PREVIOUSLY:
Lanie's words about having fun came to her mind and before she had a chance to stop herself, Kate replied, "Okay."
Rick was floored. "Come again?"
Kate rolled her eyes. "I said 'okay', Castle. I accept your dinner invitation."
Castle silently celebrated, so ecstatic that he actually forgot to say something.
"What, now is the time you'll choose to tell me you weren't serious?" She joked, slight fear in her voice.
"No, no, no," He was quick to reply. "Of course I'm serious."
"Okay," She smiled, quickly looking down once she noticed Ryan and Esposito watching her. Sobering a bit, she told him, "I'm still at the precinct and there's a lot I have to do, so… can we talk later?"
"Of course, yeah. I'll call you later so we can talk details, okay?"
"Okay."
Once they hung up, both Beckett and Castle had a hard time wiping the smiles off their faces.
For the rest of the day, Beckett had tried her best to stay focused on the job and forget the fact that she was going on a date with Castle the following evening. However, every time the tiniest thought regarding such date had come to her mind, her heart had fluttered in joy; it was, afterall, a date with bestselling novelist Richard Castle – she was allowed to fangirl over this, right?
On the other hand, the fact that Richard Castle was a bestselling novelist also served as a reason in Kate's mind for her to question if the whole date thing had been a good idea. The detective wasn't comfortable with the idea of ending up in Page Six or any tabloid of choice – and, okay, even if Richard Castle's celebrity status wasn't exactly Brad Pitt famous, it wasn't as if she was going out with your average anonymous guy either. So, a good part of her day had also been spent worrying about the downsides of going out with Castle.
The only moment when the detective had actually been able to forget about her imminent date had been after talking to Lanie on the phone. The M.E. had called her friend squeaking about getting tickets for the Duran Duran concert at the Garden that same evening and babbling that it afforded them the perfect opportunity for a girls' night out and for Kate to show off her long legs as Lanie would show off her ample bosom.
Kate, laughing unashamedly at her friend's antics, had been unable to say no to that. Truth to be told, she was squeaking herself.
Duran Duran!
Both Lanie and Kate felt the cool breeze blowing as they made their way out of the cab and onto the pavement in 6th Avenue a couple of blocks away from Madison Square Garden. The area was bubbling with extra cars and pedestrians, in no doubt also thanks to the concert, and the couple of friends opted to walk their way to escape the traffic congestion.
The detective and the M.E. started their walk towards the Garden, chatting and laughing together, thankful for the chance to escape work, spend some time together and attend the concert. When they were still a few hundred yards away from the Garden, they could spot a few paparazzi at the entrance, waiting to ambush any celebrities that showed up. The taller brunette discreetly adjusted the hem of the short dark green bandage dress she was wearing and looked around taking notice of the crowd – mostly men and women in their thirties and forties, although she could spot a fair share of younger people mingling there as well, and all anonymous – while her friend jokingly complained that she almost never got a chance to see a celebrity up close.
As they were making their way into the Garden, Kate and Lanie heard the snaps and clicks coming from the paparazzi's cameras and immediately turned around to see who was causing the fuss.
Standing there for the cameras, with a super slim blonde in a barely there red dress in his arms, was none other than Richard Castle.
Once he believed they had stood there long enough to appease the paparazzi, Rick politely nodded at the photographers and, swiftly guiding his date with his hand on her upper back, started for the entrance. Making his way through the crowd and into the Garden, the writer spotted the unmistakable form of Kate Beckett by the second set of doors inside, walking ahead with a darker shorter woman wearing a purple backless dress –Dr. Parish, perhaps, his mind supplied.
Before he could properly think about what he was doing, he called out, "Kate!"
She seemed to stop for a brief moment, but then kept walking without turning around. Ignoring the funny look on his date's face, he tried again, louder this time. "Kate Beckett!"
Kate stopped walking, but it was the shorter woman who was by her side who turned around first – it was Dr. Parish, his mind congratulated itself.
It was also Lanie who spoke first, rooted to her spot and pretending not to have noticed him before. "Castle?"
Walking towards the two of them, Rick smiled once he was within talking distance. "Dr. Parish, it's a pleasure to see you again."
"Please, no need for formalities. It's Lanie."
He nodded, with a pleased smile. Then, he turned to the other woman. "Hey, Kate."
If he had to guess what the detective would say to him simply from the look on her face, he would go with 'Please, no need for such intimacy. Call me Detective Beckett.'
At least she was civil. "Hi, Castle," she replied impersonally, before extending her hand to the Candice Swanepoel clone on his side. "Nice to meet you. I'm Kate Beckett."
