It feels different sitting underneath his oak tree now. There's a new sense of hope, and with it, a new sense of longing driving her blood through her veins.
She knows he still loves her. There's no doubt in her mind now. Underneath all of the angry, the walls, the coldness, the bitterness, the bile and venom he has toward her, in his heart, that big heart of his, he still loves her. That alone is enough to keep her going. Somehow, it even makes her love him even more. It just goes to show her how deep-seated his love can be, how deep it can run in him. She was worthy of being in that place in his heart once, or at least he thought so. Now, whether he thinks so or not, she has to prove to him that she is... or make herself worthy enough to earn being there in the first place.
It could be the kiss she's feeling. The taste and the tingle of his lips, the vibration of want and the pull in her lungs, those long few seconds were just enough to give her body her memory back. It had been so long, she couldn't recall exactly how he made her feel when they'd kiss or when they made love without laying in bed and concentrating.
Now, she's having a hard time thinking of anything else.
But now, the morning after, she sits in the same metal patio chair with a cup of coffee in her hand and another sitting on his side of the table waiting for him when he returns from his run. Sasha is in the house and is looking at her from the window. Maybe she just didn't want to go outside when Castle left to run. Kate sits back in the chair with her free hand tucked into the pocket of her denim jacket, a content smile naturally brightening her face, and takes another slow sip of her coffee.
When the door to the garage door starts to open, Kate looks up the driveway, surprised. She sees the Ferarri parked off to one side and his silver Lexus parked next to it. It's just a few seconds after that she hears the front door to his lakehouse open. She looks up, a worried tingle starting to shake her spine for a second before she sees him come striding out of the front door in a pair of dark jeans, wingtips, a sky blue dress shirt with black pinstripe, and a charcoal sport coat that he's just pulling onto his arms.
She loves seeing his muscles glisten with sweat and the revealing nature of his workout clothes, but seeing him in his old attire of that sharply dressed playboy from New York makes her stomach coil with a mixture of nostalgia and want at the same time. She starts to stand up slowly, quickly piecing together that he's leaving, and paces her way toward the driveway to meet him before grabbing his coffee off the table.
Rick gallops down the steps of the patio with his keys in one hand, straightening the collar of his sport coat with the other and snapping on the lappels as his feet hit the cement of the walkway that leads to the garage. With Sasha barking from the living room a few times, he looks up from watching his step and sees her holding two cups of coffee, standing in his driveway with a soft, content smile shining toward him, her hair back in a wavy ponytail, a denim jacket over a shirt from her and her father's fishing shop, and a pair of black jeans.
His chest snakes with a strange feeling, mostly when his eyes find her neck.
He remembers exactly what spots to kiss on her neck and in exactly what order to kiss them in to make her melt, a combination to her safe that he was well versed in cracking. Back when they first started dating, her wearing her hair back like that was always a sign that she wanted him to make an attempt at it sometime during the day, a way for him to get riled up by having to look at it all day and for her to make it easy on him when he made his move.
But Rick clears his throat loudly as he finishes straightening out the collar of his jacket and slows to meet her. "You look..." she starts, but cuts herself off when she lets her eyes rove over him hungrily.
Rick stops, twirling his car keys around one finger down by his side. "Not as sweaty and gross as I do normally?" He jokes, mostly to himself.
Kate's smile brightens, the smile she gives him when silently laughing with him, as she shakes her head. "I was going to say handsome, Castle." She says in a low tone, eyeing him with a smirk and a lidded gaze.
"Yeah, well," he points over to the car, "I was invited to speak at the college by one of Alexis's teachers about..." he shrugs, "writer's stuff. Plot, characters, themes."
"Really?" She asks, genuinely intrigued. Rick nods, tucking in the corners of his lips. He's usually not this civil with her, but she can't help but wonder if it's genuine or if he's just posturing because of what happened last night, wondering if acting like even more of a jerk toward her will only get her to push harder. "That open to the public?" She asks, at first in jest.
Rick chuckles to himself and smirks. "I'm lecturing to a group of college kids about plot development, Beckett. That's wouldn't exactly be the most exciting thing I've done in front of you."
