Following Rick back to his apartment feels both natural and unnatural to Amanda. Although their breakup had not had the finality of what most would, there's a part of her that honestly thought she'd never get past the parking garage again and that just because she's Carl's aunt. But here she is, still dressed in her wedding finery, carrying her overnight bag into the foyer after Rick keys them in.
The dogs rush to greet them both, and Amanda really shouldn't be surprised that she's remembered so easily, especially after taking Milo for his walk. They'd actually been why Rick mentioned not taking advantage of a second night at the hotel as most of the wedding party were invited to do. He felt it was one thing to leave them to the pet service in his building for one night, but not two.
She looks up from where she's kneeling to pet Lola to see Rick standing near the kitchen island with a familiar keycard in his hands. He keeps turning it, even as his expression shifts from smitten to uncertain before he lays it on the countertop.
"It's yours, Amanda," he says softly. "I know the idea of moving in here is much too soon, and pretty damn selfish of me, but I want you to be able to come and go as you wish."
Standing, she goes to slide her arms around his waist, remembering her thoughts earlier in that dim little conference room. "I only lived with someone once, and that didn't work out for me."
"Funny how much we're alike in that. Technically, if you count college roommates, you're one up on me."
He sounds so damned amused that she looks up, a little startled. "Seriously? You didn't have a roommate at college? I know private rooms are a thing, but…" Trailing off, she reminds herself that Rick's family easily could have afforded a private room, especially at the small, in-state college he attended.
"I lived at home for the entire four years."
Amanda lets that sink in, thinking of the fact that Rick married Lori right after college graduation. "You moved in with Lori without ever living on your own?"
Rick shakes his head. "Lori moved in with me, and my parents moved to my grandfather's house. Until I moved to Atlanta, I literally lived in the same house my entire life."
It's an astounding fact that baffles Amanda, yet another quirk of Rick's life that seems so utterly different from everything she knows. "Damn. I bet living alone was weird, after the divorce."
"I'm not sure weird is a strong enough word."
"I don't know that moving in is the best idea yet," she tells him. The idea of the counselor sounds even better because they do come from such wildly different backgrounds, but what will Rick think of it? She knows he's done therapy before, but this is a big ask.
"But?" He sounds so damned hopeful.
"Michonne gave me the name of a couple's counselor." There's probably something unique about getting that information at a bachelorette party, but that's Amanda's life these days.
She really shouldn't be surprised that Rick smiles, tightening his arms around her and running a hand along her back. The slow drag along the skin laid bare by her dress is soothing. "Counseling is serious stuff. Planning for the future level serious."
There's not a damned inch of wiggle room left to convince her Rick doesn't like the idea. "I'll make us an appointment then. Michonne says she does evenings a couple of nights a week."
"Sounds good." His hand at her back reaches the nape of her neck, and he massages gently. She drops her head to his shoulder, making a small, happy sound of pleasure at the sensation. "For tonight, we didn't get to try out that jacuzzi tub at the hotel, but I do happen to have a close equivalent."
Amanda remembers the fabulous tub well from the night she was shot, soaking in the warmth while Rick fed her while he sat beside her on the bathroom floor. It's a memory she grasps to remind her just how long Rick's been showing her a personality that has nothing to do with the playboy she thought he was.
"That sounds amazing," she tells him.
It is. Dammit, it really is, because they're stark naked, yet there's nothing sexual to it, just both of them relaxed in the water. Amanda rests against Rick's chest, and it's something she thinks should only happen in movies while they talk lazily about the differences between going to college while living with parents versus Amanda's haphazard two years with Daryl and two years in a dorm.
Their schedules would probably never allow it to happen every night, but Amanda thinks this might be just as seductive for life with Rick as the steamy sex they had against those balcony windows…
They're out of the bath and semi-dressed when Carl comes home, Rick in his actual sleepwear and Amanda borrowing a shirt and boxers like her first stay with him. They were both too full after the luxurious dinner at the wedding to really be hungry, but popcorn and a documentary Rick had recorded work to wind down their day. There are still things to talk about, but tonight, it feels more like they just need to enjoy each other's company in quiet.
Carl takes one look at them curled on the couch and looks so damned relieved that Rick feels guilty. When Amanda suggested counseling tonight, he couldn't help but feel bad that he didn't consider that an option before. It echoes too much of how he and Lori ended, but all he can do now is resolve to do better.
Carl just grins broadly for a moment, hands on his hips. "Well, I guess this makes delivering my message easier. Grandma wants to have lunch with both of you tomorrow."
He sounds happy about it, with just a touch of mischief in his tone, but Rick can't help the tension that bleeds into him at the idea of Amanda meeting Evelyn without any buffer of other people around. She glances up at him, unable to miss the reaction from where she's using him as a pillow much like in the bath. There's a wariness to her expression that makes him explain quickly.
