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Rebecca knew that the double date wasn’t going well the moment John said that he supported “City or United, depending on who’s winning.” She’d felt her body go warm with embarrassment. She’d looked down at the table, chuckling like John was saying a joke, and when she looked up, Roy was looking at her, his jaw tight. Keeley was still pretending to listen to John prattle on, which was fine by her, but Roy had her locked in.
Like he could hear every thought in her head. Every little insecurity that told her she made a mistake in booking this double date. She should’ve just kept John a secret, should have seen him in private and got what she needed from him and moved on. She’d suspected that any man she found who was age appropriate by now would have some gaping flaw.
Or else why weren’t they married already?
Was that all she had to look forward to? Meaningless dates, friends-with-benefits, then the inevitable pull away?
“Rebecca?” Keeley’s voice shook her out of her thoughts, and suddenly, Rebecca realized everyone was looking at her.
“I’m sorry, I must have just…gotten lost in thought,” she said, settling her hand at the back of John’s chair, an apology, a leftover habit from Rupert. “What did I miss?”
“Keeley was just saying that Roy has been offered a pundit job,” John supplied helpfully. “Isn’t that a great idea?”
“It…it is,” she said, a little weakly, looking over at Roy again. Roy, whose face looked deliberately impassive, like he was trying to keep the anger off his face. Roy didn’t do that. Roy broadcasted anger. Which meant that he was hiding something else, keeping something else to himself.
Rebecca knew him well enough to know how to read him. She’d known him longer than Keeley, longer than almost anyone else in the club. She didn’t know him particularly well, because Roy didn’t allow anyone to know him particularly well, but she learned things.
“I’m going to get another one of these,” Roy said, holding up his empty scotch glass. “Rebecca.”
It wasn’t so much an invitation as it was a command, and Rebecca stood, following him toward the bar. He motioned to the bartender and leaned against the seat, surveying her from the corner of his eye.
“You hate him,” Rebecca said. “You don’t have to say it.”
“I don’t hate him,” Roy said. “I don’t like him –”
“With you, that’s basically hatred,” she remarked, and she was rewarded with a half-smile.
“He doesn’t support Richmond?” he said, a little angrily, while they waited for the drinks. “He’s dating the owner of AFC Richmond, who looks…well, like you do, and he still supports City? The team that got us fucking relegated?”
Rebecca shrugged.
“And it doesn’t bother you at all?” Roy asked, bumping his shoulder with hers.
“Of course it bothers me,” she mumbled. “How hard would it be to lie for the sake of your girlfriend?”
He grunted, satisfied, looking over at the colored bottles. She watched his profile, lost in thought. She wished she could give something back to him, ask him about why he didn’t want to take the pundit job, ask him why he didn’t come to Richmond games, but she couldn’t. She understood why.
She understood Roy, just like Roy understood her.
“Look, at my age –”
“Don’t do that shit,” Roy said as the bartender set his glass in front of him. “Don’t act like you’re in the fucking grave, because you’re not. You’re hot, and successful, and smart, alright? Don’t fucking forget shit like that.”
She looked down at the bar, smiling a little. “I just meant that finding a guy who is a real catch at my age is rare. Most of them have already been caught.”
“So you think that means you have to settle?” Roy asked. “Fuck that shit. Fuck the idea that you have to take just what is in front of you. If you don’t like what’s in front of you, go find what you do fucking like.”
She lifted her shoulders. “John is nice. He’s nice to me.”
“Fuck nice,” he said firmly. “You think you deserve just nice?”
She blinked at him. “I didn’t have nice before.”
She watched his jaw work for a moment before he found his voice again. “I’m sorry, you’re right. But you deserve better than just nice, you know that, right? You deserve someone who makes you feel like you’ve been struck by fucking lightning.”
The bartender came by again, setting a gin and tonic onto the bar in front of her. She took it, looking over at Roy, who shrugged.
“Does he even know what you drink?” he asked shrewdly.
She took a sip and didn’t answer.
“Don’t you dare settle for just nice,” he said fiercely, leaning over to kiss the side of her head. He pushed off from the bar, as if he was ready to lead her back to the table. And why shouldn’t he? They both had their drinks, Keeley and John were bound to be wondering where they were.
She caught him by the arm. “Can you tell them that I…had to leave?” she asked.
He pursed his lips to hide a smile. “Sure,” he said.
She patted his arm before sliding out of the chair. She knocked back half of the drink before slamming it on the table and going out the door, leaving her coat behind.
