When We Last Met
chapter six

"You're bouncing."

Xander blinked at Willow.  "Huh?  What?  Am not."

She grinned at him and stole the soda from his tray.
"Are too.
You're bouncing, and that's not allowed."

Xander couldn't decide if he was supposed to know what
she meant, so
he just stole the cookie from *her* tray.  "Not," he
asserted, though
probably the way his leg was going up and down counted
as bouncing.
But it was just that he'd had sugar for breakfast -
cheetos and
zingers and a Big Slurp soda.  Maybe he ought to find
a job at an
all-night health food store.  "Why isn't it allowed?"

"Because you've been on two dates, already.  You can't
bounce
anymore."

Xander just watched her sip his soda.  When he got his
jaw working
again, he said, "Two dates?  I haven't been on *any*
dates."  Not
counting, of course, the wet dreams he *so* wasn't
telling her about.
But Graham hadn't even really been there, for those,
so they hardly
counted as dates.

Willow set the soda down, and stole the orange from
his tray.  Xander
studied her tray, trying to decide what he should go
for.  Red jello?
Not likely.  Green stuff?  Maybe...  "Two dates.  The
party-"

"Doesn't count.  Riley invited me - which means if
anything I was
dating *him*.  Which I'm not, hi, Buffy."

"Hi.  Who are you not dating?"  She gave him a frown.
"Xander Lavelle
Harris, if the name 'Graham Miller' comes out of your
mouth in
response to that question-"

"That's what I'm trying to say!  I haven't been on any
dates.  The
party doesn't count because Riley was the one who
invited me."

Buffy blinked.  "Well, you're not getting *Riley*.
He's mine - so
back off!"

"I wasn't on!"  Xander held up his hands.  Then stole
Willow's roll.
"I was just telling Willow that I'm not dating Graham.
Yet! I mean
yet, put that down."  He shied away from Buffy, who
hesitated before
putting her butter knife down.

"The party counts - he kissed you, didn't he?"

Xander found Buffy and Willow grinning at him - in a
way that told him
that his brief confession to Willow the morning after
the party had
made the full gossip-rounds.  He hadn't yet been
tagged for details,
which worried him.  They had to have gotten details
from *somewhere*
if they weren't asking him.  And if that somewhere was
Riley...or
Graham....

"Xander!  Stop thinking about Graham's lips and pay
attention!"
Willow interrupted his thoughts.

"Huh?  I wasn't!"

"Liar."  But Willow smiled.  "Second date, yesterday
afternoon.
Granted, no kissing, but you were alone together for
an hour."  She
exchanged a knowing smile with Buffy.

Xander had to think about that one for a moment.  The
kiss *had* been
nice.  But-"I went to his office hours!  For Algebra!"

"Which, since he now knows you aren't *really* going
to class in order
to learn math...simply wasn't necessary.  For the
usual reasons."
Willow set the orange peels on his tray.  Xander stole
a pat of butter
from Buffy's tray, and got his hand whapped.

"Sorry," he said, and moved his hand a couple inches
to reach Willow's
butter.

"I've never understood why you two don't just trade
trays...or even
buy the food you want in the first place,"  Buffy
said.

"We were doing math," Xander told Willow.  "Working on
those
polynominal things.  We have a test next week."

"But you don't have to take the test,"  Buffy reminded
him.  "You've
made contact, you can freely say 'hey, let's go have a
picnic' or
'hey, let's go to the movies' or 'hey, stick your
tongue in my mouth'
without...what?"  Buffy looked from Willow to Xander.
"Oh, what?  You
guys are allowed to talk about bone jumping, and I'm
not?"

"I never talked about bone jumping," Xander reminded
her.

"No, but you've been bouncing all day, which makes me
think there is
bone-jumping in the near future."

Xander felt himself blush from head to toe, and stole
Willow's red
jell-o.  Which, disgusting, but better than saying
'oh, yeah!'  "I
think we should have dinner, first."

"Oo!  A third date!"  Willow clapped.  "When?
Tonight?  Where are you
going?"

Xander just glared at her.  "First date, thank you
very much.  And I
don't know.  I haven't asked him."

"Haven't asked him?"  Willow frowned, then pouted.
"Why not?"

"Willow, don't you have anyone else to yenta for?"

