"The Most Eligible Bachelor"
Summary: Summer and Seth are leading separate lives now, but what happens when Summer's story for a leading magazine forces them together?
Disclaimer: I'd like to stake a claim on Adam Brody's dimples, but really, I don't own any of the O.C. characters or story lines.
Chapter Ten: The Late Night
Summer sat on the couch, staring at Seth as he finished telling the Anna saga. "So she's gone for good now, huh?" Summer said, trying to hide the small smirk of satisfaction that was fighting its way through.
Seth sighed and threw his hands up. "I guess so. It's so frustrating, and firing her is causing me to have twice my normal workload, but I couldn't stand it. She said some really terrible things today. I mean, she's supposed to be my friend, and then she sits there, trashing the people that I love the most," Seth said, shooting a glance in Summer's direction to make sure that the last part of what he said hadn't freaked her out.
Though she was still reeling from the mention of love, Summer tried to play it cool continuing the conversation. "Seth, I don't want you to do this if it's going to hurt the company. I mean, you're kind of already my hero for standing up to that Pittsburgh bitch in the first place. You don't have to prove anything to me," she said, trying to be comforting. "Gosh, maybe Anna's right. Since I've come back this week, you've already had trouble with this issue, and you've lost your VP." She reached over, laying her hand on his knee. "Seriously, call her now. Beg her to come back. I'm sure she'll forgive you."
Seth looked up from the floor and into Summer's eyes. "Summer, you have to be kidding me. This isn't just the stupid things that she said. It's more about the fact that she doesn't respect my rights and artistic license as leader of this company, and she doesn't respect one of the people I care most about in the world. I mean, I can't even consider her a friend after the things she said about you today."
Seth rose, shaking his head. "And the fact that her stupidity and evil ways have led you to think that YOU are somehow responsible for messing things up, it's, it's ludicrous." Seth moved to sit next to Summer again, taking her hand in his. "Summer, I can honestly say that I have not smiled as much in the past 6 years as I have in the last two days. It's crazy. I don't really know what's going to come of you being back here and us reconciling, but all I know is that everything has been better since you stepped into my office two days ago."
Summer's eyes glistened with tears, and she smiled at Seth. Unable to control it any longer, she let the brightest smile he had ever seen light up her entire face. His expression soon mirrored hers, and they sat in silence smiling at one another.
After about five minutes, Summer reached her hands up and caressed the sides of Seth's face. "I'm glad to be back in your life, too, Cohen. Even if you are the biggest cheeseball I've ever met," and before he could quip back Summer left a short, yet lingering kiss on his waiting lips.
"So, you told me everything that happened today at the office, but you didn't tell me why she was here," Summer said, searching Seth's eyes. "Why was she here, Cohen?"
"She tried to seduce me into giving her her job back," he said, a smile playing on his features. "It's hard for girls to resist the irresistible charm that I have."
Summer stared at him open-mouthed before smacking him up side the head. "Get to work, Cohen. You're going to have a long night ahead of you."
"We are, Summer. We're in this all-nighter together," he said, rising to cross the apartment to sit at his drawing table.
"Well, I guess the first thing I need to do then is go on a coffee run," she replied. "What are you in the mood for tonight, Mr. Cohen? Are you in the usual Venti black coffee mood? Or is it one of those special nights when you order a quad Venti black and white mocha?" Summer asked, trying to sound her best like a TV announcer.
Seth laughed. "I think tonight I'll have to go with the latter. I need all the espresso I can get." A beat. "Actually, if you wouldn't mind, ask the barista if they could just prepare me an IV."
Summer chuckled in his direction as she grabbed her purse and walked towards the elevator.
Three hours later, the apartment sat relatively quiet. Summer sat at Seth's desk, clacking away on her computer at the notes she was making for her meeting with Zach. Adjacent to the desk sat Seth's drawing table, where he was making sketch after sketch, trying to get Little Miss Vixen primed for her return to Atomic County. It did help that her living counterpart sat right next to Seth.
As Summer heard Seth sucking the last drops out of his second coffee cup, she stood up and stretched before coming behind him and placing her hands on his shoulders. "Do you need another coffee, Mr. Artiste?" she asked, while beginning to knead her hands into his shoulders. Seth's only response was the moan that escaped his lips.
"I have a better idea, Summer," Seth began. "Why don't we take a break, and you can keep on doing what you're doing right now?"
Summer hesitated and her hands stopped. "Ok, Cohen. I'll agree to that, on one condition: You aren't the only one who gets his shoulders rubbed."
"Whatever you say, Summer. Anything to get your hands working their magic again," Seth said, sounding quite desperate. Summer laughed and took his hand, leading him over to the rug in his living room. She instructed him to lie down on his stomach and straddled him, resting her butt on the small of his back.
"So, how's it coming, Cohen?" she asked, while digging her thumbs into the knots between his shoulder blades.
"It's, uh, oh yeah, right there please. It's going quite well, I think," he said, seeming to be contemplating something. "I haven't drawn you in years, well, at least not for Atomic County, so it's quite challenging, but it helps to have you here."