Kate noticed the way Castle promptly turned around to look at the blonde model beside him then, as if he had been surprised by his companion's presence. Before she could assess the meaning behind his behavior, she felt the Candice wannabe shaking her hand back. "Chloe Baker, "the date replied in a British accent. "It's a pleasure."
Argh, was all Kate could come up with in her mind.
"So, how do you all know each other?" the British asked.
Castle could tell that, although she had phrased her question to encompass Lanie as well, Chloe was really inquiring about his relationship with Beckett. "Well, Lanie is a medical examiner working for the City, and Kate is an NYPD detective. I consulted with them for a case a few months ago."
Rationally, Kate knew that Castle should not add something like 'and I've been trying to get Kate to go out with me since then and she finally said yes today' to his explanation, but, still, she could not help but feel irate and hurt that he was downplaying their connection. Had he not just earlier in the day asked her out to dinner the next evening?
Castle could tell that a myriad of thoughts and emotions were going through Kate's mind and heart from the look she had on her face. He wanted so badly to say something to assure her, but he had no idea what to do.
"That sounds so interesting," He heard Chloe say. "Ricky and I met through a mutual acquaintance in a party last month."
"That's great," He heard Kate reply, her voice not at all carrying out the excitement her words were supposed to inflict.
Considering that Castle could only stare at the two women making awkward conversation, Lanie – who had no idea what was actually going on, but could tell that Kate did not enjoy seeing Castle with another woman –, decided to join in. "Yes, it was really something. Just like this is certainly something too."
Oh, the sarcasm, Kate thought to herself. She would have smiled if she weren't so mad at the moment.
"Too bad we don't have time to chat," Lanie continued, taking hold of Beckett's forearm. "We really should go inside. Can't afford to miss the concert, right?!" She joked to their companions.
Chloe smiled politely. "Right."
Castle watched the scene unfolding in front of him and tried to catch up before Kate had left without him talking to her. "Actually, Chloe," He turned to his date, "would you mind going ahead on your own? I'll get us some drinks and join you in a sec." The writer finished his explanation looking straight into Kate's eyes.
The blonde looked from Castle to the other women standing there and, not wanting to come between whatever it was that was going on, she nodded, with a smile on her lips. "Of course. See you in there." She gently – and almost tentatively – touched Rick's biceps before turning to give Beckett and Lanie a parting smile and then walking towards the VIP area.
Beckett, however, did not want to hear whatever it was that Castle had to say. "We should go in as well, Lanie."
"Actually," The writer said, taking Kate's left hand, before adding in a quiet voice, "Can I talk to you?"
The detective removed her hand from his grip. "No. Not really."
Not wanting to do this in front of someone else, he turned to Lanie. "Lanie, would you mind going ahead on your own?"
"Lanie, don't do that." Kate cut in, turning to her friend. "Let's just go."
But the shorter brunette, completely ignoring her friend, turned to the writer. "Why, Castle? You're gonna buy me some drinks too?" She asked, mischievously.
He smiled, both shy and amused. "Sure. I can do that too."
Lanie, smiling back, said goodbye to Castle and told her friend that she would be waiting for her just inside before walking away.
Castle immediately turned to the detective. "So, I tried calling you before I left home but you didn't pick up."
Kate replied, annoyed, "Lanie had just arrived at my place, Castle. Not that it matters."
"But we're still on for tomorrow, right?"
The brunette scoffed loudly.
Before she could say what seemed to be on her mind, though – Castle was sure it wasn't anything pleasant – he tried again. "Look, why don't we just start over."
She took a deep breath. "What's the point?"
"I think we got off on the wrong foot. I came off as a –"
"Womanizer? An immature self-absorbed jackass?"
He laughed self-deprecatingly. "Something like that."
"Well, aren't you?" Kate retorted. He looked completely stunned, as if she had stabbed him with a proverbial knife. She didn't care, though – she was unbelievably mad at him. Noticing he hadn't corrected her, she twisted the proverbial knife in his gut then. "Right. So why start over?"
Castle was still floored, but attempted a joke. "Well, I may be immature and self-absorbed, but I'm not that immature and self-absorbed." She scowled and turned to walk away, but he stopped her, gently holding her right hand. "Come on. Give me a chance. Let me make it up to you."
"Seriously? Are you hitting on me while on a date with someone else?" Beckett asked, voice filled with irritation and incredulity.
"I'm not on a date," He replied easily.
She gave him a pointed look.
"Well, it could be construed as a date, but it's not really. Chloe and I both know this won't go on for longer than tonight." Realizing how that sounded, Rick tried to mend fences. "Okay, that didn't sound –"
"Save it, Castle. I really don't care how you spend your nights."
Castle felt annoyance creeping up. Finally taking offense of her words, he spoke up, "You know what? I've asked you out over and over again until you said yes. And when you did, I gave you Saturday night!"
