Four Player Ruse
By Steampunk . Chuckster
Summary: When a fake blind date goes wrong, Sarah Walker, president of a major frozen food developer, finds her life inextricably entwined with Chuck Bartowski, one of her company's top food researchers. Contracts, bad behavior, idiocy, madcappery...and maybe even love follows. AU. Charah and Ellie/Devon.
A/N: Thanks again everyone! Appreciate it.
Disclaimer: I don't own the TV show Chuck or its characters.
Chuck stared down at the words in the document. Then he slowly raised his head to look up at the woman sitting across from him, her arms crossed expectantly. She did a lot of things expectantly, he decided. He supposed that was a powerful, rich person thing. Always expecting.
"What?" she asked. "Something wrong with the document?"
"N-No, I haven't—It's just I've never met anyone who has a conference room type place like this in their home. That's all."
She had given him an address and he'd arrived at the high-rise, only to have her assistant guy with the unreal figure and face meet him and take him up to the billionth floor where "Ms. Walker's condo is". He'd had no idea he was going to be in her condo.
And he'd subtly tried to look around it as he was taken through to this literal conference room she had in her condo.
Insanity.
There were paintings on the walls and he wondered if they were originals by great artists. The floor was marble, for fuck sake. There were floor to ceiling windows and the LA cityscape went off in one direction, the Pacific Ocean sparkling in the sunlight off in the other direction.
This was the life.
But now he was at this mahogany table, sitting across from her, about to enter into a contractural relationship. And he never thought his life would go this way. He couldn't have made this up if he tried.
Sarah Walker sighed. "It's for situations like this, when I don't want to have a meeting at the office. Usually, Mr. Woodcomb, my father the chairman of our company, and I are the only ones in here. Sometimes one of our lawyers. But it fits for what's happening now since we're trying to keep this a secret."
"Have you made fake boyfriends sign one of these bef—No, I heard it. I heard the bad joke. I apologize." She'd openly glared at him, lowering her arms from her chest.
"This is my first time doing something like this too, you know. Up until now, my dad wasn't on my case to marry like this. And if you insist on being offensive, I'll add a clause in there. Penalty will be ten times the contract payment amount if Party B says something offensive to Party A."
"Ten times the—?" He coughed into his fist. "That won't be necessary. I'll behave. My mouth just…goes sometimes. Sorry."
"Do I have to worry about your mouth 'just going' while we're having dinner with my dad?"
He pulled his lips back between his teeth, then shook his head, wrinkling up his face. "No, surely not."
He thought he saw the assistant guy break his stone face for a moment to smirk, but he couldn't be sure. He lowered his gaze back to the contract, skimming it.
"And the penalty for breaking the contract is that I have to pay you the amount? What's this about? Do you think I have that kind of money, Ms. Walker?"
"I suppose then you'd better not break the contract, hm?"
"This is kind of intense. Does it not feel intense to you two? Because it feels intense to me." Mr. Woodcomb seemed unmoved, and Sarah definitely was unmoved. "Guess it's just me."
"This contract is important to me. I can't have you deciding to pull out whenever you want and ruin everything. There has to be incentive for you to go through with this."
"Until when?"
"That's also in there. This will continue until my dad is comfortable that I'm being taken care of and he drops this blind date nonsense."
"So how long is that?" he asked, flipping through the contract. There was too much legalese in it for him to pay much attention.
"However long is necessary."
He gawked at her. "So you're saying I could be stuck in a fake relationship…for a year? Or longer?"
"I don't think it should come to that, but if it does, that's part of the contract."
"Jeeeeeesus Christ. This is madness."
"Sign it."
"I haven't…read it all."
"Party A and Party B agree to the terms. So now we need to sign it."
"Honestly, a lot of this looks like Apple terms of service. I'm scared there's some sneaky AI shit in here, like you can use my image for AI advertisements or something."
"I don't run an AI company, Mr. Drake. I run a company that mass produces health food products for grocery and convenience store freezer sections. There's nothing about AI in there. You have my word."
Chuck looked down at the contract again, having misgivings now.
"Sign the contract, Mr. Drake. And then we can show you my dossier."
He wasn't going to lie, he was very interested in that dossier. He wanted to know more about the illustrious but enigmatic woman sitting across the table from him. They'd kissed now. Completely accidentally and it was also…kind of rough. Shouldn't he know more about her?
"Of course, there is a lawsuit waiting in the wings if you don't want to sign. I wasn't going to do this, but if you force my hand…"
Chuck snapped his gaze back up to her face. "A lawsuit? You gonna sue me if I don't sign this? For what?" he demanded, raising his voice a bit.
"I never mentioned this before, but I could have sued you after Ms. Crawford hired you to pretend to be her boyfriend on the blind date."
"Ex-boyfriend," Chuck thought he heard Mr. Woodcomb mutter, but Sarah ignored the man.
"Why would you sue me for that? I was just doing a job!"
"You conned me for a video game console! I spoke with my legal team and that's grounds for a lawsuit. Impersonating someone to con a person is grounds. I could seek damages up to—"
"Are you seriously threatening me?"
"Sign the contract."
"This is…this is entrapment."
"Legally, it isn't."
