Going home was a bad move.

Even with the guarantee his mom gave him that Callie wouldn't be there, Oscar's gaze continually searched the crowd. He told himself he wasn't looking for her, that he was just looking for other people he knew, but he was lying. And it was time to get real.

She didn't love him the way he loved her. It was over. He had to learn to live without her. A long, lonely, empty life because he was a fucking idiot. They could have stayed friends, been there for each other into their old age. But oh, no. He just had to open that goddamn door in his head and see what was on the other side. 

Curiosity. And he was the fucking cat.  An apt description. Cos the walking dead. That was him.

All around him, the living were having fun, smiling and laughing like it was the best day ever. The annual block party had always been a big draw. Stars and Stripes fluttered everywhere and the street was packed with people, the humid air filled with the sound of music and laughter and cheerful voices. 

He'd never felt more alone.

He tossed a weak smile at a kid wearing a Captain America T-Shirt, then frowned when a pig-tailed girl appeared to drag the boy away. Cap had no idea what he was getting into and for a second, Oscar was tempted to pull him aside and warn him. Instead, he turned his attention to the burgers sizzling on the gas barbecue in front of him, raised the bottle dangling from his fingers and took a long drink of beer.

Getting ass-faced and picking a fight with someone held a great deal of appeal when neither the weather nor his allocated duties as chef were doing anything to cool the rage burning inside him. But like always, his mother took one look at his face when he arrived and knew she had to keep him occupied until the storm passed. 

Probably best she didn't hold her breath this time.

She appeared at his side. "You okay?"

Oscar sighed heavily. It was somewhere in the region of the twentieth time she'd asked. And it was starting to grate on his nerves. "I'm fine."

Judging by her face, she wasn't buying it. "Do you need anything?"

"Nope, I think we're good 'til the pre-fireworks rush."

A couple of teenagers appeared at the table piled with buns, salad and condiments, mumbled their orders and stared at him while he got what they wanted off the grill. Since it happened at regular intervals, Oscar waited for them to ask.

"Are you the gopher guy?"

"Yup." He put burgers on buns. "What level you stuck on?"

"Four."

"Six."

"Whack the white rabbit in level four and he'll spit out a bonus." He handed over their food. "And in six, dig up the flowerbed by the fountain for a bag of extra lives."

"Thanks!"

Oscar forced another smile. "No problem."

"My son, the celebrity." His mother patted him on the shoulder. "Your dad would be so proud."

"Dad would say I should have a tip jar on that table for the service I'm providing," Oscar said dryly.

He would need the money if everyone got together and swapped information. There was enough of it out there now to make the new game as easy as pie. Just as well it was pre-ordered.

As he lifted his beer and scanned the crowd again, the bottle froze an inch from his mouth. 

"Shit."

"Language," his mother scolded. "There are children here."

Oscar didn't apologize. He was too busy absorbing the visceral impact of Callie heading straight for him dressed in a lilac, figure hugging, laced up corset top with puffy cap sleeves and a long, flowing skirt which outlined her legs as she moved. She looked sensational and he wanted to hate her for it but the truth was he just plain wanted her. 

Under him. On top of him. Right there on the condiment table. Whatever it took as often as it took to imprint himself on her the same way she was imprinted on him.

"I thought you said she wouldn't be here."

"Ellie said she wouldn't," his mother replied in a hushed tone. "Try to be nice."

Nice? Was she fucking kidding him? While he attempted to give the love of his life a glimpse of the bright and shiny future they could have together, Callie tore out his heart, shredded it and tossed the pieces in his face. But now he was supposed to be nice to her? 

Forcibly dragging his gaze away as she approached the table, he re-arranged meat on the grill, focusing on the task with the same intensity as a doctor performing brain surgery.

Awareness prickled across every inch of his skin as his mother greeted her.

"Hi, sweetheart. What a lovely surprise. Your mom said you couldn't make it this year."

"Last minute thing," Callie replied. "Took forever to get here on public transport..." There was a brief pause. "Would you mind if I borrowed Oscar for a bit?"

