He was only going for a laugh when he said it, but spending all day in Gina's office, he wishes he really did have a suit of armor on. Gina had already booked weeks of book signings and interviews, release parties and press events that he skipped out on. She claimed that she had sympathy for him the first few weeks after what happened at the funeral, but after he missed the first singing event she had booked, her sympathy went out the window along with her patience. Half the day was spent daydreaming as she paced back and forth behind her desk as she lectured him about his career responsibilities and 'being a grown-up'.
With every backhanded insult about his disappearance, all he could remind himself of is how glad he is that they're not married anymore. Her talking down tone hasn't changed a bit.
He had to use the phone at the reception desk just to call Beckett and tell her if they wanted to have a long night out like he'd planned for them, she might have to just meet him at the restaurant. She said that she'd have to stop by her apartment to get changed but that it wouldn't be a problem. And with a quick stop to the loft to change into a pair of pressed black slacks, a dark blue satin polo shirt tucked in, and a navy blue sport coat with a white border going around the collar, and a kiss on the cheek from his daughter for good luck, he hopped in a cab and gave the driver the address.
With a clench of nervousness running up his spine, he steps out onto the sidewalk just a block away from the restaurant and looks to his right, seeing her shove off the wall, dressed in a pair of open toes four-inch heels, a black skirt cut just above her knees, a dark blouse cut just low enough to hide her scar, and a white lace cardigan with a small clutch purse held in both of her hands.
She turns to face him and feels a blush flare intensely up her neck, feeling his eyes pierce her not in hunger or lust, but in awe and amazement. Brushing her hair behind her ear to hide her reaction to him, she waits as he takes a few slow, almost staggering steps toward her. He always knew how to dress, and he looks just as put-together and handsome as she expected him to be.
"Hi," is all he can manage to get out as he nears her, his blank expression apart from a raised brow finally breaking into a soft smile.
She gives him a small nod and gives him a long once over. "You look nice, Castle."
He breathes a short laugh and smiles. "I would tell you just how nice you look, but um..." he trails off and takes a closer step toward her, his hands wanting desperately to pull her into him, "I don't think we have the time it would take, so..."
She feels herself fight a smile and cranes her neck to hide her still present blush. After a moment, she looks up to him and nods her head off to the side. "So, is this the place?" She asks, looking up at the crowded restaurant.
"Mmhmm," he hums happily, "this place is amazing. Come on." He says and guides her by the small of her back.
Pulling open the door for her, never losing his gentlemanly touch, the soft rumble of the customers is the first thing she gets besides the waft of pasta and bread. It's pretty crowded and as she looks over the seating, she can't seem to see an open table. "Did you make reservations, Castle? This place looks pretty packed."
"Reservations? Psh..." he scoffs and smirks at the host. "Hi, I'm Rick Castle." He says in a raised voice to the host. "I was wondering if Uncle Leo was-"
"Is that Ricky Castle I hear out there?!" A loud voice booms from the back. Kate's eyes pop at the sound but Rick smirks happily as a stout man shoves open the swinging door from the kitchen open from the other side of the restaurant with a large smile. "Ricky!" The man says, opening his arms to him and lumbering his way over to him.
Rick smiles and claps his hand together with his and they each pull each other into a brotherly embrace. "It's been a while, Leo."
"Been a while? I haven't seen your pretty face in ages, Ricky. You said you were gonna bring it around here more often." Leo says, giving Rick's shoulder a hard shove. "How've you been? How's Alexis doing?"
"She just started her senior year, top of her class."
"And your mother, how's Martha doing?" Leo asks, crossing his arms. "She still on Broadway?"
"No, just my nerves, for the time being." Kate bites the inside of her lip, fighting a smile and stifling a hard laugh.
"So what, might I ask, brings you to this part of town to see Uncle Leo, huh?"
Rick looks over at Kate, who is watching the scene unfold with a hint of confusion on in her expression as she lets the smile fade. "Is the private room still open?"
"Ah, Ricky," Leo shakes his head, "you know I love you, but I can't just open up the private room just because you want to impress this Victoria Secret model you snagged."
"Wha-heh... excuse me?" Kate starts to speak up before she feels Rick's hand gently clasp her arm.
"Um," Ricky starts, giving her a look to slow down before turning back to Leo, "she could most definitely make it, Leo, but this is actually my partner from the NYPD, Kate Beckett."
That sends Uncle Leo's face shining into a bright smile and he points at her. "You mean to tell me you're the real-life Nikki Heat?"
"I-I uh..." She starts, looking between Leo and Rick, "I suppose so."
