Disclaimer: I do not own Hart of Dixie in any way, shape, or form

Domesticated

It was late, the Rammer Jammer was closed. The only lights in the place were around the bar. Wade walked out of the office with the bank bag to find Lemon sitting at the bar with a glass in front of her and a thousand yard stare on her face.

"Hey, partner," he said, walking over to her. He leaned over her glass and sniffed. "Drinkin' Jack tonight? Thought you liked those lady drinks with gin and rum and the like."

"Friend of mine is teaching me to drink fine whiskey," she said with a smile. "Consider this homework."

"Anybody we know?"

"That, Mr. Kinsella, is not part of our partnership."

"So, what have you learned so far?" Wade set down the bag, reached behind him and pulled a St. Pauli Girl from the cooler, popping it open on the edge of the bar.

"I've been told," Lemon said with a tilt of her head as she picked up her glass, "that one should not drink it, in the traditional sense, but take small sips," she did, "lean back and let it roll over your tongue as it goes down," which she did, "as if you were smoking it, not drinking it."

Wade took a pull on his beer and nodded. "Sounds right to me, although I usually avoid the hard stuff. Makes me wake up in strange places."

"M'mm," Lemon agreed, taking another small sip. They sat in silence for a minute or two.

"So," Wade said, taking another pull on his beer, "you gettin' any?"

Lemon threw her head back and practically shrieked with laughter.

"My God, Wade, no matter how much you've changed, how much you surprise me, you can still be thoroughly disgusting."

"I'll take that as a yes," Wade chuckled.

"You can take it any way you want," Lemon said with a smile as she took another dainty sip of whiskey and tilted her head back to let it roll over her tongue.

Wade straightened up and bent backwards, stretching his muscles. He grabbed the bottle of Jack Daniels from the shelf behind him, snagged another beer out of the cooler, and walked around the bar to sit next to Lemon. As he got settled on the bar stool, Lemon poured a little more whiskey into her glass.

"How'd we do tonight?" she asked.

"Good, good," Wade said. "In fact, it's been a good couple of months now, things are trending up, and I've been thinking about that."

"M'mm?"

"Course you remember our first annual Wine and Fight Night?"

"Who could forget? No wine, no fight, and a good time was had by all."

"Well," Wade took a pull on his beer, "what if we brought back the wine tastings, or poetry readings, or whatever it was you had in mind, and put them in the store room, you know, empty it out, redecorate, put in another door, that kind of thing."

"Wade, you told me that was the stupidest idea ever." Lemon looked at him like he was crazy. "And besides, certainly you remember the aftermath of Wine and Fight Night?"

Wade held up his hand as if to stop her. "All we have to do is keep you away from big hammers and we'll be fine. I didn't hit the support beam, you did."

Lemon nodded. "Fair enough, but still..."

"No, I was wrong about those ideas, they bring in people who don't ordinarily come to the Rammer Jammer, and give us wider exposure among the townsfolk."

"Townsfolk? Wade, you have lost your mind," Lemon hooted.

"No really," he said, "it's a way to keep the place busy all the time, keep us in the public eye. We can do meetin's like the Memory Matrons, the Elks Lodge, we just need the right furnishings and I figure that's right up your alley, and..." he pointed at her with his beer bottle for emphasis, "you get to spend money."

Lemon stared at him for a full minute, trying to decide if he was serious, even though he certainly appeared to be. Wade just gazed back at her serenely, sipping his beer.

"So, what do you think?" Wade finally broke the silence.

"What about the sports bar and the live music?"

"Well," Wade went on, "We have the big screen tv, but we can't expand the dance floor and bandstand just yet, I figure it'll be too much right now, but converting the storeroom is totally doable. We probably ought to increase the live music, have an open mic night, focus on local bands, pretty soon we'll have that 700-seat amphitheater with air conditioning. Have to build on, of course, but then we'll have separate areas for live music and the TV sports..."

"Whoa, hold on!" Lemon held up hands, laughing. "And I suppose you know long it will take for all this to happen?"

"I do," Wade nodded solemnly. "Two years. And by the way, that was seriously good work getting Gloriana to play here, that has put us on the music scene map. Seriously good work." He nodded for emphasis. "Considerin' I wasn't exactly focussed on the task at hand."

"Oh, you were focussed all right, just not on Gloriana. Have you called her, by the way?" Lemon's eyes never left Wade's as she took another dainty sip of whiskey and let it roll over her tongue.

