Darcy texts her on Wednesday to say he can't make it to dinner.
She hits call back immediately. She listens as it rings. He texted her seconds ago, so she knows he's holding the phone, doesn't have any good reason to not pick up by the fifth… sixth… seventh ring. She imagines him staring at the caller ID, deliberating whether or not to pick up. Just as the call is about to go to voicemail, he does.
"Hello," he says. He sounds impassive.
"Are you ditching me?" Lizzie asks in her best mock-offended tone. "After you promised?"
There's a long pause on the other end of the line.
"Yes," he finally says. "I'm sorry. Something came up. Family emergency."
She immediately feels like a douchebag since he only really has two family members to speak of. "Is everyone alright?" she asks, despite feeling nosy.
"I'm… I think everyone will be," he says carefully, taking a pause. "I won't be able to attend dinner, however."
"Yeah," Lizzie says. She's been pacing the length of her room without even realizing it.
"I am sorry."
"No, no," she says. "Don't worry about it. I'm… I'll see you when you get back?" She doesn't mean to intone it as a question, but she has to.
"Yes," he says a little too quickly. "But I'll be out of town indefinitely."
"Right. Just let me know when you're back," Lizzie offers. "Whenever."
"All right," he says.
"And if you need to talk about anything…" she begins to offer.
There is silence on the other side of the line.
"Right, sorry," she continues. "Talking's my thing. I'm a talker. Not so much your thing."
"No."
"I'm going to let you go now. Bye."
"Lizzie," he says. "I do appreciate it."
For once, she's the one that can't think of anything to add to the conversation.
On the other end of the line he clears his throat. "I'll talk to you soon," he says by way of valediction. He hangs up.
She makes a mental note to tell him off for his pithy farewell the next time she sees him.
As it turns out, Darcy's trip home to San Francisco hadn't lasted nearly as long as it would, and he finds himself on the Bennet family's front porch, an hour late for a dinner he had cancelled on. He's reconsidering leaving for a second when the front door swings open.
"Hey," Lizzie says, leaning against the doorframe. Her eyes are bright and sparkling like they always are and her smile is controlled, but there. "Were you going to knock or just lurk around the premises all night?"
"I was going to knock," he says. She laughs and ushers him in.
"Look who I found," she announces to the living room at large, which contains all the Lees and Bennets sans Jane.
"Darcy!" Bing greets, clapping him on the shoulder. "You didn't tell us you were back in town." This is as close as Bing's tone has ever gotten to scolding.
"I only just arrived from San Francisco," Darcy explains. "I thought I'd rather stop by here than spend the rest of the evening alone at home." He doesn't miss the way Caroline raises her eyebrows at this.
"Well we're glad you did," Lizzie says, handing him a glass of wine.
"Although," Mrs. Bennet begins, looking at him from where she's sitting on the couch. He senses the note of derision in her tone and doesn't appreciate it. Whenever Mrs. Bennet speaks to him it's an extremely irritating mix of condescension and impropriety. "You did tell us you wouldn't be here. We haven't really accounted for you."
"I'm sure we can scrape up an extra place setting, Mom," Lizzie says, rolling her eyes.
"It's the principle of the matter, Lizzie. When you say one thing—"
At this exact moment, Jane emerges from the kitchen. "Can somebody help me with the—"
"I'll help," Darcy offers immediately, handing his glass back to Lizzie. Jane looks up, a hint of shock on her otherwise sweet face.
"Darcy," she says. "I didn't even know you were here."
"I am," he says needlessly, crossing the room to enter the kitchen. She leads the way. He glances back as he goes. Bing, Lizzie, and Caroline all look about ready to offer additional assistance, but none of them do.
"Lizzie told us you were away on business," Jane says as she hands Darcy a pair of oven mitts. He hadn't remembered to tell her that this was his excuse for leaving, and that the family business was to remain a private issue, but he's glad that Lizzie seems to have gleaned this on her own.
"Yes, I was," Darcy says. "But as that business resolved itself, I didn't see any point in delaying my return." Jane offers him a smile that he can inexplicably only describe as sympathetic.
