This comes from the following incredible prompt, submitted by peggdaniels on tumblr: "i slept with you the other day and i didn't know we had a mutual friend and now we're sitting across each other for brunch and it's awkward because i ran out when you were asleep." Here's our first AU of the binge!
Also: oh wow this got a lot longer than I thought it would be when I outlined it. I really like how it turned out though, oh boy. hope you do too.
Brunch with some coworkers was supposed to be a fun thing. It was Eve and Flynn's anniversary and they wanted to get brunch with their friends before they left that night for a vacation. Cassandra loved the idea; she thought it was sweet that they wanted to share this celebration with others. She loved the idea right up until the moment she sat down at the table and looked across it into the eyes of Jacob Stone.
She hadn't thought she'd be seeing him again, especially so soon.
Okay. No, this was fine. She could handle this. "Cassandra, this is my friend Jake, from the gym," Eve was introducing her. "Jake, this is Cassandra, she works with Flynn."
"Hi," he said with a forced smile. Okay, this was totally fine.
"Hi," she answered quickly, then found a reason to look somewhere else. To her left. "Judson! Charlene! It's so good to see you guys, it's been so long."
"How are you, darling? Is Flynn saving his receipts?"
Cassandra laughed. "Don't worry, I stay on his case about it."
The chair to her right pulled out from the table and her best friend dropped into it. "Sorry I'm late!" Ezekiel greeted, reaching for the coffee in front of him and dipping a finger in to check if it was still hot.
"That's fine, traffic wasn't great when we came up either," Eve answered him.
"Not really traffic so much as just who I am as a person," Ezekiel said candidly. Cassandra was already passing him the sugar dish and the creamer, which he accepted gratefully. "How is everyone?"
"Good," Cassandra answered. "I wasn't sure what you'd want for your meal but I ordered you a mango smoothie."
"And that's why you're my favourite." He shot her a grin and turned his attention to Eve as she offered him introductions to the people he didn't know.
x
Cassandra didn't know what exactly she was after at the bar that night, but she'd gotten pretty tired of spending so many nights in alone. She liked her apartment and her books but once in a while she did want company, and Ezekiel and Eve weren't always available. The bar in her own neighbourhood seemed like a pretty low-risk step out into the world. It wasn't too big, it was never overstuffed, and if she really didn't like it she could be home again inside of eight minutes.
She'd gotten brave after her club soda and was now sipping a mild, fruity cocktail on a stool at the bar, contentedly people-watching for the time being. She saw couples, groups of friends, and a scattered handful of other people who seemed to be there on their own. No one was really catching her eye, but that was all right. She wasn't necessarily looking for someone specific, at least not at this point; just being around other people was good enough for the time being.
But then she glanced up as the front door opened and someone new strolled in. Unlike many of the faces she'd seen in the bar that night, she didn't recognize him from the neighbourhood or even elsewhere in town. With her job, it wasn't uncommon to run into people she knew around the city. But this guy, Cassandra would have remembered – good-looking, maybe a few years older than her, with an air of quiet confidence and a catching smile, too, she noted when he sat down a couple stools away from her and grinned at the bartender.
Realizing she was staring, she looked down into her drink, but she didn't turn away quite in time not to be caught. There was no one in the space between them and he shot her a glance and a friendly smile, clearly unperturbed. "Hey, how are ya?" he asked affably, a charming Southern tinge to his accent.
She smiled back, a little shyly. "I'm doing pretty well, you?"
"Not bad at all," he answered. He looked up and nodded at the bartender as she handed him the beer he'd asked for, then – to Cassandra's mild surprise – returned his attention to the conversation. "You here alone?"
It seemed more like a regular icebreaker than a come-on, which was interesting. She answered honestly. "Yeah, I live in the area. Didn't quite feel like staying in tonight, but didn't have anywhere in particular to go…"
He nodded. "We all have those nights, I think," he said. Turning to face her properly, he offered his hand. "Jacob Stone."
