Mac, a wide, likely besotted, smile on his face, walked into his house, only to find Jack and Bozer sitting on the couch, smirking and bearing a distinct resemblance to a pair of vultures.
He sighed and rolled his eyes.
This is exactly why I didn't go buy the flowers until I left to pick Beth up.
If I'd had them with me when I left…well, I don't need to give them more ammunition.
They've already got plenty.
I just casually mentioned that Beth and I were going bowling and to Mama Colton's, and they started doing everything from smirking and waggling their eyebrows to criticizing my romance game.
Look, if escape rooms and movies in cemeteries are now considered acceptable date activities, I fail to see what's wrong with bowling and dinner at a diner that serves an incredible version of her favourite food.
Much more romantic, in my honest opinion.
'Alright, get it over with, you two.'
He glanced over at Riley and Diane, who were sitting at the kitchen counter, hoping for some sympathy and back-up. Riley seemed curious, but also seemed to be holding back out of respect to his privacy, while the look on Diane's face was very much I'm just along for the ride.
Both women, however, looked very much like they were staying out of it. Riley just held up her hands, while Diane gave one of her knowing little smiles.
Mac sighed again internally and turned back to the duo on the couch, who simply smirked wider. Bozer waggled his eyebrows. Jack tapped his watch with a finger.
'You're back late, young man. It's almost curfew!'
Mac looked incredulous.
'A, it is 9:30 PM, Jack. That is really not that late. B, I'm twenty-seven years old. I don't have a curfew!'
Bozer slapped Jack's arm.
'Hey, I'm surprised he's back so early.' He waggled his eyebrows again. 'I was expecting him tomorrow...maybe in the afternoon.'
Mac's ears reddened.
My grandfather raised me to give a lady flowers, walk her to her front door after a date and kiss her goodnight, but to never, ever kiss a lady on the lips on a first date.
Look, I'm not the best at following rules, and tonight wasn't all that much of an exception – though I suppose two out of three isn't so bad, especially considering that my grandfather's number one rule was to respect and follow a lady's wishes – but…well, there are lines that I won't cross.
Jack shook his head at Mac's reaction.
'Did you at least kiss her, lover boy?'
Mac shook his head and rolled his eyes again, shrugging out of his jacket, hanging it up on the fork-based coat hooks by the door and heading to the kitchen for a glass of water.
'That's for me to know and you to never find out.'
He didn't have eyes in the back of his head, but Mac was 99.99% sure that Jack, Bozer, Riley and Diane exchanged a look that showed that they'd found out anyway.
(Bozer's stage-whispered that means he totally did kind of made it really obvious.)
Well…they're not wrong.
But a gentleman never kisses and tells.
MACGYVER'S FAVOURITE RUNNING TRACK
(NOT THAT HE'S ANYWHERE IN SIGHT)
LA
Bozer's breath came hard and fast as he and Riley jogged. He was trying to get his fitness back, after the whole being-stabbed thing.
His BFF had offered to run with him, of course, but Bozer had turned him down. Even though he knew Mac would modulate his speed to keep pace with Bozer, his best friend could already outrun him when Bozer had been at his fittest (had, actually, been able to outrun Bozer even when Bozer was taller than Mac), and Bozer simply thought that awesome as he was, Mac was not the ideal running partner in this situation.
Instead, Riley (who was fit but not a regular runner) had come with him.
She turned her head a little, noticeably breathing much more slowly and steadily than he was, and gave him a little smile, mouthing come on, Boze!
He smiled back as best as he could, and did his best to draw in a particularly deep breath, then another, picking up the pace just a fraction.
Riley's smile widened a little.
Later, after their run and a cool-down, Riley and Bozer sat on the grass, under a big, shady tree, sipping from their water bottles.
Bozer turned to grin at his friend.
'Thanks for coming with, Riley.'
She smiled back.
'No problem, Boze.' She knocked back the last of her water, then got to her feet. Bozer groaned at the thought of even moving, and she smirked lightly, teasingly at him. 'Thought Jack was the old man, not you!'
She held out a hand to him, and he took it.
Her nails had been a bright turquoise two days ago. Today, they were a metallic shade, a shimmery colour with hints of bronze.
It looked different in the broad daylight than it had in the poorly-light nightclub bathroom, but Bozer would recognize that nail polish anywhere.
He stared up at Riley's face, to find that she looked very, very confused.
'Uh…Boze?'
She tugged slightly at his hand, as if to help him heave himself up, or to remind him to do that, but Bozer just sat there and alternated between staring at her and staring at her hand, thoughts running through his head almost as fast as they ran through his best friend's.
He'd been so stupid.
It was Riley.
It'd been Riley.
He should have recognized her, should have remembered her.
It made so much more sense, that it'd been her, not Leanna.
There was a rush of affection, and (he wasn't so happy to admit this – he was engaged, for goodness' sake!) that low-level of attraction he honestly still felt towards her, the remnants of that pull that'd never quite completely gone away.
Why hadn't she said anything?
