A/N: Aware I kept you hanging this weekend - things to do, people to see and all that. So here's the next update before we get down to the nitty-gritty.
Chapter 3 – Preservation Ordinance
Previously...
When Kate yanks the front door open, Castle's arm is out-stretched, fist raised, ready to knock again. He almost falls in on top of her with the speed at which she throws the door wide, knocking him off balance.
She stares at him, clutching the two sides of her robe tighter over her chest, watching while he takes a step back into the hallway and quickly attempts to recover his composure.
"I know you said we were going with door number one tonight. But I much prefer door number two," he says, indicating her own front door as a kind of visual aid.
"Castle, I live at number seven," she points out without irony, dragging her eyes away from where his fingers are touching the brass numeral in the center of the wood panel to meet his gaze.
"Potato, potahto," he shrugs, already moving past her into her apartment, a bag of takeout food carefully balanced in his other arm.
"Not if you're the postman," she argues faintly, automatically standing back to let him through, though she hasn't even said he can come in yet.
A light breeze caresses her face, a kind of wake, following the swift passage of her partner into her apartment.
"Please, won't you come in," Kate mutters sarcastically under her breath, as she closes the front door and then turns to find Castle heading straight for her kitchen like some heat-seeking missile.
She watches him from a safe distance as he magically produces a bottle of wine out of his coat pocket and deposits it, along with the bag of takeout food, onto her zinc-topped island. He immediately sets about tearing open the flimsy plastic bag.
"I was going to get Thai from that place you like over on Spring," he informs her, carefully unpacking various foil containers. "But the whole tiger thing put me off," he adds, dismissively waving a hand in the air. "So I went for Italian. I hope you don't mind?"
He has his back to her, broad shoulders still ensconced in his black wool pea coat, and he pauses before slowly turning around to look at her. "Wait—they don't have tigers in Italy, do they?"
Kate can't make out whether all this jabbering about food and tigers is a nervous tick or some kind of diversionary tactic, since he has basically invaded her home without any kind of invitation. There is a slim possibility that he is genuinely taking her through his thought process when he was deciding which kind of takeout food to get for them tonight. If it's shtick it's marginally entertaining shtick, and if it's nerves, she knows how he feels. So she gives him a temporary pass, deciding to let things unfold a little further before stopping him.
"Zoo," she says tiredly, speaking on the crest of a yawn while tugging her robe a little tighter around her.
"Sorry? What did you say?" asks Castle. He stops what he's doing to glance over at her, a little bow-wrapped bag of Cantuccini biscuits dangling from his left hand.
From the look on his face it's as if he sees her properly for the first time since he barged into her apartment, and, judging by his expression, it's as if he maybe likes what he sees, and then he catches her catching him liking what he sees and…
"You're not dressed."
Kate looks down at her bare feet and legs, at the terrycloth robe, and then back up at Castle's wide-open face. "Spot on Sherlock."
"Did you just say zoo?" he asks, looking at her quizzically.
"You asked about tigers…in Italy, remember? I'm pretty sure they have them at the zoo."
"Right, the zoo," murmurs Castle with a nod, before abruptly returning to food prep duty.
This leapfrogging conversation might be entertaining, but it is also seriously beside the point. Kate is still none the wiser as to whether her partner is nervous or really as zoned out as he appears. Either way, it's starting to grate on her - the way he just arrived unannounced and is now fully ensconced in her kitchen as if he belongs there.
Sometimes she wishes that it really could be that easy for them to slip into some kind of new life together - one where he fits as easily into her home as she would in his - without having to have some painful showdown of a conversation first. Part of her longs for that – the part that now knows she'd wind up dead inside if anything bad ever happened to him.
But the part that's still scared and suspicious, the Kate who heard that woman on the phone tonight and shutdown, she intervenes before this can go any further.
"Castle, what are you doing here?" she demands, crossing her arms protectively over her chest.
"Hmm?" he hums distractedly, now opening each of her cabinets in search of plates, Kate assumes. "I brought dinner. Alexis is right. We really should celebrate every save, and since we didn't do it at the loft this time, I thought I'd bring the party to you."
She can't believe how oblivious he's being, (or how obtuse) how breezy and cool, as if they hadn't almost blown up earlier today after she kissed him and he pushed her away.
"You know why I didn't come to the loft tonight," replies Kate, coolly.
"Because I, like a thoughtless idiot, didn't invite you. Truth is, Ryan and Espo showing up like that when we were looking for a cab…kind of threw me. And since when does Ryan eat Lebanese food?" he asks, straying completely off topic again.
Kate's patience is beginning to wear thin in the face of Castle's determined mission to avoid what's right in front of them.
"Castle, that isn't the reason I didn't come up to the loft," she sighs, watching him drift over to switch her oven on so that he can begin warming the bowls he's just found. "And would you just stop!" she snaps, padding barefoot further into her own open-plan living space. The same living space Castle seems intent on taking over.
To his credit he recognizes the note of the irritation in her voice this time and does stop what he's doing.