"Cassandra Cillian," she answered as she shook, unable to suppress her smile.
x
Jake had been flattered when Eve invited him along for her anniversary brunch. He'd only met Flynn the once, and mostly only hung out with Eve at the gym, so it surprised him a little to realize that she considered him so close a friend. He'd gathered that most of her and Flynn's other friends were Flynn's coworkers, so it'd be a table of strangers to him, but he was never one to turn down a good plate of French toast, and he thought it was kind of Eve to ask him along, so he was happy to accept. It would have been an understatement to say he was surprised when he looked across the table and saw Cassandra Cillian.
Really, it shouldn't have shocked him quite so much, considering he knew she was a librarian and he knew Flynn was too. Still, this city had probably a dozen different libraries. Some small part of his brain did hear Eve explaining that this was Cassandra, she works for Flynn, he introduced us a year or so ago and we really hit it off. He also, somehow, managed to catch the rest of the introductions after that, just barely – that was Jenkins, another coworker of Flynn's; there's Judson and Charlene, they used to work for the library too but they're retired now, practically like parents to Flynn. And there's Ezekiel, that's Cassandra's best friend, we met him through her, pain in the ass but a good kid really.
By some stroke of sheer luck, Eve didn't notice how he froze up when he saw Cassandra. Normally that woman read him like a book, but she was mostly distracted talking to Flynn and Charlene about something. On his left, Jenkins was busy reading the menu, leaving Jake to stare into his coffee desperately trying to come up with something, anything that could solve this problem. He couldn't cut and leave now; Eve would question him about it next time she saw him – there was no way he could keep her from noticing how awkward he was while ducking out. Even if he tried to come up with an excuse, there was no lying to Eve Baird. And, in spite of himself, he was still really looking forward to that French toast.
He looked up surreptitiously at Cassandra again and watched her interacting with Ezekiel as he got himself sorted, passing him the sugar and creamer, letting him know she'd ordered him a smoothie. He called her his favourite. They were awfully close. Oh, shit, had he-? But his momentary terror abated when Ezekiel stretched, revealing a fresh hickey on his neck, and Cassandra swatted him and said something about a Cindy, so no, he seemed safe.
The longer Jake sat there, the more it felt like his only option was to keep sitting there, quietly, and hope that either things ended soon or he managed to will himself clean out of existence. As if he hadn't felt bad enough last weekend – now he was sitting across from her at this table, pretending they had never met, and oh god this was the most uncomfortable he had ever been in his entire life. He was a man who, generally speaking, dealt with things by avoiding them. Apparently the universe had decided it was time to play a cruel trick on him and make this one, enormous thing completely unavoidable.
x
Jake hadn't gone into that bar looking for company. He'd gone in looking for a beer. It had caught his eye on the way home from this job a couple times, and he figured, what the hell, it was Friday, he could stop for a drink. But when he'd caught that redhead watching him, wow. He couldn't resist striking up a conversation.
She was a little shy, but she opened up pretty fast to a friendly face. They traded names, and he asked what she did for a living. She was a librarian. He was in construction, he told her, but he did love to read. Not something he normally let on – it was a bit of an impulse – but any excuse to keep talking to this girl. She was so enthusiastic once she got going. Her interest was in math and sciences, she told him; she couldn't get enough of any of it. He was more into literature, history, the arts. But that didn't stop them from talking – if anything it only made things more engaging. She was so enthusiastic about the things she loved; he couldn't not listen. And she asked so many questions about the topics he was interested in. She'd gleaned a little about the arts, she said, from her boss, who was something of a polyglot from the sounds of it, not to mention from another coworker who'd taken her under his wing a bit. But she loved learning more. It wasn't her strong point, but it was so interesting, partly because it was so different from what she was good at.
Somehow, god only knew how, Cassandra had gotten him talking about poetry. Jake never did this – this was a private side of him, something he rarely showed to anyone, but it was so easy with her. Not only was she absolutely gorgeous, but she was so sweet, so genuine, so enthusiastic – not to mention clearly a genius, which he was in a position to recognise. And, if nothing else, the chances were he'd never see her again. It was hardly a risk, as these things went. At some point he'd shifted to the stool right next to her; he was nursing his second beer now, drinking slowly because of the conversation.