Kate seethed. "You gave me Saturday night?"
He mentally and physically recoiled. "Okay, maybe that sounded better in my mind, but –"
She, on the other hand, metaphorically ran over him, ignoring his words. "What? Was I supposed to be thankful that the famous Richard Castle gave me Saturday night to try to go to bed with me?"
"It's not about just taking you to bed. Why can't you just believe that I like you?!" Rick admitted. He took a few deep breaths, watching the brunette in front of him, a look of surprise on her face, before he said anything else. After a few moments, the author carried on. "Look, ever since we worked together, I've been thinking about you. At first, I thought it was just pure attraction – of course I also noticed that you were great at your job, smart, ethical, but at that time I didn't think I'd want anything more than dinner and… you know." He stopped talking, letting a sheepish smile show on his lips. "And once you told you had a boyfriend, I figured why bother, right? But then at the book store, we hadn't seen each other in a while and I realized I still felt excited about you."
Kate felt her cheeks burning up and her heart tightening. She opened her mouth in a clear attempt to say something to the author, but he never gave her a chance.
"Listen… you may not believe me, but I really want to go out with you. This thing tonight is just my agent's idea of making sure I get as much publicity as I can – you know, to help people remember that they have to buy my book. Plus, since my divorce, they're trying to establish my public persona again."
"By being a playboy?" She asked, disbelieving.
"Well, there are a lot of best-selling mystery novelists. One of the things that sets me apart from then is the fact that I'm a fun, young, single and good-looking author."
"You mean an annoying," she held up her index finger counting one, "young-er than Patterson," her middle finger joined indicating two, "divorced twice," she added the ring finger in count of three, "and…" already holding up four fingers once the pinky followed automatically, Kate trailed off.
He smirked. "Having trouble refuting my handsome looks?"
She felt pressured and blushed again. "Don't gloat. Okay?"
His smirk grew wider, but he dropped the matter of her clear attraction to him. "Point is, this thing had been set for a while. And Chloe is just looking for some press coverage as well, so, really, you could say this is actually a business deal."
Eyes closed and face angled downwards, she tried to come up with a reply. "Yeah, but Castle…" She ended up saying nothing else.
Finally taking notice of her features, Rick realized the gorgeous woman before him was probably feeling outside of her element – she most likely wasn't used to dealing with some weird aspects of the lives of public figures. Thinking it was best to let this go for now, he simply said, "Okay."
When he didn't say anything else, she looked up at his face. "Okay?"
Glad to have her attention, he continued. "Okay, I won't push this now. We'll see each other tomorrow and, if need be, we'll discuss this then."
Kate backpedaled. "I'm not sure it's a good idea for us to go out tomorrow."
"Sure it is," He replied immediately, taking another small step towards her. "I'm not letting you back down of our date, Kate. And I'm not letting you go now, either."
"What do you mean?"
His smile was blinding. "Don't go anywhere, I'll be right back."
Castle left then, and Kate was even more confused. So lost in her own thoughts, the detective didn't take notice of the fact that her friend returned to her side.
"What was that all about?" Lanie said as she reached the other woman.
Startled, Kate looked over the M.E. "Oh, it's just… Castle being Castle."
The doctor then eyed her friend skeptically. "Uh-huh."
Kate felt busted, but masked it. "Weren't you supposed to be waiting for me inside?"
Lanie didn't even blink. "Girl, that boy wants you."
The off-duty detective laughed. "He wants everything wearing a dress, Lanie."
"Yeah, right," Lanie pushed. "Look, you may try and hide as long as you want, but I know you like him."
Shaking her head while she stared at the floor, Kate blushed. "Lanie…"
The woman in question crossed her arms in front of her chest and gave her friend a pointed look. "What? You're gonna tell me you blush like that for any guy?"
Kate blushed harder, but said nothing.
"Plus, if I had guy looking like that after me?" Lanie carried on. "Oh, mama!"
At that moment, to Kate's relief (and she could see the irony in that), Castle reappeared –accompanied by a man the girls hadn't seen before. Smiling at them, the writer went over the introductions. "Joe, these are Kate and Lanie. Ladies, this is Joe Reid. He's the promoter for this concert."
As soon as they had all shaken hands with a round of polite nice to meet you's, Joe addressed the group with a smile. "If you would all follow me."
Castle and the girls immediately followed, but soon Kate leaned over to the writer and quietly asked, "What's going on?"
"I'm being nice." He smiled.
"Nice, Castle?" Kate snorted.
"Yeah. Don't look so surprised." His smile grew wider. "I got you two in the VIP area."
Lanie, who was standing by Kate's left side, spoke up, impressed. "You didn't. Oh my God!"
