Gold was not sure when he had started to care for Belle, but the realization that he did hit him like an anvil. Hate came easily to him, and it was his first response to everyone. He had known from the moment he met her that it would take a bit of active work to keep up his hate for her, but he had never imagined that it would be so easily wiped away.
Not that he liked her, or anything. No, the dislike was still there. He just didn't hate her, and maybe cared a little bit about her health and emotional well-being. That was all.
It happened when he least expected it—one minute, he was teasing her for being unable to admit that she was in an inappropriate working state, and the next, jealousy was flaring up like a disease when one of his students was being more caring than he. He couldn't help that, when the girl returned half an hour later, he'd been less than helpful in his 'constructive' criticism of her paper.
This weekend, thus, was time for an intervention on himself. He would spend the next forty-eight hours dwelling on all of her faults, and why he should hate her as much as he hated everyone else.
He started bright and early Saturday morning, while he was brushing his teeth. Her teeth, he recalled, were too straight and white. She was obviously vain, especially based on the fact that she had paired a blouse with her sweatpants—because really, a nice shirt with sweats? It screamed vanity.
Once wearing his casual Saturday three-piece suit and on his way to his pawn shop, he reminded himself that Belle smiled far too much. Was anyone really that happy? If they were, then they were just stupid. People like him understood the value of making one's displeasure known, instead of hiding it behind the veneer of a smile. So Belle was either stupid, or a liar.
While he unlocked the pawn shop door, he considered the way Belle had no respect for a closed or locked office. In fact, she had no visible respect for him at all—always sweeping in, trying to ask how he felt about things, acting like they should be having engaging conversations instead of staying in separate rooms until necessary. That woman did not respect her superiors, or anyone's privacy.
The woman who kept shop during the week had kept the register neat and clean, just as he demanded it. He doubted that Belle Blue had ever kept anything neat and clean in her entire life. It was disgusting how her mess spilled over onto his pristine desk. He hated even more when she put stacks of his favorite books in the corner, like she was just taunting him with their common interests.
When the bell tinkled a few hours later, indicating the door being opened, he was recalling—with distaste, of course—the way Belle had glared at him, the way her mouth set and brow furrowed into two thick lines at the bridge of her nose, the way her nostrils flared like an angry bull, the way her eyes were as blue as her last name.
He looked up to offer assistance to whoever had just walked in, thinking of how Belle was always offering her help like some pushy saleswoman, and then he made a noise like a cat that had been stepped on.
"Dr. Gold?" Belle asked, and for her part, at least, she looked as startled as he felt.
"Miss Blue." His voice was toneless, and he took a second to mentally congratulate himself on his ability to be bland at all times.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
He was too floored by her presence to remember the answer to that question. For all that he had been trying to intervene on himself, he had really just spent the entire morning thinking of nothing but Belle.
Then, he saw the bottom of the sign through the glass door, and remembered that she had asked him something. He put on his best sneer, leaning back in his chair and folding his fingers together.
"I own this shop, Miss Blue." He pointed his chin toward the sign.
"You're the Gold of Gold's Pawnbroker and Antique Dealer?" She looked around the room, as if just seeing it for the first time—which, he allowed, she probably was—and then her gaze landed on him. "Why?"
"What kind of question is that?"
"Well, you are the highest paid faculty member at UMS. And this is a pawn shop." She flopped her hand toward the walls, where he stored all of the antique trinkets and knick-knacks.
"I guess I'm just full of surprises, dearie."
She was looking around the shop, wringing her hands together, standing around like a confused puppy. He didn't think that this whole situation was really that confusing.
"So, this has always been your shop?" she asked, gaze falling on him.
"As long as it's been here." He didn't tell her that he owned almost every building in town. There was no need to alarm her further.
"Are you in the habit of making deals with customers?"
That was an odd question. Even Gold was surprised by it, but he thought he contained that pretty well, behind his forced smile and blank eyes.
