Chapter Three

Richard Castle was absolutely, positively, utterly miserable.

Four weeks, three days and seven hours had passed since he'd seen his best friend and he was practically beside himself. Going without seeing her was one thing, but without seeing her or being able to talk to her? Torture!

After the goodbye party he insisted on throwing her, Kate jetted off to London. She had promised to email him when she landed, and did so, though the message was brief stating that she had arrived and was exhausted. A few days later she had emailed him to say that she was excited to start the summer course and the place she was staying was nice, but other than that she did not provide much detail.

Before leaving, Kate explained to Castle that she would not be purchasing an international cell phone plan so they would be unable to call or text for the duration of her trip. Castle offered to pay for the plan for her, but she refused stating they would survive with just email communication. It was, after all, only six weeks.

Castle agreed to this (albeit reluctantly) because he thought that meant they would actually be emailing. Specifically: that she would be emailing him at least half as much as he emailed her, but this was not the case; not in the least.

After the two initial emails, he received one more on her first day of class saying that it had gone well and her students seemed like a good group, but that was the end her communication. Despite the fact that he sent her at least two or three emails a day to keep her updated on the happenings in Manhattan or just random stream-of-conscious emails (these typically happened late at night) she did not respond to him for over two weeks. Finally, he sent her a message with liberal exclamation point usage typed in all capital letters demanding reassurance that she was, in fact, alive. Thankfully, this elicited a response from her, though it was far less than what he'd hoped: Relax. I'm not dead, just busy.

With only one other, one-sentence email from her in the two weeks since that Castle found himself at a near standstill with agony. He slept poorly, ate at only sporadic intervals, and hadn't written a decent sentence let alone paragraph or chapter for his latest novel since his best friend had hopped across the pond. To his own surprise, he'd also given up dating entirely, one of his self-proclaimed favorite pastimes.

To put it simply: Richard Castle loved being in the company of beautiful women. He found them interesting and unique and wonderful distractions for things he should have been doing (like writing). For most of his life he'd bounced from one short-term relationship to another. The one and only time he had been in a long-term relationship (an ill-advised love affair with his publisher at the time) it had blown up in his face. Since then, he'd adhered to self-imposed strict dating guidelines.

He did not date one woman for more than three months. He did not go on dates with the same woman multiple nights in a row. He did not invite any of these women to significant personal or family events nor did he agree to be a date to one of their family events.

To date, those rules had kept him happy, carefree, and blissfully unattached. At least, for the long term. Why did he need something long term with a perfectly nice, yet entirely imperfect when it came down to it, woman when he had Kate?

That's when it hit him: sitting on his couch watching ESPN ignoring yet another phone call from his paramour of the previous months. The answer to almost every critical question in his life was Kate.

If he needed advise about his book, his life, his mother—anything—he would ask Kate. If he needed a date to his mother's wedding or his publisher's annual bash, who did he ask? Kate. If his mother turned up on his doorstep penniless with mascara staining her cheeks who did he call? Well, first the police, but then Kate.

Kate!

He had been such a fool! For weeks he had sulked around his apartment, grumbling and groaning, not realizing why he had a continuing throbbing sensation in his gut. He missed her, yes, but he missed her more than he would have missed Javier or Kevin if they went away. He missed her laugh and her smile on a deep, molecular level, and when she returned he didn't want just his brunch buddy back he wanted her—all of her.

And that was…well, interesting.

When it came to Kate, Castle's feelings had historically been complicated at best. The first night they met, when he'd drunkenly slipped into her bed thinking she was someone else, and, like a moron, had slid his meaty hand beneath her pajama top—a move that earned him the searing agony of pepper spray to the face—he hadn't exactly remembered her. It was dark and she was a blur of limbs and blankets. Plus, there was the literal blinding pain he suffered. It was only her voice that stuck with him. The scream was piercing, but there was something intriguing, powerful, and hilarious about the way she told him to get the fuck out of her room.

It was that voice he recognized weeks later when they bumped into each other again. He sheepishly confessed to being her two a.m. accidental groper and offered to apologize to her by way of taking her to dinner. She'd rolled her eyes and refused, which made him even more determined to make things right with her. His persistence paid off and she agreed to a coffee date so that he would—quote—finally leave her the hell alone.

Coffee turned to conversation, their mutual love of the Mets came up, and, somehow, the next week she attended a game with him, Javier and Kevin. From that first game, they'd foraged and unexpected yet remarkable friendship that Castle knew he would be lost without.

Upon second sight of her—when she wasn't hitting him and spraying him with a stringent liquid—he was rendered near mute by her beauty. The more he got to know her, the more captivated he became, but the more he got to know her, the more he realized she had absolutely no interest in him. Castle liked to think of himself as being a pretty decent reader of the opposite sex (a skill he believed he acquired from being raised by a single mother), but he never needed those skills with Kate; her hostility towards him was, at times, painfully apparent.

Back then, he couldn't blame her. He was fresh off the wild success that came from his first publish novel. He was cocky and, quite frankly, a bit of an asshole. As he grew older he was still occasionally cocky, but only an asshole when he wanted to be. By thirty, he knew that he was his real self around few people; she was one of them.

The more he thought about it, Castle knew he was unquestionably ready to take their friendship to a romantic level, and felt Kate would be open to the idea as well. True, she might need a bit of convincing, but he was up to the challenge.

