Disclaimer: I own nothing, all characters are property of I.C. and Showtime.

Carmen's POV

It's early, too early to be awake and yet I am.

Because of you, because of what we did together, last night.

You're still asleep in my room, just down the hall, where I left you in my bed. Your messy hair peeking out from under the duvet, face lost in between my cotton sheets and pillows, without a care in the world – like you belong there.

And you do.

Maybe you always have. I just didn't know it, or maybe I simply didn't want to let myself believe it could be true until last night.

And because of you I can't sleep. I'm a mess. I can't control the intense rush of nervous energy that's been coursing through me ever since you showed up outside my house, outside my bedroom window at 1am.

Honestly, I don't think I want to. I think I want this feeling to consume me, to fill me up until it swallows me whole from the inside out because I never want to be without it again. I never want to be without you again, not now that I know what its like to have you.

Do I have you? Can I call you mine?

Thinking back, maybe this feeling, this unrelenting, crackling energy that pulled me out of my bed and kept me from drifting off next to you, has always been there, ever since the first time I saw you.

I remember everything about us. It's as easy as breathing, thinking about you, recalling everything as if it only happened yesterday. I've thought about it enough over the last few weeks to drive myself insane, but this time, the memories are welcome, a sweet release that chases away my fears.

It was unseasonably cool out that night. The wind ebbed and flowed like the tide, my lose hair getting tossed every which way and scattered strains of music being carried across the beach and through the heavy crowd as I snuggled further into my favorite white hoodie.

Summer had arrived but the chill that lingered in the air reminded me of fall - your favorite season. School was out for the year and everyone, from freshmen to seniors and even a few familiar faces on break from college, had converged together to break in the season as we had for years, to lose ourselves to the nighttime revelry.

The only difference this year was the rush of knowing that my friends and I were now finally free. We would be freshman again come August at colleges all over the country. It was a mixed emotion, knowing that as of tomorrow, some of us would be gone for good, even though we promise to keep in touch. We all know, more likely than not, we may never see each other again.

The start of a new chapter in our lives, some would say in excitement, while others protest for more time, afraid that it's the end of an era.

I didn't know it then, and it sounds cliché almost too even think it, much less say it aloud, but that summer was only the beginning of what is turning out to be the best year of my life.

I'll miss the friends I've lost but I've already created new ones.

I found you.

The sun was setting when I saw you. I was sitting with my friends huddled near the bonfire, all of us trying to keep warm, sipping from the plastic red cups full of Vodka spiked punch in our hands. I don't remember what we were all prattling on about, a bit of everything and nothing maybe, but then there you were, just off to the other side of the fire pit.

You were standing in the crowd, but apart from it all at the same time, wearing dark jeans, a snug black hoodie and a black beanie, your hair peaking out in little wisps around the edges. You had a lit cigarette hanging from you pouty lips and a bottleneck of beer dangling from you fingertips – the silver ring circling your thumb was glinting hypnotically against the light of the fire. It almost appeared effortless, the way you held yourself, exuding something so mesmerizing and yet so complex that I couldn't put a name on it.

I think back on everything I've learned about you and I laugh quietly, realizing that despite how cool and unaffected you appeared to be on the outside, you'd really been trying to keep your shit together. You hate crowds; they make you anxious and jumpy. You still haven't told me why though.

I wasn't aware that I'd zoned out on the conversation surrounding me that night and was blatantly staring, until your eyes, licked by the raging flames of the bonfire, suddenly caught mine.

You looked intense, hungry, predatory… dangerous.

I shivered, hugging my knees closer to my chest, my senses flooded by an unfamiliar warmth that left me lightheaded and dizzy. I'm positive I even blushed and then promptly cursed myself for suddenly feeling like I was fifteen and virginal all over again.

You smirked, like you knew the effect you were having on me.

Maybe you did.

You've always been so good at reading people, especially our closest friends now that I've had time to think back on everything you told me tonight. It's like an art, the way you silently observe the people and situations around you. It's fascinating to watch. Why would I have been any different, even back then as a random stranger in the crowd?

