18. Eighteen: Wednesday

Eighteen

He studies the line of her calf, the narrow bones of her ankle, the strangely skinny foot. She has oddly-shaped feet. Her toes are too long. Or maybe just the bones too prominent. She curls her toes and her bones pop loudly, making him chuckle.

She glances back at him over her shoulder, a question on her face, and he shakes his head. He's propped up against the headboard, his legs stretched down the bed, and she's lying on her stomach, flipped the other direction as she watches a Yankees game.

She made him set the television up in here so she could stay in bed with him and still watch her team. He thinks it's cute, but he also gets it. The past few days have been heavy, diving into a lot of their combined issues, and staying in bed and watching a baseball game seems easy and frankly necessary at this point.

Helps that she's basically naked. Well, she's got on panties and a tiny camisole thing, but he gets to see a lot of skin, including the wonderfully long, beautifully proportioned legs. Oh, he loves those legs, wrapped around him or tangled with his or running down a sus-

Oh.

Well.

Yeah, okay, so it's a lot different now. He's been thinking about this like an extended vacation, like it's summer for her too, and when August heats up and the trash starts to stink in the streets, she'll go back to work.

But she won't be going back to work, will she? Not unless something drastic happens.

"Yes!" Kate yells suddenly, sitting upright and inadvertently jerking her foot out of his hand as she does so. He glances to the game and sees people on their feet, the replay, oh, a home run.

"What's up?"

She turns her radiant, glorious visage on him, eyes wide with joy, hair dry-curling crazy around her head. "We tied the game. It's a tie!"

He grins back at her because how can he not? Look at her. She's amazing. She's perched on the edge of his bed now, sitting back on her feet, hands clasped under her breasts like she can barely contain herself. She comes up on her knees with every swing of the bat, eager for it, and he's never seen anyone who pours her whole soul into things like Kate does.

Whatever she chooses to be next, whatever she wants to go after, she doesn't need him to hold her hand. She's got this.

She's going to be fine.

Alexis nudges her and hands over the smoothie. "It's got peaches in it too. That okay?"

"I'm up for it," Kate says back, smiling gently and patting the bed next to her. "You can sit."

Alexis glances over at her father, but Castle's been writing on his laptop for the last hour; he dragged a chair from the study into the bedroom so he could catch (sort of) the last of the baseball game with her.

Alexis made them smoothies for the seventh inning stretch. Even though it's cool inside the loft, they can all tell it's boiling hot out there, and the smoothie goes down Kate's throat like love.

"Oh this is good. What did you put in it?" Kate asks. She thumbs the volume down on the television remote, crosses her legs. She's glad she put on running shorts before heading out into his kitchen earlier; she totally forgot that Alexis would still be here.

"Strawberries, a little bit of vanilla frozen yogurt-"

"Ug, why didn't you use the ice cream?" Castle complains from the chair. Kate and Alexis both swing a gaze at him and he barks out a laugh, staring back at them. "That is uncanny."

Alexis turns to look at Kate and Kate glances back at her, shrugging. "Ignore him. Frozen yogurt is healthier."

"And it's good." Alexis adds, as if she's had this argument many, many times. "I like it. Anyway. Um, oh, blueberries!"

"Oh. That's good."

"And vanilla extract."

"Really?" Kate swirls the straw around in her cup and then lifts a grin to Alexis. "This could be fun. What else can we put in it?"

"Beckett," Castle says stridently. "That is my job. I make up the crazy concoctions."

Alexis wrinkles her nose at him, but Kate narrows her eyes. "I'm not looking to add ketchup and marshmallows, Castle."

He gasps and Alexis giggles. "How did you know?"

"You did not," Kate says, eyes widening at him. "Ketchup?"

"It was red," he says defensively.

"So?"

Alexis laughs harder, leaning back against the pillows next to Kate. "He means it was red like blood."

"Gross, Castle."

"It was cool. And then I added grapes-"

"But not in the blender, Kate. He added grapes like eyeballs to all of our drinks-"

"All? How many people were subject to blood-red smoothies?"

Alexis startles, shoots a swift, panicked look to Castle, and Kate gets it. She smirks and catches Castle's eyes, pressing her lips together to see what he says.

"Just Gina," he shrugs, his eyes on hers.

Alexis is as still as stone beside her, and Kate doesn't know how to reassure her without confessing a lot of intimate stuff. So humor it is.

"No wonder your marriage broke up. You put ketchup in my smoothies, Castle, and you're on thin ice."

Alexis chokes on her laughter, her eyes swiveling back to Kate's, and then Kate realizes exactly how that sounded, what position she's inadvertently put herself.

"Oh," she murmurs.

Castle laughs. "Uh-huh. Oh. And you know, it's a testament to your commitment, Kate, that ketchup in your smoothies would only incur a little wrath and not a full-out divorce."

"I worked too hard to get you," she says, her mouth running away with her. "No way I'm gonna let a little ketchup come between us."

His eyes shift to that amused, unhelpful arousal that sends an answering hum through her, her very bones vibrating with it.

"I think we can forego the ketchup," Alexis says with a little laugh. "How about chocolate syrup instead?"

"Coffee grounds," Castle says quickly, his eyes still burning into her. "Put coffee grounds in the next batch of smoothies."

Kate's heart fills at all he says and doesn't say, all it means between them.

"I love coffee," she responds.

"I know."