11. George
George
Lance answers the door with his hair a mess after what I assume was a long shift, eyes tired but bright with surprise at seeing me.
He has both hands braced on the door frame, like he needs the support, while his expression shifts through a few reactions before settling on the one he thinks will work.
By the time he speaks, he lands on casual irritation, which might have been convincing if I had not watched the whole thing happen in real time.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Hanging out.” I shrug, stepping past him into the apartment without waiting for an invite.
I put my keys on the kitchen counter in the corner where I always put them, next to his ancient coffee maker, and I’m aware of doing it before I think about it.
It’s the same way I know which drawer has the bottle opener and that the good blanket lives in the basket under the side table.
Lance follows me in with his arms crossed, watching me with that look he gets when he’s trying to read my face without making it obvious.
“Hang out?” he asks. “You were on a date.”
“I was.”
“And?”
“Took her home. She has an early morning.”
He studies me. “And?”
“Aileen was great.”
“She’s great.” He produces the patience of a man counting very slowly in his head. “Then why are you here?”
“Told you,” I say, trying to find the same patience in me too. Jesus Christ, does he need me to spell this out for him? “She’s got an early morning. And I’m hanging out.”
“You seeing her again?”
“No.” My reply comes automatically.
He opens his mouth, takes one look at my face, and closes it again. He nods once, not fully convinced, but he lets it drop. I appreciate that more than I’ll ever say.
“Supernatural?” I ask.
His whole face lights up before I’m ready for it.
That smile, the wide one he gives out only when he’s truly happy about something, is rarely seen.
I’ve been friends with him a long time, and I’ve seen all the other versions.
I’ve watched him flip the switch in a room, turn the charm on, making everyone in the room believe they’re the one he came to see.
This one slips out when something hits for real, taking over his whole face before he remembers to control it.
The fact that I can tell the difference now is irritating as hell.
“Yeah,” he says. “Definitely. I’ve got beer.”
“Give me a minute.”
I head back out to the truck for the beers I left on the back seat, but once I get there, I just stand in the parking lot with the door open and my hand braced against the frame.
The air’s cold enough to sting my lungs.
I was probably meant to see through more of what would happen with Aileen. That wasn’t always the routine, when my grumpy ass can’t hold on to relationships for more than a few months.
Trevor brought her up a few days after he got back from his honeymoon.
He had that look, trying to play it casual while lining everything up.
He gave me her name and three reasons why we would work.
I usually let him talk himself out, let it sit for a week before I say yes to anything.
This time, I said yes before he finished.
He looked surprised, and so did I. I think I was trying to get out of my own head after Azure Tides, trying to prove something to myself.
Trevor’s been on my case for years. He found his person, and now he wants everyone else to have the same thing.
It’s kind of annoying, sure, but I can tell it comes from a good place.
He knows better than to act like it’s my top priority, but that doesn’t stop him from trying.
As he always says, that’s what stepbrothers are for.
I grab the beer and go back inside.
Here’s what I’m not going to say to Lance tonight or any other time: the date was more than fine.
For once, I actually thought Trevor got it right.
Coasterra was a solid choice, the view from the terrace at that hour makes the whole evening feel like it’s building toward something promising.
Aileen was sharp, easy to talk to, asked proper questions about the shop and listened when I answered. She showed up ready for it.
I fucking didn’t, even though she’s probably the kind of person I should want to see again.
The food came. The conversation wasn’t bad. We bitched about bureaucracy, shitty regulations, and the satisfaction of fixing things that other people fucked up. She made me laugh twice, which is more than most people manage.
I kept trying to pull my attention back to Aileen. She deserved that much. Then I saw Lance across the restaurant, sprawled at the bar with his friends, and the whole night went off-center. Any plan I had to keep him out of my head for one goddamn night went straight out the window.
I needed a minute, told Aileen I was hitting the restroom. Splashed cold water on my face and tried to talk some sense into myself.
I stepped out and stopped short. Lance was right there, looking too delicious, standing outside the bathroom door like forty feet across the restaurant hadn’t been torture enough.
For a second, I considered doing the smart thing—nodding at him, stepping past, going back to my table like a man with some self-control left.
Then we ended up trapped in that small space, his body caging me in as we moved out of other people’s way. I was so close to reversing us, pinning him to the wall with both hands and taking what I wanted.
