A/N: Thank you so much for the awesome reviews and for indulging this silly, sappy, slightly filthy story. Happy Thirsty Thursday to each and every one of you and please remember to feed your author, who had to squeeze this chapter in under the wire so also pretty please forgive any editing errors! Usual warnings apply, that is: this is insanely shameless and so am I. Enjoy...
Six Miles High - Part Four
Old Friends
Dear Richard,
A funny thing happened on the way to Staten Island.
Ugh, no, that's terrible. She deletes it.
Dear Richard,
So, you know how people are always talking about work-life balance these days? Well, Derek and I need to take at least seven unscheduled days off. Maybe eight. For … normal reasons.
No. Delete again. She presses her thumb to the backspace key and makes another poorly worded draft email disappear.
Dear Richard,
"If you can make it there, you'll make it anywhere," except in our case we did make it here but we're not going to make it back to Seattle for a week and a half. Ironic, right?
Delete, delete, delete. If for no other reason than she's not sure she's using ironic correctly. And this isn't the type of email she's going to run by Savvy, her personal word usage guru.
Dear Richard,
I'm sorry to tell you that Derek is in the hospital. It's serious, life-threatening, but he should make a full recovery by the 11 a.m. flight next Wednesday.
No, that's cruel … and pretty ridiculous too. Delete.
Okay. Maybe honesty really is the best policy. Richard's been encouraging them to work on their marriage, hasn't he?
Dear Richard,
How serious were you when you said you hoped Derek and I would 'make every effort to reconnect'? Because, funny story –
"Addison!" Derek snatches the blackberry away from her; he's apparently been reading over her shoulder. "That is not what you're telling Richard."
"Fine," she snaps. "You write the email, then. Go ahead and tell him two department heads need eight days off with no notice for no reason. That'll go over well."
"Just tell him we need to take time off."
"Oh, really? Thank you, Derek, I never would have thought of that."
His brows knit. "For someone who was begging me for it about, oh, three hours ago, you seem pretty pissed off at me now."
"I wasn't begging you for it," Addison corrects him. "I was being polite."
"Polite!" He chuckles. "So that's your story. I'm sorry, did I miss the chapter in Emily Post where she talks about having sex on a ferryboat?"
Addison stands up to her full height. "I'm not going to argue about this."
She's tired. Too tired to argue with Derek. After Weiss mercifully secured their release, he insisted on escorting them personally back to their hotel in a cab – sitting between them, and keeping up a running monologue about a nasty abscess on a rather personal part of his father-in-law's person, presumably to ensure neither Addison nor Derek found anything erotic about their journey.
(Unfortunately for Weiss, he may not have realized that doctors are immune to attempts at medical gross-outs. He did figure it out eventually, though, hissing into Addison's ear at a stoplight that she was not in fact caressing Derek's calf with her bare foot. Oops.)
Weiss said his farewell to them in the lobby, reminding them to behave – if not until their court date, at least until tomorrow morning. "Savvy's looking forward to seeing you," he reminded them. "Don't disappoint her by ending up in the clink again, because – Addison," he said sharply. "I can see you."
"Sorry," she muttered, withdrawing her hand from Derek's back pocket, and they promised Weiss they'd be good as they darted into the lobby and managed to make it back to their room without violating the terms of their parole. And then she'd gone straight into the bathroom to wash every drop of their run-in with the law from her body.
One thing's for sure … she has reason to be exhausted. And it's not just jail. There was the flight, with the unnecessarily judgmental flight attendant. And then the carefully planned ferryboat ride ruined by some overreacting bystanders and overzealous cops. But of course, there's also jail.
Jail. Addison shudders a little.
"I'm going to take a shower," she tells Derek.
"You already took one right when we walked in the door."
"Well, I need another one. Derek … jail," she adds when her husband looks skeptical.
"Fine," he shrugs.
She tightens her robe and heads for the bathroom, then turns around. "Well, are you coming or not?"
"Based on your mood … I'm thinking not," he mutters, but he grabs a towel and joins her anyway.
…
"I thought you were mad at me," Derek says as he opens the bottle of shampoo.
"I am," Addison confirms, tilting her head back under the hot spray.
"Then why-"
"I still need someone to wash my back."
"And what do you do when I'm not here, Addie? Just let the filth build up?"
"Very funny," she glares.
"Oh, right … I forgot what you actually do when I'm not here. You find a replacement."