Then as you continued to stare and I stared right back unable to look away, your lips slowly shifted, raising up on one side, into this croaked little grin, with your cigarette still hanging between your lips…oddly enough I thought it was cute, that grin, the one I only ever see when you're looking at me, and it threw me for a loop because it contradicted everything I'd witnessed in the way you held yourself amongst the crowd. I couldn't figure out how I went from wanting you in this irresistible way, a way that I couldn't even describe properly and from the looks you were garnering from other I knew I wan't the only one, to thinking you were down right adorable and that I wanted to approach you, even if only to find out your name.

You were a shooting star that night though, your presence lighting up a dark sky for the briefest moment and then you were gone, ripped away by the hand of a pretty blonde tugging on your arm, pulling you through the crowd and away from me.

I couldn't have known it then, as I quietly sat there, lost in my head as the party continued on around me, but that blonde girl was Alice and she's your best friend, has been since you were kids.

It's funny, and a little ironic, how small the world can be, don't you think?

Because Alice, your best friend, also turned out to be the mysterious college girl, my unnaturally tight-lipped best friend Dana has been dating for over a month. That was why you were both at the beach that night, to meet up with Dana so she could finally introduce us, but she couldn't make it because her grandparents had flown in on a whim to celebrate her graduation and that's why you both left.

After that night, you were always there it seemed, on my mind at least. It got to the point that I was honestly unnerved by the rapidness in which your face would appear in my head. And then one day, a week later, there you were again, having sought me out.

I didn't know any of this then; I thought it was purely coincidence the night you showed up at the diner where I worked, on a night I just happened to be closing. I didn't know that you'd spent the entire week that I'd spent thinking about you, wondering if I'd ever see you again, badgered Alice to find out anything she could from Dana about me.

You'd seen my picture, in one of the albums on Dana's phone. The one Dana's little brother Howey took of us when I stayed over a full week because their parents were gone at a convention. We were complete idiots that night because we'd all gotten drunk off of a few to many bottles of wine. We were singing and dancing, wearing only these oversized button down dress shirts we'd stolen from her father's closet to sleep in, acting like we were Tom Cruse from Risky Business as we slid around the hardwood in our socks. Dana still refuses to let me so much as touch her phone after the last time I tried and failed to delete all the pictures Howey took that night.

You said it was hot. I blushed at the blunt compliment, but I still rolled my eyes at you, because I've seen those pictures and Howey's camera skills are not flattering in the least.

Again, I didn't know any of this until you told me last night.

I didn't know that you stood outside the diner that first night for over an hour before finally getting up the nerve to come inside. I didn't know that Alice started giving you shit about your sudden lack of forwardness when she found out you still hadn't made a real move.

You played it so cool, acted so unaffected by everything that at first, I didn't think you even remembered me.

That was until I saw you watching me from across the room, where you sat down at the edge of the bar.

You grinned that grin again, the one I find oddly cute and yet so fitting, when you finally realized I'd caught you staring and I noticed, for the first time, how your eyes were a vibrant green and how the tips of your ears flushed pink.

I'd made you blush. I'd made you nervous. It was nice, knowing the feelings were mutual.

You were still a mystery to me, a puzzle I was desperate to solve but I kept my distance and despite the fact that you would pop up every other night at the diner, only to order a coke with no ice, so did you.

It became somewhat of a game, frustrating as it was to play, to see who would break first.

Surprisingly, it was you.

The first time you actually spoke to me, you had to repeat yourself because for a moment I thought it was all in my head.

Your voice, the timber, all raw and rough around the edges, was deeper than I had expected and seemed forever laced with the smoke from your last cigarette.

You always would smoke one before coming inside. You don't know this but I'd see you through the windows, looking out at the street or down at your shoes as you kicked at an imaginary rock. You always looked like your head was somewhere else when you did that.

