The Worst Possible Time, Chapter 10
Where We Left: Castle talked about his past with Gina and mentioned his belief that coworkers shouldn't date.
Richard Castle is a flirt. He's a flirt, she misread his harmless flirtations, and that's that. That's his shtick as Richard Castle, best-selling author: he flirts with women, checks them out, makes borderline inappropriate comments. Kate read subtext where there was none like some naïve college freshman.
She comes down the stairs the next morning resolved to be friends. Yes, her heart hurts, but that isn't Castle's fault. It's not his fault that she feels something he doesn't. They can be friends and nothing else. At some future point, she will accept that. For the moment, she can pretend.
She walks into the kitchen to find Castle hopping around on one foot. His crutches lean against a far corner of the counter.
"What are you doing?"
He looks over at her and grins. His eyes twinkle, and Kate wishes her heart wouldn't tap dance in response.
"Good morning, Detective Beckett." His voice is lower than normal, as if she's the first person he's talked to this morning. It's a tone she's only previously heard over the phone after a middle-of-the-night murder.
Hearing that rumble in person, nearly feeling as well as hearing his deep voice, isn't fair. It's not fair to be so close yet so far from what she wants.
"Morning, Castle. Aren't you supposed to be – " She cuts herself off. No way she's asking why he isn't resting when she's sick of people asking that very question. " – sitting?"
Weak save, Beckett.
"Yes, but I wanted coffee, and I thought you might want some too." Castle points to the counter. In front of a small espresso machine, two bowl-sized mugs sit. "One cappuccino, and one skim latte, two pumps sugar-free vanilla."
"You just happen to keep sugar-free vanilla syrup around?"
"No. Asked Julia to bring some by this morning, along with pastries from a bakery in town." He motions to the white bakery box that sits next to the mugs. "I'm telling you right now that you have never had a better bear claw than this one."
He knows her favorite coffee, her favorite pastry. He smiles at her, and she swears he has a smile reserved just for her. She wishes she understood why he doesn't want more.
"Morning's a little overcast, but I thought maybe we could go outside and enjoy breakfast?"
"Aren't you supposed to be writing?"
Castle's playful expression vanishes. "No Gina-ing me."
"Gina-ing you? Really Castle? That's the best you can do?"
"I was out here alone for almost a week." Castle puts a tray on the counter. "I finally have company. At least let me have breakfast with you before I go hide in my office?"
"Out of interest, how do you plan on us getting that tray outside?"
He pauses, a cup of coffee inches above the tray. "Now that you ask, I don't know."
Kate appraises the situation. As expected, her right shoulder hurts today. That's part of why she slept later than her norm. But the rest of her is fine. "Since you made the coffee, how about I carry everything outside so you can get off your feet?"
A familiar look crosses Castle's face. It's not one Kate's seen before on the writer, but it's one she's intimately associated with: the-I-hate-how-pathetic-and-useless-I-am-because-of-my-injury feeling. "Fine."
"How's your foot?" Kate grabs his crutches and hands them to him before he can hop half the length of the kitchen. This close to him, she notices how dark the circles under Castle's eyes remain. To distract her thoughts, she grabs his coffee before following him.
"More bruised. Doctor said it'll get worse before it gets better. He wasn't lying."
"I think my shoulder's discovering new shades of purple."
"My bruising's developing a bull's eye pattern."
Kate steps ahead of Castle. Following Gina's lead from the previous evening, she leans her good shoulder into the door to pop it open, careful to not spill any of the cappuccino. "Bull's eye? Really, Castle? You expect me to believe that?"
He's instantly affronted. "I am not making this up. The bottom of my foot is developing concentric rings."
Kate side eyes him and dryly says, "Sure, Castle."
"If you don't believe me, I will unwrap my foot right now so you can see it."
It really is easy to get a rise out of Castle. Fun too.
The chairs are where they left them last night, making it infinitely easier for Castle to sit down and prop up his foot. Kate puts his coffee on the table. After encouraging him to not wait for her – even though he will – she returns to the kitchen.
With some careful maneuvering she props the pastry box on her good arm. She should get plates, but that would require two trips. Paper towels will be fine, and they can stand in for both napkins and plates. Picking up a roll, she wonders if it's the same roll of paper towels that factored into Castle's story.
Now able to bend her left arm only as far as her wrist, she clumsily lobs a roll of paper towels onto her sling. After briefly teasing slipping off her arm, the roll settles in the narrow nook between her chest and the sling's strap. In a move that requires a sideways lean, she picks up her mug. Loaded down, she heads back outside. She's tremendously grateful she left the door cracked.