She had finished her cocktail a few moments ago and was sipping from a small glass of water as she listened intently to his description of Raymond Carver's work. Still listening, she leaned over slightly to give his beer a curious sniff, waving her hand over the neck of the bottle like one would a test tube. "Sorry," she said, a little sheepishly, as he paused to watch her. "I was just wondering. I'm not a huge beer drinker, but I didn't recognize this one."
"Oh," he said with a grin. "Yeah, it's one o' my favourites. Hard to find around here. You can taste it if you want."
"You don't mind?" Cassandra asked, taking it from his hand. He shook his head and watched as she took a small sip. "Oh, yeah," she decided with a nod. "That's pretty good, actually. I like it."
"You want one?" he asked.
She seemed surprised. "Um- well, you don't have to, I can buy it myself-"
"Nah, it's on me," he said cheerfully, waving the bartender over. "Consider it a thank you. I couldn't tell ya the last time I had such a good conversation."
"Well, all right then," she answered, smiling and dipping her head a little. Good god but she was cute. He couldn't remember the last time he'd met a woman like this.
x
As everyone chatted, waiting for their breakfast to arrive, Ezekiel glanced around the table. Through Cassandra, he knew Eve pretty well by now; the three of them hung out fairly often. He recognized Jenkins and Flynn from dropping in on Cassandra at work, and though he didn't know Judson and Charlene personally, he knew them by name. The only stranger was the guy sitting on Eve's left, across from Cassandra – Jake, his name was?
Ezekiel read people pretty well, and even if he didn't know this new guy, he could tell the man was trying to disappear. He barely looked up from his coffee unless he was being spoken to, and he was tense all over despite his attempts to look casual. And, Ezekiel couldn't help noticing, Cassandra was trying to look everywhere except at him. When she did have to interact with him – passing napkins down the table when Flynn spilled some tea on the tablecloth – she was excessively polite and a little clipped, which was very unlike her around someone new. But her whole body was closed off and rigid, pulled in tight like she was afraid of unexpectedly touching anyone around her.
Ezekiel frowned slightly, wracking his brains for a moment. Then, suddenly, it struck him like a train – that guy from last weekend. She hadn't told him everything, but she'd told him enough. The guy's name had been Jacob, or something, hadn't it? How had she described him? Good-looking, a little rugged, kind of cowboy-ish. Ezekiel took a long sip of his coffee, trying not to show anything on his face as he put the pieces together.
Next to him, Cassandra was working very hard to act normal. The table was narrow, there wasn't a lot of space between her and Jacob; she kept her feet tucked under her chair and her arms close to her sides, trying not to accidentally interact with him. But she was polite, and as impersonally friendly as she could manage. She tried to pay attention to anything else, participate in any other conversations. Next to her Charlene was talking with Eve about the vacation she and Judson were just back from; to the left of them Judson and Flynn were deep in some discussion about the library. She listened for a while to Charlene's tales of the Greek ruins they'd visited.
"Of course, you know, it had been ages since either of us were in the Mediterranean. So much has changed…"
At some point when that conversation petered out for a few minutes, Cassandra turned the other way and asked Jenkins how his tea was, and what had he been up to this weekend, and had he worked out that issue with the missing catalog cards yet? She stole a sip of Ezekiel's smoothie, trying to look at anything but the man in the seat across from her. Still, she couldn't help stealing glances every now and then. Mostly he was staring at his coffee or the drink menu or Eve, listening to her conversation with Charlene, which had picked back up. At least he wasn't looking at her, thank god.
Finally the food came, which seemed like a blessing at first, until conversations died down as people began to eat. Cassandra stared intently at her eggs, praying for something, anything to happen. What felt like an absolutely interminable amount of time later, people finally started to chat again, and the weight on her shoulders lightened a bit – until she heard Ezekiel say, "So – it's Jake, right?"
x
It wasn't that Cassandra was unaccustomed to talking to smart people. She worked with very smart people. But Jacob was so interesting, and so approachable. And it didn't hurt that he was handsome to boot. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had such a long and engaging conversation with someone so attractive. It had been a while, anyway, and she wasn't going to say no to the attention.
