"It's been a year."

Carrie looked up from her laptop and at over where Ryan was sitting behind the microphone in the booth. There were days that were like this still, ones where he marked time and anniversaries as significant posts in life without Janie. The group had helped a lot, but there were still times that not even they could overcome. This was a big one, and she had been preparing for it for weeks.

"Yeah," she said softly as she abandoned her computer and came into the studio. She could see the red light over the door was still illuminated, indicating he was still on the air, but she knew he was talking to her still. She reached over and pushed a few buttons on the switchboard to send it to commercial. She only wondered for a moment where Steven was before she slid into his empty chair and rolled it over so that she was sitting next to Ryan. "You should have taken the day off. We could have put together a clip package and run a "Best Of" segment."

He reached down and fiddled with his naked left ring finger, a habit even since he had sent his wedding ring off to parts unknown with Anne months ago. "I just would have stayed in bed and felt sorry for myself. You know how I get about stress eating," he teased her with a reminder. Carrie hated the sad smile on his face. "I thought it'd be better if I was around some people. I was supposed to go to group earlier but I couldn't go. It felt better to be here."

She knew why Ryan felt more comfortable behind the microphone than in some sad-sack support group. It was his way of pretending. It was one of the few things that was the same as before. There were the same people here, the ones who had known Janie. He'd always felt at home in the booth anyhow; it was like his true north. Ask him to tell you how he felt about losing the love of his life and he would instantly clam up, but he could talk for hours about the role of designated hitter in the MLB.

Carrie didn't even really like sports, but she liked Ryan King. She had been interviewing for an assistant spot with this afternoon radio psychologist when he had happened on her trying to get coffee out of the broken machine in the lobby. A swift kick to the side of the machine and ten minutes of conversation later, he convinced her to cancel her interview with the bore upstairs and take an open position with him. Despite what she sometimes said, she hadn't regretted it for a moment since.

"You've got a half-hour to finish up. Do you think you can manage?" she asked him carefully, looking up into his eyes to make sure that he didn't try to lie to her. He nodded a little. "Alright, I am going to sit here with you, and when you're done, we are going to go to a Kings game, eat a ridiculous amount of calories and get really, really drunk. And tomorrow morning, when you wake up and inevitably puke nacho cheese on my couch, we're going to talk about Janie. I am going to give you one whole day to sulk and morn and be sad. When that day is over, you're going to get yourself together and you're going to move on. I haven't said anything before now, Ryan, but you're ready for this. It's time."

If it was coming from anyone else, Carrie knew that Ryan would snap. He would ask how she knew what he was ready for and argue with her just because he could. However, since it was Carrie, he only nodded like a little boy and put his hand on her knee. "Thanks," he murmured softly before turning back to the microphone. It might not have been his best show, but he managed to get through it.

A few hours later, they were sitting in box seats at the Staples Center watching Jake Muzzin put his second one in the net for the night. Ryan was three beers into it, Carrie dawdling significantly behind still on her first one. She was monitoring her drinking carefully because even if he had gotten them a driver, she knew that he was going to need her to be sober later. However, she hadn't held back on those empty calories and had already enjoyed a hot dog and a soft pretezel.

"You got a little bit of something..." he trailed off as he reached up to wipe a bit of melted cheese from her cheek. "You're so pretty and you can eat like a dude. How are you still single?"

Carrie hoped that he couldn't see the blush creeping up her neck. "Wow, you're a lightweight these days, King," she taunted him, trying to ignore those familiar butterflies swirling in her stomach.

They'd had two moments since Janie had passed where she had thought that this was more than a work thing or a friendship. The first had come when she had texted him to let him know she was thinking of him, something that hadn't even been a lie because her first instinct had become to take care of him in those first months after his wife died. The other had been in her apartment after he had ditched her for the blonde. She'd been dressed up in her gorgeous dress, embarrassed that she was trying so hard, but enjoying the simplicity of just being with him. That one had been a little more awkward because she was pretty sure that he had felt it then too. They'd never really talked about it much since, but there were moments where she caught him staring or just reaching out to touch her.

