He sighed. He checked the watch. Eight p.m. Kevin had to be back any minute now. The meeting with management was supposed to end by six but like every single meeting he had ever attended to, it had probably run late. Still, Kevin had promise to be back before dinner, so...

"Missing your husband-to-be already?"

It was Danae's voice that made his turn around. She was smiling at him, her black hair falling on either side of her face. He knew it wasn't going to be long before she put it up in a pony tail once again, complaining about how it was impossible for her to get any work done when her hair kept getting into her eyes. She had been nice enough to leave early from work so they could go over a few things for the wedding.

Nick shrugged, a lopsided grin plastered on his face. "What can I say, I'm just corny like that."

She snorted. "You're corny alright. Always have been." She shook her head in disbelieve. "I understand the whole I love you too much to be away from you for long, but darling, be considered, I don't wanna lapse into diabetic coma, you know?"

Nick only chuckled. She knew she didn't mean it, that she was only teasing. After all, she had spent a lot of time of their one-year relationship with them. She was already used to them by this point.

Before either of them could say anything, there was the distinctive sound of the gate being opened, the garage door lifting, a car engine going off and, barely a minute later, the garage door being opened and closed afterwards.

Nick smiled. Danae shook her head.

Kevin walked into the kitchen, placing his stack of papers on the kitchen island, and went over to where Nick and Danae were sitting on the kitchen table. He leaned over and kissed Nick on the lips. The kiss lasted a minute more than it should have, but Danae didn't mind. She was already used to hanging out with those two.

When they parted, Kevin turned around and smiled at her. "Good to see you here girl."

Danae smiled back. "What were you expecting me to do, to leave poor Nicky boy here all alone in getting together the things for the wedding? No way! He wouldn't even have set the date yet."

"Hey!"

She chuckled. "I know you resent that comment Nicky, but let face it, you aren't the world's more organized person, now are you?"

Nick chose not to comment on that one. "Still, I am doing a good job at getting this settle, aren't I?"

"Well boy, I must give you that one." She looked at him. "We aren't that far from being totally done."

"We aren't close to being done!"

"Nick--"

"We haven't decided on a centerpiece, or the flowers, the color of the napkins, the number of waiters. The guys haven't even gone to try on their tuxes."

Kevin chuckled slightly. He leaned over, capturing Nick's lips on another sweet and tender kiss. When they parted, Nick's cheeks were reddened. Kevin smiled. "Darling, you shouldn't free too much about it. We still have enough time."

"No we don't," Nick contradicted. "The wedding is only two months away and there are so many things left unfinished."

"We have time. Besides, I don't really care what the guys wear for the wedding. I wouldn't get another tux if it wasn't for you wanting me to buy a new one."

Nick looked hard at Kevin, one of his eyebrows raised -- even if that was typical of Kevin and not him. "So you wouldn't mind going on your underwear, would you?"

Kevin shook his head. "To tell you the truth? No."

"Well, I would mind. I don't want anyone but me seeing you in your boxers!"

"I've seen Kevin naked, so I can assure you they aren't missing much."

Nick turned around and glared at his friend. "You have got to be kidding. He's got a beautiful ass."

Danae shook her head, an amused smile on her lips. "I've seen better."

Kevin kissed the top of Nick's head, smiled at Danae and picked up a can of coke from the fridge as he headed for the door and to the study. "Yeah? I've had better sex."

"With a girl? In your dreams my friend."

Kevin's laughter could be heard down the hallway.

Nick stared at Danae for a second. "How is it that you can still amaze me sometimes?"

She shrugged, picking up the list of menus for them to choose from the already selected catering company. "Don't know. I guess I just hate to be boring."

Nick didn't say anything, just smiled and picked up his own list, still not having decided for the aperitifs to be served.

*****

Danae took a sip of her mocaccino, grimacing slightly. "Remind me again why you convinced me of ordering a coffee when you know I don't like it?"

Nick chuckled, taking a sip of his own cappuccino as he did so. "I still can't believe you don't like coffee. How do you survive days that seem to have forty hours?"

"That's why, my friend, coke was invented."

The blond shook his head. "I haven't been able to start my day without, at least, two cups of coffee since I was seventeen."

She shook her head in disbelieve, biting back her desire of asking for a cup of Coke. They had been doing some 'calming after a horrible week' shopping, when Nick had decided it wouldn't hurt them to get a coffee in the meantime. Resilient, she had accepted. Danae had already taken the morning off, so she had to call back to the office and say she wasn't going to show up on the afternoon either. Which, of course, didn't make her boss happy. She shrugged nonchalantly. After the way she had been working on the last few months, she was sure she deserved the day off.

