I own no one but my own people
A/N So this my Love from OQ gifts for LPsDiamond1 on twitter. I really really hope you like them and I didn't disappoint you and I hope you have an incredibly happy Valentines Day *thousands of heart emojis*
God Regina Mills hated Valentines Day.
She also hated blind dates. So it would definitely stand to reason that she loathed with all of her being blind dates on Valentine's Day.
So why the hell had she let her mother talk her into doing just that?
It wasn't so much that with the exception of a few short lived relationships that didn't go anywhere after the third date so she had, in essence, been single since the day her fiancée Daniel was killed in a fire.
Her Valentine's Day usually consisted of the finest box of chocolate a twelve year old boy with a $10 a week allowance could buy and a heart shaped deep dish pizza from Giordano's, a safe simple day that celebrated the love she and her son Henry shared.
This year though her Valentines Day was being celebrated by dressing in a little lace black dress that expertly highlighted the curves Regina wanted to showoff while it hid the ones she didn't thanks to her co-worker and waiting for the man Cora told Regina would be perfect for her.
Keith Nottingham worked in the same firm that Regina's father worked at. He was a young lawyer like Regina but where as her concentration was criminal law and she choose to work for the City of Chicago to put away its most dangerous gang members, Nottingham defended the richest patrons of the Windy City accused of bank fraud, embezzlement, scams and other white collar crimes so, suffice to say, the two paths had never actually crossed in the courtroom.
Cora told her daughter that Nottingham was powerful and one of the wealthiest men in Chicago, two of the most important aspects in a man according to her mother, and she had described him as an 'old fashioned kind of guy.' Rather that meant he held opened doors for her and footed the dinner bill or believed that because had something dangling between his legs that made him superior to the gentler sex Regina wasn't sure although, judging by her mother's standards in what constituted the perfect man, she unfortunately believed it was the latter.
However; seeing as it was going on 8:15 and they had agreed to drinks and dinner at 8:00, she guessed puntuallity wasn't one of his strong suits. But Regina promised Cora she would give this man a chance so she sat at the bar in one of the better restaurants on the north side of the city, her stomach grumbling rather unattractively and her mouth watering at the smell of the delicacy's wafting over from the dining area.
She didn't care how powerful or wealthy this Nottingham was, if he didn't get here soon Regina was going to ask if there was a chair for one open, eat some of the best sword fish the city had to offer and forget this whole wretched evening.
Just as she pulled out her phone to see if Keith had contacted her to let her know he was going to be late, he hadn't, or Henry texted or called her, half hoping he would so she had an excuse to leave when she felt a presence standing behind her.
"Zelena?" a rather elegant British accent asked rather hopefully.
Regina turned towards the voice not quite paying attention to the man and still glancing down at her phone. "Unfortunately not," she answered. She finally looked up from her phone and was almost taken back at the man standing in front of her.
He was handsome. Quite handsome as a matter of fact with dark blonde hair falling oh-so perfectly in his face and the bluest pair of eyes she ever had the pleasure of seeing, even more bluer than Daniels had been, and a perfectly trimmed five a clock shadow. She could tell the suit he was wearing was something out of a higher end department store, it fit but wasn't a tailored fit yet somehow still highlighted the athletic body beneath it.
"Damn," the man sighed as he took the empty seat beside her at the bar. "That would have been a nice surprise on an otherwise wretched day,"
Regina laughed into her apple martini while the British man signaled the bartender over and put in an order for some dark stout that Regina had never heard of before.
The brunette glanced at her phone again, seeing the minutes slowly tick further and further away from the time she and Nottingham were supposed to meet. Well, she thought as she turned towards the blue eyed stranger, no harm in passing the time...
"Sounds like you're having about as good a Vanlentines Day as I am," she offered with a sympathetic smile. "Blind date?" she guessed.
The man nodded. "Mmm. My friend John set me up with some woman who lives in the building he works out of. Apparently he thinks British, attractive and full of 'sass' is all I'm interested in because that's all he told he about her."
