Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop
It had been a pretty good week. A fantastic week, if he wanted to be truly honest with himself. All uphill after asking a five year old for permission to date her mother. That in itself was a new one for him. None of his past girlfriends, even the potential ones, had a pre-school-aged body guard he had to get through.
But with Kate, he was more than happy to talk to Al. Both of the Becketts were charming, sweet when they finally opened up, and independent to the point of stubbornness. Al had obviously inherited Kate's personality. But how much of her father, the absent man in their lives, did Al have in her? Another mystery that Castle was determined to solve by the end of the night.
That was, if Kate said yes.
The thought that she would turn down his offer to spend the night alone with him was terrifying.
And that was partially the reason he was hiding. No, not hiding, he told himself. Working. His real job.
Because in his book, he could make sure that the fictional version of Kate definitely said 'yes' to the fictional version of himself. Kate might murder him and get away with it if she read the scene he had just written out but since Castle hoped that, by the time this first book was published, he and Kate were together, he might be able to talk his way out of losing his life.
His phone rang, across the room so that he wouldn't be distracted by the latest update of Temple Run. Her ringtone. He got up, taking the distance from his desk in the study to the kitchen counter in half the steps.
You alive?
He slid onto one of the barstools at the island, grinning at his phone. Barely. Miss me yet?
Her text had come at the perfect time. He needed a break from staring at the page, hoping that the scene in his head would translate to words. Nikki Heat, oh she was going to kill him over that name for sure, and Jameson Rook were basking in an afterglow but he had no idea where he was going after that moment.
Miss Al more than you. At least she helps with the chores.
Ah. The paperwork he was missing out on.
Wait. Chores. Al would be at home and that wouldn't work for tonight. He needed Kate alone for their date. He adored the girl but he wanted Kate alone for the night. No buffer.
He put his chin on his palm, blinking at the fridge. "How do I get you alone?" he hummed along to the Heart song, turning his phone in his free hand. Then he typed out a response, telling Kate that he'd be coming in to the precinct in thirty minutes to help with her chores, that he was just finishing up this last scene.
Then he called up a number he had saved in his phone a month ago without Kate knowing.
"Hello?"
Castle stood up, needing to have this conversation upright. "Hello, Mr. Beckett. This is Rick Castle."
She had been staring at the form for the past two hours. The most she had written was her name and the boys were giving her concerned looks from their desks. So out of boredom, she had texted Castle. He had told her he was going to be writing all day to stop his publisher from breathing down his neck but she couldn't help herself.
When he said he'd be coming in, Kate barely contained a dance of victory. Only thirty minutes to survive before the cavalry arrived.
They had a plan. Jim was going to pick Al up from school and Castle would make sure that Kate didn't leave to get her daughter. As long as Kate said 'yes,' they'd be alone for the night. Last hurdle to jump over and all he could do was cross his fingers and hope.
Peters was reading when Castle walked into the precinct, a little later than he had predicted thanks to a car accident on FDR Drive. The other man tried to hide the book he had been scanning.
"What do you have there, Peters?" he asked, leaning his forearms on the desk.
"Uh, nothing."
Castle reached over and flipped the book over, ignoring Peters's attempts to knock his hands out of the way. "Classic choice. You know, I could sign that for you," he said, tapping his finger on the cover of the second Derrick Storm novel. "Wouldn't be a big deal."
The man tugged the book closer to him, shaking his head. "No. That's okay, Castle."
"If you're sure." Castle went up the stairs after the glance at the crowd around the elevator. No need in squishing in with another ten people just to go up four flights of stairs.
Ryan and Esposito were at their desks. When he got closer, Castle found that they were arguing over the best Chinese place in the city. Neither noticed Castle's presence, wrapped up in debating where the better egg rolls were made. So he looked into the break room, the conference room, observation for a sign of Kate. Nothing.
"Guys, have you seen Beckett?" he asked, interrupting the two.
"Just missed her," Esposito responded, not looking over at the writer as he glared at his partner. "Went to talk to Lanie for a while."
Ryan did break eye-contact to nod toward Kate's desk. "She did leave you some paperwork to finish."
"Yeah, right." Paperwork had been fun for the first week. A glimpse into the life of a real detective, not a fictional one that spent every hour of their day either running down leads or playing hardball with a suspect or in the middle of a gun battle. In a weird way, paperwork had given him a chance to get to know Kate as a cop. But now, now paperwork was boring to the point where he was ready to gouge his own eyes out a la Oedipus Rex.
Still, Castle went and sat in her chair, flipping through the files she had left on the keyboard with a Post-It telling him how to fill out each form. He plucked a pen from her mug of writing utensils and wrote a quick "Ha ha!" under the instructions, then piled the folders to the side.