I found out later, on the night, weeks later when you'd stuck around while I was closing, that your mother used to work at a diner like Moe's back in Austin, Texas.

I could tell without you saying it, that you loved your mom a lot. The only thing I didn't understand at the time was why your eyes held so much pain in them too.

You weren't much of a talker, I'd come to find out. And that was fine, I could talk plenty for the both of us but it's what you'd say when you did speak that mattered the most. Like the few times you seemed to want to tell me everything. You just didn't know how. Or you couldn't find the right words. It didn't matter either way because I could literally feel myself being pulled in deeper every time you opened your mouth.

You're surprisingly goofy when you're in a particularly good mood. You seemed to get some sort of pleasure out of teasing me and more often than not you enjoyed ruffling me up during a conversation that would spiral out of control and off topic so fast that I always ended up laughing when I'd catch on to what you were doing and usually by then I couldn't really remember exactly what we were arguing about in the first place. You like pushing my buttons too, though I'll never understand why.

You fascinated me, so much so, that at first I wondered what it was about me that kept you coming around. It wasn't some naïve lack of confidence thing, like I didn't believe I was good enough. Thanks to my mother's example, I've always known who I was, known how to handle myself and my body to get the kind of attention I wanted, the kind I deserved but with you everything was different. This thing happening between us was nothing like the crush I'd once had on Kelsey Baker in the 7th grade. This was nothing like the few short lived relationships I'd experienced during High School.

It was all in that way you would look at me, like you were seeing past what everyone else didn't or couldn't and you just got me.

You saw me.

I could just be… me, when I was around you and it was refreshing, not having to play a part for once. I wasn't the honor student, the head cheerleader, the good loving daughter who never stepped out of line, the baby sister – the youngest of 5, or the popular girl who should have been in a long turn relationship with the high school quarterback.

I'm the most honest version of myself when I'm with you, around you, talking to you and that is both frightening and exhilarating all at once but somehow I knew, even back then, that I could trust you and that, without words, those feelings were mutual.

I learned so many things about you over the summer, inside that diner.

You're enrolled at the local college, the same one I'll be attending come August and you're starting your second year there. You're still undecided as far as your major is concerned, though you are taking several courses in photography, just for fun, to learn more about the art, the craft. You said you didn't want something you love and love doing to start feeling like its supposed to become more, like a job because then you think you'd come to hate it. I admire that about you. The more I get to know you the more I become intrigued by the way your mind reasons and processes everything.

You've just turned twenty and you share a small apartment off-campus with your best friend, Alice – the blonde from the beach party – the one I, at that point, still didn't know was dating my best friend.

You find nighttime fascinating, you told me once that when you can't sleep, which is often, you like to explore. You say you walk for hours just wandering, taking random pictures of things you find interesting, to clear your head of all the noise until you feel tired enough to pass out.

Your eyes, constantly hidden behind your bangs, are your tell. They give away all your secrets. They tend to crinkle at the edges when you're smiling or laughing and they shine brightly when you're happy. It's how I know you friendship is genuine and not faked just for my benefit or your own personal gain. I've seen them spark with mischief and fill up when you're suppressing the need to laugh, more often then not because of me. I've seen them turn frighteningly cold and vacant when you get tense or angry, like the time those idiots on that baseball team spent the afternoon at the diner cat-calling and annoying the ever-loving hell out of me – that was also the first and only night Moe had to kick you out because of the way you reacted when one of them smacked my ass. The way your muscles tensed and shook as you slammed him face first down into the table by holding the back of his neck and you gripped his wrist, the one attracted to the offending hand, so tight and at such an odd angle that it looked like it would've been so easy for you to snap it.

I don't normally care for violence, mostly because my bark can be brutal enough without the bite, but after the shock wore off, I'd realized that that was probably the hottest thing I had ever seen.

Your eyes can be questioning too, scared even, like that following day when you showed up looking so unsure of whether or not I wouldn't want you there again after what you'd done. They also darkened every time I thought you might try to kiss me, like on the nights you'd walk me to my car after closing but you never did. You were holding yourself back and I didn't understand why.

