A/N - Changed the spelling of Grimmjow's name. Thanks for the review, Ninie-sanNote! Never let it be said I don't listen.
Ichigo sighed, easing open the door and slipping inside. It was the first time he'd been home in a week, and he was too tired to even turn on a light before flopping bonelessly onto his couch.
The job hadn't gone well - the situation had unraveled completely before Ichigo even managed to grasp what was going on. Then again, that was what he did - fixed up situations that seemed to be spiraling out of control. He made obscene amounts of money for his work as a private consultant, undoing the mess that other people had gotten themselves into. The most recent case was hardly even a memorable one, compared to the hundreds he'd taken in the past.
Some big-headed company manager had gotten in over his head, made some shady deals with businesses that didn't exactly walk along the right side of the law, then panicked when he realized his company couldn't make good on the promises. That was when he'd hired Ichigo to take over negotiations. Ichigo rolled his eyes. Things would have been much easier if he'd been called sooner, before things got out of control rather than after. He'd had to resort to some rather...unconventional tactics to persuade the pissed off "business" owners to leave the company alone.
But that was precisely why Ichigo could charge such exorbitant sums; he always got the job done, no matter what.
So, things were good. Ichigo didn't have much to stress about in his rather carefree lifestyle, although he was easily bored. Taking cases was always the best way to break the monotony - that, and they paid well. He hadn't thought much about what he was going to do with all the money, but he calculated that he'd already saved up enough for an early retirement.
Even so, he worked a side job for his uncle in between his real jobs, if only to stave off the boredom. The store he helped out at sold some pretty interesting stuff - in addition to the normal groceries, it stocked a collection of antiques, novelty items, and (just a couple of) black market goods that were enough to keep the customers interesting.
Speaking of interesting customers…one had walked in just a few days ago, literally oozing of pheromones and was even a little bit funny, to boot. Ichigo remembered the exact instant he'd first placed eyes on the man he simply referred to as 'Handsome', with an accompanying rush of adrenaline and a faint buzz along his skin that he usually only associated with the thrill of a case. He hadn't seen him for a while, though.
At this thought, Ichigo bolted upright, fatigue forgotten as he remembered their last exchange. He'd told the guy to call him! Where was his phone? He thought he'd had it on him when he last left home, but he never took it with him on jobs, so…he flicked his eyes toward the wall outlet. Of course, the iPhone was sitting right where he'd left it, plugged into the wall "charging" for the past week.
Sliding quickly off the couch, Ichigo scooted towards the phone, anxiously typing in a password and disabling the phone's lock screen. With a growing sense of anticipation, he opened up the call log and noted the 5 missed calls he'd received. Three of them were from Urahara asking why he'd ditched his last 4 shifts…those were immediately dismissed and deleted. His uncle would never fire him, and knew better than to ask about his main career choice. It was only strange that he still insisted on calling every time Ichigo skipped work, even though it happened on a near-monthly basis.
The last two calls listed were both from an unknown number - timestamped about a minute after he'd gotten the call from Ishida about the new client. Ichigo grinned. So he'd been right - the blue-haired man had called almost as soon as he left the store. Ichigo had just answered the wrong phone. Glancing over at the clock on the wall, he smirked and called the number back.
Grimmjow groaned as he rolled over, blearily sitting up as he searched for the nuisance of a phone that had woken him up. Snatching the thing off his nightstand, he frowned at the unknown number before jabbing at a button and rejecting the call. Throwing the phone back on the table, he hadn't even managed to fall back onto his pillow before his goddamned phone started buzzing again.
Snarling at the rotten piece of technology, he was tempted for a second to throw it against the wall, figuring that watching it shatter into a thousand pieces would surely be more satisfying than talking to whoever was on the line. Sighing, he reached towards the phone again, curbing his instinct to smash several hundreds of dollars into e-waste. "What do you want!" he growled, expecting nothing more than a wrong number or drunken idiot.
A barely repressed chuckle on the other end suddenly caught Grimmjow's attention - he'd heard that sound somewhere before - until a teasing voice confirmed his suspicions. "Is that how you always answer the phone, Handsome? Maybe I should call back later…"
"Damn you, Kurosaki Ichigo! Don't you dare wake me up at - " Grimmjow glanced at the clock on the table " - four fucking thirty in the morning and then hang up, yeah?" He noted with a little surprise that he'd been able to connect the name and the voice so quickly. He'd always been terrible at names, but this guy had gotten under his skin. "And what's with that lameass nickname? Not very creative, are we?"
"What should I call you instead, 'Sexy Bastard'? I don't know your name yet, unless you want me to just make one up." Ichigo snickered, mentally shuffling through a few choice names. "I'm not going to waste precious brain cells when I can just use your real name instead," he pointed out.
Grimmjow huffed. "Cheh. Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez."
"Mm…Grimmmjoww…" Ichigo rolled the name over his tongue, savoring both the exotic mix of consonants and the slight intake of breath he heard over the phone. "That's a nice name. You like it when I say it like that, Grimmjow?"
Grimmjow very truthfully did enjoy the sound of his name when it was being practically purred in Ichigo's smooth, silky voice. But he was still more than a little miffed that he'd been ignored for so long. "So what's gotten into ya, calling me up in the middle of the night after completely ignoring me for the last week and a half? Thought ya'd chickened out and given me a fake number."
"I'd never lie," Ichigo drawled, "Some things just came up that I had to…deal with. Only been back for fifteen minutes when I called you up. And it's not like I stood you up or anything, we'd just met! …So, where were we? Oh that's right, you were gonna ask me on a date. I'm free tomorrow - well, technically today - at 7 pm, you can meet me at the store."
"Wha - stop that, what if I'm busy? Don't go making this shit up all on your own, and who says I even want a date!" Grimmjow knew it was a halfhearted protest, but he couldn't just let the guy dance all over him.
"Well, are you busy? And you would've hung up on some platonic stranger a long time ago, so don't give me that crap." Ichigo snorted.
"Well…no. I'm not busy. Seeya then." Click. Grimmjow cut off the call abruptly, surly from the lack of sleep and unwilling to let Ichigo dominate the conversation any longer. It was apparently hard enough to stop himself from saying anything stupid when he was wide awake; he didn't need his sleep-deprived brain to ruin the date he'd somehow managed to stumble into. Then again, he was pretty sure he'd had little to no say in the arrangement, but he wasn't going to bitch when it was exactly what he'd wanted.
Grimmjow rolled over and tumbled back into sleep, dreaming of orange kittens and milk bottles.
