***** Dean's Point of View *****

"So Dean, what are your plans today?" his Mom asked, as she came into the living room wearing a business suit, carrying a coffee in one hand and her laptop bag in the other.

"I'm supposed to meet up with some of my old high school friends at Willy's since they're all home for Christmas Break."

"Ahhh. Sounds like fun," she smiled. "Is Berkley going with you? I know she loves shooting pool down there."

"Nah, not this time," Dean said, shaking his head and shoving his hands in his pockets as he looked at the ground.

She stood there looking at him, thinking for a minute before saying, "Things with you and her seemed a little off last night. Is everything okay?"

Dean scoffed. "A little off? That's an understatement Ma," he laughed. "Before yesterday, I hadn't seen or talked to her in three months."

She raised her eyebrows and her eyes widened. "Three months?!" she shouted. "Are you serious? Why?"

Dean took a deep breath in and let it out, shrugging his shoulders. "We had an argument and she said she wanted to take a break from our friendship for a while. I thought she just needed a little time to cool off, but it's been months."

His Mom walked right up in front of him and pointed, poking her finger into his chest.

"Dean Grayson Bradshaw. Whatever you did to make that girl angry with you, you better make it right. What you have with her comes around once in a lifetime. Don't be a knucklehead and screw it up. You hear me?"

He laughed at how serious she was looking. "I'll try Ma, okay? But I can't make any promises. I don't think she wants to talk to me. I've tried to call and text her and she won't answer."

"Then you go over to her house and talk to her face to face. The Dean I know doesn't give up, so don't start bein' a quitter now, especially not when it's something this important. You do whatever you have to do to make up with her."

He knew she was right, just like she always was.

He nodded. "Okay Ma. I'll give it my best shot."

"You better. I have to go. I have an important meeting with a fish distributor. I love you. Do the right thing," she said, kissing his cheek and then giving it a light smack, making him laugh as she walked away with her heels clacking on the tile floor.

***** Later that Night *****

Willy's Pub was a tiny local bar and Dean's Dad was good friends with the owner, so he let Dean and his friends drink there even though they weren't twenty one yet. They all carried fake ID's on them in case the place ever got busted, so Willy wouldn't get in trouble.

Dean walked into the pub and saw a group of his friends from high school standing around a pool table, drinking beer.

"Dean!" they shouted as he walked in and he gave them fist bumps and one-armed bro hugs.

"Damn, it's good to see you. Where's Berkley?" his friend Conner asked, looking around. "I call her on my team for pool."

"No fuckin' way!" his friend Tucker shouted, shoving Conner lightly. "We'll do rock, paper, scissors to see who gets her to make it fair."

"Settle down guys. She's not coming," Dean said, running a hand up through his hair.

"Oh shit. Is she sick or something?" Conner asked.

"Something like that," Dean said under his breath, looking around. He really wasn't in the mood to get into all that right now.

"I'll be back. I'm gonna go grab a beer," he said, patting Conner on the shoulder a couple times before walking away. He went up to the bar where Shae, the usual beautiful female bartender was working.

"Well look what the old cat dragged in," she said with a flirty smile. "I haven't seen that gorgeous face around here for a minute."

"Hey Shae, can I get a beer on tap please?" he asked, taking a seat at the bar.

"Sure thing handsome," she winked, biting into her bottom lip as she walked away. She probably thought that looked seductive, but it wasn't doing anything for him.

He had sex with her last year, right after he turned eighteen and every time she had seen him since, she had tried to get on his dick again. He always turned her down because he didn't want her to get too attached, but this woman was nothing if not persistent.

A few months ago he might've been tempted. He used to love the thrill of the hunt, finding the hottest chick in a place and then setting himself a personal challenge to get her into his bed. Sex was an exciting and fun game back then, and he had been really good at it.

Things were different now. Ever since that weekend in the Hamptons with Berkley, random hot women didn't turn him on like they used to because he knew hooking up with a stranger couldn't compare to what it felt like being with her.

