When you're chin-deep in the friendzone, and then you start to fall in love, it's hard to pull yourself out. But when that friendzone has been tenuous since your first kiss, which was sweet and tender; and then the second, which was hot and angry, and the third, which was a tear-stained farewell before an extended separation –it can be hard to separate what's friendly and what's not.

They've tried being in a relationship before, and it was a disaster. They weren't emotionally ready for it, and now they care about each other too much to risk it again. There's too much at stake, and they're older now and it might not be so easy to fix their friendship one more time if it breaks. But they can't stay away from each other, physically or emotionally, and their relationship starts to drift inevitably towards that something more…

*** arms***

After Austin returns from his first tour, exhausted and delighted to finally be home and with his friends again, he and Ally fall into familiar patterns. They spend more time together than ever, and it's not all song-writing. He seems to just want to be around her, so whenever she's working, he's in the store with her. They become almost inseparable.

She's always been a hugger, and he's always reciprocated enthusiastically so she knows he doesn't feel awkward about close physical contact from her. So initially Ally doesn't find it strange at all that Austin's forever slinging one arm around her shoulders. When they're walking between classes at school, strolling around the mall on her work breaks, or sitting chatting on the couch in the practice room, he seems to almost always have his arm around her.

The first time his hand settles into the slightly less safe place between her waist and hip, they're practicing at the piano. Hands occasionally brushing as they work on a new and difficult song, she suddenly realises how much he's changed physically. They used to share the bench with ease at first, because even though he's always been much taller than her, when they first met he was a lanky mid-teen with shoulders not much wider than her own.

But now … well, it was always obvious that Austin was going to be really tall, and that early promise is bearing fruit – he's 12 inches taller than her now at six foot two, and since he's not quite eighteen yet it's likely he'll grow still more. His hands are huge, and when they're kidding around he often easily folds both of hers into one of his and holds them together with no effort, despite her laughing struggles. But sitting next to him this afternoon, pressed thigh-to-thigh and shoulder-to-shoulder, Ally arrives suddenly at the realisation that she's no longer sharing the bench with a boy, but a man. His shoulders are broad, and out of the corner of her eye she finds herself admiring the muscles that bulge under the sleeves of his shirt and across his chest.

Blinking in astonishment at herself, she glances down at where their legs are pressed together and sees similar strength in his thighs, flexing slightly as his feet press the piano pedals. His lean forearms are roped with muscle and she can see the veins and tendons standing proud on his tanned skin as his strong hands work the piano keys. Swallowing, she feels a suddenly wave of heat course through her body and she tries hard to control the blush she feels rising up from her chest to her neck and her face.

She clears her throat and tries to shift slightly away, and belatedly realises that she's already right on the lip of the bench – Austin is clearly taking up more room on the seat than he used to. With a squeak, Ally starts to tip off the edge.

The song ends with a crash of keys as Austin sweeps one arm around her waist, holding her firmly in place before she can fall onto the floor.

"Whoa," he says, grinning at her. "Still clumsy, huh? Thought you'd outgrown that."

Now blushing for real, and with his face in such close proximity she could count each of his ridiculously long eyelashes if she wanted, she slaps at his chest, giggling in embarrassment.

"It's your fault!" she says with a laugh, righting herself back on the seat. "You're hogging the bench. Move over!" She gives him a push and he tries to shift over, then stops.

"I can't," Austin says, with a lopsided smile that makes her heartbeat pick up a little. "I'm already right on the edge myself. You're stuck with me this way. Just sit closer."

And he uses that arm wrapped around her waist to haul her right next to him, and she can feel the heat of his body radiating through her like a furnace. He lets her go and continues to practice, unperturbed.

But from then on, the arm-around-the-shoulder becomes arm-around-back-and-hand-on-waist, and it's harder for her to pretend it's normal to be this friendly. And it's impossible for her to pretend she doesn't like it.

***scents***

Austin has always liked the way that Ally smells. In the beginning, when they first met as fifteen year-olds, she used some kind of body product (scrub, wash, deodorant - who knows) that smelled of vanilla. Sitting on the piano bench working, or when she hugged him, he used to inhale that scent without really understanding the pleasure it gave him.