***
Two Days Ago
“Is he nice to you?” Ted asked, leaning his chin on his palm. He was looking at her like he really wanted to know, like that was the most important thing, and oh, that hit her a little between the ribs, sharper than she knew he intended.
“I – yeah,” she said, caught a little off-guard. “Yeah, very.”
It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t completely the truth. John was perfectly nice, perfectly fine, but he wasn’t…effusively nice. He wasn’t heavy-handed with it, he didn’t offer it as freely as she knew Ted did. And that was exactly what she didn’t want to do – compare John to Ted.
Still, it was exactly what she caught herself doing whenever she allowed herself to think about John for too long. Keeley said it was normal for her to feel a little nervous about getting back out there. Dating is scary, vulnerability is scary. She’d heard it all before.
And she wasn’t scared of John, that was the thing. He wasn’t scary at all. She wasn’t terrified at the prospect of being vulnerable with him. It didn’t frighten her to think of what would happen in six months or a year, when he wanted to go with her to Christmas with her family. She wasn’t afraid because…she couldn’t see it.
If it happened, then great. It wouldn’t break her if it didn’t. And really, that was all she could ask for, after Rupert. Not being afraid.
So she painted Ted’s nails, talked aimlessly with him about nothing in particular, laughing when he wiggled them for her to see in the light. No other man she knew would have offered, no other man she’d ever met would have had fun with it.
His fingernails were still painted the next day, when he came in for Biscuits with the Boss. Seeing it was a reminder, a nagging hint at the back of her head that there was something there, something right in front of her face that she wasn’t seeing.
“Excited for your date tomorrow?” he asked her, his question a little less enthusiastic than it normally was. She tilted her head to study his face, trying to find the little clue there that she always found. He mimicked her head movement and smiled, the smile not completely reaching his eyes.
“Nervous,” she said honestly. “Roy’s going to run him through the gauntlet.”
“Good,” Ted said, a little forcefully. “John should know, Stamos or not, that dating Rebecca Welton means being watched very closely by all the people who care about her.”
She raised her eyebrows at him.
“Sorry,” he said when he caught her gaze. “A little bit of Kansas sexism jumped out there, Boss. I know you can take care of yourself.”
“It is nice to know that there are people,” she offered when he went silent. “You know, looking out for me.”
“We are,” he said, but there was something in the way he said it. Like he was saying something else.
***
She thought about that exchange now, walking by the water, her arms crossed over her chest. The way he looked at her, like he was hoping she understood him. Most of the time she did, easier than she understood herself, but this time she wasn’t sure that she did.
You deserve someone who makes you feel like you’ve been struck by fucking lightning.
She wanted that, now that she was alone and no one was around to read her face. She wanted what Roy and Keeley had, something electric and powerful and all-consuming. She didn’t have that with John.
But lightning was scary, wasn’t it? That was the fear that Keeley talked about, that Sassy always joked about, about being vulnerable. She just forgot – she hadn’t been anything resembling vulnerable with Rupert for years before she actually left. And then she’d walled herself away and hadn’t let anyone get close.
Until Ted looked over at her and said “how are you doin’ with all that?” in the accent she’d hated at the time. It brought her great comfort now. But she remembered how she felt, looking over at him, seeing how he was looking at her, like he really wanted to know, like he was genuinely interested in how she was dealing with everything. It hit her like a ton of bricks, an overwhelming sense of being seen. No one had asked. Not Sassy, not her mother. No one.
And here was a stranger, asking. More than asking, he really wanted to know.
He was the only one, other than Keeley, who had ever seen her vulnerable. Who ever made her feel like she could be. And maybe that was it – the lightning. It wasn’t just one strike that knocked you out, it was a steady electric thrum that hadn’t abated since he looked in her eyes and refused to let her look away.
It just took him time to climb over all the walls she’d put up. That was the epiphany that Roy was hoping she’d get to, she knew it by the way her fingers started trembling, by the way she felt like a puzzle piece had slipped accidentally into place.
She didn’t need to look for lightning – she had it, she just had to allow herself to feel it.
And it was so obvious now, standing at the edge of the water, her shoes pinching her feet, her legs freezing. The way they found each other in a room full of people, with no trouble. The way he came to her rescue and how she returned the favor. Because it wasn’t a favor, was it? It was natural, to help each other up, to hold him up when he couldn’t hold himself.
Who else had she ever done that for?
She fumbled with her bag. She should call Ted. She opened the little clutch, her fingers rifling through the wallet, lipstick, and gum. No phone.
Which meant it was on the table back at the restaurant.
She only hoped that Roy picked it up, or Keeley.
