Billie awoke to some fantastic smells coming from outside of her bedroom. Her body ached in places she's never ached before. The events of last night came flooding back to her.

She sat up ramrod straight in bed, holding the covers close to her chest, as she was still naked. Oh God, what had she done? Why did she do it? She promised herself that she wouldn't.

Billie got up, took a shower, and spent a long time getting dressed. Anything to stall, going into the other room and facing Quentin, but she had run out of things to do. She opened the bedroom door and there, laid out on the table, was an omelet, toast, and coffee for two.

Quentin came over carrying utensils, cream, and sugar to the table. "I wondered if breakfast was going to get cold. I sort of took you for an early riser."

He took a seat at the table. Quentin was dressed in his clothes from last night but he rolled his shirtsleeves up on his forearms and he left the top few buttons undone on his shirt. Billie nearly wanted to laugh as she took in the state of his hair, as it was almost the exact style she wanted to ruffle his hair into last night when she had first laid eyes on him.

"Are you not a breakfast person?" he asked, feeling odd at the fact that she had said nothing to him and only stood there staring at him like he was some apparition that suddenly appeared in her dining area. Quentin waved his hand for her to take a seat and she sat in the chair across from him.

"This looks lovely," Billie said but she was too upset to eat. Her nerves were shot and as good as the eggs looked and probably tasted they turned to sawdust in her mouth with the first forkful.

"No good?" Quentin asked. Her sour expression must have shown.

"No everything is perfect," she said quickly fixing her coffee so she could take a sip to muscle down her food, but it immediately turned her stomach and she put her fork down unable to take another bite.

"Quentin... last night..." she began.

Quentin cringed. "Please don't. You promised," he said pushing his own food around on his plate.

"I hit a low point and..."

Quentin stood up, took both plates of food with him, and threw the food in the garbage before placing the plates in the sink. He stood there with his back to her his hands pressed against the countertop.

"Quentin, please. I need you to understand," Billie began again.

He turned to look at her. "Save it. You'll have to forgive me if I don't want to hear it. I'm not going to do this with you. I made a promise. I kept it. At least on my end, I did." Quentin walked back out into the living area rolling down his sleeves and pulling them into place with the cufflinks he pulled from his pocket.

He began to button up his shirt as he said, "You know I expected this but I really had hoped..." He let out a half laugh at his unfinished thoughts. "Stupid of me, right?" He shook his head and started walking towards her door.

"Where are you going?" Billie asked alarmed. He was just going to leave? Just like that?

Quentin paused with his hand on the doorknob.

"I can't do this, Billie. I know you want to explain away what happened last night. To reassure yourself it meant nothing to you and maybe that's true but I can't. I can't pretend that making love to you last night wasn't amazing. That it didn't mean something. That I wasn't hoping for more. I'm sorry, I just can't."

Quentin opened the door to step through but Billie grabbed his arm to stop him. He hadn't even realized she had gotten up from her chair.

"I can't let you leave like this but I don't know what to say." Billie felt so lost.

"If the obvious answer isn't the one that springs to mind, I don't think there is anything you can say."

"But I want to. I want to make this better. I want to make things right between us."

"No. What you want is to act like what happened last night never happened and I refuse to do that," Quentin walked out the door and shut it behind him.

Billie put her hand on the knob. Her mind was screaming at her to follow him but she was frozen with fear. How did she let things get this out of hand? How did she screw everything up this badly? Has she really been this wrong about him, all this time?

"Quentin!" Billie hollered throwing the door open but when she looked down the hall he was already gone. Billie slowly shut the door. Was that it then? Had she lost the war before the first fight ever happened?

Billie went to work. She put in a full 8 hours and then stayed another 2. Work was normally where she found solace from her thoughts but today none was to be found.

How could she leave things as she had with Quentin? She knew she hurt him. She wasn't expecting him to feel the way he did about her. How could he, really? They barely knew one another. Then she thought of what Carlos had said about the heart knows what it wants way before the head. Maybe it was possible that Quentin had real feelings for her but if he did, then she just screwed up. Big time.

There was a knock on her door. "You're still here?"

"Yeah," Billie said, as her father entered her office.

"Everything okay?" he asked as he walked over to her desk.

"I hardly know," Billie admitted.

"What's wrong?" He took a seat across from her.

"I screwed up. I screwed up with Quentin. I didn't mean to but I'm afraid I ruined everything," Billie said.

"I can't see how. You're both so new to one another. Misunderstandings happen more easily as you get to know someone but it seems rather early to throw in the towel, don't you think?"