He regrets it as soon as he says it – they've been getting along, for them, absolutely swimmingly since they landed in New York.
Now Addison looks hurt when she turns to him, though the effect is somewhat lost by the comical amount of suds in her hair.
"I thought you were done taking cheap shots at me."
Derek hesitates, then reaches out to swipe a dripping gob of bubbles before it gets in her eyes. "Sorry. I guess I wasn't done."
He urges her back under the water, feeling a little bad, and moves his fingers along her scalp while the jets make short work of the remaining suds.
"Thanks," she murmurs when he's done, sounding almost shy.
(Which, considering what they've been doing – and talking about doing, and thinking about doing, and trying to do – since they left Seattle, is pretty impressive.)
"You know what we should do – we should send Weiss flowers," Addison says abruptly.
Derek's face must show his confusion; he'd expected her to finish that sentence with something a lot more graphic.
To say the least.
"He rescued us," Addison reminds him. "Plus, he apparently hasn't forgotten that we had sex in his bed."
"We were house-sitting."
"And at his nephew's bar mitzvah."
"We were celebrating."
"And in his car."
"He doesn't seem to know about that," Derek says hastily, "but really, he's complicit in that one – why else would you buy a Ferrari?"
"Because boys like to waste money on sports cars?"
"Yes, but why do they like to waste money on sports cars?" He raises his eyebrows; Addison rolls her eyes in response. "See, it all comes back to-"
"Yes, understood, no need to spell it out." She hands Derek a jar. "Are you going to wash my back or not?"
She moves her wet hair off her neck so her entire long back is exposed, from the nape of her elegant neck to the dip at base of her spine before the flesh curves gently outward, and-
"Derek."
"Right," he says quickly. "Washing."
Of course it's Addison, so it can't be actual soap or anything normal, it's a glass jar of palest green – something, and when he unscrews the top and scoops out a few fingerfuls it already starts dissolving. Hastily, he applies whatever-it-is to her back and her skin is almost immediately covered in plush suds that smell of lemongrass and sage.
"More," she urges.
He avoids saying that's what got us into trouble in the first place, and just complies.
To prevent an argument.
That's all.
Not because her skin is satin underneath the outrageous foaming of whatever is in that jar; there seem to be tiny crystals within it that leave her even silkier than she was before. Not because of the little breaths that escape her, audible somehow under the pounding water, when his fingers dig into her sore muscles. Not because of the way she arches her back and presses her flesh closer to his hands, the word more without speaking, and-
"Ow!"
"Sorry." He pulls his hands away immediately, then returns them carefully, to her back, curious about what made her so sensitive.
"Funny story," she says, sounding like it's not very funny at all, "I had a run-in with a ferryboat railing."
He winces, running his fingers very lightly along the bruises that have already started to form. "You should have told me."
"No."
"Why? I would have stopped."
"That's why," she turns to grin at him. "I didn't want you to stop. Hey – don't feel too bad yet, honey. You may be more injured before the night is up."
He smiles back. "We should pace ourselves," he warns her when he sees the intent in her eyes. The suds are all gone now but the shower is filled with fragrant steam and pounding water, and it's distracting. She's distracting.
"Why?" Her lower lip extends the barest fraction of a millimeter, not enough for anyone else but him to call a pout.
"Because I'm not a machine," he says patiently.
"Really?"
"Addison…" She has that look in her eyes that suggests she's up to no good, and she crosses the vast open shower alcove to snatch something from the shelf. "Wait. What are you doing with my towel?"
"Folding it," she says cheerfully.
She is, indeed, folding it – which doesn't exactly make anything she's doing clearer – and then she's setting it in a soft, wet rectangle on the floor of the shower, and now she's sliding down his body until she can rest her hands on his thighs and –
Oh.
"See?" She draws back and touches her slightly swollen lips; for a moment they're twenty-two in medical school again. "I told you we don't need to pace ourselves."
"You win," he concedes, sliding his fingers back into her wet hair.
When she's finished and he's mentally thanked every overprivileged jerk at the country club on whom she practiced to develop such … impressive … skills, he pulls her gently to her feet, then encourages her to sit on the higher of the two shower benches.
She flinches at the cold marble, then seems to appreciate its contrast with the streams of hot water.
He notices that the skin on her knees is reddened and he massages it gently with his thumbs, then lifts her thighs slightly so he can lean forward to kiss each kneecap gently.