"Nope," she said proudly.  "Buffy here's all Riley'd
up, and Giles
swore me to secrecy about Olivia coming back to
town...except I think
she's only coming as far as Los Angeles because she
says Sunnydale
gives her the creeps.  Um, don't repeat any of that to
Giles, OK?  I
was sworn to secrecy."

"Mum's our word," Xander said, mirroring Buffy's
locked-mouth gesture.
"But what about you?  Don't you have anything you
could be doing,
rather than heinously miscount the number of dates
I've had?"

"Well, I'm already to second base with Tara, so I
don't really need-"

"Tara?"  Xander scooted forward in his chair.  "Who's
Tara?"

"Willow's girlfriend," Buffy told him.  "Get with the
program."

"Which program would that be, the 'all Scoobys are
gay' program?"
Xander asked thinking he was kidding.  Then he started
counting in his
head.  If they nominated Riley for Scooby-hood, it
would ensure at
least one straight man.  And, technically, they were
all bi,
anyhow...which meant Riley might....  Xander shook his
head.  Not
going there.  Cute, yes, but Buffy was stronger than
he was.

Buffy and Willow just looked at him like he was saying
the sky is blue
and vampires are icky.  Xander sighed, and shook his
head.

"I keep saying I need the memos.  They *never* give me
the memos," he
muttered.

"What are you talking about?"  Buffy asked.  She'd
stolen a brownie
off Xander's tray, and now she bit into it.  She
frowned.  "I don't
get it.  Where's the thrill?"

"You have to let it grow on you," Willow explained.
"Keep trying."

"Excuse me?"  Xander waved his hand, trying to get the
girls'
attentions.  "Can we get back to Willow's dating a
girl?"

"Oh, and we made such a big deal about finding you
sucking face with
Larry, last year?"  Willow rolled her eyes.  "Or is
this different
because I'm a girl?  Guys can be gay but girls can't?
Though,
culturally speaking it's easier for women to get into
relationships
with other women, than it is for men to get into
relationships with
other men, because our society encourages affection
between women
whereas men have to be all manly and slap each other
on the butt."

"Which, if you think about it, can be pretty gay,"
Buffy pointed out.

Xander decided he might as well concede defeat - not
that he'd ever
stood a chance - and stole an apple from Buffy's tray.

"Hey! I-oh.  Um, still not seeing the thrill."

But the smile on her face made Xander think that maybe
she did.
Xander just bit into the apple, and wondered if it
would be easier to
wander campus looking for Graham while trying to drum
up the courage
to ask him out on a date.

Then again, Graham had kissed him.  Maybe all he
needed to do was get
in proximity, and Graham would ask *him*.  Only Graham
hadn't,
yesterday, during the hour they'd discussed algebra
and tried to get
Xander prepared for the test.  Which, granted, he
didn't have to take.
But he hated to flunk, when they'd been working so
hard on getting the
algebra into his brain.

And Graham looked so cute when he sighed in
exasperation because
Xander *still* didn't get it.  Or when he smiled and
nodded when
Xander did.  Or when-

"Hello?  Earth to monkey boy?  Come in, Xander."

"Monkey boy?"  Xander gave Buffy a confused, hurt
look. It cleared
instantly when he saw Riley headed towards their
table.  With Graham.
Who-hoo!  He stayed in his seat and did *not* bounce,
despite anything
that might be claimed later.  He did scoot his chair
over to make
room, in case anyone wanted to sit down next to him.

Which he did, and Xander still didn't bounce, and he
scooted over
again when Riley sat down on his other side, between
him and Buffy.
That got him closer to Graham, which, again with the
who-hoo.  But got
him farther away from the macaroni and cheese on
Willow's tray which
he'd been holding out for.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"Hey."

"Hey."

"So!"  Buffy interrupted the round of hello-heys, and
they all looked
at her.  She smiled.  "Hey."

Riley and Willow grinned.  Xander glanced over at
Graham and wondered
if he was sitting too close.  Should he scoot back?
Would Graham
misinterpret that?  But was he feeling crowded?  He
wasn't saying
anything, and he wasn't looking over at Xander, but he
wasn't leaning
back or scooting back or anything.  Just sitting
there, glancing from
his own tray, to Riley, then quickly around the table
before looking
down again.

