He wonders what Meredith is doing right now. If she's still riding high on the post-surgery buzz, smiling wide and damn near glowing. He loves her in all kinds of ways, but he thinks he loves her most in moments like those.

He'd wanted to stay. He'd wanted to share her giddiness, share her dinner and pretend that they hadn't fucked things up so much. He'd wanted. He knows he shouldn't have made his offer to stay with Meredith conditional on her admitting she wanted him there, but he had desperately wanted her to say it. He'd read what she had said with her eyes, instead. You made your bed. Lie in it.

So he does. He's lying in Rose's bed in her simple, clean apartment with only candles illuminating the room because she's not the kind of girl to have sex with the lights on.

He doesn't think it would matter. They're under the blankets anyway. The sheets are scratchy. He's getting uncomfortably warm. Some female adult contemporary singer is crooning about something in the background, and he can't help but notice how cliché it all is.

He's kissing her blindly, lips dragging over skin that isn't freckled enough and nipples that are a few shades too dark.

He reaches down and slides his hand up from her knee to between her thighs. He isn't surprised to find that Rose doesn't consider getting regular Brazilian waxes high on her list of priorities. Meredith liked them because she thought it made her more sensitive. He loved them because licking her smooth skin made her buck and shudder.

Rose moans occasionally but it sounds more like whimpering, feminine and soft. He screws his eyes shut and buries his nose in too-dark hair that smells like something sugary from whatever product she uses to keep her hair in perfect curls all day. When he tries to run his free hand through it, his fingers tangle in the stiff mess.

He has a thing for hair.

He brings her to her first orgasm of the night by rote. She gasps softly and her entire body tightens for a moment. "Mmmm," she says. "I knew a surgeon's hands would be good for something."

Meredith's hands are incredible.

Rose rolls over to her nightstand and pulls out a brand new box of condoms. A twelve pack, because she's not the kind of girl to keep a half-empty box of sixties by her bed. She looks at him with uncertainty in her eyes.

He wonders if Meredith needs any help at the hospital.

But she wanted him to be here. He swallows back a bitter laugh at the thought that her actions have led him to some action tonight. He would have stayed with her. She didn't want him.

He grabs the box with one hand and reaches down to test his hardness with the other. With Meredith, he would have been ready to explode by now, held back only by the sheer will of wanting to make her scream first. The thought helps.

He applies the condom with surgical precision. He can't afford any accidents.

Rose lies back in her bed because she's not the kind of girl who would get up on all fours and twist around to face him with a challenge in her eyes. He covers her body with his and slides in. It's... nice. It's warm and tight and all the things it should be. It doesn't start a burn deep in his gut or make his entire body vibrate. She makes a face and he can tell it's been a while. He halts his movement to allow her to adjust.

He had forgotten how awkward sex could be. It's his third first time in fifteen years. It's his second first time in two years.

There was nothing awkward about his first time with Meredith.

His cock swells and Rose gasps.

"Sorry," he mutters, and he kisses her to distract himself from the ghost of a third person in this bed.

She slides fingers that aren't long enough or slender enough through his hair and pulls his head back. He forces his eyelids open because he knows it's what she expects. She gives him a small smile, and he takes it as a signal to move.

He hopes she doesn't expect him to stare into her eyes the entire time.

He shouldn't be here. You made your bed. Lie in it. He should have stayed. Fuck his ego.

That was great. Totally in sync, like we were one person. He wants to close his eyes and say her name. It's at the tip of his tongue.

"Mmmm," he hums.

"Yeah," Rose replies.

He didn't put up a fight when Rose failed to invite him into her bed right away. She thought he was being a gentleman, but there was nothing gentlemanly about his motives. Anticipation was better than sleeping with her because then he'd be faced with the truth. That he doesn't just want someone; he wants her. Only her.

He hums again.

He got used to routine sex in the last years of his marriage with Addison. He could allow his body to do its thing and let his mind think about new procedures, the patients he had to see, the bills he had to pay.

He can't go back to it. Loving Meredith was a full-body experience that demanded one hundred percent of his attention.

He doesn't know Rose. He doesn't know if he can make her growl by tilting her pelvis like this and aiming his thrusts like that. He doesn't know if he can turn the growls into shouted obscenities at her ceiling if he dares to stop or if a lapse in attentiveness will lead to him being flipped over and ground against while he struggles to breathe.

