Despite the look on Dean's face and the fact that he was alone, Brooke tried not to let herself think about what happened to Sam. Even when her eyes flickered briefly towards the Impala and she realized there was no outline of another person in the waning light, she still clung to some shred of hope that he was in New York with Claire. But in her gut, she knew that the only Winchester brother left standing was the one in front of her.
When her eyes settled on Dean's face again, all thoughts of Sam vanished as quickly as they'd come. Uncurling her fingers from the fists she didn't know she'd formed, Brooke finally snapped out of the shock enough to take a hesitant step forward.
There wasn't a lot of space between them, but it still felt like miles.
At first, she just lifted a hand to his cheek, letting it rest there as her thumb ran gently over his cheekbone. She wasn't trying to get him to look at her, even though she wanted him to, she was just checking to make sure he was really there. That he was solid.
It didn't take long for her to take the final, small step towards him, the gap closing quickly as her arms wrapped protectively around him. If she could've gotten any closer to him, she would have. Instead, she settled for burying her face in the crook of his neck, her hands clinging to the leather of his jacket.
There were so many things she wanted to say, but she bit her lip to keep quiet and instead breathed in the smell of his skin.
She broke the space between them, finally, and before he knew it, she was wrapped up against him, her relief a physical thing evident in the way she clung to him. His own hands moved gently to her waist at first, but the moment he gave himself into that much, he was done for.
His fingers gripped against her, and his chest pressed closer to her, as his face tilted down so that he might rest it against her hair, and breathe in the scent of her. It was something real, and familiar, and it hadn't been ripped away the way--
He could feel the hot stinging threat of tears, and he fought it down with hard swallows that stuck in his suddenly dry throat. He clung to her there until he was certain he'd suppressed them entirely, not wanting to risk drawing away only to crack.
Finding words was hard as hell, but he decided not to mince any of them at this point. He had to know if what he'd promised Sam was even a remote possibility.
"So," he said, coughing away the thickness in his voice, as he drew back to look at her, still slightly cautious, "... last time I saw you, it seemed like..." He let that trail off, hoping she's fill in the blanks with whatever the reality was. He certainly wasn't good at finding the right words for that sorta thing.
She had to bite her lower lip a little to keep from frowning when he pulled away, but it didn't stop her eyebrows from furrowing a little. That thickness in his voice, even for that brief moment, was enough to make her want to hold onto him for as long as she could.
The question he left hanging between them, unfinished, was enough for her to pull her arms away from him. Without stepping back, Brooke crossed her arms loosely over her chest as her gaze moved to some spot on the wall beside him.
A large part of her wanted to ignore it in favor of the millions of questions she knew were waiting in the back of her mind. There were so many more important things they could be discussing. But that other part...
It took a few moments, but eventually she lifted her gaze to Dean's face again, her heart pounding in her chest. As much as she wanted to know what happened, she knew that if she didn't take this chance, she might never get another one like it.
"I miss you, Dean," she said as she wrapped her arms a little tighter around herself. "I miss you and I care about you so much and I've tried not to but I can't," she paused and shook her head. Forcing away the tears she could already feel building, she took in a shaky breath. "I've tried everything I can think of to get over you, but nothing works."
Those few moments seemed to drag on interminably, and he could hear his heartbeat racing in his ears. If she turned him down, he'd seriously have nowhere else to go, nothing to live for except his own empty desire for vengeance against God himself. It wasn't a fate he was looking forward to. But willing her to look back at him again didn't seem to be working and he thought about just turning and walking outta there before she could embarrass both of them, and turn this into yet another wounding ground like the last big fight they'd had.
Finally, she looked at him once again, though she was definitely on the defensive, standing like that. Could you really blame her? Had he ever once given her a reason to think investing her emotions in him was some kind of solid bet?
He couldn't remember a single damn time. Why should she start now?
Her words, however, broke over him like air, and gave him something to grip on to. Without even realizing it, he took one step closer, leaning slightly in towards her as he spoke:
"So don't," he said, quickly, before he could second guess himself. Convince himself it wasn't worth the pain to let the words out. "You don't have to."