"War wounds already," he observes, and she smiles. "I thought we were going to limit injuries."
"We could buy some knee pads."
He shakes his head. "I don't trust us to make it out of the store, and Weiss says we can't screw – I mean, screw up – again."
"Oh. That's a good point."
He's gone from soothing the skin on her kneecaps to massaging her thighs.
"Derek…"
"Why should you get to have all the fun?"
…
It's a good question. And it's not one she has time to contemplate, because her skin is already tingling at the contrast between the cold marble seat and the hot stream of water pulsing around her, and then his lips are cold but his mouth is warm and he's trailing kisses along the inside of her thighs.
She should stop him, because they need to get ready for dinner, and she's not exactly getting closer to ready this way.
He pulls her forward, steadying hands along her hips, the outside of her thighs, and then urges her legs further apart.
She's certainly not going to stop him now.
And even though she's never fired a gun, she's pretty sure she'd shoot anyone who tried to stop him now.
Her head falls back against the marble wall and she yelps.
He looks up, and the lust in his eyes is almost enough to drive her over the edge. "Keep going," she pants.
"Your head…"
"I'm fine. I know a neurosurgeon who can look at it later. Keep going."
"Bossy," he scolds her, and she just smirks, hoping she's not concussed or at least, if she is, that she can stay conscious long enough to …
He's the one to yelp this time.
"Sorry," she squeaks.
"Just leave some hair on my scalp, please," he mutters, and she tries not to smile at his watering eyes.
"It's your fault for torturing me," she says defensively.
"Then I guess it's worth it," he shrugs, and before she can come up with a retort, much less utter one, he's returned his warm lips to her flesh and the power of speech suddenly seems way beyond her.
She manages to gasp his name. "Derek – the – reservation," she pants the words; only the incredibly hard to get table at Fourchette could be worth breaking her reverie.
"Don't worry. I'm on top of it."
That rather is what she's worried about – or that he'll end up on top of her anyway, and they'll miss the reservation, but then her returns to feast on her.
And she realizes that in this position he can hold her in place, the marble of the shower keeping her from bucking away, and it's agonizingly pleasurable and erotically efficient all at the same time. She's well aware of his skills in this department, but adding in time management is enough to make her swoon.
As in … swoon.
She blinks back to reality to see him looking smug, stroking her legs and smiling lazily.
"Don't be too pleased with yourself," she frowns.
"True." He drops a friendly kiss on the inside of one thigh and then smirks when she shudders. "Clearly, we're just getting started."
She straightens up as much as she can. "What happened to I'm not a machine?"
"I'm not," he says. "I'm not," he corrects. "You might be. I don't know. I'm still testing that hypothesis. I'm a scientist," he adds with dignity, standing up enough to kiss the side one breast and then suck pebbled flesh into her mouth – this time, remembering to cup the back of her head so she doesn't bang it into the marble behind her.
She analyzes his inflection as best she can when her whole body is still tingling from what he did to her. Cautiously flexing her cramped toes, she looks up at him from under her wet hair.
"Reservation," she reminds him.
"Right." He lifts her down from the ledge, holding her against his body for just a moment, but it's enough for a flicker of excitement to be awakened in him.
"Derek…"
"Sorry." He sets her down on the fluffy white bathmat. "I'm leaving before I cause any more problems."
She smiles at him as he walks out of the bathroom, the muscles in the back of his thighs flexing, and above them …
"Derek!" She grabs a towel and jogs after him. "Wait for me!"
He turns around with a quizzical look on his face, just in time for her to tackle him to the rumpled white sheets.
Dear Michel,
I hope you know how much I appreciated your securing us a table at Fourchette for dinner tonight. Unfortunately, due to truly shocking unforeseen circumstances far beyond our control
Too flowery. Delete.
Dear Michel,
Please accept my apologies for missing our reservation tonight. We are devastated. My husband had to perform a top-secret emergency surgery on a visiting diplomat
No. Too easily figured out. And maybe a little too James Bond-ish, too. Mm, James Bond. She pauses for a moment to imagine Derek twirling a smoking pistol and sliding into an Aston Martin. In a tux. Then she forces herself to focus.
Dear Michel,
I feel absolutely terrible that we missed our reservation. I know that whoever took our table was very lucky and we certainly hope that
"What?" She looks up when she sees Derek reading the blackberry over her shoulder.
"Nothing," he says. "Just … you don't really look like you feel terrible."
