A/N: Okay, celticgina begged me for weeks to update Tango and I think I owe her. I've been agitating her with lots of salty angst and she prefers sugar. Lots of sugar. So, without further ado, here is the latest for Tango. Word props to the same chica. Everyone excited about September? Woot!
Tiny
They'd been dating a little more than a month. Already in that short space of time, they were practically living together. More accurately, they were practically breathing the same air at all times. Classes aside, they were together nonstop. Morning, noon and night. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. Nearly 24/7 and - it was just a matter of time - 365 days a year. And yet they never got sick of each other. She didn't want nights with the girls, nor did she suggest that she needed more alone time. He didn't want beers with the boys, nor did he stay late at his office to work. She was early every time they agreed to meet. He stayed in her modest, roommate-infested apartment way past the walk-of-shame hours between 5am-8am. The three other girls living with her were now used to this imposing figure moving respectfully through the communal areas and into Grace's room, not to reappear until breakfast when he padded quietly into their kitchen and whipped up some saliva-inducing meal, which he then transferred to a plate and sauntered back into her room with. He stayed until his own schedule dragged him away, or he walked her to her morning class.
They liked him because he was unusually attentive to Grace and had a watchful, slightly broody hush about him.
They hated Grace because when they did hear him, he was trying to muffle an angry sexual roar that shot tingles straight to their toes. All of them were cadets like Grace, and all of them shared her slightly standoffish approach to macho-looking, male agents-in-training. The men in their classes often saw those girls as too butch, preferring their polar opposites: models, strippers and beach bunnies. As a result, the girls stayed single, or casually dated to ward off the lonely spates. None of them had ever seen the rare combination that was Wayne Rigsby. Macho, absolutely, but also...something else. Something softer. Something more knowing, and yet, less self-aware. Huge, but shadowy at the same time. Humble, but having all the elements of bravado. He simply chose not to assemble them. He was a strange creature, that was for sure. But he was physically striking and, while he treated Grace with a deference that each of them vehemently envied, he obviously fucked her like a sailor would a two-dollar whore. Their envy quadrupled.
His male friends and acquaintances fared no better. Suddenly the only one among them who had voluntarily lived like a monk was dating a supermodel. And, more to their stunned consternation, she was a supermodel that wasn't a skank. On one of their rare trips out into public, Wayne and Grace had run into his artillery class buddies and got roped into having a drink with them. Sitting 'round a booth in a rowdy tavern, the boys had planned to alternate between razzing Rigsby in front of his hottie about his supposed shortcomings and shamelessly ogling her while she sipped her white wine spritzer and behaved like a bored brat as they hammed it up.
Instead, they discovered she was a wolf in hot chick's clothing.
Not only did she smile when they told off-color jokes, she told two or three of her own. She laughed at their stories about Rigsby, but kept her eyes soft and rubbed his arm consolingly, letting him know that she was only laughing with them and not at him. She gave them an imperious nod when they suggested tequila shots, mostly to test how much of a good sport she truly was. She collected most of their hearts when she drained her eighth shot, set the glass facedown on the table, and said, "You boys let me know when you want to start drinking."
The men in his orbit weren't deaf either. Ten minutes after she'd enter his office, the thin walls filtered more information than they'd ever want about Rigsby's prowess as a lover. They learned he was big. Everywhere. He was more uninhibited than they'd ever given the quiet man credit for. He was ridiculously generous to her, though none of them could really fault him, given the fox factor of the girl. And his staying power was nothing to sniff at. It was clear that the couple was trying to stay quiet, but hours of fucking in a tiny space doesn't bode well for silence. The purely-male corridor in which Rigsby worked couldn't help but overhear. The man was a god.
As admiration and jealousy built steadily around them, they stayed perfectly ignorant of it. Grace rose to the occasion of boy's night, but she did it only for him. She wanted Rigsby to be proud of her. She wanted him to walk among his friends, smug in the knowledge that his girlfriend could hold her own and wasn't a whiny, naggy, unfun buzzkill that he had to make excuses for. He felt the same. Her apartment wasn't just hers. When he stayed with her, he was trespassing on the goodwill of three other women in that house. He appreciated their acceptance. It made him feel like less of an intruder. As a thank-you, he cleaned up his and Grace's dishes every morning. He spoke when spoken to, polite and respectful as his momma taught him to be. He replaced the groceries he ate. He sprang for pizza every week or so. He put the toilet seat down when he was finished. And he tried his very best to make love to Grace as quietly as possible. He often dragged them to the floor, mindful that her bed slammed against the wall during their rougher sessions. And he did it all without a second thought. Those girls were tied to Grace, hence their good opinion was vital.
Both he and Grace nurtured their tiny little world in every way they could. It was a universe of two, sometimes feeling so small and precious that it could fit in a nutshell. And yet, the reality was so much more. Their focus on their nutshell existence kept them from seeing the rolling waves of effect that it had on the people around them. It never occurred to them. Not even once.
People always notice true love.