It should have been coupled with more, he knew, with admitting to her how much he'd missed her, and how much he felt for her, and everything that was true but still impossible for him to voice out loud. But he could no more force it out than he could actually make himself leave right now. He just hoped she'd hear what he wasn't saying, underneath it.
As much as she wanted to give into what he was saying, Brooke had never been able to jump head first into any kind of emotional entanglement with someone who had hurt her before. Though her guard wasn't up nearly as tightly as it could be - probably should be - she wasn't sure if she could let him in again.
She wasn't sure if she could trust him still, but she wasn't sure if she could trust herself, either. The kiss they had shared before he ran off to his suicide mission wasn't something she'd given thought to; it was impulsive and probably wouldn't have happened had she known for certain that he was coming back. But this time, it wasn't so easy to just follow her heart.
Despite the battle going on inside of her, Brooke didn't take a step back from him. Nor did she let her gaze fall from his face.
"It's not that simple," she finally said, her voice just barely above a whisper. Dean was close enough, though, that she wasn't worried about him having problems hearing her.
Her eyes looked over his face again as she tried to decide if she wanted to leave it at that or not. She was pretty sure that Dean would understand why she was hesitant, but she also knew that he deserved a better explanation than that. To keep herself from reaching for him, she curled her hands into fists against her sides and took a shaky breath.
"I'm crazy about you, but... I'm scared."
Feeling suddenly self-conscious, Brooke looked away from his face, focusing instead on one of the buttons of his shirt.
He couldn't blame her one bit, but there wasn't any reason for him not to fight it now. He had to fight against her fear.
"I can do right by you," he found himself saying, and the earnestness in his voice was as much for his sake as for hers. Could he? Could he do right by anybody? Could he be serious and faithful and stick around and do all those things that scared the crap out of him?
"... Or if I can't," he added slowly, "Pretty sure I couldn't do right by anybody." That was more honest, and he needed to be honest with her now, this time around. She deserved that much.
Another step closer, and he was able to raise a hand to rest gently at her elbow.
"Plus," he said, and the words were all thick again, something to trudge through, "Cassie deserves a real family." His eyes kept careful watch over her features: this was asking a lot more of her. Asking her not to just give him a chance, but to take care of someone else along with her. Shouldering her with a teenage kid when she wasn't out of her teens herself.
It wasn't the ideal family unit by any normal measures, but it didn't matter to him, and he prayed that somehow it wouldn't matter to her either. He couldn't abandon Cassie now, not when she'd just lost her mom, not after every fear she'd opened up to him about. They were too in sync with his own fears about losing his family, and he knew what that'd done to him.
There was the faintest hint of a smile at what he said first, but she didn't lift her gaze. She wanted to; she wanted to look into his eyes and be able to push away all the fears she had, but if she did, she'd jump without a second thought.
Her eyes drifted towards the hand at her elbow then moved quickly to his face when he spoke again. Brooke had absolutely no idea what he saw flash across her features, either: shock, confusion, fear, apprehension. She felt all of them, even as she glanced back over her shoulder as if she expected Cassie to appear right then.
Briefly, doubt clawed at her stomach and she wondered if Dean really even wanted her, or if he just wanted Cassie and some semblance of a family and she just happened to be dumb enough to consider it.
It faded almost as quickly as it had come and then she was faced with the idea of taking care of a girl she was fairly certain didn't even like her. But she'd seen how destroyed Cassie was, even if she tried to hide it, and Brooke knew what it was like to be more or less on her own. At least she had Peyton growing up.
When she turned her head back towards Dean, she didn't look at him right away. She focused on his hand that was still at her elbow, trying to ignore the desire to ask for more time to think about this. And even though he hadn't said it, Brooke knew that this was an all or nothing thing.
"I'm going to be a terrible replacement mom," she said, her voice a little rougher as the memory of Sam and her joking about kids flashed through her mind. But she swallowed hard and lifted her eyes to Dean's face.
It took him a second to register exactly what she was saying, and then a sad smile edged its way across his features as he searched her eyes and saw her already resigned to the decision. He knew it wasn't an easy one for her.
His hand moved up to her cheek, the rough skin of his thumb sliding down across her jawbone.