"Oscar's busy barbecuing," Oscar said in a tone which made it plain he wasn't interested in going anywhere with her.

She stepped into his peripheral vision and lowered her voice. "I need to talk to you."

"Like I said, busy."

"Then I'll stand here 'til you're done."

"I'll get some more burgers out of the fridge," his mother said when an awkward silence developed.

Oscar frowned at her. "The cooler is still half full."

"Best to top up before the rush and we could do with more buns, too." She ignored the teetering mountain of them on the table beside her. "I'll leave you to talk."

"I'll get them," Oscar promptly volunteered. "You two can stay here and talk." 

Yanking off the apron he was wearing, he thrust both it and the barbecue tongs at his traitorous mother before he made his escape.

By the time he took a half-dozen lengthy paces towards the house, the enamel on his back teeth was almost gone. "You gonna spend the rest of the day following me?"

"If that's what it takes," Callie replied.

"Hey, kid!" he called out as a soccer ball hit the car parked in his mother's driveway. "I planned to have that thing for more than a week before it got scratched."

The kid retrieved the ball, tucked it under his arm and angled his chin as Oscar bent down to rub the mark it had made. "Are you -?"

"What level you on?"

"Thirty."

Oscar stood up and looked down at him. Kid couldn't be more than what, eight, maybe nine? And the game had barely been out there for five days. He was impressed.

"There's a glitch with your coding on level twelve," the kid said. "Some of the trees wobble. Might wanna fix that. Looks like shit."

"I'll get right on it," Oscar said sarcastically before heading up the driveway. "Have fun with level thirty-six." He'd done some of his best work on there.

"You bought a new car?" Callie asked.

Why was she still following him?

"Figured since I wasn't hiring an architect and remodeling the top floor at work, I could spend a chunk of cash on a high spec German car." He bit back. "Her name's Betty."

"Where's Molly?"

Safely tucked away in his mom's garage, not that it was any of her business. "Well, y'know, cars are kinda like the guys you date. Different make and model but they're all replaceable."

"The next comment you make like that will earn you a kick in the shins," she countered as she followed him to the yard at the back of the house. "Would you stand still for a minute and talk to me?" When he didn't, she sucked in a breath and said, "I found the ring."

Oscar stopped dead in his tracks and cussed his way through a lengthy litany of self-recrimination inside his head. Of course, she had. 

"Do you have it with you?"

"Yes."

"Good of you to bring it over." Using up his last ounce of control, Oscar turned to face her and held out his hand. "I'll have to see if I can get a refund on that."

Instead of handing the box over, she cradled it to her chest in both hands like it meant something to her. "How long have you had this?"

"Doesn't matter how long I had it."

"Tell me why you bought it."

Okay, that was it. He was done.

"You know what?" he sneered. "Just keep the damn thing."

"Oscar," her voice cracked when he turned away.

But he couldn't let it get to him. Not this time.

It had taken a while for him to realize he wasn't angry at her. Not that she hadn't royally pissed him off for taking so long to figure out he wasn't the right guy for her, because she had, big time. But he was way angrier at himself. His frustration at not being what she wanted, not reading the signs sooner, and not understanding how hopeless it was to dream of them having a future together, led to self-loathing. Which fueled a white-hot rage he was unable to shake, even with numerous sparring sessions.

"Oscar!"

If she gave him more time to come to terms with it, maybe he could have been calmer. He might have exerted the same tight control over his emotions he'd used to mask his fear of losing her when he laid his heart on the line and tried to show her how he felt. But she hadn't given him time. She was right there, shadowing his every move in a place so saturated in memories every second he spent there was torture.

"Oscar Levinson, if you take one more step -"

He spun on her so fast she almost walked into him.

"What the fuck do you want from me, Callie?" The question left his mouth in a hoarse yell. 

Did she want him to open a vein and bleed? Didn't she know if he thought it would change how she felt, he would do it?

If she was shocked by the force of his anger or frightened by her first up-close glimpse of his dark side, it didn't show. She simply raised her chin, looked him straight in the eye and told him in a clear, determined voice, "I want everything that goes with this ring."

