"I have heaps of paper work to do, I'm not here to make you lunch." She watched as his face sagged into disappointment. She did want to spend some time with him, but not to give him too much hope of moving their relationship forward. Castle, meanwhile, had already ran into the kitchen and grabbed his favourite roasting pot and dangled it in front of Beckett.

"I know you have a day off…" he sang with a tune, "this will be fun, I promise. And I won't try anything inappropriate on you." As Beckett opened her mouth to agree, he added with his face up close, "Unless you want me to" with a wide grin. Beckett could only roll her eyes as she proceeded to the kitchen.

They had laughed and chatted through an eventful cooking session before sitting down to enjoy their Italian themed lunch. Castle suggested they enjoy some red wine and cheese cake over a movie on the lounge. With Beckett's agreement, they sat down on his couch for Indiana Jones.

"Why don't you scoot over gorgeous?" He patted the spot next to him whilst keeping his eye engaged with her. Beckett had wanted to, but she wasn't too sure herself what she had wanted from this 'relationship' that they were in, so she stayed put.

"Why don't you?" she teased. Castle quickly fumbled towards her, spilling popcorn all over her and the couch in the process. He began to pick popcorn off her slowly one by one, which made Beckett nervous. He scooted closer to her, with a slight gap still between them, and sat up straight with his back leaning against the couch. Beckett was aware of his good behaviour, but found it awkward because part of her wanted him to make a move. After all, they had shared a kiss and were more than just friends. She admitted that much to herself.

"Why do you look so awkward?" she asked, "is this how you normally watch TV?"

"No, normally I like to stretch out with my feet on the coffee table and snuggle up to a beautiful woman." She knew he was hinting for her to initiate something but she wanted to make him suffer just for a little longer.

"I know we have boundaries," Castle said with a sigh, "you just let me know what's acceptable in our odd little relationship, ok?" Beckett again maintained her silence and continued to stare intently at the TV, but she scooted closer to him and leaned her body against his whilst eating from the popcorn bucket on his lap. Castle was extremely surprised by her advancement.

Two thirds of the movie had passed before he eventually decided on taking the risk of wrapping his arm around her shoulder. Expectedly, she paid no attention to his move and continued to be drawn by the movie.

"You really like Indiana Jones, don't you?" Castle queried.

"Well, it's either watching this or paying attention to your childish antics, so I choose this" Beckett's response didn't affect him at all because he was overjoyed by just being able to sit with her like this on the couch, wrapped together like a couple. He decided to test the waters more and started moving his face closer to hers. When his breath could be felt spreading across her face, she knew she had to intervene. She raised her right hand and slapped it with just enough force, directly onto his face, covering and pushing his face away from hers.

"Behave Castle, can't you let me finish my movie?" she said with a slight plead look in her voice, one which he couldn't resist. He retracted his face and slumped down, with his face dropping like a tonne of bricks.

Beckett's cell rang.

"Beckett" she said quietly.

"It's Ryan, why are you whispering? There's been a murder on Delancey Street, we need you to come check it out. Is Castle with you by any chance?"

"Uh, no, why would he be with me?" she questioned nervously staring at Castle.

"Ok, just get here asap, and call Castle will you? He won't answer my calls."

With the situation explained, Castle and Beckett headed down to Delancey Street.

Delancey Street – Friday

The afternoon breeze had chased away many pedestrians by sunset, yet a crowd of onlookers huddled closely together in their autumn jackets and sweaters around a section in the footpath. Ryan, Esposito and Lanie were already there when Beckett's car pulled up with its flashing blue and red. Lanie noticed Beckett and Castle getting out and the way he was whispering close to Beckett's ear. A small smirk grew as she approached them.

"Sorry to interrupt your afternoon activities, but our Vic is kinda in a pickle." Lanie glanced at Beckett, and then to Castle.

"That's ok, Lanie, we'll canoodle later, right now, we have a mur…" Castle's sentence was silenced by a death stare from Beckett. She then proceeded down to join the others at the crime scene.

When the three of them approached, they saw a light blue, pin stripped shirt in the ground in front of the newly built restaurant, 'One night'.

"What a weird name for a restaurant," commented Castle, "didn't this use to be 'The Saffron'? I used to bring all my dates here." Beckett ignored him and instead focused on the victim's shirt.

"So where is our vic?"

"He's buried in the cement," Esposito said pointing to the ground, "What you can only see is the back of his shirt? The rest of him is under, in the cement."

"How creative!" Castle gasped.

"Well, 'One night' is due to open tomorrow night. Last night they were putting the finishing touches on the place including this sidewalk you see here. That's been repaved for the grand opening because of the owner's superstitions about everything being new and fresh. They laid this red carpet on top for the opening and that's why our vic hasn't been discovered until today" replied Esposito.

"Do we have any witnesses who can identify this person?" asked Beckett.

"No, but you could say that we have one solid lead" Ryan said pointing to the victim. Esposito and Castle both giggled like school children as Beckett's eye rolled.

"Let's cut this guy out and bring him back to Lanie's lab" shouted Beckett. The equipment was brought in to carefully extract the victim out of the concrete under Lanie's supervision.

12th Precinct – Friday

The precinct was usually very quiet on a Friday night. Officers were either out celebrating in anticipation of the weekends or on an important case. Beckett and her team assembled in Capt. Montgomery's office.

"After a lengthy extraction procedure by Dr. Parish and her team, we finally can put a name to our vic. Geoff Grines. He is the founder of many restaurants franchised from Merlin's Seafood Basket. His restaurants have various names but all are connected to the Merlin's name, and all are focused on delivering the freshest seafood dishes. The restaurant we were at yesterday was his fifth."

"Amen to fresh seafood" interrupted Castle with his open palm in the air. No one responded to his high five offer.

"Ok, Ryan and Esposito has accessed the Vic's passport and his home and we found this" Montgomery throws two documents on the table and Beckett grabs one of them, "One of these is a ticket from Vegas to New York. The other, is his contract with the construction company Building blocks. Because Vegas is our Vic's home, and we have proof that says he hasn't set foot in this part of the country since he was five…"

"Road trip!" screamed Castle as he turned to Beckett.

"You're not going!" Beckett screamed back.

"He's going" Montgomery stated. "You two need to get your acts together, I can't have you arguing like children every time we have a serious case. Besides, we have to keep the mayor happy and it'll do you some good with Castle there."

Beckett left the room in a huff and headed straight for the break room. Castle hesitantly joined her.

"What's wrong with my company?"

"You distract me, Rick. I'm here for a job, this is serious. Not a date, not a game, someone has been murdered and we have a murder to solve."

"Alright, we'll make a deal. No more fluffy stuff until we get back here. Then we pillow fight" he said with a wink, "but just one more thing, what about my birthday?"

"We'll be back by Monday night, don't you worry"

To be continued...