But now, as eighteen hovers on the horizon for both of them, she's changed her style. She's started wearing a perfume that's spicier, muskier, and it suits her completely. He finds himself taking in slow, deep lungfuls of it whenever she's around, and looks for excuses to bring her close to him just so he can smell her. Walking through the mall one day he catches a whiff of almost the same perfume and whips around to look for her, only to be disappointed when it appears to be coming off another woman who has just passed him.

As far as he's concerned, that perfume should be taken off the market, and sold only to Ally Dawson, because it's just her and he doesn't want anyone else to use it. And then he realises that it actually doesn't smell exactly the same on anyone else, and there's something underlying it that must just be just Ally.

This epiphany leaves him feeling weird and confused and rather aroused, so when a quick Internet search later that night explains individual pheromones and the different effects they can have on perfume scents, he feels mollified. It must just be that that particular perfume smells good with her pheromones.

Two nights later, Austin arrives at Sonic Boom for a practice after the store is closed for a practice session. Ally texts him to say she is running late, so he takes himself upstairs to practice a few dance moves. About five minutes later, the storm that has been threatening to break all day suddenly explodes overhead and the rain lashes down with all the ferocity that only a tropical cyclone can muster.

The door bangs open and in rushes a soaked Ally. Her red t-shirt is drenched and clinging to her body and her thick hair is hanging in wet, heavy ringlets around her face, while her jeans are plastered tightly to her slender legs. Austin feels like a complete dog for unashamedly checking out his best friend, but he can't help it. His heart picks up like a jackhammer. To cover his reaction, he bursts out laughing.

"Thanks a lot, Austin," she says sarcastically as she goes over to the closet to pull out a towel. She pulls it over her head to vigorously towel off her hair, giving him ample opportunity to observe just exactly how much her body has developed and changed since they met. She's still tiny and petite, but with curves everywhere they should be and he's a normal teenage guy, dammit, so of course he notices. Emerging from under the towel, she rummages in the closet again and comes out with a pair of soft grey sweatpants.

"Crap," she says, peering back into the closet. "I could have sworn I left a t-shirt in here too."

Briefly entertaining the thought of a delicious practice session with an Ally clad only in a pair of sweatpants and a wet bra, Austin forces down his inner pervert and sweeps his own sweatshirt over his head. "Here," he says, handing it to her. "You can use this."

With a grateful smile, she goes out to change and to put her wet clothes over the drier in the downstairs bathroom. When she returns, wearing the sweatpants and his sweatshirt that falls to mid-thigh, he has to bite hard on the inside of his cheek and imagine Dez in ladies underwear to kill the sudden rush of desire that he feels. She's washed off her makeup, so she's fresh-faced and porcelain-skinned and pink-lipped and utterly gorgeous. He's never wanted anything so much in his life.

The damn clothes are baggy and cover up all of her, but he somehow just knows that she's not wearing her wet underwear underneath them and he has to do something, anything to stop the surge of lust that rushes through him at the thought. He flops down on the piano bench and, quirking an eyebrow at her, asks: "You just gonna stand there and drip all night, or can we get on with it?

The towel she throws at his head hits him in the eye, but it was worth it.

Later that evening, after she's changed back into her now-dry clothes, she tries to take his sweatshirt home to wash it, but he insists on taking it with him, saying he'll get cold without it on the way home. What he actually does with it when he gets to the safety of his bedroom is to hold it to his face, breathing her scent in – which he actually knows is all her, since no trace of her perfume remained after her soaking. It's the sexiest thing he's ever smelled and he can't get enough.

It's then that Austin Moon, teenage heartthrob and slayer of girls' hearts all over the world, knows he's a goner for his best friend and the one girl he's not entirely sure he can have again.

***hands***

They hug all the time and hold each other close. They're plastered against each other when practicing on the piano and sitting on the couch, arguing over lyric choices and bridges.

Who needs personal space? After all, they're just friends just friends just friends.

But touching of hands – that still seems something more like what a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship would involve, so it's something they've both avoided. It's one thing to have your arm around your best buddy while you walk down the street, and another thing altogether to hold their hand. There's something so strangely intimate about hand-holding that it seems it would be the thing that would finally stamp their relationship as not platonic at all, so they both still flinch and smile awkwardly when their hands accidently brush or touch.

And the sparks continue to fly.

One Thursday at school, Ally's in history class when the fire alarm goes off. While a fire drill is normally a cause for jubilation amongst the students because it takes a while for everything to return to normal and wastes a good hour of the school day, today it's different. Within seconds of the braying of the alarm, the principal comes over the intercom to say that this is not a drill and they need to get out in as fast and orderly fashion as possible.