"No, you don't," he argued. "You don't want any of it. You don't want me. You made it clear how you felt nine days ago."

"Like you did?"

Oh no, he wasn't falling for that one again. It was the same switcheroo that got him into this mess in the first place.  "You said you knew."

"I thought I did. Then I found this ring and it made me look at things differently."

"How could you not know?"

"If you're saying what I hope you're saying, did it ever occur to you that I wouldn't have broken up with you if I knew?" she countered. "You presented me with this wonderful picture of the kind of happily-ever-after I've been dreaming of for most of my life. But it was a mirage without the words. All you had to do was say the words, Oscar. I needed to hear them. I still do. But if you need me to say them first, then fine. I love you. I'm in love with you. And as much as I want to smack you right now, I will always love you."

The confession had the same effect on him as a bucket of ice water tossed on a fire.

It took a moment for what she said to hit home, another for him to search for the truth in her beautiful brown eyes. There wasn't a shadow of doubt in them, no fear or uncertainty. Not even a flicker of reproach that she had the courage to say the words before he did. All he could see there was warmth and understanding and a faith in him Oscar wasn't convinced he deserved.

He came so close to pushing her away. For the exact same reason, she'd pushed him away? 

No, that couldn't be right. She was the gutsiest girl he knew. So, if she was scared, she must really...

"Say something," she whispered.

As she stood there, looking at him in a way he'd lost hope he would ever see, the last remnant of his rage evaporated. She loved him. She was in love with him and she would always love him. That's what she'd said. And when it finally sank in, the knowledge filled him with so much joy, some of it over-flowed.

When the first rumble of laughter escaped, Callie immediately punched him in the arm.

"Ow!"

"Shut up. That didn't hurt." She scowled at him. "You had it coming. And it's not funny."

If she knew how much time he'd spent in the gym recently, she'd know there were very few places she could hit him where it didn't hurt. But Oscar couldn't stop smiling. He wasn't sure he ever would.

"Not funny, ha, ha," he said in his defense. "More, funny in an ironic -" He weaved to the side when she raised her fist. "Think you could maybe quit hitting me?"

"Oh, I haven't even got started yet. This," she preempted the next weave and hit her target, "Is for the fucking me, consolation prize comment."

Okay, he'd deserved that one. He wasn't surprised it was top of her list.

"And this," she hit his other arm. "Is for making me ugly cry all over the place for the last nine days because I thought I'd lost you."

Now, hang on. That one wasn't entirely his fault. "You could have been a little clearer about how you felt."

"I thought I was clear."

Oscar shook his head. "Not so much.

"I spent so long trying to be the perfect girlfriend–"

Wait. Now he was confused. "Why on earth would you do that?"

"Because I wanted to be perfect for you." Her shoulders raised all the way to her ears in an endearingly self-conscious shrug, accompanied by a familiar eye roll. "Dumb, right? One of the things they don't mention in fairy-tales is how terrifying love is or how much it can chip away at your confidence when you're not sure how the other person feels and..." She sucked in a sharp breath and confessed, "I was scared."

"Me, too." He absentmindedly rubbed the last place she hit, then dropped his arms to his sides. "But you know me. And you know I would never purposefully do anything to hurt you."

"I thought I knew you," she argued. "Then I met mutual benefits guy and kiss-my-socks-off guy and secret millionaire guy and Internet sensation guy and sex god guy and fight club guy and CEO guy and, somewhere along the way, it started to feel like I never knew you, at all."

Suddenly everything was clear. By not sharing everything with her as it happened and then off-loading it all in a massive information dump, he'd deconstructed their relationship to the point where it didn't make sense to her anymore. Like back in the day, when he'd reverse engineered something and been left with only circuit boards and microchips and bits of keyboards which didn't resemble what they'd once been. No wonder she'd doubted him.

He tried to find a way to explain it. 

"It's kinda like the diamond in that ring." He nodded at the box she was holding in her hand. "It has facets which reflect different things but the heart of it doesn't change. How we use it, might. But even in its roughest form, it's still a diamond."