"I just don't want you to experience my mother's less polite side, not so soon." Not ever, if he was really lucky, but there's no way to keep things serious with Amanda and her not meet his mother. He has no idea what to expect from Evelyn, either. That scene at the wedding was almost like she's intrigued by Amanda, but the two women are so diametrically different that Rick can't help but fear a repeat of how Lori and Evelyn clashed from the beginning.
"You know, I think Grandma might be actually trying, Dad."
Carl's words startle Rick into looking back toward his son, who has flopped onto the floor to let Lola climb into his lap to demand attention. While Rick had thought Carl would gravitate to the larger and more physically active Milo, he's been surprised that the bond between boy and dog has been with the petite Maltese instead.
"What do you mean?" he asks, tightening his arms around Amanda's waist when she wriggles like she might move away.
"I think maybe she's lonely."
Lonely isn't an emotion Rick's ever attributed to his mother, probably because she regularly pushes away anyone who gets close to her. His own contact with Evelyn has been cantankerous at best and combative at worst since the divorce. She also hasn't stayed in Georgia much at all since then, dividing her time between England and the islands and making him generally grateful that he only has to deal with phone calls and not in person visits every time she has a problem with the family trust.
"I could see that," Amanda says, surprising him. "She's at that age…" She drifts off with a glance towards Carl, but Rick can fill in the blanks. Evelyn's older, and she's steadily losing friends and family, and her own mortality is probably something she's starting to face.
"What time did she want to have lunch?" Rick asks since Amanda seems inclined to go.
"She made a reservation for one at that place at the History Center she likes."
The nice part of Evelyn being a creature of habit is that Rick knows exactly what restaurant. She has the tried and true places she visits when she's in Atlanta, and they rarely change. He's tempted to request somewhere different, so that Evelyn's in less comfortable territory, but it feels spiteful if his mother really is trying to extend an olive branch.
"Gonna head to bed. See you for breakfast?" Carl asks, unearthing himself from Lola's cuddles to get to his feet.
Rick can't help but smile when Amanda readily answers, "Yes."
The lazy evening is so heartily domestic that it cements Amanda's decision to reconcile with Rick. She wants more time like this, where they linger in each other's company. When he seemed inclined to want to avoid the meeting with his mother, she'd been glad Carl changed his mind without her having to pressure him. She doesn't want a repeat of Lori's relationship with Evelyn, even if Rick seems more inclined to stand up to his mother these days.
"Do you need to call or text your mom?" she asks, curious as Rick settles his phone on the charger without any communication with Evelyn over the invitation Carl delivered.
He shakes his head. "I'd be going with or without you once Carl told me she wanted it."
"What if you'd had other plans?"
"I don't tend to make anything I can't change when she's in town. She'd understand if work came up, but anything else? Not likely. And if I didn't show up, she'd still want to have her lunch there."
"I do hope you would call." As cantankerous as Evelyn is, Amanda couldn't imagine Rick just not showing up.
He arches a brow at her, smiling just a little. "Of course I would call her. She doesn't text, hates it with a passion, but she's never far from her cell phone. Says it's rude not to answer someone who takes the time to speak to her rather than tap away at a screen."
Somehow it doesn't surprise Amanda that smartphones wouldn't be all that attractive to a woman of Evelyn's age and background, even if she does have her own etiquette about it. Another issue occurs. "I'll need to go by my apartment. All I have with me are really casual clothes and the dress I wore to the wedding."
"We can do that, since I imagine you'd object to going shopping."
Amanda actually considers it, because it feels like she doesn't have anything prim and proper like lunch with Evelyn would entail. "It feels a little hypocritical to say yes when I've been so anxious about your money," she admits at last, settling into the bed even as Rick stretches out alongside her.
"It's not something I want to come between us," Rick says quietly, staring up at the ceiling. "It's not like I can just give it away, because Carl's too young for the responsibility. I wasn't a lot older, and honestly, it's a curse as much as a blessing."
He sounds so unhappy about it that she lays a hand on his chest, rubbing gently along his shirt to his stomach and back. The petting gets him to roll his head sideways to look at her, reaching up to still her hand by lacing their fingers together.
"I know it sounds weird when you've had to work your way up the way you have," he tells her. "But it certainly didn't make my family any happier. My grandfather bypassing my mother to leave everything to me? I don't think she's ever forgiven me for that."
"Couldn't you just pass it back to her?" Amanda had no idea how trust funds work, beyond what television has taught her, and honestly, never thought she'd need to learn. The shared case has been an education, but she's still foggy in a lot of areas.
"Actually, I could, once I turn forty. I gain full control of it then, but…" He sighs, lifting her hand and turning so he can kiss her wrist. "I'm not sure how capable she is of managing it. She has a tendency to live beyond her means, and that money does a lot of good outside of our family the way it's set up now. I was going to just roll it into another trust, the bulk of it that would come to me, anyway."
He laughs softly. "Funny part is? Lori's in the trust, and the wording includes all her children."
