Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop
Kate was fairly certain that she lost her sense of hearing when Al saw her waiting outside the school. Because as soon as the girl's eyes turned from talking with Maria as they exited the front doors to the playground fence that Kate was leaning against, she screamed. Maria looked a little concerned as her friend bolted away from her side, barreling down the sidewalk toward Kate. Al tripped, caught herself, then wrapped her arms around a pair of legs.
"Hey, Al," Castle said, teasing the end of Al's ponytail with his fingertips as he brushed his hand over her head. He caught Kate's smile out of the corner of his eye as he lifted his head from looking at the girl attached to his knees.
Then Kate pushed up off the chain-link fence, held her hands out to the side. "So now I'm chopped liver?"
Al released Castle's legs and let Kate lean down to pick her up in a hug. "Hi, Mom. You brought Rick," she murmured into her mother's ear.
"Surprise," Kate said back, setting Al back on the ground.
Al kept hold of one of Kate's hands, grabbing one of Castle's in the other. This time, it was Kate who glanced over at Castle who shrugged. The three of them, Al swinging her arms between the two adults, walked back to where Kate had parked the Crown Vic. March was coming to an end and the weather was finally warming up a little. She hadn't left the car running with the heat on so the car was chilly as they settled in.
"We going home?" asked Al from the backseat as Kate turned around to make sure the girl buckled her seatbelt.
"Nope." Kate secured her own belt, turned down the police radio on the dash, turned up the soft rock music on the FM radio, and pulled out into the traffic of after-school pick-up.
Al kicked her heels against the seat, looking in the rear view mirror at her mother. "Where're we goin'?"
"My place," Castle said, shifting so he could look back at the girl as her face blossomed into an expression of pure joy.
"Really? Mom, really?"
"Why would Rick lie to you, kid?"
Al pouted, but only a little since she was still wearing that completely over-the-moon smile. "He wouldn't."
"Right. We'll hang out with him until it's time to go home for bed."
Another scream of excitement echoed in the car before Kate turned to shoot a look at her daughter. "Sorry, Mom. I'm happy."
Castle braced his hand on Kate's headrest, winking back at Al. "Kate, can I scream, too?" When he got the same expression, he frowned. "What? I'm happy, too!"
"I'm surrounded by five year olds," she muttered.
The music filled the car for a moment before Al spoke again. "Hey! I'm five!" she said, holding up her hand, fingers splayed open.
They were in the middle of a cut-throat game of Candy Land when her phone rang from its spot on the dining room table. As Kate got to her feet, she saw Castle lean closer to Al, whispering into her ear.
"No collusion allowed, you two," she warned, going to get her phone.
"What does 'collusion' mean?" Al asked, her tongue working around the strange word slowly, glancing between the adults.
Kate heard the start of Castle giving Al the wrong definition of the word, saying it meant working separately and that they should form a team to take Kate down, before she answered the call. "Hello?"
"Hey, Katie."
Al let out a scream and Kate turned in time to see Castle trying to steal her cards. Not trouble, just the forty year old teasing the five year old. "Hey, Dad."
"Bad time? Because I can call you later when she's asleep." Jim had to be grinning with that tone of voice.
Kate paced into the kitchen, trying to find quiet even as Al clamored over the pillows, still on the ground from an earlier pillow fight, to grab the cards from Castle's hand. "No, we're over Rick's until bedtime. What's up?" she asked, plugging her free ear with her pointer finger, barely muting the fight going down in the living room.
When she looked over to the battleground, Castle was signaling to her. In the midst of becoming a human rock wall for Al to climb on, he was jerking his thumb toward the room behind him.
"Hold on, Dad," Kate said, interrupting the beginning of a work story. She navigated around the half-standing pillow and blanket fort to Castle's side, avoiding Al's flailing arms, and ducked her head down next to his.
"Use the study. It'll be quieter." When Kate mouthed "Thanks" and started to move toward the room, Castle caught her wrist. "And Kate? No snooping."