"Huh," she blinked, incredulity written across her face. "That's probably the clearest explanation of how something works you've ever given me."

"Told you all that time spent tearing things apart and putting them back together wasn't wasted." He flinched when she hit him again. "What was that one for?"

"Loving you doesn't mean you get a free pass. We were that close," she held up her hand and squinted at him through the small gap between her thumb and forefinger, "to screwing this up. And that's on both of us this time, not just me and my insecurities or the need I seem to have to leave people before they leave me. You and your goddamn secrets. No more, Oscar, I mean it. We have to talk to each other."

"No more secrets. I swear. How I feel about you was the last one."

"You love me."

It wasn't a question but he confirmed it anyway. "Yes."

"You're in love with me."

"Yes."

"Then why didn't you say so you great idiot?"

He drew in a long breath and focused on a point above her head for a brief second before spitting it out. "Because the last time I tried to tell you how I felt, you said you hated me and broke a limited-edition action figure I could probably get a couple hundred bucks for today."

"Ohmygod." She gaped at him in astonishment when she figured it out. "I was ten."

Not the point.

"You were the first person to break my heart. Why do you think it took me so long to come back? And it would have taken a lot longer if my mom hadn't forcibly dragged my petulant ass back to your place." 

The shimmer of tears in her eyes drew him a step closer, his voice thick with emotion. 

"I didn't know why it hurt so bad. I just knew it felt like someone dug a hole in my chest and scooped half of me out. But I never forgot it. What I felt then was just as real as it is now. A lot purer and simpler and a drop in the fucking ocean compared to what I feel now, but it was real. I've loved you since the day you fell at my feet and I'll love you 'til the day I die. You're it for me. You're the one. Is that what you needed to hear?"

The sound that left her lips was half-sob, half-laughter as she bobbed her head up and down. Then she threw herself at him.

As her arms circled his waist and she rested her cheek on his shoulder, Oscar propped his chin on the crown of her head, held her close, took a deep breath and felt contentment wash over him.  She loved him the way he loved her. And damn it felt good.

Being with her had always been a filter he viewed the world through, making everything sharper, brighter and clearer. But like it had since they'd danced together on the night they first kissed, with her body pressed close to his, his blood thickened, his pulse quickened and desire spiked inside him. 

Threading his fingers into her soft hair to tilt her head back, his lips sought hers, healing the recent wounds they'd inflicted on each other. 

When they came up for air, he rested his forehead against hers. "I'm gonna need that ring back."

"Uh-uh." She shook her head. "It's mine. You bought it for me."

"It comes with a question."

Leaning back, Callie smiled encouragingly. "So, ask me."

"That you found it before I gave it to you is bad enough," he complained. "It's right up there with giving you my jacket when you're cold or bringing you dumb little gifts to make you smile. Adds to the pressure to make some massively romantic gesture when I do ask you."

"Oh, I don't know." Her gaze roved over the neatly kept yard with its small square of mowed grass. "Here seems pretty romantic to me. We had our first sleep-over up there."

Oscar glanced at the old tree house. "Yes, we did."

"You helped me decorate my first lamp over there..." 

"We probably should have asked permission to do that," he said. "My mom loved that lamp before we got started on it."

"It was a masterpiece when we were done."

Oscar smiled indulgently. It had been anything but. "I still have it."

"You do not."

"Yup," he indicated the attic of the pale blue house with a jerk of his chin. "There's a treasure trove up there. I kept everything you gave me."

"Awww!" She rewarded him with another kiss. "Ask the question."

"Bit soon, don't you think? We just got back together."

"We'll tell our kids it was a twenty-year whirlwind romance."

"I want at least a dozen of those."

"Yeah," she laughed. "We'll debate that later. I say we wait a few years and see how we handle one. Ask the question."

"You really don't wanna give that ring back, do you?"

"Nope. It's mine. You're mine." She lowered her gaze and looked up at him from beneath long lashes. "Our mothers will need at