That seemed false. She seemed to be able to lie like it was nothing, and he was suddenly very nervous about all of this. "Look, I don't like the idea of being—"
"Mr. Woodcomb, call my legal team and tell them to proceed with the lawsuit—"
"I'm signing it." He turned to the last page, scribbled a signature, and passed it across the table for Sarah Walker to sign.
"Good. Mr. Woodcomb, start the slideshow."
Feeling more than a little glum, Chuck sank back against his chair and crossed his arms, watching as the screen at the end of the table flickered to life.
SARAH WALKER
BIRTHDATE: April 13 1997
"Did you guys make this on PowerPoint? Very nice. Thought rich folk would have something more… Okay, sorry. I'm just saying." They had both glared this time.
"PowerPoint is the best," Mr. Woodcomb argued.
Apparently he'd made the PowerPoint and Chuck had just offended him greatly.
"Sorry," he whispered. Then he pointed at the screen, where Sarah's professional, high-powered badass business woman picture was under her name and birthdate. "Two things: We were born in the same year, so that's cool. Also, that's a pretty badass pic. You look like the president of a very successful company and you kicked lots of ass to get there."
She sat forward, arms crossed on the table. "I did kick lots of ass to get here. Don't get it twisted the way most people do. They think nepotism put me here but I worked insanely hard. When my dad hired me here at sixteen, I was in the mailroom. Next slide, Mr. Woodcomb," she said, not breaking Chuck's gaze for a second. She sat back just a little and pointed towards the screen.
Chuck turned to look.
It was a photograph of her in a business suit, looking adorably young with her shorter blond hair in a braid, holding a white tote with envelopes piled in it, looking unamused. "My dad took that on my first day. I literally had to prove myself at every level of the company. I'm president of Ice Q Foods because I worked hard and I was fantastic at everything I did. I found success in every room I walked into, not because I was Jack Walker's daughter, but because I'm brilliant."
Chuck gave her the best smile he could muster as he nodded. "I see. Wow. Congrats. That's—That's impressive."
The next slide popped up and he saw Sarah in a gold graduation cap and gown. GRADUATED FROM LOS ANGELES PREP (LAP) AT 16 YEARS OLD. The next slide saw her looking just slightly older, wearing a black cap and gown this time, holding a large diploma. GRADUATED HARVARD AT 18 YEARS OLD.
"H-Hold on. You graduated from Harvard at eighteen?"
"Yes."
"You should be very proud of yourself. That's kind of amazing." And he meant every word. "How'd you even—Wow."
"I told you, I'm quite brilliant."
Next slide: HARVARD FIELD HOCKEY TEAM MVP 2014 AND 2015
"Whoaaaa!" He turned and leaned over the table, giving her applause. "You're that smart that you graduated from Harvard at eighteen and you were MVP of the field hockey team two years in a row? That's incredible. Wow."
She was posed in the sleeveless shirt and skirt uniform, shinguards, the stick in hand. She looked pretty badass like that, too. And he was starting to think he'd gotten himself caught up with someone who looked badass because she was badass.
He needed to step right apparently.
BLOOD TYPE O+
ARACHNOPHOBIA
She spun towards Mr. Woodcomb with a sharp glare when the next slide popped up. "Why did you put that on there?" she hissed, reaching over to smack his arm.
He pulled his arm back and looked at her defensively. "Your serious boyfriend should know that he has to kill spiders for you. If there's a spider incident in front of Mr. Walker and the man who's supposed to be your boyfriend doesn't react properly, what then?"
Chuck watched the exchange with interest. When she turned an embarrassed look back at him, he cleared his throat. "You know, I get it. Nothing needs that many legs, or that many eyes. Gross."
"Just…go to the next slide," she mumbled darkly.
"Here's the really important information you need to know, Mr. Drake," Mr. Woodcomb spoke up, moving it to the next slide.
Chuck leaned closer to it. MET NATHAN DRAKE WHILE ATTENDING SEMINAR IN SAN DIEGO LAST YEAR. "What? I can't even remember the last time I went to San Diego."
"It was last year," Sarah piped up. "I went to a seminar in San Diego for Ice Q Foods and I bumped into you there."
"But—"
"I've prepared a backstory," Mr. Woodcomb cut in. He went to the next slide. "Nathan Drake, graduated magna cum laude from UCLA."
"Stanford."
They both did double takes.
"Wait, what?" Sarah asked.
"I graduated from Stanford. And what's with magna cum laude? If you're gonna try to make me sound like a mega-smarty, go all the way with summa cum laude. I graduated from Stanford summa cum laude in 2019."
"Are…you rewriting the backstory I made?" Mr. Woodcomb asked.
"No, that's the actual truth," he said with a shrug.
"Oh. Wow. This is a twist," he heard the assistant mutter.
Sarah gaped. "If that's the case, why are you taking jobs like the one Ms. Crawford gave you? Pretending to be someone else for an agency…"
"It's a good side gig for someone who always loved…ACTING!" He held up an invisible skull in front of him, and raised an eyebrow.
"Maybe…erm…we stick with the truth in this case, Mr. Woodcomb. Stanford. 2019. Summa cum laude. It'll be easier." She was still staring at him with her jaw sitting on the table.
