"Dude, you're late."

"And you look like shit," Seth added. "What the hell happened last night? Have you slept at all?"

Dean felt like shit too. "Not really. . . . Man," he sighed.

"Rough night?" Roman continued with the hearing.

"Yeah."

Now Roman was getting suspicious. "You got drunk?"

"I wish. At least I wouldn't remember."

"That bad?" Seth asked. He, unlike Roman, wasn't worried but rather curious. He had an idea that there was a good story behind that exhausted, beaten-up, and regretful face.

"Could have been worse." The eyes of the two friends were watching him, letting him know he had to confess. Before that would happen, though, Dean sat down. "I don't want any analysis," he started. "I'll tell you what happened, but you keep your opinions to yourself, okay?"

"Of course," Seth was the first to accede to the conditions.

Dean looked at Roman. "You too. No judging."

"I hope you didn't kill anyone."

"No."

"So?" Seth enthusiastically asked.

"I went to this bar last night."

"Of course. That's how it always begins," Roman commented.

"Hey! What did I just say?"

"I'm not judging." The tone, however, was definitely judgmental. The expression in his face still was.

"Just shut up, Ro. I wanna hear it."

"I just wanted to get laid."

"There goes my hope for a romantic fairytale."

"That's it!" Dean shouted, and stood up in anger.

"Shush, Ro." Seth made sure about that by placing his hand over Roman's mouth. "I got this. You can continue. Please." Seth appeared to be really interested.

"I found a girl, pretty, not very confident. She was with her friends, she was on her way out actually, but I made her stay. We had a drink . . . none of us got drunk," Dean quickly added. "We got a cab and when we stopped in front of her house, she asked me to come inside. She was young, you know, living with her parents. They weren't at home – away from town on business or something. She had the whole house to herself."

As Roman's mouth was liberated, he judgmentally asked, "What did you do, Dean?"

This time Seth presented his view, "Set the house on fire?"

"No. We went into her bedroom. It wasn't long before we started making out. We got naked . . ."

"We can imagine," Roman said.

Dean hesitated. "I told her I was 26."

"And I bet you gave her a fake name, too," guessed Seth.

"Doesn't matter . . . but yeah. At least I'm protected."

"Protected from what? What the hell happened?" Roman sensed a terrible twist. He wasn't sure, however, how bad it was.

"She said she was 20. She was 17."

"Oh my god!"

"Yeah."

"So . . .?

"What . . .?

"That's bad."

"Did you find out before?"

"Did you do it?"

The guys hated the tension.

Dean continued, "I should have known something was wrong. She was really insecure. She was . . . a virgin."

"You slept with her," Roman assumed.

"I did. Only in the morning I found out how old she really was."

"You fucking piece of shit."

Dean took it as his due. He wasn't proud of last night.

"And I bet you told her you would call her."

Dean said nothing. There was nothing really to say. The damage has been done.

The silence continued. Judgment was all over the place, getting mixed with the air. The four eyes watched him, judged him, condemned him.

"What's the law here?"

"Law?!" shouted Roman. "He just had sex with a girl who's 12 years younger than him. She's not even an adult yet."

"I see that's morally wrong, Ro, but the important thing here is whether it was illegal or not."

"You asshole! You have no self-control? Or is this how you treat women?"

Seth was already sitting down and staring at his phone, trying to find out just in how deep shit Dean really was.

"You're sick."

"I'm not proud of it," admitted Dean.

Seth sighed loudly. "Alright, we're good. The age of consent is 17."

"This is not alright, man," Roman said. He was not willing to let this pass. "It's one thing to bang random chicks who are asking for it. But sleep with a teenage girl? Take her virginity? Lie to her? What happened to you?"

"It was an error. It won't happen again."

"You're going back to the person you used to be?"

"No. Roman, I'm not."

"To me, it seems so."

A sigh came out of Dean's mouth. "Besides, I was nice to her. Sure, it was not supposed to happen, and certainly not with me feeding her all this bullshit, but I'm not a bad guy in her eyes. If she's not naïve, she'll know I won't call her again and that she'll never see me again in her life."

"Don't try to justify what you did."

"I'm not. But don't make me a douchebag, because it could have been much worse; I really could have brought out the dark side of me, something nobody's seen in years."

"Are you proud enough of it to let Renee know about this?"

Anger could be heard in Dean's voice. "I'm not proud of it."

"But you wouldn't mind if I mentioned your night rides to her?"

"As far as I know, she won't give a damn. This is my life, and she knows it doesn't concern her."

Roman sat down next to Dean. He was silent for a while, then started talking again. "It doesn't matter that you're not together now, that you pretend the life of the other person does not concern you, once this is over, you'll have to come clean with everything, and you'll regret doing this. If you want her back, you can't be a bad guy."