"You're saying that Naomi is about to inherit a lot of money?" She has no idea how much money Rick's main family trust controls, but the Corbyns have always been listed as among the top families of the state on any financial who's who lists.
"Lori, Carl, Naomi, and the new baby. The attorney assures me it's legal even though the baby won't arrive before my birthday. When my grandfather added Lori to the trust, he never specified only so long as she and I stayed married. He was rather fond of her, as the jewelry she gave you indicates. I think she reminded him of his own mother, who didn't come from wealth like my grandmother did."
Amanda absorbs that information, as Lori's never talked about Rick's grandfather much other than to indicate the man died when Carl was young. It must have been a hell of a conflict point for Lori and Evelyn, since it seems Evelyn's father had preferred Lori to Evelyn. "Did your mother have some sort of falling out with her father?"
"You could say that." He rolls to where he's facing her, letting her hand go. "My mother went off to college up at Boston. Got her classical studies degree from Wellesley, and she met my father there. He was a scholarship student at Harvard, and they married once he had his MBA. The fact that he could run the company alongside my grandfather meant more than him growing up a cop's son. All of his brothers became cops, but my dad? He thrived in the boardroom."
Rick's career suddenly makes a bit more sense with that bit of information. It's not just a white knight syndrome like she's run into from some cops from wealthy backgrounds, but a different sort of family legacy.
"The only thing my father ever did to defy my grandfather was to give me his last name. I was supposed to carry on the Corbyn name. And my mother? For all her faults, she adored my father, so she honored his wish that his firstborn son be a Grimes. They figured there would be other children, but it never happened."
Amanda feels a surge of sympathy for Evelyn despite everything she knows of the woman. "He disinherited her for what she named you?" Her voice squeaks with an indignation she can't quite suppress.
"It was a factor in how poorly they got along all my life, but not just for that. They just had that falling out that both were too proud to apologize for."
"Did you ever consider that maybe Evelyn doesn't want that with you?"
Amanda can't imagine being that far at odds with any of her family. Even when Merle was at his lowest, he was still family and hers. Maybe it's being adopted, where you no longer assume you'll always have your family. She can understand cutting ties when they need to be severed with prejudice, like Sophia and her father, but Rick's family just makes her feel sad for the lost time.
Rick goes so still she's afraid he's offended, but then he blinks before leaning in for a sweet and brief kiss. "I hadn't ever thought of it quite that way."
She considers all she's seen of Evelyn, and while the woman is never going to be a sweet-natured motherly type like Grandma Jean or Mama McGinley, she can't help but think that Carl is right. Evelyn seems lonely in a way that Amanda recognizes, because she's been there herself, part of her family yet not, by choices she made herself. Her affection for the kids is open and honest, that's for sure, and Amanda didn't notice any differences at the wedding in how Evelyn interacted with Andre versus Carl. It makes her curious.
"Where does your mother actually live?" Obviously, it's not in Atlanta, because she can't imagine Evelyn not seeing Carl more often if it was nearby.
"She alternates between staying with a cousin in Tortola or a home she inherited from her mother back in England." Rick seems to mull something over. "She hasn't wanted to live in Georgia since my father died."
It makes sense to Amanda. There have to be memories everywhere, and if Evelyn had been devoted enough to her husband to defy her wealthy father, losing him must have been devastating. She remembers Rick's comment about his father dying young, too, and when she thinks about it seriously, Evelyn does carry some of that forlorn air that Mama McGinley has had since for as long as Amanda's known her.
"Maybe she's considering moving back? If she really is lonely, like Carl thinks."
"It's possible. She's been asking for the funds to buy a place on Tortola, and at the time, it didn't make sense to ask me now, when she'll receive them automatically in November. Not to mention that she could easily get a mortgage with the income she does have from my father's pension and the trusts and not have to involve me at all."
Amanda smiles at his puzzled expression. "You could just ask her tomorrow at lunch. Save the mystery detective mode for figuring out Gorman's mess."
That makes him laugh. "She is more likely to give us an honest answer. Are you sure you want to go? It's a big step, all things considered."
"If we're serious about this, serious enough for counseling, then me understanding your mother is important," she tells him and means it. She can't go into this half-hearted, and her prejudices toward Rick based on other people's interactions with him started them off on a bad note. As long as Evelyn is extending an olive branch, she intends to take the older woman at face value.
"If you're sure." Rick yawns. "I think we ought to make up for last night's lack of sleep, though, if we're taking on my mother for lunch."
The prospect of just curling up to sleep with Rick is so appealing that Amanda agrees readily, rolling so that he's curled against her back like he prefers. The kiss pressed against the back of her neck makes her body feel warm and fluid, her heart aching at the tender care of the gesture combined with the almost possessive hand pressed against her lower ribcage. She's probably not supposed to hear the 'god, I missed you' so she lets it slide.
She feels the same. Missing him had been a pain that she's never experienced before, and she's not letting her fears get in the way of hundreds of nights like this in her future.
A/N: Next chapter, that pesky corruption case rears its ugly head...