"Well good," Jane says as she opens the oven. Darcy removes the broad tray that appears to house both lamb chops and salmon, for some reason. He doesn't ask. "Bing's been talking about how much he was looking forward to going hiking this weekend. Maybe now that you're back we can still all go."
"Do you particularly enjoy hiking?" Darcy asks. Jane gives a small demure shrug.
"I don't mind it."
To Darcy's eye this seems to be Jane's stance on nearly everything.
"Do you?" Jane asks.
"No," Darcy says candidly.
"Lizzie doesn't either," Jane admits. "But she absolutely can't turn down a challenge, so she's coming along as well."
"It should be… fun," Darcy concedes, not entirely sure what Jane wants from him.
"Can I tell you a secret?" Jane asks as she hands him a bowl of mashed potatoes to carry out to the dining room table. He nods without speaking. "I'm going mostly for the company."
They have that in common, at least.
"Come on," Jane says, offering him a broad smile that really does remind him of Bing's smiles, in a way. "We better get this on the table before my mother gets too upset."
Dinner could not be going much worse than it's going, and Lizzie wonders if it's just too late to ditch out of her hosting duties altogether. Her mother is as loud and opinionated as ever, and Lydia is… well, loud. She can see the uncomfortable (and in Caroline's case, judgmental) looks on her guests' faces and it makes her want to bury her own face in her hands and never introduce anyone to her family ever again.
The only thing she can really do is hope that her father is distracting Caroline with work talk and Jane is distracting Bing with her feminine wiles and she is distracting Darcy with her interrogation of his musical preferences. Somehow the conversation has turned from several band she has literally never heard of (not that she'd give him the satisfaction of admitting that) to… One Direction's hit single. Somehow. She's really not sure how.
"You're not a fan, are you?" Darcy asks, arching an eyebrow at her.
"Would you think less of me if I was?" she asks, raising her eyebrows right back at him.
"No," Darcy says, and she really actually almost believes him. "Even if you are about a decade outside of their target demographic."
"See, hating something because tween girls like it is not a good enough reason to hate it. That's not why I don't like it."
"So," Darcy says. "You're saying you do dislike the song, but you have a better reason than I do to do so?"
"Yes," she says.
"And what's that?"
"I don't like the message," she says. "I don't like the lyrics."
"Which?"
"You don't know you're beautiful. That's what makes you beautiful." She gestures with her fork as she says this, says it vaguely in time with the tune of the song. She doesn't sing it because she doesn't sing in public. Definitely not at dinner in front of Darcy.
"What's wrong with that?" Darcy asks, because of course he doesn't see the problem with that. She rolls her eyes at him.
"The problem with that is that women are constantly told by society that they only have any value if men tell them they do and that until then they should hate themselves. Since when is it hip to hate yourself?" Lizzie feels herself peeling off on a tangent, but she also feels herself not caring. "I don't need anyone to tell me that I'm self-possessed or intelligent. I know those things already. And that doesn't make me any less self-possessed or intelligent."
"But it's a compliment," Darcy protests. "Would you rather people just not pay you compliments?"
"If they're going to act like it's something I don't know, yes."
"So you're entirely self-actualized."
"I'm pretty darn self-actualized, yes," she says. He smirks into his wine glass and her eyebrows shoot up. "What?" she asks, challenging.
"I don't know you very well, Lizzie," he says, setting his wine glass down. "But even I can see there are things you don't know about yourself."
"Oh really?" Lizzie asks. "Are you going to tell me what they are?"
"You just said you'd rather not hear it," he says. She bristles up in her seat, leaning across the table as she responds to him.
"This is pretty much the worst way you could ever pay a woman a compliment, for future reference."
"I never said they were complimentary things," he replies without missing a beat.
"Oh?" she asks, and despite everything she feels herself smiling, because the idea that she is getting under his skin right now as much as he is getting under hers is for some reason thrilling. "Alright. Tell me what's wrong with me."
"You want to know what's wrong with you?" he hedges, arching an eyebrow.
"Yes." She deliberately articulates very carefully when she repeats it again, drops her voice a little, leans even further over the table. "I want to know what's wrong with me."
