Chapter Seven
Idiot. She was an idiot.
Kate Beckett awoke Saturday morning, four days after the incident on the subway platform, her gut churning with self-loathing. She was an idiot.
The previous night at the Palaburn-Rodgers apartment, after she dragged the mood down with her revelation about her lack of family, Rick suggested that they play a round of Cards Against Humanity to get back into the Christmas spirit. Having never heard of the up-and-coming game, Kate agreed and was immediately confused when the two parents fled the room.
Twenty minutes later, Kate had tears rolling down her face and could barely sit upright from laughing so hard at the oh-so-very-wrong, yet-so-very-right game. Though her responses were timid at first, Kate quickly grew to enjoy the wildly inappropriate fun and was slamming down even wilder cards with each round. She was having so much fun with Lanie and Rick that she failed to realize the time until it had become quite late. In her haste to say goodbye, any thoughts of coming clean about her lack of relationship status with Nick had vanished from her mind.
That Saturday morning—the first morning in almost a week that she did not need to hurry off to work—Kate lie in her bed staring at the ceiling wondering what the hell she was going to do. She had to tell them. Of course she had to tell them. She definitely had to tell them but…how?
After Christmas dinner things were definitely more complex. They had always been complicated, but now their level of complexity had grown significantly, mind-boggling as that was. She actually cared about them now—cared a lot—meaning she felt even worse about hurting them, disappointing them. Revealing the truth would definitely do both of those things.
Finally resolving herself to the fact that lying in bed half the morning would win her nothing, Kate pushed herself from the mattress, grabbed her well-worn gray robe off the back of the bedroom door and shuffled her way out into her modest apartment. Strictly speaking it was the modest apartment her father purchased after remaining in her childhood home had been too painful for him. After his death, Kate had inherited the place. It wasn't very large (she would have hated sharing it with another person) but the mid-town location was excellent.
As she stood in the cramped kitchen waiting for her coffee to brew, a box seated on the floor several feet from the entryway caught her attention. Sitting there next to her thick winter boots it had almost been forgotten, but with nothing else pressing to do she decided to explore.
On Christmas Day after her visit with Nick, a kind nurse had handed her the box of her fiancée's belongings. At the time, Kate had been too exhausted to argue or attempt to explain why her possessing the box would be inappropriate. She'd merely accepted it with a tired thank you and shuffled her way to the elevator.
Seated on the floor, her robe snuggled around her and a steaming cup of coffee within arm's reach, Kate began the delicate task of sorting through the box. Plunging her hand inside, she first came into contact with something firm and rectangular. Procuring the item, she realized it was the writer's wallet.
A gentle smile on her face, she skimmed her fingers across the supple black leather and let it fall open in her hand. She observed his driver's license (of could his picture was absolutely perfect), a few credit cards (no doubt with five figure limits at least), and a few hundred dollars in cash. Setting the wallet aside, she reached for the next item in the box and felt the strap of the leather messenger bag Nick carried that fateful morning.
Her mind spinning with the possibilities of its contents, Kate pulled the bag into her lap and unzipped the closure. Much to her disappointment, the bag did not contain the manuscript to his next novel. While the bag did contain a spiral bound notebook, all the pages appeared to be blank. The bag also contained a few discarded pens, a half pack of gum, and a lint-covered piece of hard candy which she tossed into the nearest trash can with a grimace.
The final item inside was a petite brown paper bag containing something solid and round. Intrigued, she flipped the bag upside down and let the contents fall into her lap. One item, a rounded aluminum can no larger than her palm, dropped onto her thigh. Kate picked up the can and gasped upon reading the label. Fancy Feast: Turkey Feast. Cat food! Nick had cat food in his bag!
The only conclusion that Kate could draw was that Nick owned a cat—a cat who, she realized with great horror, might not have been fed in several days. Poor kitty!
Fueled by great concern, Kate rushed to the bathroom to make herself as presentable as possible in the shortest period of time. Eight minutes later she shoved the cat food can and Nick's wallet into her purse, grabbed a jacket and headed out the door.
