I've always loved easily. When I meet someone, I generally liked them right away and then soon afterwards claimed to have platonic love for them. The only crush I've ever had was on Kyle. I'd fallen so slowly for him that I didn't even notice it until a stray thought popped into my head: I wonder what it would be like to kiss him? It wasn't the thought so much as how I felt about it. I wanted him to kiss me.

It was so strange to me that I suddenly stopped playing the video game with him. We'd been happily playing an old Need For Speed game against each other, so he didn't notice until my car crashed in a turn I'd always made easily. He paused the race and looked at me.

Maybe it was my shocked face, or maybe my lack of protest against him pausing mid-turn, but in any case, he asked if I was okay. I responded saying that of course I was, but I just remembered I totally forgot to do my paper for English lit that was due the next day. He bought it, resumed our game, and let it drop. It was the first time I'd lied to him, but it was by no means the last.

There were a couple of other times that thoughts like that one hit me. They always left me kind of flushed and unable to look him in the eye. I felt like the worst friend in the world for having a crush on him when he obviously didn't like me, too.

I squashed those feelings and after several months they went away. There was no doubt I had lots of platonic love for him, but I always questioned what happened to the romantic love that had seemingly vanished. Maybe it left like it had started: slowly and then all at once.

That was until Ade.

The day I let him hold me while I cried made me realize that those feelings for Kyle weren't there anymore. They were well and truly gone, no matter how much I wished they weren't. It would've been easier, I think, to fall in love with my best friend than with someone who was mostly a total stranger.

It would have at least been smarter.

I didn't romantically love Ade, but I felt something I hadn't felt since the beginning of when I fell for Kyle. Most people call it butterflies, I think. Personally, it feels like a bunch of nerve endings decide to all come alive at once when he looks at me and then smiles at me.

There's no denying he's handsome. I've caught myself checking him out several times. I think even Kyle noticed at dinner that first night. We all sat around in the living room, eating pizza, the curtains drawn, and the lights low, hopefully keeping people from seeing who was all in the house. Ade was sitting on the couch across from me with Kyle and Fiona, while Adam and Sheila shared the recliner and I shared the other couch with Trina and Trevor. Several times I caught my eyes wandering his way, and so did he. When our eyes met, he'd either smile or give me a little wink and then I'd suppress a giggle.

I think it was the giggling that got to Kyle. When we were all finished eating, he straight away got up and headed to the study in the back of the house. We could all hear the door close, even if he didn't slam it.

Or maybe that was just me. Either way, I think he noticed.

That was what made me reluctant to talk to him. When I found him at Shawn's I was so shocked. I didn't feel the guilt or the hesitance until I saw Ade again and I remembered what I felt. Why it felt like I was betraying him, I'm not sure, but it did.

Pretty soon after we finished the pizza the living room began to clear out. I stayed where I was on the sofa once Trina offered to take my plate with her. While I was deciding whether I should talk to Fiona or face Kyle, Ade moved to sit next to me.

"What's up?" he asked quietly.

I shrugged, inexplicably comfortable telling him anything already. Maybe it was a byproduct of the situation we were in, maybe it was something else. Either way, I leaned into him a little bit. "I just don't feel like I'm ready to face the consequences of my actions."

He moved to put his arm around me. "If they're anything like what you described to me, they're going to forgive you. In fact, I think they miss you right now."

I shook my head a little bit. "I didn't tell them anything, Ade. I just disappeared on them."

He rubbed my arm and gave me a small squeeze. "By not telling them anything, you actually did good. The plan worked the best it could work, and the police left them alone, right?" I stiffened. I never asked them anything about the police, if they questioned them or if they never came. Ade sighed. "You didn't ask, did you?" I shook my head. "Well, now's a good time to to talk to Kyle, at least. I think he's alone in the study."

I nodded, resisting the urge to tell him I knew just in case that sounded creepy. "Okay." I sighed and leaned a little more into him.

Ade gave me another squeeze before kissing my hair with barely any pressure. I smiled to myself as I bit my lip. My stomach was going mad with nerves, and I could feel that little feeling in my veins. "You should go now," he said, voice barely above a whisper.

"I know," I said with a sigh. I forced myself to pull away from him and stand. We shared a nervous smile before I made my way to the study.

Kyle was sitting in a chair, head resting on his hand. He looked up when he heard me come in. "I thought you were with your friends," he said.

I paused for moment. He sounded almost dejected. "What do you mean?"

"I meant what I said." He looked up at me.

I swallowed as I realized what I saw on his face was hurt, not anger like I thought. "But you and Fiona aren't out there. What's wrong, Kyle?"

He shook his head and looked away from me. I waited silently for him to look back at me. But he didn't. "Why didn't you tell me what was going on?"

