More Than That
By S. Faith, © 2007
Words: 2,798
Rating: M / R (for language and references to sex)
Summary: Mark attempts to take Bridget on an actual date after two weeks of sleeping together.
Disclaimer: Story is mine. Characters, not so much.
Notes: Thanks to (surprise!) Carly for the seed of the plotbunny (talk about mixed metaphors!). I realize I'm impinging on a reference more commonly associated with "The Office" with this title. Suck it up. ;)
(Apparently, I am a fic-spammin' fool this week. This little story just flowed.)
If he really stopped to think about it, his schedule for the last two weeks would have made him dizzy. Or cry. If crying was something he was prone to doing, that is. It went a little something like this: Having planned for new life in foreign country, fly to New York. Promptly throw plans for new life out of window after accepting heartbreaking reality of being in love, and fly back to London. Assume casual air as heart is beating loudly in chest while walking a few blocks to the flat belonging to the woman with whom he is in love, hoping he can make a go of it with her, else window-chucked plans would be a source of major regret. Best-case scenario results in very little sleep for the duration and a very enjoyable, very private New Year's Eve. Family obligation in the form of a strange curry-related New Year's Day tradition leads to divulging said best-case scenario to family and family friends.
And that was just within five days.
In the evenings subsequent to the New Year holiday he was absolutely pummeled with work until far too late, catching up on post-holiday tasks that had been specifically set aside for that time after rearranging employment arrangements. If he hadn't had her to look forward to after these marathon evenings, he might have gone completely out of his mind. Even still he has one regret: that he had not yet treated her to a night out, to a proper date, in that entire two week span, which is all but wrong considering how much he knows he loves her already. As it stands right now, he feels like the impression he's giving is that he's only interested in the sex.
Which admittedly is very good. No, he thinks. It is fucking incredible—no pun intended.
"That's thirty pounds," a clipped female voice says, cutting into his thoughts at a most inopportune moment. He glances up quickly to the older woman on the other side of the counter, forgetting completely where he is, then glances down to his purchase, a dozen red roses. Right. On his way to take her out on that long delayed first real date.
"Sorry, sorry." He pulls out his wallet, hands her two bills, then reaches for the flowers and makes to walk away.
"Sir. Your change." He looks back, sees that she's holding out a ten pound note to him.
"Sorry," he murmurs again.
The woman behind the counter surprises him with a knowing smile. "First date?"
He smiles sheepishly. "Yes," he says, taking the bill from her. She must see a lot of this.
"Good luck," she calls after him as he exits the florist's.
He's already called and made reservations for two at Le Pont de La Tour. He only told her that morning to be ready by six, and to dress for posh. Only now does he consider that maybe he has not given her enough lead time.
He sees an empty parking spot right in front of her building, but at the last minute a decrepit little MG whips into it from the wrong side of the street. He brakes hard as adrenaline spikes through him. He then sighs heavily, then slides his vehicle into another spot a few car lengths down the road, parks it, and disengages the engine. He takes the flowers in hand again, pauses to steady his breath from the scare.
There's a rapping on the driver's side window, and he jumps with a start, letting loose a fresh wave of epinephrine into his system. He looks up to see a bundled up constable, a stern expression on the man's face, and he realises he's been sitting there a little bit longer than he meant to. He opens the door and the officer steps back to allow him to stand. Apparently a man with a bunch of flowers does not rank high on a list of potential threats.
"Do you have business in this neighbourhood?" the constable asks, his breath trailing in the cold evening air.
"Yes, sir," he says humbly. "I'm here to pick up my… girlfriend for a date." Suddenly he is pleased as he realises that she is in fact his girlfriend. The resulting smile causes the constable to grin as well.
"All right then, wouldn't want you to be late," says the man with a little wink.
He rings the bell to her apartment so she can buzz him in, but she doesn't answer as promptly as she usually does. He rings again. Still nothing. Finally he goes to the main building door and finds that it hasn't been properly closed. He is thankful for someone else's carelessness. He trudges up the stairs to her top floor flat, and never has the climb seemed so grueling. He's panting for breath by the time he gets to her door. He knocks firmly.
Still no answer. He glances to his watch. It's quarter past six. He imagines she's doing something like putting her makeup on with the stereo blasting, or drying her hair on the highest setting. He sighs. A few minutes later he tries knocking again, but his effort is half-hearted at best. He's become aware of how bone-tired he is, and he leans back against the doorframe, closing his eyes, being careful not to let the roses drop.
