by Golden Angel
He was going to have to keep an eye out for Legos.
Looking at a giggling Lexie, who had somehow ended up on the bottom of the pile and was currently fighting her way to the top, he amended that thought: and glitter.
Something occurred to him that made him frown again.
"How did you all get here?"
"Cabbed it. From Olivia's," Angel said, grinning gleefully. Kind of vindictively actually. He glanced down at the floor as he made his way to the ottoman in front of the couch, so that he could face it. No Legos. Yet. "Hilary and Jessica didn't come. They didn't want to get in trouble." She drawled the last word, which made the others burst into more giggles.
Rick couldn't help the smile that was breaking through, even though he was trying to look stern. They were all cute, piled up like that and drunkenly happy. Maria's eyes met his and she scowled again. Which was also kind of cute, not that he was dumb enough to mention it.
"YOU!" She pointed her finger at him again. The other two immediately quieted, expectant expressions on their faces, like they were waiting for Maria to make some grand pronouncement. "You are a dumbass!" Angel and Lexie nodded their agreement.
He raised his eyebrows at all three of them. "Alright."
This was definitely not the time to argue. Not when it looked like Maria was having trouble just stringing together sentences. Best thing to do in this situation was just sit tight and wait for his own back-up to arrive.
"I like you. And you could've had aaaaaaall this." Maria's words were accompanied by the most hilariously awkward sexy gyration that he'd ever seen, even if it hadn't been hampered by the fact that Angel was leaning on her side and Lexie was half on her lap. Granted, "all that" was looking pretty hot in her work attire, which consisted of a dark blue cotton blouse and creamy linen pants that looked business casual but would also allow her to keep cool in the summer's heat. Somehow Rick managed to keep a straight face though, even though he was definitely beginning to see the amusement in the situation. "You and your talking! And non-talking!"
Okay. So he'd gotten it wrong. Maria liked him. At the very least. And somehow he doubted she'd show up this drunk at his door to tell him so unless she meant as more than friends. On one hand, he was relieved. On the other hand, he wished she'd been a little bit more forthcoming last night rather than shutting him down right after the scene. It would have saved both of them a lot of angst today.
Rick nodded his head amiably. "Yeah, we should talk. Probably tomorrow."
"No, I wanted to talk tomorrow. I mean today. I mean, yesterday I wanted to talk tomorrow!" Maria glared at him.
"Yes, you did,” he said a placating tone. “We should have talked this morning. I'm sorry that we didn't." Well, now he was sorry. If he had to do it over again, maybe he would have made a different decision, but maybe not. After all, she really hadn't given him much to go on last night, despite their talk about communication. Which was something he'd explain to her when she was sober.
"Oh..." Seemingly struck by his apology, Maria deflated, leeched of the anger that had puffed her up. Lexie gave him a thumbs up from behind Maria's back.
Although Rick would have liked to see what Maria said next, he was also incredibly relieved when his doorbell rang. All three women twisted around, trying to see towards the noise with a look of surprise on their faces.
"Who's that?"
"Back-up," Rick replied dryly, already halfway to the door.
Both parties, as it turned out.
"Uh oh..." Angel said it in a sing-song way, but she was definitely looking a bit like a trapped kitten when Adam caught her eye from across the room. She smiled hopefully and then tried to hide under Maria's hair when Adam didn't smile back.
"Well shit." Lexie glared at Patrick, who glared right back. Truthfully, Rick hadn't been entirely sure who to contact for her, but he figured Patrick was better than her parents.
Patrick crossed his arms over his chest at almost the exact same time as Adam. For a moment, Rick almost felt sorry for the little troublemakers. Almost.
"What are you doing here?"
"I thought we talked about not interfering in our friends' relationships," Adam said, right on top of Patrick's question.
All three men winced as the room erupted with sound, Lexie, Angel and Maria all trying to explain at once. At the top of their lungs. Rick slammed the door shut behind him. He'd done it to keep the noise out of the hall, but it had the added benefit of making the women jump in surprise and shut up.
