Chapter 2 – It's Just Dinner.
As the oven timer pinged, Steffi looked at the clock in her kitchen. It said quarter to eight, and she knew she wasn't dressed.
"Damn it!!" She ran into the bedroom, conjuring a nice outfit which didn't reveal too much, and showed that all the evening was going to be was dinner. It's just dinner, nothing more and nothing less. She changed quickly, relishing the feeling that using magic had upon her. She'd vowed to use it less, especially now that she had a mortal fiancé. Did have a mortal fiancé. Well, she had one at the moment, but maybe by the end of tonight she wouldn't. But then again, it's just dinner. No one will ask you to marry them if you're just having dinner, she thought to herself. She sat down at her dressing table and started on her make up, telling herself over and over again. It's just dinner. It's just dinner. It's just dinner…
"…It's just dinner," Cole muttered to himself as he did up his belt buckle. He stood back and looked at himself in the hotel mirror, hoping that this outfit portrayed his supposed intention to just have dinner. In actual fact, he wanted to see if Steffi still loved him as much as he loved her. He knew that he couldn't ask her outright, because she would attack him with a barrage of accusations about being seen with Phoebe. Admittedly, he had gone out with her once, and it was strictly business. Her column was being sued by some maniac who had interpreted her advice as a license to kill, and had murdered his girlfriend. He took her to dinner to check that he had all the facts right, and that he could expose certain facts about her if required. How was he to know that the paparazzi would be there too? And it certainly wasn't his fault if she had decided to kiss him on the cheek when he dropped her home that evening – her house, her rules. He looked at himself critically in the mirror, analysing his appearance. For a second he hesitated, and then decided to just leave it. Knowing Steffi, she would take him as he was, as she always had done and probably always would. But he was being presumptuous. After all, it's just dinner, he reasoned with himself.
The doorbell sang out at exactly three minutes past eight. Steffi, who had been pacing the large living room nervously, looked at the door and ran towards it. She spent two seconds checking herself over in the mirror which hung on the wall next to the door, and then opened it with a smile.
"Cole, you look great! Why didn't you have that suit when we were going out?" She leant against the door to allow him in and closed it neatly behind him.
"Well my waistline was bigger when I was with you, which is probably why," he said with a cheeky grin. "Must've been from all those times I'd take you out to dinner to try and get you to eat."
"I ate, and still do eat, perfectly fine thank you, I just have no appetite most days!" Steffi protested, and led him over to the sofa of her large studio apartment. She made sure he was comfortably seated before going out into the kitchen.
"Wow… you have a great place," Cole said, taking in the modern paintings on the walls with an appreciative eye. "I love the paintings, who did them?"
"A friend did," Steffi's voice floated out of the kitchen. "She's really great, a real Bohemian kinda girl. I should fix you up with her, you know." She came out, carrying two plates of salad as a starter and put them on the table. "She's nothing like me, so you guys should get on like a house on fire." Cole came up to the table and pulled Steffi's chair out for her, but she shook her head.
"Come on, sit down! I won't eat unless you're near me," said Cole persuasively, wrapping an arm round her waist and sitting her on his knee. She looked at him with a smile and gently got up again.
"I'll come and sit down once I've checked on the main course and I've corked the wine, okay?" She pottered off to the kitchen once more, and Cole immediately cursed himself for behaving like that. What if he'd put across the idea that he was hoping this would be more than just dinner? What if she'd got spooked and was in the kitchen at that very moment trying to think of a way to politely get rid of him? He sighed heavily, and heard the sound of a cork popping.
"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!" Steffi squeaked under her breath. Cole must still be into her; else he wouldn't have been like that with her. Maybe it wasn't just dinner; perhaps he wanted something else… The cork popped out of the neck of the bottle, and she quickly checked on the lasagne and her dessert – key lime pie. She had hoped that would be okay for him, and had spent the rest of her day in the office wracking her brains for his favourite meals. That was all she had come up with. She smoothed down her clothes, and went back into the room.
Cole was still sat at the table, toying with the salad. Steffi smiled and watched him for a few moments, before saying gently,
"You can eat that, you know. It's not going to kill you." Cole looked up at her and shrugged, slightly embarrassed.
"I was waiting for you, that's all. I'm not going to eat alone, I told you that." Steffi took her place and poured the wine out.
"Well, you can eat now. But first, a toast." She raised her glass in the air and thought for a moment. "To old friends and new beginnings."
"To old friends and new beginnings," Cole said with a smile and touched his glass with hers. They both drank, and Steffi made a face. "What's wrong?"
"This wine is horrible! Phil got it from work a while back, but the guy who gave it to him hates us anyway. I may just pour it down the sink, you know."
"It's not great, but I've had worse. Absinthe, for example."
