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 thetruck, 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.
