Chapter 7
They were seated elbow to elbow on Kate's bed, both freshly showered and as comfortable as the proximity allowed, which, had each been asked to rate, probably would've landed somewhere on the comfort scale between Sweet agony and Not at all.
The early rain shower had mutated into a storm, and the room had fallen into its darkness, save for that lone bulb, which flickered in fear when another bolt of lightning snapped overhead. The motel electricity's surrender felt but seconds away, and absent their solitary mode of distraction, one that would likewise fall victim, what they'd be left with was only each other.
"I assume you know a guy in weather, too, Castle? Pretty convenient a storm hits when it's my movie of choice we're watching."
"Hey, maybe the big man upstairs just really wanted to go bowling at…" He shot the clock a glance. "Maybe 10:47am is when he likes to hit the lanes, or maybe he just doesn't share your love of Julia Roberts. Either way, I'm afraid if the power goes out in this place, we may never be heard of again."
Kate smiled with the jolt to her memory. "My mom used to tell me that when I was kid. You just reminded me-the thunder being God bowling. It worked every time."
"It's a good one, and it's even kind of a sweet thought as an adult, actually." The action on his iPad's screen paused on its own, buffered again with another hiccup of the WiFi. "I can't believe I forgot to pack cards. I always pack cards on road trips. Oh, hey, speaking of trips, I don't think I told you. I'm flying out to L.A. at the end of next week to visit the set of the Heat movie and hang out for a couple of days. I'll be sure to give Natalie your love when I see her," he said with a smirk.
She gave him the side-eye, responded with mock disillusionment. "She never calls. She never writes." Then, after a pause, what'd actually been her first thought. "Are you guys going to hang out?"
Rick swiped the iPad from his lap and shook it, like that was going to help solve anything. "You know, I think I'm probably going to be washing my hair that night. You could always come with me and help keep me entertained." He gave up on his gadget, tossed it aside with scorn. "Useless."
"Castle, have you and your mom ever had a contest to see which of you could be more dramatic? You can't just sit for two seconds and enjoy the sound of the rain?"
She let her eyes close, tried to immerse herself in the harmony of sounds beyond the walls of their room. The storm hadn't yet landed upon them with its full force, but it was bearing down, and the wind was whistling through the tiny imperfections in the weathered door.
Whether or not she was aware of it he couldn't be sure, but he was watching her, not a cop at work, fierce and hard, but a woman at peace, and before he even realized it was happening, he found himself leaning in.
Suddenly a roar of thunder, and he jumped straight off the bed, scurried away. The intervention had his heart pumping, and he could feel the expression on Kate's face as she watched him flit around like a bird in a cage.
"What the hell are you doing, Castle? It was thunder, not a bomb," she said through a chuckle. "Relax."
"I just-I almost just kissed you." His fingers whipped through his hair. "I have no idea what that was. One second I was looking at you and the next, I don't know what. Okay, I need to…I'm going to go into the bathroom and do something. I'm not sure what, but something. Did I say I'm not sure what that was? I meant to."
Mostly Kate wanted to laugh, and that would've been right, because that's what he always gave her. But there was also a whisper from out of the blue, a voice-Royce's voice. The last thing you want is to look back on your life and wonder, 'if only.' Like he was sitting there beside her she heard it, and with him in her ear, she slid to the end of the bed and set her feet on the floor.
Rick had stopped moving when she'd started, but when she finally stood, he took one step toward her, and then another, until the only step that remained was hers.
"I don't want you to almost kiss me," she told him and his knees nearly gave out at the softness of it. "And I don't want you to go."
In what happened next, she felt more herself than she had in any moment they'd ever spent together.
xxxx
That a thing could seem at once so improbable and so real had never been more purely evidenced to him than by the seizing of his mouth by hers, and were it not for all the other places on his body it'd affected, the only conclusion he surely would've been able to arrive at was that he hadn't yet woken that morning, that what'd just happened had been a dream.
With his eyes still closed and his lips parted, Rick stood frozen in their shared space like a statue, hoping when he opened them he'd find the speckled green of Kate's eyes staring back at him in plea of more, as he'd fantasized about each day he'd known her.
"Castle," he heard, faint. "What are you thinking?"
"That's a very generous assumption. You're giving me way too much credit right now."
"What else is new?" she quipped in that Beckett voice he was so accustomed to, one that worked to help snap him back.
The things that were new could fill a book.
"Wow. That was unexpected and nice." His head dropped back and he lingered a few seconds in his squirrelly response. "If I'd known that was coming, I would've zapped the WiFi myself." He reached out and drew his hand down the length of her arm. "Are you okay?" he asked as though he felt he should make sure he hadn't done something wrong.
Kate smiled with her eyes, trailed his touch the entire way. "I'm fine, Castle, and just so you know, sometimes the simplest words are the best ones," she added of the choice of descriptors he'd seemed to consider deficient. She'd found them rather sweet.
"That's good to hear, because I'm pretty much stuck in Pat the Bunny mode at the moment. I'm not even sure how many words I still know."
She hooked him by his shirt with a gentle tug. "That good, huh?" It was a question she already knew the answer to, both because she had the buzz of a second pour of wine and he a newfound preoccupation with her lips. "Maybe if I'd known that was coming, I would've done it a long time ago. You know, to shut you up."
With a pop, the already feeble light in the room vanished into shadows.
Rick rested a hand on her cheek and grazed his thumb along its curve, his manner shifting. "I don't think I could ever make you understand how much I wish you had. Every time I've ever looked at you, I've thought about it." His focus then appeared to drift. "Especially that time at that nightclub."