"What?" I sat up a little straighter. My heart beat faster, wondering why he was asking about Ade.

Kyle looked at me and there it was - the smallest spark of anger. "You could have told me what you were planning, you know. You didn't have to suddenly disappear like that."

Oh. Right. I'd nearly forgotten that'd happened. I bit my lip and walked towards the small desk in the corner. "I couldn't at the time," I replied slowly as I leaned on the desk, facing Kyle. "But I can now."

He eyed me skeptically. "It feels like you don't trust me."

"Of course I trust you," I said, surprised. "I have no reason not to!"

He stood. "When you don't tell me the important things, it doesn't feel that way."

I bit my lip and lowered my eyes. We were quiet for a moment. I heard him begin moving to the door, so I said, "I'm sorry."

He stopped and moved back over to me. "What?"

"I said I'm sorry. I never meant to make you feel that way." I met his gaze. "I missed you."

He gave me a smile, but it quickly turned sad. "I missed you, too."

"What's wrong?" He shook his head, beginning to turn away. I grabbed his arm gently. "Is it Ade? Because we're not together if that's what you're thinking."

He looked at me, one eyebrow raised. "Just a matter of time, then, if you're not. Look, Liz, I'm not all that worried about who you're with, okay? I just want to see you happy, and I know it's not going to be with me. You've made that clear. Stop worrying yourself about it. I didn't know you liked me back then, but I don't know now if I should have done something back then. What if we found out we didn't like each other but things were too awkward to stay best friends? We were better off this way. We're still going to be friends, and that's all I want. Okay?"

I nodded, feeling myself tear up with something like relief. "Okay."

He gave me a small smile before giving me a quick peck on my cheek. "Okay." We looked at each other for a moment. "So, what's the plan?"

I shrugged. "Trina and I haven't really settled on anything. All we know is that I didn't get all the relevant files when I was getting the stuff, so that means we're going to have to run a small thing to get back in there and get them."

Kyle nodded, leaning back on his heels. "Why don't you think you have everything?"

"Because we found some new stuff in her house about Vitality, and it's very compelling, but it's all various lawsuits and criminal charges against Luke Knight for various things. There's nothing else in those articles, like how the suits turned out or if anything happened to Luke Knight, so we need to see if those are in the company files."

"They ought to be. If you need to talk to someone about that I actually have a cousin who works for Vitality."

Both of my eyebrows shot up. "You do?"

He nodded, smirking at my surprise. "I do. She works in the building. In fact, she works directly under the Knights. Like, their secretary."

My eyes widened. "What's her name?"

"Brandi Taylor."

I nodded. "Thank you." I hugged him quickly. "How's Fiona doing?"

"She's also a little miffed, but I think she misses you more than she's upset with you. I mean, when I told her I was coming to look for you, she volunteered herself to come."

"Okay." We looked at each other for a long moment. "Are you okay? For real?"

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I'm better than I thought I'd be."

I wanted to ask what he meant, but I could feel that this wasn't the time. "I'll let you know if we need to call your cousin, but I think we pretty much have everything under control for the time being."

He nodded with a small smile. "Okay. I'm glad I could help."

I reached for the door, but stopped. "The reason I didn't tell you in the first place about any of this was because I didn't want you to convince me to not do it." I looked at him. "I knew I'd be fine, Kyle, and I didn't want to have any more of a fight with you than I did about moving or my training course."

"I wouldn't call what happened between us a fight." He touched my shoulder. "We just didn't see eye to eye."

I gave him a small smile. For some reason, I felt nostalgic for what we had at that moment. I was missing everything we meant to each other because I knew we were different. Everything that had happened to us in the last three weeks had changed us, no matter what words we told each other or what promises we made. We were different. 

I took the hand that was on my shoulder in both of mine and squeezed it. "Kyle, before this is all over, for better or for worse, I need you to trust me. If anything happens to me, please remember I made the decision that led to it. You had nothing to do with it. Okay?"

He visibly swallowed. "What do you think will happen to you?"

"Prison is a very real possibility right now, you know. If I do go-" I swallowed, finding I couldn't say the phrase 'go to jail'. "If I do go away, promise you'll keep an eye on my parents. They're up the street from yours, so it won't be too far for you to go when you go back home to visit."

He brought his other hand up to rest on mine. "Liz, you know I'd do anything for you." I nodded. I did know that. His being here right now proved that. "Don't worry about them." He hesitated, but before he could say anything, someone knocked on the door.

Trina poked her head in. "Hey, Liz, I finished those cards-" She cut herself off as her eyes went to our hands. "But I can tell you later."

She started to go away, but I said, "No, now's fine. We're done in here." I looked at Kyle and he reluctantly nodded. I wasn't really sure I wanted to hear what I was sure he was going to say, anyway.