Why?
He looked up again, seeking her eyes.
'It was you.'
The way he said it, the fact that he was still holding onto her hand and had been staring at it for the last thirty seconds made it completely clear what he was talking about.
Riley, after a moment of silence, of processing, just gave a little nod.
'Yeah.'
Bozer's brow furrowed in confusion.
'Why didn't you say anything?'
Riley stared down at him for a moment, and Bozer swore that he saw a flash of something sad in there, before it was gone as soon as he thought he'd seen it. She tugged a little more firmly to pull him to his feet, then let go and shrugged.
'It wasn't just me in the end anyway.' She started walking back towards his car, her back to him so he couldn't see her face. 'And it didn't matter.'
MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE
LA
In his sleep, Bozer smiled softly.
'Archie? Archie, where are you?'
A skinny blonde boy who looked about five with blue eyes and an uncanny resemblance to his best friend as a child (he even had Mac's chin) was walking around the living room, looking through the vast number of hiding places available around the room. If there was any doubt to his parentage, he was also holding what Bozer recognized as a children's Swiss Army knife, one of those 'My First Swiss Army Knives' that he had bookmarked on his Google Chrome for future Baby MacGyvers. He was followed by a very small girl with dirty blonde hair and light brown eyes that were too big for her face who couldn't have been more than two. The girl definitely had Mac's nose and was absolutely swimming in a very familiar brown leather jacket. She put her hands on her hips and spoke, very fiercely for such a small thing.
'Archimedes the Second, come out now!'
She couldn't quite pronounce 'Archimedes' properly, but made a very good attempt.
A third child, a girl who also seemed to be about five, with dark curly hair under a Dallas Cowboys hat and Riley's eyes, ran into the room.
'Nick, Maria, it's dinnertime!' She reached out and grabbed the hands of the two siblings, and started tugging them towards the deck. 'It's burgers, and you know that my daddy makes the best burgers in the whole world!'
Nick and Maria nodded sagely, as if it was a scientific fact, before the blonde boy's expression shifted a little, to something that was extremely reminiscent of his father when he was being a bit pedantic.
'No, Hedy, he makes the best burgers in the entire universe!'
His little sister nodded enthusiastically.
'That's what our daddy says!'
'And our daddy is almost-always right!'
'Grandpa Jack says so!'
'And everyone says that Grandpa Jack's really wise!'
'Even if he acts so silly!'
The girl with Riley's eyes nodded in agreement.
'Mommy says he's wise because he's so old.'
The three kids clearly all thought Grandpa Jack was positively ancient.
The thought made Bozer grin in a way that was almost a smirk, before he almost had a heart-attack (metaphorically speaking, anyway) as a man who was unmistakeably an older version of him, holding a spatula and wearing an apron that had World's No. 1 Chef on it, with the Chef crossed out and replaced by Dad.
'Hedy, kiddo, are the Wonder Twins too busy experimenting with slime to come eat my awesomely awesome burgers? 'Cause if they are, I'm gonna give theirs to Grandpa Jack!'
Hedy just shot Mac's two kids a look a somewhat smug and very knowing look, then looked up at the older Bozer.
'Nope, Daddy. They're ready for dinner, aren't they?'
She looked very pointedly at the other two kids, looking very much like her mother.
Maria looked up at her Uncle Bozer, looking very confused.
'Nick and I aren't twins, Uncle Bozer.' She poked at his leg, which was about as high as she could reach. 'And you wouldn't give our burgers to Grandpa Jack. Grandma Diane and Auntie Riley and Mommy wouldn't let you! Because of his…'
Her face screwed up a little in thought as she tried to think of the word, and her brother chipped in for her.
'Cholesterol levels!'
He couldn't quite say 'cholesterol', sounding out the word slowly, but he got it across.
The older Bozer grinned fondly, holding his hands up.
'You got me there, kiddos! Seriously, you three are so smart...'
Bozer woke up, feeling confused and unsettled, knowing that he'd had a very strange dream, but not really able to remember anything beyond a little girl with Riley's eyes looking up at him, calling him daddy and telling him that she and her friends were ready for dinner.
He sat up, and turned off the alarm on his phone, noting that he had an unread text message from Leanna.
Funnily enough, that didn't elicit the same little rush of excitement, or even a soft little smile, or even a little surge of affection and interest that it once had.
That, he realized, had become a bit of a trend lately, in the last handful of weeks, though he couldn't quite pin down when it'd started.
He shrugged half-heartedly.
The honeymoon period, he knew, couldn't last forever. Eventually, even the healthiest and most loving of couples settled down into something that was less romance-novel-worthy, but comfortable and happy and loving nonetheless.
…Still, he wasn't sure if it was supposed to be like this. Was it supposed to happen so quickly? Or quite like this?
He shook his head a little to clear those thoughts, opening up Leanna's text to reply, and, for once, being at a loss for what to say.
There was so much swimming around his mind.
'We're not ready for that yet, Boze.'