Wade shook his head and took a pull on his beer.

"Why not? My God, Wade, you told her you loved her and you're just going to sit here and wait two more months for an answer? You can't just do nothing!"

"She asked for time and distance, Lemon. She provided the distance, I'm providing the time. She has to figure out what she wants, and it's not going to help matters if I keep calling up like a lovesick schoolboy. She knows how I feel, she needs to know how she feels."

They both sat in silence for a while. Wade opened his second beer. Lemon swirled the whiskey in her glass. "She might not come back."

Wade nodded. "That's a chance I have to take. I want her with me because that's where she wants to be, not because she feels obligated or she's waitin' for something better to come along. Been

there, done that. It has to be that way or not at all."

Lemon leaned on the bar and put her chin in her hand. "You know, Wade, for years I didn't understand why you and George were friends, especially back in high school. You two were so different, and there were many times I wished you weren't hanging around with your juvenile pranks and wiseguy attitude..."
"Hey, I WAS a juvenile, remember?"

"...and your smart mouth." Lemon went on, "but one of the things I have discovered over the years is that you are loyal to your friends, you do what you say will do, and you don't make a promise unless you can keep it. Another thing I have discovered, you aren't just George's friend, you're mine too."

Wade smiled that crooked little grin of his and took another pull on his beer.

"Which is why I am scared to death for you that Zoe won't come back or she won't feel the same way about you that you do about her when she does come back. Wade, you need to call her."

He just shook head. "Can't do it, wouldn't be right."

"Then I will," Lemon said as she dug in her purse for her phone.

"Lemon." Something in his tone of voice made her glance up at her partner, and when she saw the look in his eye she set her purse down without taking the phone out. They sat quietly for a while, drinking.

"Speaking of George," Wade began after a while with a twinkle in his eye.

"We were not speaking of George," Lemon said with a smile.

"Well, have you heard from ol' Tucker lately?"

"I have heard him, but I have not heard from him," Lemon said.

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, I forgot, you don't listen to the radio that much. George wrote this song right here in the Rammer Jammer with Lily Anne, 'Call Yourself a Doctor', they're playing it on the radio a lot these days."

"You're kiddin'."

"No, really, I read an article about them in one of the weeklies, they've got themselves a record deal. In fact," Lemon started to giggle, "I heard another one of their songs, although it's just Lily Anne, or at least I'm pretty sure it is, and, well, you just wouldn't believe it." Lemon started to laugh outright.

Wade grinned and took another pull on his beer. "So spill it."

"Well, I didn't find it, Annabeth did, there's this website called 'off the charts dot net' where people can upload songs, it's pretty anonymous really, and, well, some of the songs are just scandalous, you know, x-rated stuff or parodies or whatever..."

"Get to the point, Lemon."

"Well, as I said Annabeth found this song, and there's no artist listed, but we both are sure it's Lily Anne's voice, and I simply can't repeat the words, or all of them anyway, they are just too vulgar, so I'll just use the word 'bleep' and you can fill in the rest." Lemon sat up at little straighter and cleared her throat, then in a tentative soprano she began:

Why don't you bleep me when I ask you to?

I'm only asking 'cause my heart is blue

Why don't you do for me what I'd do for you?

Why don't you bleep me when I ask you to?

Wade started laughing. "What do they call that? 'Chucklehead's Lament?"

Lemon started laughing along. "No, the title is the first line, but of course it's the other word, 'cause it's the 'net and all, they can say that."

"Holy bleep, Lemon!" Wade said as he started to wipe his eyes.

"And, and..." Lemon could hardly speak through the laughing, "The best part is, it's about George."

"Wait a minute, how do you know that? It's just a song."

"I can't explain it really, I can just see in my mind's eye George and Lily Anne on the road, and Lily Anne getting a little itchy and wanting George to scratch it and him saying he couldn't possibly. Besides, George can only sing when he's drunk, and then he can't do much else." With that, Lemon raised her eyebrows and cocked her head as if to say that was that and no more needed to be said.

"You don't seem to have much faith in Georgie-boy."

"Oh, I do, actually, it's just that George is George. His first instinct is to be a gentleman."

"Unlike yours truly."

"Wade Kinsella," Lemon spoke sharply, fire in her eyes, "I simply will not tolerate that kind of talk. You may have bedded half the female population of this county, but you have never disguised your intentions, and any girl that entered into relations with you knew exactly what she was getting. I cannot think of a more honest man than you when it comes to the opposite sex. Not everyone is prepared for that kind of honesty."

