Disclaimers: These aren't my characters officer, I was just watching them for a friend.
Author's note: Not clear on how a story which started off including phrases like "get in my pantyliners" and "face to crotch contact" wound up as sappy as this one is getting, but hopefully it's still funny. Also… not that I'm really worried about getting flamed for anything in here, but remember this particular story is all in good fun and not meant to be taken seriously.
Natalie studied her reflection critically in the mirror. Holding up her hair and turning her head from side to side, she debated for the fifth time wearing it up. It didn't matter how many times she told herself that she was being ridiculous. That this was John. A man whose bed she'd shared on and off for nearly two years. He'd seen her looking her absolute worst; it was a little late to be making a positive impression. But that didn't stop the strange flutters in her stomach.
Jessica walked in without knocking and smirked at her. "Your date's here," she said.
Natalie looked at her with a surprise that was nearing panic. "I didn't hear the door."
"I was out on the porch with Bree when he pulled up," she said.
"Okay," Natalie said, trying to steady herself with a deep breath, "how do I look?"
"Honestly?" Jessica said, "A little underdressed compared to him."
"You're kidding?" she asked with a raised eyebrow. John asking her on a date was strange enough, but it had never occurred to her he'd wear anything other than his work clothes. "Shit," she said as she glanced frantically towards the closet wondering what she had with her at the carriage house that would be suitable.
"Calm down," Jessica said walking towards the closet, "you're worth waiting for." She rummaged through Natalie's closet and found a slinky knee-length black dress. "Here," she said handing it to her, "This with a bigger necklace will work great."
"I don't know what's gotten into John," she said as she quickly changed from her skirt and sweater into the dress, "Asking me to dinner at the Palace was weird enough, but getting all dressed up..."
"And there are flowers," Jessica added as she perused Natalie's jewelry.
"Flowers?" she repeated.
"Looked like a dozen long-stemmed red roses," she said selecting a necklace and walking over to fasten it around her sister's neck.
"He's lost his mind," Natalie said, lifting her hair out of Jessica's way.
"Or your plan is working," she said, "Just remember you took an oath, so I expect you to keep that dress on until you're back here, young lady."
"Jessica, the oath was my idea," she protested, "You really think I'm going to be the one to break it?"
"You haven't seen him yet," Jessica said stepping back to examine her sister, "He looks gooooood."
"Well do I look okay?" Natalie asked nervously.
Jessica folded her arms and looked at her carefully. "Yeah, but fluff a little bit."
"Excuse me?"
"You know," Jessica pantomimed rearranging her breasts, "Show him what he's missing," she said with a grin.
Natalie descended the stairs a moment later, somewhat reassured to discover that John looked every bit as nervous as she felt. Jessica was right—he did look good, dressed in the suit he generally only broke out on special occasions. "Wow," he said catching sight of her, "you look… really pretty."
"Thanks," she said with a grin, "you look pretty good yourself."
He held out the flowers towards her awkwardly. "Um… These are for you."
"Thank you!" she said, just as unfamiliar with receiving flowers as he was with bestowing them, "They're beautiful."
"I'll put them in some water for you," Jessica said coming down the stairs behind her; Natalie handed them off gratefully. "You two kids have fun," she continued, "but I expect her back by midnight, young man."
"Yes ma'am," John nodded as they walked from the house. Preceding her down the steps, John walked to the passenger side door and opened it.
Natalie looked at him blankly, "You want me to drive?"
"I was opening the door for you," he said, sounding a bit embarrassed.
"Oh!" she said blushing and walking to her side of the car, "thank you."
Natalie was slightly more prepared when they arrived at the restaurant and he pulled out her chair for her, but she still had no explanation for his strange behavior. Finally, after a meal's worth of compliments on her necklace, her dress and her hair, and conversation about the food and décor of the restaurant, she couldn't take it anymore. "John?" she finally blurted out, "what are you doing?"
He looked at her blankly, "I'm eating my dessert."
"No," she said shaking her head, "tonight. Opening my door, talking about my jewelry, getting all dressed up. What's gotten into you?"
"I thought this was what you wanted," he said.
"What?" she asked.
"Well you said you wanted to be treated with respect," he said, "that you wanted to be appreciated."
