Jimmy chuckled as he watched Cecilia the following morning. She was trudging around the apartment and getting ready for work. He was stood in her kitchen, pouring both of them a cup of coffee. He had buttered a slice of toast, letting it sit on the chopping board ready for when Cecilia had finished getting ready for work. The two of them had overslept that morning, but Jimmy didn't have a case until ten so he had no rush to be at court. Cecilia, on the other hand, was due to be in work at nine. Checking the watch on his wrist, it showed that it was half past eight and she worked twenty minutes away.
"Jimmy!" Cecilia shouted from her bedroom. "I've lost my other shoe."
Jimmy chuckled to himself, taking one final sip of his coffee and then moving into the living room, finding it tucked under the sofa where she had chucked it the previous night. Holding it on the end of his finger as she peered around the doorframe of her bedroom, Jimmy took in the sight of her. Her cheeks were flushed and her hair flew behind her shoulders. Sighing as she stepped into the living room, she took the shoe from his finger and placed a hand on Jimmy's shoulder, steadying herself as she placed her missing shoe on her foot.
"You should not have let me hit snooze," she complained to him, kissing him quickly on the cheek.
"Hey, no one stops you hitting that snooze button. Besides, you scare me in the morning,"
"I'm not a morning person," Cecilia confirmed, reaching for her blazer and shrugging into it as Jimmy smiled at hearing that.
"I've worked that out," he said to her. "Come on, you can down the coffee I made you and scoff the toast before work."
Cecilia nodded and followed him into the kitchen, picking up the slice of toast he had made as she checked her clock on the wall telling her that she had twenty-five minutes until she was due at work. Jimmy kept talking as she ate her breakfast. She listened to him continue to tell her about the cases he had coming up that day and she couldn't help but think of how normal it all felt. It felt normal and natural. She liked it. She placed her empty coffee cup in the sink as Jimmy picked up his briefcase and she grabbed her satchel, preparing to leave the apartment.
"Hey," Cecilia said as they walked out to the street where their cars were parked, "did you want to do something tonight?"
"Like what?" Jimmy asked, fishing for his keys in his pant pocket.
Cecilia shrugged. "I don't know," she replied to him. "We could just go for a walk or something? Just get some fresh air instead of sitting in."
"Sounds good," Jimmy said. "So I'll see you tonight. Meet back here?"
"Sounds good," Cecilia said. "I'll see you tonight."
Before she had time to turn around and unlock her car, Jimmy had an arm around her waist, pulling her back to him as he bent down and kissed her. She let her lips curve up for a moment as she placed her hands to his shoulders and felt his hand dip dangerously low into the small of her back.
"Hey," she said, pulling back from him. "I'm already on the brink of being late."
"Then a minute won't make a difference," Jimmy responded and kissed her again as she laughed against his mouth, finally breaking away from him and patting his chest once. She turned on her heel and went to her car, smiling as Jimmy stood on the sidewalk and watched her leave before him.
….
Cecilia was on her lunch break and, considering she had been late up that morning, she hadn't had time to prepare her dinner. She found herself wandering into the nearest supermarket, content with a ready-made salad to eat on some park bench before she went back to the office. Looking at the selection, she furrowed her brow. She didn't really want a salad, but she knew it was the healthy option.
"Ce."
Looking up from the selection, she glanced over to the side to see Martin stood there. He was looking at her with wide eyes, his expression seemingly one of apprehension as he watched his ex-wife. She nodded in his direction, trying not to be fazed by the sight of him. There was something about him that still caused her to feel like she was out of control. She didn't like it. She didn't like feeling like he still had power over her.
"Martin," she replied to him.
"How are you?" he asked and Cecilia wondered what was going on. He had barely made contact with her since the divorce. The last time she had seen him was when she had bumped into him in the exact same supermarket with Jimmy. She chewed down on her bottom lip for a moment and nodded once.
"Good," she said, not entirely wanting to get into a conversation.
"I'm glad," he responded. "Listen, Ce…I have been meaning to call…I have wanted to call."
"Why?" Cecilia asked him, grabbing hold of a salad and not caring which one it was. She just wanted to get away from him. "We haven't spoke in ages, Martin. What could you possibly have to say to me now?"
She began to walk away, not wanting to have a conversation with him. But he grabbed hold of her arm and stopped her from going. The feeling of his fingers on her bare skin startled her as she looked up to him and he pushed a hand through his hair. He looked around for a moment, eyes flittering around before he shook his head.
"Just ten minutes," he pleaded.
Cecilia sighed. "Let me pay for this. You can have ten minutes then."
….
