Dear Kaz: A.) thank you for the review. B.) I KNOW! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON WITH BONES THIS SEASON? I'm so frustrated at B and B. UGH.
Anyway.
Chapter 2
After procuring more calories than were healthy for any less than four people, Castle figured their dinner needed good wine to class it up, so they ended up back at Chez Castle. They feasted on macaroni and cheese, chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and he was in remarkably good spirits; at one point he made her laugh so hard that Alexis, who'd been studying with headphones on, came downstairs to see what was going on.
An hour, a bowl of macaroni, and several uncontrollable laughing fits later, Alexis headed back up (it was late and a schoolnight), requesting that they please try to keep it down, since some people had to sleep well enough to remember L'Hopital's Rule in the morning, thank you very much Dad.
With Alexis gone to bed, Castle refilled their wine glasses and they relocated from the kitchen to the couch. He settled at the other end, watching Beckett slowly trace the rim of her glass with one finger. Glancing up, she noticed him watching her. "What?" she smiled a little self-consciously.
"Nothing." He took a sip of wine, lingering over his glass. It had suddenly struck him, watching her, how well she fit here. Not just the couch, but his home. His world. She could charm his mother, tease him, and send his studious, careful daughter into hysterical giggles. Gina was a people person – it was her job, after all – but oddly enough, Beckett, with no experience in PR, no studies in communications, no lavish gifts and no standing pedicure appointments, who had, without really trying, become a permanent fixture of the Castlehaus.
It occurred to him, watching her sip wine pensively, that maybe she belonged here more than…someone else…ever had. Too much wine, Rick. Now it's getting dangerous.
By the time Beckett was starting to look tired, Castle had come to the conclusion that this wasn't about comfort, the way Beckett had probably intended it. He didn't regret breaking up with Gina. Gina was a good person, and he liked her, but she was most easily appreciated from afar. Like an illusion. The closer you got, the more you understood it from the inside out, the less dazzling it became. He was enjoying himself right now. And oddly, he felt a deep sense of calm.
Gina had handled it gracefully, too. She was an adult, had protested some but in the end, gently agreed and wished him well. No bitterness. He was thankful for it.
Castle offered Beckett his spare bedroom for the night, but she gracefully declined. So he held her coat up for her to slide her arms into.
"Such a gentleman, Castle. Color me impressed."
"I have my moments."
She turned back to face him, tying her belt, a smile playing around her lips. Maybe it was the wine, or maybe it was just his imagination, but she had seemed unsually playful this evening. Beckett was always fun, but tonight she had been lively. Winsome. Even a little flirtatious –
It's nothing, he decided. He would give her a peck on the cheek goodnight, she would go, and he would snap out of whatever haze of – something – he'd been in since he'd told Gina it's over and suddenly started to notice things he shouldn't notice. It would pass. A kiss on the cheek was nothing. Like the first time he'd done it, when the light touch had been just enough to misdirect her long enough for him to get out the door with the pilfered photos.
If anything, he expected an eye roll. Or even a light slap. Almost hoped for it. It would confirm his suspicion that the atmosphere hovering around this evening had been an illusion itself, that he was reading too much into everything, that he was alone in feeling something he steadfastly refused to put words to.
But she didn't even try to stop him. And his lips grazed the corner of her mouth, and his hand on her back was too much like a caress, and even had those been accidents, he lingered there far too long for it to have been innocent. And though she'd had wine, it wasn't nearly enough to explain the way her eyes fell shut, or the soft sigh that escaped her lips. And his body's instinctive reaction to all of it was far from chaste.
Her skin was impossibly soft, and her breath on his skin caught him off-guard. He let her go gently, drawing in a sharp breath as he looked down at her big soft eyes and parted lips, and suddenly he had to take a step back because…because he was single now, but she wasn't, and after all, they'd both had just enough wine to facilitate the possibility of doing something really, really stupid.
"Goodnight, Castle."
"See you in the morning."
She left with a smile, the door closed behind her, and Castle suddenly remembered, in a moment of fleeting, arbitrary clarity, that Gina had never liked macaroni.
LA FIN
Author's Note: Wanted this to be leaning towards romance but still technically canon, since I'm so looking forward to "Knockdown" next week.
"Hypothetical five...
...
...
...
NICE!"