"I'm serious, Carrie, you're really special," he told her, and she prayed that it wasn't just the alcohol talking. "I talk to Janie about you sometimes when I still see her. She likes you more than she likes Lauren. I think that says something, don't you?"

She didn't really know what to say so she snagged one of his nachos and pretended to be interested in the game. "You know that I used to be jealous when I thought Steven liked you?" he asked rhetorically. "Even before Janie died, I didn't want him to take you away from me. You were, I don't know, my girl or whatever. And now, I mean it in a whole different way because you're like my most important person. You know me better than anyone else does. You know what my looks mean and when I need to be coddled and when to just sit there and not say anything. Janie knew some of that stuff but not all of that. Why is it that I think you know me better than my wife did, Carrie? It makes me sad."

"I don't want to make you sad," she said with genuine concern. She turned to look up into his eyes, and she could see his gaze wavering as he struggled to stare back at her. "And I don't know the answers to all your questions, Ryan, I wish I knew what all of this meant. I just know that I do know you and that has become really important to me this past year."

He shook his head slightly. "I have been thinking about this for two months and I'm saying it to you when I'm drunk. I need to shut up, we need to have this conversation sober," he realized aloud and she had to giggle. He slid his arm around the back of her seat and squeezed her to his side in an easy hug. "Promise me that we'll talk about this. I want to talk about this, Carrie. You're perfect."

"And you're drunk," she reminded him. "Watch the game, King. We'll come back to this when you're sober enough to realize what you're telling me."

Carrie woke up in her own apartment twelve hours later, a shadow huddling over. She knew who it was before she even opened her eyes. "We have to talk about this now, Carrie," Ryan insisted as he knelt down beside her bed. He really sucked with the boundaries thing, and she had only allowed him to sleep on her sofa if he promised to stay out of her bedroom until she was awake. "I woke up and I remembered everything and we have to talk about it."

"Ryan, give me a minute," she mumbled as she sat up. They'd had another one of their moments last night, and she knew that she was about to be ready for her fourth. She ran her fingers through her hair and pulled it back into a ponytail. He was staring at her as if she was either the most beautiful thing he had ever seen or like he was afraid she was going to run at any second. "You're sure you remember everything?"

"When I first told Janie about Simone the very first time, she asked me if she was anything like you. And when we broke up, she told me that there was no way Simone was anything like you because you were the kind of girl I would keep around forever," he confessed. "Janie always took care of me, Carrie. I'm the kind of guy who needs that, and since she died, you've been the one I've depended on. I couldn't do that with just anyone and I'm not saying this right, but it's you, Carrie, you're the one."

There were tears in her eyes and she felt like some romantic comedy cliche, but with a line like that, it was hard to not well up a little. She had been waiting a long time for Ryan to look at her like that, since the night when she had told him to take an antacid because her first instinct had been to want to make everything okay for him. "The one?"

"The one who I want to move forward with, the one who I want to share everything with when the day is over. How many dates have you spent texting me through? How many times has someone tried to talk to me, only to figure out that I'm too busy watching you?" he questioned. "It drives me crazy to think that I'm never going to have it together enough to give you what you need. There's that whole age difference and Janie and I'm still emotionally stunted. But I know you want to make me try and no one's really done that since her. Even with Simone, I was doing it because I thought that I should and not because my heart really thought she was the girl who made me want to go on."

"So you like me?"

"Don't be so juvenile," he grinned, tapping her on the tip of the nose. "I like you and you like me and it's probably going to get complicated. I'm gonna mess up - a lot - but I want to figure out where this could go because you meant too much to not want to try. Like I said, you're incredible."

She leaned over and kissed him then, insistently at first and then more lazily and reassured. His fingers carded through her chestnut locks, and he did this thing where he sighed happily against her mouth that kind of drove her nuts. They were both grinning like jack o' lanterns when they pulled back, and she couldn't find it in her to care that she probably had morning breath. No one had ever called her incredible before, and she kinda loved the sound of it coming from his lips.