Part VI: Black & White Ball

She has no intention of attending a Black & White Ball with him, no matter what he says. Nope, she's not going to do it. She won't! She can't. She simply... oh, hell.

Warnings: OC, language, fluff!

"A black and white ball?"

"A black and white ball," he snatched a piece of pepper from the cutting board and popped it into his mouth, and slid up onto the counter beside my dinner prep. Paisley tie undone, bright blue socks still on his feet. He'd gotten a haircut yesterday and was still working on how to flip his short fringe, running his fingers through it again and again. He caught sight of my curdling-milk expression and stopped fiddling. "What's that look for?"

"A black. And white. Ball?"

Big blue shifting eyes. "Have I lapsed into Spanish?" I held the knife out at him, pepper slice still poised on the tip. He grinned, leaned forward to bite the pepper off, and said through a full mouth, "Like a big dinner party, lots of mingling, eating, dancing. A ball. It's a generally accepted term for a bunch of people in evening attire get together and-"

"Can you turn the sass off for a second?" I cut him off, and moved on to cutting the onion for the fajitas, trying to control the sudden anxiety roiling in my stomach. I cleared my throat. "Make yourself useful, will you?" I motioned to the pile of peppers, then pointed with the knife over my shoulder.

"Yes ma'am," he slid off the counter, but instead of grabbing the pile of peppers, he swung around behind me, setting his chin on my shoulder and his arms wrapping around my waist. "Oh, is this not what you meant?" His mouth was warm against the skin of my neck. "Sorry," he said, then moved my hair and slid his lips down from my ear to my shoulder, mouth peppering kisses all the way down. His hands gripped my hips, his body pressing against mine. Still, the words black and white ball pinged around my head the way the threat of most social situations did, but this one came with the triple-threat of not only being social, but being with Rafi's people - DA people, government people, the rich an successful, the highest of Manhattan society - and, undoubtedly, being somewhere impossibly posh. In essence: it would mean being a situation that made me expressly uncomfortable, with people that made me feel absurdly inadequate, held in a place that made me keenly aware I was out of my element.

His kisses, normally the one thing that most easily transported me to some lovely warm place outside reality, were not making their usual magic. "Black and white ball," I repeated, still slicing. His lips left my skin and he sighed heavily, burying his face in my hair.

"Honey, mi amor… please. Don't worry-"

"I'm not worried. Worry implies… something I'm not." I shook my head as he pressed his forehead into my shoulder. "Raf… how long have you know me?"

"Four fantastic years." His voice was muffled by my hair.

"And when have I ever embraced something like this?"

His chest rumbled as he hummed. "Never?"

"Never."

"But it's going to be fun."

"You're dangerously close to whining right now."

His arms tightened around my middle. "I am not whining, I don't whine. But I think you'd have fun. I think we'd have fun."

I set down the knife, drew a deep breath, and turned in his arms. I hung my forearms over his shoulders, my feet on either side of his. "What have I ever done to make you think I would consider a black and white ball to be fun?" He started talking, but I talked over him. "Four fantastic years, Raf. What do I consider to be fun?"

"Reading," he said at once. I frowned, or tried to turn my lips down, anyway. "Walking. Exploring. Biking in the park. Cooking. Baking. Seeing Broadway shows. Going to the movies. Netflix. Uh… painting? Erm… sh-shopping? Singing in the show-" I kissed him to shut him up. He grinned against my lips. "What? That not considered a hobby?"

"The only hobby I participate in in the shower involves you," I told him, unable to keep a poker face on. My fingers played with the slight curl in his hair at the back of his neck, and I kissed his lips again. His five o'clock shadow scratched my skin. "So," I asked when we finally broke apart. "Do any of those things have anything in common with going to balls?"

"Well, there's some walking involved, and-"

I kissed him again. "No. No thank you, love. But no. Now can you please do something about that chicken?"

He glanced behind him, to where the pan of chicken was sending up smoke like a beacon of Gondor. "Shit!"

