Hey all - I've been reading this site for years, but this is my first attempt at a fanfic. It's mostly Spashley, with a few other characters you may or may not recognize thrown in here and there.
Feedback welcome!!
Disclaimer: I own nothing!
Spencer Carlin sighed at the blinking screen in front of her, took her black frames off, and rubbed her eyes. It was late. She had planned on meeting Bess at the bar a half hour ago, but the Hopkins account just refused to be put to bed. Most days, Spencer would have welcomed the challenge, but it had been a long week, and right now all the blonde wanted was red wine and a night out with her best friend.
Bess had just started dating the boy they'd affectionately dubbed "elevator crush" - he worked a few floors below her at the Chronicle office, and they'd been eyeing each other for months until one morning a few weeks ago, he'd hopped on the elevator with coffee for two and an invitation to dinner. Bess was used to receiving attention from men, but was so caught of guard by Jack's ("yep, like Captain Sparrow!", he'd joked with an unabashed smile) foresight (he waited for her in the lobby, and had somehow managed to bring her coffee just the way she liked it - with a sprinkle of cinnamon!) that she'd had no choice but to say yes. One date had led to four more, and suddenly, over a span of three weeks, Spencer found her best friend in a constant daze of googley-eyed puppy love. She'd been looking forward to tonight, though - Jack was taking Bess to Napa for the weekend, and she wanted to hear all the juicy details on her friend's newly invigorated sex life before the brunette disappeared into a vino-induced oblivion.
Spencer laughed to herself as she remembered Bess's story about last weekend - she and Jack had done the Alcatraz tour with all the tourists, and somehow managed to slip into an empty cell for a quickie. There were a lot of ways in which she and Bess were very very different, and sex in public was one of them. Actually, Spencer amended her thoughts, that wasn't quite true. There was that time on a ferris wheel, and god knows in college, she'd done it in the library stacks more than once. And under the main campus statue, and ...maybe she was more like Bess than she liked to admit.. oh screw it, Spencer interrupted her thoughts; there was no way she was going to get any more work done. It was Friday night, and her best friend in the whole world was waiting down the street with a giant pitcher of sangria.
She quickly saved the file she'd been working in, and closed her laptop. Reaching up, she let out the haphazard bun she'd tied up earlier, and shook out her long blonde hair. Quickly, she checked her makeup - minimal, but effective. the violet eye shadow she'd lightly applied that morning was still evident, and made her blue eyes shine just enough to hide the fact that she was exhausted. luckily, the weather had been perfect last weekend, and she had been outside long enough to retain a soft tan that just hinted at the end of summer. not bad for a Friday night on what had perhaps been her busiest week yet.
As Spencer stepped into the elevator, she smiled at the empty office she left behind. she was often the first one in and the last to leave, and it was exhausting, but her hard work was part of what made the firm so successful. After three years with the boutique architecture firm, she'd already made Junior Partner, and rumors were she'd be moving up again soon. She was a confident and hard worker, with a streak of creativity that surprised even her sometimes, and the senior architects at McCauley & Johnson had quickly recognized her potential. Her friends at the firm affectionately referred to her as "Super Spencer," and though she was humble enough to be baffled by it, it did please her that she was able to be both successful and well liked by her peers. It helped that Spencer was blissfully unaware of her own charisma - she was beautiful, whip smart, and exuded enthusiasm and confidence, and yet there was something innocent about her that made it impossible to see her as anything but an honest and loyal employee. She was a huge asset to the firm, and Bess loved to make her blush by threatening to march right up to Mr. McCauley and Mrs. Johnson and demand another promotion for her.
Bess - the consummate flirt and outspoken best friend - had a flair for the dramatic, but Spencer loved her all the more for it. They'd been freshman year roommates in college, and had initially clashed. Some time in the middle of the year, though, something had just clicked - maybe it was the way Spencer dragged Bess to every campus event, or the time that they'd gone out and danced until 6 am with the skinny boys in the international dorm - and they'd been inseparable since. Bess had been with her every year on the anniversary of Clay's death, and Spencer had supported Bess through Mama Sykes' bout with cancer. And they'd been there for each other through the breakups - every single loud, messy, cd-throwing, clothes-in-trash-bags slinging, endless-crying and ice-cream-indulging breakup. When lousy frat boy Sean had cheated on Bess after a year and a half with a girl from the cheerleading squad, Spencer was there with a copy of Love Actually and a pint of Bi-Rite's salted caramel. When Spencer had broken up with Dani the summer before senior year and ran home to seek solace at her parents', Arthur and Paula had called Bess to get her out of the funk. Three Nicholas Sparks' movies and a shopping spree in Pac Heights later, Bess had finally convinced Spencer to listen to her parents when they told her she deserved far better than "that scrawny grad student with unsightly tattoos." As her mother (the "stern but sexy Mama Carlin", as Bess liked to joke) put it, "she wasn't even that cute!" The two girls had been through everything together, and after eight years, they were more like sisters than best friends.
"It's about time!" Bess exclaimed as Spencer slid into the seat next to her. She was already on her second glass, but she hadn't really minded the wait, "That cutie by the bar's been eye f***ing me for the past twenty minutes; why do I always attract the good ones when im taken?"
Spencer grinned as she poured herself a glass of sangria, "I'll take him off your hands, if you like." She accentuated her point by fishing out a wine-soaked chuck of apple, popping it in her mouth, and suggestively licking the wine that trickled down her fingers.
Bess laughed heartily, and wiggled her eyebrows in response. "Mmmm hmm. And what exactly would you do with him?"
The blonde was quick to respond - "Keep him warm for you, obviously!"
"Why thank you. And how?", this should be a good one.
Spencer smiled demurely, "Seat warmers, duh."
With that, the women collapsed into a fit of giggles.