Author's Note: A little weekend one-shot, because who doesn't want to spend the evening with our three favorite guys? This is set late season three, before L.A. I hope you enjoy this little blurb. Drop a review and let me know what you think! Oh, and rights to Castle aren't mine. Now onward and forward.

Encountering Heat

As the empty beer bottles mounted on the break-room table, so did the tipsy trio's raucous laughter.

"So," Esposito stuttered around a chortle and another sip, "it's four o'clock in the morning and she wakes up to the phone on the first ring, listens, says 'Mkay,' flips on the light—and, man, I'm tellin' you—her eyes were all raccooned 'n' bloodshot like she spent the night in the drunk tank! Her hair was a mess to begin with 'cause of—" Javier stopped short, suddenly realizing that his sassy M.E. girlfriend might appreciate he preserve some shred of her dignity. "Well anyway, it was a sight to see." His eyes lost a little of their irresponsible sparkle, mollified by the thought of the scolding he'd get if word of this conversation ever got back to Lanie.

Castle sensed the detective's discomfort. He nudged Ryan and leaned forward. "Did you laugh?"

"Nah, man! You crazy? She'd have killed me for sure."

"Gosh, you're right." Castle rubbed his jaw thoughtfully, affecting a mock-seriousness. "And then she would have lied about cause of death in the autopsy report."

"Dang, bro!" Ryan played right in, knowing his partner was just drunk enough to take the matter very seriously. "You'd better watch your mouth."

Esposito's eyes darted nervously from face to face, holding deadpan glances. Suddenly, they all burst out laughing.

"Yeah, right." the Latino detective slurred, back-handing a mist of tears from his eyes. Ryan shook his head.

"Jenny is not a morning person. First couple of times we spent the night together, she looked murder at me when I tried to talk to her in the morning."

Castle snorted into his longneck. "Alexis does the same thing to me before she's had her breakfast. Especially on Saturdays if she's stayed out late the night before, she just stares at me like I—I—what?"

Ryan and Esposito sported twin expressions, much more solemn than the ones previously worn by Ryan and Castle.

"Dude." The tone said, Are you freaking kidding me?

Thinly-veiled contempt. "Shut up."

Castle was genuinely offended. "What? Why?"

Ryan kicked his chair back from the table and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, folding his hands in the manner of one staging a great intervention. "Castle, you've been known as New York's playboy."

"You've been married twice and scored more times than almost any guy I know."

Castle knit his eyebrows in confusion. "And?"

"And," Esposito began with a deprecating shake of the head, "you're telling us about your teenage daughter."

"But I love Alexis," Castle argued, dumbfounded.

Ryan and Esposito shook their heads. "Not the point," they refuted in unison.

No one was laughing anymore.

"Alright," Castle said slowly. Testosterone levels in the room were on a sharp incline. "What do you want to hear?"

The detective duo exchanged a glance, silent conversation. Should they ask? Did they dare?

Oh yeah.

"Tell us about Beckett."

"Beckett." The author repeated. "What about her?"

"Dude!" Annoyed incredulity.

"Castle, are you serious?" Aside: "Is he serious?"

"I hope not."

The banter was quickly getting old. Castle grinned condescendingly. "You know, I think you two should go out. I really do. It's perfect! You finish each other's sentences, talk with your eyes, anticipate each other's train of thought. I might even start calling you Roach."

Esposito rolled his eyes at the combination of their pseudonyms—Raley and Ochoa—in Castle's Nikki Heat series. But Ryan kept grilling the writer for information.

"What's she like?"

The stares fixed on him were unrelenting and doubly aggravating, which was why Castle decided to indulge them. "You wanna know? I'll tell you." He leaned in confidentially. His lips twitched. "She doesn't say much, you know? Like she wants a moment to gather her thoughts and relax."

Ryan and Esposito's heads were nearly touching, they were so engrossed in the tell-all. Castle resisted the urge to snort rudely; what girls.

"And then she does this—thing."

"What 'thing'?" The question was disgustingly eager.

Castle made a show of glancing around the empty precinct and lowered his voice to a husky whisper. "Sometimes she'll bite her lower lip—"

There was a dual jaw-drop.

"—and then she'll close her eyes and take a deep breath—"

Their eyes were unashamedly bugging out of their heads. Castle was enjoying himself immensely.