"We were fighting. That's why there is no way I would have gone up to your apartment with you. Whether you'd invited me or not."
"I wouldn't say fighting…exactly."
"Really? Then what would you call it?"
"We had a minor disagreement…a—a misunderstanding, in fact."
"A misunderstanding?"
"Yes. After you kissed me."
"I kissed you?" scoffs Kate.
He's right, that is exactly what happened. But it seems so out of character for her, now that the heat of the moment has passed, so she goes into full on denial mode.
"Yes, Beckett," replies Castle patiently, as if he expected her to attempt to rewrite history all along. "As God is my witness, that is how it went down. Surprised the hell out of me too, but there you are. Seems today was meant to be full of surprises."
He turns away to check on the oven temperature and Kate could scream. He's just pushing his way in again. It's as if they've been transported years back in time and she has no say over anything in her life anymore.
"Do you have a basket I can use for the garlic bread?" he asks, poking around her quirky kitchen while he waits for her to answer.
"Castle, what makes you think you can just barge your way in here and…and charm me with food?"
"Uh…because it usually works? Well, assuming you're hungry of course," he says hesitantly. "You are hungry, right?"
"I thought I made myself clear on the phone."
She can tell from the stiffening line of his shoulders and the pause in activity that mention of their recent phone call is the trigger he needs to finally wise up and get real.
"No, you hung up on me before I could tell you about option two."
"So, what? You thought you'd just show up here…uninvited…and tell me all about your little option two in person? Is that it?"
"Something like that."
"Who was at the loft?" The question just flies right out of her mouth, propelled by the anger and frustration his behavior has been building in her since he stepped over her threshold five minutes ago, looking far too handsome and without so much as a 'please may I'.
"Who what?" he coughs and blinks.
"When we were on the phone—God, Castle, you know exactly what I mean. We were interrupted. There was a woman's voice in the background." In your bedroom, she thinks, but by some miracle manages not to say. "Who was that?"
He doesn't answer her question.
"Go put some clothes on. I don't want the baked ziti to dry out in the oven and we have antipasta to eat first."
Everything about what he's just said makes her want to scream. Go put some clothes on? Who the hell does he think he is? And why doesn't he appreciate her without clothes anyway. What's wrong with him, as Lanie asked?
"No. No way! I am not moving from this spot until you tell me who you were talking to."
He carefully places the corkscrew he was using to open the glorious-looking bottle of red wine he brought with him back down on the counter, and then he turns to face her. "Don't trust me, Beckett, is that it?" he asks calmly.
Of course she trusts him. Doesn't she? The question stumps her. She thought she did, with her life and almost with her heart, while they've been circling real life in this holding pattern of late. But then tonight he stopped her from kissing him and then some woman shows up in his bedroom when they were just beginning to open up on their first personal phone call to one another.
"I'm—no. No, I was...curious." She stammers out the lie and then digs an even deeper hole. "We had just agreed neither of us were dating…so…"
Kate's cheeks flush as soon as she realizes exactly how much she's given away in the space of one short sentence – jealousy, longing, a wish to have him all to herself. She frowns and looks at the floor, awaiting a reaction of vintage Castle proportions; one that will mock her and elevate him to the level of ultimate sex symbol - Eligible Bachelor number nine.
But it never comes, not with the intensity she expects it to anyway.
"Go get changed. Dinner's ready," he repeats in a measured, almost fatherly tone, successfully hiding any satisfaction he might be feeling at Kate's unplanned revelation
Kate wavers for a second or two, shivering slightly. She hates being told what to do, even by Castle. Maybe especially by Castle. Part of her wants to scream at him and then throw him back out into the hall with his baked bloody ziti and expensive selection of charcuterie. But the more rational part of her brain realizes that he's here with her now and not with whomever, and so that must count for something. Not to mention the food does smell amazing and she hasn't eaten properly for hours.
So she lets out a sigh that seems to pass right through her whole body, her shoulders dropping in its wake, and she turns without another word and heads for her bedroom to go and change.
She's halfway to the door when Castle speaks again, causing her to pause in her tracks.
"Oh, and Paula said to say hi. Seems Mattel want to bring out a range of collectibles based on the Heat series. She brought over a licensing contract for me to sign. Could be pretty lucrative."
Kate nods and gives him a weak, contrite smile, while she shrivels up inside. "Congratulations. That's...you must be really happy about that," she offers, by way of apology for her over-reaction, when all she really wants to do is hide her embarrassment in a deep, dark hole somewhere.
"Thanks. Appreciate that," he grins, looking quite pleased with himself.
"But if you think I'm modeling for some busty plastic doll, Castle, you can forget it," she tosses back at him a second or two later, in an effort to regain some dignity.
"Wouldn't dream of asking," he beams, delighted to see feisty Kate make a reappearance. "Now go put some clothes on before the food gets cold."
TBC...
Happy Castle Monday. Love to hear your thoughts if you can spare a minute. Thank you for all the amusing and interesting reviews to the last chapter. They really made my weekend.