Orderly immediately goes out the window, as panic spreads and her entire class tries to shove itself out of the door at once, causing a traffic jam. Ally, being the smallest, is trapped at the back and oh God is that really smoke she can smell? It is, and the air starts to turn hazy as fumes waft out of the open door of the chem lab down the corridor.

The jam eventually clears and Ally finally gets into the emptying corridor, to be met with a pungent cloud of chemical smoke. Coughing, eyes watering, she starts to stumble towards the nearest exit, looking down to avoid the burning fumes. Suddenly a pair of black Converse sneakers encasing large feet skid to a halt in front of her.

"Thank God," says Austin's voice, and she feels him seize her hand. "What kept you so long? I've been looking everywhere for you."

And gripping her fingers in his, he leads her out the school and into fresh air, where she wipes her reddened eyes with a tissue and coughs out the last of the smoke. She has to use the tissue one-handed, because Austin won't let go of her other hand, even when they gather in the quad for roll-call over the sounds of the fire-engine arrives to put out the flames in the lab.

When school is closed early so the administration can deal with the crisis, he holds her hand all the way to his car and then pushes Dez and Trish into the back. Ally curls up on the passenger seat, and then he takes her hand and pulls it onto his thigh, holding it there while driving them home.

And the tingles are going up and down her arm and she tries to remain casual about it, knowing that their two friends are in the backseat going goggle-eyed at the sight. She won't even risk a look back at Trish, knowing her friend will be positively semaphoring questions at her with her expressive eyes.

Ally spends the next few days avoiding close conversations with Trish, because honestly, she doesn't have a clue how to answer the questions that she knows are coming. All she knows is that holding Austin's hand felt thrilling, intimate, right, and these emotions are too much and she just can't deal, because he didn't mean anything by it and was just comforting her.

Saturday night, Austin has a gig in a town two hours away by air, which means he only gets home in the early hours of Sunday. Ally's surprised when he calls her at around 10am, asking if she wants to hang out at the practice room this morning. Normally after a late night he sleeps until well after noon, but she feels a guilty pleasure at the thought of spending some alone time with him so she agrees.

He arrives with a box of sugared doughnuts and coffee (hot chocolate for her), and sporting dark circles under his eyes. After sitting crosslegged on the floor while they devour the pastries – him eating three to her one – he wearily admits that he had a huge fight with his parents when he got home last night and he wanted to get out of the house. Jimmy Starr has been putting pressure on him to drop out of school to take his career further, and his parents are obviously against it. He doesn't want to drop out either, but his parents have now gotten it into their heads that he also needs to go to college, and that's definitely not in his plans.

Without thinking, she reaches out to squeeze his hand in sympathy and is startled when he firmly returns the grip. Rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb, sending goosebumps fleeing up her arm, he tiredly rubs his eyes with his other hand.

"I know I asked you to hang out, but do you mind if I take a quick nap on the couch?" he says, looking at her with bloodshot eyes. "I'm completely finished."

"Sure – I brought my book, so I'll just read while you sleep," she smiles at him. He lets go her hand and rises effortlessly to his feet without using his arms to help himself up – damn his strong dancer's legs – and heads over to the couch, where he flops down. Ally is heading over to the armchair with her book when she's stopped by his voice.

"Come and sit here with me," he says plaintively, making his patented puppy-dog eyes at her. Normally Ally shrugs off of this blatant manipulation, but today her resistance must be running low because she switches direction and heads over to where he's patting the seat nearest his head. The second she's seated, his head is on her lap.

"Much better than a pillow," he sighs happily, before skewering her with a direct look that makes her heart jump.

"Yeah, yeah, don't get used to it," she scoffs half-heartedly. "It's just because you're a pathetic mess today and I feel sorry for you."

"I'll take what I can get," he grins back and then his eyes are sliding closed. "Damn, I've got a really bad headache."

Unbidden, her hand drifts up to his forehead, and then her fingers are sliding gently through his soft fair hair. The line that has formed between his eyebrows immediately smooths out.

"Oh, that feels good. Don't stop," he whispers, and she continues to stroke his hair as he slowly falls fast asleep in her lap.