Thinking about Berkley reminded him how much he missed her. He took a deep breath in and let out an exhale, hanging his head.

Someone slid onto the bar stool next to him and he looked over to see his friend Keagan.

"Hey man," Dean said with a weak smile and a nod of his head.

"Hey," Keagan said shortly. He looked over the bar at Shae and asked, "Can I get a Budweiser please?"

"Of course," she smiled, grabbing it out of the fridge behind her before flicking off the cap and putting it in front of him and setting Dean's beer down in from of him too.

"So what's new?" Dean asked, picking up the cold glass cup and taking a sip of the foamy beer. "I haven't seen you for a while."

"Yeah, it's been a good minute since I've been back home. My fiance's due in a month, plus we're planning to get married a month after that, so between the baby and all the wedding bullshit, my future mother-in-law is driving me fuckin' crazy," he laughed, shaking his head with a smile. "I wouldn't trade it for anything though. Hallie's amazing and I honestly can't wait to be a Dad."

Dean gave him a weak smile. "I'm glad things are going so good for you man," he said, taking a deep breath in and letting out an exhale before taking another drink of his beer.

"What's new with you Dean? Anything you need to tell me?"

The tone of his voice was a little off so Dean turned his head, studying his face and the look he was giving him.

"You know don't you?" he asked.

Keagan laughed, "You know how Berkley is. She can't keep a secret to save her life. She wears her emotions all over her face and she's a terrible liar."

Dean slid his beer around between his fingers on the coaster, nodding his head. "Yeah. So ummm, how much do you know?"

"Well, she wouldn't tell me all the details, so you'll have to explain to me why I shouldn't kick your ass for banging my little sister, making her fall in love with you and then saying you just want to be friends? I mean, c'mon dude. What the fuck were you thinking man?" he said, shaking his head in judgement.

Dean listened to Keagan's words, but one of them stood out in particular. "Wait a minute. Did you just say she fell in love with me?" he asked with scrunched eyebrows.

Keagan scoffed. "Uh yeah, is that really such a surprise? I think she's been in love with you since like the sixth grade," he laughed, taking another drink of his Budweiser.

Dean sat there trying to process this information. Could Berkley really have been in love with him all this time? There was no way.

"I spent all those years trying to protect her from assholes that would break her heart, and all that time it was you I should've been protecting her from," Keagan said in disbelief, letting out an exhale before taking another sip of his beer.

Dean sat there thinking for a minute in silence.

"Do you seriously think I broke her heart?" he finally asked, feeling a pang of guilt.

Keagan nodded. "Yeah. When she was telling me what happened between you two, she looked absolutely fucking crushed," he said, shaking his head. "I mean, I knew how you were with other girls, but I always trusted you with my sister cause I thought Berkley was different to you. Apparently I was wrong."

"No. She IS different to me!" Dean told him adamantly. "I know it looks really fuckin' bad, but you don't know my side of the story."

"Okay, well let me hear it then," Keagan said, taking a drink.

Dean took a deep breath in and let it out before telling him, "Well, Berkley came to me one day and said she had decided she was ready to lose her virginity and she wanted it to be with me because I made her comfortable and she trusted me more than anybody else."

Keagan looked at him with his eyebrows scrunched. "What did you say?"

"I said no! I told her to find somebody else cause I knew sleeping together would ruin our friendship and make things awkward between us. Right after that she started dating that douchebag Zander."

Keagan nodded. "Yeah, he does seem like kind of a douchebag."

"Oh he is. Believe me," Dean laughed lightly. "I overheard him in class one day bragging to his friend that he was saying anything he could just to get in Berkley's pants and that she was nothing special to him. When I told her what I heard him say, she was STILL gonna have sex with him because she was that desperate to get her first time over with."

Keagan listened but didn't say anything.