"What sort of deals, dearie?"
"Oh, you know. Young woman walks in with only a fifty to decorate and furnish her apartment. Walks out with at least two hundred dollars worth of merchandise. That sort of thing."
That didn't sound like him at all.
"We don't sell apartment furnishings," he said instead of responding.
"Not furniture, no. But lamps, dishes. Things like that."
He made a mental note to fire the woman who kept shop during the week. According to Belle, she had wasted over a hundred and fifty dollars.
"Did you furnish your apartment in my shop?"
She nodded. "The man working here was very accommodating."
"The man?" He frowned. What man?
"Yes, he was bald. I think he mentioned his name was Luke. Or Hans. Or Lars." She shrugged.
"Or Dove?" He supposed he couldn't fault the man for being charmed by Belle's cajoling smile and lady parts.
"Whatever, I was close." She waved a hand.
"Oh, very close, dearie."
She pursed her lips, hand coming to rest on her jutting hip. "Anyway, he gave me a good deal on a tea set, and a lamp, and a sofa cover to cover the mysterious stain on mine that I choose to believe isn't from sex."
He almost choked. Why was she so casually throwing out the idea that she had stained her couch having sex on it? Was she trying to kill him?
"You don't know what the stain on your couch came from, Miss Blue?"
"I got it on Craig's List."
His heart calmed down a little, or maybe it was his stomach, or maybe it was somewhere lower, to which he couldn't be bothered to pay attention right now because it was inconvenient. Probably his toes. He made a mental note never to intervene with himself again. It only made things worse.
"That's disgusting. How much was it?"
She glanced away, playing with the part of her shirt that she'd bloused over the waistband of her skirt. "Seventy."
This time, he did choke a bit. He wasn't sure if it was from amusement, horror, or some mixture of the two. "I assume you expected the odd stain here and there?"
"Well, of course." She folded her arms. "I bought a sheet set, too, to covered it as much as I could, but that looked ugly, so I bought the cover to cover the sheets."
"This is all very convoluted, dearie."
"Would you care to have lunch?"
He almost jumped. "I'm sorry?"
"Lunch. The meal most people eat midday. Would you like to eat it with me? It's almost noon. I was going to head over to Granny's." She jerked her thumb, as if he didn't know where Granny's was.
"Are you just trying to con an old man into a free meal?"
"Maybe." She spun on the ball of her right foot, skirt belling out around her thighs, and started for the door. A few steps away and she paused, looking over her shoulder. "Are you coming?"
Of course he wasn't coming. Why on earth would he choose to spend his Saturday afternoon with someone who represented the bane of his existence—college students?
"I'll be there in a minute."
So, yes, he had lunch that afternoon with Belle Blue. He also had lunch with her the next day, and then Monday, and then every day that week. He wasn't sure how this kept happening, because every time she invited him, he was certain he would say no. Then, his treacherous mouth would come out with something like, I'll be there in a minute, or let me just finish entering these grades, or—the most beastly of all—I'd love to.
The real problem with that last statement was that it was horribly, unreasonably, undeniably true. It had taken an hour, just one hour, spent sitting across from her at a sticky booth at Granny's eating burgers and fries, to turn him into this sad excuse for a man, a man who pined behind his desk, waiting for a woman at least fifteen years his junior to come invite him to lunch. The worst part was that she always did, and then he was left counting the hours until lunch time the next day, like some schoolboy with a crush.
At least they didn't go to Granny's every day. Gold consoled himself with the idea that he was exposing her to the culture of Storybrooke, giving her the chance to eat at restaurants she had no idea existed. He always paid, because he was a gentleman, and because when the check came, she always thumbed through the money in her wallet and then reached for her credit card, chewing on her cherry lips, and this made him feel bad and want to make her stop drawing attention to her mouth.