You were frustrating and yet, I couldn't be mad, because I'd never made a move either. We were magnets, fighting the pull of a force stronger than ourselves.

Then summer ended and so did your almost daily visits to the diner.

It was so abrupt, that I wondered if I'd lost my mind and had only imagined all that time we spent together. It was like a splash of cold water, a shock to my system, your sudden disappearance. Even still, I would look for you, picking up extra night shifts despite the mounting pile of work, reading, and forms I'd already received to complete after that first week at orientation, with the hope that you might turn up but you never did.

At first, I tried not to let it affect me, to push all thoughts of you away. It was soon after, when that tactic had become an epic failure, that I began to worry and realized after the first few days you didn't show that I'd never asked you for your number and I didn't even know your last name. I'd never needed it before because you were always there. And then I'd begun to question everything I'd ever thought about you, about us.

It wasn't until I finally broke down and vented to Dana about how I'd foolishly built up the whole thing between us into more than it actually was, all inside my head, that she told me everything.

About how her girlfriend Alice is also your best friend Alice and then she told me about your mom. About how Alice had driven you down to Texas to visit your mother's grave. About how she died something like three years ago from a drug overdose and that you didn't even know until a week ago because the state had taken you away from her when you were only nine years old. About how you'd met Alice in the first place in foster care.

At first, I didn't what to hear what Dana was telling me, I didn't want to hear anything about you from anyone but you. I wanted to be hurt, to be mad, furious at you and Dana, because you'd both kept the fact that you knew each other a secret from me. But in the end, I only hurt for you and what you must have been going through.

And then last night - Was it really only a few hours ago? - after a month of not seeing you or knowing if you were alright, you were there, outside my bedroom window at 1am.

You had climbed up the tree and tapped on the glass. I was still up reading over one of my class's syllabus and trying to figure out how the professors planned to fit all of that material into a single semester course. The moment I saw you though, I felt like I could suddenly breathe again. My heart had begun racing faster with every step I took towards the window, because you were there. I hadn't truly realized the effect your absence had made on me until that moment.

The window creaked, from nonuse when it slid open and we both winced, hoping no one had heard the noise and woken up. I'd run over and peeked out into the hallway, leaving you to climb inside unassisted while I listened for the tale-tell sound of feet padding down the hardwood floors. It would have been just my luck that Mami had heard and come to investigate.

I'd breathed a sigh of relief when all I had heard were the deafening snores floating down from Manny's room at the end of the hall.

I might be eighteen and starting college but this would always be Mami's house and I knew from my siblings past experiences that there would've been hell to pay. It swan't so much that if she had barged in, she'd find a girl in my room at 1 o'clock at night that worried me. It was more so that you're a girl she's never met and one who hadn't been there before she went to bed. Mami could be strict in some ways and she was a stickler for upfront brutal honesty but more often than not, she trusted us to make our own decisions and that made it easier for her to be lenient about certain thing. My sexuality included. In fact, Mami was oddly ecstatic about it when I came out because she'd reasoned it meant that I couldn't get pregnant and that I wouldn't end up having to throw away all my future plans to raise a baby.

You'd already made it inside by the time I figured the coast was clear and I turned around, only to find you were standing so close. I almost screamed because you hadn't made a sound.

"You should wear a bell." I whisper hissed at you, trying to catch my breath after I'd practically jolted out of my own skin.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you." You whispered back, sounding almost sincere, but your eyes told a different story. They were twinkling, even in the dark, and I knew you were trying not to laugh. I'd tried to smack your arm, but you were faster and you caught my hand in yours, your long fingers curling around my wrist, your thumb rubbing circles into my palm.

You became so serious all of the sudden, your eyes darker than I'd ever seen them before as you leaned in closer and then you were kissing me, hard.

