Jack shuffled down the hall, dressed in pyjama bottoms and a t-shirt, the enticing smell of freshly brewed coffee, and something baking, not only making him feel more awake, but also confirming the sense that he had of Boone's presence. As he neared the kitchen he could hear the rustling of a page of a newspaper being turned.
He stopped at the entryway to the kitchen. Boone was sitting at the kitchen table, the paper on its' surface in front of him, a mug beside it. He had his right ankle up on his left knee and was massaging his shin. Jack looked the other way, across the living room and out through the sliding glass door not surprised to see an overcast sky.
"You planning on wearing right through that denim?" He asked.
"Huh?" Boone looked up a bit startled, he'd been focusing on what he was reading and hadn't picked up on Jack's approach.
Jack nodded towards his still moving hand. Boone followed his gaze, "Oh," he pulled his hand away and put his foot down on the floor, he hadn't even been aware of what he'd been doing. "Sorry," he apologized; he knew Jack felt bad that the leg still bothered him sometimes, though Boone sure didn't hold the guy responsible for it at all. "Morning, Jack."
"Yeah, you want something for it?" He nodded at the leg again.
"No, it's not that bad, and I'm used to it. Don't even limp on it any more, it just aches when it's going to rain is all." Boone shrugged, diminishing the nagging of the dull throbbing that had woken him much earlier than he would have liked. He really didn't want to make a big thing out of it in front of Jack.
"Say that with a bit more conviction and I might even believe you." Jack shook his head and went to pour himself some coffee. He noticed that the light was on for the oven and he could smell cinnamon. "What are you making?"
Boone looked up again from his paper, "French Toast casserole."
"Are we having bacon with that?" Jack asked with a straight face.
Boone quirked an eyebrow and looked at him as if he thought Jack had perhaps fallen and given himself a concussion or suffered some other kind of head trauma.
"I take it that'd be a no, then," Jack laughed at the expression on Boone's face.
They left in the early afternoon, the goodbyes sincere and the promises to see each other again as soon as possible, heartfelt.
The rain that had threatened in the morning became a torrential downpour on the drive home, the gusts of wind buffeting the car so strongly that Boone had a bit of a struggle keeping it in its' lane. He was a more than a little tired, and very happy indeed, when he pushed the button for the garage door and pulled the car into the relative safety of the structure.
He was awkward around Pamela that week almost, but not quite, coming close to asking her out a few times. It was a very nervous Boone who came to pick Andrew up on the Friday; he'd spent the whole day giving himself an ongoing silent pep talk and was determined that he was finally going to do it. He'd decided that an after dinner coffee would be a great ice breaker, just long enough to get a feel for one another, but not the awkward scene of an extended dinner out, especially if they found they didn't like each other.
Andrew was waiting just inside the door, the way he always was, his greetings had gotten a little less enthusiastic however, as he became more used to school, and being parted from Boone for the day. Instead of running up to him and hugging him, the boy now just smiled his version of his mothers' best smile and said, "Hi Boone."
Boone ruffled his hair and asked him to wait for him for a sec, then headed for the front of the room, just hoping that the butterflies in his stomach weren't going to cause him to throw up all over himself, or god forbid, Pamela.
Pamela, of course, had been aware of his presence since the moment he'd entered, but she forced herself to keep her head bowed over her papers instead of raising it to stare at him the way she wanted to. She was therefore startled when she heard someone clear their throat right by her elbow. Her head snapped up, and she felt a little giddy as she found her gaze met by the grey eyes she considered so mesmerizing. "Mr. Carlyle," she smiled, hoping she didn't look quite as dazed as she felt.
"Hi," his eyes slid away from hers and he turned his head at bit. He hadn't even felt this nervous when he'd asked Sandy Brown to his grade eight graduation party, and that had been his first date. "Would you, uhm, would you maybe like to get a coffee or something with me tomorrow night?" And just like that it was done, the pressure was off, he'd actually managed to ask her out, and whether she said yes or not, he felt like he'd just taken a huge step forward in his life.