With a hot flaring blush rising up her neck, Kate cranes her neck and tries to hide just how large her smile is getting. "I know," she shrugs meagerly, "it's just not too often I get to see you in your element, that's all." She says with a soft smile, looking back up at him.
Rick pinches his brow and shifts his weight. "What are you talking about? I used to write all the time when you were at the loft." He recalls.
"I know," Kate nods, "but..." she trails off in a light voice, looking away, "watching you write was always the quickest way to turn me on."
Rick freezes like a rock, watching her eye him almost mischievously, his stomach flip-flopping. He remembers early in their dating life when he'd be immersed in writing a scene between Nikki and Rook and have everything going from his head straight through the keys on his laptop with no effort when all of the sudden, he'd feel her arms start to snake around his neck from behind his office chair and her lips find the back of his ear. He'd shiver with ecstasy and there'd be a trail of smoke leading into his bedroom.
To think, if he hadn't forced himself to make the agreement that he writes alone, Tyson would never have been able to frame him.
Kate, remembering the exact same thing he is judging by the look in his eyes, chuckles. "On second thought, it's probably for the best that I can't make it."
Flanking his defenses, Rick smiles and laughs under his breath at her joke. When he realizes it, he knows it's too late to pull it back without looking like a moron. "I uh..." he starts, giving her a nod, "I should probably go. I'm already running late."
Hoping he's not thinking, Kate reaches her hand out to hand him his coffee and her heart skips when he takes it, giving her a quick nod before making a quick dash into his garage.
"How do you go about, say..." the brunette student in the second row of the auditorium asks him, "working the plot in a way to keep the reader entertained, if..." she grimaces at her question, "if that makes any sense."
Rick smiles and adjusts himself as he leans back against the folding table at the center stage in front of the seating. "I'm going to tell you three different stories," he starts with a smile, "and what I want you to do is tell me which one is the most interesting." He says, pulling his hand out of his pocket. "Be honest, now."
The girl smiles and twirls her pen around her finger.
"When I was a kid, my school had a dress code that required us to wear a belt. So I wore one." He says, shrugging his shoulders. "Is that story interesting?" He asks the class before looking back to the girl that asked the question. When she shakes her head with a nervous smile, he nods. "No, I followed the rules, how is that interesting? Okay, what about this?" He raises his brow. "When I was a kid, my school had a dress code that said we had to wear a belt, so one day, I didn't." He eyes the class again. "Is that story any more interesting?" When the class starts to shake their heads, he nods. "Of course not, I broke the rules, who doesn't?"
"Right," the girl chuckles, eyeing the boy sitting next to her.
"Okay, last story." He says, waving his hand out, feeling Alexis's eyes on him from the third row, smiling at her dad proudly. "When I was a kid, I was sent to a private school where the dress code was 'if your pants have belt loops, you must wear a belt'. So, one day before class, I took a pair of scissors and I cut off all my belt loops." When a round of soft chuckles comes from the class, he looks back to the girl who asked the question. "Is that story any more interesting?"
The girl smiles and nods. "Yeah."
"See, that's what a good plot does." He explains, leaning off the table and pacing around in front of the class. "A plot will set up a list of rules. You as the writer, your job is to not break them, but not follow them either. A good plot will set up rules and cleverly weave around them. A writer following the rules they set up will leave the reader bored, but the writer breaking the rules they set up will leave the reader not believing you."
"So," another girl chimes in from the other side, while Rick's eyes are going to the back of the auditorium where he sees the door open and a familiar face peek in, "your goal should be to subvert the reader's expectations?"
"It should be a tool but not the goal. Think of it as a basketball play. A fake-out will help you get to the ball to the basket, but it's not what gets you the two points at the buzzer."
"You spoke earlier about," another girl starts asking from the other side, "having a goal in mind for your characters. Would mean that every character in the story has to have a goal?"
"No," Rick shakes his head casually and gives her a shrug, "but you don't want to leave them without purpose. They don't necessarily have to serve their own individual goal in the story, but each character should at least serve some purpose in getting the main character to the end goal of the story."
