A Dash of Summer
The ringing calls him slowly from his doze, a tantalizing pinprick of awareness that slides inside the cocoon of his dreams and pierces his mind.
Uh-oh.
Castle jerks awake and sits upright, the comforter from the guest bed falling in a puddle in his lap, and he breathes harshly for a second before he figures it out.
Phone. Downstairs.
Packing.
"Kate," he grunts, shoving past her to climb out of bed and look for clothes. "Kate."
She mumbles something and turns over, but he grabs her by the calf and tugs her towards him, her body angled in the bed as she comes.
"Ug, Castle," she mutters, kicking at him.
"Now I know where Ellery gets it from," he mutters. "Kate. It's nearly two. Come on. Packing."
She groans and sits up; he can't help feathering his fingers behind her knee as she does, just to watch her squirm, see the flutter of awareness that transforms her for an instant into that Queen of Sheba in his bed again. And then she leans over and swipes her underwear from the floor and starts to get dressed.
Okay, so the mystery is gone, but not the allure. At least that's something.
He wriggles into his boxers and finds his jeans, but his shirt is nowhere. She shrugs at him and motions towards the hall; he ducks out and yeah, there it is. Near the stairs. Wow, that one smacked of desperation.
Castle takes the steps fast, his bare feet slapping against each one, and then he finds his phone tucked between the couch cushions.
"Hey," he calls back. "It was Alexis."
"Shoot," he hears her on the stairs. "I forgot to call her back. Let me do that right now."
Kate brushes her hair off her neck, holding it with a hand, but she doesn't seem to have a rubber band for it. She's reaching past him for her own phone left on the coffee table and he remembers vividly how her neck tasted under him, the close heat of her in the bed.
Never mind. They still have mystery. He wants some of that mystery right now.
"Not-uh," she mutters, pushing him away with her elbow, her shoulder, dislodging his unconscious attempt to get his hands on her again. "I have to call your daughter. Stop it."
He sneaks a kiss anyway, his mouth at that spicy place at her skin, but then he lets her go, scrolling through his missed calls on his phone. More than one, actually, all from Black Pawn though it was only the last one that woke him. He half hears Kate greeting Alexis on the phone, and he sinks back down to the couch to get work under control again.
Allie sounds - not herself.
"Okay," Kate says slowly, sifting clean underwear from Dashiell's drawer. "Okay, so... what's this really about?"
"I just - I think it should be easy. Why is this such a big deal to him?"
Kate can't seriously believe that Allie is about to cry over this. It has to be a mask for something else in their relationship, or a convenient outlet for stress she's been sublimating. This is why Kate didn't want to try to plan a wedding back when Castle proposed, why they were engaged for over a year before she woke up one morning and did it all in a couple of days' time. At the lake. Clean and simple. Kidnapped her own maid of honor, too.
Weddings are never easy - they are always stress. And Allie's been acting so cheerful and light, Kate knew the time would come for a breakdown.
"Allie, just take a breath," she murmurs. "It's fine. It really will be fine."
"I'm supposed to marry this idiot," she growls. "Why can't he just listen to me, do what I want?"
Kate tosses a stack of superhero briefs towards the open suitcase in the middle of Dashiell's floor, tucks the phone between her ear and her shoulder. "Did you talk to him about this since you fought?"
"He fights me every time. I told him he's not the one who has to come home exhausted and then try to clean up his mess."
Kate winces. "Why do you have to be the one to do the cleaning?"
"Exactly!" Allie cries out.
Whoa, okay. Kate tugs open the kid's bottom drawer, hunting for shorts. "Allie, I mean - why are you doing the cleaning? If you're exhausted, just don't do it."
"That's why I want us to hire a maid," Allie fumes. "Why is this so hard for people to understand? You guys have Linda. Dad and Meredith both always had someone come in to clean every week. All my friends whose parents both worked-"
"My parents didn't," Kate remarks casually, tossing Dash's cute plaid shorts towards the suitcase.
"They - didn't? But your parents are - were well off."
"They were. Papa is, yes, but he and Kelly don't have a maid either."
"You have a maid," Allie bites out, sounding wounded and defensive. Kate hasn't heard her like this since... that year Kate busted her for smoking pot. She sounds a little childish, actually.
"Can you tell me why Rafe doesn't want a maid?" she says instead, hoping to steer this conversation back to some compassion. Trick she remembers from therapy. "What did he tell you?"
"He says it's a waste of money and - and - it's lazy."
Ouch. Okay. "I don't believe it's lazy, necessarily," Kate hedges. "Though in the beginning, I think my attitude was similar to Rafe's."