As expected, Castle has yet to touch his coffee. Also expected, he scowls when he sees her. "That can't be good for your shoulder."
He stretches to take her coffee and the roll of paper towels. With a shimmy of her left arm, the pastry box slides onto the table. Standing, she looks at Castle and says, "How about I'll stop hassling you about what you're not supposed to be doing with the bottom of your foot cut open if you stop giving me a hard time about what I shouldn't be doing following a bullet to the shoulder?"
"Deal."
The coffee, the bear claw, the view, but mostly the company – all of it is perfect. It's comfortable and that very ease makes it hard for Kate to enjoy it. She wants this, not just for a few days but for years. She wants to come out here with Castle and drink coffee and look out at this view. She wants to kiss his check and tease him about getting some writing done. She wants him to pout and easily persuade her to help him procrastinate. She wants to curl up together and bemoan their injuries while they comfort each other.
"Penny?"
Kate flushes. "The view is spectacular."
"You should stay," Castle says. "I mean, for more than just a few days. It's a good place to rehab."
"I couldn't impose."
"I've imposed on you for the past year," Castle says easily. "Turnabout's fair play."
Kate wants to, but she needs space, time away from Castle if she has any chance at getting over this crush. "I have doctor's appointments in the city."
"So? There are doctors out here in the Hamptons."
He has her there. Kate doesn't have any special connection to the doctor she saw on Wednesday. He was just the guy recommended to her by the hospital. He was nice enough and seemed to know what he was talking about, but she doubts he could pick her out of a line up.
"Your doctor in the city might even have a recommendation," Castle continues as he warms to the idea. "When Alexis had braces, her usual orthodontist recommended someone out here so we wouldn't have to go back to the city for her usual check up."
"I don't know, Castle. You're assuming that I can handle you for more than a few days." When in doubt, there's always dry sarcasm.
"I have endless faith in your abilities." Castle says this seriously, and Kate wants to tell him to stop. He says something like that, in that certain tone of voice, and it makes it that much harder for her heart to disengage, to believe that he's not interested.
Casting around for a safer topic, Kate lands on the pastry in front of her. "This really is a good bear claw."
Kate's pretty sure Castle knows exactly what she's doing. He plays along and grins widely. "I told you. And what do you think about the coffee? The beans are from a local roasting house."
Castle is off carousing with Nikki and Jameson. Kate, after perusing his many bookshelves, settles on the new translation of Madame Bovary. It's not exactly beach reading, but she's heard good things about this new translation. From what she remembers from the lackluster translation she read in high school, the novel is details upon details, making it a good choice when faced with a long stretch of uninterrupted time.
Kate briefly considers grabbing a towel and heading closer to the ocean, but the pool wins due to its comfortable seating options that support her side. She settles for the same chaise lounge Castle sat on yesterday. A rolled-up towel supports her arm. She wishes she had thought of this yesterday. Yesterday when she expected a different future, she should have taken his invitation to curl up at his side, regardless of how platonically he intended it.
She puts the bag she brought from the house next to her. She pulls out her book, a bottle of water (Castle pre-opened a half dozen this morning), and a walkie-talkie. As they finished breakfast, Castle remembered that he had a set of walkie-talkies in an upstairs closet. After replacing the batteries, the two now have a way to communicate without unnecessary movement. Kate made clear she wouldn't interrupt him without cause and threatened to take away his walkie-talkie if he used it to procrastinate.
It's really a shame that he's cute when he pouts.
She stares beyond the pool to the glimpses of water stretching to the horizon. She wants to be here but she wants to be home. She should take this quiet time to devise an excuse to head back to the city. Castle really did mean this invitation as friends, and it's bad enough she intruded on his little writer's retreat without adding her crush to the mix.
But she doesn't want to leave. She made up her mind and admitted her attraction to Castle. It's as hard to turn off as it was turn on (and she's glad she didn't say that last part out loud, because Castle would have a field day with the innuendo). It was the height of hubris to assume that the moment she made up her mind Castle would come running. He's an adult, after all, and life doesn't work that way.
She'll stay until Monday or Tuesday. That will give her shoulder enough time to recuperate, and the visit will be long enough to not seem unusual. For now, she'll ignore her disappointed hopes and enjoy the next few days. Reality can wait until she's back in the city.
Author's Note: Thanks for the continued support! I will admit to some dramatic license in this chapter as the mentioned translation of Madame Bovary wasn't released until September 2010. Let's go with Castle having an ARC copy.