He was two beers in and, apparently, just loosened up enough to go on a passionate little tangent about native art in Oklahoma, where he was from. The subject was completely unfamiliar to her, but she was fascinated. She leaned in, listening closely, resting her chin on one hand and her elbow on the bar. He gestured as he talked, describing a network of caves that had recently been discovered in an oil-drilling operation, and all of the paintings that had been unearthed in the process. It reminded her of another cave she'd read about recently, and when he slowed down, she cut in. There had been some mining in Iceland late last year that had revealed a cavern full of rare crystal formations, and new photographs and information had just recently been made public. The story was enthralling to her, and he couldn't help grinning as he listened to her mounting excitement.
She was taken completely by surprise when he leaned in and kissed her. Not that she didn't want him to; she was more than receptive to the idea. He pulled away fairly quickly, though, looking down in embarrassment. "Sorry, uh, I…"
"Don't be," she answered him with a smile. He glanced back up and met her eyes, returning her smile just a fraction nervously.
x
Jacob had been surprised when Ezekiel suddenly struck up a conversation with him, but all he could do was respond. "Yeah, from the gym," he confirmed with a nod, in answer to the latest question. "Year or so ago she started correctin' my form, and we just kinda naturally got to talkin' about other things eventually."
"That sounds like Eve," Ezekiel laughed. "So whereabouts do you live?"
"Uh, a little east of Eve and Flynn," he answered. "Near the sports centre, if you know where that is?"
"Oh, yeah, I think I know the one," Ezekiel said with a nod. "Decent area. What do you do?"
"I'm in construction," he said simply, taking another bite of his French toast. It was hard to miss the concerned glances Cassandra was shooting at her friend, but he probably shouldn't acknowledge them. Ezekiel certainly wasn't. "We're workin' on that big condo down in the textile district."
"Oh, cool, yeah. Heard that place was gonna be swanky." The young man kept making idle conversation, mostly meaningless stuff, and Jake couldn't help wondering what was going on. He felt like he was being assessed for something, but he had no idea what. At least the questions were easy to answer; anything that required more thought would have had to battle for space with the large part of his brain that was still thinking about the woman across from him.
He still felt awful about Saturday morning. By extension, he felt awful about Friday night as well, but mostly that had been amazing – it was the morning he really regretted. But he'd been scared witless when he woke up and bolting was the only way he knew how to deal with it. He'd been agonizing about it all week; it had to be one of the dumbest things he had ever done. But he wasn't good at lasting, meaningful connections anymore. The friendship he had with Eve was the most important relationship he'd built in years, and it did mean a lot to him, but it was still a very safe one. They almost never talked about anything other than the gym and work. She certainly didn't know any of the things he'd revealed to Cassandra that night.
That was the problem, though. He had revealed a lot.
"You in there, mate?"
Jake blinked. "Yeah, sorry. Got sidetracked for a second. What were you sayin'?"
x
Jacob didn't quite know what had come over him. She had paused in her story to take a breath and a sip of her beer, and he just – he couldn't help it. She'd been so friendly and receptive all evening, nothing to suggest she wasn't interested. They'd been leaning in close for the last forty minutes at least. Really, they'd even been flirting a bit, if subtly. A playful joke here and there. And just the body language – all laughing, listening closely, leaning forward, open postures. He knew he'd seen her look at his mouth. So he leaned all the way in and kissed her. An old instinct that hadn't had the opportunity to be indulged in ages.
He was immediately embarrassed. "Sorry, uh, I…" he tried to come up with an excuse, but what was there? He just didn't want her to think that picking her up was all he'd been after in the first place, because it wasn't. He hadn't done anything like that in years, and he certainly hadn't had it in mind when he came in here, or even when he'd started talking to her. But there was such a connection, one that he hadn't expected, nor ever really felt before, and it just overwhelmed him for a moment.
"Don't be," Cassandra answered, and when he looked up again, she was smiling at him. He smiled back, a bit anxious about it. He twisted his third beer in his hands.
"You're, uh – you're pretty great," he said lamely.
