Chapter 6 – The Hiccup

Around eight hours later, Richard Castle is standing outside the front of the Twelfth Precinct trying to look as if he isn't loitering with some dishonorable intent, while cop after cop passes before him. They stride in and out with their guns holstered, cuffs pressed into the small of their backs, batons and flashlights, notepads and hand sanitizer, pepper spray, tasers and whatever the hell else they secrete about their duty belts and persons to make them look like chunky, disproportioned cyber beings that rattle and clink when they walk.

"Hmm," the writer thinks, rubbing his chin, when this last descriptive thought strikes. "Cyber cops? Might actually be something in that for future use."

But then the big old doors swing open again with a squeak and a puddunk, and the thought is lost before he can file it away, superseded by the nerves churning right in the heart of his midsection. He never gets nervous, but tonight he is. There's a lot riding on this – a whole hell of a lot considering he's acting under Sergeant Hardass Halliday's instructions. He wrecks this one and a whole pile of crap is going to rain down on his perfectly coiffured head. She made that point perfectly clear for him earlier today. 34,000 pairs of eyes with Cathy herself at the top of the pile, peepers like human binoculars. He shudders at the thought, willing himself not to screw this up the way he's screwed up every other date he's gone on lately.

She actually ran a background check on him, told him so to his face while she trawled through every system she had legitimate access to - and probably a good few she didn't – looking for outstanding warrants, prior arrests, unpaid fines, parking violations and driving infractions. She ran a gun license check, did a property ownership search looking for liens, mortgage arrears, alimony payments skipped, and on and on. He wouldn't be surprised if she'd checked his credit score, pulled his financials, Googled his name for gossip, scoured his Facebook page for dodgy photographs, studied his website to read the many fan boards dedicated to his books, the fan fiction based on his books, and the unseemly obsession centered around his private life. Hell, she's probably got his phone tapped by now.

So dating Kate Beckett, or attempting to obtain a date with Kate Beckett, he mentally amends before he gets too cocky, is coming at one hell of a price. If he's ever in a position to meet Kate Beckett's parents, should he ever get that lucky, Hardass Halliday will most likely have handed them a dossier a couple of inches thick before he even pulls to a stop in their driveway.

So he's nervous, on edge, feeling the pressure for once in his life, since this matters, matters more than he can really figure out why. And that's before you get to Gina.

Gina's mad at him because he ditched her at the curb after calling her at stupid o'clock to come pick him up from a cell, or the next best thing. Bumping their morning meeting with marketing to boot? Well, that might not have been his smartest move. But then as far as Castle's concerned marketing is total BS. In fact, on this one point, Castle's firmly in agreement with Edwin Land, co-founder of Polaroid, who once said: "Marketing is what you do when your product is no good." Yes, Castle is firmly in that camp. He believes that good writing, a compelling story and a handsome, charismatic author should be more than enough firepower to sell books. Gina, Paula and Barry "The Marketing Guru" think differently however: dragging in an endless procession of ad agencies to make pitch after pitch strategizing a campaign for each new product launch…blah, blah, blah…

No, Castle's world is much simpler – he saw Kate Beckett out on the street looking as if she'd decided to come after him. He saw Kate Beckett seconds after Gina kissed him on the cheek, he saw her face fall, then he saw her coffee cup sail through the air, hit the edge of the trashcan and bounce inside - slam dunk! - even as she stormed back inside the precinct, Glock on her hip, ass as firm and round as a ripe clementine. Now that is a woman he needs to get to know.

Standing outside the Twelfth, as he is right now, makes him feel more alive than he has in a long time. It's shift changeover, a strange time of day, since the noise all around him is a mix of those happy to be going home with all limbs intact, tired but satisfied after an uneventful tour or exhausted and disheartened by a seemingly pointless pile of paperwork - paperwork completed in triplicate for the higher-ups to file in folders and then stick in drawers to be forgotten forever more unless unforeseen circumstances should warrant they be pulled for a second look. It's worker bee hive activity – mindless but essential, most of it.

But overall, these people seem glad, these men and women, he thinks, watching the backslapping and fist bumping and the occasional high five for a job well done. It's kind of hypnotic in a strange way, and it's kind of enviable too – this easy camaraderie between equals, buddies, partners, and coworkers. It's the kind of friendship Castle has never known, nor is likely to know. The kind of friends who'd take a bullet or a beating for one another if push came to shove, and if not, then a paycheck will suffice in the meantime.

Good job! Go home. See your kids. Kiss the wife.

It's a life well lived, the kind of thing he longs for. Someday, not too far off, when he meets the right someone.

Yes, he longs for it all, and he might even trade given half a chance. Because writing is a lonely pursuit and he is a sociable man. So he might think to trade the SoHo loft with its high ceilings and spacious floorplan, its gourmet kitchen, custom built closets, the hardwood floors and marble tile, the art on the walls and the "objets" his decorator sourced on his behalf to make the place look "stylish but lived in". He could forgo the huge TV, the surround sound, the steam shower and 1000 thread count cotton percale sheets that sooth his skin at night but leave his dreams no less tortured for their luxurious comfort and exorbitant price tag.

He's the man who has everything, and that everything includes a dark, cavernous sinkhole where his heart should be.

He wants…what? Something more than he already has, and he's not a hundred percent on what that even is yet. This fact makes him both vulnerable and a real jerk-off at the exact same time. So he needs this to go well. Boy does he ever. Because he's starting to think that what he needs is her.