She groaned and turned around, back toward the road, to hail a cab.
***
Ted had just finished watching his DVD copy of Remember the Titans when he heard a knock at his door. He peeked at his phone – no texts or calls, no indication about who it could possibly be at this hour. He stood and went to the door, not bothering to peek through the peep hole before throwing it open.
“Rebecca,” he said, stepping aside. “You look…” Amazing was the word that came to mind, but he wasn’t sure he could or should say it. “You look like you’re freezing, come in, come in.”
She was freezing, he could feel it when he took her arm to bring her inside, because she’d gone a little still at the sight of him, like she was trying to decide whether she’d made a mistake in coming. He wasn’t sure he liked that look on her, the indecision, the insecurity.
He led her to the couch and put a blanket around her shoulders, sitting beside her to rub her arms over it, warming her.
“Did something happen?” he asked when she didn’t speak. “Where is your coat?”
“I left it,” she said, a little breathlessly.
He blinked at her. “I’m starting to get nervous,” he admitted. “Are you alright?”
She nodded. “I’m fine,” she said. “Just regretting this…I feel like a cliché.”
He was unbelievably confused. She was sitting in his apartment, late at night, clearly in the same clothes she wore to her date, with no coat. And, it should be noted, no date.
“A cliché?” he asked, hoping she’d explain.
She turned toward him, her knees bumping his. “Can you do me a favor?” she asked.
“’Course I can,” he said easily.
“Can you text Roy and tell him I’m here?” she asked. “I left my phone.”
“You’d tell me if you were on the run, wouldn’t you?” Ted joked, pulling out his phone to send Roy the text. He typed it out and set his phone down, the display still on, so she could see it. “Rebecca,” he said, trying to catch her gaze. “I’m a little worried –”
“I…left my date,” she said, looking over at him. “In the middle of the date.”
He furrowed his brows, trying to ignore the buzzing he could feel under his skin. Like she’d come here to tell him something important, she just hadn’t gotten to it yet. “Okay,” he said slowly. “Did John do something?”
“He said his favorite team was Man City or Man U, whoever was winning,” Rebecca said.
Ted chuckled. “A spectacularly unwise answer, given the company,” he admitted. “And so you got up and left?”
“No,” she said softly. “No, I put up with it.”
“Rebecca –”
“I know,” she said, waving him off. “I know, Roy was pissed about it too. He took me to the bar and gave me a right talking to. A whole Ted Lasso-level speech, with some fucks sprinkled in for good measure. You would’ve been proud of him.”
As she spoke, Ted’s phone lit up with Roy’s response. It was just a lightning bolt emoji and nothing else.
“I assume you know what this means?” he asked, holding it up for her.
She smiled. “Yeah, I do.”
He matched her smile, because he couldn’t suppress it, not when she looked so happy, even if he didn’t know why. “Okay,” he said with a chuckle. “Is it a secret?”
“Roy told me that I deserve someone who makes me feel like I’ve been struck by fucking lightning,” she said, and the buzzing under his skin had turned to something warm and anticipatory.
“It’s good advice,” he offered when she didn’t continue.
She looked over at him, her eyes searching his face. He watched her study his gaze, the lines in his forehead, the set of his mouth. She was looking for something, trying to decide if she was going to continue. He only hoped that whatever she found in his face was what she was looking for.
He pulled the blanket a little tighter around her shoulders and she chuckled a little, under her breath. “So I came to get my lightning.”
“Did you leave it somewhere?” he asked, a stupid joke that he couldn’t suppress. She rolled her eyes at him, but her lips were tugging upward in a smile, like she didn’t want to smile but she couldn’t help it. “Rebecca –”
“I don’t want to be a cliché,” she admitted, tearing her eyes away. “I’m trying to find a way –”
“Just say it,” he urged, scooting a little closer to her, their knees pressed together. “Cliché or not.”
“It’s you,” she said, breathless and beautiful, and Ted felt like his heart was going to thud out of his chest. She was looking at him like she was just seeing him for the first time, really seeing him, like he’d been peeled open and every little crack, every imperfection was on display, and she didn’t care. “You’re the only one – you’re the only one who sees me, Ted. And, and maybe I’m crazy, but I feel like you let me see you, more than you let everyone else –”
“Well, that was accidental,” he said, a little jokingly, his voice soft.
She rewarded him with an anxious laugh. “But you let me in.”
“And you let me in,” he reminded her.
She shrugged. “Because I trust you, which might sound a little bizarre to you, since I don’t trust people easily.” She reached over to take his hands. “Which is my point. Sometime ago, without me noticing, you wormed your way in here,” she tapped her chest with her finger. “With your biscuits and your genuine questions and those eyes –”
He laughed, surprised.
