it by myself last week, but now that I was having an actual adult in here with me, I felt like I was taking my driving test again.

He lifted a finger, mouth open to respond, but then dropped the finger and shut his mouth, giving me a shrug instead as he tossed the keys into my lap, sitting back, crossing his arms behind his head and comfortably settling himself in the passenger seat.

"It's not rocket science; I don't know why the Irish are so hell bent on giving us Americans lessons. But I know I'll get my head chewed off if I don't do this, so, let's do this." Closing his eyes, he crossed one leg over the other after having shifted the seat back, waving his hand flippantly before him. "Go on, have fun."

"Um, are you going to give me a destination?" That came out a little testy, but I was kinda hoping to have a bit more interaction, maybe some actual talking? Shaking my head at myself internally, I reminded myself that this was an employee slash employer type thing, despite my attraction to the guy.

He popped one eye open, "Well, Penelo won't be outta school for a long while still. I don't actually have anything going on today. Err, is there anywhere you want to go?" He reached out then, patting my hand that was settled on the gear. "Unlike the wheel, these aren't mirrored. So instead of pulling the stick towards you to go into one, push it outwards." He grinned, sitting up as he allowed me a bit more of his attention. "But I'm sure you get it, the numbers are written on the gear themselves." Another shrug, and he let his hand slip from mine then, putting it on his knee instead. Shit. I gulped and fought the blush I could feel trying to break free. Get a fucking grip Hayner, act like a man and not some stupid swooning girl, please?

"Stupid gears," I muttered as I tried to orient my mind to what he'd been saying. "I'll just drive until I get lost then. That's the quickest way to learn, I guess." Slowly easing the truck into gear, I took a deep breath and focused on the driveway, and not on where Seifer's hand had rested on mine. I could do this. I could be a normal au pair, driving normal, and most definitely not having any sort of inappropriate attraction to my bosses.

"So, now that the kid isn't around, wanna tell me a bit about yourself? I couldn't help notice you avoiding telling me where you're from when I asked." He shrugged, "If you don't want to then that's fine too, just trying to make conversation, or something."

I spared him a glance out of the corner of my eye. "It wasn't deliberate or anything. I'm from Miami, decided I wanted to go abroad before I got too old. Ran out of money, and took my chances with that career agency." I shrugged. "Nothing special. I'm hoping to get some international experience to put on my resume if I decide to go back to the States and if not, I'm hoping to find some place here that appeals to me." Really, Europe was filled with tons of different places and things I'd never really been exposed to before. I already felt more at home here in Ireland than I did in Miami. Maybe it was all the green and the fresh air.

"What brought you to here?" I asked, then winced as I tried shifting to third, my worst gear, and missed. The truck groaned and the gears ground and I tried to find third, while keeping my eyes on the road. "Shit."

"Hey!" A growl. Placing his hand over mine, he gripped my fingers. "Foot," he instructed, leading me to automatically press the clutch to allow a switch of gear while he helped guide me into third. "Easy with the old girl, wanna treat her like a lady. She's a lot more fragile than she looks." Another pat on my hand before he released it again.

"Don't be so nervous, I swear I don't bite, and you're doing fine, I'm sure you don't second guess your actions when you're alone in the car without someone checking your every move. Just pretend I'm not here or something, or at least, know that I know you can do this." I saw him nod with a smile from the corner of my eye.

"As for me getting here? Exchange student, my parents wanted me out, and figured a school across the ocean was the right amount of distance." He shrugged, "They're cool, I was just difficult when I was a teenager, so I don't blame them for getting sick with me." A sigh. "Then I knocked up Aerith, and her parents were the epitome of religious, so they made sure I couldn't run and leave her hanging. Abortion wasn't an option either, completely against their views, so that's how we got hitched, and how I stayed."