So hard in fact that at first, I froze under you, unsure of how to react considering you hadn't so much as touched my hand before tonight. But then, almost as if you could read my confusion, you softened your attack, cradling the hand that you'd been holding and pressing it flat up against your chest, as you nipped at my bottom lip with your teeth before soothing the bite with a quick swipe of your tongue.

I moaned, breathless and quiet, feeling you release your grip on my hand as you raised yours up to frame my face and my other hand rose up to your chest, my fingers gripping onto the tight fabric of your jean jacket and black faded band t-shirt.

I didn't want it to stop, whatever it was we were doing, no matter how ludicrous it seemed with you having just shown up out of the blue after a month of no contact, in the middle of the night. I didn't even think to wonder about how you knew where I lived. I just wanted more, I craved it.

You fingers were shaking as they cradled and ran over my face, my neck, so gently, and I could feel the trembles that ran through you. It felt like you were scared of hurting me if you held on too tightly and yet you couldn't let go either.

When we both pulled back, neither of us seemed to be able to let go of the other as we rested our foreheads together and we were struggling to breath. Then you were smiling, this goofy little grin, and I began smiling too because it was contagious. Then euphoria seemed to turn me into a giggling mess, because all of the sudden I couldn't stop laughing.

You didn't seem to mind so much though, because you were still smiling as you began kissing me again, on the corner of my mouth, my cheeks, just below my ear on the side of my neck, my bare shoulder, the hollow of my throat – everywhere you could reach skin. You couldn't seem to stop and I didn't want you to. Your lips were like fire against my already scorching flesh and I whimpered, trying to pull you closer the second you started to pull away.

"You don't know how long I've wanted to do that." You told me, breathless as you clutched at my hips to bring me closer still and your eyes burned into mine, with this look, the same look from that night on the beach.

You looked hungry, like a predator, like I was something to devour and my breath hitched, my heart pounding so loudly against my chest that I was sure you could hear it over our labored breathing.

"I do." I said still struggling for air and I nodded to reassure you of my answer, when that questioning look flickered over your face, like you couldn't believe it was true, that I've wanted you just as much, for just as long.

It doesn't seem to surprise you anymore, how good I've gotten at reading you too. It's really not that hard when you know what to look for but I'll never tell you that.

You smiled again but this time, it doesnt reach your eyes and there is something else behind it, a sadness that wasn't there before.

"Hey." I said softly, pulling you closer, my fingers aching and turning white, as I tried to catch your eyes once more. "Where'd you go?"

After a long moment, whatever look it was I'd seen on you face disappeared and you shook your head, sighing. "I'm sorry. I just… I don't want to stay away from you any longer. I don't think I can."

And before I could even properly dissect what you meant by saying that, everything but the thought of getting as close to you as possible evaporated when you kissed me again.

In short order, clothes started coming off, your jacket was first to hit the floor, dropping on top of the chucks you tiptoed out of. I don't remember the moment my tattered old baggy t-shirt was slipped over my head, or yours, nor do I recall how your tight jeans slid off without much of a struggle.

It didn't matter either way, not when your lips, your warm tongue started moving over my chest, your teeth nipping at my skin, tugging and pinching my nipples, your long finger gripping at the flesh around my hips and at the small of my back as you tugged me down with you onto the bed.

You set me ablaze and I wanted to burn until we were nothing more than ash.

My back bowed and my hips pressed as I searched for friction, for something more, something to soothe that ache that throbbed and pulsed in the worst, most pleasurable way. When we connected, slick hot skin against skin, I felt my insides clench and I shuddered, struggling to stay quiet by nipping at your neck and shoulders. I'd never felt something so intense, nothing like what I felt with you, on me, in me, over me, surrounding me, consuming me. You were ruthless, almost aggressive in the way you would push my body, turning me inside out with even the smallest of touches, manipulating my senses with your fingers, your tongue, your body as if you owned it.

And my god, did you own it because when you touched me there, I felt like I could feel you everywhere.

But you were also oh so gentle with me too. Like that first kiss, it was all in that way you would hold me with extreme care as I broke apart in your arms. How you took such care in grounding me to you, pulling me back just when I thought I'd fallen too far into that obscure place you sent me to.