"Come on, Angel," Adam said, sighing as he let his arms drop, his hard expression already softening. Sometimes Rick couldn't believe how much Angel had changed his friend. Mostly in good ways, although Adam was turning into a big softie when it came to her. "Let's go home and we'll talk about this tomorrow."
Making a face, Angel pushed herself up and stumbled, nearly falling on the floor before Adam darted forward to catch her. "Okay pest -"
"Don't call me that!"
"Time to go." He swung her up into his arms and turned, heading for the door. Which Rick obligingly opened for him.
Patrick and Lexie were still caught up in a glaring match; next to Lexie, Maria had shrunken in on herself as if trying to avoid Patrick's gaze. She really didn't need to worry about that. Rick was pretty sure that Patrick was solely focused on Lexie, to the exclusion of everything else that was going on around him.
"Why weren't you at work tonight?" Patrick barked out finally.
"Umm... girls’ night. Duh. Don't worry, Olivia was there to keep an eye on me." Lexie rolled her eyes expressively.
"Obviously not a very good one."
"Obviously she recognizes that I've grown up and treats me like an adult."
"I'll treat you like an adult when you act like one."
Lexie flipped him off, sticking her tongue out at him at the same time. Patrick snorted.
"Yeah, that's exactly what I mean," he said, shaking his head as he moved forward, obviously intending to pick her up from the couch.
"I can stand on my own!" she said furiously, pushing herself up and away from Maria, who was watching the whole scene with big eyes, trying not to do anything to draw attention to herself. Rick couldn't blame her, he was finding it pretty fascinating too.
"Barely." But Patrick stopped just a couple feet short of her. "You're so drunk it's amazing you can stand at all."
"I'm twenty-four, I can handle my liquor!"
"You're twenty-three!"
"I- oh. Yeah, but I'm almost twenty-four, my birthday's-"
"Not for another two months," Patrick said grimly, reaching out his hand for her to take. His other hand was balled up by his side, as if he was using pure force of will to keep from picking her up instead of just offering his assistance. Lexie kind of wilted, as if just realizing how drunk she really was. His voice softened, turning coaxing and gentle, almost tender. "Come on, little pixie."
"Oookay." Lexie finally gave in, practically melting against Patrick as he slung his arm around her, supporting her. Wrapping both of her slim arms around his waist, she nuzzled her face into his chest.
Seeing Patrick's clenched jaw expression, Rick knew for sure, for the first time, that Patrick definitely no longer saw Lexie as his little sister. But Rick didn't comment. Just held the door open for them. That was going to be complicated as fuck when Jake finally came home.
Rick also didn't mention the specks of pink glitter that were clinging to the back of Patrick's neck.
Shutting the door behind him, Rick turned to face his own troublemaker. She was sitting on the couch, hands in her lap, fingers wrapped tightly together, and looking up at him with a worried expression as she nibbled on her lower lip.
"Are you mad?"
"Nope. Just tired. Come on," he said, walking over to her and taking her hands to pull her up. Like Lexie had with Patrick, Maria practically fell against him. "We're going to bed."
"Okay..." Maria instinctively started towards the front door, but Rick tugged her aro
und to head down the hallway. "Oh! We're..."
"Going to sleep," he said firmly. There was no way he was going to do anything with her but sleep tonight, but he also didn't like the idea of her going home alone when she was this drunk. Better to have her here where he could keep an eye on her. "Tomorrow morning, we're going to have the talk that we should have had either last night or today."
"Mmmmm kay."
Getting her undressed and into one of his t-shirts was a process. Not just because he would have been turned on anyway, but because she kept giggling and trying to snuggle up against him. Which was definitely testing his self-control. He ached to press her breasts into his hands, to run his hands all over her smooth skin... but he fought the impulses down. Not going to happen. Not like this.
Finally he got her situated in his bed, wearing a t-shirt and a pair of his boxers over her underwear. Sleepily, she tried to wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him, but he managed to veer off enough to give her a kiss on the forehead instead, ignoring her mumbling complaints. Hopefully tomorrow she'd remember and be appropriately grateful for his restraint. Because he should seriously get some kind of award for being such a fucking boy scout.
