by April Fire
Still, she takes particular care in getting ready for the evening. It’s a balancing act – how to try without looking like she tried, how to look good but not too good, how to put on a show without putting on a mask. Picking an outfit is quite difficult, as she seems to only own business suits and they’re all boring as hell. If there’s one thing she doesn’t want Richard to think she is, it’s boring.
Having given Richard her home address over the phone, she takes one last look in the mirror and heads out of the door, deciding it’s too late to fix that unbalanced eyeshadow and lopsided lipstick. What she’s learned over the years is that in reality, no-one else notices that kind of thing. She just hopes to God Richard doesn’t have a background in makeup artistry.
She’s not the slightest bit late as she steps out of the door and into the cool night air, but there’s already a car waiting for her and her phone buzzes with what is undoubtedly an I’m here text from Richard. She’s rather relieved he’s in the car already – she swears she’s seen that Knightly driver before, and by the look on his face, it wasn’t a friendly encounter.
“You look nice,” is the first thing Richard says when she sits herself down next to him in the backseat.
“So do you,” she says nonchalantly, only realizing how true her statement is when she actually looks across and sees Richard; he’s wearing a black suit and shirt, plus a pair of immaculate shoes and some black-rimmed glasses which make his pale skin stand out rather beautifully. “Wow,” she blurts, unable to stop herself. “I didn’t know you wore glasses.”
He touches a finger to them and flashes a self-conscious smile. “Yeah. I usually wear contacts, but apparently these look okay too.”
“They look great,” she smiles as the car begins to move. She tries to find faults with the driving to distract herself from Richard; this guy is horrible at braking smoothly and he takes turns way too fast. She’s happier once she’s established that she’s definitely better than him.
But once she’s finished ripping apart Knightly’s below-par service in her head, there’s nothing else to do but face the rather crippling silence between her and her date – Richard keeps looking over at her like he might say something, then simply wringing his hands together and looking away. The whole night better not go like this, otherwise she might end up throwing herself on top of a carving fork.
They exchange awkward smiles and even more awkward small talk, but it seems like this is a Richard-trait that Lauren’s going to have to get used to – he closes up when he’s nervous, but fortunately, Lauren can talk to herself for hours on end, so she simply rambles about the weather until he starts to join in. He looks even better when he grins, his eyes crinkling up and his cheeks rounding. God, Lauren is so screwed.
She begins to get worried when Richard’s grin widens as they climb out of the car and walk along the street together. He looks unnaturally mischievous.
“Where are we going?” she asks warily, starting to rethink her classification of Richard as not-a-psychopath.
“I told you, wait and see,” he laughs, beckoning for her to follow him down a small yet thankfully brightly-lit street.
The tiny restaurant they step into is not one Lauren’s seen before, so she doesn’t get it right away. She looks from the little gold fairy lights littering the bar to Richard’s hundred-watt smile and can’t quite see what’s so funny, until Richard points to the shelf in the corner upon which is perched a good number of different colored boxes.
“It’s a board game café!” he announces triumphantly.
Of course, it is. She should have seen a stunt like this coming. He only smiles wider when she groans.
“It’ll be fun! You’ll see,” he asserts, guiding her further into this hellhole of an evening and sitting her down at one of the tiny tables.
It will not be fun, she thinks, memories of family fights springing solely from who gets to be the car and the correct spelling of zucchini springing to mind. The expensive wine Richard orders might make the night a little more bearable.
“Jenga? Or Monopoly?” Richard asks, rattling the two boxes in her face when he returns from his board-game quest. Lauren’s never said Jenga faster. There’s no way she’s playing Monopoly against a millionaire.
He looks like a child on Christmas Day when he sits down, placing the box in the middle of the table like it’s some kind of sacred artifact. She tries to keep up her frown, but it’s difficult when she’s watching Richard smile idiotically as he opens the box and sets up all the wooden blocks with the utmost concentration, his tongue poking out the side of his mouth.