"Uh…sure." He cleared his throat and went to the next slide. "Your father is a lawyer, your mom is a surgeon. Typical family…"
"Typical? What about that is typical?"
"It's a typical family that's acceptable to Jack Walker as a match for his daughter," Mr. Woodcomb explained.
"You should've seen the kind of guys he set me up on blind dates with," Sarah grumbled, annoyance in her tone. "Heirs of big law firms, corporations, banking corps, ugh."
Right.
Chuck's parents actually ran a cheap pizza shop that also sold sizzling shrimp and beer. And they all lived in the living space above it in the heart of Echo Park. That wouldn't be acceptable to the chairman of Ice Q Foods. He would never approve of a relationship like this if he knew the truth. So Stephen had to be a lawyer, Mary had to be a surgeon. Typical family…
"Your first meeting with Jack Walker—my dad—is next Sunday. So I'll need you to memorize a lot of this in case he asks questions. He's wily, my dad. So make sure you know stuff backwards and forwards. Your backstory and mine. And ours. How we met. All of it."
Chuck pulled in a deep breath. "Okay. Got it. I'll, um…"
A notebook was dropped in front of him by Mr. Woodcomb and it thumped loudly against the table.
He opened it and stared at the many pages. "Memorize this…okay. Will do."
Will do.
Damn it.
}o{
"Earth to Charles Irvinnnnggg…"
…
"Chuck."
…Still nothing.
Ellie got something of a hunch as she watched him stare down at the folded paper he was holding, his lips moving like he was reading or memorizing. "Nathan Drake."
He looked up from the notes he'd been taking, highlighter marks all over it. "Hm? What?"
"Wow." She snorted. "You really are lost in all this new identity stuff, aren't you?"
He threw his hands up. "What else am I supposed to do? If I fuck this up, she put in the contract that I have to pay her the amount she promised."
Ellie's eyebrows went up. "What? Holy shit. So how much is it?"
"5K per family meeting."
She gasped. "That ain't cheap."
"Right. So…" He held up the notes.
"You sure you aren't getting conned back? Like, I don't know, a sort of…retribution type thing? Like she's pulling your leg?"
"I don't think so. She seems kind of desperate. Her dad has portfolios of guys he wants her to go on blind dates with and I think she can't deal with it anymore. I kind of feel bad for her."
Ellie found herself pouting a bit at her best friend, with his always massive heart. Even when this woman was essentially press-ganging him into an awkward situation like this, he was finding ways to have empathy for her.
"Honestly, I don't blame her much. If Joyce gave enough of a shit about my life to make portfolios of guys she wanted me to go on blind dates with, I'd jump off a bridge before I'd actually comply." She rolled her eyes.
He shrugged. "She really does care a lot about Ice Q Foods. She's worked hard. When she first got hired at sixteen, her dad put her in the mailroom. Not some exec position. She had to work her way through the ranks on her own, without his help, and that's exactly what she did." He waved the notes. "You know she graduated high school at sixteen and she graduated from Harvard at eighteen?"
"Shit!"
"Yes, shit. And she was MVP on the field hockey team both years at Harvard. So she's brilliant and athletic. The more I read about her, the more unbelievable she is. She's hard-working, she's exceptionally smart, she's athletic, she's good at everything she does, and on top of that she is unreal levels of hot."
Ellie reached over to take his notes from him, looking down at them and reading about all of Sarah Walker's accomplishments. Perhaps in some other universe, she would be jealous reading about all of this, some other heiress of a big company with everything she'd done, everything she was, so much better than everyone else. But all of this made her wonder how much of it was Sarah Walker doing this for herself…or perhaps she'd done it for her father, at the behest of her father. It felt forced. And instead of envious, Ellie found she was more sad than anything.
"Don't say that," she said quietly, turning over the paper to read more.
"What?"
"Unreal levels of hot."
"Okay, she's beautiful."
"No, she is hot," Ellie said. "I was sitting right across from her that day I first met her. She's insanely hot. I meant the 'unreal' part. Girls don't like that."
"Why? It is unreal."
"I dated guys who treated me like I was a porcelain doll walking around on their arms and it felt like shit. We're real, live human beings. We're real. We aren't unreal. We aren't goddesses, whether we're pretty or not. We have faults, flaws, blemishes." She shrugged. "You haven't found it yet, but I'm sure Sarah Walker has at least one blemish somewhere. A flaw somewhere."
"Her flaw is that she does everything too well."
Ellie giggled. "I'm sure that isn't true. She's human. Remember that, no matter what impressive stuff is in here." She handed it back to him. "Cute that you noticed how hot she is though. Hmm hmm hmmmm"
"Stop it. Even if you are just teasing. You really think a guy like me—even a guy like Nathan Drake, the guy she had her assistant dude Mr. Woodcomb build up as someone from this fancy successful family—would deserve a girl like her?" He shook his head vehemently.
"Mr…Woodcomb built this?"
"Yeah. Get this: Dad's a lawyer, Mom's a surgeon. Ha!"
Ellie could only sort of smile. The thing was, she'd gotten caught up on the image of Devon Woodcomb with those sexy glasses of his, overworked, sitting at a computer screen, building the dossier for his boss. The blond hair all unkempt, his tie askew. Maybe he'd taken off the suit jacket altogether while he worked, and he rolled up the sleeves of his button-up…
"...Ellie?"