Wade bowed his head. "I consider myself reprimanded."

Lemon frowned slightly as she inhaled another drop of Jack Daniels. "Reprimanded? Townsfolk? Where are these words coming from, Wade?"

"My head, Lemon," Wade growled. "You're not the only one that knows big words."

"And speaking of honesty," Lemon went on, "How come you never hit on me?"

Wade threw his head back and laughed. "You mean, besides the fact that you've been George's girl since you were fourteen?"

"Yes, besides that."

"Well, you know, that's not strictly true, Lemon. Remember that time in tenth grade?"

"No, I was in ninth grade, you were in tenth, and that didn't count because George never bought it. Thank you for trying to make him jealous, though."

"Nothin' to it, really. I wanted to help you out, I kinda felt bad 'cause of your mama. I thought maybe I knew a little bit how you felt, and, well," Wade began to grin, "I kind of wanted to rattle George's cage little."

"Are you going to answer my question?"

"And what question was that?"

"Dammit, Wade!"

"Look, I don't want to get into this, no good can come of it."

Lemon began to drum her fingers on the bar and staring at Wade with a look of impatience. "Remember when you were nine...?"

"All right," Wade held up both hands in surrender. "First of all, I want to make one thing perfectly clear, I have no interest at all in hurting your feelings, and if I say something that does hurt your feelings, I'm sorry." Lemon nodded. "It's not that I don't find you attractive, I do, but in a kind of abstract way. I know you're pretty," Lemon smiled demurely, " but you just don't rev my engine. I mean, truth be told, back in the day I liked my girls a little sluttier. Certainly a lot sluttier than you could ever be. Plus, your dad was the town doctor, my dad was the town drunk, except for George we didn't move in the same circle at all."

"I was out of your league," Lemon said, nodding, without a hint of sarcasm or superiority, just a statement of fact. Wade nodded.

"So you got your lack of physical attraction, your bossiness, you had a boyfriend..."

"You're still doing that, you know," Lemon said.

"...your temperament, your ability to scare the livin' crap out of people..."

"You're still doing it, Wade." Lemon leaned forward and stared into his eyes.

"Doing what?"

"Putting people out of your league. That's been your biggest problem with Zoe, you've got her up on some sort of pedestal, and you think she's too good for you, or you're not good enough for her, or something, but you know that's not true."

Wade nodded slowly as he drained his second beer. "Yeah, I did, but not anymore. I don't have to be my dad, and I don't have to screw everything up. Heck, look at this place." He waved his arm around. "We're doin' it, Lemon. We, and I emphasize we, are makin' a go of it, and everyone in town thought we'd crash and burn. We're makin' it because we're a team, you and I, and that's what I want with Zoe. To be her partner, not in business but in life. Never wanted that before, but now I have a roadmap. If she comes back and wants to make a go of it, I'm ready."

"What if she doesn't?"

Wade stood up and smirked. "Then I've still got you and a sports bar that does poetry readin's with live music."

Lemon stood up too and drained her glass. "I have one thing to say to you, Mr. Kinsella."

"Just one?" Wade said as he reached over the bar to grab the bank bag.

"Zoe Hart would have to be a fool not to partner up with you." She picked up her purse. "See you tomorrow, Donkey Kong."

Wade chuckled at the ancient nickname. "See you tomorrow, Lemon Pie."

The next afternoon, Lemon and Annabeth were at the Rammer Jammer with the interior decorater going over fabric swatches when Wade walked by. Lemon held up a bright yellow swatch with a floral pattern on it. She nudged Annabeth.

"What do you think of this, Wade?"

Instead of blowing her off, as Lemon expected, Wade walked over and began fingering the fabric. "Well, it's gotta be durable and stain resistant, we can't re-do that room every year. It's pretty, but don't you think it's a little busy for a meetin' room, it's more like what you would find in your OH MY GOD I DID NOT JUST SAY THAT!"

Wade dropped the swatch like it was a snake and hustled off into the kitchen. Lemon and Annabeth watched him go, stunned. Finally, Annabeth broke the silence.

"Two very weird things just happened. First, Wade was talking about fabrics, and second, he just may be right."

Lemon shook her head. "Correction, three things. We now have scientific evidence that Wade Kinsella has been domesticated."