Wow. I kept my eyebrows from rising in surprise as he related his life story to me. And I suppose it made sense now why the divorce was so easy. They probably hadn't been in love in the first place, just forced into it. "Do you miss the States?" Shifting again, I sighed in relief when I didn't hear the grinding noise again.

"Not as much as I thought I was gonna," he confessed. "I like my farm and job, love my daughter with all I am, and she's really all I need, so as long as I'm close to her? Don't matter where I am in the world." A soft laugh. "Hey, how old are you anyways? Aerith pretty much only told me your name. So now I know you're a guy babysitter, that you're from Miami, and want to see the world before you go old. Don't look that old to me, so?"

"I'm 20." And again, I tried not to analyze if that was going to be a good answer or a bad one. I really needed to stop thinking in terms of, 'If I answer this way, will he like me more?' Smirking, I added, "Old enough to drink here, at least."

"I was the same age when I came here, had just turned 21 by the time Penelo came to be." He exhaled heavily, "Aerith keeps saying I'm not old, but having a kid and turning your life around to make it so the squirt can live a stable life happily? Sure makes me feel old." He chuckled then, "Made any friends here yet? I know that can be hard. If you want I can introduce you to Cloud, he's 22, knows where to go out in this small town - he'll be able to show you around and stuff."

"I'm just focusing on getting to know the town right now, and hopefully not getting lost." Which was proving to be almost impossible as this town really was small enough I could easily remember where I'd come from. "But thanks." I decided that sending a smile his way was showing gratitude with no ulterior motives. "What do you do around here for fun? When you don't have Penelo, I mean?"

"I'm kind of a loner, like to just relax and be by myself when I don't have work or got Penelo to entertain." Then he quickly added, "Not that I mind helping you out with the driving thing, don't want you to think I'm not okay being here. You're a good guy."

I heard him sigh again. "Half of this town sort of just avoids me cause I'm different from them. Not just cause I'm a Yankee, but also cause I divorced Aerith, daughter of the man who owns the biggest electrical company in a sixty mile radius. Her dad was pretty respected around here, big reputation and all. When my sexual orientation became a public knowledge, they all sympathized with Aerith, sort of giving me the mean eye I guess. Luckily my ex wife is a splendid little lady who's got a steady head on her shoulders and doesn't listen to what other people say, won't let them influence her beliefs and all."

He chuckled, "She was never much of a church go-er anyways. The other half of the town is polite, but so far, the divorce still sort of makes them uncomfortable to be seen with me." And then he shrugged, "Cloud tries to get me out of my comfort zone. It's just that his zone is so alien compared to my zone? I decline as politely as I can at all times."

I was pretty surprised and impressed by how much he seemed to be opening up to me, and he didn't even know me that well. Hopefully that meant he felt comfortable around me, probably because I was a fellow American. I tried not to feel smug about that, again thinking along the lines of, 'this will somehow make him like me.'

"Seems pretty lonely then." I smiled sympathetically. "I wasn't sure how the Irish viewed being gay, but it doesn't seem so bad around here." He had to understand that I wasn't just talking about him being gay. I didn't want to come right out and say it, and I was just enough of a scaredy cat to just imply about my orientation.

"They're-" He cut himself off, "Why would you-" And again before he laughed, "Jeez, Penelo isn't completely wrong claiming my mind is like that of Princess Sparkle Bubblegum sometimes. Okay, well, now that I connected the dots, I guess Cloud's a great match for a friend then. I wouldn't say we're friends, since I am more that with Zack and Cloud's his little brother, but he's gay and makes sure I don't go anywhere near the closet again. He's got a boyfriend though, but if you ever feel like a guy's night out..." he said meaningfully, "I'm sure he'll know where to take you."

I blushed, but dammit, I couldn't help it. My knuckles tightened on the steering wheel and I felt extremely self conscious. It wasn't like I was touchy or anything, but I really didn't like it when people knew I was gay and tried to either 'help' me out by setting me up, or assume that I was on the prowl for someone. I didn't really say anything. It wasn't his fault that it was a sore spot for me.