I gave you just as good as I got too, gripping you tighter with my legs around your waste, maneuvering my body in that way that caused your eyes to clench shut and your rhythm to falter as you growled lowly in my ear. I could feel your heart, hammering away, as you moved against me, with me and I had to bite down on my lip to keep from crying out as I gripped and scratched at your back, when I realized it matched the pace of mine.

It wasn't like one of those romantic sex scenes I'd read in novels, nor was it at all graceful or porn worthy to be honest. No, instead, our version of sex was somuch better. It was a little awkward at moments, after the initial wave of pent up lust waned and we weren't so blinded by passion, and we laughed a lot, mostly when we tried to talk while trying to be extremely quiet, but it was us, intimately learning each other and that made it perfect.

It was more than just sex.

But my favorite part of it all was that afterwards, as we snuggled in close to each other on my bed, the blankets haphazardly covering nothing, half delirious and exhausted, we really finally talked.

You told me everything I already knew about you, the reason for your disappearance over the last month and so, so much more. I learned that Alice's mother had been somewhat of a flake and for a year, while she got her shit together, Alice was moved into the care home you had been placed in at the age of 11 after several failed housing attempts. You jokingly complained about the way she had shadowed your every move from the moment she arrived before demanding that you'd be best friends forever. You called her a pest, like an annoying little sister that never goes away, but your eyes told me you love her, more than she probably knows, more than you're willing to admit.

You struggled to find the right words when you tell me about your mother, about how she would get when she was so out of it and how you preferred that to the few times you remembered her when she was actually sober. You said you had preferred the abuse to being completely ignored. You probably thought I held you then because I was trying to comfort you, and I was but more so I was trying to comfort myself as the thought of her, or anyone else hurting you, killed me inside.

You kept on saying you still love her despite what she did to you and I know you do, you don't have to prove it to me… it's all in your eyes and the way you spoke of her.

There is more, so much more that I now know, but I hear someone shuffling around downstairs and I realize Mami is probably getting up for the day. The sun is already peaking in from the small window above the stairs and I shake my head to clear it before I head back to my room.

I sigh because know it's time for you to leave but a part of me doesn't want it to be. A part of me is scared that in the light of day, last night will have been a dream, and that all of this will end the moment you've gone.

You're still asleep as I walk back into my room and over to the bed. My smile, it's immediate when I see that you've rolled over onto your stomach, your arm stretched out like you were searching for me, even while you sleep.

"Hey." I call out to you, gripping your ankle and shaking your bare foot that's dangling over the edge of my bed.

You really are tall, almost a head taller than me but I don't mind. I like that you have to bend down to kiss me.

You don't budge and I roll my eyes as I walk around the bed to press down on your toned shoulders and shake you. Your lithe body bounces up on the bed before stilling again.

"Errm…" You mumble, snuggling back into place, closer to my pillow.

I hold my hand over my mouth to stifle the laughter that wants to escape, "Hey, come on. Wake up Sleeping Beauty." I try again, the moment I've somewhat calmed myself down.

You're kind of too cute for your own good as you continue to mumble incoherently before settling down still and quiet once more.

Trying a different approach, I crawl over you and sit up next to your head before I lean over and begin running my lips across your shoulder, up your neck, working my way up and wrapping them around your earlobe. "Shane." I whisper, after I've nipped at your ear and pulled back giggling when you groan.

"Shane." I call out again and lean back up against the headboard, smiling as you crack open one eye and peer up at me sleepily.

" ?" You ask with a deep breath, your hand slowly snaking out from it hiding place under the blanket and you curl it around my calf before you start pulling, trying to tug me down to you, but I don't budge. "Carm, what are you doing all the way up there?"

I laugh when I see the pout on your face before I allow my body to be pulled back down onto the bed with you hovering over me. As you rest your body against mine, I smile and kiss you because I honestly can't not when you look at me like that.