_

"What the hell am I doing?" I asked aloud as I tromped up the hundred steps of the Althorpe Ballroom in Midtown, in the only elegant shoes in the whole of Manhattan without a heel. They pinched the hell out of my toes. "What the actual hell am I doing?"

I wanted to be at home in my softest pajamas, in bed with Rafi and a bowl of popcorn, binge watching Netflix. Not running like hell, half an hour late, trussed up like a turkey on Thanksgiving, smelling of perfume and anxiety.

I slipped through one set of the three double doors crowning the front of the ballroom, a gorgeous building that would look more at home on the streets of Paris instead of plonked down on a New York City street. The second set of doors was still manned, and opened for me by a doorman in an impeccable uniform. The bass beat of the band could be heard outside, but the rest of the band - playing a beautiful, gentle, classic tune I recognized but couldn't name - was only audible once I slipped into the main ballroom.

This is the stupidest thing I've ever done, the stupidest, stupidest thing, my mind kept repeating over and over. I hoped I'd slathered on enough foundation because my cheeks were flaming as I entered into this gigantic society function, late, unexpected, and unspeakably nervous.

I'd turned down Rafi's invite. Invites. Frequent and prolific invites. I simply wasn't going to do it. I wasn't.

And yet, here I was. I couldn't stand the faded quality of his smile as he left for work that morning. There was little enough he had to smile about lately, and he was excited about this big to-do. And I was the dour thundercloud hovering overhead, raining on his parade.

Noon came, and I was still determined I wasn't going. Then two o'clock. And four. And six. I get a call, and he's telling me he'll see me tonight, he's not going to be very late, just going to stop at "this thing" for a while, and come home. He was having a bad day, I heard that in his tone, and he just sounded so terribly dejected. I hung up, glanced at the clock, and started running like a Jamaican sprinter at the Olympics, pinging from this borough to that, looking for a black gown that would preferably not just fit but compliment my non-model body, while also searching for no-heel formal shoes, and somebody to do my hair. Finding all of these things were easier said than done. I was arguably taller than your average woman, longer legged and longer armed, with more boob, belly, and hip than most upper East and West side designers know what to do with; bigger feet than most women, and who sells formal flats? Four inch heels, yes. Flats? Unheard of. And somebody to do my hair? Please. Half of New York State seemed to need their hairstylist that day. Nobody had any appointments available, and God knew my hair, unruly on the best of days, wouldn't be socially acceptable in any state but professionally tamed.

Somehow I managed, though with rocketing stress levels. I was practically breaking out in hives as I was doused in lovely music and the glowing ambiance of the ballroom.

Oh, hell.

This was, of course, a horrible entrance for a woman unused to walking in anything other than jeans or scrubs, not to mention being in uncomfortable shoes: late, from the top of the marble staircase, heading down into a black and white sea of humanity. Tables dotted the landscape, but the place was awash, awash, in people in evening wear. How am I ever going to find him? I wondered, plastering a pleasant look on my face as my heart hammered. More than a few people had glanced my way, probably wondering where the gigantic Caspar-pale redneck came from, and when she'd jump back on wagon and go back to the cornfield she was no doubt plucked from. No, a little voice whispered in my head. They won't wonder that until you start talking. Right now they're just judging you based on how awful you look. It has nothing to do with your white-trash roots.

At last, I caught a break. I saw out of the corner of my eye, like Moses parting the Red Sea, somebody cutting through the crowd. Rafael. He looked stunned, flabbergasted at my appearance here. Hell, I was flabbergasted by my arrival. But the sight of him softened my smile. He always softened me.

I arrived at the bottom step, having at least not tripped over my own two feet, and anxiety started bubbling up in my chest again. "Hey, darling," I said, my voice quieter and less steady than I wanted it to be. He was in a tux, looking impeccably put together, with a perfectly straight black tie, glinting buttons on his dress shirt, his hair just-so. He was looking at me with an expression I'd never seen before, wide-eyed and wondering, and I hoped there wasn't any embarrassment hidden in those big blue eyes. He didn't say a word.