Darcy doesn't get the chance to tell her what's wrong with her, though, because Lizzie's mother interrupts.
"Really, Mr. Darcy," she says, loudly, embarrassingly. "That's extremely untoward."
Lizzie looks down at her plate immediately, clearing her throat. She's hyperaware now of the fact that everyone at the dinner table has stopped talking to focus on her conversation with Darcy. She'd forgotten they were there for a second, and a quick glance up across the table confirms that he forgot too, because his lips are set into a thin tight line and the tops of his ears are flushed.
"It's okay, Mom," Lizzie says.
"No, Lizzie, it really isn't. This man is a guest in our house – an uninvited guest, I might add..."
"We invited him," Lizzie corrects. Mrs. Bennet barrels on.
"He is a guest in our house and I won't stand for him insulting you—"
"Mom. We were just joking," Lizzie whines.
"It didn't look like you were just joking," Caroline murmurs under her breath. Lizzie mentally tallies this remark as a count against her.
"I apologize for my behavior, Mrs. Bennet. I—"
"Don't apologize to her," Lizzie snaps at him, her tone a little more incensed than she wants it to be.
"Sorry," he mutters to his lap.
"Elizabeth, please," Mrs. Bennet continues. "You're embarrassing yourself."
"I'm embarrassing me?" Lizzie shrieks.
Across the table, she sees Jane giving her the "ditch out" signal they had previously decided on.
Later, she'll wish she'd taken her sister's advice right then.
As it turns out, they end up at Carter's over an hour and a half later, after much more embarrassing dinnertime conversation. Bing is already two sheets to the wind, telling Jane all about his college days with Darcy. Charlotte is coming, but not there yet. Caroline looks bored, her chin rested on her hand as she listens in. Lydia's god-knows-where. She's not at the table with everyone else. Darcy is staring at Lizzie, which she has been vaguely aware of all evening. She doesn't know what to do about it, so she's ignoring it for now.
Bing's on his like twentieth Harvard story and Lizzie's on her second beer, so it should really surprise nobody when she asks if anyone will play Just Dance with her. Bing and Jane politely decline. Caroline rolls her eyes but smiles sweetly when she says no. Lizzie wheels around, spots Lydia at the bar, and yells at her, but Lydia replies that it wouldn't be fair to Lizzie and she should ask someone who is less awesome at dancing games.
"Darcy?" Lizzie asks.
"Hmm," Darcy responds, looking vaguely bewildered. Lizzie raises her eyebrows in questioning. "Maybe," he says, "if you ask me again after I've had another drink."
Lizzie ends up playing by herself.
Darcy does end up having another drink, but Lizzie never revisits her Just Dance offer. She spends the entire evening staring at him from underneath her eyelashes, but doesn't speak to him. She spends most of her time speaking in hushed tones to Charlotte, and occasionally Lydia or Jane. All the girls throw him glances he can't quite categorize all night.
She catches him when he's alone at the table. She braces herself on the table with both her hands, leaning over it so her face hovers near his. "Hey Darcy," she says, sounding slightly tipsy.
"Hello, Lizzie," he says.
"I have a vlog," she says.
He just stares at her because he honestly has no idea how this information is relevant or why she chose this moment to tell him about it.
"Like, a video blog."
"I know what vlog means," he says.
"I know you know," she says, sounding annoyed. She shakes her head a little, gets her bearings. "I just talk about my life in it, stuff that's going on with my life, you know."
"Sure," he says.
"Lots of people watch it."
"How many?"
"I don't know. Lots. You can't watch it." She looks him in the eye, narrows her eyes seriously. "Ever."
"Why not?" he asks.
"Because I said so. Promise."
He only gives a moment's pause before he promises.
Charlotte leaves first, being more of a morning person than a nighttime one. Lydia leaves next with some guy Lizzie's never seen before, after Jane gives her their standard good judgment test which they worked out years ago. Jane and Bing leave next. Caroline hangs around the longest, but eventually even her patience runs dry and she leaves too.
