Berkley was laying on her stomach on her bed at her Dad's house, flipping through the yearbook from Senior year of high school. She turned the page and there was a big picture of Dean wearing the Prom King sash and crown with a big smile on his face and Sydney, the head cheerleader, on his arm wearing a tiara and sash that said Prom Queen. She looked at the picture and took a deep breath in and let it out, running a finger over his face and her heart ached from missing him.

She snapped the yearbook shut and tossed it onto her bedside table, before rolling over on her back and staring up at the ceiling. She had been coping pretty well over the last three months until she saw him with his girlfriend yesterday. Now he was all she could think about and she was so jealous she couldn't stand it. Seeing him with his arm around her and knowing they had been together for three months and were serious was breaking her heart so bad.

That's when she saw some movement outside her window out of the corner of her eye. She sat up and watched the window slowly slide up and Dean's head poked through, before the rest of his body slid in behind it, landing him onto the floor.

She couldn't believe he was really here. It was almost like he knew she was thinking about him. He stood up and closed the window behind him, shaking the snow off of his clothes and hair.

"Dean Bradshaw. What the hell do you think you're doing?" she asked, laughing.

"I'm climbing in my best friend's window, just like old times," he said with a smile.

"I can see that, but why?"

"Because you and I need to have a talk," he said, walking over and plopping down in the big comfy reading chair next to her bed. "And you won't answer any of my calls or texts so I came in person."

"What are you talking about? I haven't gotten a call or text from you in months."

"What do you mean?" he asked, scrunching his eyebrows. "I've texted and called you more times than I could count. I just figured you didn't want to talk to me since you never answered."

He sat there thinking. "Wait a second. Let me see your phone."

She handed it to him and he clicked around for a minute before saying, "That asshole blocked me on your phone."

"What?!" she said, scrunching her eyebrows, taking her phone from him. She looked down at the screen and sure enough, there was Dean's name in her blocked contacts list. She couldn't believe it.

"Wow. Zander must have blocked you so I would think you were ignoring me," she said, shaking her head in disbelief. She really shouldn't be surprised. Zander was always really jealous and intimidated by her friendship with Dean.

She looked up and gave him a pained smile, before looking back down at the phone in her hands. "It's a relief to know you were trying to call and text me this whole time. When I hadn't heard from you in so long I thought you were cutting me out of your life for good."

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and running his hands through his hair. He took a deep breath in as he raised his head to look at her and exhaled deeply.

He hesitated for a second before saying, "Honestly, I thought about it."

Hearing that felt like a knife in her chest. "Really?" she asked.

"Yeah. I was so pissed when I found out you broke our deal and still had sex with that asshole after you promised you wouldn't. After everything that went down between us I couldn't believe you seriously did that. That's not the Berkley I know."

Those words made her eyes burn and she bit her lip and looked down at her hands, trying to keep from crying.

"I'm sorry. I know sleeping with Zander was a really shitty thing to do and I felt so guilty afterwards. I know you think he's an asshole, but when you broke my heart, Zander was there for me when I needed somebody. He helped me get through it."

She slowly lifted her eyes and looked into his.

He hesitated and searched her eyes. Looking into his midnight blue eyes for the first time in months tangled her stomach into knots. His piercing eyes could look straight into her soul and read her like a book. "You just said I broke your heart."

She broke eye contact and looked down at her hands, suddenly feeling extremely nervous and trapped under his gaze, squirming anxiously to break the awkward tension between them. She took a deep breath in and let it out, knowing she needed to confess everything even though the thought of doing it terrified her.

She kept her eyes down, avoiding looking at him and said, "I know this whole deal between us was my fault since I'm the one that suggested it but you were right all along and I should've listened to you. I was naive to think we could have sex with no feelings involved."

She hesitated, trying to build up the courage to confess how she felt about Dean, her best friend since birth. This was by far the scariest thing she had ever done. She had no idea how he would react.

"I don't know what I was thinking. I should've realized that we were so close already that having sex would make it so easy to fall in love with you," she sniffled, getting choked up on the words. "I should've thought about the fact that getting my heart broken by you would hurt me WAY worse than getting it broken by anyone else. When you didn't love me back it hurt so bad," she sobbed before burying her face in her hands and crying into them.

Dean got up and knelt down in front of her, taking her hands in his and pulling them away from her face. She opened her watery eyes and looked at him."Berkley," he said softly. "Do you really think I would've said what I did at the campfire and left your room that night if I had known how you felt about me? I had no idea Berk. Why didn't you tell me?"

She looked down and sniffled, too embarrassed to look him in the eyes. "Because I wanted you to love me too. I didn't want to be the first one to say it and I didn't want you to feel like you had to say it just because I did."

"So, you thought it would be better to keep it to yourself and start hooking up with Zander instead?" he asked, looking confused.

He hung his head and let out an exhale. "You know how I found out you had sex with him?"

"No," she said quietly, looking down at her hands.

"I overheard him bragging to a group of his coast guard friends about how amazing the sex with you was and imitating the sounds you made while they all laughed. And he knew I was there because he glared over at me right after he said it with a smug smile all over his face."

She looked up and saw the pain and hurt in his eyes and that hit her with a flood of guilt.