Kate was not surprised in the least to find that Nick's address was actually a swanky looking apartment building in one of Manhattan's most up-and-coming sections. She hurried her way inside only to realize that with Nick's belongings she found no apartment key. Frantic, she began searching through his wallet until she discovered a credit card with no VISA or MasterCard logo. Instead, it bore the emblem of the apartment building. It was then she realized that the lock to Nick's apartment door was a card lock, much like that in a hotel.
Kate let herself into 12B and stepped cautiously into the foreign space. "Here kitty! Here kitty kitty!" she called out softly all the while praying, Please don't let me find a dead cat—please!
The white walled, white tile floored hall led directly to a galley-style kitchen. On the floor against the back wall Kate spotted two dishes: one, completely empty and the other with a scant amount of liquid inside. This, she determined, was a good sign.
She continued her calls for the mystery kitty while rinsing, filling and replacing the water bowl. It wasn't until she cracked open the Fancy Feast can that she heard the soft padding of feet and a very mournful meow. Glancing down at the floor, she spotted a pure white Persian cat rounding the corner from the hall.
"Aw, hello pretty kitty. You must be so hungry," Kate cooed. Though, if forced to choose, Kate would have considered herself a dog person rather than a cat person, she did not have any dislike towards cats. In fact, she had fond memories of a grandmother's cat curling up on her lap and purring when she would visit as a young child. But in the face of the clearly starving feline, Kate's heart broke a little.
After emptying the can into the bowl on the floor, Kate exited the kitchen and allowed the Persian to chow down in peace. Walking towards the back of the apartment she decided a self-guided tour was the thing to do. After all, when else would she get a chance to explore a famous writer's domain?
Stepping out of the kitchen and moving to her left, Kate found herself in a large open space with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the New York streets below. She found the décor, in a word, curious. The overarching theme of the apartment was monochrome: blacks and whites abounded with very few pops of color in between. The couch was a very boxy, modern style that to Kate did not appear comfortable or welcoming in the least.
Shaking her head slightly at the writer's taste, Kate turned her attention to the thing in the room she was most interested in: Nick's bookshelves. She'd always been curious what kind of books writers read, and this was her chance to discover. A spring in her step, she crossed the room to the first of two identical side-by-side bookshelves.
The top shelf had, unsurprisingly, a copy of each of his eleven titles. As she owned and read each of them, she moved to the next shelf down. That one contained mostly science fiction books, which she found interesting, as that was not the genre he wrote for. She spent the better part of the next twenty minutes reading the name of each of the books on his shelf and was extremely surprised to find that none of them were mystery books. How, she wondered, did he write such fantastic mysteries without reading them himself? She wasn't sure, but then again, she was not a writer.
Kate crossed the living room area and found herself in front of two doors. One, presumably leading to a bathroom and the other to a bedroom. She paused, chewing on her bottom lip. Did she really want to look in Nick Rodgers bedroom? Well obviously she did, but should she, was the real question.
As she stood in contemplation, Kate was ripped from her internal debate by a horrifying sound: someone had unlatched the front door to Nick's place; someone was coming inside.
Letting out a string of curses under her breath, Kate froze on the spot and searched the immediate vicinity as though an escape hatch would suddenly appear. Who the hell was coming into the apartment? Clearly, it wasn't Nick. Not only was he still (most likely) unconscious, but she had his key! Her cop instincts kicked in, but damn she was unarmed! She searched the immediate area for the next best thing: a golf club propped in the corner by the bookshelves; that would work.
Kate tip-toed her way to the club and picked it up, holding it over her shoulder like a ballplayer would a bat as he stood at home plate. She crept her way towards the intruder and rounded the corner the same time he did. They both yelped upon colliding with each other. Kate dropped the golf club, stepped back and stared up at the familiar figure.
"What are you doing here!?" they demanded in unison, both of their hearts racing.
"I, ah, I…I came to feed the cat," Kate said.
"I came to check—wait," Rick interrupted his own thought, "What cat?"
"The cat," she said simply.
Rick's brow furrowed. "Nick doesn't have a cat."
"Sure he does," Kate said. As if on cue, the full-bellied feline emerged from the kitchen. Kate brushed past Rick up and scooped up the white ball of fluff, cradling her in her arms as she turned back to the perplexed elder man.
"Huh," he said. Nick, the hater of all things cluttered and disorderly, with a long-haired pet. That was…unexpected. "Did you guys just get him?"
