[June 7, 2007] [Original] Nice, Sweet, Sincere

[lifesnotasong.livejournal.com]

Title: Nice, Sweet, Sincere
Day/Theme: June 7 -- though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
Series: Original
Character/Pairing: Shadow/Chris
Rating: PG-13 (language)


Shadow felt uncomfortable in her dress, stiff and itchy and completely out of her element. Kate had helped her pick it out at the store earlier that day, thrilled that wayward Shadow would bow to taking advice from her overly modest roommate. They had compromised on an outfit that Kate was only slightly scandalized by and that Shadow knew covered more of her skin than she had ever covered for a date. Where were her legs? Where were her shoulders? Where was her chest?

“Right where they belong - under your dress,” Kate had chided when Shadow had raised her protests in front of the dressing room mirror. “Honestly, Shadow, you don’t need to be showing everything off all the time. Guys want more than just to stare at your chest.”

“Yeah, they want to stare at my legs, too,” Shadow said, turning her back to the mirror and looking over her shoulder at her reflection. “I barely have knees in this thing, Kate! Can’t we at least get something a little shorter?”

But Kate was unrelenting, and Shadow eventually bought the dress, muttering to the cashier about fashion-clueless roommates the entire time. Three hours later, Shadow was back in the dress, uncomfortable and stiff, with far less makeup on her face than she was comfortable wearing out into public and far less self-confidence than she had ever let herself leave the apartment with.

“Maybe I shouldn’t do this, Kate.”

“Nonsense. You’ll be fine! Hold still, your tag is sticking out.”

Shadow obliged, only slightly squirming.

“I just... dinner? With a guy I barely know?”

“Shadow, you get drunk with guys you don’t know all the time. You bring home guys you don’t know all the time. You do things that I swear I never want to know about with guys you don’t know, all the time. Anyway, you said you’ve met this guy before, right? So what’s the big deal?”

Shadow shrugged. “I just don’t think I’m really his type.”

“I’m sure he’ll think you’re great. Who is he, anyway? Friend of someone at work?”

“Not exactly. He’s... a friend from school.”

“A friend from school? Do I know him? We didn’t really have the same friends or anything, but I would probably remember his name.”

Shadow shook her head. “No, not from high school. Not from any school I went to.”

Kate looked perplexed for a moment, then raised an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you picked someone up when you took Tristen to school a few days ago.”

Shadow’s silence gave her the answer she was looking for.

“You did! Shadow Macay, are you going on a date with one of Tristen’s friends’ parents?”

“No, Kate,” Shadow said, rolling her eyes like a sullen teenager being interrogated by her overprotective parent. “I’m not dating one of the brat’s friends’ parents, or anything like that. They’re all old and married and boring. This one’s... more my type.”

“Please, God, tell me you aren’t dating Tristen’s teacher. Let the kid have a normal first year of school, Shadow. The last thing he needs is to come her to visit Garrett one weekend and find his teacher naked in your bed...”

Shadow tried not to laugh. “I promise I’m not dating Tristen’s teacher. I mean, honestly, who would be crazy enough to date her roommate’s son’s teacher? That would be completely out of line.”

There was a knock at the door. Shadow started, jumped up, smoothed out her dress, and looked at Kate in a panic.

“Do I look alright?”

Kate smiled and nodded, so Shadow walked across the room and opened the door. There stood Chris, wearing an impeccable suit, complete with a crimson tie. In his hands he held a bouquet of flowers, all different sorts in varying colors.

“You look beautiful,” he said, grinning. “These are for you.”

Shadow took the flowers and smiled, flattered despite herself. The guys she usually dated were more likely to give her syphilis than sunflowers; this was, she had to admit, a nice change of pace.

“Thanks. Do you want to come in for a minute? I’ll find something to put these in.”

“I can take them!” Kate piped up, appearing at Shadow’s side and taking the flowers away from her. “You go and enjoy your dinner.”

“Oh! Chris, this is my roommate, Kate. Kate, this is Chris.”

“Nice to meet you,” Chris said as he shook Kate’s hand. “Tristen is your son, then? He really is a great little boy. You should be proud.”

“Oh! No, no, Tristen isn’t mine. We have another roommate, his dad. But thank you-- he’s a big part of all of our lives, and it’s so nice to hear that someone else likes him as much as we do.” She paused. “How do you know Tristen, anyway?”

“Shadow didn’t tell you? Well, I suppose there’s no harm in people knowing... I’m the principal of Ridgway Elementary. Second year with the job, actually.”

“You’re Tristen’s principal? How nice,” Kate said, sending a quick glare Shadow’s way.

“We should get going,” Shadow said, smiling innocently at Kate. “Shall we?”

“Let’s. Kate, it was a pleasure to meet you. I hope we get a chance to talk again sometime.”

Shadow hurried him out the door, making sure to remain oblivious of the dirty looks Kate was shooting her. Okay, so maybe dating their roommate’s son’s principal wasn’t the best life choice, but even Kate would have to admit that he was a better catch than the other guys Shadow had brought home in the past few months. Or, at least, she would have to admit that after she got done reading Shadow the riot act... but it was worth it, in Shadow’s opinion, for the look on Kate’s face when Chris had introduced himself to her as Tristen’s principal. Definitely worth it.

***

A date, for Shadow, usually meant breathing in cigarette smoke, seeing how quickly she could get drunk, and attempting to have something resembling a conversation over the too-loud music of the dance floor next to the bar with a guy she had met less than an hour earlier. Not that the conversation mattered; it all boiled down to one unspoken question, the whole reason for the drinking and the outing and the date in general: “Want to go back to my place and fuck?”