"Oh." She's still sprawled out on the vast white bed, the sheets of which have at this point passed from rumpled to disarray beyond repair. Her thighs are parted to bring a much needed breeze to fiery skin, her head is resting on Derek's bare chest, and she can't seem to keep her lips from curving upwards.
"You're right," she admits. "I'm lying. I don't feel terrible. Isn't that terrible? We flew all the way out here for the reservation and I don't even feel terrible. It's terrible, Derek. Do you feel terrible?"
"Addison." His hand is resting on the top of her head. "The word terrible has lost all meaning. Plus, you're doing the thing."
"What thing?"
"The thing where you babble after …" his voice trails off.
"You love the thing!"
"The thing is inconvenient when you're trying to be quiet and subtle."
"We don't have to be quiet and subtle. We're in our hotel room."
"Oh. That's right." She wriggles around to see that Derek looks relieved. "You know, maybe Weiss had a point about this sticking to private spaces thing," he says.
A knock on the door interrupts them.
"Ooh, room service is here. Finally. I'm starving." Addison bounds out of bed and heads for the door.
"Addison," Derek hisses at her retreating back. "You are naked."
"I am?" She glances down. "Oh. I am. I didn't notice."
"Well, I think whoever is at the door will notice, so would you please…"
"Yes. Of course." She grabs one of the terrycloth robes they discarded earlier, reveling for a moment in the softly thick fabric – and reminding herself to leave an excellent review on Thousand Count Sheets, her favorite prestige hotel booking site.
"Madame," the man says, looking, Addison thinks, rather judgmental. Perhaps he's one of those men who thinks woman should only consume salad, and thinks their order of steak frites, champagne, and strawberries is overly indulgent.
(Or maybe it's the extra-large bowl of freshly whipped cream they ordered on the side.)
Either way, she tilts her chin up and maintains her dignity as she signs for the tray, then gestures for the waiter – who is young, and smirking quite unfairly – to bring it in.
Derek is sitting up in bed, the covers pulled to his waist, and smiles weakly at the waiter's knowing gaze.
"Shall I leave the tray here, Madame?" The waiter gestures with his chin toward the bed.
The nerve!
Addison is about to tell the waiter where he can put the tray – or at least that he should put it on the table and he should respect his elders – when she realizes that she does actually want it on the bed.
Damn it. Must she be so transparent?
"Yes, that would be fine. Thank you," she responds coolly, hoping she's not blushing too visibly.
"Will, uh, will that be all, Madame?" The waiter's gaze flickers from Derek, propped up in bed, to Addison in her robe. She tightens the sash self-consciously.
"My husband is ill," she says as authoritatively as possible.
"I'm terribly sorry. Would you like me to summon a doctor?"
"No," Addison says hastily, "that won't be necessary."
"The hotel offers exclusive concierge medical services to our guests."
"I believe you," she assures him, "but he'll be fine. Really."
"If you're certain," the waiter says, scanning Derek from the top of his violently mussed hair to the white-knuckled fingers clenched on the duvet. "He does look rather … worn out."
"Nope, he always looks like that." Addison smiles in what she hopes is an innocent, convincing way, ignoring Derek's glare, and grabs the leather booklet to sign for their meal.
…
"Why did you have to stay in bed all … furtive when he came in?" Addison accuses as soon as the door closes, mercifully, behind the waiter.
Derek finds his gaze flicking downward, feeling a bit embarrassed.
"Seriously?"
"Seriously," he admits.
"Why?"
"What kind of a question is that?"
"It's an I'm Not a Machine question."
"I think it's … your hair, actually."
"My hair?" She glances in the mirror. "What about it?"
Derek twirls a finger, indicating she should turn around, and she does, peering over her shoulder …
… at the biggest rat's nest he's seen in her hair since the third night of their honeymoon.
Gingerly, she pokes at the complicated snarl.
"You could have warned me."
"You were already opening the door; you barely managed to cover your-"
"Fine," she cuts him off, then covers her face with her hands. "Oh, god. He clearly thought we were sex fiends."
"I have a piece of paper that says that's exactly what we are."
"No. We haven't been convicted yet." She shakes her head. "Our standards have really slipped."
"So has your robe," he points out, and she looks down to see rosy skin peeking out from one lapel. "Ugh!" She reaches to tighten the sash but he covers her hand and somehow the robe falls open even more.