Kate knew precisely the night and the dance floor he alluded to, the unpreventably brief moments that hadn't felt like work. "I haven't been immune to an occasional thought, I guess," she admitted coyly, dropping to the edge of the bed to sit.
With her shift, he moved around in front of her, leaned with his back against the dresser. "You know, even in the dark, I can still see how beautiful you are. Man, you do not realize how heavy that's been to carry around for three years and never say it."
"I don't?" she asked because she did. Stillness hung between them and their gaze and then passed. "Castle…" He hummed his own inquisitive reply. "Are you waiting for some sort of engraved invitation?"
"Should I be?" Whatever boundaries there now were, he wasn't certain, but upon her green light, he advanced in effort to find out.
xxxx
The rain left behind a chill in the air, but not one of such effect that it kept them inside for the duration of the day. Following a healthy session of what would be considered by many to be relatively tame horizontal exploration of one another, they set out for the local grocery and some takeout.
"Whatever, Castle, you already told me you didn't like the woods. Honestly, you'd probably combust if you had to live in a place like this," Kate snickered as they walked the crowd-free sidewalk, their arms brushing in kiss whenever their paths inadvertently drifted wayward. "I'm surprised you can even handle the beach."
"I know what I told you, thank you, and I'm not sure what you're implying, Detective, but the air up here is as sharp as that tongue of yours and my lungs are on some kind of a high."
Kate drew in her cheeks, bit at them kittenishly as she worked her retort. "You didn't seem to have any problem with my tongue a little while ago. In fact, you said it was-"
Rick abruptly stopped walking, forcing her to turn back. "Please believe me when I tell you that if you finish that sentence-out here, in broad daylight, amongst the people-you will pay a price, and it will be entirely your fault. After that, you may not be allowed to come back here at all, with or without me."
She crossed to him with the grin of a woman who achieved exactly what she set out to, pushed up on her tiptoes to give him a peck when she felt her phone buzz. It was Javi and off-hours, both of which had her answering straight away.
"Espo," she said moving off the sidewalk and wandering a bit ahead, not that she intended to keep whatever it was from Rick, but rather the surprise of it inspired an instant restlessness.
"Hey, I wanted you to hear it from me first. We brought a guy in on Royce. I don't make him as the doer, but if he knows who is, we'll get it out of him. I can't give you more than that because I have to fly, but this is a good something and I wanted you to have it."
In an unoccupied parking space, Kate took a seat on the edge of the curb. "Thank you, Javi. I'm…"
"I know you are," he said. "You hangin' in there? Talk to Castle?"
Her mind preoccupied by the news-however limited it was-she didn't think before she spoke. "Yeah, he's up here with me, act-" Too many words had come out to backtrack, and though she hadn't really said anything condemnable, she knew what'd happened between the two of them that Javi didn't, and the blush was enough to cut her short. "Yeah, I did."
"'K, whatever that means." He was suspicious, or his interest was piqued, at least, and she'd managed to plant that seed on her own. "I'm out but I'll call."
Kate tucked her phone away and Rick came up behind her. "Was that something about the case? Royce?"
"Yeah, they aren't sure exactly what, yet, but Espo wanted to let me know there was movement."
He nudged her with his knee. "You have good partners," he told her, and despite referring only to her team back at the precinct, when she looked up at him and agreed, he knew he'd been included. "Come on, up. Cookies, chocolate, and Chow Mein await."
xxxx
They hit the market first, and for items of want, not need-mainly. Kate had developed a craving for oatmeal cookies and Rick a Snickers bar, after an earlier joke he'd made about something that "really satisfied" had called to mind the candy bar's tagline, and earned him a roll of the eyes.
They strolled the aisles together for a couple of minutes before she proposed he head over to pick up the order of Chinese they'd already called in, told him casually that she'd grab them some drinks to go along with it and meet him out front. She didn't feel terribly casual on the inside, though.
It wasn't decided, not yet, not that she even knew if it'd be a conscious decision as much as a yielding by necessity. After all, the hunger had been inside of her for three years, and the relief gifted by what she'd succeeded in asking for that morning, while satiating, could only hold for so long, especially given the temptation aroused by their current residence.
So, to go along with their shared list of items, she included something for herself in the purchase-for them-slipping the small box of maybe into the inside pocket of her jacket before she walked out.
"All set?" Rick was already waiting. "They were just filling the cartons when I got there, so it's still steamy. Do you want me to run in and get another bottle of wine quick on the way back or are you all wined out after last night?"
"No, you can. I'm good."
A couple of blocks closer to the motel, Rick ducked into the same wine shop Kate had visited, and with the generosity of the afternoon light, she was able to watch through the window as he weaved his way through its bottles and racks.
The entire reason for his being around her, for his being in her life, had been built upon his observation of her, and as she stood there, after what'd taken place between them, doing the very thing he did every day-watching-it felt almost like she was seeing him with new eyes, and it nearly brought tears to them.
When he reached the counter, she watched as he came to the aid of the woman trying to carry too many bottles with too few hands who stepped into line behind him, relieving her burden and allowing her to transact first, all of which he did with a smile. Underneath everything he appeared to be at hasty glance-the jokes and the toys and the egotism-what she'd witnessed was the man he was, always, and all of it had become the man she loved.
"Geesh, are you finally ready?" he teased when he emerged, but rather than laugh, Kate pressed a tender kiss to his lips. "What was that for?"
She had too many reasons, and their food was getting cold.