Here's what happened . . .
She opened the door to go talk to Seth, but Seth was right, she had never arrived. Dean was standing right outside her room. He seemed rather nervous, and it wasn't the pretended nervousness typical for his promos. His feet were permanently on the move. He definitely wasn't as confident as usual. He knew his hands were sweating and his heart was beating fast. This whole sensation was new to him. He had it all planned, he kept reminding himself, there was no reason to worry, it would work out just fine. Yet he failed to make himself believe this supposedly assuring thought. But when he noticed Renee leaving her room, he tried to pull himself together. Dean didn't want her to see that person he had been for the last few minutes. But it was too late; she saw him first, and that made Dean believe that she had to notice that he wasn't himself and that courage left him long time ago.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
"Uhm . . ." He breathed heavily at first, but gradually he felt more comfortable and self-assured. And his acting skills helped, too.
"Weren't you supposed to have that 'thing'?" Renee asked ironically when he wouldn't get into talking.
"I said it wasn't certain," he reminded her. As he was regaining his confidence, flirting mode was switching on, and Dean was starting to get use of this powerful weapon called charisma.
"Yeah, you said it depended." She remembered it very well. "On me," she added, making it sound like a joke that wasn't particularly amusing, either.
"It still does."
"Look, Dean." Renee started her offensive. "I don't care where you go. Or with whom. You don't need to tell me; you can do whatever you want. I'm not your girlfriend."
"So what does a one have to do around here to get a girlfriend?"
Renee realized where Dean was heading, but she wouldn't make it that easy for him. She couldn't simply let him get away with that indirect offer, which lacked both seriousness and involvement of either of them. "Ask her, I guess," she answered his question in a visibly cold manner.
They both knew what Dean's intentions were; yet none of them wanted to make it clear. Not with the current somewhat hostile atmosphere. This was entirely caused by Renee. She still felt betrayed by Dean, although her brain was telling her there was something hidden from her that would make her understand. But she kept rejecting that thought. If there was something she was supposed to know, he would tell her. If there wasn't, she was not interested. In fact, she decided she would go with her original plan to go to see Seth. She wasn't sure anymore that she wanted to talk about Dean, now that he was there it seemed kind of irrelevant, but she still wished to be in a presence of somebody who could cheer her up.
Dean quickly saw her attempt to escape. He considered letting her pass him by and ruining his plan unacceptable. With one firm grip he got hold of her arm, and therefore he forced her to stay; at least he made her confront him first. He earned himself maybe few seconds, which would be crucial if he wanted to succeed in what he had planned.
"You're mad at me," he stated the obvious. When she said nothing at all, he decided to be the one to speak. "You have no reason to be." He knew that by saying this he would make her talk. She would consider that sentence a lie, one that cannot be accepted and needed to opposed.
"There is. And not only that; I have a right to be mad, too. I know it's none of my business what you do after our date, yet somehow it is. If you at least had enough respect to tell me beforehand. Or, why did you even asked me out in the first place?" Renee expressed her frustration. She didn't want to tell him all that was going on her mind, but it was difficult to stop once she started. "It's just unfair. It makes me feel like you don't care. Then I remember that you had evidently put a lot of effort into planning the date, and I am confused. What's going on? Am I going crazy for blaming you? Is it just a coincidence that you have two events in one night? Or what the hell, Dean?" she cried. Her voice broke at the end but she soon regained control over her emotions. "I should just let it go. I shouldn't care about your other plans, the ones that don't include me. I promise that from now on I won't." It was hard to believe her. She herself knew she couldn't stop caring.
It was painful for Dean to witness what Renee was going through. He didn't blame her for acting this way; he should have known his actions would result in her misery. That was not what he intended, though. He certainly didn't want to make her sad. Yet on the other hand, this mixture of frustration, anger, blame, pretended carelessness, and even sorrow allowed Dean to see one emotion stronger that the rest. Thanks to Renee's confrontation he now knew how much she actually cared about him. Because she might have been saying one thing, but the truth was somewhere else. She loved him, and she couldn't hide it no matter how much she tried.
"You're jealous." Dean's conclusion wasn't aimed at blaming Renee for her reaction. He smiled to make it clear that he was fine with her being jealous; he even considered it cute.
"I'm not," she denied.
"It's okay. If I were you, I would be too." He got into explaining, "Because that girl I have plans with later tonight, if she's interested," he added, "is the most beautiful girl I know. And she's funny and smart. She makes me feel comfortable. She knows me well and she loves me despite of that. And even when she's angry at me, she's adorable and I'm sure I'd let her scratch my eyes out," he joked. "I know I'd deserve it sometimes. But what I like most about her is that she lets me play all those games."
"What the hell, Dean?" Renee asked and finally there appeared a sign of smile and even amusement on her face, as she started to realize what was really going on.
"This is my way of asking, is it too soon for the third date?"
Renee finally understood what Dean had been doing. Now she saw what his plan was and that it actually did concern her. There was nobody else he had made plans with. He didn't betray her at all. He ended the date soon for a reason, and that being to get another date, in the same night. And Renee quickly became aware of what it all meant and why they couldn't just continue with the date, why there needed to be a partition.
"That's cheating," she pointed to the reason why Dean was making this third date happen.
"I call it a compromise. And anyway, is there any rule forbidding me from asking you out twice in a day?"
"Now I see why were okay with keeping the date clean. You knew you might get lucky later."
"So do you accept my offer?"
Renee tried to keep a poker face, but she failed terribly to hide her excitement. No matter how far from ideal Dean's ways of asking her out were, or how carelessly he played with her emotions, Renee knew she could learn to live with it and even come to like it. As long as the results made her happy, he could keep playing his little games.
And she decided to join in. "I think that considering the events that happened during and after our previous date and the stirrings of emotions, balancing between love and hate, and the one-sided argument that. . ." She wasn't able to finish her philosophical speech because Dean silenced her with a kiss she wasn't expecting.
"I take it as yes," he took a break to say. Then he returned to kissing. Neither he nor Renee wished to stop; they had already lost the control over their will. The magnetism was strong, and they were weak.
Yet suddenly Dean broke off the kiss. "So I was thinking of taking a romantic stroll along the beach, maybe getting a drink in a bar, or we could go dancing," he suggested while Renee was unsuccessfully trying to reconnect with his lips, which wouldn't stop talking.
"Or we could just go inside," she whispered in his ear. Dean definitely preferred that idea and Renee knew it. She opened the door with one hand as she used the other to undo buttons on Dean's shirt. Then she dragged him inside and locked the door. The lights stayed off.