"So, do the same rules apply here as they do in the States? You can turn, er, left on a red like you can on a right red light?" I almost got tongue tied as I asked that question, but I just hoped it was a distraction from the topic at hand. Talking about stuff like this just made me uncomfortable and flashed to my disastrous 'coming out of the closet'.

"Yeah, just follow the road; everything is sort of reverse here." Clearing his throat, he shifted some in his seat. "So, err, I'm sort of out of questions and don't know what else to talk about."

I chuckled at that, feeling exactly the same way. Making new friends and acquaintances wasn't really my strong suit. "Me neither, I guess. Um, I, uh, did Penelo's laundry. Did you need me to do yours?" Resisting the urge to blush and smack my hand over my run away mouth, I pretended that this was something normal that all au pairs offered. It's not like he would know, right?

He snorted, "Yeah, no thanks, that's fine. I didn't even let Aerith touch my laundry when we were hitched. But I'm getting the sense that I need to give you stuff to do. Can't just expect you to figure it all out for yourself."

He paused for a moment, "Okay, honestly? It would be nice to have you around to drive the girl to school in the morning and pick her up; unless it's like today where I don't actually need to do anything and my workers can handle things on their own. But I seriously don't know what else to give you since I just drag Penelo along with me after she gets out of school, and she loves it."

Another pause and a thoughtful hum, "You're welcome to stay at the farm while Penelo is here, I mean, I figure you might not know what to do to entertain yourself if you're off for an entire week, taxi services aside, and you can only watch so much television to avoid boredom, so... If you're up to it, you can give me a hand on the farm, you look sturdy and all you really need is to not be afraid of animals and you'll be good to go." He gave my shoulder a quick pat then, sympathetically, "But if you just wanna stay at Aerith's and do whatever with your free time in between driving the squirt to school? I won't stop you, it's up to you."

"No, I don't mind staying here." And not just because I wanted to torture myself by staring at him when he wasn't looking. "Really, I would love to give you a hand. I'm sure after a while I'll figure stuff out." Being on the farm would break up the time at the mansion at least. There was only so much staring I could do at all that luxury before going insane.

"All right then, when we get back, I'll show you around the farm. We got a blackboard in the stables with a list of things that need to be done, I update it regularly and just let the workers pick whatever it is they wanna do, so you can do the same. Course I'll hang around and help you out the first couple of days."

I felt excited now, and quickly found the correct road to take us back to the farm, silently congratulating myself on not grinding the gears again. "Sounds like a plan."

Seifer - nearly a month later

Parking the car in front of Aerith's house, I quickly unbuckled the belt and made my way outta the car, letting Hayner help Penelo with her bag and bringing her inside while I already marched my way up the stairs, leaving the front door open as I quickly trotted over to the kitchen, knowing she had to be there most likely. Closing that door behind me unlike the front, I smirked as Aerith was giggling, batting Zack's hand away with a wooden spoon from the food she was cooking while he was trying to distract her with kisses.

"Get your hands off my wife." I greeted, leading the couple to look my way, smiles on their faces.

"Well hello to you too, Seifer. How's it going?" Zack clapped my back sympathetically.

"Good, good. I need a moment with Aerith, that cool?" I asked. Zack nodded with a smile, winking over at Aerith who was humming as she twirled the spoon into the sauce she was creating.

"I'll just go greet the kid." And then he was kind enough to give me the moment I needed. Waiting for him to close the door after him, the deep frown I'd been sporting all week surfaced again as I rushed over to Aerith, prying the spoon out of her hands and lowering the fire underneath the pan as I grabbed her shoulders and turned her towards me. This earned me a raised eyebrow, but I ignored it for the moment.

"Send him back. Fire him. Send him back to America."

She frowned at me. "No way in hell am I sending him back. He's the best au pair I've ever seen and Penelo absolutely adores him." Giving me a once over, she glared and asked suspiciously, "What on earth has gotten into you? I thought you liked him!"

