A/N: Thanks for the reviews. I love them all! : )
Gillian walked in to Sanchez wearing an elegant red dress that ended slightly above her knees and showed just enough cleavage to allow her to feel sexy without looking trashy. She nervously played with her clutch as she walked up to the hostess, not exactly sure how to explain her situation.
"Hi. This is going to sound really strange, but I'm meeting someone here and I don't… Well I don't know what name the reservation is under," she explained, trying to stay away from the fact that she was on a blind date.
"Are you Gillian?" the blonde asked.
"I am," Gillian replied with surprise.
"I was expecting you! Right this way," she said as she led Gillian to her table. "I showed him your table earlier today, so he knows to look for you here, and he picked out a bottle of wine so your server will be over in a minute."
"Thank you," Gillian said with even more surprise than before. Whoever it was went through a lot of trouble to set this up!
After she got her glass of wine, she settled into her chair and started people watching, looking for any familiar faces headed her way. After a few minutes, she finally spotted one.
"What are you doing here?" she asked with disbelief.
"I wanted to see if I was right, and I was. Red," he said, gloating.
Looking at him blankly she said, "Seriously, Cal. Why are you here?"
"I'm meetin' my date here," he replied with a cheeky grin.
"Here. Of all the places you could have gone, you chose to bring her to the same restaurant you knew I'd be at?"
"Good food!" he defended himself with a shrug of his shoulders.
"Mmm. Well don't you think you should be sitting at a table waiting for her, instead of sitting at mine and potentially scaring away my date?" she asked with a progressively louder tone as he sat down.
He looked around, considering her words. "Do you see anyone here you'd like to have dinner with? 'Cause I sure don't see anyone that looks to be worth your while. I'll just keep this seat warm, and if he's man enough he'll ask me to leave."
She opened her mouth to protest, but she didn't have the opportunity since Cal grabbed a passing waitress by the arm and ordered himself a drink.
Gillian widened her eyes in surprise and then said, "He'll be taking that to a different table!" She looked at him incredulously, then said, "You can stay here until your drink arrives, then you are leaving my table."
"Fair enough," he responded as he settled into his chair.
After several minutes of talking, Cal's drink arrived and Gillian looked at a clock on the wall. She noted it was 7:20, and she sighed as she shook her head to herself.
"What's wrong, love?" Cal inquired.
"What time was your date supposed to be here?"
"We finally decided on seven," he said.
"Well, it's twenty after seven, and neither you nor I have a date. It's very possible that you scared mine away, but it looks as though we've both been stood up."
He considered her words for a moment, then simply said, "I wasn't actually."
Very confused, Gillian furrowed her brow and said, "What do you mean?"
"She's here," he said as he looked around. "I saw her walk in."
"So where is she?" Gillian asked, thinking he was feeding her a long line of lies. He never even had a date, she thought. He just showed up to ruin mine.
Cal gave her a small smile and said, "You're lookin' at her."
Gillian looked over his shoulder with a puzzled look on her face. When she didn't see a single woman by herself, she turned her eyes back to Cal, waiting for a further response.
"Or, rather, I'm lookin' at her," he said.
Gillian looked at him sideways, then turned in her chair to look behind her, thinking he was looking at someone over her shoulder and perhaps the woman had walked past while she was looking behind him. When she didn't see anything but a handful of couples, she turned back in her chair. Focusing on his eyes, Gillian saw he was looking back at her.
The question dropped from her face as surprise took over, her eyebrows raising as her lips parted and her eyes went wide.
After sitting in silence for a moment, she narrowed her eyes at him and let her brain process the information. "Why didn't you just tell me you wanted to go out to dinner?"
"I didn't want to go out to dinner," he told her, earning a very perplexed look from Gillian. "I wanted to go on a date," he said, swallowing after he got the statement out while keeping his eyes glued to hers.
"Were you afraid I'd say no?" she asked, her heart beginning to beat a little faster. He kept his face neutral and didn't respond, so she said, "Because you didn't really give me the chance to say yes or no."
"Good point. And you were hopin' for Burns, so this may have backfired in my face royally." He ran a hand through his hair with his last statement.
"So you were afraid I'd say no," she said in answer to her question as she nodded to herself. "When were you going to tell me?"
"I don't know," he told her honestly.
"You were going to tell me though, right? I mean, you weren't going to just sit here across from me and let me think I'd been stood up, or that someone was playing a cruel joke?" The question burned in her throat. She knew Cal had it in him to be that mean, but she hoped he wouldn't be that mean to her on purpose with no provocation. Her eyes danced across his face as she shifted in her chair.
"No. 'Course I woulda told you, eventually."
"When?" she asked again.
He shrugged. "Don't know. You were practically dyin' on the inside, hopin' it was Burns…" he trailed off, leaving her to fill in the blanks as he fiddled with the napkin his drink sat on.
"So… What? You felt inadequate? Like I'd be disappointed?" she questioned as she shook her head to herself.
"Maybe," he answered her truthfully.