About an hour later, Austin is still sleeping and her hand has come to rest on his shoulder. She should be reading – it's a book club book that's due for completion this week, but all she's done is watch him sleep.

He's so beautiful it hurts to look at him sometimes, and she never gets a chance to really study him like this while he's awake. His eyebrows and eyelashes are really dark for a blond, and yet the stubble on his unshaven cheeks and chin is as light as the hair on his head. As he's getting older, his bone structure is becoming more prominent and striking and she completely, completely understands the fangirling that goes on around him whenever he makes a public appearance. Hell, if he wasn't her best friend, she'd probably be at the front of that queue.

Yet underneath it all is her Austin, the cocky fifteen year-old who literally scooped her up on his way to stardom on a rollercoaster ride that still seems unbelievable. She suddenly realises that during her musings, her fingers have drifted across his shoulder onto the tanned skin of his throat exposed by his white v-necked t-shirt, and she's tracing tiny circles there.

His skin feels amazing; warm and smooth, and so firm it's almost waxy. She slides her fingers slightly under the neck of the t-shirt and traces her fingertips backwards and forwards along his collarbone, into the dip at the base of his throat, and back again. She can't stop, and she's startled when his hazel eyes fly open and look directly up into her own. Feeling the hot tide of red blood rushing up her neck into her face, she's beyond embarrassed to have been caught groping him so blatantly and she tries to whip her hand away.

Only he's quicker than her, and his own hand flies up to trap hers against his chest.

"I said, don't stop," he says, his voice husky with sleep and something else, undefinable.

For once she has absolutely nothing to say, no quick comeback or sarcastic comment. Her mouth suddenly dry, she licks her lips, not missing the way his eyes dart down to her mouth as she does so. Slowly, almost as if not to spook her, he reaches up and takes her one of her dark curls, wrapping it round and round his finger and smoothing it with his thumb, still holding her gaze with his own.

She parts her lips to say something, anything to break this unbearable chord of tension that is stretching tight between them, when the door bangs open and Dez and Trish march in. Austin lets go of her and sits up so fast he almost bangs the crown of his head on her chin, and within seconds of the noisy chaos brought in by their best friends, the link between them is broken.

Only to start coiling again, slow and heated, because from now on they're not only putting their arms around each other and hugging and sitting close, they're also holding hands as naturally as breathing.

And now they both know that they're not just friends, not quite lovers, and yet are both powerless to take the next step to catapult them into the unknown.

***mouths***

Austin's father is a rabid fan of true crime television shows, so he's grown up hearing phrases such as "justifiable homicide" and "crime of passion" being regularly bandied about. They've never made sense to him before, though, because the thought of being so crazed out of your head with jealousy or love that you could commit murder seems unthinkable.

Until tonight, that is. Tonight, he wants to kill someone with his bare hands.

Ally's having one of her rare gigs, because even though she's over her stage fright, really big crowds still make her nervous and she's more comfortable in smaller settings. Her record company has set this one up in an intimate club, where she's positioned front and centre on the stage in front of a baby grand piano, her band silhouetted in the background, and a single spotlight makes her glow like a beacon.

Austin is now so far in love with his best friend that he can admit to himself that he always thought Ally was beautiful, even if he hasn't always realised it. That first time he followed her up to her practice room after they met, when he overheard her singing "Double Take", actually wasn't to buy the old-lady-spit harmonica at a discount like he pretended. He'd been intrigued by the little brunette spitfire who had blasted him and Dez for messing around in the store, and had just wanted to talk to her again and watch those huge dark eyes flash at him.

Now, watching her empty her soul into singing a love song in front of a crowd of admirers, he wants to kick his younger self good and proper. Ally has poured herself into a slinky black sequinned dress, with thin shoulder straps and a slit up the side of her long skirt. Her lovely hair is twisted up into a messy bun on the top of her head, with tendrils coming down to frame her face and curl onto the nape of her neck. Her eyes are dark and smoky, and even more alluring; she is wearing bright red lipstick that highlights her perfect Cupid 's bow lips. She's utterly beautiful and desirable, and he's never been prouder of her.

(That mouth is going to be the death of him. They've taken recently to giving each other little pecks on the cheek in greeting and farewell, and he finds himself deliberately going off course and kissing her closer and closer to those perfect lips. One of these days he's going to get it right and kiss her bang on the mouth.)