She cleared her throat and looked at Chuck. "Mmm? What?"
"You okay? Your face is all red."
"I'm fine. They put more spice than usual on my spicy beef." She sipped her water.
"Ah. I was saying, uh… one thing I saw was that she lost her mom when she was young, some kind of accident."
Ellie nodded. "I think I remember Thomas saying something like that before he two-timed me. When you were going on that blind date with Sarah Walker as him."
"Oh yeah?"
"Mhmm. I think it was a car accident that killed her mom. And Jack Walker kind of snapped, got super protective over the only family he had left. Like a sort of mental breakdown where all he could think of was that someone would take advantage of his daughter if anything ever happened to him and she had no more parents. Sounds like he pushed anyone else who was in the family out into other subsidiaries to protect Sarah, too." She shrugged. "But Thomas is a lying liar, so who knows if he was just parroting nonsense?"
Chuck glanced down at his empty plate. "Huh. …Yeah, who knows?" His brow furrowed as he put his napkin on the table and sipped his water.
She wondered what was going through his head, and she wondered how much of it had to do with a certain Ice Q Foods president.
}o{
Sarah Walker watched the dark liquid seep into the second mug, and when it stopped, she gathered it up along with the first mug and walked into her living room where Devon sat on the couch with some of the company's latest numbers.
"Put those away," she said. "Just for a second."
"The board needs this report by next week, Sarah."
"Yeah, I know. We'll get it done. Here, drink this. It's Ethiopian. Free trade. Black with nada else in it, the way you like it." She handed it to him and he sipped it, humming.
"That hits the spot, thanks."
"Mhm." She sat on the other part of the L-shaped couch, stepping out of her pumps and pulling her feet up to massage them one after the other. "But seriously, put that to the side for a sec. I need to ask you something."
"Sure." He leaned forward to put the reports down, keeping his hands warm with the mug clutched between them. He was always complaining about his cold hands, sometimes even in the spring and summer.
"Do you really think this guy has what it takes to pull this scheme off? You think he can fool Jack Walker?" she asked, biting her lip.
"Are you worried he can't?"
"I don't know." She shrugged. "He's…an oddball, that one. Like, the stuff he was focusing on was… I question his priorities, I guess."
"Well, it could just be that he's different from you. You can't expect everyone to prioritize the same certain things that you do."
She huffed, leaning back against the couch and slumping down in it a bit. "No, I know. You're right. But there are times when he seems like a good liar, and then there are times he seems like a really bad liar. Like, in the beginning, that first blind date… I knew a lot of it was for show but that somehow almost felt…more honest than if he'd shown up and was just…dull and witless. You know? That even make sense?" she asked.
"I think so." Devon looked up at the ceiling, thoughtful. "He went into that situation wanting to turn you off, scare you even, and that's a hell of a lot more exciting than someone talking about wanting to give you babies." He shivered again. "Ugh."
"It was exciting." She sighed. "And I can't explain it, but it felt honest. It shouldn't have. Because he was lying. But the lies felt…candid. Sincere." Sarah laughed at herself, shaking her head. "I really am making no sense."
"Not really." He chuckled. "So why are you worried, then?"
"I'm worried he's too honest, he's too good of a guy, to be able to lie to my dad's face. You know what he says all the time, right?" She rolled her eyes as Devon snorted. And together, they droned:
"I read people. It's the only real talent I got."
"Yeah," Devon continued, "you're way better at the Jack Walker voice than I am." He smirked. But the smirk died. "He isn't just saying that, he is good at reading people."
"Yep. I fear he'll see right through this guy."
"Well? You could always tear up the contract. I don't think this Drake guy will mind it much, honestly. He seems, um, stressed about the whole thing."
"You mean I basically threatened him into it."
"Yes. You did."
"I did sorta, didn't I?" She wrinkled her nose.
"Tear up the contract, and I'll…find that Eleanor Crawford woman." He cleared his throat and sat up a bit straighter. "I'll ask her what agency she went through and you can hire a pro."
"I can always contact her if I—"
"No, I'll do it. I can do it. You have enough on your plate."
She sent him a weirded out look and he cleared his throat, running a hand down his tie.
"Well, that's the same agency that sent out Nathan Drake. So who's to say they'll send a guy who's a better actor than the guy we're currently worrying about?"
He winced. "Good point. Maybe we won't do that then."
Why did he look so disappointed about it?
"Maybe it'll set my nerves at ease if we do a little check-in with our guy. Hm?" She took her phone out and pulled Nathan Drake's number up. She called him and put in on speaker.
"Hello…?"
He sounded tired.
She tried not to be worried. "Mr. Drake, I'd like to see you. What are you doing right now?"
"I just worked a long day and I'm tired and I'm at home."
"Great. Come to my place right now. We won't keep you long."
She saw Devon shake his head at her.
"Right now? Seriously? Can I do a raincheck?"
"No. The dinner is Sunday. Today is Thursday." She crossed her legs. "When can I expect you? Should I send a driver?"
Devon's eyes went big and he gestured no with his arms, shaking his head.
Lazy.
Nathan groaned. "I don't want to put one of your drivers out. I'll just get a ride share."
