*Short update: I'm really trying here.*

"So," Xander quirks his brow, sitting on the opposite end of the couch. "Friends?" He asks, searching my face and I swallow my hurt before nodding.

"Sure."

"Good." He gently nods to himself. "Um. Good."

The sandwich sitting next to me becomes even less appetizing as silence washes over us. I glance at him when something rustles on his side of the couch.

His long fingers curl around the tv remote as he silently turns it on, flicking off the channel currently playing a children's cartoon.

Next is a Spanish soap opera.

Then a reality to show.

Then a familiar movie. Xander's finger twitches over the button it had been on before he sets the remote back on the oak coffee table.

"I assume Sleepless in Seattle still your favorite movie." He leans back against the couch, sending me a curious glance when I simply shrug.

It's not my favorite anymore, in fact a lot of things aren't.
Too many of my favorite things were tied to him, his hold. They were severed a long time ago..

"What are we watching?" My boyfriend questions, closing my bedroom door behind him. I grin at his red and black pajamas that match my own.

"Sleepless is Seattle." I respond, unable to stop my giggle when his six foot form falls onto my bed with a groan.

"Again?" He questions, his face pressing into the pink sheet covering my bed.

"It's my favorite." My hand gently pats his shoulder that rests closest to me.

"Fine." He rolls to the other side of the bed, where I had been sitting with my legs crossed. His head raises for a moment to come back down on my lap, his cheek resting on my left thigh. Without much thought, my hands lift, my fingers lightly dragging themselves through his blonde waves. "Did you know they do weddings up there?" He asks, over an hour later as the credits start.

"Yeah, if you win a drawing." My fingers which had halted their movements at the beginning of the movie resume their motion in his hair.

"Or if your rich." Xander mumbles sleepily. "Like a James."

"You planning on getting married up there?" I ask him, feeling his whole body shrug.

"Maybe, if I find I nice enough girl and her favorite movie is 'Sleepless in Seattle'."
He turns his head to look up at me, a silly glimmer in his blue eyes.

"She's be a lucky girl."

"Yeah, she is." He grins, reaching for my hand that's resting in his hair, bringing it to his mouth and placing the smallest of kisses on the inside of my wrist. "But I'm an even luckier guy."

"Do you still want to go to the Empire State Building?" Xander's curious voice sounds over the soft music of the credits.

"I went last year, it wasn't anything like my younger self had thought, just another view of New York." My voice grows softer as I remember when I finally convinced myself to go to the one tourist destination that Xander had once promised to take me to. Well, Adam convinced me to go and I cried on his shoulder but that's beside the point. After months of begging me to take him while we were home for Christmas, I finally agreed. Afterward, we agreed to not talk about what happened.

Xander doesn't respond at first, his fingers lightly drumming on the couch for a moment.
"Well.." he trails off, seeming to not know what to say exactly. "Maybe you just need to go with the right person."

"I don't think that was the issue." I tell him quietly, but I know it was. I had always wanted to go, and he had always promised to take me.
"I went with my friend Adam, it just wasn't the view I thought it would be."

"When did you meet Adam?" He responds, taking another bite of the sandwich he made.

"My freshman year." I find myself smiling as I remember my biology lab partner. "He was the best lab partner I've had." I honestly say, laughing lightly not realizing my worlds until I see Xander's hand freeze. In an attempt to recover, I quickly speak again. "He was silly and we clicked, and there's never been any drama in our friendship."

"No drama." He slowly repeats my words and I wince stop how it sounded. "Because he's not someone you'd want to take advantage of?" Xanders questions, and another dagger is sent into my chest. He shakes his beard before I can respond, apologizing quietly. "He sounds like a good friend if he took you to the place you've always wanted to go." And then, leaving now room for response, he presses play on the tv remote and a familiar voice over of Tom Hanks starts to play.

"Well, I'm going to get out of bed every morning... breath in and out all day long."

***
Comments?