ONE CLICK AWAY
He allowed himself a little relaxation after he returned home from the Lannister family business for the day, sighing with relief as he untied his tie, unbuttoned the buttons on the arms of his crisp white dress shirt and carelessly stepped out of his polished brown shoes. Today had been a day to remember when finally the Tyrell case could be wrapped up - by him that was - and he was glad to see his assistant take over from there. The publicity that came with handling the business or other dealings with one of Westeros' oldest families combined with Cersei's latest shenanigans had created a buzz of excitement within the current news cycle and paparazzi and reporters had almost gone rogue trying to interview him on all recent developments. Jaime lazily strolled over to the TV set and switched the television on, landing on 'Meet Melara' where Tyrion was scheduled to appear tonight to take the heat off him and the family. He must have missed parts of the interview because it felt like they were wrapping up just now.
"... it is not always easy to scroll away, to not engage and to remember that you don't have to do this, 'not today', right?"
"Hear, hear," Jaime grinned, sitting down on the edge of the bed to properly watch and listen to his brother.
"... especially when it comes to one's personal life, it's very hard to not be offended by things that are said or done. Look, I know what it feels like to be born 'wrong'..."
Jaime flinched.
"... in the eyes of a lot of people, I get that. I feel like there should be boundaries when it comes to personal lives. I know that this video sparked interest in Jaime's love life and I understand why that is. After all, he is just ruggedly handsome, isn't he?"
"Well, gee, thank you, little brother..." Jaime mused, running his hands through his hair in one swift motion.
"You're very welcome," his brother's voice had him turn around to face the entrance to his bedroom where his younger brother stood, loud and proud.
"I took some of the heat off today," he grinned.
"I am not entirely sure whether that's the case with Jaime just yet, but I do feel it's likely there is someone."
"Oh, you mean by talking to Melara Wetherspoon about how there is a woman in my life, you call that taking off the heat? Now those glam magazines will follow me even more intently, trying to figure out who that mystery woman is..." Jaime scoffed.
"Well, they're not wrong about mystery, are they? You don't know what she looks like..." Tyrion trailed off.
"After all, you don't know whom you'd find out there, do you?"
"Yeah, you totally didn't take the heat off me today, dear brother," Jaime sighed.
"Ah, calm down," Tyrion smirked, "anything new on the mystery woman?"
"Not really," Jaime answered, unsure whether or not to tell his brother about the possibility of their first kind-of-kind-of-not date plans.
"That's a shame. There is always Margaery's friend ... you were quite enamored with her ... twice, if I may add..."
"You may not ..."
"I still will," Tyrion quipped, "what's stopping you? I am pretty sure Margaery would be delighted to hand over her number if all else fails..."
"I don't think she would want that..."
"Whatever," Tyrion said dismissively, catching Jaime's attention who shot him a look which Tyrion rewarded with a raised eyebrow.
"Come on, I saw how you looked at her. But I also saw how she was watching you when she didn't think you'd notice. She is clearly interested ... I mean, how could she not. And she looked really good that day..."
"You noticed? I thought you were all in for the Stark girl ..." Jaime retorted, painfully aware that his answer confirmed his brother's claim but too stubborn to correct it. After all, it was true. Brienne had looked exceptionally well. She wasn't a natural beauty, at least what mainstream media would explain to the average Westerosi in terms of criteria of "natural" or "beauty" or "beautiful" but she had this very interesting personality combined with her extraordinary long legs, her fit physique and her smile ... not to mention those eyes. Jaime had also noticed her laugh which was not womanly at all, rather loud and brawly, but he was all here for it. When she truly laughed - which she did during lunch at one of Margaery's jokes - when she didn't hold back, when she was truly herself ... then Brienne would be beautiful for everyone, not just for those that knew her. Or, in his case, getting to know her. Maybe?
"My attention span isn't that small, Jaime, I can watch multiple things at the same time and draw my very own conclusions..."
Jaime huffed.
"Now, if you don't mind, I've had a rough day and I really want to take a shower and wash Olenna's perfume off my body. That woman really needs to learn to respect boundaries..."
Tyrion laughed a warm and honest belly laugh that made Jaime smile.
"Go, do it and then hop into bed, take that laptop and talk to the mystery woman. Looks like you can't talk to a woman you like ... I don't know like ... like Brienne in real life, maybe talking to someone online is easier. The Seven know, maybe you are talking to her..."
Wait.
What?