Nick took advantage of the silence fallen upon them to look at her. Her hair was, once again, pulled up in a ponytail. She had loved having her hair short, but Nick, after three years of pleading, had been able to talked her into letting it grow. Now it fell over her shoulders. Wearing her oval metal glasses, she looked wiser and older-- two things Nick had found out were real in themselves. Her natural tan gave her that mystic look only few girls can pull out. And her knowledge on computers and everything electronic related never eased to amaze him.

And so, he couldn't begin to see what Kevin hadn't found lovable in her.

"Can I ask you a question?"

She lifted her eyes, finding Nick's blue ones looking back at her own black ones. She shrugged. "Of course. Besides, even if I tell you not to, that hasn't stopped you before."

He gave her a forced smile and proceeded to ask. "I was thinking about--"

Before the blond could finish his question, her cell ran. Danae grimaced. "Sorry." She clicked, answering the call. "Yeah? No Karen, no, I don't want it for next month, all right? They were supposed to have it by next Tuesday. I don't give a damn about them being sold out. They said they'd have it by Tuesday, and I need it by Tuesday. Well, they don't know we don't need it by Tuesday, do they? Good. Yeah, and tell Harrison the update of the page will be finished next week. My notebook? Just tell them it's on, but I'm not online. I don't care; tell them something. To them, everything it's an emergency. Bye Karen, I'm busy here. Bye Karen. I said bye. Yeah, bye." With that, she hung up. "Sorry Nicky, but it's like I'm gone for a day and they think the building it's going to fall down into pieces. I program, don't do miracles."

He nodded, half dazed, half on the conversation. "It's alright. I know you're busy."

"Nah, it's just them being paranoid." She scooted over in her chair to closer to him. "What did you want to ask me about?"

He shrugged nonchalantly. "Nothing much. It's not important."

"Sure it is. Tell me."

Nick paused, looking at his cappuccino, stirring it with the straw. "I was thinking... you remember when you and Kevin were together?"

She nodded. "Yeah?"

"You were together for four years, right?"

"Yeah." She blinked, puzzled. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"You were engaged." It was a statement, not a question.

Danae shrugged. "Not for long."

"You were going to get married."

She shook her head forcefully. "No, it wouldn't have happened."

"You planned to."

"It didn't last."

"It could have."

She was loosing what little patience she had. "Nick, damn it, what don't you want to understand? What does this have to do with anything, anyway? That was ages ago. He's going to marry you."

"It's just that..." his eyes fell over to his coffee again. "Kevin never wanted to talk about it. After he told us the wedding was off, the subject was never brought back."

She shrugged. "I didn't want to talk about it either, you know that."

"Yeah but..." He lifted his eyes. She saw confusion in them. "What if he still wants to get back to you? Or the other way around, what if you still want to get back with him?"

"You're stoned, right?" She stated, indignant. "That's got to be only explanation left in this planet for you to think that."

"It's not that farfetched."

"Of course it is! It's that and many adjectives more." Danae had never heard something as outrageous as that. Ok, maybe the fact that she hated her computer or that David Duchovny was anything but gorgeous, but still. "There's nothing left between us Nick. From either of us. We've been done for a long time already; you know that. You were there, unless my memory it's totally screwed up. You saw when we broke up. We broke up and moved on. He's in love with you now."

Staring at her friend hunched over his coffee, looking at the residues of milk still floating over the dark and sour liquid, she realized this was a question that had been running through his mind for the two months of his engagement with Kevin. Probably, even for the whole year of his relationship with him. "You actually think I still have feeling for him?"

When Nick lifted his eyes, her suspicious were more than confirmed. He didn't believe her. "You could have. You always said you'd always love him."

"As a friend. I know him far too long to let something like us breaking up ruin twenty years of friendship. We... we've seen each other through so much. He's one of the very few people I still talk with since school. That doesn't mean I'm in love with him." She looked at him, her black eyes opened wide, sincerity plastered in them. "I don't love him. Not anymore."

"But you did."

She couldn't deny that. "Of course. You aren't with a man for four years and not love him. I love him very much. It just..." she shrugged. That was one of the questions that had surrounded her ever since they parted their ways. Maybe even now she couldn't answer what had happened exactly. "I'm not sure Nick, but it just changed. Suddenly, it wasn't the same."

"And you two just decided to break up?"

Danae staid quiet. That wasn't entirely the truth. That was just... that was just one side of the truth -- the official side of their breaking up. She shook her head. Maybe a year later was the time to come out clean. "No, it wasn't like that." She paused. She had promised herself not to say this. Why? She wasn't sure. Egocentrisms couldn't be. Friendship? Maybe. Respect? Perhaps. They just had never told the exact truth. "We didn't break up Nick. I did."