You're smiling too when we pull apart, and it's my smile and I know that all my fears of this ending any time soon are unfounded.

You lean back in for more, your lips having blearily left my body all night and its feels so good that at first I let you. I touch you, my fingers weaving into your hair as I wrap my legs around you to pull you into me because even if I know this isn't ending, I still have this need that I can't explain to reassure myself that you are here and you are real. It when I feel you shift, my oversized shirt riding up my stomach and your hands start moving back up my thighs that I know I have to stop us before we go too far.

You look confused when you lean up to look at me after I've pressed lightly against your chest for distance and I have to kiss you one more time. It's a new addiction, one I have no interest in fighting.

"Unless you really want to meet Mami in your birthday suit, you might want to get out of here." I tell you, my lips still millimeters away from yours and its such a comical reaction that I don't even bother to cover up my loud amusement because as soon as the words are out, your eyes go painfully wide and you spring up out of bed so fast, you immediately collapse to the floor with a resounding thud.

"Shit, my legs asleep." You complain with a whine from the floor as you sit up, gathering your scattered clothes and carelessly throwing them on.

I'm still giggling as you pull your beanie on over your bed-head and you tell me to shut up but it has no affect on me because you snickering quietly too.

You're a little rumpled and you look a bit flush when you finish dressing and you sort of hobble-climb back onto the bed, but again I don't mind. I just grip onto the edge of your t-shirt tighter, pulling you closer as you crawl over to kiss me goodbye.

It's quick and a little sloppy but I can still feel it, the taste of you on my lips, even after you've gone.

It's a struggle not to call or even just text you the minute you disappear from my windowsill but I control myself…. barely. I have a while before I have to get ready to meet up with you, Dana, and Alice at the beach for the afternoon. You finally explained last night that Dana had given you my address with strict instructions, from Alice of course, that our asses were to be at the beach no later than noon or there would be hell to pay. I don't know Alice, at all really, except for the little you and Dana have told me, but I've come to the assumption that she has the scary tenacity of a small, untrained terrier, so following orders sounds like the best option.

Plus, you'll be there and the thought of seeing you, especially somewhere outside of the diner, is more than enough of a reason to go anywhere.

Grabbing the pair of short, I was originally planning to wear to bed last night, I slip them on and head downstairs for breakfast. I'm too wired to go back to sleep, even though it's a Saturday and I normally sleep in.

It isn't until I've made it all the way downstairs, my hands still busy pulling my rumpled hair back into a ponytail, that hear voices coming from the kitchen and I freeze when I turn the corner and find you standing there next to Mami, your cheeks flushed and ears tipped bright red, and a plate loaded up with enough food to feed a small elephant in your hands.

Mami is standing there, a spatula still in hand, when she notices me and I bit my lip, my own cheeks burning as I try to look as innocent as possible. But I know I'm not pulling it off when Mami rolls her eyes, mumbling something in Spanish about her children being the death of her and how we think we are so smart. Your lips are twitching, like you're trying not to smirk, or laugh, and you let out a soft sigh before shaking your head.

"I believe she belong to you, Carmencita. Come, we talk after we eat. She's so skinny."

As Mami says all this, she is waving the spatula around, gesturing at you and our eyes meet again.

They're so green, and you look a little petrified - having been caught sneaking out of my bedroom window by Mami will do that to a person, Mami may be small, shorter than me even, but she can be the most terrify woman you'll ever meet, if provoked, especially when concerning her children – and you look almost expectant too and it's in that moment that I can't help but think I'm in love with you.

So yeah, Shane, you are mine and I hope you know I'm never letting you go.

You smile, and it's my smile, and it's like you can hear my thoughts as I walk past you, hooking your finger with mine as I pull you towards the stools at the end of the breakfast bar.

Mami's catches my eyes, once we are both settled and you start to dig in, though you've kept the plate in between us to share, and with a wink, I know she approves.

You're lucky too.

Because I'm her favorite.

-The End-