Don't leave!

"Dex, wait!" you call, embarrassed how close to tears you are, "Please-please don't go!"

He looks at you incredulously, half-turns back toward the house, then changes his mind halfway and winds up simply staring at you in mild disconcertment a second.

"Stay," you beg him, then stare after him in dismay when that just makes him decide to definitely go after all.

"Fine, coward!" you cry after him. "Walk right on from the fact you just enshrined my memory of our first kiss as, that time Teddy made me feel so fucking beautiful and desirable for the first time ever, just before he let it slip that I actually repulse him just like I apparently do everyone else!"

Yeah, you're fishing without a license. So what?

Dex freezes in place. "Don't call me a coward," he says after a moment, sounding a little wounded. He turns to face you, looking pretty **** about it. "And you know you aren't repulsive."

"My dating track record begs to differ," you retort, and he rolls his eyes.

"Maybe, but this doesn't," he says, with a little nod downward to indicate that while he's not thrilled about this boner, it's a boner nonetheless caused by you.

Okay, well it is a little gratifying, that he's still hard and especially after you've been standing here arguing for the last minute or two. "Explain why you think hurting my feelings by walking away right after an amazing kiss like that doesn't make you a coward," you say anyway, and Dex sighs and comes back down to the jetty.

"Would you be willing..." he begins, then stops and seems to rethink what he wants to say. "It was a pretty amazing first kiss," he says ruefully after a moment. "I just... I guess I never pictured one of us would be drunk for that? And then I got pretty pissed at myself for initiating it, when maybe I'd have had some nominally less flimsy moral wiggle room if it was you who kissed me." Dex sighs again, but before he speaks again you realize you have more questions.

"Does that mean you assumed we were going to kiss someday? Like, that was something you wanted?"

"I wouldn't say assumed, but I mean, sure. Historically there were some statistical calculations that allowed for that outcome."

You blink at him. "What does historically mean? You wanted to kiss me and then you didn't anymore?"

"No... it's not that," he protests, "But the likelihood of it ever happening just kind of dwindled about to nothing."

"How?" you want to know.

Dex shakes his head. "You get that you're way out of my league, right?"

"Not really," you say. "I don't think I am."

"Yeah, well, you're the odd one out, then. Everybody else would take one look at us and wonder why the fuck you'd be with me and not somebody like him."

For a second you just stare at him because you can't think who he means by him, and then you realize he must be talking about Scott.

Dex stares at his feet. "Look. He's waiting for us. Probably he'll come down to check if at least one of us doesn't come back soon." There's a pause, while you think this over. "Bridge?" he says, finally looking up.

"If I go back with you and play nice, I want something from you in return," you tell him.

You're not sure how to read the tilt of his shoulders right now, just generally tense, maybe, or is he actually fine and it's just the fact that he's holding his clothes and trying to hide his boner from you and that's affecting his posture. Finally he sighs and says, "All right, Birdie. Make me your offer."