Jimmy knew that something was wrong with Cecilia. She was quiet. She had been quiet during the walk and ever since they had gotten home and she had started cooking them dinner. She had served the risotto as Jimmy had finished working on a case. She sipped on her wine as Jimmy looked to her, knowing that she was being distant. He wanted to know why and he was about to ask her, but she took the initiative. She took one mouthful of the food and then dropped her fork down onto the plate.
"Martin found me in the supermarket today," she said.
Jimmy's brow furrowed.
"He-"
"-Well, he didn't find me," she interrupted him. "We just bumped into each other and he asked to talk to me. I said that he had ten minutes and that was it."
"And what did he want?" Jimmy enquired from her and she chewed the inside of her cheek as she looked him in the eye. He deserved the truth. Jimmy deserved to know the truth and not be lied to, regardless of what the truth might be.
"He said that he had made a mistake," Cecilia said and Jimmy felt his stomach drop and his mouth dry up. Placing his fork down on his own plate, he folded his sweaty hands in his lap. "He said that he realised that his life with Marnie wasn't what he thought it would be. He said he missed us…what we had…and he…he asked if there was any chance of us working out."
Jimmy, once again, swallowed a lump in his throat. "Marnie is pregnant. So what, he is going to run out on her now and come back for you?"
"That was his plan," Cecilia said. "But who said I would go back to him?"
"Well…I mean…you loved him-"
"-Loved," she interrupted him. "That is the past tense."
There was a moment of silence between the pair then as Jimmy did his best to understand what he should say. He watched her take another sip of her wine and tuck her hair behind her ears. She looked to the ceiling and then back to Jimmy, placing her glass down after a long gulp.
"It threw me," she admitted to Jimmy. "I haven't been able to think about anything since he told me that."
"Must have come as quite a shock," Jimmy said to her, voice still slightly shaky and apprehensive, a far cry from the cocky persona he adopted in the courtroom.
"Well, yeah," she said, "but I told him that I was not interested. I told him that there and then, but then I spent the whole afternoon wondering why he had changed his mind. Why did he not simply stay with me? He…he does not get to pick and choose when he wants me."
"And you told him that?"
"And a bit more," Cecilia said to him and Jimmy arched a brow, wondering exactly what more there was.
"Like?" Jimmy asked her.
"I don't want to hurt you," Cecilia said with a shake of her head. "He just…he said some things that weren't nice. I ignored him. Well, actually, I didn't. I snapped at him and almost lost it, but what he said was ridiculous."
"Well now I'm intrigued," Jimmy said, leaning back in his seat.
Cecilia shook her head. "It doesn't matter."
"No, I want to know. What? You think your ex-husband can hurt my feelings? Cecilia, I've probably heard ten times worse in the courtroom."
"Now that, I do not doubt," Cecilia said to him.
"So go on," Jimmy urged her, picking up his fork and taking another mouthful of food. He felt slightly more relaxed now.
"Just about how you were no comparison to him…you know, how he could provide for me, as if I want someone to provide for me," she rolled her eyes. "I mean, he might have mentioned something about doubting that you could satisfy me in the bedroom. I reassured him that you were ten times better than he had been in bed."
"And did you mean it?"
"Yeah," she said with a shrug. "I mean, I never faked an orgasm with you."
Jimmy almost spat out his food, but refrained as she smiled at him, a wicked glint in her eye. She picked her fork back up and started picking at her food once more.
"Anyway," she continued as Jimmy sipped on his wine, "what I am trying to say is that…I wanted you to know what had happened and what I said because I don't want to keep secrets. We might not have defined what this relationship is, but…well…I respect you and care about you too much to keep things from you."
"Really?"
"Yeah, of course," Cecilia said with a soft nod in his direction. It was another moment before she abandoned eating her food and went to move to her feet. She went back to crouch down by his side, her hand going to his thigh to balance herself as he looked down to her. "Jimmy, I care about you too much."
"I guess that I sometimes worry," Jimmy admitted to her. "I'm not used to people being honest in relationships."
"Feeling is mutual," Cecilia said. "But I want to try and make this work. We can learn from what our exes did."
"I agree," Jimmy said to her and she moved upwards once more and kissed him on the cheek. "But man I would have loved to see his face when you told him that."
"Which bit?" Cecilia wondered.
"The bit about faking an orgasm," Jimmy said and leaned back in his seat as she went back to her own. "Got to tell you that is a real confidence boost, Ce."
Cecilia rolled her eyes at that.
"I can imagine," she responded and she watched him as he watched her back, the both of them feeling content for the time being.
...
A/N: Do let me know what you think!