"And yet here you are."
"Only because I owe him for a game of pool. It was either this or pay him $50."
"...You realize you're gonna spend up to at least $70 here right? You were better off just paying him."
"Yes but what I failed to mention is John only won by default so I'd rather my money go towards buying me dinner then his cheating arse."
Regina chuckled, finally putting her phone back in her purse and giving the British man her full attention. She stuck out her hand and the man promptly took it, surprising her with how hard and calloused his palm was. Definitely not a white collar worker then…
"Regina Mills. My mother refused to get off my back unless I agreed to her demands to meet this guy."
"Robin Locksley. My best mate is a cheat at pub games."
Her red painted lips tugged upwards once more as he eyes drifted towards the clock on the wall above a Grey Goose beer sign. Nottingham was now twenty minutes late and hadn't given her so much as a courtesy text to let her know if he was backing out or just late. Robins eyes followed her and he grimaced for her sake.
"Your date is late?" he guessed, his suspicion confirmed when she nodded. "He bother calling?"
"Not even a 'sorry I'm late' text."
Robin winced at the rudeness on her behalf. "I'm sorry, Regina."
"It's fine." Regina grabbed the wedge of apple from the rim of her glass and took a small bite of the bitter-sweet fruit. "Considering what my mother considers to be a 'suitable match' I almost guarantee I lucked out."
It was Robins turn to laugh now and he took a quick swig of his drink as he did. "Sounds like you're terribly disappointed that he didn't show."
"Oh I'm absolutely heartbroken," she said with a short snicker, finishing the rest of her apple wedge. "I don't know how I'll survive the night. But I take partial blame, I should know better then to listen to my mother by now. I should have just stayed home and ate pizza with my son."
"You have a son?" Robin inquired, surprising Regina with the tone he used. He asked her with a tone that didn't make him want to get up and run like most men who found out she was a single parent but he was merely curious, he simply making conversation with her.
Which was why Regina has no problems pulling out her phone and flipping through the photos until she reached the most recent photo of her and Henry.
He was grinning as wide as he could as he held up a blue first place ribbon and Regina was standing beside him looking as proud as a mother could possibly be.
"He won a writing contest his school put on," she explained as she handed Robin her phone. "He actually wrote a story telling why the Evil Queen hated Snow White so much. Turns out she was responsible for killing the Queens first love."
"You know I never bought that a woman could be THAT jealous that she would try to kill her stepdaughter, I knew there had to be a deeper reason," he said as he looked down at the photo. "He has your… chin," he offered, earning a lighthearted chuckle from the woman sitting beside her.
"I know, I know he doesn't really look like me. Henry definitely takes after his dads side of the family."
Robin nodded as he handed the phone back to Regina and got out his own in return. "Me and my boy are in the same boat," he said, graciously refraining from asking her what happened to Daniel. He clicked his phone a few times, scrolling through until he got to the photo he wanted to show her and handed her his phone.
Regina's face lit up as she gazed at the photo of what might be one of the most adorable four year old she had ever seen sitting high atop his father's shoulders with a head full of dark curls, bright brown eyes and dimples that were so deep they would have stood out even without him smiling.
"He's precious."
"He's lucky that he favors his mother I'd say," he said with a smile. "Roland has my dimples and my smile but everything else of his belongs to my Marian, God rest her soul."
"I'm sorry," she offered as she handed him back the phone.
"Thank you," he told her as he put the phone back in his pocket. "Two years last September," he explained with that same melancholy in his voice that always seemed to over take him when he spoke about his first wife. "As pathetic as it is this would have only been my third date since I lost her."
"I don't think that's pathetic at all," she admitted, knowing from personal experience just how hard it was to get back into the game after the loss of a loved one. "When I lost Daniel, Henry's father, before my son was born, it took me three years before I could even think about being with someone else. So trust me, I know how hard it can be to get over that guilt you have when you even think about being with someone else."