"You?" That, he hadn't been expecting.

She nodded. "Yeah, it was me. He didn't... he didn't want us to break up. He said we could work things out, but I didn't believe that. I didn't know if there was even something to work out." She paused again. She had already started, why stop there? "It wasn't mutual Nick. I... I broke up the engagement barely a week after he proposed."

Blue eyes opened wide with surprise. "You broke up with him? It was you?" He frowned slightly, biting his lower lip. "You both said that it just wasn't the same anymore. I asked you the reason and you said that and that the two of you had agreed that breaking was the best. You lied. He lied to us."

She nodded, turning her head slightly, looking at the side of the coffee shop. Nick and her always came to the same coffee shop whenever they were in town. Both her and Kevin had first found it weeks after moving to Florida right after high school. Back then, he had been working at Disney, and she had been waiting tables at McDonalds. He wanted to pursue his dream in singing and she needed to have some money to pay for college. The place had been a lot cheaper back then, but the coffee was still good. Still, something in the back of her mind told her they didn't go there for the quality of the drink, but the habit of going.

She turned back to her friend, coming back to reality after a minute of going down memory lane. "I turned him down Nick. I broke up with him. That must assure you I don't want anything to do with him. And Kevin... Kevin is madly in love with you. The two of you getting together never surprised me; you must know that. After we broke up, you two just got so close. It was bound to happen." She took a sip of her almost forgotten coffee. She had to ask for a coke before leaving the place. "Kevin and I are through and through. You gotta believe me."

Nick looked at his friend -- really looked at her. He had met her barely weeks after the group got together. She was already study Computer Programming and every single course that had to do with computers. The guys and him, even back then, had been sure the two of them would end up together. Brian had told them how the two of them were inseparable back home, how they had gone to prom together and both their parents were already going through the wedding invitations. It was something that was just meant to be. When they had finally gotten together, it was more like confirming a suspicion than a surprise to anyone. And when they broke up, it had been shocking.

And a year later, when Kevin had kissed him, it had been ever more shocking. On one hand, the fact that Kevin, having suffered so much with their break up, would fall in love with someone so quickly. On the other hand was him, falling in love as well, and to his closest friend. Somehow it sounded stunning and just right at the same time. Danae had supported him in every single way, hanging out with them once again.

So now, when he looked at her, there was just nothing else left to say. He believed her.

Nick smiled at her, and then nodded. "You're right. I'm being crazy. Sorry for implying--"

"Nah, it's probably just you being... well, you. That and the fact that you're still hysteric about the wedding plans." She reached out and messed up his hair, chuckling as Nick tried to get away from the prying hands. "But, if you ever ask something like that again, I'm gonna kick your butt."

He laughed heartily. "You're too old to take me down."

She raised her eyebrows at him. "Be respectful to your elders boy. Remember I'm Kevin's age."

"So? He's old too."

Danae whistled lowly. "Uh... you're so dead Nicky boy. I'm gonna tell Kevin."

*****

She picked up the Order of Purchase from her desk. "No Joshua, I have the paper right here and it says Tuesday, so I'm going to be expecting the data by then. Do you actually think I care? You said Tuesday my friend, so Tuesday it is." She paused a little, grinning slightly. It wasn't that she liked being a pain in the ass; she just wanted them to stick to what they had promised. They had set a date and she was going by it. Hearing the salesman representative asking her to give him a two days delay made her grin. Ok, so maybe she also loved being a pain in the butt, but it was mostly the fact that, if she gave in now, later they'd think she'll always give him. Yeah, that was it. As long as she kept telling herself that, she wouldn't laugh.

"You know what?" Danae said after a minute of hearing Joshua running out of excuses. "It's ok, you don't have to worry. Yeah, don't worry. See, I'm a nice gal." She paused a second. "I'll just go to another supplier." That did the trick. A smug smile making its way onto her face, she curled the hands free cable around her finger, scratching the surface of her desk slowly.

A soft knock on her door made her turn around, papers still in hand as Josh asked her to wait a second to see when they'd be getting the new shipment. The door opened and Kevin entered, a smile on his face.

Danae waved him in with her other hand, smiling at him. Pressing her thumb and forefinger together, she signaled Kevin she only needed a couple more minutes. Kevin nodded, sitting on a chair in front of her desk.

She heard Josh back in the line and gave him her full attention. "Yeah. Yeah. Well Josh, then I wouldn't promise things you couldn't keep, now would I? Let me remind you I didn't say Tuesday, you did." She paused. Maybe giving the guy some slack wouldn't be that bad after all. "Alright, I'll tell you this. I'll keep the gators away from here until Wednesday morning, but that's the best I can do. Yeah, sure, but that data has to be here first thing Wednesday morning. Josh, I want it on my desk no later than eight thirty, so you better make me happy." She grinned. She loved when people owed her favors. "Sure Josh. See, I told you I'm a nice gal." Not needing to say more, she clicked off the connection.