Leo claps his hands together and shakes his head. "The real-life Nikki Heat in my restaurant. Hey," Leo says and turns back to Rick, "I'll get you two set up, all right? Anything for the brothers and sisters in blue. Jimmy, set these two up in the lounge, please."
Without grabbing menus, the host smiles and lifts his hand, guiding the two down the aisle and across the restaurant where they eventually come to a set of two large french doors. The host pushes open both doors and takes a step aside to let them in as he leans over to the wall and turns the light on to a low dim. The room has a decor of dark red, an argyle carpet of dark red and off-white, with two large ferns in each corner only used to conceal the speakers that play the soft, melodic accordion music in the background. In the center sits a small circular table with a brighter red table cloth and two chairs, a center piece of a large bowl filled with water and rose pedals and small candles floating inside. In amazement, Kate watches as the host silently walks over and pulls out a lighter, lighting the candles in the bowl, giving them a smile and stepping aside.
"Wow," she whispers as she takes in the setting. After a moment, she feels his hand take her's and she sees him step in front of her with a gentle smile, ushering her toward the seat on the right. She catches his eye and feels her slack jaw grace with an open smile and lets him lead her over to her chair and pull it out behind her. Brushing under her skirt, she sits and he quickly takes the seat in front of her.
"Wine? Champagne?" The host asks from the doorway. "Sparkling water?"
She feels Rick's eyes on her again, silently asking her to decide for the both of them. "Uh..." she starts and looks over to the host, "wine, please."
With a friendly smile, the host nods and closes the two doors behind him, leaving them in almost total silence aside from the soft melody in the background. She stares through the dark red curtain hanging over the panes of glass in the door for a moment before turning back to Rick, seeing him adjust himself in his chair.
"Is there a reason why they didn't give us menus?" She asks, not hesitating as she turns back to him.
Rick smirks and pulls himself forward. "Leo saves the lounge for his friends. On top of that, he's a genius. Give it a chance."
Kate smirks despite herself and leans forward on her arms. "Okay, I have to ask." She starts, waiting for him to look up from soothing over the napkin on his leg. "How do you know a guy named Uncle Leo and what did you do to get him to owe you a favor?"
His eyes seem to bore into her as they darken into seriousness. "You really want to know?"
A dark edge in his voice scares her. She always knew he had weird underworld connections, but this is just too real for her. What on Earth was this room really used for? "What'd you do?" She pushes out, her throat caught.
Rick leans in close over the table, looking toward the door in caution and starts to whisper loudly. "I took his place as a chaperone on Alexis' second-grade field trip to the natural history museum."
Realizing he's joking, she lets her head fall forward and hears him start to giggle happily. "Ha ha." She laughs sarcastically as he's cracking up in front of her.
"What, did you think he was an old mafia connection or something? Alexis and his son were in the same class. He was scheduled to be a chaperone on Alexis' field trip but couldn't make it, so I filled in for him. We became friends." He shrugs casually.
Kate leans back in her chair, shaking her head despite herself and biting down on the side of her tongue. "I've always liked that you're so involved in Alexis' life."
"Had nothing to do with that. I just wanted to go to the museum." He jokes as the doors into the room open and a waiter walks in with a bucket filled with ice carried on one arm and two wine glasses hanging precariously from his other hand.
The waiter sets the glasses down on the table and goes about pouring them each a glass and sets the wine bottle on a small stand adjacent to the table. Telling them to enjoy their evenings and that their food will be ready as soon as possible, Uncle Leo's orders that they receive only the best he has to offer, the waiter leaves and closes the door again.
Kate is quick to take up her glass of red wine and bring it to her lips. "So, you want to talk about it yet?" She asks, hearing her phone buzz in her clutch purse sitting on the far end of the table.
Rick looks over to her with his own glass of wine and, watching as she takes a small sip and reaches for her clutch purse with the other hand. He's taking it as a great sign that she seems so determined to talk about last night. But at the same time, he wanted to show her a good time. He's known about Leo's private lounge that he uses to cater his friends and has had an open invitation to use it when he wanted, but never had anyone special enough to do it with. A part of him was hoping they'd at least start off by talking like they always do over dinner. Not usually about casework or suspects, but just what they were up to in their lives, catching up as the real friends that they were.
"We can, if you want to make the rest of the night go by rather awkwardly." He says honestly and takes the first sip of his wine.
"Awkward?" She blurts out in insult. "It was awkward for you?" She asks him desperately, letting her shoulders sag and her phone fall into her lap held in her hand.
"No," he chuckles and raises his hand, "I'm not saying that, Beckett, it was..." he trails off, his eyes becoming lidded heavily and his lungs contracting, "it was... wow. I-I mean, you were... wow."
