"Why the hell would you do something so stupid?" It was Seth who posed that question. It was also him who took the information with unreasonable affection.
Dean had his emotions under control for now. "Seth, if somebody should be asking that question, I believe it should be me," he calmly said.
"But," Seth protested, switching looks between Dean and Roman. "Could somebody take this seriously, please?"
As if seeing his friend freak out made Dean realize that the situation wasn't in reality that grievous or presenting a great threat. Dean suddenly understood that Cassie was not an enemy; she wasn't there to sabotage his relationship with Renee. She could not have those intentions. But a similar question that bothered Seth rested on Dean's mind too. "Why did you ask her to come?"
Roman replied, "Because this needs to end. I witnessed the stress it gives you," he recalled a scene from few nights ago when Dean was not far from breaking down. "If you and Cassie are not able to see it," he started, but it was Dean who finished that sentence.
"Then maybe if Renee gets involved, I'll stop being a fool."
With big smile on his face, Dean put one arm over the shoulder of each of his two best friends. "You really are wonderful friends. You only have the best intentions." He looked at Seth, who looked strangely uncomfortable being held so close to him. "You are there for me when I need you." Then he looked at Roman, but he addressed both of them again. "You are there for me even when I don't need you. I love you, guys." The warm voice was replaced by a colder one. "But stop bugging me. I know what I'm doing. I can manage my own life and my relationships, okay? I don't need your intervention. If you wanna know, I'm done with Cassie. I don't need her help anymore. Neither do I have time to keep that friendship. But if I were you, I'd be careful about these," he engaged his fingers, "decisions." Then Dean finally let go of the embrace.
Seth spoke to Roman, "He's not done with her. I wouldn't believe him. Or her." Seth always put a special, despicable, emphasis on that pronoun when connecting it to Dean's ex, whose name he pronounced as rarely as he could.
"For your information, Dean," Roman found courage to talk to him, and while doing so, looking him in the eye. "I didn't mean to upset you. Or cause you problems. I just think –"
"You think? No, no, no, my dearest fella, thinking is the last thing you did when coming with this 'solution.' " Dean scratched his face. There appeared pink lines afterwards. He smiled and punched his own face. The smile grew bigger.
"You look nervous," Seth noticed. "You have something to hide?"
"Where are they?" Dean addressed the person behind this, Roman. He started stepping around furiously.
"In the café near the Center."
"Which café?" The sound hardly got out in between Dean's clenched teeth.
"You're not going there."
Dean took that order with surprising calmness. His breathing was coming back to normal. The anger from his face disappeared. And the reason for all this stood behind Roman and Seth.
"Renee," Dean cried and hurried to take her in his arms.
"What are you so happy about?" she asked, hugging him.
To Roman, Renee appeared unusually happy as well. "You went to the café, didn't you?" He suspected that maybe not.
"I met her; don't worry," she let him know.
It seemed a good sign that she went through that conversation and kept a smile on her face. Roman asked, "What did she say?"
Renee didn't tell him. Instead she turned to her boyfriend, "Can I talk to you in private?"
She asked quietly but the guys heard her. "Uh-oh." Seth suspected problems after all.
Dean followed Renee. He was worried, even though all he could see was her good mood. But exactly that was what he had troubles believing. Just as Roman. Just as Seth. That woman just sat through a talk with her boyfriend's ex-girlfriend, and she was smiling. The only thing that could explain it was that Renee killed her. But that certainly didn't happen.
"Can you check if that room's empty?" Renee asked for a favor.
Dean unhappily did so. "Yes," he replied neutrally.
Renee smiled. She grabbed Dean's arm and made him enter the room along with her. Then she hurriedly closed the door. Dean expected the worst. He got the best. A hungry, passionate kiss. Renee took his shirt off.
"This is not a goodbye sex, is it?" It was still suspicious. Now even more.
"No," she gasped. Her lips reconnected with his neck. Her hands busy trying to get rid of the belt on his jeans.
Then somebody forced the door open. Renee stepped away from Dean, adjusting her clothes. The situation was more difficult for Dean.
"Oh, I'm sorry." The unrecognized person quickly realized that he or she was not supposed to interrupt what was happening inside. Whoever it was left instantly.
Renee laughed. "That was close."
Dean was enjoying her smiling face. He smiled as well. "What's gotten into you?" he asked. "You look so . . . perky."
She erased the distance between them again and gazed into his eyes for a short moment. With left hand she grabbed his hair, then let go and moved her hand on his face, stroking it. And she started making out with him again.
After their lips parted, Dean said, "Seriously. What's going on?"
"I got a little present." She reached to get something out of her purse. A folded piece of paper.
"What's that?"