Robin nodded in agreement, knowing all too well that feeling she was describing, that guilt that ate away at you for even looking at another woman, that shame you felt when you considered just browsing for dating apps on your phone, the feeling that every moment you considered moving on your love was looking down at you in disappointment…
It took Robin a whole year to make that first step, to actually work up then courage to ask a woman at the pub for her number. He took her out for Deep Dish pizza and beer, a casual low-key date with no expectations but the way she walked, the way she talked, the way she laughed, even the way she breathed Robin found himself comparing her to his Marian.
Deciding that wasn't fair to the woman, nor to Marian's memory, he ended the date with a friendly kiss on the cheek and an apology that this probably wasn't going to work out.
Several months later he took out a woman he met at the gym which went fairly well. She was kind, generous, brown hair, brown eyes with just the perfect amount of curves. They went out three times, he even got to make out with her on her couch on the third date, but when she found out he had a child she told him she didn't think she could be a mother and that was the end of that short lived relationship.
Then his friend John told him of this woman who lived in the building where he worked and he thought she would be perfect for Robin, this woman named Zelena West who also grew up in London and he had agreed to go, with Robin grumbling and muttering how pathetic blind dates were all the while.
However, Robin thought as he mirrored Regina when she lifted her glass, he was starting to think that there may have been something to this whole blind dating situation, even if it was with the person he wasn't supposed to be with.
"To Marian and Daniel," she toasted to their two lost loves who had given them both the best gifts anyone could ask for.
"To Daniel and Marian," Robin replied in kind, lightly clinking his glass against hers.
Once the two of them had drank to their memories, Robin licked the dark ale from his lips if nothing more then to give him time to work up the nerve to utter his next sentence.
"Forgive me for being forward, Regina, but I find it hard to believe someone as stunning as you would have so much trouble finding a date that you need to take your mother up on her recommendations, especially when she recommends men who don't appear to posess a watch."
Her lips turned upwards in a fun and, dare he hope, flirty smile as she drank the last few remaining swallows of her martini and signaling the bartender over for another one.
"I wish it was more exciting then this but I work quite a bit and between preparing for court, arguing my cases, doing paperwork and being a single mom; there's not a lot of time left over for my love life."
"Oh so you're a lawyer?" he asked, being answered with a nod of her head.
"Gang unit," she explained. "That's another reason I don't really date, most people I interact with are lawyers, cops or perps and I really don't want to dive into that dating pool with just those options.".
Robin nodded slowly. "Makes sense. Most cops are racist, biased, dirty brutes who don't know how to treat a woman."
"I completely agree. So you know what I do, I think it's only fair to ask you what you do for a living?"
"I'm a cop."
Regina laughed, bringing the new drink the bartender brought over to her lips when she noticed Robin wasn't joining in on her amusement for what she thought was a joke.
"...You're serious?"
A playful smile made its way to Robins lips as he reached into his breast pocket and pulled out that infamous star shield all Chicago cops earned after their completance in the academy.
"I'm a detective actually," he explained, biting back a laugh at the scarlet blush that creeped up her neck as she put his badge back in his pocket. "So technically I'm not in that particular dating pool, I'm actually a step above it."
Regina tried to shake away the lingering embarrassment from her admittedly rather ill-timed comment and choose to just focus on the fact Robin seemed amused at her blunder rather than offenended.
"Well being a detective makes all the difference," she offered, being thankfully met with Robins light hearted laugh.
"Yes I suppose it does. Afterall with there being such a huge difference between cops and detectives..."
"Oh they're worlds apart."
"Exactly." She chuckled softly, grateful that her bias hadn't cut their date? Meeting? Conversation while they waited for their respected meetups? Whatever you would call this lucky twist of events, short. "What unit are you out of?"
"White Collar Crimes," Robin answered. When Regina responded with wide eyes and a dropped jaw Robin asked her what was wrong.