Pamela was stunned, "A coffee?" she repeated, a bit stupidly. Had he just asked her for a date, or had the world just exploded and this was her hallucination in her last moments?
He met her eyes again, and nodded, biting his lip, waiting for her answer.
She swallowed, "I'd love to." She managed to choke out.
Boone smiled and took a deep breath, okay then, no rejection, he was relieved. "What time should I pick you up?" This was getting easier, he felt himself relaxing a bit.
Pamela thought about the bike, she'd never been on one, and while she was certain that he was a very good rider, and she so wanted to be on the back seat of his, her arms wrapped around his waist, her knees tight against his thighs, she still told him no. "There's a café near my apartment, I'll meet you there at eight."
They finalized the plans; all Boone had to do now was tell Andrew.
It actually went a little worse than he'd anticipated, he figured it'd be smooth sailing after how easily the boy had taken the whole 'dating' subject in stride. After lunch on Saturday, he asked Andrew if he'd come sit with him in the den for a minute.
"Kay Boone," Andrew agreed. Boone shot Heather a look over his head, wincing a little, the 'wish me luck' look evident on his face. She smiled in encouragement, knowing about his plans for the evening.
"I've got to go out for a bit after dinner." He advised his son, once they were settled.
"Why?" Andrew looked worried.
"It's nothing bad, bud." Boone immediately reassured him, but the boy continued to frown in concern. It broke Boone's heart a little that Andrew felt the need to worry about him so much. "You remember the dating thing we talked about?"
"Yeah."
"Well, I'm going on one tonight." Boone smiled a lot more brightly than was necessary, trying to put the boy at ease.
"Who with?" Andrew asked immediately.
"With whom," Boone corrected automatically.
"I don't know, you haven't told me yet," Andrew replied before Boone could continue.
"No," he shook his head and ran his hands over his face, jeeze but the kid could be annoying at times, "I meant…oh, never mind." Boone started again, "It's with Miss Phillips."
Andrews' eyes got wide, "Miss Phillips from school?" he asked.
Boone nodded.
"Will she still be my teacher?" He wanted to know.
Boone looked confused, "Yeah, of course she'll still be your teacher," he wondered where that question came from.
"Even if she's my new mom? I don't know if I want a new mom. I like just having you." He screwed his face up as if he was going to start crying.
"Hey, hold on a minute here, it's only a date, and I thought you were okay with that." Boone moved over to sit beside him on the couch, angling himself on the cushion.
"I didn't know it was Miss Phillips." He got just a little closer to tears.
"I won't go. If you don't want me to I won't." Boone tried not to look disappointed; it wasn't too hard, Andrew was more important to him than any date could possibly be. "But, Andrew, I'm not planning on anything more than having a coffee with her right now."
"You don't even drink coffee." He pointed out, still pouting.
'Oh God,' Boone thought, ready to throw in the towel at this point, "It's just a term, a phrase; I don't literally mean I'm going to have coffee."
"Then why did you say it?" Though he was driving Boone nuts, at least he didn't look like he was going to cry anymore.
By the end of the discussion Boone was ready to tear his hair out, though he'd gotten Andrew to a place where he was now okay with his dad's plans for the evening.
Knowing his penchant for punctuality, Pamela timed her arrival for exactly eight; she heard the roar of the motorcycle just as she approached the brightly lit façade of the cafe. As he pulled up to the curb and switched off the ignition, she was bothered about something different in the bike he was riding. He noticed her puzzled look, just as she got it. "Single seat," she said.
It took Boone a moment to figure out what she was talking about. "Yeah, it's my w….other bike." He bit off the word 'wife's' just in time. She didn't appear to notice his slip.
As she preceded him into the café, she frowned a bit in consternation, two motorcycles, how could he afford that?
Boone waited for her to order then asked for a pot of boiling water for himself. After he paid, over her objection, they seated themselves at a table, Boone pulling her chair out for her. He extracted a small packet out of one of his inside jacket pockets, and tapped some of its contents into the pot. Pamela looked at him questioningly.