Her smile, still a little shy, only grew. "Thanks," she replied. "You are, too." She bit her lip for a second, then leaned in and kissed him again. He rested one hand on her bare knee, momentarily lost in the softness of it, before she pulled back slowly. She took another sip of her drink, apparently fine with his hand on her leg, so he left it where it was while she finished the story she was telling about the cave with the rare crystals.
Somewhere at the end of her story, they sat and just watched each other for a moment, smiling a bit. His hand was still on her knee; their empty beer bottles were next to them on the bar. Cautiously, she slid her left hand along the counter and touched his fingers where they rested there. "Hey, um," she started slowly. "It's kind of noisy here now. I only live a couple minutes' walk away, if you wanted to come back to my apartment to talk more? I could show you that book I was talking about, the one about how music impacts the human brain…"
Jake hesitated. They both knew the invitation wasn't about a book. This probably wasn't the wisest thing to do, but he really, really wanted to. He had almost never clicked so quickly or so deeply with another human being, and goddamn if he wasn't attracted to her, too. "Yeah, okay," he finally said with a smile. "That sounds good. I'll just have to drop a couple more bucks in the meter by my truck."
x
Cassandra could not figure out what the hell Ezekiel was doing. To anyone who didn't know him as well as she did, it would sound like he was making totally innocuous conversation, and if she was being honest she wasn't sure he wasn't – but he had also managed not to catch any of the meaningful looks she'd tossed his way, and normally he was more observant than that, which probably meant he was ignoring her on purpose. She was tempted to kick him under the table, but she also didn't want anyone else to notice the commotion. Eventually she gave up and turned away, trying to pay attention to Eve and Charlene's conversation again, but it was hard not to listen to what was happening behind her.
Ezekiel was still chatting with Jacob about this and that when he paused for a moment, muttered "aw, crap," and apologized to Jacob. She felt him tap on her shoulder, and when she turned around he was looking at his phone. "Hey, did you drive here?" he asked her.
"Yeah, didn't you?" she asked.
He shook his head. "Cindy has the car today. Something came up though, I gotta get downtown ASAP."
"Aw, I can drive you!" she offered, relieved to have the excuse.
"No no, I'd hate to make you leave early, I know you were looking forward to this," Ezekiel answered, pausing to think for a second. Then he glanced across the table at Jacob. "Hey," he said slowly, "what if I borrowed your car and Jacob drove you home? You said you live by the sports centre, right?" The second question was directed at Jake. "So you must go past the college? Cassandra lives right near there."
Taken by surprise, Jacob blinked. "Uh – yeah, I guess," he stammered.
Ezekiel turned back to Cassandra, eyebrows raised in earnest. "I'll bring the car back tonight, promise. I just really gotta get down there."
"Are – are you sure you don't just want me to take you?" she tried again, suddenly desperate.
"No, you spent all week telling me how much you looked forward to this brunch!" he insisted. "I'd hate to cut it short on you."
Cassandra tried hard not to let it show how much she'd rather leave. "Yeah, all right," she agreed, reaching for where her purse hung on the back of her chair. "Is Cindy okay?"
"Everything'll be fine. I'll give you the details later. Thank you, Cassandra." While she dug for her keys, Ezekiel reached across the table to get Eve's attention. "Hey, something came up with Cindy, I gotta go. Cassandra's letting me take her car, but Jake said he'd give her a lift home, it's on his way."
"Oh, okay," Eve answered. "Hope everything's all right. Give Cindy our love."
"I will. Thanks Eve. Happy anniversary." He waved quickly to Flynn as he stood. Taking Cassandra's keys from her outstretched hand, he thanked her again and dropped a kiss on top of her head on his way out. That was what really convinced her he was worried; Ezekiel only really got affectionate when something was wrong.
Ezekiel gone, Cassandra swallowed and glanced across the table, making eye contact with Jake for the second time that morning. He looked at least as concerned and thrown off as she was. All right. This was fine.
x
Cassandra woke up slowly on Saturday morning, the previous night still bobbing through her head. Damn. She could count the number of one night stands she'd had on two hands and still have fingers left over, but still, that had been her best one. And hell, even what had come before it. The conversation had been amazing. She almost regretted sleeping with him instead of giving him her number and just asking to see him again. Well, maybe it wasn't too late?