“So…why here?” she asks, looking around at the low beams and the rather scrappy furniture. Most of the other tables are full of people who don’t look like they earn anything near a six-figure salary, and in all honesty, she and Richard are both very overdressed. “I don’t see any caviar.”
“I hate caviar,” Richard says immediately, barely looking at her as he places the last few blocks in a neat row at the top of the tower. When he finally does look up, it’s with a face full of new nerves, his teeth mauling his lip to shreds. “I just…didn’t wanna keep up the whole rich asshole thing.”
“You’re not an asshole,” Lauren says with a wave of her hand. “Wait, did I call you an asshole?” That sounds like something she’d do, she just can’t remember if she said it out loud, or just in her head.
“Uh, you implied it several times,” he says, but a smile touches his eyes and he doesn’t look too offended. At least she might not get fired tonight.
“Sorry,” she says, a little sheepishly, “I’m just used to people trying to walk all over me. Especially assholes,” she adds, clicking her tongue and remembering all the grovelling she used to have to do when she was chauffeuring regularly.
“That’s okay,” he says warmly, “I kinda like it, anyway. Being pandered to isn’t that nice, either.”
“Is that why you brought me here? To let me thrash you at Jenga?” she laughs, trying to lighten the mood a little.
“We’ll see about that,” Richard smirks, “I am the Jenga master. My mother trained me.”
Lauren raises her eyebrows. She’d be lying if she said this was what she’d expected from a date with this new Richard, but then she’d also be lying if she said she wasn’t terrifyingly competitive and unwilling to take a challenge. She takes a large gulp of (smooth, fruity, gorgeous) wine, and squares her shoulders. “Alright, rich boy. Game on.”
Jenga turns out to be a rather precarious game when there are wine glasses on the table, and it’s lucky they both have reasonably quick reflexes, as between them, they prevent quite a few accidents. Best of three turns into best of five, then best of seven, and before they know it, they’re getting some rather strange looks from the other diners due to the panicked screeches they keep letting out. Lauren has to admit, Richard is rather skilled at Jenga – they manage to keep up the balancing act until the tower looks a little like a spinal column and climbs precariously towards the ceiling.
Richard manages to snag one from the middle somewhere, and the tower gives a worrying wobble, but remains upright. This is the tiebreaker round, Lauren has to make this if she wants to win, and by God does she want to win. But gravity, it seems, is not on her side, and as soon as she reaches for a particular block, the very movement of the air sends the tower crashing down around them, a block landing neatly in Richard’s wine glass as he cackles his stupid handsome face off.
Lauren folds her arms and scowls. “That’s not fair,” she protests, “I didn’t touch it! It was technically still your turn.”
“Bullshit,” Richard proclaims, picking blocks out of his lap and scooping them into a pile in the middle of the table. “You lost and you know it. That means you’ve gotta pay for the wine.”
At that, Lauren nearly explodes. “But you chose it! I can’t fucking afford that, you should have told –“
“I’m kidding,” Richard says, still smiling far too hard for Lauren’
s liking. “Wine’s on me. Anyway, food?”
The very mention of the word makes Lauren’s stomach growl – she’d lost track of the time completely. She’d almost forgotten that they were supposed to be on a date. She’s not used to laughing so much.
The menu is pretty basic, but Richard doesn’t turn up his nose – he orders some kind of soup, while Lauren goes with a pizza and some mozzarella sticks because she doesn’t believe in salads, especially on dates.
They leave the board games while they eat, almost in silence apart from the odd compliment here and there, mostly directed towards the food.
“So, uh, what do you do for fun around here?” Richard asks through a mouthful of bread, just as Lauren’s decided to chew a whole mozzarella stick. “Like, when you’re not working?”
“Uh,” she says as she chews frantically, “I don’t really know.” Is she ever not working? “I like movies, I guess. Like, good movies. Hitchcock and Kubrick and stuff. You?”
He shrugs. “I used to sketch. Nothing good, really, just scribbles.”
