He had been kidding about practice.
Well, he had started out kidding about practice, but then he leaned closer to her just under the little orange light outside her apartment building and her eyes dropped to his lips and her fingers curled around his elbow and suddenly – he wasn't kidding about practice.
He wanted to kiss her.
He wants to kiss her.
He thought about kissing her once – back when they were in college and he had just returned from summer vacation with Liam. A summer spent out on the little vessel they rescued from an old junk shop and pieced back together bit by bit over the years until it was finally seaworthy. A summer spent thinking only of her – of the way she smiled when she was desperately trying not to, how her hair stuck to her cheek when she fell asleep in the library. Liam had teased him mercilessly about his inability to just buck up and - tell her, bloody hell, if I have to hear one more thing about her hair or her eyes or the way she bloody drinks her cocoa, I'll heave myself over the railing.
He had returned to school with sun burn on his ears and the ground painfully steady beneath his feet and found her down in the laundry rooms, her heels bouncing against the machine beneath her, glasses slipping down her nose as she looked through the course catalogue. He had wanted to kiss her, taste that peach lip gloss she always wore, feel her knees pressing in on his sides.
He thought about kissing her until a guy with shaggy hair and questionable plaid appeared at her side, his palm gliding over her bare knee.
He thought about kissing her that night at the bar, when her arms were wrapped around his neck and her breath was sweet against his lips – eyes hazy and unfocused but her smile wide - telling him how much she missed him while he was away - all about her summer and her new boyfriend Neal.
He thought about kissing her in the rain, her books clutched tight to her chest and his laugh loud as she glared at him from under her hood, hair stuck in wet clumps against her cheeks.
He thought about kissing her in the sunlight, her shorts impossibly short, skin pale from the long winter months and her hair in a braid, hitting him in the chest every time she turned her head. He thought about kissing her on graduation day, when her cap was crooked and her eyes were shining and she had his flask of rum hidden under her robe. He thought about kissing her when they moved to Portland, her hand soft in his, her thumb rubbing back and forth over his in a brief squeeze as they drove over the bridge and into a new adventure.
He's thought about kissing her a million times in a million different ways – the little alcove directly to the right of her door with her thick socks on her feet and a coffee in her hand a particular favorite rumination of his – but he hasn't. Because he is a patient man, and he can wait for this.
He thinks about kissing her now – with her closet exploded around her and her suitcase open on her bed, a bag of cheetos in his lap that she keeps trying to surreptitiously steal every five minutes.
"You know we don't leave for a week, yes?" He shifts in the armchair and dangles the bag over the side, out of her reach as she practically climbs in his lap to grab for it. "You don't need to pack right now."
"I know, but," Her knee hits him in the thigh and he winces, dropping the back and scattering cheese puffs across the hardwood. She ducks down and scoops them up, grin triumphant, and he wants to kiss her. "You know how terrible I am with packing. If I don't do it now, I won't do it, and I'll end up stealing your sweaters all week."
He rubs at his thigh. "Wouldn't be the first time." He grumbles, thinking of all the times she's swiped his favorite sweatshirt, and questioning just how many of his sweaters are now shoved in the back of her closet.
She smiles. "Or the last." She has a bit of orange streaked against her cheek and he grins, content to leave it there and see how long it takes her to notice. She rolls her eyes at him and rubs at her cheek - but on the opposite side, missing it completely. "Are we still on for sailing on Wednesday?"
He nods his head, smirk twitching at the corner of his lips. "Aye. I expect my sweatshirt returned at the conclusion."
"You're annoying when you're smug."
"Now is that anyway to talk to your boyfriend?" He swipes back the bag and nudges her lightly behind the knee, pushing her back towards the closet. If he were looking at her instead of digging around in the bag, intent on finding just the right morsel, he would have had the delight of seeing her cheeks pink. As it is, she's already halfway buried when he goes back to looking at her, and all he can see is the faint blush on the back of her neck.
He wants to kiss her.
"Make sure you pack that little black leather number." She makes a harumph from deep within the closet. "I do so love that dress."