Pulling the hands free set out of her ear and unclipping it from her blouse, she jumped off her desk and walked over to Kevin. He stood up and gave her a small kiss on her cheek. She kissed him in return, giving him a hug.

"It's good to see you over here Kevin. I thought you had forgotten where I work."

Kevin tilted his head to the side, lifting on eyebrow. "You love making everything a drama, don't you D? You know perfectly fine I'd never forget where you work. I've come here what... a million times already?"

She stopped to think for a moment. "I don't think it's a million. Probably a couple of thousands, but not a million." She chuckled at her own silly joke. "Anyhow, what brings you to this side of the programming? I thought you were used to being a user, not coming the core of the connection."

He glared. "Still the drama queen. Nevermind. I just thought we could talk for a minute, that is if I don't interrupt."

She shook her head, taking a step back and sitting on the edge of her desk once again as Kevin walked over to the other side of the office. "Sure." She paused, looking at him. "It sounds serious. What is it Kev?"

Kevin didn't say anything, only continued walking over the room. He turned around for a moment, his eyes barely glancing over to her. "You still like sitting on desks. You know that's not good. They could give."

She shook her head. "And you're as anal retentive as usual. I don't think furniture is so weak." She looked at him again. He didn't look good at all. "Listen, you either start talking right now or I'm going to freak out. And you know that's never pretty."

A ghost of a smile appeared on his lips even if she couldn't see it. His eyes fell to one of the pictures in silver frame, picking it up. It was of the two of them in probably six or seventh grade, doing one of the many plays they did back in school. Danae was dressed in ragged clothes and he was walking by her side, smiling at her. He really didn't remember the name of the play, but he was sure that if he asked her, she'd remember. She was good in things like that.

Kevin placed it back on the bookshelf and turned around. "I was talking with Nick last night over dinner and he told me the two of you went for coffee yesterday."

Danae let out a breath she wasn't even aware she had been holding. It was nothing serious. She had probably seen something in nothing. "Yeah," she said, more calm now, "we went for a cup of coffee and your fiancé talked me into buying one. Remind me never to give again, will ya?"

He stared straight in her eyes. Green to black like many times before in their friendship. "He said you talked about why we broke up."

She nodded and shrugged. "Yeah. It was nothing, really."

"He asked you if you still had feelings for me."

It wasn't a question, it was a statement and in his tone she was able to read something was not as fine as she had first thought. "Yeah," she said slowly, cautiously.

"What did you tell him?"

"What?" She blinked, looking at him. "I told him it was over of course."

"You told him why we broke up," he stated once again.

"Yeah. I thought you would have told him by now, but turns out you didn't. I can't see why you wouldn't--"

"I didn't want any of the guys to know."

Danae frowned. "Nick isn't one of the guys anymore Kev. He's going to be your husband in two months."

"Did he asked you about my feelings for you?"

"Yeah. I told him it's been long enough since we were together and that we both moved on." She jumped off her desk, taking a step closer to Kevin as she folded her arms around her chest. "Kevin, what's going on?"

"He asked me as well." Kevin's eyes lowered and focused on the clear gray carpet.

Suddenly, things weren't close to fine anymore. And Danae feared she had an idea of where this whole conversation was going. "What did you tell him Kevin?"

For a second Kevin didn't say anything and it was the longest second there had ever existed for Danae. "That there's nothing left between us." She let out a long sigh of relieve as Kevin's eyes rose, meeting hers. "I told him we're through."

"That's good."

"I told him that you were right, that it was you who broke up with me. That there's nothing left between us but a nice and comfortable friendship."

"Yeah," a small smile made its way over to her features as she totally relaxed. "You're right."

"I told him I had moved on a long time ago."

"I knew that."

"I told him you had forgotten me a long time ago."

Danae nodded. "That's true."

"But I had to come," Kevin continued, taking a step closer to her, his eyes softening and his features brightening. "I had to ask you how you felt."

Her eyes opened wide and it felt like she had lost all ability of speech. "What?" was the only thing she could think of saying in a situation like this.

"I had to know if there still was a chance for us."

"Kevin," Danae said, her voice breaking a little, a small fearful chuckle leaving her lips, "this isn't funny, you know? You know perfectly fine I don't like this kind of jokes, so you better stop it before--"

Kevin shook his head. "I'm not joking. I wanna know if you still love me."

Danae stared at her twenty-year-old friend. "You better be kidding Kev."