"Mr. Woodcomb will come and get you. He's leaving now. It'll take…" She checked her watch. "…about fifteen or twenty minutes for him to get there, so be ready."
She hung up. "Sorry. If I give him the option of getting here on his own, he'll find an excuse to bug out. Ride share didn't show up, flat tire, who knows what else he'll try…?"
Devon let out a loud, frustrated groan and climbed up to his feet. "I am not in the mood to drive all over town tonight. You're so annoying."
"Earn that paycheck, Dev."
"Not annoying. Obnoxious. Purely obnoxious."
"Ahh, but pure." She preened at him. "Thank you, Devon. You're a lifesaver."
"I'm an errand boy," he snapped, shrugging his suit jacket back on and pushing a hand through his hair. "That's all I am. An errand boy."
Sarah winced at how hard he slammed the door on his way out.
}o{
The poor guy was waiting outside of the pizzeria when he got there. Sarah had texted him the address as he walked down to the car, miffed at her. More than miffed. He was actively pissed.
She'd made a good point about Mr. Drake finding some way to excuse himself from the meeting if she didn't send a car for him. But Devon felt put-out always being the one that had to do it. Sometimes, he just dealt with it because it was part of the job he signed up for.
Jack had hired him knowing he could trust him to look out for Sarah, protect her from everything. Did he mean for Devon to get roped into her schemes and protect that part of her life, too? Maybe not.
But Jack Walker didn't know his daughter as much as he thought he did.
He watched as the guy crossed the street with a wave, trotting around to the passenger side, opening the door, and hopping into the seat next to Devon.
Devon widened his eyes at him.
"Oh… Can-Can I not sit in the back? That's really weird to me. Like Downton Abbey type shit, you know? I don't want you to feel like you're my chauffeur, s-sir."
"We're the same age, you don't have to call me sir." He pulled away from the curb and they were on their way.
"Right. Cool. I was just thinking because you're at a higher level in the company."
"The company?"
"Oh!" Nathan blurted. "Oh, I meant…you know, in the pecking order with the contract. You're higher up on the…totem…pole."
Devon sent him a confused look. "I'm not even in that contract. My name isn't in there anywhere."
"Ah. Noted."
They were silent for a few minutes and Devon took it as an opportunity to eyeball the guy as subtly as possible. He wore a pair of jeans, a comfortable looking sweatshirt, and a fuzzy beanie pulled down low over his ears. It wasn't cold enough for a beanie, but maybe he hadn't had time to fix his hair?
Did this guy care whether or not his hair looked nice for an impromptu meeting with Sarah Walker? Someone who was contractually obligated to date him now? She was bound by the same contract he was. Technically, he could show up looking like he'd crawled out of the garbage and she still had to act like they were in a serious relationship.
This was interesting.
"What is all of this anyway?" Nathan asked, and Devon saw the guy looking at him in his peripheral. "Did I already screw something up?"
"No. You didn't. Ms. Walker would like to check in on how things are going with the backstory. How's the studying?"
"I think it's going pretty well, actually. I've memorized—"
"Oh. Please don't tell me. I'm not trying to be rude, but I wasn't asking. I was telling you that's what she wants to know. I can't hear you tell it twice, I'll go nuts."
Nathan cleared his throat. "Right. Gotcha. I'll save it for when she asks."
"I have a question," Devon blurted without really being able to catch himself.
"You do? Um…okay, shoot."
"Don't get me wrong. I'm asking this purely out of intrigue…" Devon cleared his throat, keeping his eyes on the road ahead of him. "But, um, when that…woman went to the agency you work for…what's her name again?"
"Eleanor Crawford?"
"Her. Yes." He was doing his best to sell his indifference here. "That's right. Thank you."
"Sure."
"When Ms. Crawford hired you, did you get any sort of a feeling as to…why? I mean, why was it so important someone else went on that date instead of the Baker guy?"
"You mean Thomas Baxter?"
"Him, right." As if that man and his damn face hadn't plagued Devon at night when he was trying to go to sleep. He tried not to be a pig, he really did, because he knew it wasn't his business, and he knew he had no right to feel pangs of jealousy about someone she was dating before he ever saw her in that convenience store.
"Well, I think El—Ms. Crawford seemed jealous, I guess. He was the guy she was seeing and she didn't want him on a date, even if it was an obligatory blind date he couldn't avoid and didn't want to go on."
"It just… seems like it'd be easier for him to just go on that date, scare off Ms. Walker, and call it a day. Then this whole mess wouldn't have started."
"Yeah, well… the human heart makes us do stupid crap. At the time, I'm sure she thought it was the best route because it made her crazy to think of the man she was seeing going out with another woman."
"Hmmm. Mm hmmm… I see. I-I wonder if that's the kind of…erm…love that sticks to a person even after a break-up. Just curious. Ahem." He clenched his jaw, trying to will away the green-eyed monster.
"Love? Woof." Nathan shivered theatrically. "That's a big word to use. I wouldn't go that far. I doubt that factored in."