-/-
He's still munching on the cheetos in question when he arrives to the bar for his shift, winding his way through stacked stools and gleaming tabletops to the office in the back where Granny holes herself up most days. He still hasn't requested time off for next week, and he fears he can't put it off any longer. Emma sent him the confirmation details for their flight last night, and Granny is not a woman you spring something on.
"Good," she doesn't look up from her ledger book when he collapses into the seat across her desk - a faded and patched arm chair that looks like it was pulled from the clutches of death and situated in her office. "I've been waiting for you."
He digs his hand into the bag, the crinkling loud in the otherwise silent office. "My shift doesn't begin for another hour yet."
She ignores him, glasses perched low on her nose, her eyes squinted as she continues to write without looking up. He sometimes wonders how the vivacious and talkative Ruby is related to such a stalwart, monosyllabic iron wall of a woman - but then again, he's seen them both in a fit of rage and the resemblance is striking.
"What is is that you require of me, m'lady?" He's laying it on thick, he knows. But he's never requested time off before and he's not sure of her reaction.
Granny gives him a look like she knows exactly what he's doing. "I need you to monitor the shipment next week."
He blinks. "You usually monitor the shipment."
"Yes." She closes her ledger book and steeples her fingers over it, the long and jagged scar on her right hand shining a bit in the glow from her table lamp. The regulars at the bar have concocted all sorts of stories for where exactly she got the scar. Once he overheard that she received it wielding a crossbow. With the look she's giving him now, he doesn't doubt it. "But now I am asking you to do it. Is that an issue?"
"Uh, actually," He scratches behind his ear and shifts in his seat, the bag of cheetos falling to the floor. He doesn't move to pick them up. "I need to ask you something."
The look on her face shifts from mild annoyance to fierce concern. "Are you in some sort of trouble?" She leans closer to him. "Do you need money?"
For the second time in this conversation, he feels as if he's missing a bigger point. "Why in the bloody hell would you think that?"
"You're being all fidgety and weird. Out with it, Jones."
"I need next week off." He answers in a rush. At her blank look, he continues, hands gesturing in front of him in nervous agitation. It's an old habit of his, one Emma has tried to cure him of multiple times, but it lingers. "I'm accompanying Emma to her parent's home in Maine and I - " He swallows when she arches her eyebrow. " - I'd like to request the week off."
"Why?"
"Er, I'm going to Maine?" It comes out as a question even though he tries very hard to make his voice firm and sure.
She sighs. "No. Why are you going with her to her parents house? Did you two finally - " She makes some sort of complicated gesture with her hands and both eyebrows raise high on his forehead.
"Do I even want to try and surmise what that means?"
She gives him the same look she gives Will when he declares he's going to combine apple and caramel into a fall lager, and ends up pouring caramel syrup from the grocery into one of the distillery tanks. "Are you two dating?"
He fidgets. Again. "No."
"So you're just going with her, to her parents house, as friends."
"Well, not exactly."
She pinches the bridge of her nose, glasses jostling off her face, and she looks very much like she regrets starting this conversation. He can't say he blames her. After three deep sighs, she opens her eyes again, fixing him with a steely glare.
"This sounds like you two are scheming." He opens his mouth to explain the situation but she holds up her hand. "I don't want to know the details because my head will probably explode at how stupid the two of you are being, but this has the makings of a disaster." She leans forward on her elbows. "Am I correct in assuming this is some sort of - " She uses air quotes and he feels his jaw drop open at the level of ridiculousness this conversation is turning into. " - 'pretend to be dating so my parents lay off' scheme?"
He nods mutely and he wonders if he's that transparent, or if Granny's senses are just that freakishly family connection to Ruby finally makes striking sense.
"You have feelings for this girl, yes?"
His mouth opens and closes, but he chooses to nod because for once in his life, he's not sure what words to use.
"And you think that this is your chance to convince her that the two of you can be something more than whatever it is you have going on now?"
