Non-smutty; tag to Murder and Mozzarella.

-j&p-

They finished the bottle he'd brought and Phryne was tempted to open another…and so she did. Something had changed, there was a new determination in his eyes, but even so, he wasn't showy. It made her wonder, not for the first time, what he was like when he was younger, made her wish she'd known him for a lot longer. But she knew enough of life to know that it made its own path, and for all of the push/pull tug she felt with Jack, she also couldn't help feeling as if they'd met each other at the perfect time in both of their lives. "Tell me about Concetta," she found herself saying, surprising herself as well. But it seemed harmless enough, especially when he eyed her with an amused glance over the top of his glass.

He swallowed a sip and then set the glass down. There was less of a teasing tone in his eyes than from before, when she'd asked about his lady friend.

"She's an admirable woman," Jack began. "I met her during the case we discussed, and at first, the food was good," he trailed off with a grin.

Phryne matched him and chuckled. "You and your food."

He shrugged a shoulder. "A man has to eat, after all."

"True," she conceded, desperately wanting to ask if the lovely Italian widow had satisfied any other of his masculine appetites.

"And over time, I came to find her to be very smart and easy to talk to."

Phryne wondered again at Jack's personal life, who his friends were, who he confided in, if anyone. They'd fallen into a tremendously successful professional partnership, but she knew she also had other friends and outlets to turn to for different parts of her life.

"She proposed," Jack added.

Phryne felt her stomach bottom out for a short second. "I see," was all she replied at first.

Jack's mouth curved to the side as he nodded once in acknowledgement. "And tonight, she…rescinded her offer."

The relief she felt, a magnified version of what she'd felt when Mr. Butler announced him that evening, surged up quickly and would require deeper analysis later, privately. "I see," she said again, but it was all she could quite manage verbally as she processed this new information. She knew enough about the case to know Concetta would have been trying to escape an unhappy arranged marriage, and she knew enough about Jack's inner goodness to see that he would have been tempted to help. "Sounds like it would have been an easy solution all around," she added.

"True," Jack agreed, and picked his glass back up, swirling the wine around for a second. "Except for one little thing."

He met her eyes, and her eyebrows rose, inviting him to continue.

His eyes were warm, but sure, and his lips curved up a fraction. "Well," he began. "It turns out I'm rather hooked on doing things the hard way."

Pleasured heat flittered through her system, and she couldn't help the smile that spread across her face. "To the hard way, then," she toasted, lifting her glass in his direction.

His smile made it to his eyes as he returned the motion and then took another sip of wine.

-j&p-

No Regrets:

1/2 oz gold tequila
1/2 oz Bailey's Irish Cream

Pour the irish cream into a shot glass, add the gold tequila, and shoot.