Once she was thinking about it, she didn't need to roll over to know he wasn't in the bed any more. Sitting up slowly, she glanced around and saw that his clothes were all gone from the floor. Fighting a sinking feeling in her stomach, she climbed out of bed, wrapped up in her housecoat, and padded into the living room. Nope. It was too quiet for anyone else to be here, and a quick circuit of the apartment confirmed it. All she found were last night's wine glasses washed in the rack next to the sink, which seemed an odd gesture, though not, she reflected, unwelcome. With a sigh, she turned on the kettle and shuffled back to the living room, curling her legs under her in her chair.
She sat and thought for a few minutes, trying to decide how she felt about the situation. Disappointment was the only thing she could pin down for certain. She looked at her phone for a minute, considering. Eve, she knew, was working this morning. So, after another moment, she dialled her best friend. "Ezekiel?" she asked when he picked up. "Had a weird night. You wanna come by for a coffee?"
x
Now, Jake found, instead of willing brunch to end as soon as possible, he wished it would go on forever. Sitting across from her at this table was awkward, but driving her home would be much worse. He didn't want to be trapped in his truck with her for the twenty minutes it would take to get her there. He also, however, couldn't leave her here alone.
Some part of him hoped desperately, as they wound up their meal (Cassandra paying Ezekiel's bill with a small sigh), that someone else would offer her a lift. But it sounded like Jenkins had to go to the library afterwards, and Charlene and Judson lived in the opposite direction. And before he could get any idea whether Flynn and Eve could take her, Eve turned to him. "Thanks so much for offering Cassandra a lift, by the way, Jake. We would've taken her but we have to run some errands before our flight leaves tonight, and time is tight. I really appreciate it, you're a pal."
"Thanks for coming, Jake," Flynn added, leaning around her to shake hands. "Sorry we didn't talk much! Next time."
"No problem," Jake found himself answering, plastering on a smile. "Thanks for invitin' me. Happy anniversary, you guys."
Once bills were paid and goodbyes were said all around – evidently Cassandra needed to hug Charlene and Judson because she saw them so rarely, and Eve and Flynn had to hug them because they were leaving the country that evening – everybody headed out into the parking lot. Cassandra and Jake still hadn't spoken to each other yet, so he just gestured awkwardly towards his truck, and they clambered in in silence.
As he fumbled his key into the ignition, she finally spoke. "So, um, do you need the address?"
"I remember," he answered woodenly, not looking at her.
They drove in silence for a couple of minutes. He turned on the radio to try to combat it, but somehow it only seemed to highlight the fact that they weren't speaking. The awkwardness in the truck was palpable; he didn't know if he'd survive the drive. Suddenly, she seemed to burst.
"Why did you wash the glasses?"
Well, it wasn't the question he'd expected. He glanced at her briefly, surprised. "Uh, I just – I felt like I should do somethin' for you. Thanks for a good night, 'n all. Didn't wanna just completely disappear." He winced; completely disappear was exactly what he'd done anyway.
That wasn't the part that she latched onto, though. "So it was a good night?" she asked him.
"What? – Yeah," he answered, taken aback. "Yeah, it was… it was the best night I'd had in ages." He cleared his throat uncomfortably.
"So it wasn't something I did," she continued.
Oh, lord, had she been worrying about that all week? "God no, Cassie, it wasn't you," he assured her. For a moment he flashed back to the last time he'd called her Cassie, in her bed in the dark, and then he frowned and dragged himself back to the matter at hand.
"Okay," she answered, letting out a long breath. "So then… what was it? What makes a guy wash the dishes and then bolt, no note, no phone number, no nothing? After a night like that? I mean, I thought it was really good." He shot her another glance out of the corner of his eye, and her face was flushed. "I mean, everything before the – the sex, too. Like, I've had planned dates with people I'd been into for months that were way less enjoyable than that."
Jake gritted his teeth as he rounded a corner. Yeah, that was true. He couldn't think of a date he'd ever been on that had gone as well as last Friday night. "That's the problem," he told her in a pained voice. He didn't see a way out of this that didn't involve some measure of honesty, unless he just clammed up completely, and that didn't seem preferable.
