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A/N: Happy Friday my readers. For those who are in Canada… and care… THE RAPTORS WON YO! I'm excited and proud, but that's more than enough gushing about my city's Team. We've got some really freaking cute things happening here. Like really cute and fluffy. I hope everyone enjoys it. Steve's gonna get a taste of his own medicine in this one. Also, as a little note, I've already written all the way to Episode 11 of Season 5. Which means the Matty and Danny thing has resolved, the Wo Fat and Steven thing has blown up, and there is some major angst and drama heading our way, but I also just wrote what I think might be my best sex scene yet! I can't want for you guys to read everything I have in store for you! Tell me what you're most excited for in your review and I'll see you guys on Monday!
Chapter 125
It was Steve's mandatory day off. Rowan's orders. Danny wasn't off it as it was Take Your Kid to Work Day and Uncle Stan had her last year so this year it was Danny's turn to have Grace at his place of work. Steve wasn't sure how fun it was going to be to have Grace just sit in Five-0 headquarters while Danny did paperwork but he wasn't going to say anything. Not when his best friend was so excited about it.
Steve was supposed to have a full day with Rowan, but she had just been told that she needs to go into the Atlantic Records to facilitate a sale and negotiate her royalty and ownership rights for a song. Her plan was to go and deal with the situation and then she'd come back and they'd go out.
He was hoping for a quickie either before she left or when she came back… oh or both. Then he was going to take her for lunch, then they were going to go up Koko Head Stairs for some fun exercise and some cuddling with a view, except he wasn't going to race her to the top. In fact, he was certain he was going to have to carry her up and probably back down, but that was the part he was looking forward to because it meant she'd be in his arms the whole time. Then she'd treat for dinner, probably off of Kamekona's truck, and then back home for more sex and then falling asleep with her in his arms.
Nowhere in his day did it include Danny showing up with Grace in tow.
So now the quickie was going to have to be after she came back and he was already disappointed.
"Uh… hey there buddy," he said narrowing his eyes at Danny but pulling Grace in for a hug. "Hey Grace, what's going on?"
"I'll tell you what's going on. It's Take Your Kid to Work day, and my daughter doesn't want to go with her Danno, she wants to go with someone else."
Oh. Oh no. She wanted to go with him. That's why they were here. Grace wanted to go to work with her super cool Uncle Steve. Damn, he wasn't going to let Danny ever forget that but judging by the look on his buddy's face, now was not the time to start with that line of teasing.
As much as he would have loved to take Grace just to piss of Danny, he had a whole day with Rowan. A whole goddamn day planned and a lot of it was supposed to be R-rated, not a good day to have Grace around, and he knew from experience that Rowan wouldn't go that far with Grace in the vicinity.
So, he crossed is arms over his chest and frowned down to Grace ready to lose the title of Super Cool Uncle in his favourite little girl's eyes. "Aw, oh no, no, Gracie… uh… I'm off today, so I can't take you in with me, okay? But uh… me and your Danno have the same job so…"
"Oh, that's okay, Uncle Steve," Grace said with a warm smile. "I wanted to go with Auntie Ro anyway."
And then she just skipped off into the house and up the stairs to where Rowan was getting ready in their room. Steve stood there completely blindsided by that. Wow, that assumption sure made him look like an ass.
Steve turned back to Danny. "Wow!"
"Yeah. I know, wow. Ditching me for someone fancier. Just cause Rowan has that fancy ass music job."
"Did she… does Ro…"
"You know… I don't know to be honest," Danny said scowling. "But let me tell you, she's gonna get an earful from me either way."
Steve scowled at him. He kept telling Danny that he wasn't allowed to yell at Rowan, especially if she hadn't done anything. And if she hadn't known that Grace wanted to come with her today, then this wasn't her fault.
He pulled Danny into the kitchen to make him a coffee and listen to him bitch about how all he wanted was a nice day at the Palace with his daughter, and how he felt like Grace was growing too old for him and Steve just leant back with his own cup of coffee praying that Rowan didn't run off with Grace today cause that would put a major kink in his plans. Was this how she felt when cases got in the way of her plans for them?
"Uh… someone wanna tell me why I'm taking your kid to Take Your Kid to Work Day?" Rowan asked appearing in the kitchen with Grace in tow. She had her hands on her hips as she glared at Danny. Steve lounged back just watching the show.
"Well… because she doesn't want to come with plain, old, boring Danno, she wants to go with you."
"Okay… and you're like… okay with that?"
"Do I look okay with it?"
"No."
"Well then there's your answer."
"Danny!" Rowan groaned. "This isn't funny, I have a very, very important meeting today! I can't take Grace with me!"
