Several days had passed since Bobby had stalked off. He'd been sullen at work and easily provoked. Alex had assumed that he and Sarah had a little fight. By Thursday, as Bobby walked in carrying a cup of Alex's favorite vanilla latte, she couldn't stand it anymore. "What is it Bobby? What happened between you and Sarah?"
Bobby set her coffee down and walked over to his desk and just fell into his chair, slumped and head down, he whispered, "What do you think happened Eames? I blew it."
"You don't think she knows what she needs to know about you? I think she does. She's a bright girl, Bobby. You're always saying she doesn't give herself enough credit, well I think you don't give her enough credit either. You need to give both of you a break, and see what happens."
Shaking his head and waving his hand, "It's… it's not that easy."
"It's as easy or as difficult as you want to make it, Bobby. Call her. Make it right." Eames got up and walked away, before she hauled off and really let him have it for being even blinder about his relationship than she was with hers.
He hadn't called her then, but Bobby found himself parked outside Sarah's apartment building after work, trying to decide how to make it right, how to explain himself. He looked at his reflection in the rearview mirror and sighed. A soft tapping on his side window startled him. He turned and saw that it was Sarah. She must have walked down the street from the other direction. She had two bags of groceries from the bodega up the street. Rolling down the window, he heard her say, "Give me a hand with the bags?"
"Sure." He opened the door, grabbed his keys and rolled up the window. "Let me take those."
"Good, then I can also grab the mail on the way up." It had been a long week for Sarah as well. For all her talk about not putting her life on hold for anyone, today had been the first day she'd left her apartment all week. Normally being locked up in her apartment yielded several new chapters, not this time, she hadn't done any work at all. She hadn't been motivated to do anything at all. In fact, if she hadn't had meetings today with Amanda and her publisher she'd still be inside her apartment. Also, she didn't have any food left in the apartment and she was tired of having take out delivered.
When Sarah came out of the bodega, she'd spotted Bobby's car parked outside of her apartment and her heart leapt into her throat. "Oh please", she thought, "please, let this mean whatever happened the other night is over."
When she tapped on the window of his car, she had a moments' fear that he might just start the car and drive off. She decided to act as if nothing had happened. It had just been a week since they'd seen each other, nothing more, and had asked him to help her with her groceries.
Stopping to pick up the mail and the papers - something she hadn't done in days - she glanced up at Bobby to see if he noticed the quantity was more than a normal day's worth of mail. He'd walked over to push the call button to the elevator. As the door slid open, he held it for her.
"Thanks." She said as she smiled up at him.
"You're welcome." He replied with a smirk.
Punching in the code to unlock her door, she nodded to the kitchen, and said, "Just throw those bags over on the counter for me, would you?"
With a nod, Bobby did just that and started to empty the contents on the counter. It looked like she had the makings for Italian tonight. Fresh pasta, tomato sauce, a mixed greens salad mix and a loaf of fresh bread, and a bottle of red wine…
"Yeah, that's what it looks like, it's Italian night. Would you like to stay? If it helps you decide, I also have a little leftover cheesecake for dessert." The little bit of leftover cheesecake was all that was left of a binge the other night.
"Yes, I'd like to stay, very much."
"Well, good, then you get to help. Why don't you put some music on and then open up that wine. After the day I've had, I could use a little alcohol to take the edge off, you know? I'm just going to run upstairs and change out of this suit and then I'll start on dinner. I had another meeting with Amanda and my publisher today, so I had to look a little more polished than my usual jeans and t-shirt."
"I hear that." Bobby thought. Bobby chose a soft jazz station and went out to the kitchen to open the bottle. Sarah came down in bare feet wearing jeans and a tank top - the day had been still was very warm.
Bobby handed her a glass. Reaching out to his glass, she clinked them together, "Cheers" she said, before gratefully taking a healthy gulp.
"Cheers." Bobby raised his glass in salute.
"Oh, thanks, I really needed that. Let me get started on this sauce. I hope you're hungry."
Sarah dumped the store bought sauce into a pan and began to chop up some fresh herbs - oregano and basil to add to the sauce. She'd grabbed a clove of garlic and then thought better of it. Not tonight.
"I'm always ready to eat, you know that." Bobby sat at one of the bar stools surrounding the island Sarah was working at. Staring into his wine glass he ventured to bring up the scene from the other night. "Um… um, about…."
"No, no about, ok. Let's just have a nice dinner. This won't take long to throw together. What do you think about sitting out on the 'terrace'?"
The terrace was nothing more than a 5-foot wide strip of tile just off the landing before the stairs. Sarah opened cabinets and drawers and began to pull out place settings and silverware, napkins and tablecloth.
"OK, no about. I'll set up." Bobby grabbed the tablecloth and silverware.
"I think it'll be easier if I serve from in here and we can just carry our plates outside."
"Ok, sounds good." Bobby flicked the light switch to the terrace and the string of mini lights he'd strung up at Christmas fluttered. Sarah had liked the look so much; she'd decided to leave them up year round, for evenings just like this. He found a couple of candles on the bookshelf near the doors and took them outside too.
Bobby walked back and picked up his wine glass. Sarah saw this as an opportunity. She picked hers up, clinked glasses with his again, and said, "I've missed you this week."
"About that…." he started.
"Remember, tonight is a no 'about that' night. I just want you to know that I missed you. All I want to know is, did you miss me this week?"
With a catch in his voice, he said, "Yes. I did, very much."
"Well then, I think the only thing left to do is, eat dinner." The timer she'd set to alert her when it was time to pull the bread out of the broiler went off. She served up their pasta, salad, threw a couple of slices of bread in a basket and said, "Grab the bread and wine, and meet me on the terrace."
They sat and Sarah began to recount her day with Amanda and her publisher. He wanted extensive edits on her book, and both Sarah and Amanda thought the book was fine the way it was. They suggested sending it to a few more readers and getting their input on it, before starting on the edits he wanted. Sarah's telling of the day and comments that Amanda had uttered under her breath about the publisher, Daniel Brendan had both laughing and enjoying dinner.
Over that cheesecake Sarah mentioned, Bobby started to bring up the events of last week and had Sarah interrupting again.
"Bobby, I'm serious. Why can't you just let this go? No, 'about that'. It's over. We both started something that neither of us is ready to get into. Not then, not now, and maybe never. We both know there are things that probably need to stay off limits, we just need to honor that. Maybe there will be a right time and right place. That wasn't it. And this isn't it. Let's just table it for now, and maybe a better time will come."
Bobby drank the rest of his wine and nodded his agreement. If she was willing to allow things to remain the same, he could too. He left early that night, but they'd made plans to have dinner again tomorrow night. As she closed the door after Bobby had gotten onto the elevator, she breathed a sigh of relief as she thought, 'We got through this one. What about the next one?"