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“I’m not your boyfriend.”
The words slip out of her mouth before her brain can consider them: “Maybe I’ll make it worth your while if you come over.”
“No, you won’t,” he says, and it annoys her how certain he sounds. Like he’s really got her figured out. Right there at the bottom of his resume: working proficiency in French, Spanish, and Peggy Olson. Hah.
She puts her hand on her hip even though he’s not there to see it. “You’re not interested?”
Silence. Silence for so long that Peggy thinks he must have hung up and gone back to sleep, until he says, “Do you really need me to come over?”
The mouse – rat – whatever it is – squeals again, the trap clattering against the wooden floorboards. She nearly drops the phone. “Shit.”
Stan sighs loudly. “Alright. Hang on. Don’t do anything stupid.” The line goes dead.
Peggy hangs up the phone.
She really needs a drink.
They never did talk about what happened that weekend in the office.
After all: she was drunk and he was high, and nothing happened, when it came down to it. They kissed, briefly. They talked. And then Peggy left, and Stan fucked a teenager on his couch.
Not that it bothers her. It’s just – the girl could have been underage. He probably didn’t even ask her if she was eighteen.
At 2 am on a Thursday, bathed in the dim, yellow-tinted light of Peggy’s apartment building foyer, Stan’s expression lacks its usual good humor.
“Took you long enough,” Peggy greets him at the door, pushing a tumbler of whiskey into his hand. “I’ve already had two of these.”
Stan glares at her, but he takes the drink. “I’m just as happy to turn around and go home.”
“I’m kidding,” Peggy says hastily, and ushers him inside, locking the door behind him.
He shrugs off his jacket, draping it over the back of a chair. “This is adorable,” he says, casting a meaningful eye over her floral nightgown. Peggy frowns, and wraps her robe around her middle, tying it firmly in place.
“You gonna turn on a light?” Stan continues, stepping further into the room.
“Oh.” Peggy hesitates. “I can. I guess. Are you sure it won’t…make it run out here, or something?”
The corner of his mouth curls up just slightly. “No, but I’m willing to take the risk.” He reaches past her to flick the switch on the wall, his arm brushing against her shoulder, and they both blink as light floods the room.
A soft thunk comes from beneath the sofa, and Peggy startles forward, bumping into his side.
“You’re so jumpy, I love it.” Stan’s full-on smiling now, looking at her, and Peggy realizes with sudden clarity that it’s weird that he’s here at her apartment in the middle of the night. That it’s just the two of them. That she’s kind of drunk. That she’s in her nightgown.
“Will you just take care of it?” she whines, chewing at her thumbnail, abruptly self-conscious.
“Jesus.” He recoils slightly, having finally spotted the trail of dried blood running from the kitchen to the couch. “Is that from the rat, or is that still left over from when you gutted Abe?”
Peggy scowls. “Shut up. Are you going to get rid of it or what?”
Stan sighs heavily, and downs the whiskey in one go before he answers. “Yes. But you might want to lock yourself in the bathroom first. It’s not gonna be pretty.”
Peggy runs the tap and sits on the toilet lid and studies her fingernails while she waits; she doesn’t think about Stan, in her apartment, in his button-down plaid shirt and jeans. She doesn’t think about the smudge his lower lip left on her whiskey glass. She doesn’t think about the way he’d flicked his hair back when it fell into his eyes as he’d bent down to take a look at what was actually going on under that couch.
(That’s a lie.
She’s been thinking about it – him – ever since he kissed her. About his breath on her neck; the smell of his hair; how it would have felt to let him push up her skirt and pull her onto his lap that night in the office.
She’d thought about it even after she saw him fucking Frank Gleason’s jailbait daughter on the couch in his office. Even as she’d fucked Abe a few hours later, riding him on her own couch, the one that Stan is dragging away from the wall right now.
She tries not to, but.
She thinks about him.)
It doesn’t take him very long. There’s some rummaging around in the kitchen, some scraping of wood against wood as he moves the sofa, and then she covers her ears with her hands and hums softly to herself until there’s a light tap at the bathroom door. Ten minutes, tops.