"I don't joke about things like this."

Shit, she knew that. "What--"

"When Nick asked me, I didn't know what to say." Kevin turned around and started walking through her office. She knew that calmed him but it only unnerved her. She had always hated pattern movements. "I thought that maybe you had told him something. Then I realized that, if indeed you felt something for me, you would never tell him. Not something like that. So I knew I had to come and talk with you."

She rubbed her face with her hands. Something had to either be wrong with her hearing or with her perception of reality as she saw it. This was like... this was like a weird dream you just know it's a dream because it's too fucking farfetched to be real. She opened her eyes and realized she was still in her office and probably completely awake. Shit.

Kevin turned again, looking straight at her. "I want you to tell me."

"What--?" She swallowed. Her throat felt dry and a cigarette at the moment didn't sound like such a bad idea. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Do you still love me?"

Well, no one could say Kevin went around the bushes. "You're ludicrous."

Kevin shook his head. "I just want to know."

"Know? KNOW?" She paused, taking a deep breath. She knew that if she lost her temper she was going to start screaming any minute now and this was a conversation she didn't want anyone over hearing. "What is there to know?"

"I still love you."

O-kkeeyyyy. If she had thought there was nothing that could surprise her anymore this day, she had been dead wrong. "You what?" Suddenly, intelligible thinking and paraphrasing seemed too much for her.

Kevin nodded, still way too calm in a situation like this for her liking. "I still love you. I never stopped loving you, not since we broke up."

Danae stayed quiet, closing her eyes and trying to find her center. She had always prided herself in saying that she was one of the most centered women in the business. Her thinking was so complex and so simple at the same time. She could find five different answers to the same problem and the possibilities that all those five were right were very high. She could design a complex program in only hours and finding errors in game was one of her hobbies. Then how in the world she couldn't read or understand a single thing of this dilemma stunned her.

"I know you're probably confused--"

She snorted.

"-- but you gotta try to understand. I just needed to know."

"What do you expect me to say!?" Her voice had risen, but not as high and loud as she knew she could reach. This was loud enough for him to see she was about to go into hysterics and low enough not for the whole floor to hear her. "You come here, telling me you still love me after having broken up for two years and planning on marrying a man -- one of my best friends and your closest friend, let me remind you -- in only two months and you want me to say something!?"

She paused to think. First of all, she had to find the loose ends in this equation.

"Nick." She stated. "Nick. What about him? You two have been together for the past year and you're marrying him in two months." She blinked. Oh god. "You... do you love him?"

Kevin considered his words carefully. "After... after you broke up with me, he was there."

It was a very particular way in which Kevin skipped the answer, and even though she noticed, she didn't let it show.

"He heard me out when I complained about everything on the tour. He was there to watch movies with me and just stay by my side. He was there all the time. When I kissed him, I did it because I needed to feel close to someone. Close in a deeper way. I wanted to know someone loved me." He paused, resuming his pacing once again, his back to her as he continued. "It was difficult at the beginning. I had never been with a guy, but as time goes by, you just blend into it, like any other relationship. You just find a balance. I found that with him."

Kevin turned around to look at a still dazed and half dizzy Danae. "But that doesn't mean I ever stopped loving you. You broke up with me, not the other way around."

"You never said anything." It was a stupid thing to say, but she felt that if she didn't say a word in the next ten seconds, her brain just might stay off for the rest of her life.

"What was I to say? I told you we could work it out, I could change, that we could make it, but you didn't want to hear me out. You said things just weren't working and that you didn't want us to be together anymore. I wasn't going to force you to be with me, so I just agreed. I just went along."

"But you..." she swallowed once again. Her throat was dry, screaming for a coke. Her lungs were having trouble in taking the air and she feared intubation would be needed. She didn't think her insurance covered heart attack by ex-fiancé. "You and Nick have been together for over a year. You proposed."

Kevin nodded again. He was so calm. So fucking calm Danae knew he had thought about that and every other single question she could think of. "Yeah."

"You love him," Danae stated as an ultimate resort. She was about to break down inside just by almost hearing him say he wasn't in love with Nick as he should be. And she knew, even as the words left her mouth, that the statement was only a personal need to believe that.

"He's an amazing man and I love him dearly but I need to know if there's a chance left between us." He paused. "He's not you. I love you Dani."

Her heart skipped a beat, soaring slightly. It had been two years since he had called her that. Before they were together, he used to call her that every two sentences. And after they broke up, even though they still talked, something inside had changed. He never called her that again and she didn't know how much she had missed it until that moment.

"I love you. And, somewhere deep into your facade, I know you still love me."

