. . .
DAY SEVENTEEN
. . .
Nappa looks down the sight of his gun, pops it apart, then draws a cloth through the barrel. "In what capacity?"
Vegeta racks his own gun. "Professional."
Nappa sighs, beleaguered. "I just cannot stand to think of some schmuck losing his brains at one of those family restaurants with the knick knacks all over the walls."
Raditz shakes his head, organizing ammo. "Not a noble way to go."
"When it's my time, I'm not going down without a fight," Nappa's saying, clearing his rifle. "I'm taking the bastard with me. My life is way more precious than theirs."
The sound of a car door shutting has them all turning in their chairs and looking out the window. A single bullet unsettles and rolls, getting stuck in the crevasse that is the new crack in Vegeta's kitchen table.
Outside, a slender blue-haired woman steps out of the car, rounding up something in her arms.
Nappa's head whips around to Vegeta. "Is that the one?"
Vegeta is too busy and important to bother looking. He chambers the round, eyes never leaving his firearm.
Nappa's eyes narrow. He turns back around and watches her stride up her walkway. "She don't look that mean."
"Don't be fooled."
"She's too pretty to be a high-profile scientist. And, frankly, she's too pretty to be talking to you."
The other one disagrees. "The pretty ones are the stupidest." His long, curly hair falls into his face as he looks down to adjust his sight. "Only a stupid woman would bark up Vegeta's tree."
"She's not stupid," Vegeta warns, low and dangerous. Vegeta is suddenly pushing back his chair and heading out the front door. Nappa and Raditz follow, falling in behind him on the porch.
He moves to intercept Bulma. As he takes the stairs, her eyes meet his and she stops, waiting, blueprints in her arms.
"You look like shit today," Vegeta calls.
Nappa and Raditz gape from the porch.
She gives Vegeta a sharp look of distaste, her lips pursing. "On my worst hair day," she says calmly, standing as he comes to a stop in front of her, "I look infinitely better than you on your best."
At a sharp intake of breath, Bulma looks over Vegeta's shoulder and spots the two men on the porch. Her eyes meet Vegeta's. "Oh, look. You do have friends."
Vegeta moves closer, because he knows they're listening and he wants to make sure the witty, savage, delicious comeback he's reserved for her is heard only by her ears.
A car pulls up to the curb, parking behind hers.
Bulma, clutching her work to her chest, sighs beside him.
Vegeta watches predatorily as a man gets out of the sports car and ambles up the yard, straight for Bulma. "It must be the third Thursday of the month," she remarks dryly, oblivious to Vegeta's tension. "Hello, Yamcha."
The tall man smiles. "Bulma," he greets familiarly.
Bulma turns to Vegeta with an apologetic look. "I'll find you later."
She pulls away from him, leading the other man up the stairs, who nods with a friendly smile at Vegeta and the two men guarding Vegeta's porch. A look of concern crosses his face, because the three of them don't look not shady at all, but he's polite enough to stay quiet.
Bulma's front door closes behind them.
Vegeta hates the man instantly.
...
The house still smells like spiced apple cobbler as Bulma dries her hands on a dish cloth and follows her dinner guest outside. The sun has set, and the air is crisp and stark. She wishes she'd grabbed a jacket.
Keys in his palm, he walks beside her down her porch steps when they notice her neighbor striding toward his house, duffle bag in hand. Vegeta still drips with sweat, but only sends a cursory, dismissive glance their way. He takes the stairs in one leap and is inside his house in a second.
"Your neighbor doesn't seem very friendly," Yamcha remarks.
Bulma sighs. "He is supremely unfriendly," she agrees. She slips her hands into her pockets to keep them warm. She and her neighbor play a game that Yamcha wouldn't understand, a game of comebacks and wounding jokes and inventive criticisms and do-or-die competition. Vegeta is helping her. That's all that matters, in her book.
Yamcha's eyes narrow. "I think he's watching through the window blinds." He shoots her a look. "Is this guy a creep or what? Do I need to say something?" Yamcha's eyes linger on her expression. "Either that or he likes you."
Bulma bursts into a snort of laughter. "Likes me?" The laughter burbles up and won't stop coming. "He doesn't like me at all!"
"Hmm." Yamcha considers. "If anything happens, I'm a phone call away."
"If anyone tries anything," she says, "my neighbor will scare them away."
"Okay," he says, dissatisfied. "But what if it's your neighbor that can't be trusted? It's just, you're all alone—"
"Bye, Yamcha!" Bulma says brightly, gesturing to his car.
"Yeah, yeah. But all you have to do is call—"
"BYE, YAMCHA!" She grins manically as she waves to prove a point.
