Liquor and an Omelet
It was late and business had been good, really good. Joseph was pleased, relieved that his first real business venture had started well and would hopefully continue that way. The door swung shut with the last patron of the night, staggering out with a couple slurred words and a few unintelligible remarks about the "best fucking night ever!".
Joseph turned his head to watch him leave with a smile on his face and a chuckle escaping the back of his throat a few moments later. "Glad to hear it," he yelled to the now closed door. He looked up at the guy behind the bar and waved his hand. "Go on, get home, I'll close up."
"You sure?"
"Of course I'm sure now get." Joseph softened the words with a wink and watched the young bartender scurry off towards the staff room. He picked up his cigarettes and peered into them, scowling faintly as he only had one left, where in the hell had they all gone? He was sure he hadn't smoked that much.
Eh, whatever.
Joseph lit up his last cigarette and slid it between his lips, inhaling and exhaling in the same breath. He rose to his feet, rocking his weight onto the heels of his boots for a moment until he strayed behind the bar and helped himself to a bottle of whiskey. His bar, his alcohol, he could drink whatever he wanted.
He leaned back and lifted his glass, taking a sip from it. "Good night," he decided with a nod of his head.
Thankfully he hadn't locked up yet.
Rhiannon waited off to the side while the intoxicated man let the door slam and stumbled past her. "Thanks," she called to his back and gave it a half-hearted thumbs up. It was fabled that once upon a time, in a land far away, men had held doors open for women. She supposed she couldn't take it too personally; he was wasted.
"He's closin' up," the guy said, lumbering in a crooked line across the parking lot.
"And I'm right on time." Two a.m. Late enough to be finished with patrol, early enough to catch Joseph before he hopped in his car and headed off to god knew where. Rhiannon pulled the door open and looked around. A cloud of smoke still hung above the pool tables, oscuring the green felt, the red-painted walls hung with frames, the dark blue carpet. Over the small tabletops and chairs, rounded fixtures hung like miniature spotlights.
"Hey." On her way across the room, she touched a striped ball left by itself on a table, rolling it beneath her palm until it reached the corner pocket.
As cheesy as it sounded Joseph felt Rhiannon long before she appeared. "Hey," he greeted with a smile. "Can I get you anything to drink?" He placed his glass down and leaned against the bar, palms flat against the wooden surface. "Free bar, I promise."
Joseph rummaged out another clean glass and turned it over to rest on the bar itself, tilting his head as he waited on an answer from Rhiannon. He always soaked up the sight of her, never mattered how many times he saw her.
"Absolutely," she said. "A beer." The ball clunked into the pocket and rolled its way into the bottom of the table like a marble, where it rested alongside the others. They were polished and bright, not used enough yet to pick up wear and tear. Rhiannon captured a bit of chalk and brought it with her to the bar, where she climbed onto a stool.
"You look happy." She smiled, bare arms folding on the rag-wiped surface. Tiny beads of water still dotted the wood, smelling faintly of cleaning agent. Rhiannon rolled the square chalk between her hands.
"That obvious, huh?" Joseph chuckled and shook his head, picking up the glass and running a beer out of the nearby tap. "And here I thought I did a good job of acting." He settled in front of Rhiannon, resting the glass in front of her and stealing a kiss a second later. "You look good."
He nudged her nose and then leaned back, picking up his glass to take a sip of whiskey.
Rhiannon kept her eyes closed for a second, just extending the moment of his kiss. She tasted her lips, found that they were flavored like him and his drink. She loved that, the visceral side of a sentimental gesture. It was like her to want to commit all the tiny details of him to memory. "I look relieved," she said, lifting her eyelids and reawakening to the conversation. "Maybe that's not the right word. Neither's satisfied." She took a sip of beer and set it down, then stretched her arms across the bar to grip the opposite side, the stretch a bit like a cat.
"I'm just glad to see you, without drunk friends colliding with the back of my chair." She smiled, remembering how the third hand of poker ended at her apartment... With beer spilled all over the table, softening the playing cards and tinting them brown.