"—and that..." he paused dramatically, building the anticipation, "is when she ducks under the tape to go investigate her next crime scene."

Ryan huffed his disappointment and leaned back, folding his arms across his chest. Esposito shook his head.

"Cute, Castle. Really cute."

"Seriously, dude."

"Seriously." Castle was very much in earnest. "There's nothing like that to tell."

And then he remembered the way they'd kissed, and he had to eat his words. Her response to his touch was more than just a ruse to get past an armed muscle-man.

"We are not—and never have been—sleeping together," he qualified bluntly, pleased that he was no longer obfuscating the truth. As much.

"But Castle, you're so into her. We've seen the way you look at her. Like—like—"

"Like she's your whole world," Ryan supplied for his partner, softly. Neither of the other men scoffed at the romantic insight birthed from his relationship with Jenny. They'd entered a no-bull conversation zone. Castle sighed wearily.

"Something like that."

"Why don't you talk to her?"

"Right!" Castle actually laughed. "I've imagined that scenario a hundred times; what I'd say, what she'd say." His brow furrowed. "Oddly enough, I can't picture an ending that doesn't involve me staring down the barrel of her gun."

Esposito's expression conveyed extreme solemnity. "I don't think so, bro."

In man-speak, that meant I know something you don't know.

Castle pounced. "Why?"

"Remember when the 3XK got the drop on you and Ryan?"

"Yeah." How could he forget? Later, after they'd been discovered, Kate came to comfort him, laying her slender hand on his knee and he'd held it there like she was his only anchor.

Esposito nodded. "Your mom called just as Beckett was leaving that night. I could actually see her turning pale." He paused, reliving the moment, and Castle's heart skittered wildly.

"And?" He pressed anxiously when Javier didn't continue. Could he dare to hope that Kate cared about him?

"Until we showed up at the motel, she thought you were dead. I bet Ryan here thought he was having a hard time with his face all smashed in and his gun and shield missing—"

Esposito couldn't resist ribbing his best friend and the other man glowered unappreciatively.

"—but, really Castle, I know she's into you the way you're into her. You should've seen her face when—"

"When what, Esposito?"

The voice was definitely hers. Definitely suspicious. Definitely unexpected.

Ryan jumped and swore, knocking over his current beer and the two previous ones. Esposito's mouth snapped shut with an audible click. Castle never lost his cool.

"When you found pictures from your modeling days plastered all over your desktop," he supplied smoothly, flashing her his signature grin.

Her severe gaze faltered and her lips pursed, but her eyes danced. "I very vividly remember telling you two not to tell Castle about that."

They stammered wordlessly; they'd never let it slip. "Uh…."

Castle wiggled his eyebrows mischievously at the two flabbergasted detectives.

Beckett strode over to the counter where she'd forgotten her phone hours ago. "I hope you plan to catch a cab," she addressed all of them with an arched eyebrow, half-teasing. "It smells like a brewery in here."

"Yep."

"Good." She turned on her heel to leave. "Good night, Ryan, Esposito." She paused on the threshold and titled her head back over her shoulder, dropping her voice slightly when she spoke suggestively. "Castle."

She caught a glimpse of his face and had to bite her tongue to keep from grinning like a schoolgirl as she left.

"What the heck, Castle?"

"We never told you about that!"

Kate shook her head when she heard their voices pick up again.

Purposefully, she leaned over her desk—well in view of the break room—pretending to dig through files and enjoyed the heat that pricked her cheeks when she felt him watching her from behind.

She was no fool; she heard much more of the conversation than she let on.

Straightening, she adjusted her coat slowly. She was tempted to go back in and confront Castle about their feelings for each other. It was high time, wasn't it? Time for the games to end.

She thought about the look of consternation that flashed in his eyes in the brief moment it took him to realize she was in the room. It was fun—sometimes—to keep him wondering.

She got in the elevator and as she turned to face forward, he caught her eye. He stood where she had just a moment ago, an unfathomable expression on his face.

Smiling slightly, Kate Beckett bit her lower lip and dipped her head just as the doors slid shut in front of her. Someday, she thought.

In the squad room, Castle stood firmly rooted. Her performance in the break room left him with the impression that he'd just been played. Her somewhat coy—and incredibly sexy—display in the elevator left him with the impression that she wasn't playing.

Lying awake in bed that night, Castle discovered he didn't mind either very much.