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I’d been drifting in a dreamless but tranquil sleep for a long time now. Suddenly I was jolted awake by a loud choking gasp and hands pushing on my bare chest. I thought I was having a heart attack until I opened my eyes and saw Lily sitting straight up in the bed with the blankets clutched to her chest and a look of pure panic on her face. I froze. Her body language and lack of speech were scaring me.

“Is everything okay?” I asked. I realized after that was a stupid question.

Slowly she turned to face me, only to wince and put her head in her hands with a sad groan. And then suddenly she snapped into motion, reaching down to grab her bra and panties from the floor. She began to slip them on.

“Lily, what are you—”

“What have we done?” she cut me off, her voice barely a whisper.

I blinked and looked around the room at the wrinkled bed sheets and the discarded clothing scattered on the floor. “Uh, well, I might be wrong, but I’m pretty sure we had sex.” I answered blatantly. As if to reinforce my point, I grabbed my boxers and pulled them on.

She scowled at me from beside the bed where she was pulling my shirt on. “That’s not funny, Zak,” she snapped. “This is terrible. I can’t believe I let this happen. I was drunk. We were both drunk and we made a mistake.”

That stung a little bit. I frowned at her. “I wouldn’t call it a mistake.” I said.

“Are you kidding me?” she exclaimed. “Zak, I’m a mom! I can’t be doing this. I can’t be having sex with any guy I befriend. You and I…we won’t work out as anything more than friends. And now that we’ve done this we’ve completely jeopardized that. God, this is a gigantic mistake! How can you not see that? We were drunk!”

“I wasn’t that drunk,” I said stonily.

She stared at me for a few minutes. She didn’t speak a single word.

“I know you weren’t very drunk either,” I continued. Neither of us had been drunk enough to use that as an excuse for what happened. We both knew what was happening as it occurred. And neither of us tried to put a real stop to it.

“Don’t say that,” she begged softly, knocking her knuckles against her teeth repeatedly.

I crawled over on the bed to stand beside her by the window. She didn’t look at me.

“Lily, this isn’t a huge problem,” I said, pulling her fist away from her mouth. “You need to relax.”

“How can I relax?” she yelled. “We had sex! Okay? We did. And I can’t believe I let myself be that stupid! I promised myself I wouldn’t do that and then I went and did it!”

“Yeah, because you wanted to,” I said.

She looked blankly at me. It was almost like she was offended.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” I groaned. “You know I’m right. You know you wanted it just as badly as I did. You were more hesitant than me, but in the end you let it happen because you wanted to. You’re just embarrassed that particular part of you still exists.”

She gave a small sigh; her chest rising and falling in an almost defiant manner. I smirked at her. Gently, I cupped her face in my hands.

“You are 25 years old, Lily. Just because you have a daughter does not mean you can’t be happy for yourself. Let me make you happy like you make Avaya happy. That’s all I want to do. I’m not going to hurt you,” I whispered.

“Zak…” She was pleading. It made my heart pound in my chest and my stomach feel heavy when she said my name like that.

“I’m not going to hurt you like he did.”

I kissed her very softly to prove my point. She jolted at my touch but kissed me back all the same. I saw a broken girl in her eyes when I pulled back. She was so conflicted; torn between being a good single mother and being just a girl. She’d gotten so used to doing everything for Avaya that she’d forgotten how to do things for herself. I wanted to help her.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and gently grasped her hips, pulling her to stand between my knees.

“You’re still free for another day,” I said softly. “Stay in bed with me all day. We can sleep, talk, whatever you want. Just stay with me.”

It took awhile, but she eventually nodded and crawled onto the mattress. I made room for her but she ended up just curling up by my side anyway. I played with her hair and counted the times I felt her lips press into my collarbone. 1, 2, 3. I smiled each time.

Eventually she sighed and started to play with the skull necklace I had around my throat. She ran the pendant back and forth on its chain. It vibrated against my skin but I didn’t really mind.

“Do you know what you’re getting yourself into?” she asked after a few moments of silence.

