Part 1

Summer Games

Chapter 4

Tony found himself sitting on his couch, anxiously awaiting the arrival of Ziva. He internally kicked himself a few times for being what he thought was so pathetic, but he then realized that Ziva was worth every struggle.

The only thing Ziva hadn't gotten to yet was making the bed. Halfway through making the bed, he had decided to leave something special for Ziva on the comforter for her to find that night. He felt pleased with himself after he had finished. He admired how beautiful the bed looked from where he was standing until he heard knocking on the door. He jogged to the door, and smiled to see Ziva's eyes staring into his through the peephole.

"I need to get you your own key now." He said as he opened the door.

"I think you do." She agreed, carrying her bags inside. Tony knew that Ziva wanted to surprise him with her dress, so he made a conscious effort not to try to figure out what it looked like based on what he could see through the plastic bag wrapped around it.

"Were you looking at my dress?" she asked him.

"No." he said mischievously.

"If I find out that you weren't being a good boy, you won't have a very good time tonight, Tony." Ziva told him.

"I'll be with you, so I doubt that."

Ziva put the bags on the coffee table for a minute before walking up to kiss Tony and then travelling back to the coffee table to pick up her bags. No words were spoken during this exchange, and they both loved how natural it felt, as if they had been doing it for years. Anyone who saw them interact would never guess that they had only been together for a little under a day.

"Is it alright if I put the bags in the bedroom?" she asked him.

"Yup. You can use the drawers if you want."

"Okay." Ziva said, switching on the light as she walked in. She automatically noticed that Tony had made the bed, and it looked very nice. She also noticed a folded piece of paper on one of the pillows on Tony's side of the bed. She gently set her bags in front of Tony's closet and walked over to investigate. She soon learned that the folded piece of paper was a note to her. Her name was written on the outside.

Ziva observed how pretty the stationary was. She came to sit on the side of the bed, and she opened the note.

My turn. What would you say if I told you I love you?

She read the card over and over again, trying to let the words sink in.

Tony's knock on the door disturbed her thoughts. She quickly threw the card back onto the pillow where she found it and opened the door.

"Hey. Can I get my suit from the closet?" he asked her.

"Go ahead." Ziva said as she let out a breath and opened the door all the way, allowing him to come in. Tony walked to his closet and pulled out a dark gray suit. Ziva momentarily let her thoughts drift to how great that color would look with her dress. Just as he was about to leave the room, Ziva gently grabbed his arm and spun him around. She just wanted to give him a kiss he would never forget.

When she kissed him, she really did feel a spark. She had no doubt she was in love with Tony, but that kiss really did confirm it. She always felt better in his arms, and he was the only person who really understood all of her moods. She wasn't the slightest bit afraid that things were moving too fast. She processed all of these thoughts as she kissed him, and when he pulled back, they stayed like that, captivated by the other.

"You okay, Ziva?" Tony asked her. She smiled at him. Could she really be any more okay?

"Yes." She whispered. "I just wanted to kiss you." She looked embarrassed for a minute and shyly looked down at the floor. Tony found this absolutely adorable. With his thumb and index finger, he gently raised her chin, so her eyes would be looking into his.

"You can kiss me whenever you want. You know I will. I can't keep my lips off of you." She laughed. He took those same two fingers and brushed them against Ziva's cheek until they finally rose high enough for him to run them through her hair.

"Thank you, Tony, but I should probably get ready for our date tonight." She declared. He gave her a quick kiss.

"I can't wait." He told her. When he left, Ziva went back to sit down on the bed, and she didn't even know how long she had been staring at that note.

He loves me! She thought excitedly. He loves me!

It didn't take long for Tony to get his suit on, but his hair was a completely different story. There were a variety of ways he could go with it. He went through all of his ideas and tried to decide which one would be the best.

He could put gel in it, but then it would be too sticky if Ziva wanted to run her fingers through his hair, which she very often did.

He could add mousse, but then it would make his hair too hard, again throwing off Ziva running her fingers through it, and he really loved it when she ran her fingers through his hair, and of course this led him to daydreaming about Ziva…and his hair.

Finally, he decided that leaving his hair completely natural would be best. He shaved his face because he knew Ziva like caressing his soft skin. Then, he smiled because of how much Ziva was affecting him. He was still himself around her, but it was just nice to be able to be with her.

To finish it all, he put on some cologne, and he hoped Ziva would appreciate it because he planned on holding her close to him all night.

Ziva already knew how she wanted to look that night. It just took a while to get there, and suddenly, she heard Tony knocking on the door.

"Hey, Ziva, I'll be right back. I'm just going to the store real quick." He said through the door.

"Okay." She called back. Ziva looked at the clock in Tony's bedroom. It was 6:08. Their reservations were at 7:30. "We have time." She reassured herself as she plugged in her curling iron, preparing to curl the ends of her hair.

Time went by really quickly for the two of them. Tony arrived back at his apartment around half an hour later. At that time, Ziva still wasn't ready.

The two of them had previously agreed that even though Ziva was getting ready at Tony's room, he would still pick her up at seven, so when he looked down at the cable box to find out it was 6:59, he walked over to his door with the fresh bouquet of red roses in his hand.

As he was standing outside the door, a sudden thought came to him. So this is how my dad went bankrupt. He really wasn't sure how many more bouquets and fancy dinners he could afford after they resigned, and he knew she really deserved them. That quickly brought him back to the fact that he would have to find a new job very quickly.

Ziva's scuffling feet brought him back to his current reality, and he was no longer worrying about money. He knocked on the door three times.

When Ziva opened the door, his breath was taken away. His reaction was everything Ziva had hoped for and more. She felt a light blush creep onto her cheeks, not that anyone would have been able to notice it.

"You look beautiful, Ziva." Tony whispered.