Billie gave this some thought. "You know what? You're right. I can fix this. I need to fix this. I will fix this," she said standing up from her desk trying desperately to feel as confident as she tried to sound.

"That's my girl," Mr. Dupree said and Billie gave him a kiss on the cheek.

"Thanks, Dad," Billie raced from her office. She had to see Quentin she had to make this right.

***

Quentin was feeling rather low after what had happened between him and Billie. He got back into the apartment and Donavan was there.

"Dude you look like shit. What the hell happened to you?"

"Nothing," Quentin said and it was an apt description. He was in love with Billie, he made love to her last night, he wanted to help her. He wanted to make her whole again as she made him but once again he was a dismal failure.

"Does this have anything to do with the Ice Queen?" Donavan asked.

"Don't call her that!" Quentin said and Donavan held his hands up in surrender.

"Okay fine, but if she is the one making you this miserable, then maybe you're better off without her," Donavan offered.

Quentin ignored his friend's words, grabbed some clothes, showered, and dressed. He needed to talk to someone about Billie. Someone who knew her, someone who could help him fix what happened between them.

"Where are you going?" Donavan asked when Quentin reached for the door.

"Out. I have an errand to run," Quentin said.

Donavan shrugged and Quentin left to go find Carlos.

He got to the garage and only to discover that Carlos wasn't working. He knew it was an imposition but he showed up at Carlos' house and knocked on the door. Elena answered, with Isabelle on her hip.

"Quentin," Isabelle exclaimed, "You wanna play with my dolls?"

"Another time perhaps, mi hija. You go run along and play," Elena said putting Isabelle down and she immediately ran off.

"What happened?" Elena asked opening the door for Quentin.

"I need to talk to Carlos. Is he here?"

Elena nodded. "He's in the garage."

"May I?" Quentin asked and Elena nodded. "Thank you!"

Quentin made his way through their house, out the back door, and went straight to the garage. There he found Carlos hard at work restoring a 1968 Chevy Camaro.

"Carlos?"

"Quentin? What brings you to my doorstep?" Carlos said wiping some grease from his hand. "Is Billie with you?"

"No, Billie is definitely not with me. We are practically on different hemispheres. What does she want from me? I've never lied to her. She knew what she was getting into. I made a promise and I kept it, damn it. But she... she wants to explain everything away like it doesn't mean anything. I'm at my wit's end with that woman. She keeps drawing me in one minute, only to push me away the next."

Carlos' grin grew wider as he watched Quentin's torment. The man was babbling on, essentially talking to himself. Quentin paced Carlos' garage, throwing his hands up in the air or running his fingers through his hair in frustration as he spoke.

"Yeah, love's a bitch ain't it?" Carlos said as he began to put his tools away.

Quentin stopped in his tracks. "Seriously? That's all you got to say to me, that love's a bitch?"

Carlos shrugged. "What do you want me to say? Did you think it was going to be easy? I guess having the rest of your life handed to you may have given you some sense of entitlement but if you're looking to win Billie over, you're gonna have to work for it."

"I am working for it! The woman has me jumping through hoops. I give her my time, my help, my care, my concern, we made..." Quentin stopped before he finished saying made love because he was still uncertain what last night was. He knew what it meant to him but it was obvious Billie did not feel the same.

"Tell me you did not jump into bed with her?" Carlos said and when Quentin looked away, Carlos swore.

"Damn it, Suit! She's not ready for that yet. You know what kind of hell that girl's been through these last two years?"

"Not until last night. That's why when she asked me to stay..."

"What? You telling me you went to bed with her because you felt sorry for her?"

"Gah! Why did I come here? Talking to you is as bad as talking to her!"

"You came here for some insight because obviously, you're blind to your own reality. Billie is damaged. I watched her turn from a confident, self-assured woman to not knowing which way was up when she lost her mother.

Billie is used to being the one to fix everything but suddenly she was against an enemy where for the first time she can't win. She can't make her mother better. No matter the number of specialists she had flown in. No matter how much research or money she threw at the problem. There was nothing she could do. She learned the hard lesson that life is chaotic at best and there is no controlling the outcome. It shook her world.

Then you add in that a-hole she was dating who kept constantly demanding her time. Wanting her to put him first, over her mother and everything else she was going through. Whining like some impudent jerk that he wasn't getting enough attention and that Billie's turned cold.