She considered his answer as she watched a couple walk in and be seated at a table in the corner opposite them. She watched how the man lovingly looked at the woman he was with, and she wondered why that was so hard to find.
"Well I think that's ridiculous," she finally said as she picked up her drink and took a sip, sitting a little taller.
He shot her an irritated look, tipping his head to the side and thinking it was not very shrink-like to tell someone that their feelings were ridiculous, especially when the person she was talking to had a habit of keeping his feelings bottled up.
"Is that right?" he finally asked, feeling offended.
"Mmhmm," she murmured and nodded.
"Mind enlightenin' me? 'Cause as far as I could see, you were in love with that bloke, and you were hopin' he'd show up tonight. Now tell me how I'm not justified in my thinkin'."
"Because he's gone, Cal," she said to him in a matter-of-fact tone with a shrug of one shoulder. "You said it yourself, he'd have to be a fool to come back to DC."
"I also said that people do foolish things for love," he reminded her.
Like asking people out on a date without really asking them?, she wondered.
Leaning forward on the table she asked him, "What's the most foolish thing you've done lately?"
"Have you forgotten who you're talkin' to? I do foolish things every day," he deflected.
"For love," she clarified while looking in his eyes.
Spent $200 on flowers, he thought. He then started to wonder how to really answer this question. She'd backed him into a corner.
"Can't say I remember," he lied. "You?"
"Showing up here!" she easily answered with a wave of her hand. "I had no idea what I was going to find, but I found you, not looking so drab I might add."
"Glad you noticed," he said so honestly it made her heart melt.
"Of course I did," she sweetly replied while she sat back in her chair. "How could I ever miss that pop of color on you?" she added as she looked at his red dress shirt, perfectly broken up by his jet black tie and suit coat. Then looking back up at him she said, "We match. Is that why you were asking what I was wearing?"
"I just wanted to know, but it did help me pick out my shirt," he responded as he smoothed his hand over his tie. "Do you still wanna eat?" he asked.
Raising her eyebrows she asked, "Are you giving me the opportunity to say no?"
Chuckling to himself he said, "I guess I am." He felt his spirits fall a little. He knew she'd never tell him to leave and he knew she wouldn't get up and leave him there alone, but he would be able to tell if she didn't want to be there, if she wasn't happy to be with him.
She smiled at how unsure of himself he looked. She'd never seen him quite like this before. She couldn't deny he looked incredibly good in his suit, even if it was black. He'd worn a red shirt to match her dress, and she found that incredibly endearing. She then thought back to the flowers in her office, and she wondered how long he'd sat online trying to decide what to get.
"Did you pick out those flowers?" she asked him.
"I did," he confirmed.
"They're beautiful," she told him with a nod. "And my office will smell really good tomorrow," she added with a bright smile.
As he wished she had a smile like that on her face all the time, he replied, "I know you love lilies."
His face was honest and vulnerable, something Gillian rarely saw in him. Taking a deep breath, she slowly stood up from her chair, and Cal's face fell. He swallowed and put his mask back on as she pushed her chair in. She walked to his side and stopped, causing him to close his eyes momentarily. He opened them again when he heard the chair next to him being pulled out. She sat next to him and he couldn't help the surprise on his face. She smiled again, amused that he'd apparently thought she was leaving.
She sat sideways on the chair so her legs were at his side and she hooked her foot around the leg of his chair when she crossed her legs. Resting her arm on the table so she was leaning toward him, she asked, "Would it be fair to say this," she motioned toward the restaurant, indicating she was referring to the whole situation, "is the most foolish thing you've done lately?"
Leaning on the table so his face was within inches of hers he said, "That would be fair."
She nodded, and waited for his eyes to come back to hers from her mouth. Once they did, she stated, "I guess we've both done foolish things today."
Neither of them spoke for a moment and Cal couldn't help but feel like she wasn't happy to be there with him.
She saw his eyes glass over slightly as he pulled away from her and leaned back far into his chair. She placed a hand on his arm, causing him to shift his weight and look in her eyes.
"I'm glad you're here. I'm glad it was you." The look in his eyes said he didn't believe her. "I couldn't have handled seeing Dave. He couldn't have stayed, so it would have been nothing more than me spending time with someone I can't have." Not really a lot different than this evening is turning out anyway… "I can't believe you didn't give me a chance to say no though," she added with a teasing smile as she playfully shoved his arm.
Appreciating that she was trying to make him feel comfortable, but feeling like she wasn't taking this as seriously as he'd hoped, he leaned back in to her even more closely than before and asked, "Will you go on a date with me?"
Half smiling at him as she felt his breath against her skin, she said, "Where do you want to take me?"
To bed, he said to himself. "Sanchez."
She smiled widely at him and said a simple, "Yes."
He returned her smile with one of his own, one of the rare ones that only a few people were privileged enough to experience.
Leaning in, he placed a quick kiss on her cheek and said, "Great. Let's order!"
Not really a big surprise that it was Cal, right? ; ) More to come in a day or two.