"You got an analogy for that one?" One of the male students asks with a smirk.
Rick grins. "You can have as many tug boats guiding the Titanic out to sea as you want, just make sure not to bring them along for the part where the ship sinks."
When a sea of chuckles starts to sound from the class, Rick sees the teacher stand up from the corner seat. When she dismisses the class, thanks him for speaking, signals for the class to applaud, Rick smiles and gives the class a wave as they start to gather their books, bags, and laptops. He reaches behind him to take another drink from his coffee cup as Alexis maneuvers her way through the class with a bright smile.
"How'd I do?" He asks her opening his arms to her.
Alexis hugs him happily and proudly. "You were great, Dad."
Rick rubs his daughter on the back and pulls back. "Not embarrassing at all?" He asks as his visitor slowly paces to a stop near the end of the row with a smile directed straight at him.
"Not at all," Alexis smiles. "But I've got to run, I have another class to get to. See you at home?" She asks, quickly leaning up and pressing a quick, daughterly kiss on his cheek. With a smile, he watches her job out of the auditorium.
With most of the class gone, Rick looks over to Sierra, who's standing nearby in a pair of light blue jeans and a black v-neck t-shirt with a dark grey hooded cargo jacket, smiling her bright, toothy smile in his direction. "Aspiring writer?" He asks her, slowly turning to face her.
"Hmm?" She hums quickly, raising her brow. "Oh!" She smiles, "No, I was just grabbing lunch nearby when I saw the poster." She points behind her. "I thought I'd drop in and see you." Rick can feel a bit of a flush rising up his neck. Sierra's eyes widen and her lips pucker out. "Not that... not that I wanted to see you or didn't want to see you. I mean, it's great seeing you again so it's not like it's not that I wanted to see you again but..." she rattles off quickly before shaking her head and smiling brightly at him, "it's... great to see you again." She says softly.
Rick smiles and tucks his hand back into his pocket. "And I'm not even falling out of any trees this time."
Sierra's smile engulfs her features, her eyes seeming to light up when she laughs. As he watches her, trying not to pay attention too closely, he feels a certain air fill his lungs. A kind he hasn't felt in a long time. It's something entirely different than it is with Beckett. He'd never felt what it was with Beckett before. But this... he's felt before.
"Well, I thought it was doctor's orders that you avoid falling out of trees, Mr. Castle." She says with a smirk, quirking one side of her brow. She is really pretty, after all.
"Avoid, not stop." He shrugs casually, making her chuckle again. "And besides, you're only a doctor for dead people and according to professionals, I'm not dead yet."
"No, you're..." she trails off, her eyes going up and down his form, "most definitely alive, very... alive, so... out of my jurisdiction."
He has a quip on his tongue, but swallows it, deciding upon something neutral. "So, what brings you to OSU? This your alma mater?"
Sierra's blue eyes widen largely and she looks over her shoulder. "Actually," she whispers, leaning in close, "I went to U of O."
Rick leans in close, whispering back, "Why did you whisper?" He asks before he remembers, leaning back and nodding, "Oh right, the uh... the civil war thing."
Sierra narrows her eyes with a mischievous smile. "I'm the Duck, Cecilia's the... the Beaver fan." She says, her voice lowering.
Rick nods, a clench closing up his throat. He has to move on. It was easy to tell himself that he had, but her demanding from him that he tell her... he can't keep punishing himself by staying so fixated on some fantasy he has spun in his head. Maybe it's time he actually lives by what he actually says to her. "You know," he begins, taking a small, shuffling step forward, "Sierra," he says, knowing that saying her name will get to her, "if you wanted to know the ins and outs of what it's like being a writer, I'd be willing to share my knowledge with you, on... one condition, of course."
He can tell Sierra is fighting her face splitting smile. "It's nothing weird, is it? I mean, I see a lot of gross stuff but... you know, they're usually dead, so..."
Rick smirks softly, "You re-open that offer you extended for dinner."
A/N: Bring on the rage reviews! *Puts shield up and lowers faceguard*