I chuckled. “Well I haven’t left screaming yet, so…”

She propped herself up on my chest, looking down at me. “I’m serious, Zak. I have a daughter who’s only 5 years old and an ex who’s a really bad person. You can’t look at me and say you’ve been in this position before.”

“Maybe I haven’t,” I shrugged, “but so what? I don’t care about any of that, Lily. I’ll help you with Avaya; I want to. I don’t give two shits about Matt and I never will. I’ll keep you safe.”

“I don’t want you to be with me just because you want me to be safe,” she muttered. “I’ve been safe for a few years now on my own.”

“I’m not with you because I’m concerned for your safety,” I replied. “I’m with you because I want to be. I don’t want you to be on your own anymore.”

She shook her head but even she couldn’t cover up the delicate smile that tugged on her lips. “You’re crazy, Bagans.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Well, as long as you know it.”

I leaned up and kissed her chin and then fell back on the pillow. She gave me a weird look and laughed.

“You’re proving my point for me,” she smirked.

“You’re welcome, sweetheart,” I winked.

She giggled, resting her head down on my chest. Immediately I wrapped my arms around her and held her tight. And then I just watched her and reflected on the night we had. I hadn’t been trying to have sex with Lily when I took her out for drinks. I’d just wanted to spend time with her in one of the only ways I knew how. I didn’t think the club scene would be very romantic, and dinner or a movie are too cliché. Scully’s was a great place that I saw couples at all the time. I could tell she liked it, anyway. But sex hadn’t been my main objective last night. I just wanted her to feel comfortable and have some fun. And I guess in the end she did have fun.

She’d seemed so scared, though. She was hesitant to let me touch her. She was hesitant to kiss me again. I knew it was Matt’s fault, not hers. He’d done something so awful to her. He’d left her fearful of human contact, especially of the intimate type. But somehow I’d broken past that barrier he’d built for her. And if I could do that, I felt like I could repair all the damage he’d caused her. I felt like I could destroy him.

I felt her eyelashes brushing against my skin as she blinked. Her fingers outlined my abdominal muscles and silently counted my ribs. I liked it. I liked how she looked, splayed out across me. Her brown hair tickled my skin and I played with a couple strands of it. She was really beautiful. I felt like I could sit in bed with her all day. I wasn’t sure what it was about her, but she changed something in me every time she was around. She was special.

I could feel myself smiling at her like an idiot but I didn’t really try and stop. She made me happy, okay? I hadn’t been looking for anyone who’d make me feel like this. I didn’t want anything serious; not for a long time. But when I looked at Lily in the morning light I felt like I was looking at my future. I didn’t mind it one bit, either.

She started to move out of my arms and I sat up, leaning against the headboard. She tossed one leg over my hips, straddling me, and sat down on my legs.

“Ow,” I laughed, but pushed her hips up a little.

“What?” she asked fretfully.

“You have a bony ass,” I chuckled, “it hurts.”

She gasped and folded her arms across her chest. “Oh yeah? Well my daughter told me you have weird hair.”

I feigned a hurt expression. “That cuts me deep every time I hear it,” I murmured.

“You poor thing,” She sat down on me again, making sure to dig against my thighs.

“You shit,” I growled, snatching her hips and flipping her onto her back. I loomed over her with a dark smirk. “You wanna play that game with me?”

She was laughing and squirming under me. “You’re just a sore loser.”

“We’ll see about that,” I ducked down and nipped her collarbone softly. She squealed and pushed on my shoulders with the heels of her hands. I chuckled against her throat.

I felt her fingertips brush down from my hair to the nape of my neck. I made a satisfied moan and kissed her jaw.

“You loose your will to fight pretty quickly,” she mused quietly.

“Not always,” I responded. “Maybe it’s just because it’s you.”