"Yes!" I growled out, "I like him very much! He's incredible with Penelo, works real hard on the farm, his sense of humor matches my own and unlike many people we know, he understands the rule of personal space." I crossed my arms, stomping my mud covered boot on the ground, this earning me a smack against the ear.

Wincing, I grabbed said ear, "Sorry. Just, it's wrong, Aerith. You need to send him back before I do anything stupid to ruin things! You know how good I am at that!" I reminded, "I'm the king of destruction, that's what your dad called me. I come in and manage to screw over whatever good is going on."

Still glaring at me, Aerith crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot. "I'm still waiting for you to give me one reason why you think I should send that wonderful young man away from here. Seriously, Seifer, you are being ridiculous right now, and I am thinking I might need to slap you out of it."

I took a large step away from her to avoid a slap. "He's a boy!" I shouted in frustration. "He's ten years younger than I am!" I pointed out. "It's wrong!" This had been eating at me for a while now. I should have never allowed myself that one peek at his behind, it had all gone downhill from that moment onwards, and you'd think I'd know better, but I guess Aerith's dad wasn't wrong after all. I seriously was the king of destruction.

"Don't test the teenage hormones, Aerith, I beg you. You need to send him away before I do something about it, because let's face it, I didn't exactly get a chance to fool around when I was in the age to do that as I was too busy marrying you and massaging your feet and getting you freaking ice cream in the middle of the night while you were preggers."

I could tell by her annoyed sniff that she was letting the comment about the ice cream slide, but when she turned her fierce gaze on me, I wondered if I was lucky for that.

"Are you telling me, you are crushing on my au pair?" The glint in her eye and the smirk that twitched on the corner of her face was warning enough that she was well aware of my feelings about Hayner.

I laughed a short laugh, "No, Aerith, I'm not telling you I got a crush on your au-babysitter, I'm telling you that I want to enact the cliché pornos, where the employer seduces the babysitter's pants off and then pounds him into oblivion!"

"Okay, ew, for one. And two, you are telling me that you can only think about sexing up the poor boy?" Her looks were too understanding after that question. "Weren't you the one who was naming all of his qualities two seconds ago?" She squinted and held up her fingers with her thumb and forefinger slightly apart. "You don't have even a tiny crush on him?"

"Well," I wrinkled my nose, "It's not like I didn't imagine some kind of sweet pillow talk after the pounding into oblivion part, but it's only while I said that part out loud that I remembered I was talking to my ex wife, so I stopped for the sake of awkwardness." I shook my head, "That isn't the point though, the point is, you can't let me do this. Stop me, Aerith. I'm asking you as a friend, as your ex-husband, your daughter's father! Please remove him from our lives so I don't do anything stupid..."

"No. I'm sorry you're going through some crazy man crush thingy, but no. Hayner stays." And she said it with such finality that I didn't dare snap back for fear of her slapping me. Her gaze softened. "Look, if it makes you feel any better, I can't dictate what Hayner does during his hours off. He is free to do whatever he wants and as long as you don't have a problem treating him as an au pair when he stays with you, then I don't see a problem."

"Aerith!" I shrieked, "Last time you gave me a green light, Penelo was the result and our marriage was the freaking consequence!" Growling in anger, I turned on my heel sharply, "You are as weak as I am! When I declared we were two making that baby, I was right! I'm not the only horn dog in this country like your father claimed!" And then I slammed the door, ignoring Zack as I marched my way out of the house, knowing I'd be able to apologize for my quick departure to Penelo later tonight on the phone.

Hayner - a week or so later

I couldn't keep the smile off my face as I listened to Penelo sing one of the Irish folk songs from around here to me. We were on our way back over to Seifer's for the weekend and all of next week and Aerith had told me that I could just drive Penelo over there for convenience. "That was great Penelo! Now do the one about the dog and farmer." Giggling at me, she jumped right in, the wind from the open windows blowing her bangs out of her face.