I didn’t. But fuck, it was close.
When I looked over again and realized he wasn’t there anymore, I got fucking restless.
I asked for the check at eight-thirty.
Aileen was gracious about it. I walked her to her car.
She said she had a good time and left the door open like she meant it.
I apologized and told her I had to be somewhere else.
When I said I was heading to my friend’s place, the look on her face said it all.
What kind of idiot walks away from a good date to go sit on his buddy’s couch for no real reason?
Me. I’m that idiot.
These fucking feelings have been tying me up in knots for months. I’ve been trying to shove it all down, ignore what any of it really means since those nights at Azure Tides, but it’s only getting worse. Every single day it gets a bit harder to pretend I’m not at some level fucked.
Especially when that irritating bastard keeps forcing his way into my head at the worst possible times—usually naked, moaning my name, bent over my workbench. Or riding me slow in the truck, or spread out on my bed looking up at me. Shit I have no right wanting.
It didn’t fade. It’s been sitting there, fucking with everything. Going on a date with a good woman and still wondering halfway through if Lance had eaten since his shift sure as hell didn’t help.
Turns out you can do everything right on a date and still know you’re going to drive straight to Spring Valley the second you pay the check.
Lance reappears from the kitchen with two beers and hands me one. He puts the beer from my truck inside the fridge before dropping onto the couch, pulling his feet up under him. “Where were we in the show?”
“Dean just got pulled out of Hell.”
“And Castiel’s being mysterious about literally everything.”
“Angels,” I say.
“Consistently useless.” He points the remote at the TV and I kick my shoes off, put my feet on his coffee table. He’s been trying to break me of this habit for years and hasn’t succeeded once.
He doesn’t mention it tonight. He just hits play.
Lance is in his usual spot on the left side of the couch. Black V-neck that could pass for scrubs.
I’m not doing a good job of ignoring it.
Two episodes later, the couch does what it always fucking does.
Lance starts on his side and somehow ends up pressed right against me.
No space left. His shoulder is tucked along my side, his knee against my thigh.
The heat bleeding through our clothes is making it goddamn impossible to pretend I’m still watching the show.
I don’t move.
I’ve always made room before. Gotten up. Found some bullshit excuse. Put distance back where it belongs. It worked every time.
Tonight, I stay exactly where I am.
The episode ends with Sam and Dean standing next to the Impala on an empty highway. No dialogue or resolution, just the cut to silence.
“Dean would do anything for his brother, even die for him many times,” Lance says. His voice drops, a little ragged, like he’s too tired to go any further. “That’s the whole show.”
“That’s family,” I reply.
“Is that what we are?”
I look at him, and he’s watching the credits roll with his head still upright but his eyes gone soft.
“Yeah,” I say, swallowing hard. “Of course.”
He nods slowly. Then, almost too low for me to catch, he says, “Just family?”
Fuck.
His head tips toward my shoulder. He catches himself once, straightens up like he’s fighting it, then does it again two minutes later. This time he doesn’t pull away.
His head rests against me.
“You can crash here,” he mumbles. His voice is already loose, half-gone. “If you want.”
I’ve got a house twelve minutes away. A five AM alarm. A shop that opens at seven. Every practical reason in the world to get up and leave.
But I say, “Yeah. Okay.”
He lets out a small breath. I feel it more than hear it, the press of his shoulder against my side.
He’s out cold before the next episode hits halfway.
All the fight just drains out of him at once, and his weight sinks into me completely.
His head finds that perfect spot where my shoulder meets my neck, like his body still remembers exactly how we fit.
His breathing evens out, finally done running on empty.
The TV glow paints him softer, younger, stripping away all the noise he usually hides behind.
It’s irritating as hell how much I don’t want to move. How badly I want to keep him right here.
I turn the volume down.
Later, he shifts in his sleep. His hand comes up and closes around a fistful of my shirt. He isn’t really grabbing it, more like just holding on to it. He doesn’t wake, his breathing stays steady, then eases back into stillness.
“Stay,” he murmurs, more breath than words.
Jesus Christ.
I sit there for a while before I reach for the remote and kill the TV. The room goes dark. Lance doesn’t move. His hand stays on my shirt, still anchoring me in place.
I shift carefully until I’m comfortable without waking him, then tip my head back against the couch. His hair brushes my jaw every time he breathes.
I close my eyes and fucking stay.