“It’s called dessert. It’s what people do when they’re sorry. They bring people treats.”

“Why are you sorry?”

“You know why.”

“Say I don’t.”

Cristina sighed. “I’m sorry I got mad when you wouldn’t have sex with me again.”

Dustin raised a brow in tune to the juvenile catcalls from the guys.

“I am sorry, all right?” Cristina ignored everyone else. “Jesus! Would you just eat a damn cupcake?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh my God.” Cristina sighed again, looking at the others, all of whom got real busy with their cupcakes. “Look, I really needed to get laid, okay? It’d been too long and you might have noticed that I was a little on edge.”

“Was?”

She rolled her eyes.

“Maybe you’re on edge for other reasons,” Dustin said. “Ever think of that?”

“No.” She waggled the cupcake in front of his nose. “Are you going to take this or not?”

Dustin took it, then licked the frosting while studying Cristina thoughtfully.

The room was unusually quiet now. Brooke was especially so, mostly because she really felt for Dustin. He’d put himself out there and was now hurting.

She knew the feeling.

“I’m sorry, too,” Dustin said, mouth full of frosting.

Cristina went still. “For?”

“For not having more meaningless sex with you.”

Sam let out a choked laugh and, without taking her eyes off Dustin, Cristina pointed at him.

Sam shut up.

“Does that mean you want to?” Cristina asked Dustin. “Have more meaningless sex?”

“No.”

Cristina looked deeply disappointed, but tried to hide it. “Okay.”

“I’ll have meaningless sex with you,” Eddie said. When Cristina rounded on him, Aidan helpfully stuffed a cupcake into Eddie’s mouth to keep him quiet.

“Or you could try it my way,” Dustin suggested to Cristina.

Cristina turned back to Dustin and blinked.

Dustin didn’t.

Zach sighed, and with some struggle, stood up, gesturing the others to follow him, clearly not wanting to stay and witness the bloodshed.

This time, Cristina pointed at Zach. “Don’t move. Did you put him up to this?”

“Give me some credit,” Dustin answered for him. “I’ve had it bad for you since day one. There’s no way you haven’t noticed.”

“Whoa.” Cristina staggered back a step and collided with a wall. “What? What the hell did you just say?”

“I gave you an offer for sex,” Dustin said calmly. “As I believe you were lamenting about your continued lack of.”

“After that,” she whispered.

“I said give me some credit. Of course Zach didn’t put me up to this.”

“No, after that.” She swallowed hard. “What the hell did you say after that?”

“The part where I said I’ve wanted you since day one?”

“Yeah. Hang on.” And she sat, right there on the floor. “That.”

With a sigh, Dustin got up and crouched in front of her. “It’s not a death sentence, Cristina.”

“Ohmigod.”