A Dash of Summer
She's not melancholy; she's just tired. It's the end of a long week wrangling her lively kids, and she's still building up her endurance when it comes to non-stop Dash and Ellery.
Castle heats up their bread in the oven while she sinks down on a bar stool and tucks her foot under her thigh. The quiet is heady, makes her soporific in her chair, and she's faintly surprised when he sets a plate in front of her. Spaghetti and meatballs.
She tilts her head to smile at him, and he settles down beside her with his own plate, the last of the bread steaming on a paper towel in front of them. He runs his palm down her back as he gets comfortable, and the familiarity does its part to make her sleepier.
No good. She's got to drive them up to the Hamptons this afternoon. "How soon did you want to leave?" she asks, twirling spaghetti on her fork. Freshly made pasta at this little Italian place down the block from his office, and they use whole wheat and mix it with spinach and carrots. Heavenly. Plus, she thinks they add brown sugar to the sauce.
He's shrugging in answer as he shoves a huge bite into his mouth. She narrows her eyes at him and shakes her head, goes back to her own lunch.
After a long moment of him chewing beside her, there comes a gulping swallow. "Uh. Whenever we get our stuff together."
"I haven't even started," she admits.
"That's okay. I'm surprised I cleared my desk this early."
"Felix?"
It's silent and he's wincing when she turns to look at him. He gives her a tight smile. "There's this internet mystery game portion to it that I... The concept was great."
"Just not the execution?"
He's fiddling with his spaghetti now, cutting it with his fork, pushing it around in the sauce. He chews more slowly, and she wonders when he started weighing his words with her. And why.
"Castle, it's okay to hate it."
He shrugs one shoulder this time. "I don't." He huffs out a breath at what must be the incredulous look on her face and he drops his fork, leans back in the chair. "I don't hate it. But it does require an inordinate amount of work on my part, and the idea that all of our authors have to sit down with our team and pore over these details just for a twenty second video clip... I don't know how sustainable that is in the long run."
Understanding dawns and Kate can't help the laugh that bubbles up. "It was your idea. The whole thing. And now you want to scratch it."
He sighs. "Yeah, all my idea. But kill it? Eh, not sure."
"The videos look good?"
He fidgets, a little squirm in his chair that Kate thinks he's actually picked up from Dashiell, rather than the other way around. It's cute. Makes the crow's feet at his eyes deepen, makes his mouth look kissable. She restrains herself.
Barely. "Castle, what's wrong with the videos?"
"Nothing wrong exactly. They're high quality. They're interactive, fun. I just can't envision how a twelve year old kid is going to care. Or participate like we want."
"Well," she starts slowly. "It's a mystery - every video is a clue, right?"
He nods. He looks eager for someone to dispel his sense of unease over the promotional material, and she realizes suddenly that it's a pretty huge responsibility on his shoulders. The success of Black Pawn means continued employment for around fifty people in the office, as well as contracts with authors and freelance designers and writers. She wonders if this is the first time he's had that kind of weight, the first time she's seen him with lives in his hands.
Other than the 12th, of course. Though the responsibility for that always rested on her, ultimately.
He rubs his forehead and she can practically see the grooves where he's been doing it all day long. "It's a daisy chain, makes you go from one video to the next, but it's geared towards getting kids out in the city. Each clue has a geographic element to it, but I worry about the kids who don't live New York, or who expect to be able to walk around their little town in Arkansas and find those same easter eggs."
"Okay," she murmurs, reaching out to lay her hand on his thigh. "That's a good point. But the city-based clues aren't necessary to figure out the overall mystery?"
"No," he says, shaking his head. His eyes are weary; she wonders if this was a good idea, buying Black Pawn and taking it on. Does he need stress like this? Do they? It hasn't been easy these last few months, and when everything was going down with her mother's case, she's not sure they managed it. In fact, she's pretty sure that the kids fell through the cracks that week, pretty certain their family is still settling after that damage.
But they can do this. They can. She narrows her eyes and thinks through the problem. "Well, Felix is a kid detective who's forced outside his neighborhood, has to discover his city. I love that about it. So when the book does come out, there should be a way for the kids reading it to connect with each other too."
He grows still, a pause layering between them as she collects her thoughts. And then he gives a soft breath. "Connect. What do you mean by that?"
"If the kids who live in New York get cool add-ons, maybe that pushes them to keep going with it when others would stop. That generates talk, you know. They share with their friends online, post pictures and ask for help. So even if a kid doesn't live in the city, he might be collaborating with someone who does through chat or facebook-"
"Oh," he gasps, his body straightening in the chair. His eyes are excited as he turns to her. "That's genius, Kate. A website. Or no - wait - we'll use tumblr like John Green. Just a place where we can collect all the cool things that are out there and also see how the whole thing is being received. They can ask us questions - or no, no, wait. Ask Felix questions. Oh, this is absolute genius."