But tonight, pushing through his pride is jealous fury, because sitting in a group in front of the stage is a group of young men, and he recognises quite a number of them as seniors from school. They're watching Ally with their mouths slightly open and a look that he recognises as pure lust. He can't blame them, but Goddammit they just can't look at his girl like that! His fury only escalates when one of them produces a single red rose and throws it onto the top of the baby grand. She rewards him with a flash of her dark eyes and a smile, and the guy clasps his hands over his heart while his friends grin and punch him on the shoulder.

His hands knotted into fists so tight his short nails are biting into his palms, Austin pushes off from the wall he's been leaning against at the back of the club and takes a step forward, but he's stopped when a large hand grabs his bicep and pulls him back.

"Not at her gig, dude, she'll never forgive you," whispers Dez, squeezing his arm hard. Austin glares at him, gritting his teeth.

"I know it's hard to see other guys looking at her like that, but hey, she has to put up with girls literally throwing themselves at you with their boobs hanging out," hisses Dez. "You've got it easy, man – they're just looking."

And with a surge of guilt he realises that Dez is right – Ally's had to watch much, much worse over the years, with the way his fans behave around him. His parents screen his fanmail, but he once overheard his father tell Jimmy Starr that he wishes he could mail the parents of some of the fangirls, just so he could let them know the things their underage daughters were offering to do to his son.

He'd had signings after concerts where girls would fling their arms around him and cry, beg him to take them backstage, sign his autograph on their breasts… And he loved it, never sparing a thought for what it must feel like for Ally to see him wink back at the fans, kiss them on the cheek, sign whatever they wanted. Things have never gone too far – he's still a minor and is watched by a minder and a bodyguard, but he's always enjoyed all the attention.

He feels sick. If she has ever felt even half of what he's feeling right now, he's amazed that she still wants to be his friend. With a tilting that seemed almost physical, he feels the world shift under his feet and knows he will never be the same after a gig. Sure, he'd meet the fans, smile and talk to them, and autograph their photos. But anything else? That stops today. Right now.

Ally finishes her song and stands to bow to the audience, which is going wild. The guys in front of her are stomping their feet and calling for an encore, and dammit if the full bunch of red roses from which the single one had been pulled is now being handed to her by none other than Jared Anderson, starting quarterback of the Manatees. Ally is smiling at him and taking the bouquet, blowing him a kiss.

OK, he gets that this is part of the deal, but that's it. With a growl he tries to pull away from Dez, who only grips his arm harder. "I'm not going to do anything, dude, relax," he says in a low tone. "Let me just go to her – please."

Dez looks at him with his patented "really?" expression, clearly not believing him.

"I won't ruin her night, I promise – I'd never do that to her. Just let me go, man. I'm begging you."

Looking him up and down, Dez obviously decides that he's going to give him the benefit of the doubt, so he lets go and Austin immediately heads towards the stage. Even while Ally is accepting the applause and the praise being hurled her way, her eyes are darting around, huge and dark, while she searches for something in the audience.

The second he steps into view, her face breaks into a smile more dazzling than any he's seen tonight, and she holds her arms out to him. Threading his way through chairs and the applauding crowd, he arrives at the front and she immediately flings herself off the stage into his waiting arms. Shutting his eyes in ecstasy as his hands come into contact with the silk of her skin, revealed by her backless dress, he buries his face into her shoulder and swings her off her feet completely in a circle.

Ally laughs and throws her head back to look at him, arms around his neck, eyes shining. "What did you think?"

Setting her back on her feet, he pulls her closer and whispers into her ear. "Beautiful, amazing, fantastic. You're all that, my Ally. I'm so proud of you."

And when she looks up at him and gives him a tearful smile, he finally gives into temptation for the fourth time in his life and presses his mouth directly to hers. Ignoring the comments and the odd wolf whistle from the group of his peers standing beside them (one of them questioning his parentage in a less than flattering manner), he takes his time and kisses Ally thoroughly in front of everyone, because this is where she's meant to be, in his arms, with him only.

Like he knows music is in his soul and performing is in his blood, he knows this girl will be in his heart forever. And when he finally pulls back for a breath and looks down at the beautiful girl in his arms, Ally winds her hands into his hair and pulls him in for another kiss, where she opens her mouth and swipes his lips open with her tongue and he drowns into the taste of her.

Some things, like fate, are truly inevitable.