"Thank you." She said, and then she saw the roses in his hand. "Are those for me?" she asked. He nodded, while handing them to her.

"Yes, they are." Ziva couldn't contain her façade any longer, and she quickly stepped onto the tops of her toes to wrap her arms around Tony's neck and envelop him in a hug. Tony wrapped his arms around her waist.

"Where are your vases? I want to put these in water right now." She said. Tony offered his hand to her, and she grabbed it, as he led her to the kitchen.

"I don't exactly have any vases."

"You don't?" she laughed.

"I think you're gonna have to change that."

"So what do you have, Tony?" she asked him. He showed her what he had been able to find in his cabinet.

"I have a beer mug." He said proudly, and they both started laughing.

"A beer mug?"

"Yup."

"Is it clean?"

"I don't know." He told her. She took the beer mug from his hand and lightly rinsed it in the sink, adding a bit of water to it. She gently took her bouquet of roses, wrapped similarly to the ones given to winners of beauty pageants, and placed them in the beer mug.

"It will have to do." She told him. "Thank you for the roses." She said before giving him a kiss on the cheek.

"My pleasure." He told her before taking her hand and leading her out of the apartment.

"You know, Tony, you haven't actually told me where we are going yet." Ziva informed him.

"I haven't?" he teased.

"Do you plan on telling me any time soon?"

"Kind of like you planning on telling me what your dress looked like?" he said as he put the key in the ignition.

"Well, you found out eventually, and if I told you-"

"It would have ruined the surprise." He interrupted, and suddenly she felt like she had answered her own request in his favor.

"Well, how far away is it?" she asked.

"Not far."

"What kind of food do they serve?"

"Ziva David, are you incapable of patience?" she lightly tapped his arm. She was about to say something about patiently waiting in a terrorist camp for a couple of months, but that would completely destroy their good first date mood, and she really didn't want that, so she settled for a simple answer.

"Sometimes." She said.

"Well, then, what am I going to do with you?" he asked, reaching over and finding her hand with his own. Much like they did in Berlin, they held hands while Tony continued driving. "Do you remember the last time we did this?"

"We were hit by a car a few seconds afterwards. It is kind of hard to forget, Tony."

"Yeah. How about this time we watch the windows for suspicious activity very closely?" he suggested.

"I'm sorry, Tony, but I am a bit focused on something else." She told him, and his face lit up like a Christmas tree when he realized she was referring to him. "I forgot to tell you when we were in the apartment how handsome you look." She said.

"Thank you." Ziva leaned in closer to him and dropped a kiss to his neck.

"And how good you smell." She added.

"Ziva, you're gonna get us into another car accident." In Tony's mind, this translated to, "Ziva, thank you for noticing that I am wearing cologne just for you."

"So, this place, how many women have you taken here before me?" Ziva asked. Tony's face softened.

"The place we're going?" he asked for clarification.

"Yes."

"No one, Ziva. This place is very upscale and special complete with very elegant courses and live, classical music for couples to dance to. A buddy from Baltimore PD told me he took his girlfriend to this place, and it was amazing." He explained. Ziva saw that he looked a little hurt as he explained it.

"Tony, I didn't mean to come across like I thought you took so many different women to dinner and dancing." She told him. "I know how special you wanted to make this for us, and I am really excited about it." Ziva promised him, stroking his knuckles with her thumb.

He looked over at her and smiled.

"Don't worry about it, Ziva." He told her. "I know what you meant."

"Do you think we will tell everyone else about us soon?" Ziva finally asked after the question had been on her mind for ages. Perhaps Tony was right, and she really was incapable of patience.

"Soon, Ziva." He said. "Just let it be you and me for a little while, just a couple more days, and then we can worry about everything else."

"Okay." She replied softly, but Tony still suspected that Ziva would need a little bit more convincing.

"Hey." He called, getting her attention. She looked up at him. "Don't worry about anything right now. Just trust me, Ziva. We'll make sure that everything turns out alright. We can worry about jobs and taxes and the team soon."

"I trust you, Tony."

"Good. We can do this. We can get through this. You know we've gotten through worse."

"We certainly have." She agreed.

"Just a couple more days of peace and solitude and me and you. Please?" Ziva knew that his statement would be the closest thing to begging she would probably ever receive from him, at least true begging. She knew he would probably beg her to have pizza for dinner some night when she wanted to cook, but that didn't count in her book.

"Okay, and I want those couple of days just as much as you do."

"Cover your eyes." He asked of her. She looked at him strangely for a minute, and then remembered that she told him she trusted him, which she did, so she did what he asked and put her hands over her closed eyelids.

"Count to 20." He commanded after she put her covered her eyes with her hands.

"Tony." She warned.

"Count to 20." He repeated. She did as he asked and began counting. She felt Tony stop the car when she got to 11. When she reached 20, Ziva felt Tony's hands cover hers, which were still over her eyes, and he gently pulled them down. "Open your eyes." He whispered, and when she did, she saw a beautiful display of lights which glistened in the fountains outside of the door.

"Oh, Tony," she gasped as a valet approached him. Tony quickly got out of his seat, keeping his key in the ignition, and walked over to open Ziva's door, taking her hand in the process.

Even though Ziva was perfectly capable of opening the door herself, she appreciated the gesture. Ziva looped her arm through Tony's, and he led her into the restaurant, named Notre Roman, which was French for "our romance".

"It's beautiful, Tony." She told him.

"Well, here we go." He whispered into her ear.

For all of you who think this story is getting a little too fluffy and romantic, don't worry. The date is the next chapter, but there are some angsty bumps on the relationship road coming up, so be on the look out.

I am proud of myself for so far keeping up with daily updates. Anyways, please tell me what you think and leave me a review! Thank you!

NCIStiva3