The fact that his eyes danced when he spoke proved that he perhaps didn't truly mind if curiosity got the best of her. So Kate reclaimed her hand, smiled cheekily right back at him, and went to open the red-stained door.
She flicked on the light just inside the door, sliding the dimmer up so she could make out the furniture. A desk, cluttered with open books piled precariously atop one another. There was a television in a corner, a wide sofa angled to face the screen. Right now, it was partially obscured by a rolling SmartBoard. A model boat had sails that fluttered in the air conditioning. The large framed photo of what appeared to be a staircase was on the opposite wall and Kate wondered if there was a story behind the image.
The entire area was masculine without shouting it. Subtle, all subtext, as if Castle himself had written the room into existence.
"Quieter now. Did you kill my granddaughter?"
Her dad's voice brought her back to the real reason she was in Castle's study. "Oh, no. Just cut her tongue out. Silence is golden. Restart the story, Dad."
As Jim chattered about his secretary, something to do with ordering the wrong food for lunch that day, Kate wandered the room. She flipped through the pages of one of the books on the desk, finding that it was about real estate. Sort of boring but that just intrigued her more. How did real estate fit into the new story, the one about her. No, not her, Kate corrected herself, walking over to the window in the office to look down at the street. A character based on her.
"Katie? You still there?"
"Oh, yeah," she said, still off in her thoughts. Really, she was wondering where he might be hiding an outline or something of this character so she could get some details, things to catch before he published the book. "Yeah, I'm here."
He laughed and Kate could see him shaking his head. "Tell me about your date."
Kate sat on the couch, tucking her feet up on the cushions in front of her butt, cuddling into the corner of the sofa. "Where do I start?"
He'd seen how Kate was searching for somewhere a little quieter than the living room, so of course he had pointed her to his study. With the door closed, it would be marginally better than standing in the kitchen with a finger in her ear to block out Al's excited squeals. Kate had looked relieved, not only for the chance to talk to whoever was on the other end of the phone and for the few moments of calm.
"Rick, we gonna play?" Al asked, giving his sleeve a tug.
"Doesn't seem fair with Mom on the phone, does it?" he responded, pushing himself up off the floor. A quick survey of the damage to his living room had him grinning. Having a child running around the loft had felt… right.
The entire afternoon had been so strangely normal for them. Picking Al up at school, making snacks in the kitchen before creating a fort out of pillows from every room in the place and a collection of blankets from the linen closet. The three of them had sat around inside their little fort, Al between Castle and Kate, giggling over nothing. Then a 'dragon' had attacked, causing the fort to fall down. Kate had kept her mouth shut when she saw Castle push down the supporting couch cushion before tackling the two women to protect them. And he had pretended not to notice how Kate's breathing quickened when he had his head next to hers and whispered about protecting the ladies fair, his body so close to hers that she had shivered a little.
Then Al had insisted on playing a game. Kate had brought over some of their board games from her place to have in case they visited. When given the option, Al had chosen Candy Land over Hi! Ho! Cherry-O!, insisting on setting up the board.
"You're right," Al sighed, sitting back against the couch, pushing at her hair that had long fallen out of her ponytail. "I guess we can wait."
He went toward the kitchen, kicking aside a throw pillow as he went. "You want something to drink, kid?"
"Juice, please!"
Castle found the container of apple juice in the back of the fridge, poured some into her plastic cup. When he handed it to the girl, he could see that she was getting tired. Her eyes were drifting shut, then snapping back open. He wished he had a cover for the cup so if it did tumble from her hand, it wouldn't spill over the carpet. "Let's see if Mom wants something to drink."
"M'kay," Al said, cradling the cup against her chest as she stayed sitting.
He pushed open the door to the study, found that she had only cracked it and not closed it completely. So when he stepped into the office, he heard something that stopped him in the doorway.
"Oh, Dad, I'm so happy. He makes me so happy."
She was sitting on the couch, the one he almost always fell asleep on while watching movies. Even in the dim light, he could see that she had her knees up against her chest, her cheek resting on her kneecaps, looking out the window at the skyline of SoHo. She was facing away from him but he could almost see the corner of her lips turned up in a smile. Instead of doing the right thing and turning back around, letting her talk to her father in private, he leaned a shoulder against the bookshelves that formed the dividing wall, and listened.