Smiling, she eases back down onto the bed, letting Derek skim the rest of the robe from her shoulders. He kisses the side of her neck as she leans over him, the non-snarled part of her hair brushing his bare chest.
He closes his eyes.
And she apparently takes advantage of that, because the next thing he knows something cold and sweet is pressing against his closed lips. Automatically, he parts them, and the juice of a perfectly sweet strawberry explodes into his mouth.
Silently he thanks Addison for her ridiculously expensive taste in hotels – he's pretty sure their room service bill is going to approach four digits, but it's worth it for whatever intensely environmentally unfriendly process brought them these perfect strawberries out of season.
Slowly, he finishes the strawberry and waits for her to withdraw the stem, then sucks the juice from her fingers, enjoying the sound of her indrawn breath.
"We should eat the steak before it gets cold," she says.
"Really?"
"Nah." She takes another strawberry from the crystal bowl and this time she nibbles herself at the tip before her parting her deliciously mobile lips. Watching the fruit disappear between them then her tongue swipe at a fleck of juice is awfully distracting.
Terribly distracting, even, if the word hadn't lost all meaning already.
She missed a drop of red juice, he notices. It drips slowly along her jaw and then falls to her collarbone. He tugs her forward and makes short work of it with his tongue, then reaches for another strawberry, plucks off the stem, and places the pointed tip in her mouth. She smiles around the fruit and then gasps a little when he leans forward to suck the other end into his mouth, kissing her around the shared berry – first gently, then more fiercely, strawberry sweetness bursting into both their mouths.
"Mm." She grins at him when he pulls back. "Delicious."
"My thoughts exactly." He laps a little extra juice from the corner of her mouth, then kisses her again. Reaching for the cut-glass bowl of freshly whipped cream, he scoops a small amount onto his finger.
"Stop-"
"Really?"
"We should put down a towel."
"I'll be careful," he promises.
"Derek, the last time you said that, I had to get an emergency pregnancy test at the university clinic."
Ignoring her protest, he eases her gently away from him and then dabs a fingerful of whipped cream on each of the rosy buds that keep catching his eye, taking his time to lick each one clean so thoroughly that you could perform surgery on her chest.
Her eyes flutter when he finishes. "Still want to stop?"
"No," she admits. "Ass," she adds, glaring at him.
He responds by popping open the champagne – which makes her shriek – and pouring a small amount of foaming bubbly liquid into one of the flutes on the tray. "That language. From a lady. We need to wash your mouth out with champagne, I think."
"A lady?"
"You weren't one in the shower, that's for sure," he agrees cheerfully, and when she starts to retort he holds the flute to her lips; she relents and takes a sip. Then he does. Then he sucks her champagne-cold tongue into his mouth, and she tastes fizzy and exciting. He grabs another berry and offers her a bite; when she's nibbled off the tip, he trails the succulent open end of the berry across her lips, then down her jaw, her neck, over her collarbone –
"Derek, I'm getting all sticky."
"Good," he deadpans, "but is the strawberry juice bothering you?"
"Very funny."
He takes advantage of her parted lips to pop the rest of the strawberry into her mouth, and then cleans up the sticky juice from her impossibly soft skin. He spends a lot of time on her neck, nipping at the spot he knows drives her crazy and sliding his other hand down the soft curve of her waist to hold her in place.
"Enough teasing," she says finally, pulling back.
"I don't think so." He raises his eyebrows.
"Well, I do," she insists.
He considers her words. "I guess we're at an impasse, then."
She folds her arms. "I guess so. Derek, what are you –"
He's lifted the tray from the bed easily, placed it on the ottoman of the nearby chair, and then pounced onto her. "Let's wrestle for it."
She laughs in spite of herself, and he lets her gain a temporary advantage, enjoying the feel of her flexing muscles as she presses herself against him, and then flips them both over, stretching her arms over her head and pinning her wrists.
"You were saying?" He drawls.
"That's not fair. You outweigh me."
"There's a steak and a bowl of whipped cream waiting for us that could change all that."
She giggles, and he dips his head to kiss her. She turns her head away. "No more teasing."
"Lots more teasing," he corrects her. "I won fair and square."
"Fair and square, is that what they're calling it these days?"
He takes advantage of her turned head to kiss a trail down her neck, shifting her wrists to hold them in one of his hands and freeing the other to trail lazy circles down her side.