He hears the door open and it startles him awake; he is surprised to have been sleeping. She gasps when she sees him.
"Mark! How long have you been standing there?" She looks absolutely gorgeous in a not-entirely-appropriate-for-January knee length silk dress the colour of antique roses with matching shoes in the low 'kitten heel' style she likes so much. She's styled her recently trimmed hair it so that it looks quite elegant, softly curled under around her jawline.
He looks once more to his wrist. It's now six-thirty-five. "The downstairs door was open. I tried knocking but I guess you didn't hear me."
She doesn't reply. She's too busy looking at him with what he recognises to be great concern. He remembers the roses and lifts them up to present them to her. He notices they have wilted a little. "These are for you," he says, as if holding them out to her isn't obvious enough.
She doesn't look at them.
"What's wrong?" she asks, her voice sepulchral.
"Nothing's wrong."
She grabs his left wrist and pulls him into the flat, which he belatedly realises he has not come into, and shuts the door behind him. She gets up on the step just above him and she takes his face between her hands, studying his features with great intensity. He focuses on her eyes, which are darting furiously back and forth over his face. "You look…" She drifts off, not wanting to say the obvious negative adjective, even though he knows it must be true. She then reaches for the flowers with one hand and for his wrist again with the other, tugging him up to the main part of the flat. She sets the roses down on the table, releases his wrist, slips out of her shoes and walks to the bathroom. He wanders closer to the back of the house as if by inertia alone.
"Bridget. Dinner. Seven," he calls after her impatiently.
She calls back: "We aren't going to dinner." He hears the bathwater come on.
"But I am taking you out."
She reappears, dark water spots decorating the front of her pretty dress. "You need to relax."
"Bridget." He must have been tired, because he sounds whiny even to his own ears. "I brought you roses."
"And they're gorgeous, but I'll put them in water after I do the same to you."
"What?"
"A hot aromatherapy bubble bath."
He emits a sharp laugh of disbelief. "I'm taking you to dinner."
"I can't possibly have a nice time when you look like you're about to fall over and I don't think 'posh' would appreciate you passing out on their table from exhaustion." She walks over to him, reaches for the front of his coat, and begins to push it off over his shoulders.
"I'm fine."
She looks him square in the eye. "You are far from fine; dinner in a fancy restaurant is not important compared to—in comparison," she says, correcting herself at the last minute, leaving him to wonder what she was about to say as she walks around and pulls his coat and jacket off. "Call the restaurant and cancel."
He decides he doesn't have the power to fight any longer, that she is probably right if he can't formulate a decent argument in response. As she heads back to the loo to check on the status of the bathwater, he palms the mobile in his suit jacket pocket, flips to the entry for that fine eating establishment he'd had such high hopes of taking her to, and calls to cancel the reservation, citing last minute emergency. When she returns she reaches up, loosens his tie, then grabs the end of it and pulls. It's not as loose as she thinks at is and for a moment it catches, tightening around his neck. "Oh God, sorry!" she exclaims in a panic. He smiles, and she does too as she carefully takes apart the tightened knot and he begins to fumble with the buttons at his neck. Fully free now, she grabs the end of the tie, pulls it from him and throws it onto the chair, then begins unbuttoning lower down on the shirt.
There's nothing sexy or sensual about the way she peels his shirt from him. Actually, it's pretty awkward when he stops to think about it, as short as she is. Left to divest his own trousers, she dashes off to the bathroom and he hears the water cease to flow. He joins her in the bathroom clad only in his boxers. The suds look like a white foamy mountain heaped above the edge of the bathtub. She grabs a lighter from where her packet of Silk Cut is sitting on the bathroom counter, grabs one thick pillar candle and lights it, then another, then a third. "I'll be right back."
"You trust me not to climb in, fall in face first and drown?" he quips.
"Don't push it," she calls playfully back over her shoulder.