"Amen to that," Joseph agreed with a nod of his head. "I was so going to win that hand as well." He grinned at her over the rim of his glass before he swallowed back the alcohol with barely a flinch as it scorched the back of his throat.
He leaned back against the bar and caught a strand of dark hair, sliding it behind Rhiannon's ear. "I'm glad you stopped by. I was going to do the same if you hadn't done it tonight. Figure it was about time we had a little one-on-one time."
Joseph's head tilted down and his lips pressed a lingering kiss to her pulse before he simply leaned back and lifted his gaze to her face. "You doing okay?"
"I think so." Rhiannon cut her eyes left and thought it over. "Yeah..." she decided, bobbing her head up and down. "Yeah, things are okay. It's weird I needed to reflect on that. But you know how you get so used to living with crazy situations that you're almost numb? I don't even know the difference." Since she was already halfway across the counter, it was easy to pluck up his shirt hem and twist it.
"Oh. Shit." Rhiannon winced. "Did you notice what wasn't parked outside my apartment building?"
Joseph's brow furrowed at that shared snippet of information and he reached up, sliding his thumb over her cheek. "Sucks, beautiful. You clearly need some time away from all the crazy and some very tender loving care." He nudged her nose again and smiled. "I know I'd be a very willing and happy volunteer."
He glanced down at her fingers in his hem and then nodded, giving Rhiannon a commiserating look. "I did notice the distinct lack of a car. What happened? Did it finally give up?"
"Yeeeeah." She chewed her lip and twined the shirt around her index finger. "On the highway, no less, with Kris in the passenger seat. There were no warnings. It simply ceased to go. Right about now, it's either parked on a junk lot, or sitting in some mechanical person's driveway. I got a guy to take it off my hands."
It was a good thing Chicago was a city with great public transportation. While it was killing her not having a car, it was hardly unusual.
Joseph hissed in a breath and shook his head. "That sucks. You know if you ever need to borrow a car you can always borrow mine or I could ask around, see if anybody I know is looking to offload a car at an affordable price?"
"How is Kris these days? I live in the same city as her but I never see her. Go figure." He busied himself with twirling a strands of Rhiannon's hair around his fingers.
After curling a leg under herself to raise her height, Rhiannon tucked her hand inside his shirt and lightly scratched his stomach. "Back with Hayden, at least physically. I didn't get the details." Thinking on that now, it bothered her that she hadn't thought to dig. Maybe she just assumed that one thing meant the other, when it came to Kris. Still, it wouldn't have hurt to ask.
"She said something about losing business at her gym, though. Not like economic woe, either." Remembering the cold drink in its glass, she picked it up and nursed it until the amber beer was halfway gone.
Joseph's eyes slid shut at the soft affectionate touch before he exhaled a breath. "Hopefully things'll pick up for her." He opened his eyes slowly. "Could be the media hype around Faith that did it, put people off going to a place run by a Slayer?"
He picked up the whiskey bottle and poured himself another drink.
"Yeah, but... How many people actually know she's a Slayer?" Rhiannon asked. "That can't be it, unless somehow it got leaked. Kris isn't really the sharing type, so I doubt she trumpeted it around the neighborhood or printed up business cards."
Perhaps it was easier to figure out now than Rhiannon realized. Her social circle only extended so far as the supernatural crowd. Of course there was Jamie, her partner at the fledgling media and comic distribution company, but he kept her name to initials in print, and didn't run his mouth. Maybe when the people you worked with were 'informed civilians', so to speak, the lightbulb clicked on nowadays.
"True enough," Joseph agreed with a nod of his head. "I have a hard time imagining Kris announcing that sort of thing to just about anyone." He picked up his glass and took a slow sip from it. "Neighbourhood having any problems that might put people off going to it?"
He curled his thumb around the rim of the glass, following a trail of condensation. "How'd that Faith thing work out anyways?"
The neighborhood? Rhiannon released his shirt and straightened her shoulders. She picked her brain for scraps of information she may've picked up from Kris's conversations. "Break-ins," she said, "But you'd think that helped business." Whatever the situation, she wasn't in the loop enough to hazard any guesses. "According to the newspaper, a new witness came forward with information about Faith's case. They were also supposed to be renewing some surveillance footage. Whether that means she's out yet or not, I'm not sure."