Never, on those dates, was there lobster. Never.

Of course, the lobster wasn’t on Shadow’s side of the table. She had a steak, medium-well in an attempt to appear civilized to Chris despite craving something closer to a raw-cooked piece of meat. Blood-filled meat didn’t seem like a good way to make a good first impression, though, and so she suffered through overcooked meat, hoping she appeared slightly more civilized than she really was.

The conversation had been pleasant thus far, full of idle chitchat and a quick inquiry into Chris’s background. He was older than shadow, but not by more than a few years. He was university educated, with a double major in Education and Business and a minor in Theater. He had two pet birds, a dog, and an elderly mother two blocks away from his home that he worried about when he was at work all day. He was, Shadow decided, disturbingly normal for someone so good looking and entertaining. Usually the ones who caught her eye and made her laugh were unemployed, or quick to defend drug dealing as a “steady job.” But Chris was an elementary school principal. Dogs liked him, children liked him... and Shadow liked him.

“Your turn,” he said after finishing a quick story about the time his mother called the house and his dog managed to answer the phone and scare her by barking into the receiver. “Tell me about Shadow.”

Shadow was nearly famous in the bar scene for her ability to talk for hours about nothing at all, if the mood struck her. She always had a witty retort, a snappy comeback to make; she was never, never, ever caught off guard with nothing to say.

Tonight was fast becoming a night of firsts.

“I... um... I’m not very interesting, really,” she started, mentally cursing herself for sounding so stupid.

“I beg to differ,” Chris said. “I’m sure there’s plenty of interesting things that have to do with you. You’re the amazing roommate who takes a kindergartener that isn’t hers to his first day of class. That sounds like it has a pretty interesting story to me.”

“Oh, that? Well, you know how it is...” She paused, and then her eyes lit up and she was ready to go. “I’ve been raising Tristen as my own, trying to give him a good mother figure and all. I don’t have any kids of my own, of course, but since he’s the around so much, I figure I should give him everything I have.”

Garrett forced me to take him that morning. I hate children, and only tolerate Tristen. I’d as soon see him wander the streets as get an education, doesn’t matter to me.

“My parents showed me that the people who raise you can have a huge impact on you later in life. I was adopted, and my new parents meant the world to me. I don’t think I would be who I am today if it weren’t for them, honestly.”

I hate my family. They can burn in hell, for all I care. If it weren’t for them, I might not be as fucked up and dysfunctional as I am today.

“Who are you today?” Chris asked, genuine interest in his eyes.

“Who am I? No one special,” Shadow started, looking for her next thread of inspiration to weave into a fantastic story of the Shadow she wanted him to see. “I’m working at a local bookstore right now, trying to save up enough money to go back to school. Really, that’s my one regret in life-- not being able to go straight from high school to college. Education is one of those things that I just... well, I feel like I just can’t get enough of it.”

I. Hated. School. I work at the bookstore so that I can afford alcohol, and sometimes drugs. But I make pretty damn good money, since the boss is... how should I put this... “lonely.” He’s old and fat, but he helps pay the bills, better than his damn bookstore does for me. And with the money, I can buy myself amnesia, in the handy form of a glass of booze and a wild night with someone much more appealing who I’ll never have to see again.

The night continued on, with Chris becoming more and more intent on her words, his lobster growing cold as he listened to her storytell. Shadow found confidence in her pretending, telling him all about the kind of girl he wanted to be on a date with, be in love with. Pretending was all Shadow ever did; this was what she was comfortable doing. This was safe.

***

“I had a wonderful time tonight,” Chris said, walking Shadow up the final flight of stairs to her apartment.

“I did too,” she said, and surprised herself to find that she meant it. She had had a wonderful time. Dinner had been survivable, the company and conversation had finally become casual and hilarious and comfortable and enjoyable, and she had had a wonderful time. “Do you want to come in for a drink or something?”

Chris laughed and shook his head. “No thanks, Shadow. Not tonight, at least. I’ve got to drive home, after all. Maybe some other time?”

“Sure, some other time,” she said, slightly confused despite knowing that his reaction made perfect sense. He isn’t like the other guys, she reminded herself. He’s not looking for a quick lay.

When they got to her door, they paused and looked at each other for a moment. Shadow realized that he was waiting for her to find her keys, and quickly opened the evening bag that Kate had make her take to dinner and fished them out.

“I guess this is goodnight,” she said, feeling like an awkward high schooler on her first date ever.

“I guess it is,” he said. “I know I just said this, but I really enjoyed tonight, Shadow. More than I ever expected to. No offence or anything. I just... don’t do the dinner-date thing very often, and when I do it’s usually more awkward than I care to admit. But tonight... tonight was good. Tonight was fun.”

He took a step towards her and leaned forward, and Shadow couldn’t help but smile to herself. They’re all the same, she thought, closing her eyes and waiting for the kiss. And she got it-- on her cheek.

“Thank you,” he said, and then turned and walked back down the hallway to the stairwell. But not before Shadow noticed the blush in his cheeks and the smile on his face. She smiled too, and touched her hand to her cheek where he had just kissed her. Maybe he really was different than the other guys.

“Shit,” said Shadow, realizing that she had no idea what to do with him if that was the case, if he really was a nice, sweet, sincere guy who wanted to fall in love with an equally nice, sweet, sincere girl, and probably believed in saving sex for marriage all other sorts of crazy old-fashioned ideas that had never even been a blip on the radar screen of Shadow’s life. “Shit.”


[x-posted in bodyandsoul100, sexay_duck, 31_days]