Darcy doesn't call attention to the fact that they're hanging out alone now, or that they're both kind of buzzed at the least, or that they're sitting on the same side of the booth because neither of them moved after Caroline left. She definitely does not call attention to any of those things either.
Sometime after Caroline leaves, the topic of conversation turns to her. "Yeah, what's up with her?" Lizzie asks, the alcohol in her system compromising her usual good judgment on the difference between questions that are okay to ask and questions that are not.
"What do you mean?" he asks.
"I mean, like, what's she doing here? Does she just go everywhere with Bing?"
"They're close."
"Yeah, and I'm close with Jane, but I don't think I'd pack up and follow her if she decided to move."
Darcy shrugs.
"Anyway, I know what Bing thinks about her. I want to know what you think about her."
"Are you asking me to gossip?" Darcy asks. Lizzie bits her lip.
"Is there something to… be gossiped about?" she asks. He considers her question carefully, turning his glass on the table so that the squared base sits at a right angle to the edge.
"Caroline is a good friend," he says. "And she doesn't settle. She wants the best in her friends and colleagues, which is a quality I can respect.
"There's a huge but in there somewhere," Lizzie says. Inwardly she winces at her own words and hates him for being so articulate after the amount of alcohol he's ingested. Or maybe she's just projecting.
"But…" Darcy begins, staring off into space. "I don't know."
"Come on," she says, nudging him in the ribs with her elbow.
"She's…" He sighs. "She makes me uncomfortable, sometimes. She presumes things. And she's very… physical."
Lizzie snorts. "Have you tried asking her not to touch you, maybe?"
"I've expressed to her before that unnecessary contact makes me uncomfortable, but she never seems to listen." He sighs, and shifts in his seat. "And sometimes when she teases me she assumes a familiarity that I don't necessarily reciprocate. It's… embarrassing."
"Congratulations," Lizzie says, "for winning the award for most… loquacious drunken burn." He quirks a half-smile at her.
"I'm not drunk."
"I'm a little drunk," she admits.
"I can see that."
"Maybe somewhere slightly north of a little," she amends, to account for any… how would her mother put it? Untoward behavior she might be exhibiting.
"You should let me take you home," he says. And she blames herself for cracking up, because really, she knew what he meant. And the second she pulls a face, she sees him shift from good-natured concern for her wellbeing into a deep state of mortification. "I mean," he gets off to a false start. "I didn't mean…"
"I know," she laughs, twisting in the booth seat to rest the flat of her palm midway between his shoulder and his chest in a calming affirmation. "It's fine, I got it."
He opens his mouth to say something, but closes it again quickly, looking bewildered. Maybe, Lizzie thinks, because they are much closer now than they were a moment ago. She doesn't know which combination of alcohol, laughter, and the proximity of his face possesses her to do it, but before she can think better of it, she lifts her head and kisses him. Her lips are damp and his are dry and warm and she does not have good leverage and there is a lot about this kiss that is sloppy and just not good, but that would all be forgivable if he were… reciprocating at all. He's not. He's stiff and awkward and unmoving, except for his hand, which he has raised to her face. His fingertips brush her cheek as she draws back from him.
"Lizzie…" he begins, but she just sighs, moving away from him. She exits the booth as gracefully as she can (which is not very).
"I'm sorry," she says as soon as she's standing up. "I'm… very drunk." Although, now that she has the hindsight of about twenty seconds behind her, she feels like her sober sense of judgmental is coming screeching back to her, too little way too late. "That was inappropriate. And stupid. And it won't happen again. I'm…"
"Lizzie, it's…"
"… sorry, I'm going to go." She's gathered up her things already, and is halfway out the door before he's up in pursuit of her, but she feels him follow her out into the street, knows he waits in his car to make sure the taxi picks her up safe. And even though he gives her space, just knowing that he's there watching her makes it all that much worse.
She spends the entire cab ride home with her hands buried in her face, as if hiding will someone alleviate the humiliation she's feeling. The worst thing about it all is that her mother was right – she has been embarrassing herself. And her mother being right about something would have been bad enough on its own, but then there's everything else, too, and she has no idea how she is going to deal with all of that tomorrow morning.