Renee giggled. "Your penis." And as a result of evidently being turned on just by saying that word, her tongue invited itself in Dean's mouth.
In the next separation, Dean spoke up, "No, it's not."
"I'm sorry. I was supposed to give it to you, but I had to look."
She unfolded the paper so that Dean could see she was not lying. "God," he exclaimed. He knew now what this was. "It's a pretty damn good drawing," he had to admit. He worried how Renee would perceive that recognition that belonged to Cassie.
"Right?" she just said.
"You didn't freak out when you saw it?"
"Oh, no. I knew what it was. Cassie told me."
"God," he exclaimed again. "What did you two talk about?" Why was she so unbelievable happy? It couldn't be just the picture that Renee just carefully returned to her purse. She didn't want it to get destroyed or torn by accident.
Her hands were on Dean's trousers now, continuing with their job. "You really wanna know now?"
"Kinda," Dean said. Yes, sex sounded pretty appealing, but damn it! What did Cassie tell her?
Renee chose multitasking. Working on Dean's clothes and talking at the same time. "That she doesn't want me to perceive her as an enemy. That she wants me to know that she would never get intimate with you. That . . ." She got behind Dean's back, taking down his last piece of clothing. "Gosh, you have a beautiful ass."
"Did she say that?"
Renee laughed. "No. " She kissed Dean's now naked buttocks.
"You're confusing me, my love."
"Don't be so romantic."
"What?"
"Don't be so romantic. Don't call me my love, darling, sweetest little angel."
"Did I ever call you that?"
"God, I don't know. Perhaps." Her tongue started licking his abdomen. The she got up and looked at him directly. "Just skip the sweet words."
"Okay." He accepted the change of rules in the game they were playing. "You want me to be ruthless. I can be ruthless."
"Oh, yeah." She smiled.
"But why all of this?"
Renee softly grabbed his manhood. Then she formed a tight grip. "You know, to assert dominance." Half-joking, half-serious voice of hers sounded damn sexy. The whole attitude was.
Dean quickly placed his hand over Renee's to avoid possible pain or even damage. He loosened her fingers, then let them get back on his dick. But first he showed them how to take care of it. "Be gentle, my angel," he said, in spite of her wish to stop giving her affectionate nicknames.
"You will never cheat on me, will you?"
"Does Dean know you're leaving?"
"If Renee chooses to tell him."
Seth stared at her T-shirt. He didn't get to really see it before. And probably for the first time ever, he laughed in front of her, thanks to her. He read the title. "He bought in."
"Hey," Roman spoke, "you impressed him."
"I'm not impressed," Seth replied, and tried to get the hateful expression working again.
"Ok, then I am. That was a pretty damn good match."
"Please." Seth rejected the compliment. "You're not gonna make me like you by fangirling over me."
"Fangirling? Excuse me?" Cassie laughed. "I'm not saying you look good. You have a big nose. You'd look terrible if you dyed all of your hair blonde –"
"You would," Seth childishly replied.
Cassie looked a little more serious now. "Why do you hate me, Seth?"
"Because I still don't believe that Dean didn't cheat on Renee with you."
"I would never be part of that."
Roman quietly listened to them. He didn't need to ask; he already knew. As did Renee.
"I've been there, Seth. My ex cheated on me. On his birthday I found him with his coworker."
Seth looked concerned. The cockiness was suddenly gone.
Cassie avoided the follow-up question. "Yeah, that's one of the reasons I broke up with Dean. When I heard him talking about his colleague, Renee, I got alert. I couldn't go through that again."
"Dean never mentioned that," Seth noticed.
"Because he didn't know. He still doesn't."
"I thought he knew everything about you."
She smiled without a reply. Then she took out a piece of paper from the back pocket of her jeans. She tried to straighten it out, but it seemed impossible. Roman and Seth could see that there was something written over it. Handwritten. At first glance, it all looked unorganized.
"Can I trust you that you'll give it to Dean?" She glanced at Roman, then at Seth. It appeared cleverer to give the letter to Roman but she chose to simply wait for one of them – any one of them – to take it.
"Sure," Roman replied and went ahead to take it from her.
Seth was faster. He got hold of the piece of paper and leisurely formed a ball of it. But he didn't cause more damage to it than Cassie already had.
"Without reading it," Cassie added, but Seth didn't seem to care about that condition.
"You won't come to Raw tomorrow?" Roman was checking.
"You know that I have other plans for tomorrow."
"Are you somewhere in your letter maybe mentioning that you're throwing a goodbye party tomorrow night?"
Cassie's look didn't say much. But at last she chose to be honest with them. She had asked them a favor, so that was in a way part of the deal. "Not really. But I told Renee everything. She knows that it's her decision now. If I see Dean tomorrow, I'll be glad. If not . . . I'm okay with it."