"You look incredibly handsome," I told him, trying to keep my hands from shaking, my voice from trembling. A long moment, a few heartbeats, and he was still looking at me like I'd hit him over the head with a cast-iron frying pan. My feet shuffled in those incredibly painful shoes.

"You," he said at last, seeming to shake it off. He looked me up and down and up again. "You… are… the most… beautiful woman I've ever seen."

And I melted. The smile that lit up his face lit mine up too, as he took my hands in his own. "What are you doing here? What… What changed your mind?"

"You." Honesty seemed the best policy. "I didn't want to… well, you… you don't ask for much, babe. I didn't want to be a killjoy."

"You are the exact opposite of a killjoy." He was grinning from ear to red ear. "You- You want to dance?"

"You want your feet stepped on?"

"I'd be honored."

I laughed, shakily, with some difficulty, but it was a laugh. "Sure, then." He led me to the dance floor and took me in his arms. I felt more like home, then, and relaxed a least enough to take a deep breath - as deep as the dress allowed.

"I've never worn a dress like this before," I admitted, glancing down. The dress was a black silk chiffon confection, the likes of which I'd never touched before, much less worn. It was low-cut, with thin-straps tying around my neck, and white floral sequined lace circling the bodice and hips. A reproduction of a 1940 Bergdorf Goodman ballgown, or so the saleswoman said, like that was supposed to mean something to me. It cost about a month's rent, an was the most elegant thing I'd ever seen.

"I don't know that any woman in the history of the world has worn a dress like you're wearing that one now," he said, his eyes roaming, appreciative.

"Feels kind of ridiculous," I told him with complete honesty. "I never even went to my prom. I think… the last dress I wore was to my First Communion."

"You've been depriving the world of an enchanting sight."

"Enchanting?" I laughed. "Just call me Cinderella."

And, for the rest of the night, I certainly felt like Cinderella, in her pre-midnight, dolled-up form. The usual things nagged me: the fear of eating in public, of dropping a piece of whatever down my now exposed cleavage; the preoccupation with my posture, how I looked, how I spoke, what people were thinking. But over all of that, easing it, was Rafi. His hand never left mine. His gaze rarely left me, and no longer made me wonder if it was tinged with embarrassment. It just made me feel like the only woman in the room.

In the wee hours of the morning, after a night of dancing and mingling, we slid into a Lincoln town-car outside of the Althorpe Ballroom beneath the halo of light that encircles Manhattan, and, somewhere above that, unseen stars. My shoes were off before the door was shut, and I was finally sighing with relief, when Rafi stole that sigh away as he pressed his lips to mine. "What was that for?" I asked, a little out of breath, when he finally pulled away.

His smile returned. "For making my day. My week. Possibly my year."

"You exaggerate, sir," I told him, and pecked his lips again.

"I mean it. That was going to be a great drag, business disguised as pleasure. But…" He trailed off, shaking his head. "You know, I think that's the first time I've felt human in the company of those people in years."

"As opposed to feeling Vulcan?"

He rolled his eyes, grinning, "You can't control yourself, can you?"

"Barely. But I'm glad you had a good time. I'm glad you invited me." I meant to say I was glad that I came. I was sorry about being such a stick in the mud. I would do my best to try new things more often, especially when they were important to him. But then he brushed his lips against mine again, his hand warm against the skin of my neck, and I couldn't seem to form the words. Just as well. My lips were more happily occupied for the remainder of the ride home.

Translations:

mi amor - my love

A/N: Well, so much for my How They Met chapter. It's still hanging around, but as I tend to be distracted by shiny things, this old chapter caught my attention and I punched it up a bit. I hope you enjoy, and as always, thank you to everyone who has reviewed. You're wonderful! - C