It seemed like things were starting to really feel great lately. I was almost suspicious, but helping out with the farm and keeping Penelo occupied was quickly becoming my favorite part of the job. And, if I was honest with myself, I didn't mind all the extra time I got to spend with Seifer while I was over here. He'd spoken to Aerith and because of the help I was doing, they'd added about a 100 more Euros a month to my pay, which was an added bonus.

"Look! I can see your dad's house! How's the baby calf doing these days? Did you pick a name?"

"Senorita de la Flower!" She said proudly, "I think she looks Spanish; also, she eats a lot of flowers."

"I'm not sure if I've ever heard of a Spanish looking cow, but it's a pretty name." I killed the engine and helped her get her bag of clothes out of the backseat. I quickly scanned the front yard, and furrowed my brow when I didn't see Seifer right away. He was usually waiting for us as soon as he knew we were almost here. "Wonder where your dad is..."

"Oh, he said on the phone last night that he would be busy repairing the old tractor." She slammed her door shut, "He also said that I had to just go find him and you could go directly to the black board if you wanted, that he'd take care of me while repairing."

I was taken aback. "Oh. He told you to tell me all of that?" That seemed...a little unnecessary. Why couldn't he tell me that himself? She shrugged her shoulders, clearly not knowing what to give me for an answer to that.

"Have fun Hayner, see you later, okay?"

Smiling as big as I could so as not to worry her, I nodded. "Sure thing, kiddo. Hope it's pizza for dinner tonight!"

That had her turn around again, halting as she'd been walking away, "Oh, daddy is taking me out tonight, just the two of us. He wanted me to tell you that too." She gave me a smile, "But we'll be back for bedtime, so you can come say goodnight!" And then she was off again.

And now I felt like a complete loser. Not that I had anything against Seifer taking his daughter out to a dinner with just the two of them, but why did it feel like he was avoiding me all of a sudden? The last time I was here, everything seemed to be fine. We'd talked and joked while we worked, and Seifer had even sat down and watched TV with me, handing me a beer as well. Sure, he'd seemed a bit in a hurry when he'd dropped us off, running out without saying goodbye to Penelo, but that hadn't seemed like a big deal then. Trudging over to the barn, I chewed my bottom lip and tried to figure out exactly what I'd done to make him avoid me.

As I spent the next few hours doing chores from the board, I racked my brain, dying to figure out what the hell I'd done wrong. And as the weekend progressed, and the week came to an end, I resolved to let it go, as I was clearly beneath his notice now. Despite my best efforts, I hadn't exchanged five words all week with him, and even though I didn't understand why, I knew that there was a clear line drawn between us. I was his employee and that was all. I buried the hurt I felt as I finally came to grips with it, and instead, spent my time focusing on Penelo and my job.

Last day at the farm, and then back to Aerith's mansion. While the dynamic had changed here under Seifer's roof ever since he'd drawn that very clear line, I still enjoyed working out in the fields and with the animals. So far I hadn't really interacted with the other workers, most of them already having started with their chores by the time I came around to the black board, and since there was so much land, it was rare I shared the same spot with another worker as we were all sort of crisscross across the farm, doing what needed to be done.

It's why I was surprised to see someone staring at the black board when I walked into the stable, not used to having to wait in line. Noticing my presence, the guy turned around, blond spiky hair bouncing as he did so, an easy smile shaping on his mouth as he greeted me with a wave.

"Hi! I'm Cloud Strife. We haven't met, but the other workers told me you'd joined their forces not too long ago. You're Penelo's au-pair, right?" He took my hand once in reach, shaking it. "I only come here maybe four, five times a year to make a bit of extra money." He then explained his presence here.

I smiled automatically and introduced myself. "Yeah, I'm Hayner Allen. It's nice to meet you." I squinted at his hair. "You're Zack's brother, right?"