"Oh I don't know," he said. "She already loves giving you a hard time, that sounds about right for a teenage girl."
The joke came a little easier than he expected, and he took something of a shakier breath than he would have liked to admit, as he moved a hand to brush at her hair.
She leaned into his touch a little, but didn't dare close her eyes. Even though he was standing right there and basically saying he was sticking around, Brooke still worried that the moment she turned around, he would disappear again.
"Lucky me," she said quietly, but she actually meant it. Not because of Cassie, even though she did care about her, but because she had Dean back.
It was selfish and she knew it, but she was so grateful that he had come back in one piece. Physically, anyways. She was even more grateful that he'd come back to her, that he'd kept his promise and made her what she assumed was his first stop. He could've gone to New York to see Claire or a number of other people and yet here he was, brushing a hand through her hair.
The smile she gave him was happier than the one he had given her, but it definitely held an air of sadness as she lifted her hand to his arm.
"I guess this is the part where I tell you to come inside, huh?"
The light brush of her hand against his arm was enough to put his hairs on end - out of trepidation and relief mingling into one big mess in the pit of his stomach.
He'd faced a lot of demons down in his time, won a lot of fights, seen a lot of things to make any lesser man squirm and piss himself. And yet here he was, feeling more than a little bit freaked out at the thought of trying to pretend to live a normal life, and the possibility that maybe he'd be an utter failure at this too.
But she was giving him a chance to fail, and that in itself was dizzying with possibility.
If only he didn't have this hole punched in his gut, he might be able to appreciate it even more.
"Could be," he said carefully, "unless you wanna throw me out on my ass. But if you do, you could at least chuck a pillow out the door."
"I'm not going to throw you out," she said, but she'd be lying to herself if she said that there wasn't a part of her that considered it.
As much as she cared about Dean, and even though she'd just agreed to try to make some kind of haphazard family with him and Cassie, there was a part of Brooke that was still incredibly skittish. Broken trust wasn't something she got past easily, so the fact that she agreed to this really surprised her. Normally it would take a long time for her to even consider letting Dean back in. But this? This wasn't just them dating, this was trying to build some sort of life together.
She was so caught up in the surreality of the moment, though, that she was mostly able to ignore the small amount of doubt that was crawling up her spine. She could deal with that later, if it was still there.
For now, she just wanted to focus on Dean for as long as she could. At some point, sooner rather than later, she'd have to let Cassie know and she had a feeling that the blonde would require all of his attention. So she stepped aside so he could come in, her hip resting against the door.
"I might make you sleep on the couch for a few nights." It was mostly a joke.
Dean took a step over the threshold, and stopped, to turn towards her again, attempting to give her another little smile. It fell short however, as just how freaking hard this was gonna be was driven home.
He'd accomplished one single step : get Brooke to actually let him in. But that in itself wasn't gonna lead to any real rest or solace. It was just the first step on one long bumpy ass road.
It was just another fight, and he didn't want another battleground in his life.
Dean drew in a long breath, before trying the smile again, and his hand slid down the length of her arm, his fingers brushing against the back of hers with genuine tenderness.
"Couldn't blame you if you did," he joked back, "... I'm pretty hard to resist in close quarters."
The breath he drew in and the attempts at a smile were enough to get Brooke to step closer to him. She was so used to his easy grin and cocky attitude that this whole thing was kind of throwing her for a loop. Sure, the joke he made was definitely something he would normally say, but it seemed a little halfhearted to her.
That didn't stop her from turning her hand at the feel of his touch, her fingers lacing in between his.
She could feel questions already bubbling up but she bit them back as she lifted her free hand to his face. The back of her knuckles ran lightly over Dean's cheek as she gave him a soft smile. It could've been the lighting, but as she looked over his face again, she swore he looked a little older. Nothing dramatic, really, but he definitely looked different.
"I think I could handle it," even as she said it, she wanted to kiss him. "I've got a lot better will power than you seem to think."
Dean's fingers slowly curled through hers, until he gave them one solid squeeze as her eyes searched his face.