As Summer worked her way down his back, she tilted her head to the side, obviously thinking about something. "I thought that Little Miss Vixen's character was taken out of the comic less than a year ago?"
"Oh, she was. It's just in the beginning of the book, I mostly used the images of her that I drew in high school and in the beginning of college," Seth said, and allowed for a brief pause. "I knew that she was an essential part of Atomic County, so I wanted her around for the first little bit, when everything was pretty much an exact autobiography of high school, but as the story lines changed, and after, their, um, the, well, ya know, the-"
"Break up?" Summer offered.
"Yeah, exactly. I kind of ran out of images of her that I had stored away, and it became, just, um, too difficult to draw anymore," Seth finished, softly. They sat for the next 10 minutes in complete silence, except for the occasionally sigh or groan let out by Seth. The two silently pondered what the other was thinking, and a tension grew in the air.
Finally, Seth broke the silence, offering Summer a back rub of her own. They quickly shifted positions, and Seth took the opportunity of being on top to speak to her. "You know that I never blamed you, Summer, right?" he questioned, a tenderness in his voice.
Summer, unsure of what to say let out a deep breath. "How could you not, Seth? I pushed you away. I left you, because of things that had happened in my past," she said this louder than she had intended to, self-deprecation evident in her voice.
Seth moved until he sat next to her, and noticing this, she brought herself up to a sitting position before continuing. "I know that you've probably always been wondering why I did what I did that night." She paused, allowing Seth to nod his agreement. "And the truth is that sometimes, I, to this day, wonder the exact same thing."
"Summer, we don't have to rehash this right now. We can just let now be what it is and then be what it was. I don't want you to do this to yourself," he said, taking her hand and forcing her to meet his gaze. Summer withdrew her hand and stood up, pacing the apartment.
"Seth, I need to do this," she proclaimed, a sense of desperation in her voice. "I feel like maybe, if I tell you, the only person I've ever fully trusted, maybe if I just say my thoughts aloud, I'll be able to finally come to grips with them." Seth said nothing, but caught her eyes and nodded, assuring her that he was there to listen.
"I guess I just felt weird. What we were doing felt weird to me. It was like all through senior year and our first semester of college we were PERFECT. Not that people didn't try to fuck with us and mess up what we had, because there were occasional moments of near-drama, but it was like nothing could get to us. We were this entity." She stopped, drawing in a ragged breath. "But then, right when we decided to take our relationship to a new level, and go all domestic, things started to get, I don't know, crazy."
She kneeled down in front of Seth and took his hand to accent her next point. "I know that it's not because of the fact that we were becoming 'domestic' that everything fell apart. It was the fact that we were in college. We were both loaded up with intense courses, and you had this amazing opportunity to try to sell your comic book. But somehow, in my head, I thought, this is just how things are with me. Can you really blame me though? It's not like domestication has ever really worked in my family," she said bitterly, only to be met with Seth's sympathetic eyes.
Finally, looking defeated, she sat all the way down so she was face to face with Seth and took both of his hands in hers. "I just know that if our situations were reversed, and it was you who had done it to me, I would have spent the last 6 years replaying over and over in my head all of the small things that I'd done wrong. But it wasn't you, Seth. I need you to trust me on that," Summer finished, pleading with Seth's eyes.
Before speaking, Seth blinked twice, and his eyes shined with emotion. "Thank you for telling me that. I think it's what I've been waiting to hear since that night," he squeezed out, before taking Summer into a bone-crushing hug. They remained that way for what seemed like an eternity, until Summer noticed the clock over Seth's shoulder.
"It's midnight, Cohen, which means Starbuck's is closed," she said, adding on a puppy dog face at the end. Seth just smiled back at her. "I guess we'll have to settle for Quicky Mart coffee for the rest of the night."
Five hours and two coffee runs later, Seth was sitting at his drawing table finishing up the final page that he need for tomorrow's meeting. Despite her best efforts to stay awake and keep him company, Summer had resigned herself to the couch at around 4 a.m. and now lay, softly snoring on the couch, with Rooney sleeping on her feet.
When the final page was done, Seth let out a deep sigh and rose to click off the lights on the desk and the drawing table. He crossed the apartment to the couch and had to contain himself at the adorable scene Summer and Rooney made together. He knelt down next to them and took Summer's hand that had been hanging off the side. After staring for a few moments at the beautiful woman before him, he finally kissed her forehead and rose with the intention of going to bed.
As he stood, he realized that Summer had somehow tightened her grip on his hand in her sleep. Afraid that slipping his hand out of her death grip would rouse her, Seth settled himself on the floor next to the couch, and stared up at the ceiling. Before turning over, he felt himself unable to contain what he had been trying not to say to Summer since the moment he saw her. "I love you, Summer Roberts," he whispered into the night and soon found himself overtaken by sleep.
A/N I know that everyone loved the 9 updates in 3 days, but I think I'm going to start limiting myself to two chapters a day. Hopefully I'll still be able to maintain the flow of the story while doing this. I know that this chapter was a little emotional, but I hope it wasn't too much out of the characters of Seth and Summer. Lemme know what you think! Peace.