Stripping down to his boxers, Rick felt the most incredible surge of rightness seeing her in his bed. Another emotion that he needed to tamp down until they'd talked.
Sliding in beside her, he wrapped his body around hers, snugging her curves up against him. He groaned softly as she wiggled her bottom into his crotch, his dick snuggling into the warm cleft of her ass. Tightening his arm around her, he tried to breathe through the fairly painful ache in his lower body and relax himself. Which was pretty much a useless endeavor. He knew that he would probably relax better if he moved farther away from her... but he didn't want to.
Closing his eyes, he breathed in the warm, womanly scent of her and focused on relaxing his muscles one by one. Surprisingly, even though he was horny as hell, with Maria safe in his arms, he found himself drifting fairly easily towards sleep
******
It was a combination of things that woke her. The awful taste in her mouth. The throbbing in her head. The nauseous gurgling of her stomach. And the nagging instinct that knew she wasn't in her own bed.
Oh god... what did I do?
Warily, Maria opened her eyes, whimpering a little bit at how bright and piercing the light seemed to be, even though there wasn't very much of it. It took a couple of moments for her eyes to focus and a few more to recognize that she was in Rick's room.
Okay, seriously... what the fuck did I do last night?
Immediately she put her hand under the covers. Shirt... shorts... panties... yeah, they hadn't had sex. Relief and disappointment swamped her, although there was definitely more relief than disappointment in the mix. For one, if they'd had sex, she'd really want to remember that. For two, they really needed to talk before they had sex.
Rolling onto her back, she looked at the other side of the bed which was rumpled and empty. So they'd slept in the same bed at any rate. She put her hand over her eyes, blocking out the light while she tried to remember exactly what had happened last night.
Going to Olivia's for girls’ night and having a blast, she remembered. Lots of girl talk. Lots of insight into what the other girls were into. Angel telling her that Rick thought that she didn't want him - as if! Then Lexie suggested... aw shit. Well that explained how she’d ended up here. Although she couldn't really remember what had happened once they got here. Everything was kind of fuzzy and disjointed by then.
Very faint sounds were coming from the other side of the door, which meant that Rick was both awake and moving around. Sneaking out probably wasn't an option. Maria moaned as she pushed herself up to a sitting position. It wasn't just her head that hurt; her whole body ached.
"I'm getting too old for this shit," she muttered. She could remember a time, heck five years ago, when she could have gotten shit-faced, stayed up all night and then been at work with just a headache the next morning. One of the hazards of getting older. Or maybe it was just that she didn't do it as often anymore. No tolerance. Either way, it sucked.
Her clothes from the day before were folded on top of Rick's dresser. Maria reluctantly took off what were obviously his t-shirt and boxers. She'd have to wait till she got home to change her panties, so she left those on and put on her bra, pants and blouse. Wearing her dirty clothes made her feel kind of grimy, but she just couldn't face Rick while she was still wearing his. Yanking the rubberband out of her curls, she just grabbed the heavy mass and put it up into a messy bun. There was no point in trying to do anything more with it right now.
Opening the bedroom door, the faint sounds resolved into the familiar clinks and sizzles of someone cooking. It smelled delicious. Even though she was still kind of nauseous, her stomach perked up.
Taking a deep breath, she made herself shuffle down the hallway to look into the kitchen. Seeing the movement, Rick looked up from the pan he was pushing eggs around. If her body didn't hurt so much, she would have appreciated the view a lot more. Sexy bare chest, pajama pants hugging his hips, ruffled morning hair, and cooking breakfast; he was like a woman’s wet dream. Maria didn't even want to think about what she looked like.
"Good morning," Rick said, his lips curving into a grin. "How are you feeling, sunshine?” Maria just whimpered and he chuckled sympathetically. “Come on and sit down." Setting down his spatula, he reached out and she automatically took his hand, allowing him to lead her over to the table. When she winced at the sunlight, even though he had the shades down, he sat her down at a seat where her back would be facing the outdoors.
"Coffee?" she asked, a hint of begging in her voice.
"Water first, you need to be hydrated before you have something that will dehydrate you further. Eat the banana."