Yes, day, SAVED! Grace shuffled into the room, a frown on her face. "I'm sorry," she said to the adults, "I'll just go with you, Danno."
She sounded so disappointed and crestfallen that even Steve winced, but unfortunately it got to Rowan too. "Great, I'm a consolation prize," Danny snapped and Grace just hung her head a little lower.
"Okay. Alright. Okay. So… I may need the help of a masterful negotiator," Rowan said frowning down to Grace. "You any good at negotiating kid?"
Grace perked up immediately. "Yeah! I am! I swear!"
"Right we'll you've definitely master the manipulation techniques of a guilt trip so I'm down to take a chance you. Alright… I guess we're doing this. Let's go then."
"Uh… our day out?" Steve asked her and Rowan paused, though Grace didn't. She hopped right up to Rowan and grabbed her arm, trying to yank her out of the kitchen so they could head off to Atlantic records Studios.
"We can still have our day out. Why don't you and Danny chill and then when I'm done with Atlantic and with showing Grace around, we'll go out. It can be like a swap," she said with a grin, one that was pointed at Danny instead of him where it belonged. "I'll swap you Grace for Steve."
Oh, so she was implying that he was the child in his scenario, because if that was the case he could throw a big temper tantrum about her leaving on the day off she requested he take.
"Fine, we can do that… not like I have a choice in the matter," Danny growled. Rowan moved to Steve's side, pressing a kiss to his cheek.
"I'll text you!" she called as Grace finally succeeded in dragging her out of the house.
As the motor of Rowan's car fired up Steve sighed. Danny shot him a glance and said: "You took the words right out of my mouth."
So, this was what Rowan felt like when Steve bailed last minute on her and their plans for a case.
He didn't like it.
H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O
As soon as the elevator opened, Grace's eyes widened. She knew her Aunt Ro worked for a recording company. Grace bragged about it all time. But knowing was completely different from seeing.
The office was glossy, it had a water feature and a pond surrounded by chairs for waiting, the front desk was made of marble and had gold inlay in stripes around the top. Everyone looked so fancy and there was Grace in her school uniform.
The lady at the front greeted them, to which Rowan cooly said good morning to and dragged Grace along. She knocked on an office door and then ushered Grace inside before the person answered.
The man behind the desk watched as Rowan directed Grace to her seat with avid interest. He was a nicely dressed man in a nice black suit, his fluffy grey hair was somewhat tamed back in a nice way, he had a salt and pepper trimmed beard going on and warm, but cool appraising green eyes.
"What's this?"
"Pete, this is Grace. Grace, this is Pete Ganbarg, he's my boss. And for your information, Petey, it's Take Your Kid to Work Day so she came with me."
"I didn't know you had a kid. I just thought you just had a Commander."
Grace narrowed her eyes. "Lieutenant Commander," she whispered and both Rowan and Pete turned to her. "Uncle Steve is a Lieutenant Commander, and he's very particular about people getting it right."
Rowan laughed and pointed at Pete. "She's got a point."
Pete turned his unamused eyes to Rowan. "You don't have a kid. She's Steve's niece?"
"No, she's Steve's partner's kid," she replied sitting back in her chair. Grace thought Rowan looked super pretty today. She was in a pinstriped knee length skirt and a light cream-colored blouse, her hair was pin straight and she was wearing a beautiful galaxy watch with planets spinning across her and a leather black band choker wrapped around her neck. Grace could also see a thin silver chain hiding underneath her shirt but Grace didn't know which necklace it was.
Pete wagged his eyebrows at Rowan who scowled and scoffed at him. "No not like that. His Cop Partner, the blonde one who argues with him every time he comes in here to arrest me," Rowan snapped.
Pete just laughed. "Sure, whatever, kid. What's she gonna do when we're in this meeting? Colour? I can tell you she ain't staying in my office."
Grace officially didn't like this man. She turned to Rowan who calmly stared Pete down as she said: "She's coming in with me."
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me, for one day only, we got the greatest negotiation expert in the state. Grace is coming in with me, end of story."
Pete opened his mouth to argue and Rowan just had to pin him with a look. It was a look she gave Danno or Uncle Steve whenever she didn't want to argue anymore… but they always ended up arguing with her anyway. Pete on the other hand, didn't want to argue at all.
"Alright, uh… where do you wanna do the deal?"
"Anywhere the client wants to go," she said. "You go set up I'mma talk to my negotiator."
Pete nodded and got up from his desk. As soon as he was gone Rowan turned to her. "Okay, my girl, so the song we're selling today is one of my more coveted ones. I know for a fact that three artists are interested in it and we've gone with the current highest bidder, but he constant tries to low ball me. Like all the time. Every time I write song. So really we've gone with the most popular bidder."