Kate smiles and hides it bashfully behind her hair falling in her face as her phone continues to buzz in her hands. "So were you, Castle." She says and looks down to her phone finally.
Rick nods in her direction. "Who's calling you?"
"Oh, it's-" She waves her phone and stuffs it back in her clutch purse. "Just Espo. I'll call him back later."
Rick nods, paying it no mind, and takes another small sip of his wine. "So it..." he attempts, fear coiling around his throat as her hazel eyes seem to pierce him. He feels so vulnerable right now. "It was... right." He tries his best, but knows he missed the mark by a mile in his mind, "Wasn't it?"
"What do you mean?" She asks honestly as she sets her wine glass down to the table.
"Well," he starts, adjusting himself nervously in his chair, "as incredible as it was, I... couldn't help but notice that you seemed... tightly wound about something. Like something was hurting but not in a real way. I can't really describe it."
Pinching the stem of her wine glass with a pair of strong fingers, the lingers of the pain seem to trickle back into her body, making her scars tingle. Her normal self would be anything but truthful with him right now and would tell him anything she had to to get him off the scent. But her normal self wouldn't be here with him, wanting to forge a new path in her life in the first place. Everything about her life right now is unexplored territory. She's never had to do this before and the only thing that can guide her on how to do it is the truth.
She has to tell him the truth. "You remember how I said I didn't remember anything from when I got shot?"
Rick's heart turns to a hot stone in his chest as she whips them into another topic he wasn't ready for. "Yeah."
"Last night, I..." she tries to find the best way to tell him. "Everything was perfect when I first took us under the covers." She admits with her stomach uncoiling in memory of the night, her eyes staring down at the stem of her wine glass as she pinches in her thumb and forefinger, spinning it in a small half-circle. "The way we kissed and... the way your arms and your hands felt... it was all perfect." She says with a deep longing in her voice, turning it husky until the memory of the moment rears its head.
And Rick is hesitant to make the shift, but knows it's better to do it now before she decides it's better to let the matter drop. "But?"
Her breath is shallow, but she forges on ahead. "Rick, I know something happened that day." She says to him, her eyes down to her lap at first, but she quickly lifts them to look over the table at him, her features dancing hauntingly with the candles in the bowl in front of them. "I don't know what, but I know it changed everything."
He knows exactly what she's talking about. It's terrifying him. He wasn't ready for this.
"I know it has something to do with you, and..." she says and looks away from him, "last night when you put your hand in my hair and rolled me over... when you asked me what was wrong..."
Rick can't feel a single muscle in his body, but the words tumble ungracefully from his lips anyway. "You remembered?"
She shakes her head and looks back down to her lap. "No, but I... I think I remembered getting shot." She says finally and looks up at him with shimmering eyes. "I still can't remember anything, and I wish I didn't have the memory of that pain when I was with you for the first time, but... when you were hovering over me like that, I think my body was remembering the pain of getting shot."
His heart aches painfully in his chest, feeling so selfish for the night before. "Kate, I'm-"
She stops him by reaching over the table and taking his hand, giving it a strong squeeze, knowing what he's going to say and not wanting him to finish. "Don't apologize, Castle." She demands, looking over to him with a stern brow. "I'm not going to force you to tell me what happened if you really don't want to tell me but please..." she shakes her head and looks over to him again, looking him straight in the eye, "don't apologize for anything that happened that day."
His hand still being squeezed by her, his thumb starts to pet her knuckles softly, holding her still haunting gaze. "What if that's not what I'm apologizing for?"
"I don't care, Rick." She answers sternly. "Whether you were there or not, one way or the other, I only got through it because of you."
"I still should've been there, Kate. You needed me."
"Yes," She says, the level of honesty making her heart physically ache, "I did. But right now, I want the only thing to matter to be that you're here now." His eyes soften and the desperate vulnerability dilating in his blue eyes seems to fade as his hand relaxes in her grip. "If we have to spend this entire relationship fighting over who gets to claim more of the blame, we're never going to get anywhere."
That earns her an honest smile from him as he laughs under his breath and his eyes crinkle.
"And I don't want us going nowhere." She says to him, being as honest and open as she can, to a point where it's painful thinking she was ever as closed off as she remembers being with him. "Do you?"
His thumb circles her knuckles again as the doors into the room open and the wait staff comes in. "No."
A/N: Broke 500 reviews! Thanks for all the ups and support! You guys rock. Lemme know how you like this chapter. A bit more descriptive than I usually go for, but I wanted the scene in your head.