He's freshly shaved, on Halliday's instruction, having not shaved for days before now. At the last minute he remembers to peel the raggedly torn, quarter inch piece of the New York Times' Book Review section off his jawline, stuck where he nicked his skin an hour ago and couldn't get the bleeding to stop. He showered, he perfumed and powered, he snipped and combed and spritzed and sprayed. He even trimmed his nails again, feeling like a new recruit aiming to pass muster. He put on a suit, a shirt and tie, then he looked at himself in the full-length mirror and he laughed at himself. Half bridegroom, half court appointed lawyer - he looked nothing like he wanted to. So he lost the tie, ditched the suit and he threw on a pair of black jeans with his open neck shirt, feeling more like his old self than he had in a long time once he was done.

Sergeant Halliday's instructions we crystal clear and delivered without room for compromise: "Be outside at 6.30pm. Not a minute later. I'll take care of the rest. And for God's sake, Mr. Castle, take a shower," she had thrown his way at the very last minute, following it up with one heck of a wink.

He had listened, in a manner of speaking. So now it's 6.15pm, and he's been here for quarter of an hour already – hence his issue with looking like some loitering creep. He had some flowers in his hand, a signed and dedicated copy of his latest book tucked under his arm, but then he ditched the lot at the last minute, judging it too try-hard when he hadn't even got her agreement to go out for so much as a beer at this point, let alone be sure she'd give him the time of day. The flowers and the book are lying discarded on his kitchen counter at home. He can picture them right now – pale pink peonies with fulsome petals like ballerina tutus exploding out of each frilly bloom. Now that he's without them, without their defense and allure – because who could reject a man with a bouquet of pink peonies, and in March no less! – he feels naked, unworthy, less interesting, maybe even unloveable.

Women expect things from men like Richard Castle, or at least the women he's been dating lately seem to. He discovered this pretty quickly, and to his great cost, as soon as he achieved a modicum of public profile after his first real literary success. These women expect gifts, lots of them, the more expensive the better; they expect dinners in fancy restaurants; Champagne cocktails at the latest, hottest bar; trips on jets and visits to his house in the Hamptons tend to seal the deal where no-strings company is concerned. A modest bouquet of peonies and a copy of his latest novel seem paltry by comparison, and yet somehow he thinks these are the most Kate Beckett would ever expect from him, let alone accept. He senses already that there's something different about her, something real, and it's for that reason he's so desperate to get close to her.

And then all of a sudden she's there, right in front of him without preamble, like some magical trick of the light. He missed her big entrance back into the world – he had planned to watch her come down the precinct steps. He'd taken bets with himself – would she walk or would she run? And now she's here and she's…not happy!

"What are you doing here, Mr. Castle?" she asks, bypassing him as she does so, like a speaking, moving target.

Castle scrambles to catch up with her. "Did…did Cathy not get a chance to speak to you?" he stutters, performing a kind of sideways scissors-style, crab-like walk so that he can talk to her while attempting to match her startling pace.

"Cathy?" she mocks, her eyebrows shooting up. "Oh, she talked to me alright. What did you do to her? Did you drug her? Maybe bribe her?" she asks, throwing a furious glance in his direction.

Castle rues the day he thought it was a dumb idea to bring the damned flowers along for this.

"No, of course I didn't drug her," he snorts derisively.

Kate takes the sound effects the wrong way, slamming to a halt and catching him unawares, so that he drifts on past for a good few sidesteps. Like a train that has missed the station, he has to back up to listen to her berate him some more, which is kind of embarrassing.

"Because a player like you would never have to trick a woman to get what he wanted, right?"

"I would never—" he begins indignantly, before being cut dead.

"Oh, save it for the judge," snaps Kate, taking off again at high speed down the sidewalk, leaving Castle floundering in a shallow puddle of his own indignation.

This is all wrong. It's going so badly wrong he doesn't even know what to do to salvage it or if he should even try.

He takes his last deep breath, thinks, "Here goes nothing" and lets rip loud enough for her to hear.

"She's my editor, okay? Not my girlfriend or my wife. My editor!" he yells after Kate Beckett, figuring if she ignores him now, while burly cops stare and point and snigger at him in the middle of the street, then maybe it wasn't meant to be.

He's done all he can, tried his hardest, lost his dignity, even taken his mother's advice for once – something about wearing your heart on your sleeve and always packing clean underwear, the specifics of which escape him right now at this moment of extreme stress and public humiliation. He doesn't even know this girl at all, he's acting on a damned hunch that she's special and different and, well a blind man could see how pretty she is, but that's beside the point…almost.

When the whistling and catcalling from passing cops has subsided, and he finally dares to look up again, she's standing in front of him, barely three feet away. Her cheeks are flushed and her hair is a tiny bit wild, and she's twisting her denim jacket in her hands like she's maybe a little uncomfortable with what just went down between them in the middle of the street. Before she opens her mouth to destroy his last shred of hope, he's going to call this a win and get out with all his limbs intact.

But then Kate gives him what he'd probably describe as a brave smile, and suddenly he can't seem to help himself, he opens his mouth to speak once more and all but ruins things all over again.

"You're wearing lipstick. Sorry, couldn't help but notice," he says, shrugging his shoulders a fraction. "Should I be honored?" he asks, referring back to her assertion just this morning that she doesn't wear lipstick...ever!

If it's possible for a whole city block in the center of Manhattan at rush hour to feel as if it just had all the air, all the noise, in fact let's just call it the entire atmosphere, sucked right out of it, so that only a void of you and her and the dumb thing you just said are left hanging there while you stare at one another; if that's possible, then that's what happened next.

But then there is this ripple, this nudge from the Universe, like a jolt from a defibrillator, and the world begins turning again.

"Wanna go...get a beer?" she asks, scuffing the ground with her boot. "I know a place a few blocks down. It's nothing fancy but—"

Lead me to your master, thinks Castle, wisely neglecting to verbalize this time. What he does manage to do is nod and then smile, before finally saying, "That'd be great," with all the normality and sincerity he can muster.

TBC...