He nodded, "Yeah I am. So you are American." He'd noticed the lack of Irish accent then. "Well, a belated welcome to this country then. It's a lot of fun when you know where to go. Twisted stories all around, but I guess you already knew that, I mean," He chuckled, grabbing a hayfork for god knows only why, "I'm Cloud, Zack's little brother who's good friend's with your employer Seifer, who used to be married to Aerith, your other employer, who's now dating Zack, my brother. And I'm actually dating Seifer's ex right now, Leon."

He frowned, "Seifer's really unlucky in the romance department." And then he shook himself out of it. "Anyway, unless you got anything going on and made a bunch of friends already, I'd be glad to take you out into town, show you the hot spots and assure you it's not as boring as it may look at first glance."

I couldn't keep the chuckle from getting past my lips. "You Irish sure are friendly." Trying to keep the frown at still being ignored off my face, I answered. "Nah, I haven't really made any friends yet. What the heck." I shrugged. "I guess I'll let you show me around." It couldn't hurt anyways.

"That's the spirit!" He smiled brightly, "Well, none of the chores really require two people at once, so how about we do our job and meet up in the parking lot at five? I'm meeting Leon and the guys at Lachlan. It's a bar. A good group is playing music there tonight. Sound good?"

I suppose his enthusiasm was catching because the next smile I gave didn't seem forced at all. "That sounds great. I'll see you then, and, um, thanks and all."

Positioning the hayfork over his shoulder, he hitched up his pants, gave me another smile and then started making his way out of the stables. "It's no problem! The more the merrier!"

Later that day, in the bar

I'd met a lot of people that were shameless, flamboyant, or simply didn't care, but when it came to Cloud? His lack of interest in other peoples' opinions wasn't just him not caring, he literally didn't give a flying fuck.

"Rude and Reno - the two guys dancing crazy on the dance floor? - are my friends from high school." Cloud explained, playing with Leon's fingers, settled comfortably in his boyfriend's side, not uncomfortable at all flaunting the fact that he was gay in this small town, local bar.

"Rinoa and Yuffie, dancing with my boys, work with Leon on Zack's farm." He continued, "And Vaan here just likes to tag along." He winked at the blond that was about my age, sharing a small couch with me, nursing a beer as he smiled easily my way, nodding in confirmation at Cloud's intro.

I took a sip of my own beer and nodded along to his introductions, catching Vaan's eye as he smiled in my direction. Huh, unless I was mistaken, I'm pretty sure he checked me out. Well, I couldn't let that go, so I casually let my eyes run over him, definitely appreciating what I saw. He didn't have the physique of Seifer, but then again, he was younger than the guy. And besides, that ship hadn't even come to port let alone sailed away, so I shouldn't be comparing the two.

"Nice to meet you guys. I'm Hayner." I tipped my beer to Leon, who had gone ahead and bought the first round.

"Slante!" Cloud returned, gulping down a few greedy slurps, chuckling as Leon stopped him from downing the thing completely.

"Cloud, you're not a teen anymore, slow the hell down or you'll get plastered and miss the entire night." Scowling in good humor at the blonde, Leon released Cloud's arm apparently trusting him to drink like an adult. I chuckled, already feeling at ease with everyone. The band was pretty good and it was easy to let the tension from the week fade to the background.

"So, are you all from around here?" I asked, raising my eyebrows at Vaan and the other two.

"Yeah, we-" Leon placed a palm over Cloud's mouth, giving him a meaningful look, which was returned with a pair of questioning puppy dog eyes, but not five seconds later did understanding dawn in them as Cloud nodded, shutting his yap and waving his hand flippantly in Vaan's direction.

One eye bigger than the other as Vaan stared at Cloud as if he was looking at a crazy person, he shook that off and then turned to look at me, letting out a short chuckle.

"Ehm, yeah. Well, Cloud, Reno and Rude are. Leon, Yuffie and Rinoa come from towns spread around Ennis, while I'm actually from Dublin." He gave me a sheepish look, shrugging, "City boy."