"Which song does he want?"
"Treat You Better."
Grace loved that one. She didn't really want her Aunt Ro to sell it and she knew that special songs, like this one, Rowan saved for herself. "Who's buying it?"
"Shawn Mendes."
Grace balked at her. Shawn Mendes. She loved Shawn Mendes. She was going to meet Shawn Mendes? Okay, she could sell the song so long as Grace met Shawn Mendes.
"Whoa, I can't take you in there if you're gonna do that," Rowan said pointing to Grace's face.
Grace frowned. "What am I doing?"
"You're fan-girling. You can't do that in there, you got me? I mean, we can negotiate a picture and an autograph into my price for the song, but you cannot freak out when you meet him, you got me?"
Grace nodded. She was going to negotiate her getting a picture with Shawn Mendes? This was the best day EVER.
"How much… how much do I tell him it's for?"
"We're selling this song for a ten fifty."
"10 dollars and fifty cents that's it?" Grace asked. WHAT THE HELL?! No wonder her Aunt Ro had to live with Uncle Steve, she was selling her songs for nothing.
"No, no, the song sold for half a million, we're bargaining for 10.5%."
"But… but… how do you… how do you make…."
"Well you see, it's called royalties. I'm going to negotiate a price, and the deal is, I get a 10.5 percent every time that song is sold, or played. They've already negotiated with Pete for the amount to purchase the song for, and I get a 50% cut from every one of those deals. Now we're discussing royalty rights."
"Every time the song's played?"
"Yeah, like on the radio, in movies, in TV ads, every time your friends buy it on iTunes or when they buy the album."
Oh. Okay so that was a lot of money.
"So I guess the more it plays the more you make?" Grace offered and Rowan nodded.
"That's exactly it."
"Except I might be negotiating for a lower price if you want your photo and autograph."
"I'd be fine with just a photo."
Rowan nodded. "Got it. So here's what we're going to do. We're gonna start high, with a crazy number I know they don't want to pay and they're gonna go lower, and then we're going to negotiate until we get the number we want, sound good?" Grace nodded. "Are you ready?" Grace nodded again. "Alright. Let's do this."
H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O
Rowan was supposed to get a hold of him about meeting up for lunch. Which she did not do. She did, however, send Danny a picture of Grace in a tight embrace with a tween pop star that Steve didn't know, but it pissed Danny off. Which would have been hilarious, had Danny not been ranting since Rowan had left with Grace in tow, effectively driving Steve right out his damn mind.
So, when they missed lunch, when Rowan wasn't picking up her phone and Grace wasn't answering hers, they decided to go over to Atlantic Records to see why they were taking so long.
Steve hadn't been back to this building… back on this floor, since he last pulled Rowan out of there in handcuffs. He had called and apologized to her boss, citing a misunderstanding that lead to his actions that day, and that had fixed things. But Steve hadn't wanted to ever come back.
And seeing the look of panic cross the secretary's face when he came off the elevator, he remembered why he wanted to stay away from this place.
"Uh… I'm just here to see Rowan… I was supposed to pick her up for lunch…" Steve said to her.
The secretary bobbed into some kind of curtsey. "She's in the recording room. They're laying down a track with her daughter."
Danny straightened at this. "Her what?"
"Yeah, it's Take Your Kid to Work Day, and she's brought her daughter in. She's super cute and they're scarily alike," she said and then turned to Steve looking him up and down in a suggestive manner. "She's not yours though is she? I mean… your relationship is too new for you guys to already have a kid."
"Grace is not her daughter!" Danny cried storming off in the direction the secretary pointed him in while Steve apologized for the outburst and then trailed after him. He decided to ignore the jab about how he and Rowan couldn't possibly have a kid together. Yeah, she had been right in this instance but he thought they'd have great kids together… and would be great parents together.
When they got to the sound booth, Steve found Pete, who he knew as Rowan's boss and the man who was constantly calling her and telling her to come to office to sign off on the sale of her songs, sitting in the chair listening as Rowan and Grace sang her favourite song together. Cheap Thrills.
Danny just stood there watching Grace's large smile as she got to sing along with Rowan, as Rowan let her take the lead vocals and essentially just took a backup vocal role for the song.
Steve smiled. He loved seeing Rowan in her natural element, which was here, with those big headphones on her ears singing her heart out, eyes closed as she did so.
Pete stood to greet them, assessing Steve's attire as if looking for any sign that Steve was there to arrest her.
"She uh… she wanted Grace to know what it was like to record, so we're recording as we speak and then we're gonna write it to a CD for you guys," he said to Danny who nodded happily.