"I hear you, I hear you." Yamcha lumbers to his car, and they wave to each other as he pulls away.
Bulma sighs, wringing her dish towel in unrecognized frustration.
She walks straight over to her neighbor's house. His long grass is dry, crackling from this evening's frost. She knocks once at his door, gets impatient, then turns the knob. It opens.
The house is dark, like usual. The man doesn't have any damn blinds in his side windows, so the cheery glow from her house illuminates the right side of the living room, gilding her hair as she moves through the dark. It's then she notices the light on in the bathroom, just as something knocks in there.
She finds him inside, cleaning out a gash on his eyebrow. The room is humid, like he just showered. He's shirtless but in a clean pair of sweatpants.
She sucks in a breath. "Woo-wee, get in a fight?" She steps into the bathroom. "You're all bruised up."
He doesn't bother answering.
"I have some leftover roast and potatoes for you, if you'd like." She leans her hip against the bathroom sink as he rubs ointment into his knuckles. "A token of my gratitude, for helping me with...you know. Cheesecake and apple cobbler, too. I couldn't decide which one I wanted most, so I made both."
He just stares down at his knuckles, flexing his hands. She frowns. His side has gone purple and swelling. "Vegeta," she scolds. "How are you going to be in top shape for me if you're going and getting beat up all the time?"
He stills and looks at her then. Watches her as she grabs the washcloth and pats the blood from the skin of his side. As she dips her hand into the glass jar and smooths ointment over the gash. "You're a mess." She glances up at him.
He looks down at her. "I'm not interested in leftovers," he says.
She misses the pointed hostility—or maybe refuses to give it validity. "They're not his leftovers, they're my leftovers. And they're not leftovers, anyway. I made you a plate before I even made my own." She looks up at him.
"Who's the guy?" He can't help himself. It's out of his mouth before it even registers that he's going to say it. If she asks, he'll tell her he needs to know all possible suspects. He wants the dossier on his desk before she leaves.
She sighs again. "My ex-husband," she laments.
He watches her closely. "Why did he come over?"
Bulma crosses her arms and leans against the sink, suddenly irritated. "He always comes over for dinner on the third Thursday of every month." She tosses her hand in frustration. "You know what I'm starting to think? That he thinks I can't do it on my own!"
Vegeta's brows pinch in confusion.
"He doesn't think it's a good idea to live on my own, across the city from him and my parents. He wants me to call and check in with him more often. He'd do all my grocery shopping for me if he could. He doesn't think I'm strong enough to do it on my own." She looks up at Vegeta with her jaw clenched. "But I am!"
"He doesn't want to cut the cord," Vegeta finally says, grabbing his shaving bowl and brush.
"No, he doesn't," Bulma agrees. "To be fair, I left him. I can understand he's still adjusting to un-married life. But it's been almost two years! I think it was hard for him, even though he wanted to give me what I wanted: a divorce." She stares at the wall across from her. "We didn't make a good married couple. But we make good friends." She looks at Vegeta, who lathers his face. "But friends give each other space, too." She reaches over to grab the straight razor and leans in, closing the space between them. She gently angles his chin and draws the razor just under Vegeta's jaw. "You missed a spot."
He watches her discreetly as she shaves him. It's quiet in the bathroom, and she gradually relaxes, lulled by the repetitive action of dragging the razor over his skin. All the world is reduced to their soft breathing, her hand guiding his jaw, the tug of the razor, and the swish of water in the sink when she rinses off the blade. Satisfied when he's smooth, she hands him a towel. "You smell clean," she remarks pleasantly.
Suddenly he's in her space, his chest filling her vision. He turns to her, wiping his neck and chest off. Her eyes follow the movement. "Think so?"
He watches her blush but try to hide his effect on her. She thinks she's successful. Vegeta knows the truth. This is his revenge. He wins.
"I want something," he rumbles, looking down into her face. He is close enough that she can feel the heat of his skin from the shower.
Her breath is coming shallowly now. She blinks a few times. "And what's that?"
"Food. Where's the cobbler," he says, leading them out of the bathroom toward the grub. "You owe me that much. I'm not your damned bloodhound."
She stays behind in his bathroom, because she needs a minute.
…
Vegeta is in Bulma's house as an invited guest and not a prisoner of war. The house is as nice as it was last time, but he tells her it's every bit of shabby and disappointing as she is. She reminds him that she's the one between him and dinner. Their war doesn't stop him from sitting at her kitchen table and devouring her cooking.
It's getting late. She's taken off her shoes, and in just her bare feet, moves around with complete comfort, dishing them out a slice of cobbler. Coffee steams in front of him.
He'd made the mistake of asking her how her day at work was. She'd spent the last twenty minutes talking about wind shear and payloads, about continuity and cantilevers and deflection.
