He'd been keeping a weather eye on Dempsey since spotting him, but when the other man sped from the room, it wasn't hard to tell why. This was probably wise, for once.

But Dean hadn't been lying when he said Dempsey made him stupid.

It was an internal struggle he'd been battling with for two years and he'd held our for longer than he expected. Dean wanted to be smart about this, to somehow forget the way he'd felt and the way Dempsey made him feel, but it was an insurmountable task.

The battle lasted a solid ten minutes before he found a plausible excuse to slip away from his conversation, thinking he ought to find a different distraction, meandering from the house into the garden for a cigarette himself. It was of course where he found Dempsey, unintentionally. Now faced with the decision all over again, Dean cracked.

"Got a spare?" He motioned to the cigarette with a raised eyebrow.