“But you don’t anymore?” she asks, balancing another slice of pizza in her hand.
“No, not really. No time, you see. Or there is time, I just don’t use it properly,” he laughs, but there’s a rather wistful look in his eye that suggests he wasn’t meant to be a millionaire after all.
“That’s a shame. You should take it up again,” she nods, “I remember your little comics, they were great!”
Richard smiles, pink touching his cheeks. “Oh, yeah. I forgot I used to do them.”
“And you used to draw on the desks. Professor Mortimer hated you.”
He barks a laugh. “I forgot about him, too! With his big red nose and his creepy eyes.”
“And, do you remember Tom? The guy--”
“Who drank like a whole bucket of beer and fell in the river? I remember fishing him out,” Richard says amidst Lauren’s laughter. “That was a good year.”
“Are you glad you left?” Lauren asks once the giggles have died down. “Or do you think you should have stayed?”
Richard sighs, and Lauren rather regrets asking. He looks a little sad, now. “I don’t know. I don’t know what mom would have done if I’d have refused. She wanted someone to learn the ropes, and who better than her son? Plus, you know, I’m rich as fuck now.”
She smiles into her wine glass. “I guess so. You could buy your very own art studio,” she suggests, but Richard shakes his head.
“When I’m older, maybe,” he says. Lauren decides not to point out that he’s no spring chicken; she’s not getting any younger herself. “So, uh, do you go on lots of dates?”
Lauren chooses not to read into that question too much, and instead laughs, “None quite like this one. But yeah, I’ve been dating. It’s mostly been a bunch of dickheads who think that if they pay the bill, they’re entitled to sex.”
“Oh, when I said I’d pay for the wine, I didn’t mean –“
“No, I know,” Lauren laughs. “I wouldn’t actually mind having sex with you,” she says without thinking. Her smile drops and she recoils in her chair. “Or, you know, something less forward,” she mumbles at the place-mat.
He laughs, thank the heavens, but she can see the heavy blush on his cheeks quite clearly now, and he spends a few moments twirling the wine glass in his fingers. “Uh, okay,” he says awkwardly. “Well you know, I wouldn’t necessarily mind that either.”
The cute little sparkle in his eyes has Lauren smiling along with him, and she finds herself leaning forward in her chair. “We’ll see, I guess,” she says, her voice perhaps more sultry than she had intended. He’s looking at her, not just a glance but a gaze, and he must think he’s being so subtle when he flicks his eyes to her lips, but she knows exactly what he wants. She leans forward just slightly more and touches their mouths together, closing her eyes for a few seconds and wondering how she’s managed to end up kissing Richard Shepherd yet again.
It’s safe to say he’s improved since the saliva-coated tongue attacks she used to receive; he actually seems to have acquired some kind of technique, moving his mouth to match her rhythm and bringing a hand up to cup her jaw. It lasts just long enough to leave her wanting more.
Richard looks rather pleased with himself when he opens his eyes and sits back a little. Smug bastard, she thinks, he thinks he’s sexy as hell. To be fair to him, though, he sort of is sexy as hell, the way he licks his lips a little and the way his hair falls into his eyes in a perfect wave.
Lauren’s mouth flaps as she tries to think of something witty to say, but she settles upon just staring at Richard and flicking her hair over her shoulder in a show of look, I can be hot too.
“So… that was different,” he says after a few moments, a shy smile playing on his lips. “You used to slobber all over me.”
“Hey!” she snaps, all seductiveness discarded as she bristles irritably, “It was you that slobbered!”
“It takes two to slobber,” he says with a shrug, “but anyway. That was slobberless.”
Lauren snorts into her pizza before realizing that during the kiss, her necklace had decided to dip itself in tomato sauce, and hurriedly wipes at it with a napkin. She gives up on hiding the smear of sauce she’s got over the table – she’s not perfect, better for him to find that out now than at the altar.