"He's so good with Al. We spent the afternoon playing games, building forts, and laughing. It was like we've been doing this forever and not just for the past few months."
Agreed.
Kate shifted, stretching her legs out in front of her, flexing her toes. "No. Yeah. Okay, maybe a little. But wouldn't it scare you?" She sighed, rolled her eyes, then leaned forward to pick at her chipped toenail polish. "No, Dad. I'm not running away from this. I don't need another broken heart on my hands." She paused, pulled her lips into her mouth for a moment. "Of course I meant both of us. Go take Sadie for her walk. I'll give you a call tomorrow night. Night, Dad."
She got up, tucking the phone back in the front pocket of her jeans, and turned. "Oh. Hi."
"Hey," he said, stepping into the study, closing the door a little. "I make you happy?"
Castle saw the blush creep across her cheekbones as she pushed her hands into her back pockets. "You heard that?" He only nodded once, a tiny smile on his face. "Yeah, figured."
He took a step closer, watching her blink in confusion. "So that's a 'yes'? I really make you happy?"
"You do." She swallowed hard, shrugging one shoulder. "You get me, Rick. Like, really get me. I'm not easy to get to know, especially since Al came along, but you did it."
"Do I get a reward?" he asked, moving until her calves hit the arm of the couch. "For 'getting you'?"
To hide the fear that she had told her dad about, Kate smiled up at him. "Aren't I enough?" Wow. That was a little forward for her. And no alcohol to blame it on. So she ducked her head, trying to gather a response that would make sense, a reason for the statement.
But he spoke before she could clear her thoughts. "More than, Kate." Then, before he could stop himself, he placed a knuckle under her chin and turned her face up from the floor. "Way more than," he whispered before kissed her.
Kate wasn't able to hold back the little sigh as she stepped a foot between his, still leaving space between their bodies. The finger he had placed under her jaw came up to cup her cheek, his fingers brushing her hairline. His free arm settled on her waist, giving her the slightest tug forward until their thighs met.
"Rick," she said, not pulling away completely but letting her forehead rest on his cheek. "My daughter's in the other room."
He shifted his head so he could brush his lips across the corner of her mouth. "Mhm." Then he stepped back, his arm sliding down her side until it tangled with her fingers. "Just needed to check something."
"What?"
As he pulled her toward the door to the living room, he rubbed his thumb over hers. "You still scared of this?"
Kate stopped short of the door, could see Al sipping at juice from a cup while pushing the game pieces around on the board. Oblivious to what was going on in the office just feet away. "Rick, I'm completely terrified."
"Good." He spun her so she was pressed against the bookshelf, not trapped but crowded so that the spines of the hardcovers were hitting her vertebrae. And he kissed her again, softly as if he were trying not to scare her off. When he moved back, her breathing was shallow against his cheek. "Because I'm absolutely petrified as well."
He smiled, not cocky but sweet. "Now let's go finish up Candy Land so that you two can get home for bed."
As if the entire night was utterly normal for them.
What Kate felt through their still-linked fingers was that he wanted it to be normal for them. She hoped that he could sense the same thing from her side.
"Al, you ready to beat Mom's butt?" he asked, crossing his legs as he sat down on the floor near the board.
The girl grinned, shifting forward so her knees brushed the game board. She glanced at Kate who had settled with her thigh against Castle's, their hands on his knee. But she didn't comment. Instead she handed over Kate's cards, then picked up her own. "Your turn, Mom. Good luck."
Kate flipped her cards over, then smirked. "Remember who you're going home with, kid."
"Oh, Rick would keep me." Al sound so sure, so happy, that Kate had to hide her smile behind her fanned out cards.
And Castle rubbed his fingertips over the back of Kate's hand on his knee. "You bet I would."
Kate knew he wasn't just referring to Al. The thought simultaneously made her heart flutter and the adrenaline kick into high gear.
Love. This just had to be love.