Golden_Phoenix: Are you still up?
Jaime waited for the orange icon next to her username to turn to green when he snuggled up in his bed after a long and much-needed shower. Olenna's perfume, it turned out, would be impossible to get rid of anything. He was pretty sure he would have to burn the entire suit he had worn today. A very thorough scrubbing removed most of it but he could still smell the lingering remnants of the strong notes of her perfume clinging to his skin like glue. He hated it.
Golden_Phoenix: I feel like this is totally my line, I always ask you whether you're still there really late at night. I am so bad at this, you're probably already asleep. I'll shut up. I hope to hear from you whenever you feel like it. Just know that we don't have to meet up if this is too much. I would totally understand. Take care.
When her icon still didn't turn green after ten more minutes of waiting, Jaime decided he could not force things anyway and closed his laptop. Aimlessly browsing the internet could also be done on his phone.
He was just searching for cleaning advice to pass on to his staff re: removing perfume odor from clothes when a push notification lit up his entire screen, blocking the search results within 'My Westernet'.
Knightsblue: Hey, so sorry to get back to you very late. You still there?
Jaime's heart stuttered and suddenly wide awake, he tapped onto the notification and opened the dating app.
Golden_Phoenix: Yeah, I was just browsing 'My Westernet' when your message popped up on my screen. Hi.
Knightsblue: Hi.
Golden_Phoenix: What's new?
Knightsblue: Oh I was just catching up on the latest gossip, we just finished watching the re-run of 'Meet Melara'.
Golden_Phoenix: I didn't think you'd be interested in the tabloid portion of a newspaper.
Knightsblue: Oh, you didn't? Did you feel I was economics and arts, only? ;-)
Golden_Phoenix: Throw a little sports in there and I think we have a winner...
Knightsblue: Well, you're not wrong there, I give you that. It happened to be on and who can say no to a new scandal in the Lannister family...
Jaime flinched. Shit. Shit. Shit.
Golden_Phoenix: Yeah, they're not boring.
Divert, Jaime, divert, divert, divert!
Knightsblue: That is a very generous underestimate.
Golden_Phoenix: I am a very generous man ;-)
Knightsblue: Ha Ha!
Golden_Phoenix: I mean it!
Knightsblue: The lack of emojis in this site is - once again - hindering a wittier retort to this. I am appalled.
Golden_Phoenix: You could just admit that you just blushed.
Knightsblue: I did not!
Golden_Phoenix: You totally did but I will let you off the hook. You don't have to admit that you're attracted to me.
Knightsblue: ...
Knightsblue: I am not attracted to a serial killer!
Golden_Phoenix: I thought we established that I wasn't a serial killer!
Knightsblue: True. We only established that you're OLD.
Golden_Phoenix: I am seriously hurt!
Knightsblue: Nah, you're not.
Golden_Phoenix: I am. After the day I just had this is the final nail in my coffin. I am done.
Knightsblue: That bad, huh?
Golden_Phoenix: It's not been the worst I've had but it wasn't an easy day, I'll say as much.
Knightsblue: Honestly, sorry to hear that. We all have those days. This trip is also nothing I was looking forward to but it started pretty great.
Golden_Phoenix: Uh, what happened?
Knightsblue: We were upgraded to first class. Such a nice surprise. I am not used to having so much space on a plane. It was nice to not feel crammed in, normally I don't even feel my legs about thirty minutes into a flight.
Golden_Phoenix: Tall people problems.
Knightsblue: Well, you don't have to be particularly tall to have this issue in commercial airplanes, but yeah, it was a nice surprise.
Golden_Phoenix: I could not imagine anyone worthier of a free upgrade than you ;-)
Knightsblue: I never said it was free, though, did I?
Golden_Phoenix: ?
Knightsblue: We found out that someone we know bought it for us. I believe it was meant to be a surprise. We'll have to thank him when we are back in King's Landing - we have a history of randomly bumping into one another. It's been quite often recently.
Brienne's heart quickened.
She'd laid out the bait. Now ..
Well, she didn't know what she wanted the answer to be. Did she want it to be revealing? Did she want him to tell her who he was? Was she right in assuming who she was talking to or was this all a huge misunderstanding?
Golden_Phoenix: Ohhh, is it a suitor of yours? I must say, I am sad to hear you're this popular. You said you were pretty unlucky with men ... I knew you were kidding with me. You sounded way too interesting to not have admirers ...