"Her," Kate corrected, ruffling the kitty's pink collar before placing he back on the ground. "She's a rescue."
Rick nodded, slipped his hands into the pockets of his dark jeans and walked towards the oversized windows. "Well Mother wanted me to check on the place…" He stopped walking in the center of the room and spun around to face her, "Hey can I ask you something?" After she nodded him on, he asked, "How did you and Nick meet?"
She took a few steps towards him. "What do you mean?"
He shrugged, not knowing how else to phrase the question. "How did you meet?"
Feeling her cheeks grow hot, Kate tried to calm herself. Okay. This was okay; she had prepared for this. As it was the most basic question someone could ask, she had prepared an answer just in case and, amazingly, it wasn't a total lie. "On the subway – I was on shift; we were getting in the same car and kind of bumped into each other. Got to talking… why?" she added noting the suspicious eyebrow raise gave her.
He shook his head. "Nothing. It's just curious…you're not really his type."
Slightly miffed, she folded her arms over her chest. "What's that supposed to mean?"
He took a step towards her and ticked off the reasons on his fingertips. "Well, for starters, you're not blonde. Also, your cup size is about half what he'd normally go for."
With his second comment Kate had progressed to full-on offended. What a terrible thing to say! Moments earlier she had been observing him in his tan and green plaid shirt thinking how the casual look really fit him and now he was making rude comments! Her defensive mode kicking in, Kate snapped, "Oh I see…so you're basing your suspicions on our relationship about the fact that I'm not pretty enough?"
"No, you're beautiful," he told her in a tone with an alarming amount of conviction. "I'm just saying you're not his type."
His compliment did lessen her rage slightly, but Kate still felt singed. So what if she wasn't blonde with perky D-cup breasts? Was it such a crazy notion that handsome, wealthy Nick be interested in her? Why not her? She was kind and caring and, well, okay she wasn't all that funny in most situations, but she was an excellent listener and gave good advice. "Well," she continued her defense (the fact that she was defending a non-existent relationship never entering her mind), "maybe that's why he's never been engaged before."
"Yeah, speaking of that – when did you say you guys got engaged?"
As Rick drew closer to her, Kate continued to take steps back until she had moved back out into the hallway. "I-I don't think I did." Nope, she definitely hadn't thought of a cover story for that lie.
"So when did you?"
"Recently."
"How recently?"
Though his expression seemed to be one of amusement, Kate still remained skeptical of his inquiry. "Why does it matter?"
"Why are you avoiding my questions?" he countered with a pointed look. She dropped her chin to her chest but fought the urge to look away from his gaze, feeling that doing so could give away her lie.
After staring at each other for several more moments, Rick broke their stare. "Okay fine," he confessed. "The reason I ask is because last I heard my brother was sleeping with his publisher, Gina."
"Oh—Oh right," she said, buying herself time to come up with a story on the fly. "He told me about her. They broke up not too long before we met. Then we got together and everything was kind of a whirlwind you know?" she laughed nervously. Engaged before they'd officially spoke to each other? Yep, calling that a whirlwind was putting it mildly, wasn't it?
He chuckled. "You don't say…"
Kate stuffed her hands down into her jean pockets and turned towards the exit, feeling a quick escape was prudent—before he could ask any more pesky questions that was. "Well I should get going…"
"You're not taking the cat with you?" Rick asked, gesturing towards the sun bathing fur ball a few feet from them.
Kate shook her head. "I don't want to upset her…I'll keep feeding her though—you don't have to worry."
"I wasn't. Listen, ah, Mother's making another big dinner tonight if you-"
"Can't," she cut him off with the shake of her head. Still backing towards the door she explained further, "On shift."
"Right, right…some other time then," he said.
She flashed him a meek smile before saying a hurried goodbye and escaping out into the hallway.
A/N: Hi guys! Just wanted to remind you again that I will be posting on Thursday of this week and then not again until Tuesday the 25th because I'm going to Comic Con this weekend. I'm meeting Nathan Fillion and Adam Baldwin and (if the timing works out) Norman Reedus - so excited :) AND because I'm so grateful for your patience with my wacky posting sched, I will give you 3 chapters next week! Tues, Thurs & Saturday!