42. 43: Sunday

43

"I like this," he murmurs.

Kate laughs at him, shifting against the chair. "The beach is good."

"Yeah I meant more. . .you know, waking up with you this morning and hanging out, all of us, and making plans for dinner and just. . ."

She pushes her sunglasses up on her face to see him better, finds herself squinting into the sun so she drops them back. "You like playing house. Admit it." Though she has to admit she liked the look on his face last night when they came upstairs and she'd unpacked her bag in his room. Priceless.

"You are ruthless today," he remarks, but he's grinning. "Alexis's fault, isn't it? She likes to mess with me. I mess with her. We've roped you into it."

"Don't blame it on Alexis," she smiles. "You're just setting yourself up right and left today."

"You're right. This is really just a normal degree of Beckett messitude."

"That's not a word."

"It is now."

"You can't just decree-"

"I'm a best-selling author. I can do whatever I want. Also, you look delicious in that two piece."

"You know, I think those last few sentences have just summed you up perfectly, Castle." She watches his face to make sure he's not taking this seriously, that he's still enjoying the tease, the word play which is sometimes better than foreplay.

Sometimes.

"Wait, hold on. I can't remember what I said. I'm a best selling author - yes, true. What else was in that - and you're delicious?"

"You're a best-selling author. You do what you want-"

He groans. "Come on."

"Like I said, you're setting yourself up for these."

"I am. I really am. I'm usually a lot more agile-minded than this. I think it's that scrap of fabric you're unashamedly calling a swimsuit even though we both know it's more like lingerie."

"It is not," she huffs back at him, but she slides her foot across the sand, watches his eyes follow the line of her leg.

And then he totally ruins it by growing serious. "You still have a bruise on your back, Kate. Is it - should you see someone about that?"

She swivels her head to him, stunned, and lifts up from the low chair to touch her back. "It doesn't hurt."

"But should it still be bruised?" He's reaching behind her too, brushing his fingers across her lower spine.

"Remember the photo with me and my mom going ice skating?"

"Lacing up your skates, yeah." He gives her a soft, indulgent little smile.

"I fell on my knee that night and busted it pretty badly. It swelled up and it was bruised, but I could walk around. It took nearly six months for the bruise to go away entirely."

His palm flattens on her back, his thumb scraping across her ribs. She can't see his eyes because of his sunglasses, but the hard lines of his face soften. He releases her, putting his elbows back in the sand again, sprawled out on a towel next to her.

"You still look delicious in that bikini."

She smirks, reaches over the arm of the chair to stroke her fingers through his hair. "And you look - sunburned, Rick."

"Wanna rub me down?" He's wriggling his eyebrows; she knows he is even if she can't see them exactly. He picks up the sunblock and dances it at her.

She takes it, popping the top with her finger. "Hell yeah."

Kate's father, Martha, Alexis. Kate.

Castle rubs a hand through his hair and watches them all in the kitchen. His mother showed up at lunch time with these great fruity drinks and then he and Kate might have had - uh, not too many, no, just enough really - and Alexis did these beautiful swan dives off the diving board, so he started doing backflips and Kate was grumbling about Archimedes and how much water he was displacing, to which he responded that this wasn't a bathtub but he would like nothing better than to-

And yeah, Alexis splashed him for that and they all wore themselves out, and so now they're all in there making dinner for him. Wait.

"Jim," he calls, stepping forward. Her father turns to him with a look of question. "Why don't we let them figure it out? Father's Day, right?"

Jim rubs his hands on the dish towel, hands it to Kate with one of those smiles - he knows those smiles, those reassuring I'm the parent here smiles. Jim follows him out of the kitchen and towards the sliding glass doors, which have been open all day.

He slides the screen back and they step onto the back porch.

"Too many cooks in the kitchen," Jim starts. "Used to be just me and her."

Oh, so they're going to do this today? Okay. Sure.

"Know that feeling pretty well," he says. "And then my mother moved in with us when Alexis was fifteen."

"Oh, I didn't know that."

He shrugs, then heads for the outdoor bar that connects to the pool. He feels like he's just now seeing all this - brand new eyes, all that sentimental stuff - since showing it off to Kate yesterday. The infinity pool, the intricate tile work, the changing rooms just past the house, the bar-

Ahh, shit. He's not thinking. He was just about to offer her father a drink. Wow. He is - okay, he's more rattled by this than he thought.

He grabs two bottles of water from the mini fridge instead, hands one wordlessly to her father. Jim takes it and cracks it open, pulls a long gulp as they both stand at the railing.

Castle leans his elbows against the wood and wonders who's supposed to start.

"Kate's happy," Jim says finally.

"Good," he grunts, surprised at the direction Jim has led them. Very good. Good. That's. . .all he really wants, when he distills all this down to its essence. He just wants her happy. Well, alive first. And then happy. Or maybe no, happy first-

Jim nods, takes another gulp of water. "That's all I got, Rick."

He finds himself relaxing, even with that faint tint of humor to Jim's voice. "Well that was easier than I expected. No greeting at the door with a shotgun, no-"

"That's because I don't need a gun. Kate carries her own."

"Not lately she doesn't." Rick stills, winces as he looks at Jim.

"Good," Jim says quietly, intense. "That's good too."

Yeah. Yeah, it is, isn't it?