Vegeta leans back, resting his forearm on the back of the chair beside him."Remind me to never ask you how your day went again. You're like a villain, monologuing."
"Is it too difficult to wrap your tiny fighter's mind around?" She slides into a chair and rests her elbows on the table with a smug smile. Wrapping both hands around her coffee, she sips, blue eyes twinkling over her mug. "Catch up, Vegeta."
His eyes flick over her with insolence, but she knows him well enough now to know that it's playful. She folds her arms behind her head, arching her back, smiling as she stretches. The effort causes Vegeta to double take, but he hunkers down over the last bite of dessert with forced and total focus.
"I have so many questions for you." She nests her chin in her palm. She hasn't stopped smiling. It's making Vegeta nervous. "One." She ticks them off her fingers. "Who were those guys at your house?"
"Nobody."
"Two: What's our next plan of action?"
Vegeta is a neat eater. He sits his plate and fork to the side and leans back. It's strange: Bulma thinks he looks utterly relaxed, and yet he never looks more than a step away from regal and ready to engage. He's like a lion, reminding everyone he's king of the jungle even when he's sunning himself upside down.
"Tomorrow night. We have another path to forge."
"Oh?" She perks up. "Where are we going?"
Nothing has changed about his posture, but his face tightens. "It's classy. Dress equivalently."
"You're taking me somewhere nice?" Bulma laughs. "I thought a backroom brawl was as nice as it gets with you."
"I don't have any complaints from women."
"Then you haven't been dating any. Vegeta," she asks him with mock concern, leaning over to grab his plate, "you do know what the opposite sex is, don't you?"
She's rinsing their plates off in the sink. Vegeta doesn't know what's wrong with him. Lately he hasn't been thinking before he acts. It's like someone else has been at the helm, making his decisions for him before he can even weigh in. He puts his hands in his pockets and ambles up behind her, reeled in on a string.
"I'm well versed. Surely you have something to wear tomorrow?" His voice is husky, even to his own ears. He struggles to tamp it out.
"I've got a thing or two," she promises. "The question is: do you?"
He leans his hip against her kitchen counter.
She shuts the water off and turns. And finds herself cornered. Her backside presses into the cabinets.
"I've got a thing or two." His voice is low and throaty. "You might be surprised."
All the sudden, all the heat she's been denying between them is present and heavy. She struggles to catch her breath. Is her neighbor playing games with her? The thought is depressing to consider.
She doesn't realize she's clutching the dish towel in her clawed grip until he gently takes it from her.
"It's ritzy. I trust you're petty enough that you've got a pair of heels just for such an occasion?"
His gaze lingers over her lips. She feels herself flush. Bulma's whole body wakes up in a way it hasn't in years.
"I'm superficial enough to know exactly what I'm going to wear tomorrow night," she returns, feeling wheezy with nervousness.
Her neighbor is now too close to be anything fraternal. Neighbors don't stand this close. Friends don't look at each other this way. Friends? More like reluctant, shackled enemies. And he's boxed her in, close enough that she can feel heat radiate from him, close enough that she could flex her hand during the weird floating thing it's doing at her waist and touch him. And he's just watching her with smoldering eyes. Like he's king of the jungle, and he's hungry for something blue-haired and snippy. Like he's in control.
But Bulma is not. Bulma aches in places long forgotten. It's been an age since she's been the recipient of a man's regard this way. She's ready to throw caution to the wind. Bulma feels suddenly like unbuttoning her blouse and watching him watch her do it. Bulma wonders what it might feel like to drag her palms over Vegeta's chest and down the slab of his bare stomach. Bulma wonders what it might be like to take Vegeta's lower lip lightly between her teeth, and then suck. These are dangerous thoughts, especially to be having with him just a hand span away from her.
Bulma wonders for the first time if she made a move on her neighbor, if he'd reject it.
"Do you always stand so close to your neighbors, Vegeta?" His name rolls languid over her tongue. She looks up at him from under half-lidded eyes. "Or just me?"
She gets a front row seat the moment it happens. It's the most genuine, unguarded expression she's seen cross his face yet. Recognition lights his eyes first, as he realizes where the mood has gone. And then it's like she's burst a bubble with a pin. His face goes slack, and then he turns away, grimacing.
Vegeta is abruptly pulling away. He's making his way towards the front door. He turns his head over his shoulder but doesn't meet her eyes. "Thank you for dinner," he says roughly.
The front door knocks shut, leaving her standing alone.
Bulma wonders if she should go lay out tomorrow's outfit, but thinks she might slowly strip off her work clothes and slip her hand down the front of her panties instead.