Knightsblue: Oh, I was definitely not kidding and I am appalled you'd think I'd lie ;-)
Phew. So far, so good. He had evaded this one.
Brienne wasn't sure whether to be happy or unhappy about him not falling into her trap. After all, she still wasn't sure whether he wasn't the particular Lannister she thought he might be, of whether he was just good at dodging questions that were too personal. Yet, he was willing to meet her so ... there was one way to find out for sure, wasn't there?
Golden_Phoenix: A man likes to know that there is competition ;-)
Knightsblue: There is none, this particular suitor is rather interested in my a lot more beautiful friend than he is in me, I just happened to be there when she was traveling with me on my work trip ... or something like this.
Jaime's mind went blank.
Work trip? Hadn't they discussed an upcoming trip during lunch with Margaery, Sansa and Brienne? Had he not seen a twinkle in his brother's eyes when Brienne mentioned the airline they were using?
Crap. Crap. Crap.
Golden_Phoenix: Do you mind talking tomorrow again? Something just came up unexpectedly and I gotta take care of it. I don't wanna stop talking, I truly don't but this is kinda important.
Knightsblue: Sounds like it is. I don't mind, sometimes life is unexpected, right?
'It sure is, Brienne, it sure is...'
Golden_Phoenix: Are we still - tentatively - meeting?
Knightsblue: Yup.
Golden_Phoenix: :-))
Knightsblue: :-))
When he disconnected the chat, Jaime let out a deep sigh and then used the voice assistant of his phone to call his brother. This was one way to find out.
Tyrion had just finished a relaxing shower and stepped into his bedroom to change into his pajamas when his phone that he had placed on his nightstand started vibrating, indicating a call. He'd changed the settings so that only his closest friends' and his brother's calls were displayed and would be put through to him. Everyone else was set to 'do not disturb' until the start of the weekday. Tyrion had found this to be the most effective way to drown out the noise of the weekday, find a way to ignore parts of his family and also to simply create a balance between work and off hours.
When asked by his father why he hadn't answered his calls over one weekend, Tyrion had simply replied: "Because it keeps me sane not to deal with work over the weekend and I'd prefer you were doing the same.
Tywin hadn't spoken to him in a month.
Tyrion had loved every single second of it.
A call from his brother this late was unusual, especially when they were living in the same building, mere minutes away from each other. Tyrion prayed that nothing had come up last minute with their Tyrell case but argued that this couldn't be the case. Weeks spent in perfumey meeting rooms finally came to an end, he could not bear to imagine if those were to continue.
"Brother," he said, answering the call, "what is the reason for your late call? You must know this is past my bedtime..."
"Liar," Jaime said, his voice tense yet teasing.
"Ok, you got me there. It is not past my bedtime. I was lying. But seriously, what's the occasion? You never call when you could just walk over and steal my best whiskey."
"You are well aware that my whiskey is more expensive, hence you hanging out here all the time ..." Jaime retorted.
"You are well, surely, that more expensive doesn't mean better quality, do you not? Somehow I feel like you're not in the mood to talk about alcoholic beverages at all, are you? What's the matter?"
"Tyrion .. did you pay for Sansa and Brienne to be upgraded on their work trip?"
"Straightforward question, straightforward answer: Yes. I did. Why?"
When his brother didn't answer for a solid three minutes, Tyrion briefly considered rushing to his bedroom to check his vitals ... then Jaime spoke:
"Tyrion. You won't believe what I just found out."
MEET MELARA - Newsletter, your source for all things gossip
Yesterday, the ever-charming Tyrion Lannister made his yearly trip to the 'Meet Melara' set to sit down with Melara Hetherspoon to discuss all things Lannister. Among many topics discussed, Melara simply couldn't not ask about the recent fight between Tyrion's brother Jaimie and Cersei Baratheon and the leaked video that had raised questions as to whether his brother Jaime, indeed, had started dating again.
Lannister Inc. has announced that the family wishes to treat these matters with privacy as Jaime Lannister continues his work at Lannister Inc. and will schedule future appearances in Late Night and possibly an appearance on Melara's show.
We are delighted to be considered here and will refrain from prying on the Lannister hottie - but does this bulletin from the Lannister family like a denial to you? Yup, us neither.
Hopefully, we learn more about Jaime's mystery woman soon! For all the rest of us who couldn't snag this eligible bachelor, fear not! We have our yearly most eligible bachelor edition coming up - and a lot of those hotties aren't spoken for - yet!