“So, you’re definitely, y’know,” he says quietly, “okay with this? It’s not weird, is it?”
She surprises herself with her answer. “No, actually. Not really. And yes, I am okay with it. Are you… okay with it?”
He nods thoughtfully. “Yeah. I mean, my mom would probably want me to be going on dates with, y’know, billionaire’s daughters and all that, but for me, y’know, you’ll do.”
She laughs at that, relieved that the nervy, ass-licking Richard is nowhere to be seen. When their plates are taken away and their wine glasses are refilled, Richard sits back in his seat and gestures to the shelves of games a few feet away from them. “Your turn to pick.”
Lauren takes this very seriously. She’s sure as hell not going to lose another game to this fucker, so she scans the boxes until she finds one that she knows she’ll wreck him at.
He looks at her like she’s just slaughtered a unicorn in front of him when she places the box on the table. “Chess?” he exclaims, palpable fear in his eyes. She smiles.
“Yup. You’re right to be scared.”
“But – this is supposed to be a fun evening,” he whines as she tips out the pieces and lines them up at either end of the board. “Chess isn’t fun!”
“That’s where you’re wrong, rich boy,” she states, sitting back an admiring her handiwork. “Chess is great fun. It’s like – enjoyment, but with intelligence.”
He groans. “That sounds shit. I don’t even know if I can remember how to play chess.”
“Perfect, then I’ll teach you!” she says cheerfully, just to piss him off a little more.
“Fine,” he growls, picking up his king, “what does this one do?”
Half an hour later, though, Richard’s seething over the loss of his rook, and merrily sending all his pawns out to their deaths. She beats him in six moves at first, before she decides to go easy on him for the sake of his blessed fun.
And it is quite fun by the end; Richard can actually sort of play chess, and Lauren has managed to make up for her Jenga defeat. They end up kissing a little more across the table, knocking over a few pieces with wandering hands and ill-placed elbows.
“Do you wanna go somewhere else,” Lauren whispers against his lips as she entwines their fingers loosely.
Richard’s nod almost knocks her out, but at least she didn’t get rejected. “Yeah,” he says, “where do you wanna go? My hotel is –”
“Yeah, definitely your hotel,” she says quickly. She has no desire to ever let him see her landfill-site of an apartment. She didn’t even do the dishes before she left.
The city seems more beautiful than it was w
hen they step out of the restaurant and spill into the night air; the lights glitter around them and the wind whistles with the sound of passing cars as Lauren winds their arms together and leads Richard down the street, his eyes bright with laughter.
She tries to keep her mind from racing, but it’s rather difficult when Richard’s walking along beside her with windswept hair looking rather like some kind of Greek God in a suit. Kissing while walking proves difficult – they keep accidentally butting heads, and Lauren almost knocks Richard’s glasses clean off his face – but they do it anyway, getting annoyed looks from passersby when they stumble off course.
Sitting in the car and looking vaguely normal also proves difficult. Lauren is painfully aware of the driver’s stern gaze, so she tries her utmost to keep her hands to herself and her eyes away from Richard’s face. The driver must know, though; Richard told him to take them both to his hotel, that can only really mean one thing.
She tries to look professional – perhaps it’ll look like this was a business meeting, rather than a date, perhaps they’re going back to Richard’s hotel simply to discuss matters further and not at all to leap into bed together.
It becomes a challenge to keep a straight face when Richard begins to send her sneaky grins from the other side of the car. Every time she looks over, he’s got a slightly different expression on, sticking out his tongue or crossing his eyes or warping his face into generally disturbing shapes. That bastard, she thinks as she purses her lips and keeps her gaze carefully straight ahead. She won’t laugh. She won’t laugh.
She makes it most of the journey without breaking her façade – Richard, on the other hand, is nearly crying at his own stupid joke by the time the car pulls up to his hotel and the driver throws him a disgruntled look. He scrambles out of the car as quickly as possible after that, and Lauren follows, rolling her eyes when they finally join hands once more.