"Hey girl, you ready to go?" Lanie strolled into the bullpen and stopped at Beckett's desk as Kate signed the last of her paperwork.
"Go? Go where?" Castle was all ears.
"Girls night, Castle, nothing you'd be interested in," Beckett quipped as she grabbed her bag, but Rick looked the opposite of disinterested.
"Where are you going? Club? Bar? ...staying in?"
"As if we'd tell you, Writer Boy!" Lanie put her arm through Kate's and they sauntered off to the elevator, oblivious to Castle's frowning.
Rick looked over his shoulder to see Esposito frowning in the girls' direction almost as much as he was. He got up and trotted over to his secondary chair by Ryan's desk. "Do you know where they're going, Espo?"
The detective waited until the elevator doors closed on the two women before he directed his attention to Castle. "So long as they keep to their usual arrangements, yes."
Rick rested his chin on his fist, "Do tell."
Esposito leaned in conspiratorially. "Well... first they're going to Beckett's to pick up her stuff, then they'll go to Lanie's to get changed and do their hair, that kinda thing. And then they'll get a cab to Employee's Only, you know that bar on Hudson Street?" He leaned back in his chair, resting the back of his head in his linked hands with a self-satisfied smile.
"Oh really..." Rick smiled smugly in return. "Espo, did I just hear you say that you're in need of a wingman tonight?"
He laughed, "Sure, why not? Let me finish up this paperwork, then we can go. Need to give the girls a head start."
Rick mulled it over and came up with another suggestion, "How about you come over to the loft when you're ready, we can have a drink there before we go catch them up."
"Sure, sounds good man. See you there."
Kate and Lanie spilled out of their cab in fits of giggles, and Lanie gazed up and up till she could finally find Kate's face. "Damn girl, how do you walk in those heels? Next time, you're wearing flats."
They went straight to the bar when they went in and took two stools that had just been vacated. The bartender came over to them almost immediately, and the girls requested a Bloody Mary each. He showed off, flinging the cocktail shaker around, arm muscles flexing impressively. With a final knock of his elbow, he unlocked the shaker and poured their drinks, giving Lanie a wink as he placed the glasses in front of them. She fanned herself with her hand when he'd turned his back, and Kate laughed.
"What would Esposito say if he saw you flirting with that guy? Lanie, you're shameless!"
"What Javier doesn't know won't kill him, and if you tell him, Kate Beckett, you're a dead woman," she laughed in reply.
They were chattering over the music and hubbub of the bar for another couple of drinks when there was a slight commotion in the corner where there was a DJ set up. Some people were clapping and cheering, but the girls couldn't see over the tops of people's heads to find out what was going on. Kate turned back to face Lanie again, which gave her the perfect view of her friend's shocked face when she recognised the voice that came over the music and talking.
"You never close your eyes anymore when I kiss your lips..."
"Kate, it's Javi!"
Kate clapped her hand over her mouth as she barked a laugh, but her eyes betrayed her when another voice sang the next line.
"And there's no tenderness like before in your fingertips..."
"Oh no... Do we run?" Kate looked pleadingly at Lanie who was shaking her head.
"Too late."
The boys started to sing together, "You're trying hard not to show it, but baby, baby I know it..." And then the rest of the bar joined in for the chorus. The girls turned as bright red as their drinks though the guys hadn't even come over towards them yet, but they knew it was only a matter of time.
Sure enough, they began to slowly meander over during the second verse, the onlookers going quiet, mostly to let them continue but also a little because hardly anyone knew the words. By the time they got to the chorus, they were standing right in front of Kate, who looked like she wished the ground would swallow her up, and Lanie, who was starting to enjoy the attention a little.
As Rick began the first line of the bridge, he kneeled right in front of the women, and Espo joined him on the second line, but it was their next line that caused Kate to start to listen to the lyrics properly for the first time. "We have a love, a love, a love you don't find every day... so don't, don't, don't let it slip away..." Rick was looking at her so sincerely that she was sure she'd never seen someone look so serious while doing karaoke. This was not something he'd done on a whim. He'd thought this through, decided to test her and her wall.
More like taken an enormous sledgehammer to it.
Finally – finally – they finished, the crowd roaring with delight when Lanie hopped off the stool to give Espo a steamy kiss. But Kate was certainly not going to follow her lead, resolutely staying where she was with the most pointed eyebrow she could muster. Rick simply waggled his eyebrows in reply and the familiarity made a radiant smile come over her face, the smile that she didn't give to anyone else but him.
The smile that made him brave.
He stepped over to her and crowded her space a little, not giving her a chance to acclimatise before he took her hand in his and feathered the gentlest of kisses across her knuckles. "Can I get you a drink?"
Esposito interrupted, "I'll have a beer, man, thanks. Lanie, you want another of... whatever that is?"
"Nuh uh, it's margaritas time!"
Rick hadn't let go of Kate's hand, neither had moved at all in fact, so he chanced another, firmer, kiss to her knuckles. She closed her eyes, her mascara-heavy eyelashes fluttering at her cheeks as the sensation overwhelmed her. It was almost too much to take in.
"Whose dumbass idea was that stunt then?" Lanie's grin was a mile wide as she wrapped her arm around Esposito's waist. Kate stared him down until he gave in.
"Totally Castle's plan, nothing to do with me..." Rick's face dropped.
"Nothing?! The singing was totally your idea, dude!"
"You asked me if I wanted a wingman tonight, you were clearly trying to plant the seed in my head."
Castle shuffled on his feet and shrugged slightly. "Yeah, well... I might've watched Top Gun a couple of nights ago." He chanced a sidelong glance at Kate. Her lips were pursed together as she tried not to burst out laughing, her eyes sparkling at him. It was all he could do to not drop his glass, never mind hold it together and keep his cool. He looked at Lanie instead before he did anything stupid.
It didn't help. Her grin hadn't diminished in the slightest and now she was giving him a look that told him she knew it all. Not just Kate's girl-talk-secrets, but all the ones he was desperately trying to hide too. He buried his nose in his scotch and studied the bottom of the glass through the golden liquid.
"Drink up, Castle," Kate told him as she finished her own drink. "Since you've both crashed our girls' night, it's only fair you get to join in the next part." Lanie copied Kate and grabbed Esposito's hand.
"Dancing!" she called over her shoulder as she dragged Javi onto the dance floor. Castle watched them in a haze as the crowd swallowed them up. He turned back to Beckett who leaned back with both elbows on the bar and slowly raised a questioning eyebrow. He threw his scotch down his throat and gripped the glass hard as it burned its way down. She took the glass from him while his eyes were scrunched up, but her hands on his chest opened them, and she guided him backwards onto the dance floor.
A/N: Just a little two-shot I've been working on since I went abroad a while ago. Hope you like it so far, chapter two will be up when I've finished it!