Caroline and the Six-Month-Old Secret

by Caroline

Caroline finished toweling off her face and smiled at her reflection -- any traces of her mid-morning tryst with Richard had been erased. After brushing her teeth and once more fixing her hair into a ponytail, she got ready for racquetball. Luckily, Del had called to tell her he'd be late. Otherwise, the carefully-constructed web of deceit she and Richard had been weaving may have unraveled.

She never -- not in a million years -- thought she would be this woman. She looked down upon this woman typically -- the cheater, the two-timer. But if she was being honest with herself, where her and Del were concerned, there wasn't even much of a relationship. So, in her mind as she'd rationalized it for the past six months, she wasn't cheating. She and Del both knew they would never have a 'forever' kind of connection. And not once had they ever deemed their relationship exclusive. Besides, for all she knew, Del was seeing someone on the side as well. They didn't see each other nearly as much as they used to, so who was she to say that Del wasn't doing the same thing?

She didn't want to think of that now. As she readied her gym bag, she turned her thoughts to Richard. The past six months had been incredible, despite the fact that they had to hide their blossoming romance. Six months ago, if she were to look at her dour, cynical colorist and then have someone tell her that not only would he be the best sex of her life but that she'd also fall madly in love with him, she would've laughed. Hard. Guffawed, possibly.

But that was six months ago. Before she saw what kind of man he was -- how passionate, attentive, and caring he was. Before that pivotal argument opened a door that she hoped would never close.

"Richard, every time we have a disagreement you can't just walk out mad!"

"Yeah, or what? You'll swat me over the head with a rolled-up newspaper?"

"Look, I didn't think you were a coward before, but if you just leave you might be."

That had stopped him at the door long enough for him to tell her the story of his tenth birthday present -- a leather bomber jacket that was stolen away from him by the school bully. The story of his cowardice, and his sister's reaction -- which was, according to him, the exact same reaction she'd had to what happened on the subway today. The emotion in his voice, the raw, quiet emotion, had tugged at her heartstrings and brought forth tears she didn't even know she had in her for this man. She'd apologized for the way she reacted and Richard had told her it was okay, but she could see from the look on his face that just wasn't true. Then he'd left.

"Boy, was he bringing this party down!" one of the yahoo's from Annie's party exclaimed.

Caroline rolled her eyes at them before explaining none-too-gently that the party was, in fact, across the hall where all the music and laughter and noise was coming from, promptly kicking the two gentlemen out afterwards. After slamming the door, she called them idiots under her breath and swiped at her still-falling tears with the back of her hand. When a knock sounded on the door, she was ready to start screaming at them. "What part of 'across the hall' don't you--"

When she swung open the door, Richard stood on the other side, and she tried all the harder to get rid of the evidence of her tears. "Richard."

"Caroline, look. I thought about it and I'm sorry about the way I--" He paused midsentence and took a good look at her. "Why are you crying?"

"Um..."

She practically startled when he stepped into her and reached up to her face -- she thought he hated physical contact -- and wiped at her tear tracks. "Please don't cry," he begged her, his tone soft once again. "Please don't cry over me, Caroline, I'm not worth it."

She shut her eyes, squeezing more tears out at the sound of his voice, and shoved him away angrily. "Stop! Just stop it!"

"Stop what?"

"Stop talking like that, Richard! I hate it when you do that."

"It's true. I'm not worth crying over, Caroline. I'm not even worth caring about or getting close to, trust me. I'm - I'm depressed, I'm cynical, my parents are insane, I have a sister that won't talk to me because she thinks I'm too chipper... I've suffered through the worst childhood imaginable, and--"

Caroline never heard the rest of his diatribe as she acted upon her impulses and leaned up to kiss him. She heard Richard's sharp inhalation before he kissed back -- briefly. Then he suddenly broke away as if her lips burned him and asked of her, "What did you do that for?"

"I don't know." And she didn't. Not really. The only thought she'd had before their lips touched was that she wished he'd stop talking about himself like that.

"You don't know?" He obviously wasn't buying it.

"I just... wanted to kiss you."

"Why?" He wasn't going to make this easy on her, that much was for certain.

She threw her hands up in exaggerated resignation. "I don't know, Richard, okay?!" Her voice had raised, and it seemed another argument would be inevitable. "I got an impulse to kiss you, so I kissed you!"

"Do you always do that? Act on your impulses?" he questioned, staying in the doorway as he watched her pace near the kitchen counter.

"Sometimes," she replied, her mind still fuzzy from the kiss. "At the supermarket... all those impulse buys at the register..."

She stopped pacing when she heard his soft chuckle -- a sound so out of place from the man she'd met mere weeks before. His amusement was evident, and he took a few more steps toward her. When he reached his hands out, she was too surprised to do anything else but place her hands in his. He squeezed them and tugged her a little closer. The way he smiled into her eyes practically made her melt, and she wondered how he could ever think he wasn't worth caring about or getting close to. "Caroline... I came here to apologize, not to start another fight. I never meant to make you cry."

"I know. And I don't know why I cried, just... the sound of your voice..." She got choked up again just reliving it, hearing it in her head once again.

"Shh, shh," he quieted her, and his thumbs rubbed across her cheeks, wiping away the last vestiges of her tears.

The second kiss was inevitable. Their eyes had met, Caroline started to lean in, and Richard met her halfway. The kiss was tentative, testing the tenuous boundaries. But then the tension -- that spark of attraction that had been there since they met -- took over, and their kisses deepened. Her hands found those enticingly thick waves of blond hair as his hands supported her lower back. Caroline backed toward the stairs, seeing nothing but where she wanted to end up with Richard... and he followed without protest.

They made it up the stairs without tripping over each other (and over the stairs, for that matter) and soon tumbled into her bed. Del never even entered her stream of consciousness as clothing was shed. Before she knew it, Richard was inside her, infusing her with his passion, and she was arching into him, wanting everything he was willing to give her and more. It was intense -- in fact, that had been the only thought in her head as they laid side-by-side, hands clasped, staring up at the ceiling. It was intense.

But she and Richard had agreed that night, as they re-dressed awkwardly, that it could never happen again. She was with Del, and they worked together; it would be inappropriate.

So she should've been surprised when it happened a second time no more than a week later... but she wasn't. That time had been just a little bit her fault. She knew that hemline had been too short. The dress had been just a little too clingy... and far too green.

"Hey Care? You ready for racquetball?" Del called up from downstairs.

"Be right down!" she yelled back, before grabbing her gym bag, slinging it over her shoulder, and grinning at herself in the mirror one last time before running downstairs.

TBC

AUTHOR'S NOTES: So I fully realize I may in fact be shooting myself in the foot, so to speak, by posting the next chapter already, but I can't help it! I'm excited about this fic right now, and that is what I do when I'm excited about a fic. Having the first season downloaded on my computer definitely makes it a lot easier to get ideas, too. And if you couldn't tell by the hints at the end of this chapter, 'Caroline and the Gay Art Show' is covered next :D