9th of July
It's been over two months already. Two months ago that she started working for him.
And for the first time since Rae started working for Victor Creed, she actually leaves the house on a Friday night to engage in some sort of social activity.
Even though her contract clearly states that she has Friday and Sunday nights off, she never actually leaves the house to go out or anything like that. She uses Sunday nights to see her mom, but on Friday nights she always prefers to stay with Zoe. Mainly because she suspects Creed of making the housekeeper put Zoe to bed, instead of doing it himself. She has no evidence for it, but she stays with Zoe anyway, just to make sure.
But not this night.
It's 2:35 a.m. when she stumbles into the kitchen, wishing she hadn't gone to the party. Still a little tipsy, she drops her high heels on the kitchen floor.
She opens the fridge and takes out a beer.
He's suddenly standing in the doorway.
"Had fun?".
He startles her. It amuses him.
She almost drops the bottle to the floor.
She smells like sex and booze and he can't help but snarl at her.
"Jesus Creed" she runs a hand through her long hair as she eyes him with slightly opened mouth "Can you put on a goddamn shirt?".
She's slurring a little, just a tiny bit and she doesn't even notice how long she's been staring at his shirtless body. Hell will freeze over before she tells him this, but she's pretty sure he made a pact with the devil for this body.
"No" he simply replies with a smirk "You woke me up in the middle of the fucking night frail".
"Sorry" she replies as she sits at the kitchen table, still staring at his arms and chest "But seriously, put on a shirt".
He chuckles contently "You can leave if you don't like what you see. Or maybe you like it a little too much".
She rests her head on her arms "Don't flatter yourself Creed".
He sits down at the other end. He can smell her. Even through the booze he could smell the increase of pheromones when she eyed him up and down.
"So..." he muses "You decided to get drunk and get laid".
She gestures her little arm around in a circle "Other way around".
"How was the sex?" he tries to provoke her.
Instead of being provoked, she makes a face as if she's thinking about his question. She's never been a closed book. People can ask her anything and she will answer honestly.
Most of the time, with a little too much honesty.
"Very disappointing actually" she finally answers him "At first I wasn't going to drink. But the sex was just so... so..." she tries to think of a word but can't seem to find it "Is there a word for an experience that is so bad that you would do anything to go back in time and not do it? So anyway, I just quit half way and walked off. Is that rude? Do guys find that rude? Then I decided to get drunk, hoping I would forget".
He can't help but chuckle at her, she's actually quite funny in this state.
"So how did that work out for ya?" he wonders.
"Still working on it" she replies as she holds up a beer bottle.
He walks over to her and takes the beer bottle away from her "Maybe you need something a little stronger to forget".
He pours them both a whisky and hands her a glass.
Even though he's standing particularly close by now, it doesn't even cross her mind to put up her shield barrier.
She groans as she carefully zips from the glass "I'm going to regret this so much in a few hours when Zoe wakes up and starts jumping on my bed" she groans just thinking about it.
"Don't worry about that" he replies "When she wakes up, I'll get her outta bed".
Her head shoots up to look at him "Seriously? You would do that? Wow, that is so nice".
He shakes his head "Nothing to do with nice. I don't want my cub to see you like this. Not a great example frail".
"Fair enough and don't worry mister Creed. Won't happen again".
"Good".
She's talking about the alcohol.
He's talking about the smell of some boy on her.
When she wakes the next day she's shocked when her eyes meet the alarm clock.
It's almost 1 p.m.
She groans and falls back into the pillows, Creed's gonna fucking kill her. She quickly takes a shower, dries her hair and puts on a white dress.
Her head is still pounding as she takes two aspirins.
When she goes to look for Zoe she hears voices in the kitchen. One of them is Zoe and the other one surprisingly belongs to Victor Creed.
"And then, and then, and then the little girl in the book saved the entire forest!" she hears Zoe tell some kind of incoherent story to her father.
"Rae!" Zoe yells loudly when Rae enters the kitchen. The little girl storms into Rae who catches her just in time, lifts her up and twirls her around. She kisses Zoe and puts her down on the floor again.
"Morning princess" she tries to put on a normal healthy-sounding voice.
"Are you all better again? Daddy says you were sick and I wasn't allowed to go into your room".
Rae chuckles a little as she looks at Creed with embarrassment "Morning mister Creed".
She's actually quite thankful for the story he made up about her being sick. Then again, a hangover could be considered a sickness, right?
"I'm all better again little one".
She takes a big glass of water and mumbles a thank you to Victor Creed.
"No problem" he smirks "Though I should fire you really".
"Ugh" she groans as she rubs her pounding head "Too early for jokes. I take it this is lunch already and not breakfast?" she says as she looks at the kitchen table which is filled with lunch items.
She realizes that Creed must have given Zoe lunch and breakfast since it's Saturday and the housekeepers doesn't work in the weekends.
"Daddy took me to see the duckies!".
"Did he now?" Rae looks a little shocked, she can't believe what she's hearing.
"Yes and we fed them bread and then lots of other duckies came too".
"That sounds like a lot of fun".
"Yes" Zoe replies as she all but flies out of the room, already distracted by something else that she wants to do.
"Wow" Rae muses as she looks at Victor Creed "Am I hearing this correctly? Or am I still drunk?".
"Why so surprised frail?" he cocks a brow "You may think that I'm completely lost without you, but I can take care of my own cub ya know".
"Obviously" she replies slowly. She takes another big gulp of water, way too hungover to make a sharp comment.
He smirks as he walks passed her to the fridge "Ya know frail, if you wouldn't take that fucking serum, the healing factor would take care of your hangover. Also, you'd be able to hold your liquor. Because this is just pathetic".
She ignores his comment and picks up her glass to leave the kitchen, away from this conversation about her feral genes and the serum she takes to suppress it.
"Thanks for taking care of Zoe mister Creed and my apologies".
"Rae, wait".
She turns around, a little surprised he finally used her actual name instead of 'frail' or 'half-breed' which she heard him say a couple of times when they got into each other's hair.
"Does Zoe ever talk about her mother?" he wonders.
Rae thinks hard for a moment "No" she finally says "She once said that she missed her mom. That was the first time I met her. But never again after that".
He nods slowly "Alright, well, good".
Rae smiles politely "Children adjust pretty quickly" she explains. "She's only four and she won't have that many memories of her real mom. The ones she does have, aren't very happy and with a little bit of luck, they will blur over time, fade away so to speak" she pauses for a few seconds "She's really lucky to have you mister Creed".
AN: Thank you guys for reviewing :-D I loved it that one of you said "I wonder what happens if Rae goes on a date" because this chapter was already written and you totally read my mind. Even though this whole party-sex-thing wasn't a real date of course.
So let's see... how do you guys think that Creed would feel at the moment if Rae would go on an actual date? ;-)