Which maybe explained why he hadn't said 'want to go
to dinner',
yesterday, during office hours.  The man was more
nervous than *he*
was.  Xander tapped him on the arm.  Graham looked up,
somewhat
startled but hiding it well.  "Yeah?"

Xander pointed at the macaroni and cheese.  "Could you
hand me that?"

Looking no less confused, he reached over and picked
it up.  He looked
at Willow, first, questioningly.  Willow was very
carefully talking to
Riley about something Xander wasn't following, because
Graham had the
most adorable expression on his face, forehead all
wrinkled as he
tried to figure out what was going on.  Graham did
hand the macaroni
and cheese to Xander, who thanked him and began eating
it.

Willow glanced down at her tray, then at Xander's,
probably wondering
if going for his tuna salad was worth it.

"Did I just steal her food?"  Graham asked.

"Huh?"  Xander stopped eating, and looked at him.
Looked at Willow,
as if he had no idea what was going on.  "Oh.  No,
relax.  I did, I
just used you as a conduit.  She knows."

Graham didn't look any less confused, but he did seem
willing to
accept the explanation.  Riley told him, "I did warn
you."

"No, you said *your* girlfriend was the weird one.
You never said her
friends were bizarre, too."

Willow and Xander looked at Riley with echoing
expressions of outrage.
"Bizarre!  I like that.  See if I ever make a special
frog's leg
potion for your door to keep away the poltergeists."
Willow turned
her head away from Riley, to pointedly ignore him.

"I've been meaning to ask you about that - is it
*supposed* to smell
like cinnamon?"

"Oh, I put that in so it freshens the room while it
spells away evil."
Willow grinned.

Graham was looking even less re-assured.  "Don't
worry," Xander told
him.  "She almost never does spells on people they
don't want done.
And they all mostly work right, too!"  He beamed
proudly at her.  She
smiled back, then looked hurt.

"I didn't mean to make Buffy and Spike fall in love.
Do I have to
keep apologising for that?"

"Yes, you do,"  Buffy told her.  "I'm still getting
mail from Bride
magazine, wanting me to buy a subscription."

"I'm sorry," Willow said meekly.

Graham was looking faintly panicked.  Realising he
might actually run
away, Xander tried to turn the conversation away from
things weird.
He had to rifle through half a dozen topics,
disregarding each as
Hellmouthy or Scoob, and thus too weird for normal
joes.  Finally he
just said, "You wanna go out Friday?"

Which brought the conversation at the table to a
complete stand-still.
Everyone looked at Graham, who looked like he was torn
between saying
yes, and hiding.

Quickly, Xander tried to backpedal.  "You can now say
yes, and we can
head off ostensively to make plans, when in fact
you're taking be out
back to threaten me not to embarrass you like this
again."

"That works."  Graham nodded, and stood up.  Xander
stood as well,
stole a cookie from Graham's tray, and preceded him
away from the
table.  He ignored Willow's parting shot, because he
didn't really
need to be reminded that he had a curfew.

When they got outside, Xander grinned.  "Um, you know
I was kidding
about the threatening part, right?"

"I'm not sure," Graham said seriously.  "It depends."

"On what?"

"On whether you meant it when you asked me out."

Xander couldn't stop the wide, dorky smile that spread
across his
face.  "Of course I meant it.  I wouldn't ask you in
front of a
half-dozen strange friends, if I didn't mean it.
Well, half a
half-dozen.  They're gonna ask me for a report the
next day, though,
so we have to go someplace respectable."

Graham stared at him for a moment, amused and trying
not to show it.
"Report, huh?  Those can be rough."

"Yeah.  So keep it in mind if you decide to get
fresh."

He nodded, seriously.  "I'll do that."

"So.  Walk me to class?"

"I can do that."  They started walking down the
sidewalk, away from
the cafeteria.  As they passed Winslow Hall, Graham
asked, "Where's
your class?"

"Science building.  History 103,  20th century
military history.  I
get to read about wars and stupid politicians.  We're
having a quiz on
World War II at the beginning of class - maybe you can
help me study?"

There was a slight hesitation before Graham said,
"Yeah, I can do
that.  Um."  He glanced at his watch.  "What time does
your class
start?"

Xander grinned.  "Two o'clock -- tomorrow.  Wanna walk
slower?"

Graham stopped walking, and stared at him.  Slowly,
though, he began
to smile.

end chapter six