Another thing popped into Rhiannon's head. "Hey." She snapped her fingers and pointed at him, face brightening up. "You. You left me a message about having an idea what gear I could use on patrol."
Joseph grinned right back at her and nodded his head. "Yeah, I did. I got the gear at home and it's all in your size. Anything to keep you from winding up dead courtesy of a trigger happy vampire. It's pretty good stuff, the police and the army use the same sort of quality."
He sipped at his drink. "You can grab it tonight if you want?"
"Okay..." Rhiannon turned her head slightly right, eying him in a bemused way. "What exactly does this thing look like? Or maybe I should ask what it's made of. For some reason, I'm picturing a wetsuit, and that can't be right." She kept her fingers around her beer glass, thumb working in a circle.
Joseph chuckled and shook his head. "Nothing like that, beautiful." He picked up his glass and swallowed what was left of the alcohol. "See, I'm smart. I got you separate and very easily detachable parts of body armour."
He winked and reached under the bar, pulling out a notepad. "Lemme illustrate it for you." He rested the pad down in front of Rhiannon and found a pen, sketching out what he hoped looked like a human figure. "No laughing at my bad drawing, not everybody has raw natural talent."
Joseph winked and turned back to his poor attempt at art, sketching in a ballistic vest. "This right here? Is an undergarment vest. It's the most technologically advanced vest and uses 100% DYNEEMA or SPECTRA to deliver maximum protection. The vest itself weighs just under 4 lbs without sacrificing performance because we wouldn't want that now would we? The front, back as well as the sides of the body have NIJ level IIIA protection from firearms. Basically, that's one of the highest levels of protection you can get. Think law enforcement officers. I also had it upgraded for you so you have extra protection from knife attacks and blunt trauma."
He then went on to sketch a few guards on both forearms and shins. "These right here? Are known as tactical guards." After that he sketched on a few more things, thick black boxes. God, he really sucked at drawing. "And these are supposed to be your quick release buckles, one click and they're gone. Also? They're plastic to reduce any secondary fragmentation damage. Plus they're lightweight so you won't be carrying masses of weight around with you."
Joseph wet his lower lip and added another detail to the figure's neck. "And I figured it might be good to have some kind of protection for you neck, from fangs or whatever else this thing has to throw at you. This is a specially designed piece of kevlar, fits to any neck and has a few hardened bits of metal in the key areas." He pointed to those key areas on his drawing - right over the pulse and the jugular vein.
"Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention but in these," Joseph pointed at the arm guards. "You have a storage place along the width of your forearm so you can tuck some knives into them." He looked up at Rhiannon. "I know a guy, does a lot of customisation, I got him to do some for you."
Joseph glanced back at his drawing and figured to hell with it and just added some hair.
Rhiannon watched him draw the long, dark pieces. It was the most difficult thing she'd ever done not to laugh. Mr. Perfect had a knack for... stick figures. She pressed her lips together tightly. "That's cute," she said, head bobbing up and down. The important part was not looking Joseph in the eye.
Elbows on the bar top, she turned her face into a palm.
What she really meant was he was cute. After a moment, the amusement over his artwork faded to a dull roar as she noted all the specifications he'd drawn in. "That is one serious outfit," she said. Rhiannon turned the page towards herself and looked at the specifications he'd written down; most of the material specifics went over her head, but she knew kevlar and tactical guards, and she recognized the flexibility in the pieces. It looked government issue, like the riot gear they wore in Las Vegas for Project Integration, which had been drool-worthy. Despite her negative associations with the Project, she hadn't wanted to turn those in. "You really don't want me to get killed, do you, baby?"
But it was exactly what she wanted. Not the outfit to wear on everyday patrols, perhaps, at least in its entirety, but the type to wear once Izzy got the mystical GPS up-and-running and she went on a hunt for Katherine and Deanna. She liked that she could pick and choose the parts to wear, based on what she needed it for. She liked the buckles that could have her out of a piece of heavy gear in seconds. She liked the piece for her neck and the pockets for her weapons.