"I just fucking lost it," he said, letting out an exhale. "I walked up and punched that asshole across his face right in front of all his friends."

She scrunched her eyebrows. "That's how Zander got that black eye? He told me he got hit by an elbow when he was rescuing somebody."

"Ha! No," he hung his head and laughed lightly. "He got it from me and he fucking deserved it. I don't know what the hell you see in that dick."

"Actually," she said, looking into his eyes. "I had a talk with my brother last night and he asked me why I was with Zander because he could see how miserable I was and I really didn't have a good answer. I realized I was only with him to try to get over you. That's why I called him this morning and let him know that I didn't want to be with him anymore."

He lifted his head and looked into her eyes.

"I realized I only ended up with him because I was scared to be alone that night you left me. I kept him around because I was trying to get over you. He was like my security blanket but that wasn't fair to him, so I let him go. So I'm single now," she said softly.

Dean took a deep breath in and let it out, rubbing his hands over his face and looking relieved.

He reached out and picked her hands up in his and said, "Berkley, I didn't leave your dorm room that night because I didn't love you. Leaving that night was the hardest fucking thing I've ever done in my life. When I found out your roommate was gone and we'd be alone I knew there was no way I could resist you. My heart was screaming for me to stay but my head was telling me that if I loved you I had to go because I was no good for you. I had to leave."

That took her by surprise. "Why would you ever think you're no good for me Dean? If it wasn't for you I honestly don't know how I would've gotten through losing my Mom. You have no idea how many times in my life I was able to get up and keep going because you gave me the strength to," she said with tears burning at her eyes.

"I was afraid I'd just end up hurting you like I've hurt girls in the past and that's the last thing I wanted to do. I didn't want to mess up our friendship and lose you completely so I was trying to be just friends, even though that was way harder than I thought it would be." He gave her a pained smile and said, "Looking back, I really wish I had just stayed with you that night."

She wiped her tears away before saying, "I wish you had stayed too."

He was quiet, hanging his head for a minute before he finally lifted it and looked into her eyes and said, "I was always up front with the women I was with and let them know I didn't want anything serious but they'd still get attached and want more, but I never did."

He paused, looking down at their joined hands for a second before looking back up into her eyes.

"Until you. It was different with you Berk. It wasn't just sex. We were so close that it put it on another level and that seriously scared the shit out of me because you're my best friend. I tried to fight what I was feeling because I knew it would change everything."

Her heart was starting to race from nerves. Was he trying to say he felt the same way she did? Was it possible?

"What were you feeling?" she asked, holding her breath, nervous to hear what he would say next.

She looked into his eyes and the way he was looking at her made her stomach clench up and she swallowed hard, feeling more vulnerable in that moment than she ever had in her life. The next words out of his mouth could either crush her or make her the happiest woman on the earth.

He looked at her for a second, thinking before he finally said, "Something I've never felt before. Something I didn't even think I was capable of feeling until being with you. It was so perfect it was like you were made for me and I was made for you. It felt so right I couldn't even stand the thought of being with another woman ever again because I knew it would never be the same with anyone else. I wanted to stay there with you in my arms forever. That was when I knew I didn't just love you as a friend."

Hearing him say that made her heart skip and her eyes water. Was this real?

"Really?" she asked.

"Yeah. Really." He reached out and cupped her face, running his thumb across her bottom lip and looking at it like he wanted to devour it. Feeling his soft touch on her lip sent her heart racing.

"Fuck I want to kiss you so bad right now."

Her heart was definitely pounding now. He leaned forward to kiss her but she pushed him back. "Wait a second. What about your girlfriend?"

"Stacia was never my girlfriend. We're just friends but people made assumptions that we were together because we hung out so much. She's actually a lesbian. She agreed to go to the Christmas dinner and pretend to be my girlfriend so I wouldn't be sitting there looking pathetic and single while you had Zander."

"Seriously?" she asked, feeling relieved with a slight smile forming on her face.

"Yeah. I actually called her on my way over here to tell her I was gonna climb in your window and finally tell you how I feel. She told me good luck."

"Really? So you're single?" she asked.

"I mean, I went out on a few dates after we stopped talking but it never felt right with any of them. It never even got past kissing. I haven't had sex with anybody since you. But to answer your question, no," he said, shaking his head. "I'm not single."

Hearing him say that made her stomach drop and she felt like she had been punched in the gut until he added, "At least I don't wanna be. You see, there's this girl I'm in love with."

Her heart skipped a beat and she said, "But you don't believe in love or girlfriends. You never have."

"Yeah well. This girl, she's pretty amazing and she changed my mind about that. If she would agree to be my girlfriend, she might just be the only one I ever have."

Hearing that made her stomach do a somersault and she looked into his eyes and said, "I'd love to be your girlfriend Dean."

He looked relieved but then he scrunched his eyebrows. "Who said I was talking about you?" he teased.

She rolled her eyes and grabbed his shirt, pulling him towards her, saying, "I love you," as she pressed her lips to his and closed her eyes.

He pulled back and smiled at her saying, "I love you too Berk." Then he slid a hand around the back of her head and gave her the most amazing kiss she had ever had in her entire life.