'You convinced him that his kid, his four-year-old kid, had been killed by his boss!'
'It's…it's like building a solid foundation for a house.'
'…it didn't matter.'
'Nope, Daddy. They're ready for dinner, aren't they?'
He put down his phone, text unanswered, sitting in bed, lost in thought.
'Bro, can I ask you a personal question?'
Over breakfast that morning, Bozer looked across the table at his BFF, who was reading the newspaper while he ate his Honey-Nut Cheerios, hair damp from his usual shower after his usual morning run.
'Of course.'
'Have you ever thought you were going to marry a woman? That she was your right one?'
Mac put down his spoon, something concerned in his eyes, and something a tiny bit sad, a tiny bit hurt, too.
(Just a tiny bit. A really tiny bit.)
'Yeah. Once.'
He really didn't need to specify exactly who that woman was. The look in his eyes, the way he said it, made it obvious to his best friend.
Bozer silently cursed Nikki again, though he was also firmly convinced that the fact that Mac definitely no longer thought she was his right one was a good thing.
(After all, his BFF's right one definitely couldn't be a woman who'd cheat on him for months.)
'Only once?'
He was genuinely surprised by that.
Mac had had it really bad for Frankie when he'd been at MIT. He'd also really, really liked Allie, and even though Bozer knew very little about the woman, he also knew that she and Mac must have connected really deeply, and really quickly, given how fast things had developed between them, relative to how old-fashioned his BFF was about this sort of thing. And that connection that had built between him and Zoe was so fast and so special that it really seemed to belong in a romance novel, in fiction, was one of those things that mere mortals could only dream of happening to them. Not to mention, Bozer was pretty firmly convinced that Mac and his new girlfriend/Bozer's twice-former doctor were totally one of those sweet, adorable and wholesome couples that everyone knew would get a happily ever after from one of those Love, Actually-type rom-coms, like the body double couple from that iconic movie.
The blonde just nodded.
'Yeah.' He shifted a little in his seat. 'Well, I can't say that I haven't…I guess, fantasized about potential or possibilities if…well, things had gone a little differently, but yeah.' Mac was silent for a moment, before he held up his hands a little awkwardly. 'But we have very different, uh, romance games, Boze; it's not really one-size-fits-all, so…'
He trailed off rather awkwardly, but still eyeing Bozer with concern.
Not that Bozer completely noticed, since he was lost in his own thoughts, eating his Cheerios on autopilot.
It was a sign of Bozer's immense distraction that he didn't even ask Mac if he thought that Beth could possibly, potentially, be his right one. If Mac thought that one day, he might realize that she was the woman he was going to marry.
For the record, between you and me?
My answer would be yes.
'Jack, do you ever wonder what'd have happened if you and Diane had gotten married when Riley was a kid?'
As the two of them prepared dinner (Mac and Riley were working late at JPL; they had a probe deadline to meet, and everyone was pulling overtime), Bozer paused in his coriander-chopping and looked over at the older man who was peeling potatoes.
Jack eyed him for a moment, something concerned and also something that Bozer couldn't quite read in his eyes, before turning back to the potatoes and speaking.
'It'd never have worked out.' He looked back over at Bozer. 'I was too scared of what I was coming to mean to Ri, and her, 'cause of that. Scared of being Ri's dad. And you know she was married before, and how that went.' Jack shrugged. 'Still don't know if she'd ever wanna marry again.'
'You cool with that?'
Jack nodded. He knew he was implicitly admitting that he and Diane were that sort of serious, had progressed to that level of serious (though, he thought, when they'd started things up between them again, they'd probably both acknowledged implicitly that it was that kind of serious – it had to be; there could not be anything casual between them at all, not with their history and Riley), but frankly, he was comfortable with that, and he knew Diane would be too.
'It's a piece of paper, Boze, at the end of the day. Yeah, it's a big public declaration, vows and promises and all, but…it ain't the big thing. Ain't that important. If your relationship's not strong and healthy enough to go the distance, all that piece of paper's gonna do is make it harder to untangle your lives. And if it is strong and healthy enough to go the distance…well, whether you have that bit of paper's not gonna mean a thing.'
That growing, itchy, doubtful feeling in Bozer's brain grew stronger.
RILEY'S RESIDENCE
LA
'Riley?' Bozer paused Resident Evil 7, just as Riley was about to blow the head off a Molded. She turned to him, looking a bit annoyed, which quickly faded as she took in the look on his face. He ploughed on before he could second-guess himself. 'I need you to be straight with me. Do you reckon Leanna and I should get married?'
Riley stared at him for a long, long moment, something inscrutable in her eyes. Then, after that long silence, she spoke, her voice uncharacteristically soft.
'If you think that you would be happy to spend the rest of your life with her, that you can love her for that long…then yeah, yeah you should.'
After another moment of staring at him, that same inscrutable something in her eyes, she unpaused the game and started killing Molded as if they'd personally offended her.
AN: And the truth is out! The drama begins! And yes, that dream sequence was so, so much fun to write…