She kissed my hairline and we just stayed like that for a bit. We lightly touched one another and didn’t say anything and it was fine. I didn’t feel like I needed to be talking to keep awkwardness at bay. There was no awkwardness between us, which is weird, considering we’d slept together last night. Normally that calls for high levels of anxiety and a heavy atmosphere. But since Lily had been so easy to calm down, I don’t think she really regretted anything. I think she was just shocked that she hadn’t been dreaming. I don’t think she pictured herself doing that with me; or maybe she did, because that’d be pretty hot, but she just didn’t see it happening in the context it did. I don’t know. She was hard to read.

Suddenly she pushed me off and jumped out of bed, gasping.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, sitting up straight.

She was laughing as she darted for the door in just my black shirt and her panties. “We left the ice cream out!”

“Oh shit,” I laughed, chasing after her to the living room.

When I got there she was holding the carton in her hands. What ice cream we hadn’t eaten was liquefied inside. She chuckled pitifully at it.

“Thank god we ate most of it,” she said. “I have to throw the rest of this out.”

“So we got a little caught up in one another and forgot about the ice cream,” I joked, “it happens.”

She was dumping the carton in the garbage bin when she laughed. “How exactly did eating ice cream progress into sex again?”

“I’m not sure,” I responded, scratching my chest. “I guess my natural charm is only enhanced by frozen dairy products.”

“That makes so much sense.” She rolled her eyes at me.

I smirked and walked up to her. I was about to wrap my arms around her and kiss her when she wrapped her own arms around her stomach, which growled.

“Hm…” she muttered, biting her lip.

“Hungry?” I asked softly.

She nodded and walked over to her fridge. I walked in behind her and eagerly grabbed the egg carton. She gave me a perplexed look. I grinned broadly at her.

“You and me are gonna make breakfast,” I stated firmly. “First on the menu, eggs. And maybe some French toast…sausages…you have everything for those, right?”

She laughed. “Yeah, I do. I take it you’re a breakfast guy.”

“Definitely,” I nodded. “Now, where do you keep your pots and pans?”

She shuffled around me and opened up a cupboard to hand me a frying pan. As she was doing so I leaned down and kissed her deeply. She looked slightly taken aback and dazed when we separated.

“What was that for?” she breathed.

I shrugged. “You look really hot in my shirt.”

I got my satisfaction from her deep blush and continued on to start scrambling some eggs. We sat down at the table and dug in. I was definitely a breakfast guy. I believed that the better you ate in the morning the greater you’d feel all day. And let me tell you, with a heaping plate of hot food in front me and an even hotter girl sitting beside me, I was already feeling pretty great.

Lily mowed down her food and sipped at her piping hot coffee. I could smell vanilla coming from the creamer she’d dumped in her mug. It made me smile, but I’m not sure why.

“Can I ask a question?” she asked softly, wrapping her fingers around the mug. I admired a thick silver and black band on her thumb.

“Of course you can sweetie,” I said after I swallowed a forkful of French toast.

She tapped her mug and the ring made a clinking noise. She was staring into the contents of it thoughtfully.

“What’s on your mind?” I prompted when she didn’t speak right away.

“Um, us, I guess,” she stammered. She ran a hand through her long brown hair.

I put down my fork and focused all my attention on her. “What about us?”

“Well, are we…I mean, what exactly are we now…?” she asked. “I mean, are we still just friends, or…?”

I paused and looked at her shyly. “I was hoping for more than that,” I murmured.

Not only had last night’s antics constituted for a change in our relationship, but I remembered what Ana and Aaron had told me. This was my chance. I had to take it or I really was going to lose her. I needed to seal the deal for good. I needed to make her mine.

Her eyes lifted from her coffee to my face and she blinked. “Really?”

“Well, yeah,” I smiled a bit at her. “Is that okay with you?”

She bit her lip. “Yeah, I think so,” she nodded. “I’d like that.”

“Me too,” I grinned at her and reached out to take her hand with the ring on it. She smiled right back at me as I swiped my thumb back and forth across her knuckles.

And just like that I felt whole. I felt like I wasn’t lost anymore; like I actually did have more of a purpose on this earth. I wasn’t who I pretended to be anymore. I was Zak Bagans, and I had a beautiful girlfriend named Lily Manning who made me feel more at home than I had in years.