Danae paused and thought about his words. Months after they broke up, she had tortured herself with the possibility that maybe she had made the worse mistake in her life by breaking up with her soul mate. It had taken her two bottles of whisky and about thirty-seven continuous hours of X-Files to come to the conclusion she had done the right thing. And now, with Kevin standing before her, asking her to reconsider, she couldn't do anything but.

She closed her eyes, trying to pull herself outside the situation and analyze it just as she did with her programs and designs.

She loved him that was for certain. He was her best friend and the closest person to her heart, how could she not? But was she in love with him? Was she was in love with him as she was when they first got together? When she thought she could die of solitude if they didn't see each other at least once a week, even during tour? Was she as deeply in love with him as she was back then when she used to pick up her laptop and just travel half way across the globe just to be three hours with him? Was she truly in love with him as she was when they would stay up until dawn talking for hours just because they couldn't hang up?

She thought about it, and when an answer had finally made its way over to her heart and mind, she opened her eyes.

"No," she said, her voice calmly and tone steady. She knew that. She was sure of that. In her heart, there weren't any doubts anymore. "I'm sorry, but no. Kevin, I broke up with you because, back then and even now, I was right. Something in us had change. Maybe we had drifted apart, or maybe we had just shifted. Wherever it was, it was either too slightly for you to see it or you just didn't want to; but it was big enough for me to stare at it and find my answer. I'm sorry."

Kevin nodded after a moment, a small smile on his lips. "It's ok. I know you always make a conscious decision, never doubting a second, but I just had to be sure."

He walked over to where she was still standing by her desk. Placing his hands on her shoulders, he leaned over and placed a small kiss on top of her head, closing his eyes as he did so. "You're a great person Danae Harwood and you're going to find the right person for you."

Lingering barely a second more than he should have, Kevin turned around and walked over to the door.

Finally finding her voice, she asked the question that was still beating in her mind. "What about the wedding?"

Kevin turned so his eyes were locked with hers. "He's the next best thing. He's a great person. He's an amazing person and I'm willing to walk him down the aisle. And you are invited." He smiled one last time and walked out of her office, closing the door after him.

Danae let her legs give and her weight win as she plopped down on her desk, sitting against the edge of the same. She blinked a couple of times.

What was there for her to know with this information now?

How could she react?

What could she do?

She closed her eyes, hiding her face in her hands. Kevin's words kept swimming around in her head.

I need to know if there's a chance left between us

I love you Dani

I know you still love me

He's the next best thing

Danae shook her head forcefully.

It felt like she was in the verge of a nervous breakdown, everything was spinning around her. She took a deep breath.

She had to calm down; Danae knew that. She had to try and find some kind of semblance of normality.

Loosing focus of everything, she stood up in one quick movement and picked up the closest thing to her hands, which was a small glass pencil case. She threw it against the wall, shattering loudly and the small transparent crystal pieces falling onto the clear gray carpet.

She stood in the middle of the room breathing heavily, feeling her chest rising with each intake of oxygen that seemed to make her lungs ache in pain. Feeling tears in the back of her eyes that were blurring her vision, she only clenched her teeth, forcing herself to calm down.

It was barely seconds before Karen entered the office; her face frowned in deep concern.

"Danae--"

Danae only shook her head, not even letting her finish her sentence.

Karen took a step into the office, looking at Danae carefully.

Danae continued shaking her head, not really sure if she'd be able to say a word without breaking down in the middle of her office.

Karen considered Danae's posture for a moment. She had known Danae for a few years now and, in that time, she had to learn how to read the body language. And, in this very same moment, talking with her didn't seem like the best option to take.

She nodded more to herself than to answer anything and just took a couple of steps back, closing the door after her.

Danae, glad she had been left alone, took a couple of deep calming breaths.

This was neither the place nor the time to consider everything that had been brought to her attention. She wasn't in any mental state as to analyze this.

She let the air out of lungs slowly, completely. Her eyes still sting with the unshed tears, but she didn't think about that.

Her chest still hurt, but she decided to forget that.

She did the only thing she could do. She stood up and walked over to the other side of her desk, taking a seat. She double clicked on an icon and continued with the program she had unfinished. She couldn't do much now, all she could was submerge into her work. And that was exactly what she was planning on doing.

*****

A breath in.

A breath out.

A breath in.

A breath out.

It didn't really matter how many breaths she took; it was the same. Standing before the door, already having passed the front gate with the code she knew by heart and walked down the corridor parting the stunning yard, she felt like leaving.

Back in her place, after having meditated about this for four days, talking with Nick seemed like the only option left. He was going to marry to a man who didn't love him back. Ok, so maybe Kevin had said he was in love with Nick, but he wasn't Kevin's first choice. It had been her, not Nick.