Dean patiently waited till the lecture was over, and then commenced his self-defense. "A, what happened was not my fault, and even if so, it wasn't as bad as it appears. And B . . ." Silence. Dean was staring at the floor underneath his feet, taking his time because in the end, nothing mattered anyway. "I'm beginning to see that we're not getting back together. Ever."

"That's bullshit," said Seth.

"Until now, I wasn't really trying to move on, because I knew, or at least I hoped, that this situation wouldn't last. That we'd end up together. Somehow. But that was illusional. Maybe I should forget about her," Dean revealed what he's been thinking about.

"Are you drunk?"

"I'm finally sober."

Even Roman now changed his attitude. "Dean, it's gonna be alright."

"I know."

"She'll eventually break up with him and come back to you."

"That's the nonsense I've been telling myself. But I can't live that way."

"Was this the plan?!" Seth lost temper. "I thought the break-up was temporary!"

"This is what happens. Plans change. Goals change. We adjust to the new situation."

"And this is how you adjust . . .," said Roman, bringing attention to himself for a second.

"Oh, come on, man. Everything will turn out just right," Seth soothed him.

Dean was, despite the words that were leaving his mouth and the way they made the other two guys feel, completely fine. "I know." His voice was calm and he was even smiling.

Roman had something he wanted to ask. "What are you going to do now? Start from scratch?"

"I'm not looking for 'the one.' " Dean mockingly said. "I never was. Renee just happened, and it felt right."

"So why would you give it away?" Seth did not understand.

"I'm not giving anything away. She does not belong to me. That future I thought was written for us . . . that's bullshit. Nothing's set. It comes and it goes, you know."

"And if it comes back?" asked Roman. "What will you do then?"

"I'll see how it feels." Dean laughed. "I know you two now probably thing I've given up on us, but I'm not saying we're done. But it's an option. And right now, it's a very probable one."

Roman looked at Seth and exhaled loudly. Then his focus returned to Dean. "Now what?"

"I need to learn to be okay with it."

"And fucking young chicks is the way to do it?"

Dean did not fear to look at him. "Yeah."

"What, you wanna . . . unfall in love with her?" asked Seth.

"I don't wanna care. I thought I didn't," Dean admitted. "Yesterday it turned out I did. I knew she was with him. But I guess I fought away the idea that she could be falling in love with him."

"Is she?"

"I think so, Seth."

As the guys were working on processing the information they just obtained, and that perplexed them, Dean stepped aside to take a call.

"Hey," he started off the conversation, a smile accompanying the kind voice. "Yeah, sure, I could make that happen." "Um-huh. Yeah. Alright. One hour, yeah, maybe less." "Understood."

Dean turned to his friends. "Sorry, fellas, but I'll have to leave you."

"What, the girl from last night called?"

Dean chuckled. "Nope. But her sister did." Those expressions were not of appreciation, not even understanding. "She's 22." And he added, "Don't worry, I'll check her ID . . . just in case."

"So you got good references, huh?" Seth guessed.

"Maybe she found out what you did to her little sister," Roman suggested an explanation.

Dean accepted it with a smile on his face.

"You're a prick." Roman had nothing more to say, he already made his opinion on the guy he called a friend. Without even looking at him again – it would be yet another judgmental look anyway – he walked past Dean and left.

Seth appeared to be about to do the same thing, but he stopped next to Dean. "I don't know how much of that is true, and honestly I don't wanna know, but you take a look at yourself in the mirror."

"Go ahead, judge me all you want, I don't give a shit, Seth."

Seth just chuckled. "Oh, I do judge you, you can be sure about that, but you look like shit. If you wanna nail the sister, do something about that appearance. And maybe take a shower, too."

"Wait," Dean said, surprised, "that's it?"

"I may not agree with the way you're doing it, but getting over her may be a good idea."

"I thought you said it was bullshit."

"I believe you'll eventually find your way back together."

"I never knew you were an idealist. . . . And that you had a romantic soul."

Seth laughed. "You don't know shit about me." The laughter continued for a little longer. "But I got you all figured out."

"Really?"

"You enjoy your freedom for now, but you won't be able to accept her romance when her feelings for him will be stronger than her feelings for you. She'll become a prey. It'll be a game again."

"If you say so."

"Maybe in the end that was the reason why you broke up with her. It became too easy for you. She was all hooked up . . . and you missed the challenge. So what did you do? Let her go, let her find someone else so that you can chase her all over again. That's the dream right? A pretty dangerous way of having fun, though. You know, maybe when I'm sitting at her wedding, you won't be standing there with her but sitting next to me." Seth let Dean think about it. He watched him as Dean lost the happy, arrogant grin. "Now tell me you'd be okay with that."

It took Dean another minute to be able to speak. Shake the whole insecurity thing off. "I gotta go, Seth."

"Bang the 22-year old?" Dean smiled, but Seth told him, "I don't think you are. I don't even think any of what you said really happened last night. You're not that stupid."

"Believe what you wanna believe, but don't expect miracles to happen. I know that I don't."