"What? Why? How did Daddy convince you to hire Linda?"
"Well, I arrested Linda," Kate says dryly, rolling her eyes. She throws four more pairs of shorts towards the suitcase, knowing Dash will most likely ruin a couple of them. Never fails.
"You arrested her? I don't remember that."
"Person of interest in one of our cases. I think Dash was only a few months old, but your dad was hanging around the 12th that day. Right before his book release. I guess Papa had Dashiell, or maybe Gram. I don't remember now. But your dad wanted to help Linda." She smiles, brushing her fingers to her bottom lip. He's always been generous like that.
"How did Linda go from person of interest in a murder case to your maid?"
Kate grins, resumes thumbing through Dashiell's clean shirts for Hamptons outfits for him. "She was just down on her luck, trying to make ends meet and perhaps not following the letter of the law with a few things."
"Like what?"
Kate hesitates, a stack of Dashiell's favorite t-shirts in her hand. "I... don't think Linda would appreciate me saying."
"Oh my word. Are you serious? She was a prostitute?"
Kate groans and dumps the shirts in the suitcase, closes it up. "No. Not a prostitute. Jeez, Allie. How your mind works."
"If not that, then what? I've seen a lot. How bad could it be?"
Kate frowns, pressing her lips together as she drags the rolling suitcase into Ellery's room. It's not about what Allie has already been exposed to; it's about Linda's dignity. Allie must really be upset if she isn't able to keep that in mind. "Linda was working as a phone sex operator, which is legal. But - uh - doing a little moonlighting that wasn't. Complicated case, never mind, Allie. I really shouldn't say."
"Holy sh-"
"Allie."
"Right, right, you can't say. Got it. But you hired her to clean and do groceries?"
"No, that was your father."
"But why did you agree to it? Because if I can tell Rafe that you went along with it for some specific reason, he'd listen. He thinks you're golden; you can do no wrong."
Kate yanks on Ellery's drawer, has to work at it because it's somehow stuck. "Allie. We think alike. That's all."
"That works for me. I don't care - just tell me how I can convince him."
Kate's honestly not sure she's completely on Allie's side about the maid idea, but that could still be her own parents' influence, their sense that a person ought to clean up after himself and do an honest day's work and keep it in the family, close ranks around those dirty little secrets. She's learned over time that the Becketts' natural reservation doesn't work for everyone, and most definitely not anyone named Castle.
This might be the case here as well.
"Mom, please. We're getting married and sometimes when I get home and see all his dishes strewn over the counters - which he won't even let me touch - and his laundry piled up in the hallway, I want to kill him. I want to actually throttle him. And then you'd arrest me."
"Oh, no," she laughs. "I wouldn't. I'd coordinate a time and place for you to turn yourself in, Allie."
That gets her a choked laugh back, a release of tension down the line, and Kate smiles, finally works the drawer free. Ellery is supposed to put away her clean clothes - just like Dash; it's part of their chores - but apparently she's been stuffing every single item into this bottom drawer.
"Okay, so here's how your father got me," Kate starts, sifting through clothes as she searches for everything she needs for baby girl. "Your dad already had someone when I moved in. But I refused to let her pick up after me or do the grocery shopping."
"I don't remember that."
"It was an epic but silent battle," Kate laughs. "Eventually Castle was sneaking her into the loft when I was gone to do the cleaning, and after I moved in for good the second time-"
"Oh, jeez, I remember that."
Kate sighs, finds Ellery's dragon sweatshirt balled up in the back and yanks it free. "Yeah, that was about a month before Dash was born and your dad and I compromised. I'd allow the deep cleaning, but we'd do our own laundry, our dishes, pick up after ourselves."
"Oh. Huh. Rafe said the same thing, actually. That he might consider hiring someone to do the vacuuming and dusting and baseboards. But doesn't Linda grocery shop and like - make the beds and stuff?"
"She doesn't make the beds. Dash and Ella are in charge of that, as well as putting away their laundry. Also, we make Dashiell fold and carry up the towels because it's good work for him-"
"Therapy you mean? That motor-sensory, proprioceptive work."
"Yeah. And because of that, we make Ellery pick up the toys in the living room and the study."
"She's three."
"She's competent," Kate snorts. "You sound like your dad. A three year olds isn't incapable of helping out, learning to be responsible for herself and where she lives. Especially my three year old."
"Okay, okay. I can tell you guys have had this conversation a few times."
Kate starts counting the little piles of underwear she's uncovered from Ellery's overfull bottom drawer. "We fight a lot about the kids. Just like you and Rafe are fighting now. Doesn't go away, Allie; it just morphs into a new thing."