Joseph rested his pencil down and looked up at Rhiannon, settling for answering that question of hers with a very long extremely heated kiss. One that ended with his fingers in her hair and their lips mere inches apart.
"Not if I can help it." He brushed his thumb over her cheek and then glanced back at his drawing. "Let's burn this and never speak of it again. I'm going to leave any further artwork up to you."
"Whatever you say." Still a bit taken in by the kiss, Rhiannon chewed on her lip. She could run twenty flights of stairs without getting winded, jump off a third-story rooftop and not have an adrenaline rush, but the kisses Joseph gave when he meant business knocked the air out of her lungs. She stretched across the bar to nudge his nose and kiss him a second time. It was all a pleasant distraction for her sneaky hand, which grabbed the sketch by its corner and attempted to spirit it away.
It made a crinkling sound in her lap. "Refrigerator art," she insisted.
"Hey," Joseph complained against Rhiannon's lap. "No refrigerator art out of my very terrible artwork." He nudged her nose right back and then eyed the spirited piece of paper in her lap. "Promise nobody's going to point and laugh?"
He finished up his drink. "You wanna check out this gear? If so I could lock up and we could swing by my place, you might even be able to talk me into cooking something."
"That I can promise," she said. So far as she knew, Purity wasn't an artistic type and wouldn't judge, and Rhiannon was more likely to be overcome with bouts of affection. Look, she'd think, he gave it my hair. So she folded the drawing into a smaller rectangle and placed it in her back pocket, under the press of a wallet.
She checked the wall clock. "You're gonna cook for me at two in the morning?" A smile as she dismounted the stool, because Joseph had probably gone hours since his last meal, and she'd been out working up an appetite on patrol. Only one vampire, but he led her on a chase that spanned several city blocks before he got hemmed into a dead-end alley and failed to shoulder through a steel door. Which had been pretty funny.
"I am hungry." She picked up her glass and finished it in a few enormous gulps. Unfortunately for her liver (or maybe not, depending upon whether her healing covered that), beer had become like a soft drink.
Joseph washed up the two glasses and then put them away, nodding his head. "Yeah, me too. I have the ingredients so why not cook something?" He finished up behind the bar and slid out the side, catching his jacket on the way out.
He wandered the length of the hall, making sure the windows and doors were locked. "You mind grabbing the lights?"
"No, assuming I can find them." Rubbing her lips together, she turned around with thumbs in her hip pockets and looked for the panel of switches, which were in a nook. She went over and flipped them, plunging the building into darkness. She tried to make her way back towards the exit and rammed her hip into a pool table. "Ow." From then on, she kept her arms outstretched, just in case.
She pushed the door open. Its hinges were so new, they didn't even squeak. A gust of cool, damp air that smelled of city fumes rather than cigarettes hit Rhiannon in the face. She thought about how the air was out in Searchlight, how it seemed so blank and unlived in, unlike the places she'd been before. "Nice plant," she said, nudging a concrete holder with a bush in it. It was probably good for propping open the door.
Joseph chuckled and trailed out after Rhiannon, sliding a hand around her waist to pull her against his chest so he could lean down and kiss the side of her neck. "It does what it's supposed to, what more can I ask from it?" He turned back to the doors and pulled them shut, easing the locks shut and closing them properly with his keys.
He found his car keys as he eased in beside Rhiannon. "Let's get out of here."
She reached back for the seatbelt and stretched it across her body. Afterwards, she looked at his dashboard and gearshift, the air vents and chrome accents. "I miss cars," she lamented, as if it'd been years since she had hers. Her personal taste ran to older cars, even though they were exhaustive on the environment and often garnered dirty looks. Whatever. Most of the time, she went around on foot, so that ought to make up the difference. Maybe she'd pick out a model from the 70s, something huge and heavy and loud.