It's like she's cracked open his skull (and heart) and peered directly inside. It's a bit disconcerting from the woman who barely says more than three words to him in a given day. "How do you - "
She ignores his question and turns in her chair, shoving the ledger roughly back in the crammed bookshelf and grabbing another.
"You can have the week off, but I highly recommend you think long and hard about what this means, Killian." She doesn't look at him, instead flipping through the pages of her new book - the one that's dedicated to liquor shipments. "There's a very real chance you could get hurt here."
He forces a grin, doing his best to sound flippant and knowing he's failing miserably. "Are you worried about me, Granny?"
She looks up at him, the same concerned look on her face as when she apparently thought he was in debt to a bunch of mobsters and there was a bounty on his head. "I am." She holds his gaze. "I am also concerned about this shipment, because now I have to leave Will in charge and lord knows what could happen."
He feels the pressure in his chest loosen, just a bit, and slouches down in his chair to find his discarded bag of snacks. "Ah, the truth is revealed."
"I'm pragmatic at heart, Jones."
"Among other things."
They sit in comfortable silence, the stroke of her pen and the crunch of his cheetos filling the empty space of her office. He stares at the pictures on her wall and ignores the pressure in his chest, her words running on loop in the back of his mind. He know there is a very real possibility that this plan of his could backfire, and it could result in the ruination of his entire relationship with Emma. But it's worth it. The risk is worth it.
She is worth it.
A man unwilling to fight for what he wants, deserves what he gets.
"You should kiss her."
He looks up, startled. This conversation - from start to finish - has not gone as expected. "What?"
Granny is still looking down at her ledger, pen scratching away as she notes the week's sales. "You should practice kissing her before you do it in front of her parents. They'll know if it's your first kiss if you're stumbling over yourself in excitement."
He bristles. "I don't - "
"I've seen you when she comes in to the bar." The faintest hint of a smile tugs at her bottom lip. "You need to practice."
-/-
He considers Granny's advice throughout his entire shift, managing to spill three IPA's and an order of chili cheese fries over the front of his shirt. When he finally gets home, he collapses into his bed face first (sans shirt, he's not willing to launder his sheets at 3am on a Tuesday) and tries not to think of what it would be like to kiss Emma.
Tries and fails miserably.
His dreams are only of that, and his thoughts continue in much the same direction the following day. He imagines kissing her while he pours his morning coffee, imagines the softness of her lips while he begins a haphazard pile of clothes to bring with him on the trip. The thoughts are hardly new, but they come with a realization that he'll have the answer to all these ponderings in less than a week's time.
Potentially less than a day's time.
When he finally arrives at her apartment on Wednesday for their boating plans, he's going half out of his mind with the back and forth. He barely spares her landlord a glance - situated in a bathrobe, lurking in the corner of the lobby like some bloody reptilian creature - as he slips through the door with her spare key, stomping up the steps to her third floor apartment and letting himself in.
She's in the kitchen, and he toes off his boots next to hers before seeking her out.
"We should kiss."
All in all, not his best opening line. She gives him a look from over the refrigerator door, a slight arch to her eyebrow. "Really? This again."
He shrugs and tries not to scratch behind his ear, knowing it's a dead giveaway to the way his stomach is rolling in half anxiety, half anticipation. She's wearing a green henley today, and her eyes practically glow in the dim light of the kitchen.
He wants to kiss her.
"We're going to have to do it at some point or another." He shrugs again when she goes back to perusing her barren fridge, a strange look pulling her lips tight. "The first time I kiss you will not be in front of your Uncle Leroy. Think of the nightmares I'll endure."
The mug from her hot chocolate - the one she was sipping at when he let himself in - is still sitting on the counter top. He wonders if her lips taste like chocolate, too.
Okay. So perhaps ulterior motives are at work.
She's silent for a moment longer and he's just about to offer to pick up some Chinese because he is not eating her version of grilled cheese - he's not - when she takes a deep breath, shutting the fridge door and swiveling to face him with her hands on her hips.
"Alright."
He blinks at her. "Alright?"
He was not expecting a quick agreement.