"She didn't love him? But she did all of this stuff…"
"Yeah, well… My guy, I don't know how much money you have, but speaking as someone who's lived paycheck to paycheck at times, rich people seem to have no problems spending money and forcing other people to jump through hoops for them, because it's no big deal to them. They have the money, the time, the energy. The privilege. I could never go through all that trouble for some girl I was seeing and didn't really even love. Dragging other people into it? Hell no. But I guess for people like the Crawfords, the Baxters…that kind of stuff is totally worth it because they have so much…money and just…stuff."
It rankled with Devon, the hint of bitterness in the other man's tone. Sure, his own finances were nothing close to Sarah Walker's or Eleanor Crawford's for that matter, but he wasn't going to be bitter at them for it.
Then he checked himself a bit, because was what this Nathan Drake guy just said wrong? It wasn't.
And it seemed like this guy had been dragged into so many other people's messes and was incapable of cutting himself away from any of it. Devon knew Sarah was his biggest roadblock to escaping the shenanigans. She'd basically threatened him. And continued to do so.
Maybe what this man needed was for someone in this bizarre world he'd been yanked into to show him a little grace. Cut him some slack.
So Devon turned to glance at him as he stopped at a light. "You wouldn't inconvenience other people for a girl you were in like with?"
He seemed to think about it honestly. Devon decided he respected that.
"I'd try not to, but I guess if I'm in like enough, if I'm nuts enough," Nathan added with a chuckle, "I might. I see what you're getting at, sir, and okay I'll cut Ms. Crawford some slack. Jealousy is a green-eyed monster and it makes you do stuff you normally wouldn't, even for someone who doesn't deserve it."
Devon glanced at him. "You're saying Thomas Baxter doesn't deserve it."
Nathan snorted, "That asshole? Absolutely not. He fucked off out of Los Angeles to escape consequences for his actions and cheated on her. Or…well, I don't know if cheated is too strong since they weren't in an established relationship per se. But whatever you'd call it when you aren't seeing anyone else but them, but find out they've been seeing other people. It's still betrayal. I guess it's still cheating."
The heat Devon felt rising up from his collar was almost unbearable. "W-Wait. Cheated? Did that Baxter fellow…cheat on Ms. Crawford? After all that?"
"Mm." Nathan nodded.
Devon thought he'd never felt quite so murderous. Why hadn't Sarah told him that part? She'd just said there was apparently a break-up. And then maybe it was a girl code type of thing and she was protecting the other woman's privacy and pride. It made him love his best friend even more thinking of her making that decision.
But this guy seemed not to mind spilling the tea on Eleanor Crawford.
"Hey, how are you privy to all this private stuff? I-I mean, she told you all of this? Some guy hired from an agency?" Devon asked.
Nathan cleared his throat loudly and shrugged, seeming a bit nervous. "No, it isn't—See, she had to. I was refusing to help more than I already did, and I guess she thought it'd change my mind if I felt sorry for her, getting cheated on by that bastard." He crossed his arms. "I was gonna help anyway, but on top of that, it made me want to find that Baxter bastard wherever he ran off to and give him a hard kick to the ball sack."
A one-syllable burst of laughter came out of the top administrative specialist to the president of Ice Q Foods. He cleared his throat and sniffed once, smirking. "I wouldn't mind helping."
"You go for the eyes while I go for the sack." And Nathan mimicked poking someone's eyes out with his pointer and middle finger. "Blam!"
"Well, don't turn out to be like Thomas Baxter yourself, Mr. Drake. It seems there are enough of them in the world. And I'd hate for Ms. Walker to be disappointed the way Ms. Crawford was."
Devon wished he could see her again, even just once. But what did he have to offer someone with that kind of power and money? Surely she had someone in her family like Jack Walker waiting for her to find a Thomas Baxter type and marry, too.
"I-I know I didn't give off a great first impression, but that was by design. I'm gonna keep to the contract best as I can. I really have been studying. …And I don't think I could be the Thomas Baxter type if I tried." He made a face, turning to look at Devon. "Anyway, it feels like Ms. Walker can't be hurt by some mere peasant she signed a contract with." He pointed to himself. "I am harmless to a woman like her."
Devon thought he wasn't as sure about that as Nathan Drake seemed to be. He saw something strange, something new in his boss, in his best friend, when she was talking about Nathan Drake. It was subtle, hidden still…because she was good at hiding how she felt about things and always had been. But he saw it. A small smile, pursed lips, a glimmer of something in her blue eyes, almost like a sort of wild excitement.
And 'wild' wasn't something he ever thought when he had Sarah Walker on his mind. She wasn't the wild type. She was controlled, measured, thoughtful, prepared.
All of this made him feel uneasy.
They pulled into the parking space under Sarah's building and headed into the elevator.
"A woman with her own basement parking space? An elevator that takes you up to a floor that she owns? Yeah," Drake mumbled, low enough that it was almost like he didn't mean for Devon to hear it. "Guy like me will never be able to hurt a girl like this."
Was that…wistful?
Devon found himself utterly confused still even as they walked into the condo and found Sarah standing at the floor to ceiling window, LA's skyline stretching out in front of her.
She turned and her eyes landed on Nathan Drake. Devon thought he saw that glimmer again, and he wondered if Sarah even knew it was there herself.
}o{
"Mr. Drake, have a seat," Sarah said, gesturing to the couch. "I thought it'd be better if we meet in private again to talk."