His eyes dart to hers with a grin that looks guilty and she realizes he's pulling out his phone. She waves him on. "Go, go. Email or whatever."
"You're awesome, babe," he praises, leaning in to kiss her cheek roughly. And then he's lost to his phone again, getting up from the bar and leaving her to lunch alone.
That's okay; the silence is nice for a change.
They're still not packing.
He's lying on the couch with Kate's body half sprawled over his as he sends email to Matt and Kim about the prospective tumblr concept; they send mock-ups with every new suggestion he has, and he keeps eagerly showing her their ideas.
Kate's not that interested, he thinks, but she humors him. She's reading from her phone with her head pillowed on the arm of the couch near his elbow, one of his legs stretched out between hers. Not sure how they wound up like this, but it's warm and cozy. He likes it, likes the weight of her on him.
She shifts in his lap and he grunts in surprise; she pats his chest apologetically with her free hand, wriggles to get a better position. He slits one eye and glares down at her and she starts laughing.
"Sorry, sorry," she murmurs. "Didn't mean to get you excited."
He can't hold the glare, feels his lips threatening a smile. "Uh-huh. You're such a tease."
"Go back to work," she murmurs, but this time the way she's digging her backside into his lap can only be purposeful.
"Go back to work?" he mutters, clamping one hand on her hip and feeling the bare skin where her shirt has ridden up, feeling it practically burn his palm. "I can't. You're too hot."
She gives him a tantalizing smile, sits up enough to hook her arm around his neck, a light kiss along his lips. "I'm warm, yes, because my husband is like a furnace and he's piled up a fleece blanket-"
"To keep my back from getting all twisted up sitting weird on the couch like-"
"And so, yes," she keeps going, her mouth close to his, skimming the scant air between them. "I'm hot."
"Sexy and you know it," he tries to joke, but the tease has degenerated into a serious desperation. He lets his phone drop to the cushion beside his thigh and strokes a hand up her back to pull her tighter. She stills holds herself away, a thin veneer of indifferent air between them, and then he touches her bare spine with his fingers under her shirt.
She unfolds before him, shifting to straddle his lap, arms lifted to his shoulders, her chest brushing his as her kiss unmakes him. Slow, curious, arousing. He gathers the lines of her ribs from thumb to fingers, one after each other, and her body presses closer and closer with each rung.
When he finds the winged edge of her shoulder blade and she ripples in his arms, he presses his mouth to her neck and tries to close his eyes, tries to rein it back.
"Kids are in our bed," she sighs, understanding.
"Guest room?" he murmurs, half-hoping, letting his nearness do the persuading.
She wavers; he can feel the debate slipping out of her control as her body goes on believing. She squeezes her knees at his hips and then slides off him, scraping a hand through her hair with a flash of a look his direction that he might interpret as blame.
"Guest room," she gets out, and the hitch in her voice tells him how close she is.
Castle stands swiftly on his feet, hustles her up the stairs.
"But we have to pack after," she warns, her fingers reaching back to hook in the placket of his dress shirt and tug him along.
"Of course," he promises, eager to be tugged.
"Write me another poem," she finds herself murmuring into his skin. He grunts from beside her and his hand falters at her back. She feels stupid for saying it. "Never mind."
"No, no," he hushes. "I'll write you anything."
"I didn't mean to-"
"I like your post-coital confessions," he murmurs. She shifts her head and sees the smirk dancing in his eyes. But his face is equally as exhausted as hers. She didn't mean to make that round so enthusiastic - or demanding - but it's been a week since...
She gives up. "Write me another poem then," she says, shifting now to lie on her back and cool off. His arm is trapped under her neck, his elbow cradling her head, and his hand comes up then to let his fingers dapple across her forehead and cheek.
"A poem." His fingers make her feel raw.
"Like you wrote for me last year when-"
"I can do that," he says. His voice is husky like before, this time a tenderness lacing the edges rather than command, and she turns her head away to kiss the inside of his wrist, the meat of his palm.
"Don't stress over it, though," she asks.
"I won't."
She nods and shifts again, curling on her side with her back to him, and he takes her invitation immediately, spoons at her spine with his arms loose around her, his knees touching the back of her thighs.
She feels a kiss at the base of her neck, a dusting along her vertebrae, and she closes her eyes despite herself. A week since they had the space and quiet to find each other, and maybe that's why the good-bye kiss in the hallway was filled with promises they just fulfilled.
"The freckles on your shoulder-"
"To read, Castle," she huffs, but she draws his arm a little tighter to offset the petulance in her demand. "I want to read your poem. All by myself."
He laughs then, the chuckle shimmering at her ribs where it echoes out of his chest. "All right, all right. I got it."
She smiles, her fingers tangled with his, and he kisses her shoulder again, the tip of his tongue out - probably to the freckles from this summer - before he settles behind her.
"Don't fall asleep," he murmurs.
"You don't fall asleep," she sighs back.
But he is; she is. They are.
She was supposed to be packing.