She gestures between the two of them. "Let's do this thing." She has her determined look on - the one she wears when she's chasing down a perp or she's trying to get the toaster unjammed with a butter knife. "Unless you want to wait until we're out on the boat, so I can kick you into the water if you suck at it."
He frowns, the challenge in her words making him stand a bit straighter. "I assure you, Swan. I do not suck at it."
She hums an unconvinced noise under her breath, shuffling closer. "Alright, so - " There it is again, that clenched jaw and furrowed brows and the set to her shoulders that makes it look like she's going to battle, never to return, instead of kissing him in her kitchen. "Let's just - " She fists her hands in the material of his shirt and tugs, causing him to stumble into her, hands finding her hips in an effort to regain balance. He doesn't have a moment to appreciate it, though, because she is suddenly surging forward - pressing her mouth to his.
She doesn't linger, pulling back and dropping her hands, stepping out of his hold. He would have half a mind to wonder if it even happened if he didn't feel like he was just punched in the mouth.
By her face.
"There." She doesn't look at him, instead fixing her gaze at a point over his shoulder. "Done."
He rubs his thumb over his bottom lip. "Next time you plan to attack, a word of warning would be much appreciated."
She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms over her chest. "You wanted a kiss. I gave you a kiss."
"What you gave me is a bloody contusion."
"You're being dramatic again."
"And you're being stubborn." He tilts his head until her gaze meets his and steps forward, the toes of his socks pressing against hers. "We're going to have to kiss. Convincingly. As a couple. May I remind you now that this was your idea." She smiles, just a tiny curl of her lips, and her shoulders relax. "It's just me, Swan." His heart beats a little bit faster in his chest when her hands curl in the front of his shirt again, the pair of them swaying into each other's space. Her knees knock against his and he smoothes his palms against her back to keep her steady. "It's just a kiss."
It's just the only thing he's been thinking about since she first suggested this plan and he practically tripped over himself agreeing to it.
"Okay." She nods, but she still has that crease between her eyebrows so he presses at it with his thumb.
"Relax."
She huffs, her warm breath ghosting over his throat. When he's this close he can see the flecks of gold in her eyes, the smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. "Are you going to kiss me or - "
"Close your eyes."
"What?"
He drops his head back and looks at the ceiling, at the small little water stain from the apartment above that they tried painting over to no avail in the left corner of the room. "If it helps for you to pretend I am someone else," He drops his chin back to his chest and arches an eyebrow. "Then by all means."
She gives him that same thin-lipped look of consideration that she did earlier, eyes darting back and forth between his own. He wants her to say she doesn't need to pretend. He wants her to say that she doesn't want to pretend. But her eyes drift shut and her fingers twitch a bit in his shirt and he swallows down his disappointment and closes his eyes - lets his nose brush hers before dipping his mouth down.
Gently this time.
He keeps it chaste. Nothing more that a soft pressure against her lips. But he can indeed taste the chocolate she was drinking earlier and feel the ends of her hair brushing his forearms, the honey scent of her shampoo making him feel dizzy - like he's not just carefully kissing his best friend in her kitchen but actually tumbling head over heels over and over and over.
He always told himself when this inevitably happened, that it wouldn't live up to his fantasy expectations. That it would, in fact, be just a kiss. That he wouldn't need to press his palm tighter to her back to keep himself standing upright.
She grips his shirt harder when she feels the pressure of his hand, tilts her head to the side and digs her nose into his 's far from graceful but her bottom lip slips between his with the movement, a choked off noise caught in the back of her throat that could be real or could be in his head and he wants - bloody hell - he wants -
He wants to slide the hand that's at the small of her back into her hair, drag his fingers through her golden strands and tug her head back until her mouth opens on a gasp, his tongue tasting the chocolate that's there, her teeth dragging against his bottom lip. He wants to back her up until she's pressed against the counter and he can duck down and lift beneath her knees, settling her on the tile and tucking himself between her hips, feel the heat of her against his front as she groans in the back of her throat.
He wants this to be real.
But wants and reality have always been at odds in his life.