On Monday, they went for pizza—half mushroom and pepperoni for Belle, and half sausage and peppers for Gold—and Belle was charmed by the Italian owner, who, after Gold privately assured him of a week's extension on his rent, pulled out all the stops to impress her. On Tuesday, they went to a bistro for sandwiches, and Belle traded him half of her Caprese melt for half of his smoked salmon croissant, and he extended the rent due date for a bottle of 'complimentary' champagne. On Wednesday, Belle dragged him to a Pho restaurant that he didn't own and to which he had never paid much attention, coercing him into trying a bowl with beef offal without explaining what it was, and then gloating when he discovered that he was eating cow stomach and liking it. On Thursday, he tried to be grumpy about the stomach-eating incident, but Belle smiled and batted her eyelashes, and so they went to a small hut on the water where they served the best lobster in town, and he taught her how to crack and eat a whole one.
That day, Friday, he'd told her that he wasn't telling her where they were going, and then, because he occasionally fancied himself a bit of a gangster, blindfolded her and bound her hands with a silk scarf for the journey. Every time he glanced over at her, blind face turned toward the window of his Cadillac, he allowed himself a small chuckle.
"You know, if anyone looks inside, they're going to think you're kidnapping me." She turned to him, eyebrows raised above the blue cloth.
"Who says I'm not?"
"It's not kidnapping if I came willingly." She turned again, drumming her fingers on her thigh. "Are you going to take me into the restaurant like this?"
"Well, that depends, dearie." He glanced at her, biting his lip so that he wouldn't laugh—he was a continuous amusement to himself.
"On what? I think the whole place would jump you if you did, you know. People don't seem to like you much."
He ignored the barb. He didn't much care what people thought of him when the woman in his front seat was alone with him, blindfolded and bound, and still smiling.
"It depends on how much you cooperate. If you start giving me trouble—well, I'll just have to keep you restrained, won't I?" He was glad she couldn't see him. He was certain that he hadn't smiled this much in a long time. It must have been at least twenty-four hours.
"What if I promise to behave?" She wiggled around in her seat until she had one leg tucked under her and was leaning toward him.
"I can't trust that. Promises are easy to break, dearie."
"But you have my word!"
"Your word?" He glanced at her, tempted to reach over and trace the lines on her forehead. "I'm a literature professor. I've got too many words, I don't want yours."
"All right, fine. Let's make a deal, then. You like deals, right, Dr. Gold?"
He pulled into a parking spot, too amused to speak while doing so. Once the car was off, and Belle had tried to look around despite the thick cloth over her eyes, he turned to her.
"That I do. And when two people have something the other wants, a deal can always be struck. Now then—what do I have that you want?"
"Well, I want this blindfold off, for one," she said, reaching up and flapping her useless hands near it. "And then I'd like to use my hands, possibly to strangle you."
"Well, that's not much incentive for me to untie you, now is it, dearie?" But he would have untied her to strangle him—he would have untied her if it meant she would touch him anywhere, in any way, even if it was ripping his heart out of his chest. He tried not to think about that.
"Okay, okay, I promise not to strangle you. And I promise to behave. Will you untie me now?" She thrust her arms toward him.
He chuckled, reaching over to undo the knot. He tried not to caress her hands any more than was necessary to get the scarf off.
"Very well. I will untie your hands and then assess your behavior."
"And if it reaches your standards, you'll take the blindfold off?" She bit her lip, and he had the fearful thought that she knew the gesture made him weak-kneed. He brushed this off with the knowledge that he had seen her bite her lip at others before, and that it was just a habit born of being a woman with nice lips.
"If you promise to continue to behave, I will take the blindfold off, yes."
"I promise." She saluted, and he had to reach up to keep her from smacking her fingers against the rearview mirror.
"Best get out before you hurt yourself."
Once they were both out, and he was standing on the sidewalk with one hand on his cane and one hovering over the small of Belle's back, she turned to him.
"Well?"
"You have kept up your end of the deal with remarkable aplomb."