That nickname... 'The Ice Queen' he's the one that spread that around, because he couldn't get sex from her when her whole world was falling apart. Nice, huh? Broke up with her because she couldn't give him what he needed, while she was dealing with everything else, she had on her plate.

Billie is the strongest woman I know and trust me I come from a long line of strong women. I married a strong woman but Billie... she takes things to a whole other level. Her heart was broken, her head scrambled, her life in a tailspin and she did nothing but take care of everyone else, including me, my wife, and my little Isabelle. She was there for her father and kept that company going as the man grieved for his wife.

Billie locked her pain away so she could deal with her day-to-day. But a battle like that is gonna leave scars. She's been through a war. A war she's lost. A war no one recognizes she's even been through, but she knows she has to keep moving forward or she's gonna fall apart."

Quentin thought about how he called her weak. How she so easily agreed with him because despite the woman Carlos just described, that was not how she saw herself. She didn't see a hero. She was an unsung warrior.

Quentin ran his hands over his face. He screwed up. He screwed up big time.

"Now that you got a clue, what are you going to do about it?"

"I have no idea."

Carlos grinned. "That's a good place to start."

"How is having no idea a good place to start?" Quentin asked frustrated.

Carlos smacked his shoulder. "It means you're a blank slate. So now the possibilities are endless."

"Are you always this weird?"

"Worse," Elena said bringing in two tall glasses of iced tea. "He believes he's some sort of modern-day Socrates," Elena giggled handing a glass to Quentin.

"How long were you eavesdropping, woman?" Carlos said taking the other cup from her.

"The entire time, of course. You don't think he's going to show up at our door 24 hours after he left here with Billie and I wasn't going to find out why did you?"

"Now you're in for it?" Carlos said and he did not envy Quentin one bit.

"In for what?"

"Come on. You got the philosophy now it's time for some reality," Elena said grabbing Quentin's hand she began dragging him back into her house.

She led him over to the chair he sat in the other night, grabbed the cup from his hand, and pushed him into it. The moment his butt hit the chair Elena handed him back his glass.

"So, are you going to tell me what to do about Billie?"

Elena stood hands on her hips. She glared at him.

"How can you be that stupid?" She shook her head at him. "Taking that girl to bed before she was ready."

"She was hurt, lost. She asked me to stay. What was I supposed to say? No?"

"So, you stay. You get into bed with her. You hold her all night long making her feel safe. You don't have sex with her and then get mad at her that she's a little confused in the morning!"

Quentin rubbed his fingers over his lips. He really did go about this all wrong.

"Okay, I screwed up. Fine! I get it. How do I fix it? How do I make things right between us?"

"You do nothing, of course."

"What?!"

"Men!" Elena looked annoyed that he was being so obtuse. "Billie, she is a fighter. If she doesn't fight, she doesn't win. If she doesn't have a reason to win, she doesn't have a reason to fight."

"Is this supposed to make some sort of sense to me?" Quentin asked because he really felt completely lost at this moment.

"You do nothing. If she fights for you then you know she wants you, if she doesn't, well..."

"I know it's over. I'm not what she wants."

"Exactly."

"Won't she think I don't care, if I don't try to make things better?"

"You care about her?"

"Yes."

"A lot?"

"Yes."

"More than she cares about you?"

"I don't know, I think so but I... I can't say... if what Carlos said is correct? Billie's been through a lot, so..."

"So how are you to know if she feels the same if you are always chasing after her looking for reassurances?"

Quentin took a sip of iced tea while he pondered this last question. "So, I do nothing?"

"She'll come around. You'll see."

"How can you be so sure?"

"I watched Billie very closely during the party. I've seen how she looks at you. A woman knows about these things."

"I sure hope you're right."

"She's always right," Carlos said as he entered the room and Elena laughed.

"And don't you forget it," she said.

"How can I when you're always reminding me?" Carlos told her.

Elena slapped his shoulder and laughed again.

"Would you like to stay for dinner?" Elena asked.

"I'd love to," Quentin said.

"I got a poker game going on with some friends of mine. Later on, you in?"

"Yeah sure, sounds good?" Quentin said anything to keep his mind off Billie.

Isabelle came into the room and dumped an armful of dolls onto the coffee table. She picked up the boy doll and handed it to him. Quentin laughed, figuring this was her way of asking him to play with her, only she wasn't asking she was just assuming this is why he was here.

Quentin slid off the chair and sat on the floor and the game was on.

Elena walked into the kitchen, with her husband on her heels.

"You think he has what it takes?" Elena asked Carlos.

"I think he's got potential."