"Not surprisin'," he said, his voice low, as he kept his eyes locked on hers. "Most chicks would have turned and ran at the 'end of the world' announcement. One who didn't cut and run's gotta have some nerve on her side."
He felt just as compelled to draw her into a kiss, to make everything seem okay and erase everything that had gone before, but he knew now wasn't the moment. That his heart was still half dead somewhere else.
So, instead he cleared his throat lightly, and jerked his head through the door.
"Either that or there's something wrong with her head." Or she was just stupid enough to stick around in hopes of fixing things with the guy she was into.
Glancing towards the hallway, Brooke tried to ignore the jealousy that was building in her chest. She knew it was stupid and she knew that Cassie would feel at least a little bit better knowing that Dean was there, but she had just gotten him back. She wasn't quite ready to let him go again, even if it was just to another area of the house.
When she looked back towards Dean, she gave a small nod and pulled her hand out of his. She didn't want to, but she figured he'd want to talk to Cassie without her in tow.
"Probably," she said as she moved to shut the door, then gestured towards the hallway. "You'll want the room on the right. That's where she's been sleeping."
"Her head looks just fine to me," Dean said, moving a hand up through her hair. He noticed the shift in her posture when he brought up Cassie, and hesitated himself, staring down the hall, before turning back towards her with a gentler smile.
"Aren't you comin'?" he asked, making it very pointed that it was an invitation to participate in whatever family this was maybe gonna be.
He took a step away from her into the house, and glanced over his shoulder, waiting for her response. If she said no, at least she'd still know he wasn't shutting her out of this.
When her eyes settled on Dean's face again, all thoughts of Sam vanished as quickly as they'd come. Uncurling her fingers from the fists she didn't know she'd formed, Brooke finally snapped out of the shock enough to take a hesitant step forward.
There wasn't a lot of space between them, but it still felt like miles.
At first, she just lifted a hand to his cheek, letting it rest there as her thumb ran gently over his cheekbone. She wasn't trying to get him to look at her, even though she wanted him to, she was just checking to make sure he was really there. That he was solid.
It didn't take long for her to take the final, small step towards him, the gap closing quickly as her arms wrapped protectively around him. If she could've gotten any closer to him, she would have. Instead, she settled for burying her face in the crook of his neck, her hands clinging to the leather of his jacket.
There were so many things she wanted to say, but she bit her lip to keep quiet and instead breathed in the smell of his skin.
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His fingers gripped against her, and his chest pressed closer to her, as his face tilted down so that he might rest it against her hair, and breathe in the scent of her. It was something real, and familiar, and it hadn't been ripped away the way--
He could feel the hot stinging threat of tears, and he fought it down with hard swallows that stuck in his suddenly dry throat. He clung to her there until he was certain he'd suppressed them entirely, not wanting to risk drawing away only to crack.
Finding words was hard as hell, but he decided not to mince any of them at this point. He had to know if what he'd promised Sam was even a remote possibility.
"So," he said, coughing away the thickness in his voice, as he drew back to look at her, still slightly cautious, "... last time I saw you, it seemed like..." He let that trail off, hoping she's fill in the blanks with whatever the reality was. He certainly wasn't good at finding the right words for that sorta thing.
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The question he left hanging between them, unfinished, was enough for her to pull her arms away from him. Without stepping back, Brooke crossed her arms loosely over her chest as her gaze moved to some spot on the wall beside him.
A large part of her wanted to ignore it in favor of the millions of questions she knew were waiting in the back of her mind. There were so many more important things they could be discussing. But that other part...
It took a few moments, but eventually she lifted her gaze to Dean's face again, her heart pounding in her chest. As much as she wanted to know what happened, she knew that if she didn't take this chance, she might never get another one like it.
"I miss you, Dean," she said as she wrapped her arms a little tighter around herself. "I miss you and I care about you so much and I've tried not to but I can't," she paused and shook her head. Forcing away the tears she could already feel building, she took in a shaky breath. "I've tried everything I can think of to get over you, but nothing works."
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Finally, she looked at him once again, though she was definitely on the defensive, standing like that. Could you really blame her? Had he ever once given her a reason to think investing her emotions in him was some kind of solid bet?
