There was a loud banging noise and I woke with a start. The first thing I saw, naturally, was a pair of big green eyes.

"Jordan..."

I blearily tried to roll back into my sleeping position, and I gasped when I felt myself falling, falling, and then I thudded onto soft carpet. I opened my eyes to see that I had fallen off of the couch.

Did I fall asleep at the base? I probably should have texted my mom...

Eh. She's used to it by now.

"Jooooooordan," Declan moaned from somewhere across the room. Why are you so energetic?"

"It's too early for energy," Bennett agreed sleepily, from the other couch. Declan was conked out on the recliner. I sighed, knowing that it was too late for any more sleep.

"Why are you up so early?" I asked. "Usually it's you that sleeps in."

"Because we're going to have a visitor," Jordan cried.

At this point, me and the other guys were far too tired to care about Jordan's visitor.

"Breakfast, breakfast, breakfast!" he chanted, stomping around the living room.

"Who do you think is making the 'breakfast, breakfast, breakfast!' then, Jordan?" Declan asked, yawning.

"Bennett! Who else?"

Bennett gave a strangled sleepy cry of mutiny through his pillow. "Bennett doesn't want to make the 'breakfast, breakfast, breakfast!' Bennett wants to go back to sleep and ignore his life problems for a little longer!"

"Bennett doesn't have a choice."

Bennett sighed. "I hate to admit it, but you have a point. Jordan, you could screw up cereal, and it's cereal."

"Thank you for the lovely compliment."

"Jordan, what do you want me to cook?"

"Break—"

"I know you want me to make 'breakfast, breakfast, breakfast!' Just tell me what you want for it!"

Jordan hesitated. "Pancakes."

Bennett gave a long and breezy sigh. "If you want pancakes, why don't you just walk down to McDonalds and get some?"

Jordan made a pouty face. "Because they're better when you make them, Bent."

He rolled his eyes. "I'm flattered."

Jordan grinned. "Does that mean you'll make the pancakes?" He batted his eyelashes like a five-year-old girl.

Bennett sighed, again. "Fine, I'll make the pancakes."

"Yaaaay! Pancakes! Breakfast, breakfast, BREAKFAST! Breakfast, breakfast, BREAK—"

"But only if you shut up."

Jordan was about to give an indignant reply when his phone went off and he stopped parading around the living room to retrieve it from the coffee table.

"Bennett?" he asked upon reading the text.

"Yes?"

"Can you make an extra serving?"

Bennett's eyes glinted with suspicion. "Why?"

"Because the visitor might be stopping by here for some breakfast..."

"WHAT? You TOLD someone ABOUT THE BASE?"

"They already knew about the base, Bennett," Jordan told him quietly. "They said they would absolutely love to stop by."

"Well, that's reassuring. NOT."

Jordan grinned and patted Bennett consolingly on the back. "Don't worry. I have the situation under control."

"Jordan, you never have anything under control," Declan muttered.

"Oh yeah? Well what do you people control over in music theory, Declan?"

"Well, what do they teach you in art? How to hold a crayon?" Declan sneered.

"I'm gonna—"

"That's enough!" Bennett shouted. "If making pancakes will make you two shut up, then I'll go and make pancakes!"

"Yay!" Jordan cheered, reminded of the pancakes again. "Breakfast, breakfast, break—"

"JORDAN!"

"Sorry, Bennett."

Bennett climbed off of the couch and yawned, stretching. He had fallen asleep in his usual skinny jeans and hoodie.

He grabbed his dark blue beanie off of the coffee table by Jordan's phone, and tenderly he put it on.

"I'll be in the kitchen making pancakes, apparently, if you need me." With that, he stalked off to the kitchen, leaving the three of us alone.

"So, Jordan, who's the visitor?" I asked.

"That's private information," he replied, giving me one of his signature grins.

"I don't like private information," I grumped, flipping back onto the couch. "I like answers."

"Well, too bad," Declan told me, sticking out his tongue.

"Wait, you're in on this, too?"

Jordan and Declan broke into twin smirks. "Of course he is! We're partners in crime."

"All four of us are supposed to be the partners in crime, Jordan," I objected.

"Well, we wouldn't be partners, would we?"

"Yeah, but that's not the point!" I cried. "You shouldn't be keeping secrets from Bennett and I!"

"Well then, you and Bennett shouldn't be keeping secrets from us!" Jordan exclaimed.

"We aren't keeping secrets! I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, come on! We both know that you totally secretly love each other," Declan told me.

"No, we don't," insisted. "We're just friends."

"Friends with benefits, maybe," quipped Jordan.

I narrowed my eyes. "No, we aren't!"