"Oh, I hear you there!" Steffi laughed, and Cole had a sudden flashback to a date they'd had early in their relationship. He'd taken her to a restaurant near where she lived, and he kept seeing people he knew who would get suspicious, and so he had taken to hiding behind menus whenever he thought they were looking at him. Steffi had laughed at his behaviour, and told him that they could go home and get a take away. They'd skipped the restaurant without even paying the bill. He looked at her, and watched her eating. Eighteen months in New York had changed her, without a doubt, especially the way she ate and spoke. She had less of the restless energy which had so typified her erratic behaviour, and it had been replaced with a sophisticated elegance. Even though she was now in her early twenties, she was responsible and sensible, and it was such a change from her wild party days in the Bay, where she would dance with a new guy every night, never getting his name or his number, just leaving a lasting impression upon her not so unfortunate victim.
As they passed the meal with cheerful banter, about work and friends and other general topics, Steffi felt Cole's eyes upon her and they made her slightly uncomfortable. But only for a moment, and then she remembered her mantra for that evening – it's just dinner. She wasn't expecting any surprise questions, and so was caught off guard when Cole said, after a short pause,
"Do you still think about us sometimes? About what went wrong?"
"I…" Steffi paused, trying to work out what to say. Even she was surprised when she heard herself saying what she did. "I do. I came to the decision that it wasn't us; it was our circumstances, our positions at that time. If we had been different people, or if the people around us had been different, then I think we could've made a go of it. But, at the end of the day, its water under the bridge, and wishful thinking never got either of us anywhere now, did it?" Cole nodded silently, and ate the last bite of his pie.
"You know, this is good pie." Steffi burst out laughing, and Cole looked at her. He hadn't really realised what he'd said, but he laughed too and when it eventually died down, he smiled at her. She smiled back, and conjured a cigarette.
"I hope you don't mind if I…"
"Oh no, it's fine. Smoke like a chimney if it makes you happy." Because that's all I want, he thought.
"I had given up, until just now. Smoking and drinking, I indulged in no more," she said with a sardonic smile. "I guess you bring out the worst in me."
"It's certainly not intentional, but I think I liked you more when you were a rebel." Steffi exhaled a lungful of smoke, and watched it as it twisted and turned in the air.
"I think I did too," she said slowly. "But Phil's a health freak, so I had to give up smoking for definite. He told me to… I mean, I only chose to give up drinking because of how I acted when I drank. He said it made me act sluttish, and I have to admit I agree."
"Phil tells you to do a lot of things, doesn't he?" Cole said carefully. "The drinking, the smoking, when we first met in your office… he likes to control situations doesn't he?"
"He works a lot, and I think it takes him a little time to realise that he doesn't have to control me like I'm some kind of criminal. He doesn't do it to our flatmates, or to his parents. Must be because he's around me more."
"Flatmates?"
"Uh huh. What, you really think me and Phil could afford this place with our salaries combined? Not after buying food and clothes, paying the gas bill, the electricity bill, the water bill… it all adds up." Cole smiled slightly.
"When you lived in San Francisco you never worried about those kinds of things."
"When I lived in San Francisco, I had Charmz," she reminded him. "She paid for everything."
"I never knew you sponged off my teenage daughter! Who is, if you remember, a year younger than you."
"She had a job, I didn't. Not a real one anyway," Steffi said with a helpless shrug. "And plus she never said she wouldn't pay, not until she found out about… hmm."
"Oh come on, you earned a freaking fortune working the bars," said Cole with a smile. "You were a killer!! Guys actually queued just so they could have their time with you. Need I remind you how long your waiting list was at one point?"
"I thought you didn't know about all that," Steffi's cheeks turned a deep shade of pink. "You said before…"
"Well, when you left the city, I did a little research, to see if I could find you and apologise. All it got me was a beating from each of your brothers and a list of guys 20 feet long to talk to. It didn't take long to get through most of them."
"You tried to find me? But I was such a colossal waste of your time," Steffi said as she conjured a bottle of Jack Daniels and two glasses. "I'm still a waste of time, but now I have prettier clothes." She grinned and poured a little whiskey into the little shot glasses.
"You couldn't be a waste of my time if you tried, sweetie," Cole said honestly as he picked up his shot glass. "Now then – it's my turn to propose a toast. To just dinner!"
"To just dinner!" Steffi said, and they downed their shots.
A/N and Disclaimer: I don't, I don't own 'Charmed'! We will, we will rock you!
Heehee. That's my mischievous laugh, in case you didn't know. Another thing you may not have known – I got me a new story! Yup, another forbidden love thingagummy about Phoebe (the bestest Charmed One, like duh) and Kyle (only guy I thought she would suit – she'd make Leo ditch his sexy plaid). 2,403 words which makes it longer than my French coursework – that may be because I haven't even started it yet, so I have a year's worth to do.