"Hey," she said, switching topics. Rhiannon reached across and closed her fingers around his leg. "Did I tell you there's a gang of vampires wearing breastplates?" The tone of her voice was completely bewildered. Sure, it made sense, but they weren't usually smart enough to wear things that made sense. "I tried to dust one and it completely flattened the end of my stake. It sounded like it was made out of garbage can lid. Still. Damn. That's inconvenient."
Joseph eased in behind the wheel and started the car, shifting it into the correct gear before reaching for his seatbelt. "Breastplates? Seriously?" He fastened the belt into place and quickly checked for passing cars or wandering pedestrians before he accelerated, slipping into second easily enough. "Guess they've gotten smarter over the years."
"Either that or they think everybody and their mothers are going to try their hand at staking them since that news report came out detailing the ways in which to kill supernatural things." It had been on television late and Joseph hadn't been able to sleep.
The car eased its way through the scattered amount of traffic easily enough, meaning it wouldn't take very long to reach Joseph's apartment.
"Which, by the way..." Rhiannon held up a finger. "Not entirely correct. I wonder who the source was. I've never seen a vampire go down with garlic water in a squirt gun." Okay, she had watched it, too, from the comfort of her couch with a slice of pizza in hand. She and Purity had gotten frustrated with the programming and thrown greasy, wadded up napkins at the journalist.
She relaxed and let her body ease deeper into the bucket seat. Pieces of brown hair got tangled around the headrest. While they navigated the route to his place, she watched his hand around the head of the stickshift, the bend of his knee when he let off the clutch. He was an intuitive driver, and it looked when he drove as if the car was a second part of Joseph that he operated as easily as his arms and legs.
"Hey." The window was down and a current of air blew hair across her eyes. She peeled it back. "You look fantastic tonight." Rhiannon narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing, though the set of her mouth gave her away as joking around. "Have you been working out?"
Joseph's lips pulled in the corners as he chuckled quietly. "Yeah, you and me both." He looked over at her and his mouth slid into a smirk. "Working out, me? You must have me confused with those guys obsessed with their looks."
His eyes returned to the road and the wheel was turned in the palm of his hand, pulling the car out from behind another, pressing his foot down on the accelerator to make for an easy maneuver in front.
Joseph reached across and picked up Rhiannon's hand, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. "You gonna stay for what's left of the morning?"
He turned the car onto the road of his apartment block and eased it into a gradually slower speed, shifting the gears again until he could work with first to ease his car into a parking space.
It took Rhiannon a moment to answer. She was busy gaping at his profile, her face frozen between being slack-jawed and smiling. Joseph not concerned about his looks? Even if he wasn't a particularly neurotic dresser, or concerned about labels or flaunting his features, she had always thought he was conscious of how he looked. His reputation was wrapped up in that slightly slouching posture of his, the slow ease of his movements, the lazy smile.
How could he be unaware of himself on that level?
Maybe he was, and Rhiannon was just unable to conceive of being that way herself. When her silence became obvious, she shook the cobwebs from her head. "Sorry. I was having a moment there." Rhiannon opened the door handle. "Yeah, I'll stay. As long as you don't make me sleep on the couch."
"I have a big bed," Joseph remarked. "There's more than enough room for two." He killed the engine and opened his door, stepping out and lifting a hand in greeting to a neighbour of his. She went for runs at the weirdest of times, she said it helped her sleep or something like that.
Joseph locked up the car and sorted through his keys until he could find the one for his apartment, pulling Rhiannon against his side. "Besides why would I make you sleep on the couch?"
"You wouldn't." She reached under his shirttail and scratched his back, which was warm, the skin soft over his muscles. "I just like to hear you say it." The runner kept her attention a bit longer, Rhiannon thinking that it was an unsafe time to jog around and hoping she carried tiny canisters of mace and holy water. She walked up to the building with her arm hooked around him, fitting neatly into his side.
Joseph ran his hand over her side and then leaned in to drop a kiss on her temple, leaning over to press the button for the lift once they got there. "Glad we're on the same page." The doors opened with a ping and Joseph pulled Rhiannon in with him, hitting the button for the floor he was on.