"Naomi, stop lying," Declan ordered. "There's so much evidence! You hugged him at tennis—"

"I hug all of you all the time!" I protested.

"—you let him pull up your shirt, according to Cameron you totally went on a date, and you made out!"

"Okay, one, I only let him pull my shirt up as far as he had to, two, it wasn't a date, and three, we only made out because Jordan dared us to!"

"You have a lot of excuses, and they're going to run out eventually," Declan informed me. "And I'm going to force you to admit that you like Bennett."

Jordan nodded. "Yeah. That's why Declan and I have enlisted help."

"Help?"

"Yes, help. Someone who knows Bennett inside and out, and someone who ships Bennomi pretty hard."

"Bennomi? We have a ship name?"

Declan nodded. "Of course you do. Everyone has a ship name."

"That means you and Jordan have a ship name! And don't even argue," I said as they opened their mouths. "Either way, you'd both just be contradicting yourselves." I added to my smart appearance by applying some chapstick.

"Big words," Jordan muttered.

"Jordan, you think 'contradictory' is a big word?" Declan sneered. "Have you ever heard of the word antidisestablishmentarianism?"

Jordan blinked.

"Declan, how did you know that word?" I asked.

"Why does everybody think I'm bad at—"

"I didn't say that! I asked how you knew it! Do you even know what it means?"

He snorted. "No, I just Googled it so I would sound smart."

"Nice subject change, though, Naomi," Jordan complimented me. "Seriously, though, what were we talking about?"

"Bennett and Naomi," Declan answered.

"Oh yeah!" Jordan broke into song. "Bennett and Naomi, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I—"

"Jordan, please stop," I begged.

"—N-G! First comes love—"

"Jordan, please!"

"—then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage—"

"JORDAN!"

We all whirled around to see that Bennett had finally appeared from the kitchen. "The pancakes are ready," he hissed.

"Yaaay! Breakfast, breakfast, breakfast!"

Jordan bounced up from the floor, where he and I had been sitting at the foot of Declan's recliner, but Bennett held out his hand and Jordan froze.

"Stop. I need to talk to Naomi first."

Jordan broke into his signature grin. "Oooh—"

"That's enough out of you," Bennett hissed, grabbing me by the wrist and nearly dragging me into the kitchen.

He lowered his voice as he shut the door and waited for a long moment. I could smell the delicious pancakes that were cooking on a platter.

Wordlessly, he mouthed to me, I don't mean what I'm about to say, and then he spoke.

"I got back together with Abby."

There were twin shrieks from right outside the kitchen door and Bennett threw it open with a glare.

"I can't believe it!" Jordan shouted. "I thought you would never—"

"I knew you two were eavesdropping, that's why I said it. Of course I didn't get back together with Abby!" Bennett cried.

"Because you like Naomi too much," quipped Jordan.

Bennett glared at him. "Were going outside to talk," he declared, grabbing my wrist again and marching me out to the car garage. He dodged Jordan's infamous sleeping-dart trap and made his way out to the front.

Without warning, he slammed me against the bricks. "Naomi."

"What?" I asked carefully. There was enough tension in the air to cut it with scissors.

"I love you," he blurted before I could say anything else. "I love you and I know it's bad, because it's against the contract, and it would be picking favorites, and I know you don't like me and I can't believe I'm saying this, because I know I promised that you were off limits but I can't help myself, and I don't know what's happening, usually I have so much self-control, and I know—"

"Bennett," I interrupted.

He gave me a pained look. One glance at those big ice blue eyes and he was mine.

"I love you too."

We crashed into each other as if our minds were one. It was exactly like it was before: he was darkness and ice and chocolate, the best taste in the world but this time there was no question as to what we were doing. I was sure there was nothing, at this point, that could break us now.

Except for a very loud and obnoxious car honk.

"Hey!" shouted a voice. "Doesn't the human brain die after a minute and a half without oxygen?"

A sleek black car had pulled into the driveway of the base, with one of the windows pulled down. I caught the symbol on the front of the car: a winged B, set in silver.

"Naomi. Tell me that's not who I think it is," said Bennett quietly.

I swallowed. "It's not who you think it is."

"It isn't?"

"No. It is. I'm just doing what you told me to do," I replied.

"Hey lovebirds, stop chattering and welcome me here! Jordan said you were making pancakes!"

"Jordan, yeah, the guy I'm going to kill later," Bennett muttered.

"If you're going to be so rude, I'll have to do it myself," said the voice. The door to the sleek black car was thrown open.

And out stepped Bentley Frazier.

---------------------------------------------------
Ooh, drama. And I'm torturing you with more kiss scenes, I'm sorry.

And I apologize for another cliffhanger. Clearly my mind can't fathom the meaning of a ONE-shot.

Anyway. Sorry.