He grinned and shrugged a bit self consciously, "Green tea. I'm pretty picky, and I've got a Korean friend who gets this for me."
"Ahhh, okay, that explains it then." She nodded and looked like she was remembering something.
Boone shook his head, "Explains what?"
She told him about overhearing Andrew mumbling to himself in class one day while he was working on his math, it had sounded like gibberish until she'd realized that it was some foreign language. When she'd asked him about it, he'd told her that he was counting in Korean.
"So you're a local boy?" In the back story she'd somehow come to attribute to him, this was another one of the things that Pamela had incorrectly assumed.
"No, I'm from LA, we've lived here just a little shy of five years," Boone corrected; then asked about her origins. When he found out she was from New York, he laughed, "No way, I went to University in New York."
Most of the rest of the evening was spent talking about Manhattan, the subway system, the crazy cabbies, and the fantastic night life.
He walked her the five minutes to her apartment. She was just as impressed with him as she'd thought she'd be. He was so incredibly gorgeous that he could so easily have been obnoxious and arrogant, but he was shy, awkward and unfailingly polite. Boone thought she was funny, intelligent and very, very pretty, with her short black hair and dark brown eyes, and the fact that she was at least three inches shorter than he, definitely a plus in his eyes.
"I think this is the part where you kiss me goodnight." Pamela prompted, as they stood under the street light in front of her building.
Boone just looked at her, panic racing through his mind. He hadn't really thought this far ahead. When he'd asked her out, he'd just been looking for someone to talk to, at least initially. He hadn't really gotten to the kissing part when he'd played the evening out in his head.
She frowned at his hesitation, "Unless you don't want to," she tried not to sound too disappointed.
He snapped himself out of it. "It's just, uhm," he bit his lip and looked at the pavement for a second, then back up at her. "I haven't done this in a really long time."
"I kind of got that," she smiled, "but you're doing okay so far. I'd give you at least a six out of ten."
"Six? I only get a six, that's barely passing." Boone groused.
"I'll up it to an eight if you kiss me," Pamela negotiated.
"I'll have to lodge a complaint with the rules committee, that the New York judge can be bribed." The kidding was helping him relax, just as she'd thought it would. She'd learned a fair bit about how to deal with people, you had to in her profession, though most of them had been children, this was the first time she'd tried it on a twenty-eight year old.
"Duly noted, seeing as I'm also the entire rules committee. I'll have her reprimanded." She took a step closer to him.
Screwing up his courage, Boone leaned in and brushed his lips across hers, then not feeling as much like the cheating shit he'd worried he would, he kissed her again, more firmly, pressing his closed lips against hers, then pulling back slowly.
She opened her eyes, and smiled softly, "Maybe an eight and a half." She tried not to show that she was shaking on the inside. She'd kissed him, or more correctly he'd kissed her, she'd dreamt of that, and she was having a hard time processing that it had actually happened.
He smirked, looking a bit embarrassed, but actually feeling pretty proud of himself. "I guess that qualifies me for the bronze?"
"Seeing as you're the only competitor, I think you just won gold." Pamela advised him.
He smiled and nodded, "Night then, Pamela."
"Goodnight Boone, I'll see you Monday." She reached out and gave his arm a brief squeeze.
He turned and walked away, stuffing his hands in his pockets then pulling them right back out again, closing his eyes briefly he grinned to himself at how happy he felt. Unfortunately the toe of his boot caught the leading edge of a slightly elevated sidewalk tile and he tripped. He managed to regain his balance before he actually fell to the ground; grateful that he had pulled his hands out of his pockets, if not he would have done a total face plant. He glanced behind himself, hoping that Pamela hadn't been watching, but the sidewalk was blessedly empty. He heaved a sigh of relief and continued on his way.
Pamela peered around the corner of the doorway, she'd been watching him and seen him almost fall, thinking that he'd probably check to see if she was still there she'd stepped quickly back into the entrance to the building. She brought her fingers up and touched her lips, remembering the sensation of his against them; she unlocked the front door and headed up to her apartment.