He couldn't remember a single damn time. Why should she start now?
Her words, however, broke over him like air, and gave him something to grip on to. Without even realizing it, he took one step closer, leaning slightly in towards her as he spoke:
"So don't," he said, quickly, before he could second guess himself. Convince himself it wasn't worth the pain to let the words out. "You don't have to."
It should have been coupled with more, he knew, with admitting to her how much he'd missed her, and how much he felt for her, and everything that was true but still impossible for him to voice out loud. But he could no more force it out than he could actually make himself leave right now. He just hoped she'd hear what he wasn't saying, underneath it.
"... I haven't either."
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She wasn't sure if she could trust him still, but she wasn't sure if she could trust herself, either. The kiss they had shared before he ran off to his suicide mission wasn't something she'd given thought to; it was impulsive and probably wouldn't have happened had she known for certain that he was coming back. But this time, it wasn't so easy to just follow her heart.
Despite the battle going on inside of her, Brooke didn't take a step back from him. Nor did she let her gaze fall from his face.
"It's not that simple," she finally said, her voice just barely above a whisper. Dean was close enough, though, that she wasn't worried about him having problems hearing her.
Her eyes looked over his face again as she tried to decide if she wanted to leave it at that or not. She was pretty sure that Dean would understand why she was hesitant, but she also knew that he deserved a better explanation than that. To keep herself from reaching for him, she curled her hands into fists against her sides and took a shaky breath.
"I'm crazy about you, but... I'm scared."
Feeling suddenly self-conscious, Brooke looked away from his face, focusing instead on one of the buttons of his shirt.
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"I can do right by you," he found himself saying, and the earnestness in his voice was as much for his sake as for hers. Could he? Could he do right by anybody? Could he be serious and faithful and stick around and do all those things that scared the crap out of him?
"... Or if I can't," he added slowly, "Pretty sure I couldn't do right by anybody." That was more honest, and he needed to be honest with her now, this time around. She deserved that much.
Another step closer, and he was able to raise a hand to rest gently at her elbow.
"Plus," he said, and the words were all thick again, something to trudge through, "Cassie deserves a real family." His eyes kept careful watch over her features: this was asking a lot more of her. Asking her not to just give him a chance, but to take care of someone else along with her. Shouldering her with a teenage kid when she wasn't out of her teens herself.
It wasn't the ideal family unit by any normal measures, but it didn't matter to him, and he prayed that somehow it wouldn't matter to her either. He couldn't abandon Cassie now, not when she'd just lost her mom, not after every fear she'd opened up to him about. They were too in sync with his own fears about losing his family, and he knew what that'd done to him.
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Her eyes drifted towards the hand at her elbow then moved quickly to his face when he spoke again. Brooke had absolutely no idea what he saw flash across her features, either: shock, confusion, fear, apprehension. She felt all of them, even as she glanced back over her shoulder as if she expected Cassie to appear right then.
Briefly, doubt clawed at her stomach and she wondered if Dean really even wanted her, or if he just wanted Cassie and some semblance of a family and she just happened to be dumb enough to consider it.
It faded almost as quickly as it had come and then she was faced with the idea of taking care of a girl she was fairly certain didn't even like her. But she'd seen how destroyed Cassie was, even if she tried to hide it, and Brooke knew what it was like to be more or less on her own. At least she had Peyton growing up.
When she turned her head back towards Dean, she didn't look at him right away. She focused on his hand that was still at her elbow, trying to ignore the desire to ask for more time to think about this. And even though he hadn't said it, Brooke knew that this was an all or nothing thing.
"I'm going to be a terrible replacement mom," she said, her voice a little rougher as the memory of Sam and her joking about kids flashed through her mind. But she swallowed hard and lifted her eyes to Dean's face.
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His hand moved up to her cheek, the rough skin of his thumb sliding down across her jawbone.
"Oh I don't know," he said. "She already loves giving you a hard time, that sounds about right for a teenage girl."
The joke came a little easier than he expected, and he took something of a shakier breath than he would have liked to admit, as he moved a hand to brush at her hair.