After taking off his pants, folding them neatly and setting them aside, he climbs in. The water's just hot enough to be able to stand without flinching. He's sitting chest-high in bubbles, letting the steaming water swirl around him as he leans back against the tub when she returns with her cordless telephone pressed to her ear, flicking off the light switch in the bathroom. "Yes," she says into the receiver. "Pepperoni and cheese." She gives the pizza place her address and phone number, then presses yet another button to disconnect. She sets the telephone down near her ciggies then comes to sit on the edge of the bathtub, looking at him with that same careworn expression on her face. Reaching her hand up, she draws her fingers along his brow. He's surrounded by hot water, the faint scent of citrus and sandalwood and the glow of ambient candlelight. With her gentle touch brushing along his hairline, his eyes almost immediately close and he feels his head thud against the back wall quite against his will. He doesn't care. He's thinking too much about how loved he feels, how touched he is that she noticed how tired he was, how if it had been Natasha (or even She Who Won't Be Named) he would have still been dragged out in his comatose state.
He doesn't know how long he's been in the tub but when he opens his eyes the water is decidedly cooler and less foamy, her rose-coloured dress is lying in a heap on the closed toilet lid and she is not to be found. He sits up, sloshing water, blinking the sleep from his eyes as he calls her name; he does not want to emerge from the water without a towel and he doesn't see one within reach.
She appears at the bathroom door. "Good timing. I was just paying the pizza boy." Her prettily coiffed hair is now pulled up into a haphazard ponytail, and she's wearing heather grey trackie bottoms and a black rock concert tee shirt that's so old the tour logo has worn off. He's become very familiar with her silhouette over the last two weeks and can instantly tell that she has nothing on beneath. This realisation does not stir the usual feelings in him, which tells him he's as exhausted as she observed him to be. She fetches a towel out of the linen closet and brings it to him. "I hope you're hungry. They accidentally brought a large instead of a medium."
He rises up and the water pours off of him. She holds it up to swathe him with it, patting tenderly, then holds his hand as he steps out, which is kind of comical when he considers it because if he were to slip and fall he would have taken her down with him in an instant. She smiles up at him. "You look so much better."
He tucks the towel into itself at his waist then smoothes down his hair where it's formed wet little ringlets at the nape of his neck. "I feel better."
She suddenly screws up her face as she looks to his bare chest. It's not the reaction he's used to seeing in that context. "Damn. I hadn't really thought about what you could put on afterwards."
"Not even the largest of your pyjamas are likely to fit me," he concedes with a smile. "I could put my trousers and—"
"Absolutely not," she reprimands. "It's Friday night, and you are not putting your monkey suit back on." He can't help but chuckle. "I have enough blankets. You'll be very comfortable." She slips her hand up to his damp face, strokes it softly, then smiles again. "Come on, let's have our fancy dinner." She reaches to take his hand in hers and they walk to the living room.
She has put the roses into a vase and set them on the sideboard table that sits under the window behind the sofa. She's also lit the fireplace and turned down the lamps, so it's just them, firelight, pizza and red wine. Before too long he's laughing so hard he's crying, because that's just the way she is: she's funny, and while it's sometimes true that she doesn't mean to be, that's not the case tonight. Tonight she's just a balm to his rotten day, his stressful week.
They must have been hungry because at the end of dinner there's only three slices left. He finishes his wine; pleasantly buzzed, he hands the empty glass to her and she sets it on the floor. She pushes the box away with her toes, leans back against the arm of the sofa, then tugs him gently down to rest upon the softness of her chest. His waist is just about even with her pelvis and she has one leg to either side of him; their legs stretch out together along the length of the sofa. He feels her fingernails combing through his hair and down to caress his face, feels tender kisses pressed into the top of his head before she rests her cheek there. He can feel her warm breath on his scalp, her other hand splayed upon his bare shoulder. His eyes close again, his nose is filled with the heady scent of the nearby roses, and he is overtaken by an incredible sense of peace.
"I think," she says quietly, "that posh dinners out are overrated."
She may just be right. He doesn't say it in so many words, just slips his hands under her arms and around to the back of her shoulders, the only way he can manage an embrace lying up against her on the couch. In reply she snakes her arms about his neck then kisses him on the top of his head again, running her fingers lightly along his shoulders. It's a comforting touch, a reassuring touch, one that relaxes him even further than just the bath and the wine alone.
As he drifts off to sleep once more, he thinks it quite possible that she already realises he's not just in it for the sex, and while he has never flattered himself by thinking that he's one of those men that women only want for their bodies, it is oddly ego-boosting to know, truly know, she's in it for more than that.
The end.