Author's Note: (Happy New Year! )What are Chris and Merri in for? Some Post-Kiss Awkwardness? Some deeper UST?

Eight Maids-a-milking

How was he here again? It was what, exactly one week ago that had found him nervously standing on Merri Brody's stoop?

Okay. So he well knew why he was there. And suffering from a bout of nerves the likes of which he hadn't experienced since her was 20 years old.

Now, whether he wanted to admit it, was an entirely different story.

They had rightly separated at the end of the night. Something they hadn't really been doing. Nights were the worst for loneliness, he well knew. So yeah, when they had dinner together, he ended up staying the night at her place, on the couch of course. But after that kiss... They had both known better than to flirt with being in the same house, still buzzed from alcohol and bodies flooded with hormones.

No. It had been the correct decision.

Only now some time had passed. And he couldn't help but wonder if Merri Brody had grown to regret their behavior the previous night? Would it make things awkward between them? God, he hoped not. The deepening friendship between them had become the most important relationship in his life.

Had he completely messed it up by initiating that very much more-than-friendly kiss?

Merri answered the door, giving Chris a severe bout of deja vu. She was dressed in what he now knew was her 'comfy' clothes, yoga pants, tank top and hoodie. Her hair was a little rumpled and she had dark smudges beneath her eyes. Hell, so did he, since he hadn't gotten in until 2am and then had an extremely fitful sleep. How had he ever partied all night? His thirties were finally catching up with him, he supposed. Or life was.

At least she hadn't appeared to have been crying this time.

Giving him a wan smile, she let him in.

"About-"

"I'm sorry-"

They both spoke at the same time, abruptly stopped and laughed nervously.

"Ladies first," Chris said, when they just stared awkwardly at one another. Man, he'd messed it all up, hadn't he? Only... Only he found himself staring at her mouth, wanting to kiss her again, wanting to hold her close, feel her warmth and inhale her scent.

"Please don't feel bad about what happened last night," she said, catching his gaze with her inescapable intense one. It wasn't aggressive, just encompassing in a way that made you never want to leave it. "I value our friendship a lot. I don't want to lose it because we make a big deal out of nothing."

Nothing? She was calling that kiss nothing? Chris felt a little hurt. Apparently, she saw this in his eyes.

"Okay," she said with a borderline flirtatious smile. "It wasn't nothing. But letting it become awkward. Please let's not do that."

"Mere, I..." he didn't know what to say. He knew how he felt, all of the dozens of contradicting feelings. But he didn't know how to put them into words. "I like ya."

"I like you, too, Chris." Her smile broadened further. "I like spending time with you. I like being your friend. And yes, I really liked kissing you."

"But..." He supplied for her when she failed to continue.

"But... nothing," she said, her cheeks flushing a little at the implication. He felt heat blossom in his own chest. And lower.

"You aren't gonna gi' me any ultimatums 'bout stayin' friends?" he asked. "'Bout how mebbe we shouldn' be spendin' so much time ta-gether?"

She shrugged. "Are you giving me any?"

"Nope." Now he did grin, feeling extremely relieved. He wasn't sure what he wanted from Merri. And she didn't seem to know what she wanted from him, either. The only clear thing was that they were still friends. Just friends who also enjoyed kissing each other that one time. Whether or not it would happen again... Well, he had no idea. He also didn't know whether he truly wanted it to, despite what his body was telling him.

Merri invited him in and offered him a cup of coffee, which he sorely needed after the previous night of excitement and the complete lack of sleep (due to other sorts of excitement). They sat on the couch together, an environment he was becoming quite comfortable in. The silence that fell between them was thankfully not in the least bit awkward. It was actually quite pleasant.

And that was a sign of true friendship, Chris knew. Not feeling compelled to fill a silence with some inane chitchat. Just being together as they sipped their coffee and -yes, they were- stealing glances at one another. He couldn't get it off his mind, the way she felt pressed up against him. The way she tasted. The way her body freely responded to being held, touched, kissed. It was the most open and untempered he'd ever seen Merri Brody, who always seemed to have at least one barrier up, some part of herself on guard.

He'd liked it. A lot.

Setting his mug of half-finished java down, he reached for the gift bag he'd brought with him, and set it on the cushion between them.

"Time fer yer present," he said, giving her his classic big ol' grin.

"How many times do I have to tell you that you don't have to do this," Merri said.

"An' how many times I gotta tell ya that yer my friend an' I like doin' it," he said. And he did. It was actually quite a bit of fun thinking up all of the surprises and executing them. Granted, his family had poured out a number of ideas when they'd first conceived the idea. Who the hell had suggested it in the first place? It was his mama who'd insisted that he go see Merri on Christmas so that the 'poor thing wouldn' be alone on the day Baby Jesus was born, that'd be downright uncharitable an' a sin.' She told him to take one of the bottles of Aunt Bernice's Pear Wine... And was it his sister who (having already had several glasses of the stuff) made a joke she found more hilarious than the rest about how fitting the pear wine on the first day of Christmas was. And then it had been a tidal wave of scheming and pressuring him. Not that he'd needed to be coerced into cheering Merri Brody up. It had been eating away at him, seeing her do so down.

"Chris, goat soap? This couldn't have been cheap," she said, as she pulled the eight cloth-wrapped bars out of the bag.

"Nah." He shrugged it off. "My sister works for the comp'ny. She gets a tonna it free."

This seemed to relieve Merri's concern about the trouble he'd gone through somewhat. It really hadn't been much trouble at all. He had a case of the stuff sitting in his own closet.

Her laughter drew his attention, and she held up the soap so that he could see the little round label. That had been the best part of it. Why it'd been so perfect.

"Is your sister a 'maid-a-milking' then?" she asked, still laughing over the company name.

"Not exac'ly," he said, chuckling a little, too, as he pictured his sister trying to milk a goat. Despite his family's admittedly hillbilly thick accent, his sister was not really a 'country girl'. "She's their marketing department."

Merri was holding the bars up to her nose, testing the scents of them. He'd pulled the variety sampler out of the pile of 'Maids-A-Milking' products for her gift, not knowing whether she'd like the scent his sister seemed to think was his favorite and had given him that whole damned case of, so much soap that he teased her that she was trying to say something about his hygiene.

And then Merri was laughing again. This time, he had no clue why. And when she looked at him with amusement, he gave her a confused one in return.

"This is what you use, isn't it?" she said, holding out the bar with the all-too-familiar orange ribbon tied around the muslin wrapping. And she was right. There was about twenty bars of it stacked in his bathroom closet. Damn his sister. Although, free soap. Why would he protest?

"Yeah..." he said, hesitation in his voice. "So?"

"I couldn't figure out why you smell like ginger," she said. "It's not generally a scent guys pick out."

Chris felt his face heat up. The tips of his ears were probably turning pink. He wasn't ashamed of smelling like a cookie or pie or whatever else a ginger aroma brought to mind. But he was feeling a little flush of awkward pleasure at the idea that Merri had not only noticed the way he smelled but had fixated on it enough that she'd been trying to figure out its source.

"Free soap," he said as way of explanation, making her laugh again, before she set the bar aside and leaned in to kiss him on the cheek, making his internal temperature seem to rise another few degrees at the contact. Because he may smell like ginger. But she smelled like fresh apples-with-a-hint-of-vanilla.

Good enough to eat.

A/N: Well, they haven't really addressed where they stand have they? Besides not wanting to give up what they have… Whether it's friendship… Or maybe more?