As the door sighed shut, she put her shoulderblades to Joseph's chest and backed up, pinning him on the wall. The indicator light ticked the floors by. She wrapped his arms across herself like the sleeves of a warm sweater. "I can't believe you live in a place with an elevator." The floor pressed upwards on her feet, though it seemed to leave her stomach trailing behind. "I think if I had one in my building, I'd just come in here and press all the buttons until the novelty wore off." Like when she left box air conditioners behind and had a central system in Las Vegas, and kept adjusting the digital dial because she could. Seventy degrees? No, I think I prefer sixty-nine.
Joseph relaxed back into the elevator and tightened his hold on Rhiannon, leaning down to nuzzle against the side of her neck. "Guess I'm lucky like that." He tipped his head back and watched the buttons flash, pressing a lingering kiss to Rhiannon's temple as they reached his floor and the doors opened.
"C'mon, gorgeous." He pushed away from the wall and took Rhiannon with him, tucking her against his side. His hand busied itself with finding his keys and sliding them into the lock, turning the key until the door opened with the touch of his hand.
She entered ahead of him. Standing off to the side, she untied her double-knotted laces and stuck her fingers in the rows further down, loosening them until her feet could slide out of the stiff boots. They stayed at the door, toppling onto each other, while Rhiannon emptied her pockets on the table and picked her way through the darkness towards his kitchen.
She hopped onto his countertop (a fine example of making herself useful) and tucked her hands under her thighs. "So what are we slash you making?"
Joseph shrugged out of his jacket and flung it over a nearby chair, leaning down to unlace his boots so he could also slide a pair of socked feet out of them. He tossed keys, cigarettes and a lighter out onto the side before he peered into the fridge.
"I'm thinking we can either opt for a lunch slash dinner type of meal or we could look into making something more breakfast orientated, but I'd totally understand if you wanted to check out your gear whilst I did this."
"Really?" Rhiannon pressed her lips together, looking like a kid on a birthday who had just been told that yes, she could open her presents before cake and ice cream. She raised her eyebrows to see if he'd change his mind and make her wait, then excitedly kicked her heels against the cabinets. "Yay!" She hopped off, planted a kiss on his cheek, and raced towards the back of the apartment.
"Oh, breakfast!" she yelled as she wandered around, looking for the new toys. Having an outfit custom-made was as good as having a weapon done, and she already had a few of those. "I'm stoked. Nobody else has tactical gear!" She found it soon enough and knelt down to inspect the pieces and test the weight and material, feeling quite spoiled.
Joseph watched her go with a smile on his face before he turned to the kitchen and decided he could make omelets. "I'm glad you like it," he hollered over his shoulder. "A guy worries, you know?" He found all the right ingredients and starting mixing, rummaging out a frying pan.
"You want anything specific in your omelet?"
"Tomato, if you've got it." Rhiannon was back there for a few more minutes, taking things apart and reassembling them, locating pockets where she could store her weapons and even the binoculars Izzy gave her. She didn't go so far as to try it on, though had no doubt she'd do that when she got home. She planned to con a ride out of Joseph in the morning, since she'd never get on public transportation carrying the gear. Just then, she knew the thing she missed most about her car: the hatch.
She came out holding the neck piece. "This is a nice touch." Rhiannon fastened it around her neck to see if she had mobility, and discovered it was like wearing a thick choker. She poked at it and watched him flip the ingredients in a pan. "You're the best." Her lips pressed his shoulder, her teeth taking a harmless bite. "I'm glad you traffic things." She smiled.
Joseph laughed at that, turning his head to press a kiss to those smiling lips. "It comes in handy." He sliced up some tomato and added it to the pan, finishing frying up that omelet before serving it onto a nearby plate. "Hopefully they do what they're supposed to and I won't have to worry about you as much."
He found her a fork and knife then passed her the plate. "Enjoy." He cracked open a couple more eggs and started whisking his own omelet.
Rhiannon leaned on the refrigerator door, one socked foot balancing on top of the other. She held her plate and ate the egg alongside him, using only her fork to cut into the fluffy omelet. "God that's good." She chewed and sliced another piece off the rolled egg, which she speared and held before Joseph's mouth. "Try?"