She turns off the water in the sink and opens the door. Stan’s right there, looking down at her, his eyes somber. “It’s out of its misery.”
Her shoulders sag in relief. “Thank god.”
“Thank Stan.”
She laughs, and pushes past him through the doorframe. “Thank you, Stan.”
“You’re welcome.” He follows her into the kitchen, his gait a lazy shuffle over the linoleum. His socks don’t match, she notices, and she wonders when he took off his shoes. Why he took off his shoes. Stan follows her gaze down to his feet, then meets her eyes and shrugs.
I’ll make it worth your while. She hopes he can’t see her face flush in the dark. “Well. That’s that.”
“That is that.”
Peggy pretends not to notice that he’s right behind her. “You want another drink?” she calls over her shoulder.
“I’m right here,” he says, sounding annoyed. “And no, not really.”
“You sure?” She grabs the whiskey and turns to face him, pressing the small of her back against the kitchen counter. She tips the bottle towards him in offering. “You too tired?”
“Nah, I’m wide awake now.” He claps his hands together. “Adrenaline. Fresh from the kill.”
Peggy scrunches up her nose. “Gross.”
“Seriously. I could partake in some serious physical activity right now.” He gives her a look. It’s…predatory, almost.
Peggy swallows. “Really.”
“Yeah, really.”
“Like…” She searches for the most mundane example possible. “You could play tennis right now.”
Stan shrugs. “Sure.”
“Wow.”
And then his mouth stretches slowly – so slowly – into a smirk.
She narrows her eyes. “What?”
“Peggy. You actually think that I came over in the middle of the night to kill a rat in exchange for sex.”
“No I don’t,” Peggy says immediately. Even though, well – she kind of did. After all, it was her only sales pitch. She changes tactics. “What else would you come over for?”
Stan lifts his eyes towards the ceiling. “Great question.” He shakes his head. “Jesus, you must think I’m desperate.”
“I never said that.”
“It’s implied.”
“Because you’d have to be desperate to want to sleep with me.” Peggy crosses her arms over her chest.
Exasperated, he throws up his hands. “That’s not what I said.”
“It’s implied,” she sneers.
“Christ, Peggy. You know what?” He closes the gap between them in one step, cupping her face in his hands.
And he kisses her.
If standing around with Stan in her nightgown in her apartment in the middle of the night felt weird, kissing him there feels even weirder.
But also – better. Good, even.
Eventually he pulls back, his hands slipping down from her face. She half expects him to go for her tits, but instead his fingers close around the neck of the whiskey bottle still clutched between her hands. He pries it out of her grasp and sets the bottle down behind her, then lifts Peggy up just as easily to sit beside it on the countertop.
His hands stay in place on her hips as he studies her. Really studies her: her eyes, her nose, her lips. She hadn’t thought to put on any makeup before he arrived – it was just Stan, after all – but now she regrets it.
The silence stretches on too long, and she clears her throat. “Tell me again how you didn’t come over here for sex,” she says, more than a little surprised by how coy her own voice sounds.
“I didn’t.” But his eyes keep darting down to her mouth.
“Come on.”
“I didn’t,” he repeats, “but it doesn’t mean I’m opposed to the concept.”
Peggy scoffs. “You just kissed me. Don’t pretend like this was my idea.” She isn’t sure she even knows what the idea is. Maybe she’s dreaming. Maybe the rat bit her, and this is all just a rabies-fueled fever dream.
Stan grins, tugging her lightly towards himself. Her knees part automatically, letting him press in between her legs. “You’re funny,” he tells her, running his hands down over her thighs, then back up to her waist again.
Her face twists up in confusion. “What?”
“I said you’re funny. I like you.” He tilts his head down, resting his forehead against her own. Their noses bump together when he says, softly, like he almost doesn’t believe it himself, “I actually really like you.”
Peggy kisses him first this time.
After, when they’re both sweaty and sleepy and sated, Peggy bumps her feet against his beneath the bedsheets. The side of Stan’s mouth curls up, a little bit more like a smile than a smirk for once.
“Hm?” he prompts.
“I like you too.”
Stan laughs, and shifts closer, running his hand down the flat of her stomach. “That’s what I came over for.”