Another gift for leverageland Secret Santa Exchange. Title is from 'Meet You There' by Augustana.
He looks across the bar at her, and then back to his drink. They've been avoiding each other since San Lorenzo, as if they each have some highly contagious, dangerous disease that would be fatal if the other caught it. His disease, he decides, is being kind of an asshole a lot, even if the non-logical part of his brain is telling him that most people deserve it. The voice in his head that sounds like Sophie is telling him to shut up and not order another drink.
In Nate Ford's world, there are four kinds of people: winners, losers, winners who lose a lot, and losers that win a lot. Nate is a loser that wins a lot because he's generally smarter than almost everyone in the room, and he knows how people will react when put into certain situations (a talent he honed long before he became an insurance man, walking the streets of Boston because home is no place to be when your dad is drunk and has been for a while and your mom is dead and hasn't been for very long) and also because he has the ability to not care or to consume copious amounts of alcohol if it turns out he does. Sophie is a winner who loses a lot, because it's hard to keep all your emotions in check when you're keeping the emotions of at least two very complex people in check (and these people exist inside your head with a hundred other complex characters), and you care a little too much.
And that's why he fucks up his relationship with her so often. Because he studies people, uses people, and she likes people (also because he's an asshole sometimes, and she can hold a grudge like no one would believe.)
He leaves his drink and a five on the table, picks up the book he's been staring at for half an hour in between long glances over at Sophie, and walks over to her. She seems surprised that he's made the first move, but not upset. Sophie's disease, he thinks, is that when you've got a hundred lives and people you care about in each, it gets easier to be unclear on what emotions you're feeling, what other people are feeling, and the appropriate way to deal with these emotions (also, she seems to have fallen in love with an asshole. Whoops.)
And yet, as fucked-up and apparently disease ridden as this whole relationship seems to be, it's also undeniably right. Every right relationship in Nate's life (his mother, Sam, Maggie) seems to end in death or disaster, or a little bit of both, and so he's nervous as hell as he extends a hand towards her.
"I'm Nate Ford, and I just finished reading The Catcher in the Rye," he says, setting the red paperback on the bar. There's a napkin sticking out of the book, with a single word written in artful cursive: Caulfield.
She smiles and takes his hand, "I'm Jane, and I haven't read that book in years."
"That's too bad," he answers, inclining his head at the bar stool next to her and sitting down when she nods with another smile, "it's really an excellent book. That's an interesting accent, where's it from?"
"London."
"Well, Jane from London, who hasn't read The Catcher in the Rye in years, could I buy you a drink?" he asks, and waits as she stares at him for a moment.
"Yes," she says, simply, carefully, and he smiles again (muscles in his face that haven't been used in years seem to be getting quite a workout lately) and motions Cora over.
They are fucked-up, perhaps irreversibly, and Nate is a loser (who wins a lot) and Sophie is a winner (who loses a lot). He is just as likely to drown in his own angst and scheming as he is a bottle of whisky, and she sometimes gets lost in their past just as easily as she gets lost in her identities, but they have two things going for them.
They were right, undeniably so, and they probably loved each other. Actually, Nate thought as Sophie (Jane) picked up the book and flicked through it, you could drop the probably, because he definitely loved her.