She let out another breath out. It felt like she was in swimming practice once again. She shook her head. Deciding to tell him had been far easier back in the security of her place. And now, looking at Nick's closed door, she didn't know if she had what it took to tell him.

You have to, her mind told her, trying to convince her. You know that he deserves to know. If after hearing what you have to say, he still wants to marry Kevin, then that's his choice and not longer yours.

"That's easy for you to say," she whispered under her breath, answering her psyche. "You don't have to stand before your friend and crush his dreams."

She shook her head. This wasn't easy, she knew that, but it needed to be done.

Sighing one last time, she braced herself for what was about to come and, before what little confidence she had found left her, she knocked on the door.

It took only second before the door was opened, revealing a grinning Nick, his blue eyes shinning and his cheeks all pink and her decision seemed to fade away in front of her very eyes.

"Hey!" Nick hugged her of impulse, chuckling slightly. "Girl," he said as he pulled away, motioning for her to enter, which she did. "It's been ages since I last heard from you. Your cell was off and Karen told me that you were out of town doing some business. What happened?"

She walked over to the dinning room, her eyes glancing over at the table full of wedding stuff from lists to catalogs. Danae sighed again. Saying she was out of town seemed to be only logical explanation for her to drop off the face of the earth for four days. She still had to thank Karen for lying for her. Probably giving her a box of chocolates wasn't such a bad idea.

Her mind drifting back to reality, she pulled a chair and took a seat. Danae picked up one of the catalogs, smiling softly. Nick still hadn't decided for a suitable centerpiece and, from the different pictures with different flowers, he hadn't chosen which flowers either.

"I," she started, placing the catalog down and lifting her eyes to find Nick looking at her intensely, "I just had some things to do."

Nick frowned. "You usually tell me you're gonna leave town and you never ever turn your cell off."

Her eyes cast downwards; she tried to calm herself down. She had known some people weren't going to believe her little lie -- Kevin and Nick among them -- but she couldn't very well tell them she just needed to find some kind of center before she had a nervous breakdown.

Shrugging, not knowing what else to tell him, Danae gave him a small smile. "The damn thing crashed and it just... it just ended in so many pieces I didn't even bother myself to count. I called the company and they said they'd give me another piece, no questions asked, but it was over the weekend and I ended up with no cell during the trip." She shrugged again. She was at the end of her rope. "I would have called you, but everything that could go wrong, went wrong and things just didn't stop coming."

He smiled back and she knew, still not really sure how, he had believed her. "It's ok. I just got worried. I didn't have anywhere to contact you. I must have called your place a thousand times."

And he wasn't that further from the truth as she had listened to each and every message he had left; however, after the twentieth one, she just couldn't hear any more concern in his voice and ended up disconnecting the phone. Her state of mind wouldn't have handled any more.

"Well," he started, bringing her back from her musings, smiling at her, "there still are lots of things to be done, so, if you have a minute, I was hoping you'd be able to help me. I tried to get some work done during the weekend, especially with Kevin here, but you know how he is. It really doesn't matter what I choose, he always agrees with me, so he wasn't of much help."

His tone was cheerful and his eyes dazzling over the excitement of making decisions for his marriage and, at seeing this, her heart constricted a little bit more, making her wonder just how much her poor and weak heart could take before finally giving up. She had so many things in her mind and it felt like the weight of the world was upon her shoulders. After all, she had to face her friend and let him know Kevin didn't choose to marry him out of love, but out of settlement.

She shook her head. She couldn't think like that. If she did, she just might run out of the place and never see either of them again.

"I have shorted the list of flowers down to three." Nick picked up the pictures of the lovely flowers. "I'm between lilies, roses or daisies. I'm really this close to scratching daisies out. I really don't want the church or ballroom to be all yellow. What you think?"

Nick waited for her to answer him and when more than just a couple seconds passed and he realized her eyes were focused on a point on the table only her could see, he called out again. "Danae? Girl, you alright?"

Once again, his words made her turn around and gaze at his worried semblance. She let out a long sigh. "Nick," she started, her voice low and her chest hurting. "Nick, there's something I need to talk with you about."

Nick stared at her intensely, his brow furrowed. Something was wrong, that much he could see from her demeanor and tone. "What is it?"

Her eyes darted downwards. She had always prided herself of being brave. The tough cookie among his peers. She had been to face suits only wanting to make the whole office feel like they weren't worth their time. She had stood up to executives, convincing them that they weren't as omnipotent as they believed themselves to be.

And now, standing before her friend, she didn't have the courage to say what she had come to say.

"I don't know how to say this."

"Try," Nick's voice was calm, serious.