"And you think that's what this is?" she asked. She took his silence as confirmation. "John, I want you to respect me. I want you to treat me as your partner, not your whore. But I want to be with you. If I wanted a guy who took me out to fancy restaurants and bought me roses, I could find one."
"Then why don't you?" he snapped.
"Because I want you," she repeated, "And this isn't you."
"I thought…" he looked down at the table; she could tell he was embarrassed and she felt bad about that, "I thought girls liked this kind of thing."
"Some do, sure," she nodded, "If you were courting my sister you'd be doing really well right now."
"But not with you," he said glumly.
She reached across the table and put a hand on his. "John, this isn't any more me than it is you. Part of what I always liked about you was I could be myself around you. The rough little AC girl who prefers diners to swanky restaurants and beer to champagne. I thought you understood that about me."
"What I don't understand is what you want from me," he said, "You want me to change, but still be me. I'm not sure I get what that means."
"I'm fine with burgers and fries at Rodi's, John," she said, "but it would be nice if every now and then you could ask me how my day was. Or what I want to do with my life now that I'm out of the forensics program. Of if you didn't forget about me completely every time some big case comes up. I want you to remember that I'm a human being and exactly what kind of human being I am."
"I guess that makes sense," he said, still looking down at the table. She knew he was torturing himself for missing the mark on this, but she couldn't regret being honest with him. Still, his intentions had been spot on, even if his methodology had been way off track.
He was quiet the rest of the evening, right up to when he walked her up to the door of the carriage house. "John, I want you to know this was very sweet," she said pausing at the door, "even if you did miss the mark a bit, the thought was appreciated."
"I guess that's something," he said glumly.
"You get an A for effort," she said taking a step towards him, "and you know what that gets you?"
"Not a clue," he said shaking his head.
"This," she said circling her arm around his neck and kissing him deeply. It had been so long, and the kiss felt so good, she started to lose herself for a moment before the porch light flickered.
"Jessica," she said as they pulled back guiltily. She giggled, "I feel like a teenager. Except when I was a teenager, Roxy never cared how late I stayed out."
"Well maybe we could do this again sometime," he said looking the part of the teenager with his hands thrust deep in his pockets, "except not exactly this. But you know…"
"Definitely," she said with a grin as she opened the door, "give me a call sometime."
The next morning Natalie was on her way out of Heavenly Grounds with her last cup of non-LPD coffee for the day, when she nearly collided with Adriana Cramer.
"Natalie!" the younger woman exclaimed, "OhmygodImsogladtoseeyou! Ireallyneedtotalktoyou!"
"Um… okay," Natalie said uncertainly, "just take a deep breath and slow down to a speed I can understand."
Before speaking again, Adriana grabbed her hand and dragged her to a corner table. Leaning forward once they were seated, she said in a voice just above a whisper, "I think I might have broken my oath, but I'm not sure."
Natalie let her head fall wearily into her hands. "Adriana, I swear if the next thing you say has anything to do with my brother being a generous lover-"
"Not with Rex," she said.
Natalie's eyes widened. "You're telling me you cheated on my brother?"
"I don't know!" she moaned.
"It's not a difficult question."
Adriana bit her lower lip nervously. "I know I sound crazy. But the oath—it was just about guys, right?"
"Yeah," Natalie said slowly. She was quiet for another moment, "Wait a minute, you're saying-?"
"Yeah."
"With who?" she asked. She wasn't completely sure she wanted to know, but if she didn't ask, the curiosity would kill her.
"Layla," she said pitifully.
"Oh," Natalie nodded, "Wow. I mean, I knew you two were roommates but are you saying you're… roommates?"
"No!" she said, "We're not like that. At least I'm not. Layla says she's eighty-twenty, but I don't really know what that means. Anyway it's no big deal, right?" The quiver in her voice indicated she wasn't as sure as she wanted to be. "I mean, a lot of girls experiment with… you know."
"So they say," Natalie said trying to sound as nonjudgmental as possible.
"Did you ever?"
She thought for a moment. "Sort of," she admitted, "Once. Back in AC. But there were free drinks on the line and I was trying to piss of the guy I was with. And it was just a kiss."
"This was a little more than a kiss," Adriana said blushing.
"I don't need details," Natalie said quickly, holding up her hands.