She hums with pleasure, her hips rising to meet his, and he doesn't protest when she curls a leg around his waist and tries to draw them closer.
He doesn't help either, and he laughs when she wriggles with frustration.
"Be patient."
"You know I'm bad at that!"
"You're Addison Shepherd," he reminds her. "You're not bad at anything."
She seems slightly mollified by this, though she gasps when he dips his head again, this time taking a rosy nipple into his mouth. He slides his free hand under her back, lifting her against him so that he's surrounded by softness, and then releases her wrists to palm her other breast. She's still arching up toward him, trying to find the friction that he's denying her. He presses her hips back to the bed, grinning at her.
"You're enjoying this," she accuses him.
He glances down. "I guess I can't deny that."
"Sadist." She tries to trap him with her powerful thighs and he pulls away just in time.
"Masochist," he teases, flipping her over and straddling her hips, then sweeping her hair aside to suckle at the base of her neck.
She groans into the pillow and he takes pity on her; instead of laughing at her, he removes his weight from her body and then, without discussion, urges her thighs apart and plunges two grateful fingers into heavenly, welcoming warmth.
"Derek!"
"Yes?"
"How about a little warning?"
"This whole weekend is a warning," he points out.
She can't seem to think of an argument. "Fine," she huffs, "just don't stop."
"Bossy," he says again, twisting his fingers and making her gasp. "Bossy, bossy, bossy." He punctuates each iteration of the word with a nip at the sensitive skin of her neck, and she twists under him, straining backwards against his hand.
"Derek, I swear to god, if you don't finish what you started, I am going to set an alarm for the middle of the night and cut off every single-"
A loud knock on the door interrupts her colorful threat; they jump apart.
"Who's that?"
"I don't know," she hisses.
"Derek and Addison Shepherd?" A voice calls. "Please open the door."
"Oh god. It's the cops, isn't it," she moans, and he regrets the high ceilinged acoustics when the sound of his fingers withdrawing seems to echo around the room.
She winces, then starts laughing, then winces again. "Oh god. We're going back to jail."
"Let me at least wash my hands first," he says and she shoves him, catching him off guard and making both of them laugh again.
"Derek and Addison Shepherd!" The voice is louder now. "I must insist that you open the door."
"Coming!" Addison squeaks.
"Not anytime soon, at this rate," Derek grumbles, but he tosses Addison her robe and heads to the door with her, ready to protect her from the oversized brutes waiting, no doubt, to muscle them into submission and-
-and the door opens on small, wiry man in spectacles, wearing an obviously expensive suit and carrying a large leather bag.
Derek is so surprised that he steps back and the man seems to take it as an invitation.
"I'm Dr. Palsgraff, the hotel's concierge doctor," he says, extending a hand. "You can call me Dr. P."
Derek hastily shoves his own hand into the pocket of his robe.
"We're germaphobes," Derek mutters, blushing.
"Very wise, with all the communicable diseases around." Dr. P nods approvingly.
Addison has already extended her own hand, and she hastily sticks it back in her pocket.
"Can we help you?"
Dr. P looks from Addison to Derek and then past them to the chaos of the vast, messy bed, and then to the ottoman where the large bowls of strawberries and whipped cream are visible. Finally, he glances at the tangled piles of Addison's hair.
"I was told one of you is ill," he says, "and I wanted to check on you."
"Oh." Derek remembers the overzealous waiter. "We appreciate your concern, but we're fine."
"Physical health is nothing to take for granted," Dr. P says. "It's important to follow up on any symptoms."
"We're doctors," Addison says impatiently. "And we're very busy, so if you don't mind-"
"Wait." The doctor is looking at them with a curious expression. "Derek and Addison Shepherd … doctors … did you go to Columbia?"
They exchange a nervous glance. "Yes," Derek admits tentatively.
"Of course! I remember you! Don't worry," he adds at their blank expressions, "You wouldn't remember me. I was two years behind you, but I was part of that orientation group that was touring the library and found you two in the stacks with-"
"I remember," Derek says hastily, adding a quick Hail Mary that cell phones hadn't yet been invented then, so none of the witnesses could actually prove what they saw.
"So you're still together, after all those years? Oh, that's so sweet. I'll have to tell my wife. She thinks romance is dead. She's my third wife," he adds, "but I really think this time she's the one."
"How lovely," Addison says drily. "So, as you can see, we're perfectly healthy…"
"Tell me," Dr. P says urgently, leaning forward. "What's your secret?"
