Chapter Text
“You want to do what now?” She rolls from of her spot on his chest, sitting up to stare at him.
“Let me ‘woo’ you.” He says again, as if she didn’t hear him the first time while acting as a human pillow. And if that isn’t just the silliest thing she’s ever heard. It’s all laughs until she eyes him, and oh. He’s dead serious. In that wide-eyed, impish way of his.
“You’ve already got me. I don’t need you to roll out the red carpet.” It took time. Grief was no condition for a love affair, but against all baggage they made it work, and when the time came it felt right. He’d kissed her on a Sunday morning under the trees in the same park where he schooled Maurice and the rest of her father’s errand boys. It was after she’d gotten her forms down, wanting to stay on her game, and a little bit to have his back the way he’d had hers. She’d knocked him down and he pulled her with him, the two of them rolling around in the grass and laughing like kids.
“It would make me feel better.”
“Don’t tell me it’s some macho thing, because I’m really not into all that.” Han has the sense to shake his head, putting his hands up in defense. They’ve since healed from the night things went up in flames for their families, and the same of him is closer to being said with every day.
“No. I just think you are worth it. That’s all.” Okay, now that is just certified corny in her book. Coming from him though, it rings sincere and that brings out the kind of giddiness she left in school. Han is the kind of unpredictable that she likes. No secret wives and kids, just weirdly creative about his next move. Trish doesn’t think she’ll regret entertaining this, whatever his motives are.
“Alright lover boy. You can get wooing but-“ she holds up a finger, perfectly manicured nails the punctuation for her edict.
“After you’re done working.” Trish trusted that she wouldn’t have to spell it out for him. His answering kiss and the tender hand on her face make the gambit worthwhile.
She can tell who's knocking by the rhythm, which gives her no reservations about swinging the door open with the reminder that her companion has a key now.
Trish is met with a display of flowers that would put the homegoing ceremony to shame. Yellows blooms and pink petals with a flash of cream between the buds. And to top it off, sprouts of red bloom conspicuous enough to maybe make her think twice about this whole ‘woo-ing’ thing. Han’s smiling face peers out from around the blooms and puts any notion of that to rest.
“Hi.”
“Hey.” She says back, more stunned than she has any right to be. She does a once-over of the flowers, and him again. Pinches herself, for good measure.
“These for me?” He nods seriously, flowers bouncing.
“You figure American girls like flowers huh?”
“… Do you?” He’s neither a boy shaking under the hypotheticals of Isaak O’Day’s retaliation upon breaking her heart or one of the wannabes that chased her father’s status and what it’d mean for theirs to have her. He’s Han, with the killer wit and the shy step when he’s out of the street and on her stage. That alone earns her mercy and then some. It’s her grace he’ll get.
“I do. I like butterfingers too.” To her surprise (more for the delicate act balancing a bouquet that massive) he reaches into his pocket, pulling not one, but two candy bars out and passing them to her hands.
“For your ‘cheat day’.” He offers by way of explanation. Candice and her big mouth! Which means he’s gone to her friends asking after what she likes— and actually that’s really sweet. She just has to wonder when he found the time. She’s not the jealous girlfriend type, but she at least thought she had a sixth sense of when he was talking to girls on the low. Then again it’s just as likely that she wasn’t conspicuous by any means when it came to what she kept in her purse. He looked after it as much as he watched after her, but she got the benefit of being looked at like she hung the stars.
The candy goes to her table among the other things that make this place hers, and her eyes back to the one who joins that number. She reaches into the mass of roses and plucks out a single red rose from a sea of color.
Trish takes the stem between her fingers, inhaling dew drops and lotus fragrance.
“You’ve got game.” It’s a stipulation she’s happy to make. After all, there’s no loser here. Not when there’s a winner in that smile, the one where his eyebrows climb and his teeth poke out over his lower lip. It makes her reach out for the bouquet, sparks along his fingertips in the brush it takes to transfer the gift to its recipient.
“Are you woo’ed?” She laughed, and it was his favorite song.
“Thank you, Han. This is sweet.” It’s not in his character, grand displays, preferring to speak with his actions and let the rest follow. Be it a steadying hand between her shoulderblades, the other careful of her hip until she decides she wants it there, or climbing onto her balcony when she’s staying at her father’s— which she hasn’t asked him to stop doing yet. Mostly because she’s impressed. It takes serious skill to pull that kind of craziness, and he always does it for her. Let a girl have some excitement, so long as it’s not the kind where she’s proxy-fighting assassins and dodging bullets.
“I’m glad you like it.” What Trish didn’t know was that Han thought at length about what to get her. Roses in Hong Kong weren’t so different, but still, the sheer fact of flowers couldn’t be enough. Not for a girl like her. For homes can be people too, and this is the one place on Earth that promises her.
“I love it.” She went to kiss him on the cheek, lipstick smears be damned. The girl then cocked her head and winked, bumping the door closed behind him with her hip.
“Come on Romeo, help me put these away.” He follows her lead, heart beating.