Blinking at the table in front of her, she realized that there was indeed both a glass of water and a banana sitting in front of her. The water was cool, not cold, and it felt wonderful. She had only meant to take a sip, but she found herself gulping it down and by the time she lowered the glass it was half gone.
"Good girl."
Maria looked up to find Rick watching her from his position at the stove, an approving look on his face. She wrinkled her nose at him, even though just hearing him say that made a strange little tingle of happiness go through her. This definitely wasn't a sexual situation, so she shouldn't like that, should she? Having him take care of her felt really nice, even though he wasn’t supposed to be bossy outside of the bedroom.
Deciding to ignore him for now, because she could really only concentrate on one thing at a time at the moment anyway, she peeled the banana and took a bite. Ugh. Bananas weren't her favorite anyway, and right now her stomach was even less of a fan. But she chewed and swallowed the one bite while she watched Rick. Definitely a view worth watching. Even though he was shirtless, he didn't seem to get a single spatter of food or grease on him. She was envious; she always wore an apron when she was cooking bacon.
He was very purposeful, no motion wasted, as he finished up the eggs and put the bacon on a paper towel to soak up some of the grease. There was a pretty large pile of it already.
"Why don't you just microwave the bacon?" she asked. Even though it was kind of fun to watch him take each piece from the sizzling pan and add it to the pile, she realized he must have done at least three separate shifts of bacon to get the pile that large.
"I can control how crispy it gets more easily if it's in the pan," Rick replied, setting the last slice down just as the toast popped up out of the toaster. "I'm picky about my bacon." He winked at her as she fell silent again, just enjoying watching him plate the eggs, bacon and toast.
The plate he set in front of her had way too much food on it, but she didn't say anything for now. She'd just eat what she could. Rick pulled butter and jelly out of the fridge for the toast and set it down between them, sliding into his own chair.
"So," he said, picking up hi
s fork and scooping up some eggs. "How was your night last night?"
The twinkle in his blue eyes made her want to stab him with her fork. Instead she just set the utensil down and picked up a piece of bacon. Much less dangerous.
"What I remember was fun." She eyed him. "Hopefully not too embarrassing. What happened to Lexie and Angel?"
"Patrick and Adam picked them up. You don't remember?"
"Bits and pieces." Although now that he'd told her, she felt like she remembered a little more, as if he'd added some puzzle pieces to her memory and the picture was becoming clearer.
This time Rick's smile was slow, amused, spreading across his face until the corners of his eye crinkled. "Well, you may or may not remember, but I promised that we would talk this morning. You seemed pretty mad that we didn't talk yesterday. Which, I know was my fault. On Thursday, after the scene, I felt like you shut me out and were pushing me off. I thought the scene had gone really well and when you didn't even want to talk to me afterwards... well I thought that pretty much said it all."
"Oh I'm sorry..." Maria dropped the piece of bacon as guilt sparked. She'd been pretty mad yesterday that he'd made assumptions, but when he put it like that, she could see where he was coming from. If she'd been the one who'd immediately said 'let's get together again' and he'd told her that they should wait until the next day to talk about it, she probably would have felt pretty rejected and thought a lot of the same things. "I didn't even think. I wasn't even capable of thinking at that point... I was just so overwhelmed by everything and I knew I wasn't thinking clearly and I just didn't want to make any decisions or anything while I was all spacy in my head. I wish you'd said something. I wish I'd said something."
"It was both our faults," Rick said, reaching over to hold her hand. His fingers curled around hers, strong and comforting. Even more comforting was how easily he took his portion of the blame. There were a lot of people out there, of both genders, who were quick to assign blame without acknowledging their own part in a misunderstanding. Maria had been quick to see where she'd gone wrong, but she did feel better knowing that Rick felt like there were things he could have done to prevent the misunderstanding too. His smile turned rueful. "I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions and you should have been just a bit more forthcoming about where you were at post-scene. After all that talk about communication, we both kind of fell apart on that one. I wish I'd just let you talk yesterday morning, I had a really shit day thinking that you just wanted to be friends. Which I was down with, it just hurt and I needed some space to recover."