"I really hate you sometimes"

She turned her head looking down from him. Glaring in her way as the pin prick feeling of unyielded tears blurred the outer reaches of her vision. He exhaled, drawing the fresh smoke of a half spent cigarette out of his lungs, and blew it away. Away from her. The already small gap between them was closed. Him putting his hand on her chin and allowing his thumb to stroke her cheek. A token far to gentle to be fairly coming from a man of his caliber.

"Yeah," She felt the breath of his word on her face. The words coming out distant, bored sounding. Like he didn't care one way or the other, "I know."

With his mouth covering hers she closed her eyes; the tears escaping down her cheek to meet where his hand was still stationed. One of her hands reaching up to grip his shirt collar. She hated this. She hated the way he smelled of the bar whose wooden wall she was pressed against. She hated how he tasted of the cigarette in his other hand. She hated only meeting him in the middle of the night so no annoying sisters could tell her not to. She hated the all too current, all too intimate, position they where in being all too familiar.

What was worse was, she hated wanting it. She hated needing it. Wanting him, needing him. He was a man who it would never work with. There was no happy ending in his arms.

He pulled away, tilting his head down just so. Allowing eyes to meet eyes, Pale green to meet deep vivid green, over the rim of his sunglasses. "I'm not that guy anymore."

"Yeah,"She looked at him, then down again. She removed him from her person, and, putting her hands in the front pocket of her shirt while she headed for the highway road, she replied over her shoulder in the same distant, bored, tone, "I know."

He watched her as she walked away from him. She stopped for a second to put the hood of the sleeveless tee up. He looked up at the cloudy night sky and held his hand out. Out from under the small bit of protective overhanging roof and dim glow of the outside light that hung above him. Rain.

"How stupidly Poetic." He mumbled wiping the bit of droplets from his hand. The rain was needed. It had been a rather dry summer so far and the rain would also be a welcomed reprieve from the over bearing heat. Didn't stop it's dramatic time to bare weight on him however.

He looked back to her. She was standing on the edge of the dirt path where it met the concrete asphalt of the highway now steaming a little from the falling rain. It would lead her back to the heart of the city. Away from this place where the end of suburbia kissed the forest. The rain pushed up small amounts of dust and the aroma of mud and wet outdoors. She really wasn't the type to be hanging around a bar so far from the main city lights. Yet there she was for him to see.

She turned her head back to look at him once more. Her big green eyes, peering out from the shelter of the hooded garment, holding him as he stood. She'd leave in a moment.

Part of him wanted her to leave. Leave and never come back. To stay away from him for good. To never be tempted by those green eyes again and maybe then, just maybe, he would have the strength to leave her alone in turn. But another part him ached in the mere moment of thought.

He didn't know what to call what they had. He doubted it had any traditional social title. He only knew it wouldn't work out in the end. She knew too, and he knew that. There was no pot of gold at the end of this rainbow. Just the summers heat to welcome their eventual despair. There where too many strikes against them. Too many strikes against him. Their age had always been a detrimental factor. Eleven years was nothing to sneeze at. True she was an adult now. She could do what, who, she wanted. No one could truly stop her anymore, and their was no legal grounds he could get in trouble on. But she was nineteen. Society still existed, they existed in society, and Society had a strong will and mind and still put restrictions on them both. More so then legality. There would be implications. To many that where more likely to ruin his fragile stability more then hers. After all he was who he was and she was who she was. No one would approve. Not her sisters, not the men he called brothers.

Why do it then? Playing a game they both knew they'd loose.

Because he was a coward. His own answer to his own question. In the end he'd always been one. He'd never been brave in his life, just sly, just slick enough to survive. He knew it wasn't fair to her or him, but he was a coward. Too much of a coward to tell her to leave. Too much of a coward to tell her to stay. Too much of a coward to just tell her. Maybe that was a cowardice they shared in common.

She would find someone better. A man who wasn't a coward. Someone not him. He had nothing real to offer her in life. All he had was the baggage of his past that complicated everything he did and the bar he leaned against. His place: The bar with his name on it in softly glowing neon light.

He looked away from her to the front door of the place opening. He leaned over from the side of the building to see a man of similar age and complexion locking his sights onto him, "Hey Bossssss whatssss you doin out here? Everyonesssss waitin on ya."

"Yeah," He looked back to her one more time. She was gone. Probably half way home. He sighed, straightened his leather jacket and put out the last of his cigarette. She'd be back , "I know."