Juice Cups & Coffee Mugs
IV. Have This
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She can tell he doesn't want to leave her.
"First day of school," she acknowledges, their fingers twined despite how bad they are at the subway. They are so bad. Neither of them have the balance or stamina, and the subway's swaying feels entirely more violent than it ever has before. "You can hide in the bushes if you need to."
He scoffs, tilts his chin in that new way of his. She thinks it's acquired from the trauma, back when his shoulder was stiff and it threw his body out of alignment. "I don't need to hide in the bushes while you start your first day back at work."
She smothers her grin. "But you want to."
"I want to a little bit," he sighs.
She steps into him, their bodies colliding as the subway rockets around a turn. The underground has felt, this time around, like it willfully hurtles them into space, like this is a rodeo and it wants to buck them off. She never used to feel so skittish around mass transit.
His arm around the pole opens to her and she tucks herself into him, heedless of the morning commute. She's headed back to the Twelfth, back to life again, and she hopes he's not going to miss her. "You gonna miss me?"
"Naw. I'm gonna miss the awesome cases." He lifts his hand and lightly clasps her neck. "The Beckett flavored ones. With zombies and CIA double agents and aliens."
She smiles and lays her cheek against his shoulder. "You gonna miss the unborn?"
He squeezes her neck for that, then digs his thumb into that spot just to one side that makes her knee twitch and her muscles spasm. She grunts with relief as tingles scatter across her back.
She wants him all the time. This is pregnancy. No morning sickness at all, she wants him all the time, she cries at commercials, and the thought of walking into the Twelfth Precinct and sitting down behind the captain's desk makes her stomach roll.
"You're going to do great," he murmurs.
"I know."
"Of course you do. That's why I married you."
She laughs. Her arrogance - also known as confidence - has always gotten her in trouble in therapy sessions. "Thought it was because I was tall."
"That's just why I wrote about you."
She smiles and straightens up, seeing their stop approaching. Her stop. She runs a hand down his chest and tugs his tie. "You look good this morning, Rick Castle."
He preens, beaming at her eye to eye again. Her heels are killer; she's going to be hurting by the end of the day.
"Slay that book pitch," she tells him, leaning in to press her lips to his in a good-bye.
"Slay that precinct," he answers, lips twitching up in amusement.
She steps back, the subway car comes to a jerking halt at her stop. The doors open; she releases his tie. He smooths it down, his eyes on hers, but he reaches out one last time, brushes the backs of his fingers against her stomach.
She doesn't even mind; he's only saying good-bye to them both. He knows how fleeting, how precious, how the world changes in the blink of an eye.
She steps over the threshold of the subway car and out onto concrete, is immediately swept forward in the crush of people heading for the top.
This is the first day of the rest of her life.
x
Castle won't let himself be nervous, not here. Black Pawn is familiar ground, home territory, and he won't be nervous about pitching a new book.
His phone vibrates in his pocket and he removes it to glance at the alert. Kate. She's at her desk; good luck in your meeting xoxo.
Rick feels better knowing she's safely inside again. Back in the fold despite the way 1PP gave her the run-around. With Kate in command of the Twelfth, he feels safer, New York City feels safer.
Tenth floor of the Black Pawn Publishing offices feels safer.
"Rick? We're ready for you," Gina says, popping her head out of the conference room and then leaving the door open.
He stands up, pushing his phone back into his pocket. He's not doing this because of the baby, or because Beckett is once again Captain of the Twelfth. He's doing this because he has nightmares without fail, because Dr Burke says writing is good for his soul, because something's gotta give.
He steps inside the conference room, darkly furnished with floor to ceiling windows to let in the light. He's usually in the less formal space down the hall, and the selection of this room for their venue is telling. He knows they weren't happy when he returned his advance on the next Nikki Heat, knows they're chafing at his stall tactics. Gina hasn't called him directly, but Mother has reported every instance when she's called Alexis instead.
What is your father doing? instead of How is your father doing?
He knows she's concerned in her own way, and that she shows it by asking about the nonexistent book. But it's not helpful. He can't write Nikki Heat right now; her life feels too inexorably bound to Kate's, and Kate's to his own, and together this baby. He won't write Nikki Heat into and out of death-defiance, not right now. So close to death defying of their own.
"Have a seat, Mr Castle."
He sits. Across from Gina, he sees, and there's his editor as well, George. George looks perturbed, as if he's been pulled away from his job and is struggling in the more professional setting. At the head of the table is the chairman of the board of directors, and he's wearing a suit that Castle knows costs more than his own. The severity of the air conditioning in the conference room makes Rick glad that his wife pushed the jacket into his hands this morning despite the heat of summer and how he sweltered on the subway.
"Gina tells me you're here about a new project," the chair says. Castle can't recall his name. He knows it, but it just won't come to him. He can see the edges of it, and for some reason it reminds him of a little blue pill, but he can't get at the word itself.
"I have the outline in broad strokes, but most of the work has already been done. Personal research, if you will." He flashes a smile, but much of his natural charm has rusted this past year. He's not sure it works; he's not sure the chairman can be charmed. "The main character is Rook, a kind of spin-off from the Nikki Heat series-"
"Who is Rook?" the chair says, furrowing his brow and turning to Gina.
"Secondary character in his best-selling-"
"Secondary?" Castle gapes. "He's a main character and fia-"
"Rick," Gina says, flashing him a warning look. She knows better. Why is she-?
Oh, damn. Politics. How could he have forgotten so quickly? The politics of this meeting require slippery diction. He knows that. He ought to be better than this, even if it has been years since he's pitched a book.
The chairman is frowning, faint lines across his forehead. Varga. That's his name.
"He's a foil to Nikki Heat," Castle says, once again inserting his own voice into these proceedings. More smoothly now. "In this project, Rook would take center stage, much like Derrick Storm in the Storm series-"
"He's my favorite," the chair says irrelevantly. Some relish in his tone.
"Yes, sir, exactly," Gina coos. "The man on top once more. Jameson Rook. He has his own backstory-"
It's not about the backstory. It's about the story as it goes south, as all hell breaks loose, the story of being shot and hoping for recovery, hoping he can get back out there again but not sure he has what it takes to go up against the very real fact of his own mortality-
"So you're going to do the same as Divergent, same as Twilight - give readers the male's perspective of their female hero worship? We aren't looking for YA titles at Black Pawn."
Castle snaps to attention. "No. I'm not writing young adult. And this isn't about hero-worship of Nikki Heat. This is about what it takes to be a human being again. What life looks like. After tragedy."
At that, the chairman's eyes regain their spark. Something Castle has said has finally resonated, just enough, and he receives a studying pause for his efforts.
"Send Gina three chapters by the end of the month and we'll see." And then the Varga rises from the head of the table and indicates the door.
Just that fast, he's been dismissed.
Three chapters by the end of the month.
And Castle hasn't even begun trying to write again.
What has he gotten himself into?
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