The drive back to school was much easier than the drive away from school. They arrived Sunday afternoon with a trunk full of food that would last them till Christmas, she was quite sure. Her mom's insistence that they have something good to eat was adorable. As if they would starve at school. Still, Rachel never told her mother no, and so they cobbled up the steps with entirely too much food.
When Rachel looked at the food on the counter, in the fridge, and freezer, she shook her head. "We're going to need reinforcements for this food," She said as she picked up her phone and started calling Kelly and Quincy to invite them over.
Tex just stood there not sure what he should do. "You have friends right?" She asked. He nodded, a little taken aback by the question. Of course he had friends. "Well, then call them. We're going to need more than just you, me, Kelly, and Quincy to eat this food."
He did as she said, took out his phone and started calling his friends, because that was what Princess wanted. And what Princess wanted, princess got. He started with Danny and told him to bring the girl he'd been seeing and then he called Burke and Wolf, not sure if they would bring anyone or be into this kind of shindig, but they were interested. Free food was all he really had to say.
Everyone arrived within the hour and sure enough, plates were passed out and the food was dug into. Tex watched the party and watched Rachel with Kara, the girl Danny brought over. They seemed to be having a ball together. Which would be nice. If she and Kara could get along, might mean just a couple fewer hangs with Quincy and Kelly and more time to be around his friends. Because she had a point, he worked for her. His whole life was protecting her, but sometimes he should get some free time too.
"So how'd you score a place like this?" Danny asked. "They've squeezed four people into a suite the size of this one for me."
Tex laughed. The reality was he could probably tell Danny about his job. Hell, even about Rachel. They seemed to be good people and probably wouldn't care, but it was still risky. Anyone could come through that door if he told someone. And a good defense meant playing it quiet.
He shook his head. "I don't know, I guess I just got really lucky," He said. Coward. He thought to himself. Coward coward coward. But it didn't matter. It was still his secret and he wasn't quite ready to tell it when there was a crowd around. Although, he didn't know if he'd find a better area to air it out, so to speak.
"You hit the goddamn jackpot. With this room. And Rachel." Danny said as he looked over at her, studying her a little bit. "She looks familiar."
Tex couldn't believe it. This guy was going to give him hell. He shrugged and looked over at Rachel, not aware of the smile on his face when he looked at her. "She's got one of those faces, man. I don't know what to tell you,"
"You'd tell me though, right?"
Tex nodded. "If there was anything familiar about Rachel? Of course, I'd tell you, but she's just a girl who wants to go to college, and takes it way too seriously, man."
Rachel would need a little more time. By telling his business, he was also telling hers. And she needed a little more time. And he would give her all the time in the world. He looked over to her and she looked over to him, and smiled. He couldn't believe his luck with this. Yeah, there were fights. There were always going to be fights with this one, but he would take every single fight for a second of her smiling. And he had many many more than just one.
As people left, he got closer to her, till they were the only two on the couch. She sat comfortably, propped in his arm, and he thought, it couldn't get any better than this. "So what did you think of having a crowd tonight?" He asked. "Not so bad, eh?"
She shrugged and stuck out her tongue at him. "Yeah, it wasn't." She said.
"You should tell more people," Tex said bluntly. He wasn't going to pussyfoot around it for her. She had an incredible gift and she could be using it to help more people. She was scared that someone would notice her, but people were already noticing her. It would only be a matter of time before someone found out and tried to use it against her.
She blinked at him. It was a quick change in conversation. "But people will think…"
He cut her off. "What other people think is not your business. You have a platform and you could do some real good in the world. Think about Christmas. There are so many people who will be going without and you could make their Christmas. You don't have to do exactly that, but that's the type of thing that I know you want to do and you're keeping yourself back because you're thinking about what other people will think about you. Who cares."
She took a good listen to what he was saying, scooting a little closer to him. "Tex, do you care about me?" She asked.
"Of course, I care about you, Princess. That's literally my job."
She shook her head. "No. Do you care care about me? I mean like outside the job. Do you care about me?"
He stuttered, in finding the words to tell her the truth, his mind went blank. How on earth did this happen? He lost the words to tell a girl that he cared about her? That was nothing. It should have been so easy, but it wasn't. This was his job. If she thought that he couldn't do his job, there would be consequences. Tom got into his head with his weird look on his face.
"I do, princess. I don't know why, but I do. I care care about you. Outside the job care about you." He said, finally blowing a breath out before looking at her. She was positively starry eyed. She was so beautiful, he almost couldn't stand it. "I do, princess, I do."