He laughed. "You're welcome," He replied just as they reached the entrance to the reserved area.
"Why did you do this?" Beckett asked in a quiet tone so only the writer would be able to hear.
"I told you I wasn't letting you go tonight," He whispered in her right ear. "This way you get to enjoy the concert and I get to watch you have a great time." He smiled genuinely at her when she looked at him. Then, he spoke again, in a louder voice. "Well, I hope you two have fun."
"You're not staying with us?" Lanie asked, kind of disappointed once she noticed the author easing into his goodbye – she had some serious plans for these two.
"Well, I don't want to intrude on your girls night out," He told her, grinning. "And, anyway, I have to, uh…"
"Go back to your date?" There was still a sting in Kate's voice.
"My non-date date," He corrected. "But yeah."
"Oh, come on Castle, don't tell me you'll put up a fight if the superhot date wants to go to bed with you."
Sensing the mood between her two companions, Lanie excused herself. "Okay, I'm going to checkout that bar. Be back when the air is breathable again over here."
"Lanie…" Kate tried to stop her friend, who was already moving towards the bar, but someone else stopped her.
"Kate." Castle interrupted, taking her right hand in his.
"Castle, seriously." She sighed, eyes closed, trying her best to fight off the feelings his touch rose inside her. "Go back to your non-date date or whatever that is. Take her home, have some fun. That's what you want right now and that's not something I can give you."
"Stop," He said, closing his own eyes and taking a deep breath. Once he opened them again, he was a bit more centered. "Just stop, okay? Chloe is not really what I want, okay? I just told you that."
The honesty she thought she could hear in his voice got the brunette to look up into his eyes. "What do you want?"
He took a step toward her then, leaving only a few inches of space between them. "You know what I want."
Feeling his eyes bore into her soul, Kate looked down. "I think there are a ton of drop-dead gorgeous women willing to give you what you want."
Looking over her head into nothing in particular, Castle addressed her concerns. "Look, I admit going out with a million of superhot girls is really fun and cool, but I want something different." He looked back at Kate, trying to make eye contact with her. "Something real."
"I doubt a recently divorced millionaire wants a commitment again so soon, Castle," She replied, her green eyes still downcast as she attempted to avoid looking into his blue ones.
On top of everything else, she hated the vulnerability her whole demeanor showed now.
"My last marriage seemed like a good idea, but I ended up not being what my ex-wife was looking for. And somehow she wasn't what I was looking for either." The author gently touched her chin to lift her head to him. "I wanted something genuine. Something that felt magical." He paused for a brief moment, admiring the beauty in Kate's features. "I still want that. And when I set my mind on something, I keep pursuing it until I either get it or am told I won't ever get it. So… you think there's a chance I might get what I want?"
"Maybe you're just trying too hard to find what you want and you're not thinking straight."
Rick was disconcerted. "What do you mean?"
"Castle, I've gone through a lot these past few years. Hell, this past few months have been hectic enough." She sighed in frustration. "I'm not sure how a date with me might help you achieve what you want."
Understanding her hesitation, he tentatively threw a charming smile in her direction. "Well, I think this is a discussion better left for our date tomorrow."
She let out a smirk for what it seemed the first time since she had gotten to this concert, and he was glad to have managed to break the serious mood for a while.
Kate couldn't help but feel somewhat proud that he seemed so interested that he was still pursuing her. Smiling shyly in return, she told him, "You're not giving this up, huh?"
Once he noticed she was close to accepting the whole date thing again, his smile turned full-blown. "Well, I've come this far… wouldn't dare to stop now."
The famous author and the anonymous detective were quiet for a few moments, just studying each other's features, staring into each other's eyes. After a while that seemed like days for them, Kate felt more than saw Rick inching closer to her face, until his lips were on the corner of her own.
"Until tomorrow, detective," He said, once he removed his lips from her cheek. And with that, he turned away and disappeared into the crowd.
Kate, speechless, could only touch the spot on her cheek where Castle's lips had been with her trembling fingers and feel the hint of a smile creep up on her lips.
And then she heard Lanie's sardonic voice behind her. "You're right. That man wants you just like he wants any of the other girls in here."
TBC
A/N: I'm so sorry for the delay! I won't even try to justify why I'm so far behind, but rest assured that now we're good to go again. By the way, I had planned to write date night into this chapter as well, but I haven't finished writing it and this was a decent-sized chapter as it was, so I felt it was best to stop here and give you all something already!
Next chapter will follow sometime this week, promise.
And, of course, thank you all for your response to this story. Hope you'll still stick with it ;)
(All characters and even some of the quotes in this fanfic don't belong to me. This is made available for entertainment only and not for profit. No copyright infringement is intended.)