She moved away from the window, walking around the couch and finding her own spot to sit while he shifted to sit at the furthest end of the L. He fidgeted nervously.
Why was he wearing a hat again, she wondered? She had to admit silently that he was a hat guy. They worked for him. He looked almost cute and a lot younger than he looked with the faux hawk.
"No, that makes sense. Totally."
"Good." She crossed one leg over the other and draped one arm over the back of the couch, leaning in towards him a bit. "Let's get down to business then. I want to check in on how things are going."
"Oh, I'm good. Can't really complain."
"…I…meant…preparing for meeting my father on Sunday."
"Oh, that! That. Heh. Of course you meant that." He reached up to fix his beanie a bit. "I've memorized pretty much everything you gave me." He sat up straight, lifted his chin, and began to recite the information Devon had compiled. He sounded almost robotic, or like a tour guide who hated his job or something. "—and after that, you received an MBA from UCLA while you managed multiple departments and simultaneously led some of the most lucrative marketing initiatives your company—Ice Q Foods—has ever put into place. Your hobbies include various martial arts, which is incredibly tight by the way, but karate is your favo—"
"Stop, stop." She held up a hand. "What's all this?"
"You said Jack Walker, your father, is hard to fool, he's smart, so I assume that means he's also capable of asking lots of questions to try to catch me out or something. I decided it'd be best to just…memorize all of it." He tapped his temple. "It's all in here. Heheh."
Had he really memorized all of it? And how much stuff about her had Devon put in there? That was all in Nathan's head now? That sort of stressed her out.
But that wasn't important and she shook herself a little. "Mr. Drake, do you think my father will shake your hand and ask you to recite every last detail about his daughter like you're giving a tour at a museum?"
Nathan blinked at her, seeming confused. "Uh…"
Devon held up his hand where he sat at the other end of the L, clearing his throat as he balanced a clipboard on his lap. Always taking notes. Where he kept the copious notes he took during everything, she'd never know. "You can color me impressed though. I put a lot in there."
She turned slowly to fix him with narrowed eyes. "Just how much did you put in there…?"
"Ahem…uh, a lot. We'll…leave it at that."
Great. Just great. She should have overseen that part of this.
This random guy in his Converse sneakers and beanie who took crazy jobs in exchange for rare video game consoles now probably knew a lot of stuff she really didn't want him knowing.
"Well, um, pretend you're Mr. Walker and ask me something, then." Nathan waved his hand through the air confidently. "About you or about the me you built in the portfolio."
Sarah inwardly smirked as an idea struck her. "First would you like something to drink?" she asked. "I have wine. Or would you prefer beer?"
He raised his eyebrows. "Oh. Are you sure? I don't want to…impose."
"Of course."
"…if you have beer, that—What? What'd I say?"
Sarah rolled her eyes and shook her head, lowering her gaze to her lap. "Your parents are wine connoisseurs and have been since before you were born and as a result, you've not only developed a taste for wine yourself, you know a lot about it. You would never accept beer when wine is offered."
He stared at her dumbly for a second, and then his jaw fell open and he pointed at her. "That…that's a trick. You tricked me. I didn't know I was supposed to be in character already. That isn't fair! The real Nathan Drake likes beer, okay? But if I walked in here and you told me, starting now, you have to be in character, then sure, I'd have asked for the wine!"
She looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. "Fine, I'll cut you slack on that one. And I'll get you a beer."
He seemed surprised to see her standing up and heading towards the kitchen area herself. What, did he think rich people had robot maids do this kind of thing for them like this was the Jetsons? "Mr. Woodcomb?"
"Oh, sparkling water please."
She rolled her eyes in amusement, grabbing two beers and a sparkling water, snorting softly as she heard Devon explain, "I don't want to do anything to my figure by drinking alcohol at this hour."
"That's very, uh…studious," Nathan replied weirdly.
Sarah came back and handed Nathan his beer which he accepted gratefully, giving Devon his sparkling water, and cracking her own beer open as she sat. "So let me ask you this, Mr. Drake. If on Sunday my dad asks if we can do another dinner next Saturday, what will you say to that?"
He sipped his beer and swallowed. "Yes."
"Yes?"
"Mhm. I'm going off of the assumption that I should probably accept most if not all of your father's invitations."
"You don't think it'd be a little rude to accept a dinner invite from my father on the night of our first anniversary?" She sipped her beer as realization hit his face. "Not very romantic."
"No, no! Wait! That was a trick again, not fair. I don't know off the top of my head what date next Saturday is."
"My boyfriend would, because he'd already have something planned." Sarah paused, deciding she'd go for a third strike. "A surprise for me. Very romantic."
He snapped his head up, then leaned forward to put his beer down on a coaster on the coffee table in front of him. "Nope, not a surprise. You'd know everything I planned because I know you hate surprises."
"Yesssss!" Devon punched his fist up and Sarah couldn't help but smile at Nathan Drake and the proud little look on his face.
"Well done, Mr Drake. That is what I'm talking about."
She wouldn't admit it to anyone else, but he was a little cute when he preened like that, almost seeming to bounce a bit on the couch cushion like a kid. "Okay, lemme ask you something this time."
Sarah leaned forward to put her own drink down and sat back again, crossing her arms. "Sure. I like a challenge."
