This is my first fanfic, but I've been a WTB fan since its original run (when I was a kid!). I return to it like comfort food. This story has been marinating in my head for awhile; it's nearly finished - up to 13 chapters - but I'll be publishing in batches as I get each one edited. Appreciate all and any feedback!
PROLOGUE
"Angela," Tony said gently, as casually as he could. "How would you feel if I took that job?"
She met his eyes and studied them a minute, feeling the easy warmth of their connection. She blushed, then summoned her words. "I'd be proud," she said truthfully, reassuring him with a tiny smile.
He had since turned this conversation over dozens of times in his mind. Something had shifted within him, and between him and Angela, since the night that she inadvertently joined him in a sleeping bag at the top of the billboard. At first, he struggled to understand why Angela would want him to reconsider the offer, when it would mean losing him and Samantha, losing (not for nothin' but) dependable help, and breaking up their family. Had he read their relationship all wrong?
But he came to realize, as he delicately settled them into a more comfortable sleeping position, that she did it for him. Because he wasn't just "good help" - Tony hadn't been that to Angela in years.
She stirred slightly as he repositioned them so that her head was cradled in the crook of his shoulder. She instinctively curled into him, in part to keep warm, and he couldn't resist kissing the top of her hair. His racing heart surprised him; this felt so natural, yet also forbidden to be sleeping together like this. She smelled like heaven and looked, well, angelic as she slept.
He couldn't pinpoint exactly when he became "not exactly just a housekeeper," but the foundation may have already been laid around the time that her ex-husband Michael came back into the picture and promptly kicked him and Samantha out. He knew from her strained conversations that the loss was palpable to both of them, and he struggled to conceal his relief when they called it quits for good. He couldn't explain then why the move had unsettled him so much, when an even more lucrative opportunity had opened up for him and Samantha just down the road. But he knew he didn't feel whole again until they were home. He knew then that she was becoming more than just a boss to him.
It crept on so slowly, from small moments of solidarity and comfort, like when Angela surprised him to help him clean out his father's apartment, to his role in pushing Angela to start her new business, to the wedding where he knew they were both contemplating something more than a professional relationship, only to have their bubble burst, first by Fred and Ginger, and then by Geoffrey (with a G).
"What's funnier than marrying your housekeeper?" His words echoed through his thoughts, cooling his confused heart even now. Keeping their relationship platonic on the surface came easily in large part because he didn't feel worthy of her, and in his current role, he could hardly imagine how a future together, as a couple, would work - especially to the outside world.
To risk what they had built together without any clear path forward was a risk neither of them were willing to take.
But from almost the very beginning, their undeniable but hotly dismissed chemistry muddled every professional line without ever crossing it completely. Stolen glances, moments where their true feelings threatened to bubble up from just under the surface became more and more a regular occurrence. Even absent definition, their situation had settled into something of an assumed permanence, with them going so far as to name each other as the next of kin should anything happen to one of them, as well as the guardian of their children. Michael had agreed to this because of his unpredictable travel schedule, provided he be allowed to visit Jonathan when his calendar allowed. Tony and Angela even talked on occasion about grandchildren underfoot in their shared home, as if their undefined relationship would always be what it was in that moment.
She had been more than "just a boss" for awhile; and now she was his best friend, maybe something a bit more. As much more as she could be anyway, while maintaining their professional boundaries. He couldn't fully express or even understand exactly what he felt for her, but he knew in his reflexive rejection of that job offer that he and Angela had truly formed a family in these past four years. And his deep friendship with Angela, undefined as it was, had solidified into something more important than any other relationship in his life.
But it was Angela who understood the importance of this opportunity. She genuinely wanted him to be happy -and fulfilled -at all costs. She may have even sensed he needed her blessing to consider it. And he was starting to reconsider, because she was right - this could launch his life, his career, in a direction that his current vocation as a housekeeper never would. He would be crazy not to give the opportunity more thought. Maybe he owed it to himself, and to Samantha, and maybe even to his future with Angela - to pursue it. But where would it leave them? And was he willing to risk what they have to take a chance on himself?