"Ah, I know how that goes. I'm from Maimi, FL. I've never been this close to cows and livestock in my entire life." I chuckled and leaned back into the corner of the sofa so I could see Vaan a little easier as well as Cloud and Leon. "What brings you guys to this small town then?" I nodded to my couchmate and Leon. Vaan leaned back too, his feet bumping into mine, but he didn't retrieve them, leaving them there and not even pretending he had done it by accident.

"I actually work at Aerith's dad's electric company. Transferred from his Dublin office about two years back." He said.

"And Leon came here to find me." Cloud said happily, tossing back half of Leon's beer now, clearly on his way to going from tipsy to drunk. He seemed happy with it though. Leon rolled his eyes, but kept his arm wrapped around Cloud's shoulders, clearly hoping that he could keep him in line with his physical presence.

He grumbled out, "I suppose I can't deny it." I smirked. Totally whipped. My attention was drawn back to Vaan as he bounced his leg and bumped into my foot. Hmm, I smirked at him. He wanted to play that kind of game? Feeling brave, I bumped him back.

"So, how are you liking the small town then, city boy?"

And then he trapped my right leg between his, smirking my way, "It's all right."

"Hey!" Cloud protested.

Vaan laughed, "Okay, it's fantastic!" He said with more enthusiasm this time. "Oh, look, our glasses are empty." I stared at my still half full glass, raising an eyebrow his way in question. Grabbing my beer, he quickly finished it for me. "It's Cloud's turn to by the next round. Leon, you may wanna help him, don't think he can walk straight, let alone carry full pints."

Leon smirked and quickly stood up, dragging his blond boyfriend up with him. "Sure thing, C'mon Cloud. I think we're being subtly told to leave." With that, he marched them over to the bar, stopping along the way to chat with a few other patrons. Despite the bravery I'd shown so far, I wasn't really sure what to expect now that they'd all basically maneuvered me into being left alone with Vaan. I glanced his way with an eyebrow still raised.

Shuffling closer, he reached up to place his palm against my neck, not leaving me any time to react as he leaned in, pressing his mouth against mine for a moment. It wasn't long, nor did it include any tongue, just a simple kiss. When he pulled away, he released me completely, sitting back comfortable as he smiled.

"Not looking for a one night stand," He started, "But I am looking for a date. I'd get to know you better here, but the music is loud and I really don't like shouting out my life story to be able to be heard, so..." He shrugged rather simply, "I'm thinking the kiss was nice, wanna see where we can take this?"

Wow. Again, I was struck by the straightforwardness of the people around here. It must be a small town type of thing. It took me a minute to find my voice as I'd been surprised to hell and back by the kiss he'd given me. If I took him up on his offer of a date to get to know each other, I'd really have to let go of the still major crush I had on Seifer. I felt deflated for a moment. The guy had made it perfectly clear that I wasn't really on his radar. So be it.

"Uh, sure. But don't expect a whole lot outta me at first." I warned. "Everyone here seems pretty open, but I'm not a huge sharer."

"Hey, don't worry about it." He said, "We can just go out and catch a movie or something for a first date. Normal and not a whole lot of talking necessary." It was easy to smile at him and I felt comfortable enough to nod and bump my shoulder against his. While I was definitely still attracted to Seifer, Vaan seemed like a nice guy, someone easy to talk to and hang out with while I was being ignored by Penelo's father.

"So, when is this first date gonna be?" I smirked. "Gotta make sure my schedule's clear and all."

"How about tomorrow? Actually, me and the guys are going to see Sherlock Holmes 2, so it wouldn't be a real date what with all of them being there, but I figure it's a start. We can share popcorn."

A/N: Let's all pretend that Reyaa's vacation will never end and thus we will never run out of stories...yes...let's pretend that the real world doesn't suck ass, lol.