"I know that, too. Because it's up here. Heh." He tapped his temple and winked. "What was I wearing on the day we first met?"
She frowned. "On the day we first met? I'm supposed to remember the article of clothing you had on?" She turned a questioning look on Devon and he seemed almost a little smug as he gave her one short nod. Traitor. She sighed. "I don't know."
"Ehhhhh!" He made a buzzer sound. "Wrong. It was a rainy day in San Diego, the convention center was all abuzz behind me, and I got distracted by a seagull taking cover under a bench on the boardwalk, so I wasn't looking where I was going and I bumped into a beautiful woman holding an umbrella. It tried to apologize but I couldn't get my tongue to work, and you just looked at me and said…" He paused dramatically. "'Watch where you're going.'"
Sarah stared at him, her jaw slack. And then she turned on Devon. "Did you really write all this?"
"Yes. It's very romantic. He offers to hold the umbrella for you and you make a remark about him only offering because he didn't have an umbrella of his own. And for the record, he was wearing—"
"A black raincoat with a hood," Nathan cut in.
Sarah rolled her eyes. "So you knew enough it'd be raining that you left with a raincoat that morning but didn't think to maybe grab an umbrella? That doesn't make any sense."
"I oftentimes don't make sense." Nathan shrugged.
Devon pointed at him in agreement. "See? I somehow knew that."
Liar.
She couldn't stand either of them right now. But she also hated the backstory as she sat up and rubbed the back of her neck with a cool hand. There was a shiver in her, and she swallowed hard. "Well, we should change the date to a day when it wasn't raining. That's all unrealistic. You know I don't like the rain," she said quietly, in Devon's direction. "I'm gonna use the restroom."
And she was on her feet, leaving the room altogether.
}o{
He'd insisted on taking a ride share back to his home, but Sarah wouldn't hear of it, and she climbed into the backseat beside him as Devon got behind the wheel.
"Thanks for the ride," he'd said, leaning towards Devon, and then turning a smile on Sarah. "I could've just…called a car or something."
"It's late," she said, shaking her head. She pulled the tablet she carried in the car with her pretty much always out of her lap and woke it up, logging into the reporting site and starting to look at the numbers for tomorrow's board meeting.
She even faced a little bit away from him, signaling she wasn't really in a place for conversation. He seemed like the type to fill silence with words just because it made him uncomfortable otherwise.
But then she saw his head sag forward a little in her peripheral and she snuck a glance at him. He seemed to be falling asleep, his chin drooping to his chest.
Sarah bit her lip with a small smile and turned back to the graphs she was studying. The smile died when Devon guided the SUV into a left turn and Nathan Drake tipped to the side, his cheek coming to rest on her shoulder.
She froze. And then she sent a startled gaze up to the front seat. Devon was too busy focusing on the road to notice what had just happened.
This guy's head was heavy, too.
And warm.
The president of Ice Q Foods knew she had to do something to change the situation before Devon saw and tormented her about it until kingdom come.
So she set the tablet on her lap and oh so carefully snuck her hand between his cheek and her shoulder. She lifted him away from her, but his heavy cheek still rested in her palm, his lithe form still tilting towards her.
Devon turned right then and Nathan's weight corrected, swinging in the other direction. Only he didn't stop, the side of his face smacking against the glass of the window.
Panicked, she picked up her tablet and turned away again, hearing him utter, "Ouch…that hurt…"
It took everything in her not to laugh. He was a certifiable doofus, this man. She pretended she hadn't noticed as he cleared his throat and squirmed in his seat.
In minutes, they finally pulled up to the curb on the block where he lived.
The pizzeria seemed to have since closed, the lights off in the restaurant, nothing but the flickering "CLOSED" neon light hanging in the window beside the door.
"Thanks—Thank you. Thanks for taking me home," Nathan said, undoing his seatbelt and popping the door open. He turned to give Sarah a long look she couldn't quite read. "See you Sunday, then, huh?"
"See you on Sunday."
He nodded and got out of the car, shutting the door and backing away, waving through the window at Devon who enthusiastically waved back. She distantly wondered what that was about.
Then Nathan turned on his heel and strolled towards his home.
"You know what? He's kinda charming," Devon said from the driver's seat.
"Charming?" she asked. "If you like doofuses with lots of enthusiasm."
"It's more like…joie de vivre." He waved his hand through the air in a sweeping circle.
"You're a doofus, too. That's why you think he's charming."
"Maybe!" he chirped.
Sarah glanced out of the opposite window towards the pizzeria as Devon pulled away and the streetlight shone in a way that emphasized a face print on the window Nathan Drake had smacked into when he fell asleep on the ride back.
She barely withheld a snort, covering her lips with her hand. He really was a goofball and it was kind of charming…endearing perhaps…
"So why are you smiling like that?"
"What?" She wiped the smile off of her face and lowered her fingers back to the tablet, tapping away busily. "No I'm not."
"Uh huh. Okay."
She glared, waiting for him to divert his amused gaze back to the road, and she smiled a little again, glancing back towards the window where Nathan Drake had left his imprint.
She genuinely hoped that would be the only imprint he'd be leaving before all of this was over and everyone went their separate ways.
A/N: Yeah right, Sarah Walker. LOL. Thanks for reading!
-SC