He moved behind her to untie the blindfold, and then he felt a small twinge of sadness that he could not see her face when she laughed at his remark.
"Aplomb?"
"Indeed."
He slid the cloth off of her eyes, folding it up and putting it in his coat pocket while he gave her time to look at the restaurant. He had brought her to Sakura, a building which stood alone amidst its rock garden and cherry blossom trees. It was one of the most expensive restaurants in Storybrooke, and he knew that Belle knew this as soon as the smile slid from her face. She took a step back, almost colliding with him.
"Oh, Dr. Gold, I can't afford this. We should go somewhere else—I saw a Thai place yesterday, maybe we—"
"Belle." His lips were right by her ear, and he all but hissed her name, the corners of his lips twitching when she froze. "You're not behaving."
Her eyes darted to the side, and then she sprang forward as though she hadn't expected to find him there.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to step on you. But, really, Dr. Gold—"
He held a finger up to stop her, and was surprised when she actually fell silent.
"First, you didn't step on me. If you had, I would have told you, and you'd be apologizing on your knees." He paused, giving her time to realize it was a joke and chuckle. "Second, of course you can't afford this, but that's okay, because you're not paying."
"But, Dr. Gold—"
"You haven't paid all week. Why would I let you now?"
"Yes, but I could have. I had enough money. Here, I really can't pay. Well." She tipped her head to each side, like she was weighing scales. "I mean, I could. But then I couldn't buy groceries."
"And then you would starve, and get skinny and ugly." He started toward the restaurant, putting his hand where the small of her back should have been, and would be when she decided to face the right direction. "So it's better for everyone's eyes if you just let me pay, like I was going to anyway."
Lips pursed, she turned and allowed him to guide her in. When it came to restaurants that he owned, dining usually went one of two ways. Either he was treated with open hostility, as was the case with Granny's and some of the smaller establishments, or the staff bent over backwards to please him. Because it was so popular, he had never had a rent problem with Sakura, so they had no reason to resent him, but they had heard stories and they did fear him. Their seating host bowed four times—once when they arrived, once when Gold asked for a table for two, once when they were forced to stop and wait for a waiter carrying a tray full of hot soup, and then once when they arrived at their tiny, candlelit corner table.
Apparently, the establishment was under the impression that this was a date. He wasn't going to correct them.
"This is so nice," Belle whispered, hands clasped in her lap. The restaurant had a pinkish glow, lit only by lamps covered in paper shades, and candles on every table. The curtains in their room were drawn to keep the ambiance. Their waiter came by with a pot of complimentary tea that Gold had neither requested nor paid for, which was a plus.
"I'd hoped you'd like it." He had his hand resting on the side of the table, tapping along the edge like something would happen, too afraid of what would be on his face to look at her when he spoke.
"How could I not? Though, I do wish we could see out the windows. It was gorgeous outside."
He looked up. "Do you want a different table?"
She shook her head, laughing. "No, I think our waiter would fall over himself if we asked him to move us. There was a lot of bowing going on. Have you noticed that everyone treats you like a god?"
He pressed his lips together, and shrugged. "Do they? It must be my face. I've been told I'm dangerously handsome by a number of students in my reviews."
At this, she laughed outright, covering her mouth when the couple nearest them looked over.
"What? You don't think so?"
"Oh, you're very handsome, Dr. Gold." She shook her head, still laughing, and reached for her tea to cover her mouth.
Gold felt his stomach drop. In the past week, she had ceased to be 'Miss Blue,' and was instead 'Belle,' all the time. He wished he could tell her to just call him Raphael, but he was still her professor and he couldn't find a way to do it that wasn't weird, or out of place.
"Good. Now, what strange thing are you going to make me eat today?"
The smile she gave him might have intimidated a lesser man—and, okay, it intimidated him a little bit, too, but that didn't mean that he didn't like it.
"Octopus."