"Our secret?" Derek takes a step back.
"For spicing things up. Keeping the flame going. Something I can use to spice things up with Bridget."
"Oh. Um. Well, you need to … put each other … first," Addison says hesitantly.
"Really? I thought you always wanted to come first." Derek gives Addison an innocent smile.
"Are you complaining?"
The concierge doctor looks far too amused.
"I'd advise paying attention to her," Addison says coolly. "You know, act like you're interested."
Derek shoots her an annoyed look. "Don't forget to rely on close friends to help keep your relationship … dynamic."
"We try to keep a nice work-life balance. You know, not working too late."
"Sometimes we come home early," Derek adds, gritting his teeth. "Too early."
"Oh." Dr. P.'s head moves from one of them to the other. "Well, if you're sure you don't need any medical care."
"Not right now," Addison says sweetly, then leans closer to Derek to whisper, "but you might later, for priapism. The painful kind."
She has to muffle a shriek when he slips his hand under her robe to pinch her in response.
"Don't hesitate to call if you need anything," Dr. P. says warmly. "And-"
"Oh, we won't," Addison ushers him toward the door. "Thank you so much."
"I can't get over how little you've changed since medical school," Dr. P. says from the doorway as Addison all but closes the door in his face. He glances at her. "Can you still get your legs all the way-"
"No," Addison says hastily.
"Yes," Derek says at the same time.
The concierge doctor's mouth drops open and Addison starts talking before he can. "Yoga," she says hastily, "ignore the feel good-breath-y stuff and focus on the flexibility. Tell your wife."
"My wife?" He looks confused.
"You said you wanted tips to spice things up with Bridget."
"Oh! No, Bridget isn't my wife. My wife's name is Rochelle. Bridget is my girlfriend."
"Good night." Addison closes the door firmly, then turns to Derek, who starts laughing helplessly; before long, she joins him.
"So." He glances at her. "You want to see if all that yoga paid off?"
"I thought you'd never ask."
…
Dear Weiss,
We thought you'd be glad to know that haven't left the hotel room all night. That's how seriously we take our case, and how grateful we are to you for helping
"But we told him the reservation was incredibly important," Derek points out. "We're going to look flaky."
"I think we have a lot bigger problems than looking flaky," Addison grumbles, but she obligingly deletes the draft, and tries to come up with something more serious.
Dear Weiss,
Please accept this email as confirmation that we are in compliance with the terms of our agreement, forthwith and hereinafter known as
"What's with the lawyer speak?"
"Weiss will like that. He's a lawyer. Plus, it shows we take this seriously."
Derek considers this. "Maybe just stick to the basics."
Dear Weiss,
Mission accomplished, at least for tonight. See you tomorrow for brunch. Looking forward.
"Much better," Derek says approvingly. "You do know, though, that brunch means you have to keep your hands to yourself for a few hours."
"I can do that!"
"Oh, really."
"Yes," Addison says firmly. "My hands will be busy with my bagel and schmear."
"That didn't stop you from-"
"Please don't bring up Savvy and Weiss's engagement brunch."
"I wasn't going to. I was going to bring up-"
"And I beg of you, don't say the word bris. The mere thought of it is enough to give me performance anxiety."
"You? Performance anxiety?" She grins. "I'll believe it when I see it."
"Well." He sounds rather pleased with himself. "The point is – what?" he asks, seeing Addison's expression.
"Nothing," she says hesitantly. "I was just remembering Savvy and Weiss's housewarming weekend in the Hamptons."
Derek winces. "I'd forgotten about that."
"Really? Even though you still have that scar?" She brushes her fingers against the slightly raised skin on his thigh, so small you'd miss it if you didn't know him really well.
Extremely well.
Derek shrugs. "I guess I told so many people I slipped getting into a kayak that I actually started to believe it myself."
"Do you think Savvy and Weiss believed it?" Addison asks seriously.
The corners of his mouth twitch. "No, I don't."
"You're probably right." She flops back against the fluffy pillows, enjoying the feeling of the crisp white sheets. "Derek … why do they still talk to us?"
"Honestly?" Derek lies back and folds his hands behind his head, the picture of satisfaction. "I have no idea."
To be continued! Next chapter, brunch at Savvy and Weiss's. Can Addison and Derek keep behaving? Thank you for reading and if you're on board with Thirsty Thursdays, pretty please review and let me know!