He pulls back enough so that he can see those freckles again, her eyelashes brushing the apples of her cheeks. He swallows and tries to focus on breathing properly, ignoring the way her tongue swipes at her bottom lip because if he notices it, if he watches her teeth bite down just after, he'll kiss her again.
She blinks up at him, her nose brushing his, before she takes a step back. He wants to ask her how she's managing to look so unaffected when he feels like he's been turned on his head, but he fears that might give the game away. She licks her bottom lip again, and he has to dig his fingernails in his palm to keep his body from jolting.
"That should work. Want to get Chinese for dinner?"
He wants to kiss her.
Again.
He coughs to clear his suddenly dry throat. "That sounds grand."
-/-
"I can't believe you got seven egg rolls." The bag is clutched tight to her chest as she stands on the edge of the dock, waiting for him to unfasten the ropes before she climbs aboard. She bounces up and down on her toes and he's glad he packed that extra sweatshirt, her leather coat and beanie not nearly enough for the brisk wind out on the water. "And he probably gave you an extra because they don't give out egg rolls in odd numbers."
He extends his hand to her when the proper work is completed, her fingers cold around his as she carefully steps aboard the boat. "Precisely my plan, darling." He guides her carefully to her usual spot and tosses his sweatshirt in her lap, climbing over her extended legs as he maneuvers around the boat. They've begun drifting a bit, and he has a place in mind for tonight's excursion.
They do this sometimes, when they both manage to have the night off. Take a growler from the brewery and some takeout (or once upon a time, terribly burnt grilled cheese that almost killed him miles away from a docking point) and just drift for a bit. She knows it helps ease his mind when he's out on the water, and he likes to think it eases hers as well.
She's halfway through her second egg roll when he joins her, sitting opposite and propping his legs up on the small crate to her right. She hasn't mentioned anything further about their shared moment in the kitchen and he's convincing himself he's content with that, despite the desire to practice again sitting hot and heavy in his stomach.
She finishes the remainder of her egg roll and he smirks, her fingers leaving twin grease stains on his favorite sweatshirt.
"Seven doesn't seem so absurd now, does it?"
She shakes her head, a couple strands coming loose from her knit cap. He's guided them far enough into the river that the glow of the city lights doesn't touch them, a muted sound carrying over the water from the cars on the bridge. Sometimes when they come out here he spins stories about the music they hear - elaborate tellings about the other boats on the water and that old jazz song singing sadly over the water. Sometimes she tells stories too, flat on her back and pointing at the stars they can't see, her temple pressed to his shoulder and her legs sprawled.
"Sometimes you're right." She tilts her head to the side, gnawing on the end of her plastic fork as he carefully opens his fried rice. A tendril of heat curls itself out of the carton and his stomach growls in appreciation. "Like with the kissing thing - " He almost chokes on his shrimp, god help him. "You were right. It was good to practice."
He fights to keep his voice steady, and the shrimp in his mouth. "Care to say that again love? Perhaps recorded?" He arches an eyebrow and swallows down his dinner. "Perhaps in writing?"
"Just don't want you making an ass out of yourself in front of my whole town, is all."
"Do you intend to kiss me in front of the whole town, Swan?"
She shrugs. "I haven't told you about the kissing booth at the block party? I signed you up."
"What?"
She smiles his favorite smile - the one where the dimple in her chin flashes - and kicks him lightly with the toe of her boot. She moves the bags of food around her until she can shuffle in her spot, back flat against the worn wood of the deck and gaze aimed upward as she studiously ignores his question. They're too close to the city tonight to see the stars, but she always says it's more the knowledge that they're there - shining somewhere.
"When we get back from Storybrooke," her voice is quiet and small, and he stops chewing to tilt his head down to hers. "Do you think you can take me out to see the stars?"
He circles his hand around her ankle, tapping his pointer at the thick grey sock peeking out.
"Aye, Swan. I think I can manage that." A beat of silence, the water lapping at the sides of his modest boat. "You were kidding about the booth, right?"
She snickers.