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"Lucky me," she said quietly, but she actually meant it. Not because of Cassie, even though she did care about her, but because she had Dean back.
It was selfish and she knew it, but she was so grateful that he had come back in one piece. Physically, anyways. She was even more grateful that he'd come back to her, that he'd kept his promise and made her what she assumed was his first stop. He could've gone to New York to see Claire or a number of other people and yet here he was, brushing a hand through her hair.
The smile she gave him was happier than the one he had given her, but it definitely held an air of sadness as she lifted her hand to his arm.
"I guess this is the part where I tell you to come inside, huh?"
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He'd faced a lot of demons down in his time, won a lot of fights, seen a lot of things to make any lesser man squirm and piss himself. And yet here he was, feeling more than a little bit freaked out at the thought of trying to pretend to live a normal life, and the possibility that maybe he'd be an utter failure at this too.
But she was giving him a chance to fail, and that in itself was dizzying with possibility.
If only he didn't have this hole punched in his gut, he might be able to appreciate it even more.
"Could be," he said carefully, "unless you wanna throw me out on my ass. But if you do, you could at least chuck a pillow out the door."
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As much as she cared about Dean, and even though she'd just agreed to try to make some kind of haphazard family with him and Cassie, there was a part of Brooke that was still incredibly skittish. Broken trust wasn't something she got past easily, so the fact that she agreed to this really surprised her. Normally it would take a long time for her to even consider letting Dean back in. But this? This wasn't just them dating, this was trying to build some sort of life together.
She was so caught up in the surreality of the moment, though, that she was mostly able to ignore the small amount of doubt that was crawling up her spine. She could deal with that later, if it was still there.
For now, she just wanted to focus on Dean for as long as she could. At some point, sooner rather than later, she'd have to let Cassie know and she had a feeling that the blonde would require all of his attention. So she stepped aside so he could come in, her hip resting against the door.
"I might make you sleep on the couch for a few nights." It was mostly a joke.
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He'd accomplished one single step : get Brooke to actually let him in. But that in itself wasn't gonna lead to any real rest or solace. It was just the first step on one long bumpy ass road.
It was just another fight, and he didn't want another battleground in his life.
Dean drew in a long breath, before trying the smile again, and his hand slid down the length of her arm, his fingers brushing against the back of hers with genuine tenderness.
"Couldn't blame you if you did," he joked back, "... I'm pretty hard to resist in close quarters."
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That didn't stop her from turning her hand at the feel of his touch, her fingers lacing in between his.
She could feel questions already bubbling up but she bit them back as she lifted her free hand to his face. The back of her knuckles ran lightly over Dean's cheek as she gave him a soft smile. It could've been the lighting, but as she looked over his face again, she swore he looked a little older. Nothing dramatic, really, but he definitely looked different.
"I think I could handle it," even as she said it, she wanted to kiss him. "I've got a lot better will power than you seem to think."
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"Not surprisin'," he said, his voice low, as he kept his eyes locked on hers. "Most chicks would have turned and ran at the 'end of the world' announcement. One who didn't cut and run's gotta have some nerve on her side."
He felt just as compelled to draw her into a kiss, to make everything seem okay and erase everything that had gone before, but he knew now wasn't the moment. That his heart was still half dead somewhere else.
So, instead he cleared his throat lightly, and jerked his head through the door.
"Cassie's probably expectin' me."
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Glancing towards the hallway, Brooke tried to ignore the jealousy that was building in her chest. She knew it was stupid and she knew that Cassie would feel at least a little bit better knowing that Dean was there, but she had just gotten him back. She wasn't quite ready to let him go again, even if it was just to another area of the house.
When she looked back towards Dean, she gave a small nod and pulled her hand out of his. She didn't want to, but she figured he'd want to talk to Cassie without her in tow.
"Probably," she said as she moved to shut the door, then gestured towards the hallway. "You'll want the room on the right. That's where she's been sleeping."
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"Aren't you comin'?" he asked, making it very pointed that it was an invitation to participate in whatever family this was maybe gonna be.
He took a step away from her into the house, and glanced over his shoulder, waiting for her response. If she said no, at least she'd still know he wasn't shutting her out of this.
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