The Barista: Chapter 6 - Let's Drive

"That is yours?"

John turned, and found Teyla halted in the middle of the parking lot avenue eyeing his Maserati Spyder with appreciative eyes. "Yeah."

Her wide mouth curved as she tossed the tasselled end of her scarf over her shoulder and crossed over to him. "Should I ask if your business is legal?"

He grinned and opened the passenger door for her, noticing the way she trailed the backs of her fingers over the hood in a caress that wouldn't leave fingerprints on his paintwork. The woman knew about fancy cars and their owners. "You already knew I liked fast things," he quipped as she slid past his back and around the door.

Teyla paused with her hands on the upper edge of the door. "Cars? Or women?" The tilt of her head was a challenge, and John nearly kissed her. Her mouth was only inches away, and it would be so easy to lean forward and...

John hesitated. He wasn't sure why, only that his instincts told him it was the wrong time. Too fast, too early, too easy. He responded to her question instead. "Is there a safe answer to that?"

Teyla didn't seem disappointed - rather, she was laughing as she slid into the car seat and crossed her booted feet at the ankles. "No."

"Then I plead the Fifth," he told her, closing the door and moving to the driver's side to get in. "I've never taken her over one-twenty, though."

She eyed him as they pulled out of the parking lot. "On road?"

"Uhh..."

Teyla laughed as she crossed her legs and settled more comfortably into the moulded seat. "I believe that means 'yes.'" She made a 'tsk-tsk' noise.

"And you've never broken the speedlimit?"

Her silence was eloquent enough. "So what do you do that allows you to afford a Maserati, Mr. Sheppard?"

He glanced at her as they stopped at traffic lights and the music changed to Snow Patrol's 'Chasing Cars'. "Let me guess. You don't call men by their first names when they just happen to drive expensive cars?" Her brief laugh was answer enough. "I'm with Stargate Enterprises," he said and saw her start. "Yeah. Playing with the big boys."

"You have been with them long?"

"About three years," he admitted. "The others in the taskgroup I'm working with have been with them longer - my friends at the coffee shop."

"Ah," Teyla said. "Taskgroup?"

John considered how much he could or should say as he switched gears. "You know the Atlantis Grand Hotel?"

There was a pause. "I have heard of it," she said dryly.

"Yeah. We're working on a merger offer. The companies that own the hotel have let it run down, we're looking to do it back up."

When he glanced to see Teyla's response to this, he found her looking out the car window. "And you have much experience in mergers?"

"A few," he said. "Mostly smaller companies and concerns. You'd know about the Stargate Hotel chain, of course. But the old Atlantis Grand..." John let out a long breath. "That would be something different."

This time, he found her watching him with a speculative expression. "What?"

"You feel strongly about this," she murmured.

John wanted to explain to her the first time he remembered walking into the Atlantis Grand, a boy of seven holding tight to his grandfather's hand as they went in for the old man's sixtieth birthday. He wanted to describe to her the disappointment he'd felt walking through those doors twenty-five years later, looking up at the wavering light of the chandelier, and the fading shades of the carpets beneath. He wanted to tell her how he saw the hotel renovating and refurbishing to regain its former glory.

He didn't.

"Yeah, I guess I do," he said. He was a bit embarrassed by his force of feeling on the topic of Atlantis, but he wasn't going to apologise for it. Still, if she wasn't interested, he wasn't going to bore her with the details. "But, hey, you probably don't want to hear about that. It's...work stuff."

"I regret," Teyla said, after a moment's reflection, "I do not have much experience in the area of managing hotels."

"Yeah, well...it's part of my job," John flashed a smile at her and put all thought of the Pegasus proposal behind him. "Hey, I don't have much experience in making coffee."

"That was self-defence," she informed him dryly. "It was learn to use the machine or suffer burned milk for my hot chocolate."

"However you learned it, you're pretty good at it."

"And that is why you kept returning to the shop?"

He glanced at her, letting his eyes linger on her face. "Part of it, anyway."

Teyla held his gaze with one arched brow. "And was it worth it?"

John grinned at her, charm and challenge. "Why don't we find out?"

- tbc -