"The words are different from the original," Steve whispered. "The chorus is different."
"Uh… are you sure?" Pete asked. "This was the only version she gave us."
"But the original was I don't need no money, as long as I'm dancing with you," he said. "That's what it was when she was singing it live…"
Pete seemed to think about that for a minute before asking: "You were in the crowd huh?"
"Yes… what does that matter?"
"Because Rowan has special versions of her songs," he explained. "Her originals are never for sale, of course, but she gives an edited version of the song that makes the lyrics… uh… a little bit more general for a wide range of audiences."
"All her songs are special," Steve found himself whispering, and wondered why Rowan changed all her songs.
"Of course they're special, they're all about you… or at least my big sellers are about you."
Steve and Danny both turned to Pete surprised. "I'm sorry, what did you just say?"
"Well, aside for Hallelujah which was written for her brother, and a handful of other songs, almost every song she hands in to me is about you. Didn't you know that? You're her muse McGarrett and I'm not complaining it's making all of us rich."
Yeah except for Rowan…. maybe… they never really talked about money… maybe that was something they needed to do.
Steve's eyes turned back to Rowan who was still singing, and to Grace who was now waving to them. He waved back, and then blew a kiss to Rowan whose eyes were open enough to notice him standing there. She pretended to catch it and then pressed it to her heart. The motion making him smile.
He even noticed the silver glint around her neck. She was wearing his dog tags, so far keeping the promise of never taking them off. Knowing she wrote all of her songs about him, having it confirmed that he was her musical muse, was kind of like she had handed him a set of dog tags that was hers and hers alone.
It made his heart sing. It made him feel warm and fuzzy. It made me feel a little bit too much. But he was too happy and proud to care.
H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O
They had settled on ice cream.
To make up for the fact that Rowan had never taken Grace down to lunch as promised. She had treated them all to ice cream and then they were walking along the street towards the closest park to sit on the benches.
Grace was talking a mile a minute about the song she got to record and how she got to meet Shawn Mendes, who had let her mediate the negotiation for Rowan's song. And how Rowan's royalties were now gonna be a solid 8.5 percent of all proceeds.
If Steve had asked he would have realized that it was a lot for a song. That she got paid the most a song writer had ever been paid, but everyone wanted her songs. They were golden, people were saying. But she and Steve argued about enough as is, she didn't want to add the amount she made to that list, because she knew it was going to happen. She made so much more than him, he'd get intimidated. He liked being the bread winner and she didn't want to take that away from him, not when he felt so proud about it.
Luckily, he didn't ask about that… he asked a worse question.
"So all your songs are about me, huh?"
Rowan came to a stop, she blinked her eyes at him as he half turned to stare back at her. "Who… who told you…"
"Pete," he answered with a shrug. "I'm guessing he didn't know not to tell me."
Great. Course he didn't. Stupid Pete. Rowan turned her burning blushing cheeks away from him. "I mean… uh… yeah… they are. Everything I've written here, aside from Bad Liar, Hallelujah, Can't Stop the Feeling and the soundtrack I'm working on… yeah everything's been about you."
"Tell me… which ones would I know?"
"Well, for starters… Thief… that first song I gave Alex."
"Fuck! No. Really? You gave your boyfriend a song about me?"
"Well I mean… it's a really good song, it deserved to be heard, you know? But… uh… yeah… he still thinks it's about him so uh… don't tell him."
Steve laughed, that smile widening on his face. "Okay… uh… what else?"
"Uhm… Cheap Thrills, Attention, Treat You Better, Lips of an Angel…"
"Wait… Treat You Better, is that the one Alex was singing in the bar when we… you know back when Cath…"
I know I can treat you better… than he can.
"That's it!" Steve cried. "That… that's about me? But… But…"
"Wanna hear the original lyrics?" he nodded eagerly so Rowan did what she rarely did. She sang in front of him.
I know I can treat you better, than she can. And any guy likes you deserves a real woman. Tell me why are we wasting time, why do you have me crying, when you belong with me instead. I know I can treat you better… better then she can.
She finished and Steve was just staring at her. "You changed the lyrics cause Alex was a guy. That songs about you being better then Catherine, not the other way around."
"I told you the song wasn't about you, I wasn't lying. It's about me singing to you," she said with a shrug starting to walk again to catch up to Danny and Grace.
Steve interlaced his fingers with hers and smiled. "I can't wait to hear the other songs you write… now that we're together…"
Rowan smiled up at him. "As long as you're willing to continue to be my muse, I will continue to write songs for you."
Steve smiled, large and bright and clearly very happy to hear that. And Rowan smiled to. She had a feeling that Steven McGarrett would be inspiring songs in her for a long time to come.