"Nothing," she responded. "Nothing, it's- well it's actually quite funny. The guy I'm supposed to be meeting? He's one of the most famous defense attorneys for white collar criminals in the city."
"Oh is he? What's his name."
"Keith Nottingham."
Robin didn't blink. "I see," he said, raising his glass to his lips. "Well… far be it from me to insult a sickly man."
"What's wrong with him?"
"He has an unfortunate case of his head being stuck firmly up his arse."
Regina had picked the most importune moment to take a drink because she nearly choked with laughter on the sweet drink. Robin grinned at the beautiful sound and leaned forward, wiping a stray tear from her eye.
"You know what?"
A sly smile broke out on her lips as she leaned in as well, nearly falling off the red leather seat at the bar so that she might be as close to Robin as possible.
"What?" she asked, daring to reach out and run a delicate finger over his outter thigh, watching as he bit his lips and his blue eyes traveled down to what the top of her dress exposed.
"I'm rather grateful that Nottingham didn't show up."
"So am-."
"Would you mind moving your bloody purse?"
Without giving Regina a moment to even register what this new arrival was asking her purse was plopped uncerimonesly on the wooden bar and would have knocked over her drink had Robin not been quick enough to catch it.
"People need to actually sit here," the woman who had joined them said in a rather posh accent that mirrored Robins.
She was good looking, very good looking, with wild red curls and light green almost grey eyes with a body that was made for sin covered by a forest green silk dress that left very little to the imagination.
"You could have asked nicely," Regina scolded her, earning a scoff in reply.
"Or you could use your head and realize people would want to sit at the bar on Valentine's Day."
The red headed woman snapped her fingers at the bartender, not even giving him a moment to respond before she was barking an order to make her a green apple martini.
Regina happened to catch the name on the license that the red head handed over to the bartender, a way to ensure she paid her fare. The brunette leaned in close to Robins ear, enjoying the way he shifted when her hot breath hit his ear.
"Meet Zelena West," she whispered to him, snickering when he groaned into his hands.
"I'm gonna kill John," he muttered before taking a large drink of his ale.
Before Regina could reply however Zelena was talking again.
"God blind dates are idiotic," she sighed outloud to no one, not even bothering with a nod of thanks to the bartender. "I didn't even want to come but my stupid handyman promised to rig it so the water pressure in my shower was higher if I did."
"Did your handyman tell you about this person at least?" asked Regina, playing along and having to bite back a playful grin all the while.
"Just that he was good looking, a cop, born in London and his name was Robin Locksley. What kind of a stupid name is that anyway?" she muttered into her drink. "Sounds like something from Game of Thrones."
"I don't know." Regina turned to look at the man sitting beside her who merely raised a brow at the insult Zelena gave. "I like the name Robin. It's a classy proper British sort of name." She bit her lip again as her finger traveled up and down his suit covered thigh once more. "It's kind of a sexy name, I think. Good for calling out in bed and what not…"
Regina smirked at the blue eyed man sitting beside her before she turned back to Zelena.
"I think it's rather horrid if you ask me," she sighed. Out of the corner of Reginas eye she saw Robin pull out his phone and began typing furiously fast. "Also the only reason someone becomes a cop is because they're too dumb to do anything else. God, this whole date is going to be a disaster…"
Before she could further complain however there was a tiny ping coming from her purse, a text alert judging by the way she reached into her bag and stared at the phone.
It was almost comical the way her face changed from complete disinterest to shock to anger back to shock and finally settled on anger as it's final expression.
"The stupid bloody prat!" She shouted at her phone before she began typing at a tremendous pace.
"Something the matter?" asked Regina, hearing the mutliple tiny pings coming from Robins phone and seeing messages from 'blind date' popping up on his screen as quick as she could blink.