Danae swallowed back the cry that seemed to choke her. Her eyes filled with tears all of a sudden and she bit her lower lip, trying to keep a resemblance of calmness, even if it was for her own sake. Taking a deep breath, she was able to control her emotions for the time being.

She looked up, tremulous black eyes finding tranquil blue ones.

"It's not easy for me to say."

"Important things hardly are."

She had to give him that. She shut her eyes close. Danae knew that if she lived through this, nothing else in her life would ever be this difficult to face.

In the blackness she could see with her eyes closed, she tried to find a point where she could concentrate and find her center. It was a long shot, but she at least had to try it out.

Instead, Danae could see herself and Kevin holding each other, sitting on the couch back at her place. She was leaning against her chest, secured in his embrace, as she read a book.

The scene changed into her, picking up the last remnants of Kevin's things lingering in her place as she put them in a box she had later given Kevin.

When it changed back, this time it was Nick and Kevin, one of the very first times she had seen the two of them together, on the couch. Kevin was sitting on one end of the couch with papers in hand, Nick lying down, his head on Kevin's lap, reading a comic book.

In that moment, she had realized Kevin and Nick held the kind of love she had wanted for herself with Kevin. That unconditional, ever lasting and fierce love she had always dreamed of. The kind of love where you aren't embarrassed to give your opinion, where you can look at the other person and see yourself in their eyes. The kind of love where the other person knows exactly what you're thinking and what you want. Where you know each other so much, there's this sense of comfort in the other's arms. Where you are home just by being with them. She had known her and Kevin could never reach that, and for that Danae had ended the relationship. And seeing them now, she saw the same thing she had seen back then: they loved each other.

Maybe she was wrong on seeing this, but who was she to decide that. If on time, they realized they weren't meant for each other, then that was their decision. She knew that, if six years ago, when her relationship with Kevin first started, somebody would have told her it wasn't going to work out, she wouldn't have believed them. Who were they to say anything about her? If it didn't work out, then it was her choice to make.

As right now, it was Nick's and Kevin's. And she wasn't going to get in the way.

There was still the possibility of their relationship to work. Perhaps given the time, Kevin would see he hadn't really been in love with Danae as he thought he was and that the only person for him was Nick.

And even if he didn't, it would be him and Nick to make that decision.

And so, she opened her black eyes, newfound calmness shinning brightly in them.

Giving him a small smile, she could see herself gaining the center and placing herself in the axe she had thought she had forever lost four days ago.

"So?"

Danae shook head, concern once again visible in his eyes. "It's really nothing."

"It's not nothing if you're like that. What is it?"

"Well," she would later forgive herself for lying to her friend flat to his face, "I was wondering if I should actually stand by your side in the wedding."

His eyes widen, his brow furrowed and then he let out a sigh he wasn't even aware he had been holding.

She knew this wasn't what he had been expecting her to say. He probably had no idea of what she wanted to talk with him about, but that hadn't been it. And for taking him out of the blue, she rewarded herself with a small smile.

"You're kidding, right?" It most certainly wasn't a joke. Especially not to her. "That was what you wanted to tell me?"

She nodded, slightly serious, but her humor having taken a 180 turn. "Yeah, what else?"

Nick shrugged, still stunned. "I don't know. But I thought it was something far more serious."

"What? You think that me standing by your side as you take a husband isn't serious enough?" She was mocking him, both her and him knew that, and she was enjoying it.

"No, I'm not saying that. I just through that..." Knowing that he wasn't going to win this one, he shook his head. "I don't know what I was thinking." He paused. "And there is no way you are not going to be by my side. I don't think I could do this on my own."

"Well darling, there are many things you're going to have to do on your own." And that sentence meant more than he'd ever know, she was certain of that. "I don't think I'll be able to go on the honeymoon with ya. I've got a dateline to fulfill."

Nick tilted his head, raising his eyebrow. "Ha. Ha. Very funny. Of course I'm doing that on my own. There's no way I'm having audience."

"Not that it'd be a first time for you. I'm sure you're pretty experienced in that area."

Glaring at her friend, Nick chuckled. "Yeah, well, I'm not the only one, or am I?"

Danae laughed out loud, not even bothering with an answer.

"Come on, there are things to take care of." Nick said as he turned around and picked up yet another catalog. "I don't know which one I like the best. Maybe this one, but--"

Danae found herself barely even hearing Nick's voice as she smiled softly.

Perhaps she hadn't said anything out of cowardice and fear, but something in the back of her mind told her she had taken the right decision. It was their call to make, not hers. Not even remotely hers. Maybe she had been a chicken shit for not saying a word, for somehow it was also her responsibility, but it was also her responsibility to ensure her friend's happiness, which she was doing. It was probably based on false pretenses, but she wasn't sure of that.