Upon arriving at his mid-week basketball game with the guys, Castle decided he would run the idea of Castle-and-Kate by them to gauge their reactions. Typically, Kate was his go-to person for a second opinion, but obviously that would not work in this case both because the advice was about her and because she was out of the country. Though, seeing as they had known Kate equally as long, Javier and Kevin were the most qualified to provide opinions on the subject.

Though when they met at the gym at seven p.m. they always intended on finding a fourth to play a two-on-two match, they were rarely successful and thus typically ended up playing an ever shifting game of two-on-one, but their teams never mattered. They didn't keep score; they did it for the exercise, the bonding time, and, mostly, the tradition.

"So, ah," Castle began, taking a shot from the three point line only to have it ricochet off the rim and fly off in the opposite direction. "I'm thinking when Kate gets back I'm probably gonna ask her out."

"Finally!" Kevin proclaimed as he scooped the ball up from the court. Oppositely, a slack-jawed Javier proclaimed, "No you can't!"

Castle blinked at him. "What? Why can't I?"

Javier snagged the ball from Kevin's limp grasp and dribbled it aggressively. "Because if you sleep with her it'll throw off our whole…" He gestured wildly with his non-dribbling hand. "…thing."

Castle stole the ball mid-dribble and made a shot from closer to the basket. After sinking it he turned and asked, "What does that even mean?"

"It means Kate's our girl, right? She hangs out with us, goes to Mets games with us…it's like she's one of the guys, except she makes us food."

Castle thought dreamily for a moment about Kate's sinfully good buffalo dip and barbeque chicken quesadillas. God, she was a fantastic cook—when she took the time (her words, not his). Yet another reason their relationship was a great idea! "Right…"

"But if you sleep with her then you'll mess all that up. You can't just screw her and not call her bro—she'll kill you for that. And I mean that literally," Javier added with a pointed look.

Castle shook his head. Though his friend made a valid point about Kate's razor sharp talons, he had zero intentions to sleep with Kate and then not call her. In fact, those were the opposite of his intentions. Kate was not a girl he planned on cutting off at the three month mark like all the others. She was different—completely and one hundred percent different. "I know that, and that's not an issue. I mean, I'm serious about her."

Javier eyed him skeptically so he continued. "I mean it. I don't want to sleep with her—I want to, you know, date her."

"Date her. You, Richard Castle, infamous playboy, with a steady girlfriend?" Javier's tone indicated the Castle had informed them all he was planning on dressing exclusively in drag from that point forward.

"What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing, Castle," Kevin promised. "I think it's a great idea."

"You would," Javier returned in a snippy tone that made Castle's smile short lived. Then, turning to his writer friend, he continued. "Castle, listen to me, you don't want to do this."

Castle pressed his lips together. He'd been thinking about it for days, and thus far he'd only come up with reasons for the "pro" column and had not thought of one single "con." "And why not? Kate's a great girl."

"Oh she's fantastic—love her to death," Javier promised. "I'm saying you don't want to do that. You're a lone wolf—like me. You can't be tied down."

Kevin rolled his eyes and took a shot at the basket. "Please. You're just bitter because your wife left you for that surgeon."

"This has nothing to do with Lanie!" Javier responded a bit too sharply in a tone several notches higher than his usual one. Clearing his throat, he took a calmer approach with his next statement. "This has to do with Ricky boy here—settling down."

Castle shrugged. "Maybe that's what I want. Maybe I want what Kev and Jenny have. They seem happy."

Kevin smiled dreamily. "We are."

Javier practically gagged. "Dude? Really? Marriage?"

Castle shrugged one shoulder casually. Okay, when thinking about dating Kate, he had not specifically thought about marrying her. Clearly, it was far too soon for that. They needed to at least date a little bit before that. Hell, they'd never even kissed! However, he was not fundamentally opposed to marriage, and what was that thing people always said? The best marriages started as friendships. If that really was true, he and Kate had certainly started on the right path.

"I'm not saying I'm going to propose to Kate on our first date I'm just saying... I'm open to the idea and Kate seems like the kind of girl I could make that work with. Hence, I want to date her. You...you guys think she'll go out with me, right?" The fact that she might say no was not a factor in his grand plan, but the concept did flip his stomach in his gut. Luckily, his friends were quick to assuage his fears.

"Absolutely," Kevin said.

"Even I have to agree with that." Javier nodded. "Really...if she's stuck around this long, what are the odds of you scaring her away now? She's seen you at your lowest—and I do mean low, bro."

Castle's brow wrinkled. He could not think of any recent debauchery that Kate had witnessed. "What are you talking about?"

"Vegas...those two strippers."

Feeling his cheeks begin to heat at the memory of that night, Castle combed his fingers through his hair. "Oh...right...yeah let's not bring that up, shall we?"

"She's seriously going to say yes," Kevin promised. "In fact, why don't you email her right now and ask?"

"Nah," Castle shook his head. "Gotta do it in person. Plus, she'll be home in two weeks. I'll just…take her to dinner when she's back." Yes, yes that was perfect, he decided. Taking her out to dinner, letting her gush about her trip and then asking her to go out with him, that way her inaugural meal back would be their unofficial first date and he absolutely couldn't wait.