"Bloody wanker texted me that he met someone on the way to the date!" Zelena yelled at Regina who failed at keeping the amusement from shining through but thankfully the red head was too distracted to notice the look of the woman next to her or the perfectly timed text alerts coming from the phone just one person down. "This whole night is ruined!"
Without another word to each other Zelena got off of the seat and stormed out of the restaurant, angry little texts still being delivered to the bright eyed man who just blocked her number rather than read them.
"I'm starting to see why your friend let you take a woman out on a date rather then have you pay up," Regina said with a laugh once the door had slammed behind the red head.
"I'm starting to see why too. Although, despite his best efforts, I definitely feel like I came out on top. As 'charming' as my date appeared to be, she's not…"
"A halfway decent human being?"
"That too but I was going to say she isn't like you. She isn't… stunning," he finally decided. "In every way."
Regina bit her lip as she looked over the man she wasn't even supposed to meet. "You wanna hear something funny? I actually feel the same way."
Robin smiled at her, taking a long drink from his stout before he spoke. "So… here we sit, two people who for all intents and purposes only met up because their night went awry and their loved ones set them up with people who deserve neither their time nor their attention."
"Mmm. And what could these two people whose Valentine's Day have gone horribly, horribly wrong do for the rest of their evening?"
Another smile from the man sitting beside her as he reached out and took hold of her hand, running his thumb over the back of her hand.
"I have a few ideas," he said rather brazenly with a bold and flirty look in his eye that made Regina bite her lip and picture what the scuff on his face would feel like when he was kissing her on the lips, the crook of the neck, behind the ear, less proper places… "But how about we start with dinner?"
This time it was Reginas turn to grin and make some of the color of the man's cheeks stand out as she crossed that invisible threshold between the chairs with her foot and ran it against his.
"I think I'd like that," she told him with a sly grin. Robin responded in kind by offering her a hand and leading her over to the matredee, informing the host that Locksley, party of 2 was now ready to eat.
"So," she said when they were seated at a small intimate table, raising a glass of wine. "Here's to blind dates not showing up."
Robin lifted his glass as well and lightly clinked it against hers. "And to them being absolutely horrid."
After a remarkably lovely dinner of roast pheasant and grilled swordfish followed by a shared piece of cherry chocolate cheesecake, Robin and Regina stood outside her car, neither one of them wanting the other to go just yet.
"This was the best date I've had in a very long time, Robin admitted to Regina who gave him a shy but flirty smile, her heart pounding as he took a half step nearer to her.
"Me too," Regina said, her eyes falling on his lips with hopes that he would use them soon. "This has been an incredible night, Robin. I don't think I've ever been happy that a date bailed on me."
"Not as happy as I am that John cheats at pool."
She chuckled softly, draping her arms around his neck while his found her waist and pulled her in so that she could smell his cologne, a pleasant comforting scent of pine and rain water and earth.
Forest, she realized as she inhaled his scent. He smelled like forest.
"So was this a one time 'neither of us have anything else to do for Valentines Day' date," Robin asked her, his voice that of a soft whisper so he had to lean in close to her ear, a sly grin on his face when she shuddered at the pleasant sensation of his breath on her ear. "Or can I see you again, Regina?"
She clicked her tongue, trying her best to feign indifference to the man in front of her. "Well I don't know, I may wanna try getting ahold of Nottingham again."
"Oh you do, do you?"
"Mmm. He is a lawyer afterall, I'm a lawyer, it just makes sense."
"It does," Robin breathed, nuzzling her neck.
"And as you said," she said with a soft moan as his hands wondered down to her hips. "Cops are all horrible, biased, unfair people."
"We're completely wretched…"
"So we really… really shouldn't…"
"We shouldn't what?" he whispered, his lips so close to her she could practically taste him.
"I have no idea," she muttered before she grabbed him by the lapels of his coat and kissed him good, and long and hard.
Then afterwards, when she was driving home with his number safely stored in his phone and a promise and intention to call him the next day, she could only think of one thing;
God Regina Mills loved Valentines Day.
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