The icemaker hummed behind her head, and the door was cool on her upper arms. "You don't have to worry anyway," she said, though the assertion was unnecessary; he'd do it regardless. "I'm a tough girl." A tough girl that wasn't nearly so quick to jump into insane situations, now that she had Juliet on most patrols, and had grown a bit out of her reckless streak.
Joseph leaned over and caught the piece of offered omelet, chewing on it and lifting his eyebrows. "That's actually pretty good. Not bad for this time of the morning." He licked the corner of his mouth and turned back to the omelet he was making for himself, adding a couple herbs to it.
"I know you're a tough girl," he said with a nod of his head. "But I love you so I'm going to worry about you."
"It's pretty good for 11 a.m." Rhiannon's version of cooking involved frozen pizzas and the toaster oven, or boiling frozen vegetables. A few times, she'd baked desserts, getting some weird satisfaction out of that. It tapped into a memory of making Betty Crocker brownies with her grandmother after mass, and how the best thing in the world was being allowed to lick the bowl.
"How about this." She set down her fork and placed her hand on the opposite side of Joseph's head, holding him in place for a kiss on the delicate skin below his ear. The pulse beat just to the left of her mouth and he smelled like aftershave. "You can worry, and I'll be extra careful, and then one day when we're sixty, I'll be able to say I told you so."
Joseph closed his eyes at the kiss and smiled, lifting his eyes to look at Rhiannon. "I'd like that." Nevermind the fact the thought of proposal had crossed his mind several times over the years, he felt like he was nearly there.
He turned the cooker off and ignored the omelet he'd just cooked in favour of kissing Rhiannon.
She held the plate aloft like a pizza platter, up and out to the side so it wasn't in the way. The handle of the fork scraped across the plate and she leveled it up, but wasn't as successful with the dull knife, which catapulted onto the floor. "Oops," she whispered. As she kissed him back, it was always a debate whether to close her eyes and just feel his mouth and tongue, or keep them open in case she found him looking back with those deep, warm browns.
Joseph chuckled against Rhiannon's mouth. "Don't worry about it, I'll get it later." He put his hand into her hair and drew her closer, exploring her lips and mouth with his tongue. Give him one year, five or ten, he'd never get tired of doing this. He nudged her nose and dropped another kiss on her mouth, having managed to slide closer.
"I've missed you," Joseph shared softly.
"Me and you," she said, tracing a fingernail down the nape of his neck. "We need to get in each other's orbit." It was difficult, her world being demons and his something else altogether, living in different parts of town, but sliding their relationship into the space leftover was tough. "We need something we do together. Besides that." Rhiannon smiled, nudging her knee slightly between his. "Don't get me wrong, I love that."
She set the plate on the counter. "Remember," she wound her hand into his shirt, "We used to help each other take out bad guys. We made a good team. Plus I won't lie, it was definitely sexy. But it doesn't even have to be like that, just..." She stopped talking and looked at his chin. Rhiannon wasn't sure what she was suggesting. Both of them had lives and responsibilities, both were independent, but maybe the two paths could cross once in awhile.
Joseph tilted his head and followed Rhiannon's train of thought, giving a definite nod. "Yeah, we can work that out I'm sure. It'll be more your kind of bad guy though given that I'm trying to keep my nose outta trouble these days." He had no idea how well it would work, but it was worth the shot.
He nudged her nose. "How about you and I grab a couple hours of sleep? We'd think better with clearer heads." Joseph slid an arm around her waist and pulled her away from the counter, relying on Rhiannon to wrap her legs around him.
It didn't take long for them to reach the bedroom.
"Okay." She tightened her limbs around him, thinking heavily about what he'd said.
If Joseph still intended to keep his nose out of trouble (she hadn't been sure about that, given the pool hall and what he'd mentioned happening behind closed doors), then there was no way in hell she'd drag him back into danger. Demon or human, it didn't matter. They'd just have to find a way to work things out like regular people did.
Of all the things in her life she did put at risk, she'd wouldn't risk him.