Allie groans.
"You want to know what sent me over the edge? After your dad and I agreed to our compromise, we decided we'd alternate weeks doing laundry. He was used to doing it so it wasn't like I was adding some burden to his shoulders, or so I thought. But when it was my week, I'd open up his dresser drawers to put away stuff and find everything wadded up and dumped inside. I'd hang things up in our closet and my dress shirts would be wrinkled, the pants folded incorrectly."
"Jeez, anal much?"
Kate lifts an eyebrow even though Allie can't see it. "Apple doesn't fall far from the tree," she murmurs. "And it looks like Ellery has inherited those messy tendencies as well." She digs another pair of underwear out of the mess and dumps what she could find into the kids' suitcase.
"You said he folded your pants wrong. Come on, Mom."
"It puts the creases on the sides instead of the front," Kate mutters back. "Never mind. See if I help you."
Allie utters a sharp, breathless laugh. "Oh no, no, you wouldn't! Mom, please."
Kate opens Ellery's closet and pulls down a couple of sundresses. "Really, that's what did it. Our two versions of what was acceptable in cleanliness and order just weren't the same. My threshold for a dirty kitchen floor is much higher than your Dad's. He was always sweeping up, mopping, but I didn't care. Didn't bother me. But every other week, his laundry made me want to... well, throttle him."
"So, basically, you caved."
"Yes," Kate states baldly. "I caved. Because life is short and Linda needed a good job and I thought I might actually kill my baby's father before he ever got a chance to know him. Plus Dashiell wasn't an easy baby and we were both exhausted all the time. Everything was a fight, there were a lot of tears and misunderstandings, and having a maid to come in and take at least one thing off our plate seemed heavenly."
"Oh, Kate," Allie laughs softly. "I think your advice is either to go on strike and stop doing laundry altogether, or get pregnant with a sensitive kid and run ourselves so ragged we welcome a little help."
"Your choice," Kate says brightly. "Does that sound too miserable? We weren't miserable - I don't think. I don't know. I was sleepless for so much of his first year of life that it's kind of a big blur."
"I think you guys had your moments, but no. Not miserable. I was there for most of it, remember?"
"I remember. You were such a huge help. Baby-sitter for Dash and for us too. Hey, I'm not serious about getting pregnant. You have plenty of time, Allie."
"I'll keep that in my back pocket as a last ditch effort. I understand where you're coming from about the maid, but I think I will stop doing laundry. Until I make him desperate for clean underwear. He'd probably just do it himself but meanwhile I've had to live with dirty clothes piled up on our floor, the hallway, the living room."
"Well. It will at least show him how much work you're having to do on top of your real job. And that's not fair - to either of you."
"It's not that I mind, really," Allie sighs. "He looked so wounded when I told him I was sick of him dumping his clothes on the floor. Like I didn't want to take care of him. But... um, I don't want to take care of him, Mom."
Kate grunts as she shoves the dresser drawer closed. "That's fine. You don't want to marry a child. I happened to fall in love with a man who is quite often a child, so I know how old that can get-"
"Hey, now, I heard that!"
Kate whirls around and sees Castle standing in the doorway of Ellery's room, eyes narrowed at her, hands on his hips. She laughs and backs up even as he stalks towards her, holding her hand up to keep him away.
"Oh, no. No, no."
"Quite often a child, huh?"
"I'm talking to your daughter," she laughs, slipping away from him but driving herself into a corner. Castle comes closer, his hands gripping her hips and his thumbs tunneling under her shirt.
"Quite often a child," he mutters, and his mouth dips to her neck, makes her go still, thoughtless. "Show you."
"Mom? Mom, tell him to let you go. You're helping me with wedding stuff. Pre-wedding stuff."
Kate sucks in a slow, shaky breath, but she doesn't want to make him let her go. She cants into Castle's broad hands, her shoulders wedged into the corner of Ellery's room, one of his knees sliding between her thighs.
"Who's the child now?" he whispers.
"Mo-o-om," Allie complains.
"Um, Allie... ah, I think... you need to talk to him about dividing up the workload. That's - that's the best you're gonna get right now."
"But surely I can bring up hiring someone to do deep cleaning-"
"Allie. Meant that's the best from me. I'm - gonna have to let you go."
She hears her daughter's melodramatic sigh on the other end but Castle's tongue has started a wicked dance at her pulse that echoes in her hips, and she drops the phone from her ear, tilts her head back to breathe.
"Hang up the phone, Kate."
Oh, yes. Yes, that.