He bites down on his tongue.

He can't meet her eyes right now. He dips his head and drops kisses down her jawline and her neck. He brings his right thumb to his mouth to wet it and slides the hand down her body to finish her off. He doesn't want to do this anymore.

Totally in sync.

That was great.

Rose keeps a hand in his hair and aligns their eyes. His vision loses focus. Large, dark doe eyes become cat-like, light and crystal clear. Soft gasps turn into throaty moans. The hair. The scent of lavender. He's in Meredith's room, in Meredith's bed, driving into Meredith's body.

Rose comes first. He has to hurry.

Meredith, Meredith, Meredith, goes the mantra in his head.

Heat flares through his body. Finally. It's over. He keeps his mouth shut in fear of anything that might come from his larynx. He can't trust it not to betray him. His eyes finally slide shut, and he reaches down to hold the condom on while he pulls out to ungracefully collapse on the other side of the bed.

"Wow. That was totally worth the wait," she says as she rolls over and invades his personal space again.

He makes a noise that he hopes sounds positive and reaches up to stroke her hair to cover his emotions.

He feels awful. Cheap. He wonders if this is what it was like for Meredith when she slept with those other men while he pretended to try to make it work with Addison. When he called her a whore.

Over their recovering breaths and the soft music still playing, he hears the buzzing of his phone. He jumps out of bed, trashes the condom and reaches into the pocket of his pants, which are surprisingly easy to locate.

His heart skips a beat when he sees the name on the display. He clears his throat and leaves Rose in her bedroom. "Hey," he says.

"Uh, hi. I hope I'm not interrupting something."

He wishes she had called thirty minutes ago. "No, not at all. I was just..." Having sex with Rose and imagining she was you. "Don't worry about it. What's wrong?"

She doesn't respond immediately, but he picks up the little hitch in her breath. She's crying.

"Meredith, I'll be right there, okay? I'm leaving right now." He has to get to her.

"No, no. There's no rush. No rush." His chest constricts and leaves him breathless. God. He thought they'd had it this time.

"Stay right where you are. I'll be there soon." He snaps his phone shut without waiting for her response and returns to the bedroom to grab his things.

The smell in the air nauseates him. The sweat on his skin makes him sick. He can't go to Meredith like this.

He puts on his best apologetic look. "I'm sorry, I have to go back."

She nods and looks understanding, because she's a really nice girl and she knows what his job entails. "Your trial patient?"

"Yeah. Do you mind if I shower quickly?"

"Sure, go ahead. There are extra towels in the cabinets in there."

He nods his thanks and escapes her view. He turns the water on as hot as he can take it because he needs to feel clean without the benefit of soap.

She'll know. Meredith will know if he smells like Rose's soap. She'll hate him if he goes to her smelling like Rose's soap.

When he gets out of the bathroom, he finds Rose in the kitchen wearing a white cotton robe. She's made him coffee and poured it into a travel mug.

He ignores the twisting feeling in his gut and drops a quick peck on her cheek. "Thank you. I'll see you tomorrow." He should say more, but he doesn't.

He thinks he hears her say "goodnight", but he's already halfway out the door. He has to see Meredith. He's never been so consumed with something as he has with this feeling of not wanting to let her down. Her excitement, her glow from earlier this evening, he wants that for her all the time. And it's selfish, too. He wants that for her all the time because he wants her like that all the time. He needs it. He needs for her to believe that things can turn out well, that she's not a total screw-up.

That they're not total screw-ups.

He wants to give her a reason to believe. A reason to hold on.

They'll get it right next time. Or the time after that. Or the one after that. But they'll get it right.

He finds an all-night liquor store that he's been to with Meredith once or twice. He asks the clerk for the best champagne they have and examines the bottle that's pulled out from behind the counter, because it's too nice to put on the shelves. The price is outrageously marked up but he doesn't care. He wants to have something in his hands to show her.

A physical symbol of what they're working towards.

And not the one that's hidden inside the cupboard with the spices in his trailer because it was the one place Meredith would never have business looking.

But they'll get that right, too. He will give her a reason to believe.