Breaking Barriers - S.R.

9

"I'm surprised you're not with Doctor FBI tonight."

I smiled as Dean and I sat down in the diner a couple of blocks from our apartment building. I'd still been seeing my friends consistently enough, but Spencer and I had been dating for weeks now and we were practically spending all of our spare time together. "He's on a case."

"Oh, I see. So I'm just the replacement." He feigned hurt. "Be careful, you might make him jealous."

"He knows he has no reason to be." I sniggered as he placed a hand on his chest.

"Ouch. That hurts me, babe." He replied.

I rolled my eyes. "Somehow I think you'll survive."

A young blonde waitress appeared, smiling brightly as she asked for our drink order. We told her what we wanted, opting to go ahead and order our food since we've been here so many times before. She scurried off after jotting everything down.

"How's Tiffany, by the way?"

"Tiffany? She was two weeks ago. It's Briana now." He said casually, as if it was normal to have a revolving door of women in your life. Although for him, I guess it was.

I shook my head in amusement. "Do you ever plan on settling down?"

"Don't get all sappy on me just because you're hung up on this guy like some kind of lovesick puppy." He scoffed.

"I'm not--" I started to protest.

"Don't even bother. We've been here five minutes and you've already glanced at your phone three times." He smirked, his eyes flitting to the pretty waitress as she set our drinks on the table in front of us. We both thanked her before she walked off again.

"Sorry." I sighed. "I've barely been able to speak to him the last couple of days. When he's out of town, he stays pretty busy."

Dean shot me a genuine smile, a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. "It's fine. I know how much you like him."

I stared down at my drink, mindlessly stirring it with my straw. "He's nice to me."

"If that's all it takes, your standards are too low."

I looked back up at him and laughed. "You know what I mean. It's nice to be treated well."

Dean's smile faded after a moment and he took a sip of his drink. "I, uh...I talked to Miles a couple of days ago."

Miles was something we had not discussed since the blowup happened on the night he met Spencer. That night was not something  I wanted to focus on. Dean and Sophia both knew how much Miles' words had hurt me, and although it was painful to lose someone I considered a friend, I wanted to move forward with my life. Especially since Spencer was such a prominent part of it now.

"Oh?" I asked.

He nodded. "He feels pretty shitty about everything he said to you. He admitted that he had a thing for you. I guess seeing you bring a guy around the group set him off into a jealous fit of rage."

I nodded slowly. "No kidding. Did you tell him that I started dating Spencer?"

"No. It wasn't my place to say anything and honestly, after that night, I figured it's probably best he doesn't know." He replied.

"I agree." I said plainly.

"He did mention reaching out to you to apologize...I figured I should give you a heads up so you won't be blindsided if he does." He added. "Do you think you'll forgive him?"

"I don't know." I sighed. "I have no desire to see or talk to him. He can apologize if he wants to, but everything he said was so far past the line, I have no interest in reconciling."