"I finally said, fine, if I agree to have sex with you, will you promise not to have sex with Zander? I would've done anything to keep her away from him cause I hated that guy. She said yes and the deal was no feelings, just sex, just one time and then we were gonna pretend it never happened and go back to being just friends."

Keagan laughed. "I could've told you that wasn't gonna happen. You can't go back to being just friends after something like that."

"Yeah. I know that now. I mean, I honestly knew that before but I was willing to give it a try to keep her away from Zander," Dean sighed, rubbing his hands over his face and then shaking his head. "If I had known how bad it would fuck everything up, I wouldn't have done it. It's my fault we broke the one time rule. I take full responsibility for that, but then I realized what I was doing and I knew she was gonna end up getting hurt if we kept it up, so I put a stop to it."

Keagan nodded, listening.

"When we got back to Boston I was determined to stick to our agreement of just being friends again. She asked me to spend the night with her, but I knew I wouldn't be able to resist the temptation, so I said no and left. I stopped talking to her for a few days because I needed some time to clear my head and get what we did off my mind so we could go back to being just friends. Then I overheard Zander bragging to his friends about having sex with her. I swear, I've never been so pissed off in my life," Dean said, shaking his head. "I couldn't believe she went back on our agreement and broke her promise like that."

"Yeah, that's really fucked up," Keagan said, shaking his head.

"Zander told me she was his girlfriend now and that she wanted to take a break from our friendship for a while, so I've been giving her space. I figured she would call me when she was ready to talk. She didn't, so I started texting and calling her and she wouldn't answer," he said with a sigh before taking a long drink of his cold beer.

"Really? That's weird," Keagan said with scrunched brows. "Cause she told me she hasn't heard from you."

Dean wondered why she would lie to her brother about that. He looked over at Keagan thinking. "So she really told you she fell in love with me?" he asked, still not able to wrap his head around it. "Cause she told Zander that I'm just a fuckboy and that I'm not boyfriend material."

Keagan scrunched his face up. "That's not what she told me. She said she fell in love with you but you said you didn't see her as anything more than a friend. She told me you said it was just sex and that it meant nothing to you. That broke her heart."

Dean was so confused, shaking his head.

"What? I never said any of that," he said with his face scrunched up in confusion. Then it dawned on him and his face dropped. "Zander," he growled. "That fucking asshole must have told her I said all that bullshit."

That meant Berkley probably didn't say what Zander told him either. He couldn't believe he had been dumb enough to believe anything that came from him. He should have known better.

"Well if none of that's true, what is the truth then?" Keagan asked.

Dean sat there thinking before looking down at his cup and saying quietly, "I love her too. I love her so much it fucking hurts to be away from her and that honestly scares the shit out of me."

"Why? Is that really such a bad thing ....... being in love?" Keagan asked with a hint of a smile.

"It is when you're in love with your best friend. I know I'm no good for her man. My track record with hurting women is a mile long and the last thing I wanted to do was add her to that list. That's why I told her I just wanted to be friends and didn't stay in her dorm room with her that night. I was just trying to keep her from getting hurt."

Keagan sat there in silence, thinking it over.

"So she's in love with you and you're in love with her too?" he asked. "It sounds like you're both confused. Why don't you just tell her the truth?"

Dean scoffed. "It's a little too late for that now. It's been three months and she's in love with Zander now," he said, scrunching his nose up in disgust as he said his name.

"No she's not," Keagan said, shaking his head. "She looks fucking miserable as hell with that guy. She's still in love with you."

"You think so?" Dean asked with scrunched eyebrows.

"Yeah, I do," he said, taking a sip of his beer and putting it back down. He looked over at Dean and said, "So what are you gonna do about it?"

Dean sat there thinking about how to answer that question and suddenly he felt a surge of adrenaline and said, "I've gotta go." He grabbed a few bills out of his wallet and threw them down on the bar, grabbed up his jacket and headed out the door. He took out his cell phone and clicked on Stacia's name.

When she answered he said, "We've gotta talk."