“This sounds so…sterile,” she said, a little distressed. “Like a grocery list –”
“It doesn’t,” he reassured her. “I’m with you, alright, I’m here with you.” He squeezed her hand, and her eyes dropped away from his to take in their hands, intertwined over the blanket he draped over her shoulders when she came in.
“I’m not any good at this part,” she admitted. “I’m better with actions.”
Her hand landed on his cheek, brushing over his cheekbone, and he watched her eyes drop to his mouth before they were both leaning in, Ted already smiling. How many times had he imagined a moment just like this? Except his imagination wasn’t as kind as the reality. He always pictured some kind of drunken slip-up, something accidental that they couldn’t control. But this was better.
She tasted a little like lime, like she’d had a gin and tonic before she got there, and he could feel that she was wearing a lipstick cleverly designed to match the color of her lips. Sneaky. But she was soft, and tender, gentle even in her hands, like she was trying to tell him something without words.
And the crazy part was that he understood her.
He understood the fear, the uncertainty, coupled with the absolute certainty that she was in the right place, that they were in the right place, together. Like watching a firework go up and not knowing when it was going to explode into a thousand colors, just knowing that it would.
He pulled her closer, so she was leaning over him, the blanket slipping off her shoulders, and there was that red dress again, one-shouldered and gorgeous. He let his hand land on the bare shoulder, reaching around to her back, and watched her shiver.
“Cold?” he pulled away to ask. She ducked her head sheepishly, and he kissed her forehead lightly. “As pretty as this dress is, I think we should get you warm. What do you say?”
She raised her eyebrows at him.
“I was going to give you a sweater,” Ted defended, raising his hands. “But if that’s where your mind is, we can move this from the couch to the bedroom.”
“This is the first time a man I’ve kissed has offered me more clothes,” she joked, and he dropped his head to her shoulder to laugh.
“Come on,” he said, tugging her up to stand. He led her into his bedroom, leaving her standing in front of his bed while he rummaged through his drawers, pulling out a sweater and a pair of sweatpants. He set them in front of her and kissed her again, his thumb tilting her chin down to meet him. She kissed him back eagerly, with the same enthusiasm that she always gave him, and he shivered at the ripple of electricity that surged through him when she hummed against his mouth.
Lightning.
If he hadn’t trusted it before, if he hadn’t felt it when they were looking at each other the night of the gala, when he told her that he saw Rupert for who he really was, he certainly felt it now, with her mouth against his, her hand in his hair.
Carefully, he reached behind her back and tugged the zipper of her dress down, grinning at her when she pulled away to breathe, her face flushing. He kissed her cheek and gently turned her around, pulling the rest of the zipper down. He guided the shoulder of the dress off and down her arm, inching the red satin down her torso.
She leaned back into him, her shoulders resting on his chest, sighing quietly as he inched the dress down until it pooled at her feet, leaving her in nothing but some flimsy pink lace and her heels.
She kicked them off, settling down to almost his height, and he dipped his head down to kiss at her neck while he reached blindly for the sweater he set out for her.
He helped her into it, his hands skimming over her bare skin, helping the material settle over her. He slid his hands underneath it when he was done, tracing random patterns into her skin with the tips of his fingers, listening to the sounds of her hitched breathing the longer he touched, the way she squirmed away from his hands if he went too high on her ribs.
“Ticklish,” he said triumphantly. “I knew you would be.”
“Thought about it much?” she asked.
“Oh yes,” he admitted easily. “I have thought about you,” he kissed over the material of the sweater. “About every single little detail of you, for so long. If you were ticklish, hell, if you have tan lines, which you do not, and that is…a fascinatin’ bit of information –”
She laughed, leaning against him, looking up at him from where her head lolled against his shoulder. “And what about you, Ted? Do you have tan lines?” She turned in his arms and wound her arms around his neck.
“Oh all kinds,” he said, and she started laughing again, bright and joyous and he laughed with her. “Super embarrassin’ ones, really. You’ll be horrified.”
“I look forward to it,” she said, the words so genuine and honest that he surged forward to kiss her again, lifting her up into his arms for a second before setting her down on the bed.
“You uh…you need to get warm,” he said, stepping back. “Why don’t you meet me back out on the couch? We can –”
“Make out like teenagers?” she asked, reaching for the sweatpants he left out for her.
He shrugged innocently. “We can find some more of that lightning.”
“Oh, I plan to,” she said. “For a very long time.”