"What do you mean, that's the problem?" Cassandra asked, baffled.
"I mean…" he ground his teeth again, wishing that he didn't have to say it out loud. Saying it out loud meant admitting it was true. But here he was. "I woke up in the mornin' next to a beautiful, brilliant, funny woman who'd charmed me all night and listened to me talk about art and literature like it was interestin' and then on top of it all brought me home. And for a second I thought, I could get used to this. And that scared the shit outta me, Cassie."
"Why?" she asked, but it wasn't frustrated, it wasn't a demand – she seemed genuinely upset that he felt that way. She wanted to understand. Part of him couldn't bear that.
He leaned forward to glance around the road a bit, then pulled over outside of a closed barber shop. Turning the truck off, he answered, "'Cause I ain't ever safely been able to get used to anythin', Cassandra. Especially when I put myself out there a bit." He looked at her and pointed at his head. "Almost nobody knows about the art and literature and history stuff. Never gone over well when I told 'em. Finally left Oklahoma behind when I couldn't put up with my old man anymore, but it hasn't been a lot better anywhere else. People expect me to be dumb 'n strong, an' I more or less play the part." He turned and looked out the windshield again.
The look on her face was heartbroken. "Why would you hide that?" she asked him. "You're obviously a genius. You know so much about so many things. You're fascinating to talk to."
Jacob shrugged, squeezing the steering wheel in both hands. "Like I said. Just ain't ever gone over well when I tried it. People don't like when you're the opposite o' what they expect you to be."
She hesitated, then reached out and touched his leg gently. "I liked it," she said softly. He tensed a bit, not answering. "Does Eve know?" she asked.
He shook his head. "We mostly only talk about the gym and our jobs. Stuff like that."
"She'd like the Jake I met last night," Cassandra told him confidently. "Flynn would, too. Well – he'd love that Jake, actually. Flynn loves nothing better than another genius to riff with. You should see him go when he's excited. It's a spectacle."
He looked down into his lap. "It ain't just that, Cassie. It was the whole… experience. Of bein' with you. There was so much connection. I dunno if I ever felt like that with anybody, 'specially so fast. That's what scared me so bad."
Cassandra softened even further. He turned to look at her again, wondering what she was thinking in the silence, and she leaned in and kissed his cheek gently, slowly. He watched her carefully as she pulled back, staying near him now. "I felt it, too," she told him. Then, apparently seeing straight through him now to his precise fears, she continued, "I wasn't gonna send you on your way in the morning, you know. When I woke up I was still thinking about how amazing the whole night had been. The whole night," she repeated, looking at him meaningfully. "For a minute I was wishing I'd asked you out instead of bringing you home. Then I thought, well, maybe I wasn't too late to make plans for another time, or at least trade numbers. But then I got up and saw you were gone, and I figured that where I saw future potential, you… didn't."
"Oh," he said quietly. Then, "Oh."
Smiling, she reached up and touched his face, stroking a thumb across his stubbly cheek. After searching her eyes for a moment, Jake leaned in and kissed her. It was sweet and soft and slow and not at all what he was used to, but he liked it a lot.
"You wanna come back to my place and talk about this some more?" she asked him when he pulled back. "See about giving this a second shot?"
"That's not a euphemism this time?" he asked, grinning.
"No," she laughed. "Although, you know… we can just see how things play out." She raised her eyebrows, smiling.
"Okay. Yeah," he answered with a chuckle. "That sounds good, Cassie."
She kissed him again, and then she sat back in her seat, rebuckling her belt, while he started the truck back up. As they drove the last few minutes to her apartment in much more comfortable silence, her phone buzzed. She pulled it out of her pocket. It was Ezekiel.
I figure it's been long enough to say you're welcome. ;)
Cassandra stared at the screen for a moment, an expression of dawning comprehension on her face. "Oh my god," she said slowly, horrified.
"What?" Jake answered, glancing over in concern.
"He planned this," she told him, still staring at the screen. Her phone buzzed a second time.
Cindy says good luck, btw!