Playing It Safe: A Playing it Cool Fanfic

And they all lived.

If there is one thing that is inevitable about life is that change occurs. As much as you might be happy and content with the way things are going for you right now, there is always something waiting to throw you off course again.

We fell into a routine. A fun, comfortable and content routine. I was with her most of the time to be honest. To people on the outside we would have looked like a happy little family. The amount of waitresses, store clerks and street vendors who referred to her as my wife or the twins as my kids had gotten to an uncountable number.

That terrified me to begin with. I was always quick to correct them. 'We are not married. She is my friend. My friend.' I'm not sure when I stopped correcting them. I remember it still annoyed me, but that I just couldn't be bothered any more. Then I just didn't care any more. It didn't matter how other people saw us. If they thought I was a husband and father that was okay. There was worse things they could think about me.

Something changed. I'm not sure when. I don't know if if was this sudden thing where I woke up and just felt this way. Or if it was something that gradually happened. All I know is I actually started liking when people thought of me like that. Then I started liking thinking of myself like that. Then I realized that maybe I didn't just want to be friends with her any more. I didn't just love her any more. I was in love with her. Not in a huge fireworks massive declaration way. I just was in love with her. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.

How do you tell someone that exactly? I've tried it before. In that case I had nothing to lose. Now I had everything to lose. I could scare her off. Or worse, she might be thinking the same thing, and we go all in, and it fails again and I lose her. Then what? Then I have nothing. It was worst this time too. This time I meant it.

So I sat on it.

Yeah, I sulked. Shut up.

Turns out trying to keep a secret like that is impossible. She tried to be patient with my sulking. She tried to coax me out of my self-pity party. Eventually she snapped.

"If you are just going to sulk around and not tell me what's wrong can you please do it at your own place?"

"I'm sorry. I'm scared." I whined.

She pulled me to my feet and dragged me to her bedroom and pushed me so I was sitting on her bed. I hadn't actually been in her bedroom before. Worst place to have this particular conversation.

"Spit it out!"

"I love you." I said.

"I love you too. So hurry up and tell me what's the matter before I strangle you."

I shook my head. "No. I mean, I'm in love with you."

She spun away from me and banged her head on the door. "Fucking great. Great!"

I suddenly remembered that I'd lived through this before. This had happened with Mallory and I stormed out on her and drank a bottle of vodka. Fuck. I needed to call her and apologize for being such an asshole. First; the problem at hand.

"Please talk to me." I said softly.

"What am I supposed to do with that? Now we've been ruined. I can't be that, and now we can't be friends either."

"Look, I am not going to force you to do anything you don't want to. It's just how I feel. If you want to stay as friends, I'm fine with that. I love you. I want you to be happy. That's all I want. I'm not going to complain that you put me in the friend zone. Or keep pushing you for more. But I do want more. I want all of it. I want to wake up in bed with you and watch you sleep. I want to go on horrible family vacations with you. The kind of vacations that you need an extra week to recover from. I want to help you get the girls ready for their first day of school. I want to make sure they don't end up dating people like me. I want to take you on dates. I want to hold your hand and kiss you, and fuck you and make love to you. But if that's not what you want, and it's never what you want, I just want you to be happy. If you can't be happy with me like that. I'll take whatever you're able to give."