This was not how he expected the afternoon to go. Now he had to sit around and wait for her to get back before he could ask her about tonight. He could already feel the anxiety eating away at his resolve.
It had been almost an hour and her shadow hadn't appeared yet. Someone needed to pull a Wendy Darling on them, sew Castle to her side so that he'd be on time.
"Ryan, Esposito," she called, swinging her jacket on and grabbing her keys. "Gonna go see Lanie. Tell Castle if he finally decides to show up."
So now, she was sitting on the corner of Lanie's desk listening to her best friend yell at her for not bringing Al or Castle around the morgue more often. Kate regretted leaving her paperwork.
"Sweetie, I hardly ever get to see either of them. I mean, when was the last time I spent any length of time with Al?" Lanie asked, taking away the bowl of Skittles that Kate had been dipping her hand into every few seconds. "And what are you doing with that writer of yours, Beckett?"
Kate frowned, reaching for the candy but Lanie kept it out of reach. "Lanie, he's just following me. Nothing more."
The medical examiner looked thoroughly unconvinced. "Following you? You sure that's all?"
"What would make you think it's anything more than him doing research?"
"I don't know, girl. Maybe the fact that he's babysitting Al sometimes, bringing her to the zoo, taking you home after you get hurt interrogating a guy Esposito tells me was twice your size. That's more than research, Katherine Beckett."
Kate sighed. When you put it like that… "Okay, so maybe we're friends."
"Friends?"
She kicked Lanie's thigh, shaking her head. "I don't know, Lanie. He was being all cryptic the other day about a date after I joked about being alone with him in the apartment. I mean, what do I say to that?"
"The right answer would be 'yes'."
"Say ' yes' to a date with Richard Castle?" Kate asked, sliding off the desk to pace around the empty autopsy tables. She resisted the urge to twist her hands together, keeping them at her side. "That's not… Lanie, I don't date celebrities."
Lanie shook her head. For all her smarts, Kate could certainly be incredibly stupid sometimes. "But that's not how you know him, Beckett. To you, he's just Rick. The nice guy you met at a coffee shop, became friends with, and charmed his way into the lives of you and Al."
"I'm leaving now." Kate gathered up her coat, half-heartedly glaring at her friend. "Because you're making too much sense and I don't like that."
The parting words from Lanie were "Say 'yes' to the man, Beckett!" as Kate left the autopsy room.
But the entire ride from the medical examiner's office to the precinct had Kate reaching the same conclusion that Lanie had pointed out to her. Castle was a friend, a good friend, and one that accepted Al as part of the deal. She had tried dating a few times but as soon as the topic of her daughter came up, most of the men ran in the opposite direction. This one, though, was the exception. Somehow, and Kate still wasn't sure how, he had wormed his way in. All without Kate noticing.
Which was why when she stepped out of the elevator and found him sitting in her chair, poking through the drawers of her desk, Kate didn't immediately tear his head off.
"Castle, get out of there," she said, sidetracking over to the break room to get coffee. She knew he wouldn't have done the paperwork she left there for him and she'd need the energy from caffeine to get through the rest of them.
Her mug was already on the counter next to a full pot of coffee. As she lifted the pot to pour the liquid into the cup, she caught sight of a scrap of paper, bright orange that told her it was from her pad of Post-Its.
His scrawl, not polished like Kate thought it would always be after years of signing books, was across the surface.
Dinner tonight with me?
Kate looked up, saw him glancing over at the break room window every two seconds, and smiled. Either Lanie was a mind-reader or she was in on the plan. She pocketed the Post-It, poured the coffee into two mugs, and went back to her desk.
He didn't speak at first and she gave him credit for holding in the excitement and apprehension she was sure he was feeling. Not even when she nudged the mug of coffee toward him with a grin. "What time are you picking Al and me up?"
Castle sat up straight, his blue eyes wide. "Uh, not Al. Just you. And six."
"Just me?" Kate asked, running a finger over the handle of the mug, her short fingernail tapping on the ceramic. "And just where is my daughter going to spend the night?"
He placed a hand over the one on her mug, giving it a squeeze, and drawing her eyes up to his. "Trust me. And be ready. Casual dress code."
"Okay." She tightened her hand on his for a moment, then tugged it away. "But first you need to help me finish this paperwork or there won't be a dinner for either of us tonight."
"Fair trade." Castle grabbed the stack of files, opened the first one, and waited for her to read off what she needed from him to fill in the report.
Never had he been more thankful for the tedium; it hid the suddenly overwhelming fear of screwing this up nicely.