Ignoring her request, Adriana stared into space remembering. "It wasn't like we planned it. I mean, we were just hanging out at first. You know, having girl time. Drinking, doing each other's nails, drinking, doing each other's hair, drinking some more…"
"I really have enough of the general gist of what you did next," Natalie interjected.
"So what do I do?" she whined.
"Why do you think I'm the one to ask about this?"
"Well you organized everything with the oath and-"
"Okay," Natalie said, taking a deep breath, "I think as far as the oath goes, you're fine. You're right, it only specified no sex with guys."
"Do you think Rex is going to dump me if he finds out?"
Natalie chuckled at the girl's naïveté. "Sweetie, if he finds it out he's probably going to decide it's extremely hot and start begging for a threesome." Adriana's brow furrowed and Natalie quickly pressed on before she could ask what a threesome was, "I guess the issue is how do you feel about what happened?"
"I don't know," she wailed.
Leaning forward and patting her on the arm Natalie stood and said, "Well you think about it and when you figure it out, talk to someone else about it. I'm late for work."
Hurrying into the LPD building a few minutes later and hoping Bo wouldn't have noticed how late she was, Natalie was less than thrilled to be intercepted by Evangeline. "Natalie, can you come to my office for a minute?" she asked, "I need to talk to you about something."
Natalie groaned. "You people know we have therapists in this town, right?"
"Natalie, please," she said urgently, "No one else is going to understand this the same way you will."
"Fine," she relented as she followed Evangeline to her office. Once the door was closed she asked, in a less than patient voice, "So what's the big crisis?"
"When you and Cristian were together, what did you talk about?"
Natalie blinked, unable to believe she was actually having this conversation. "You remember we were in college, right?"
"I know," she said, "but college students still talk, right?"
"Not like grown ups do," she said, "I don't know. Most of our conversations were about classes, homework, what glorified garage band was playing where, why his mother hated me, how it felt to have my grandfather try to cut out my heart…"
"Okay," Evangeline nodded actually taking notes, "but didn't you ever get into general issues of life, your likes and dislikes, you know, go a little deeper. You must have, you were married!"
"For a day!"
"But you were together for a while after he came back the first time," she pointed out.
"Yeah," Natalie admitted, "but then most of our conversations were, 'Cristian, I know something's wrong, tell me what it is!' and him saying, 'You're paranoid, let's have sex.'"
Evangeline sighed. "I know how that goes."
Natalie smiled at her sympathetically; she might not always like Evangeline, but she understood these relationship issues all too well. "I take it Cristian's not doing well with this new… arrangement?"
"No," she said sadly, "Or maybe I'm the one who's not doing well with it. I thought this would be so simple, but… I refuse to believe that our entire relationship is based on sex, but I can't figure out what else there is to it. I can't figure out anything we have in common."
Natalie had often wondered the same thing, but she knew it would be in bad taste to say so right now. "Well maybe you don't need to have anything in common," she suggested, "I mean they say opposites attract. Maybe you just need to find a way to turn this to your advantage?"
"Maybe," she said, clearly unconvinced. "So how are things with you? I can't imagine John's taking all this very well."
Natalie smiled in spite of herself remembering John's misdirected, but very sweet, efforts the night before. "Well he wasn't happy about it," she said, "but… he's trying. He's clueless, but he's trying."
"Could you tell him to have a talk with Cris?" she asked, sounding more than a little pitiful.
Natalie couldn't help laughing. "Yeah, that would be great. My girlfriend who is your ex asked me to ask you to make more of an effort with your girlfriend who is my ex."
"Maybe not," she conceded.
"I hope things get better," Natalie said standing up, "But I really have to get to work now."
"Yeah, of course," Evangeline nodded and as she scurried out of the office, Natalie had the distinct impression that once left alone the older woman planned on having a nice old-fashioned crying jag.
Natalie took her now lukewarm coffee upstairs to the squad room and paused at the sight of a plastic shopping bag wrapped around something on her desk. A post-it note on the bag read:
N-
Saw this at the store and it made me think of you.
J
She reached into the bag and pulled out what appeared to be a miniature pool cue. It took her a moment to realize that it was actually a ballpoint pen designed to look like a pool cue. Sinking down in her chair she twirled it in her fingers for a long moment, smiling at it and wondering if John knew that a gift like this was much more likely to get her panties off than any bouquet of roses.
To be continued…