Chapter Text
'Arthur says his aunt is meeting him?'
Eleanor grabbed her phone and swiped it, unlocking it as she considered her response. She realized that she should have let him know about the change in plans as soon as she had sent Zoey with the car. 'He's showing her around tonight. A very grown up evening, of course.'
'Not joining them?' It took less time than she expected to get his response and even just the speed of his attention had her drawing a deep breath into her lungs.
'No mums allowed', she texted back quickly. She had barely set the phone down and turned from it when it vibrated against the counter, the sound sustained. It had to be him calling - or Arthur, Zoey. But the heat in her chest told her it was him.
"Hello, Teacher."
"Is Mum allowed dinner?" he asked rather than offering a greeting, making her grin to herself. "I can make something up for two. A very grown up evening, of course."
O'Hara groaned as she looked over the work she'd spread across the counter. Employee assessments had joined scheduling requests and supply acquisitions. And she hadn't even yet touched the budget report. "I have a mountain of work in front of me, though."
"Put it away once I put a plate in front of you," he offered as a compromise, his breath catching and the sound of traffic echoing after him. He had to be walking somewhere. She liked the image of it, the domestic feel of being the one he was calling as he made his way home. "I'll take care of the rest."
"I told Arthur…" She sighed, hearing her own reticence and frustration at once. "You know I'd like to, Thomas."
"It's just dinner, Doctor O'Hara." His accent was delightful as he teased her, voice lush with playfulness before then bending genuine, "Arthur'll be all right, I promise."
It really was just dinner. They really didn't know each other all that well and they wouldn't have all that much time to get themselves into trouble anyhow… At least, not too much trouble.
"Should I pull a red or a white?"
"Ah, you're a sound woman, El. Gimme twenty."
He hung up before answering her question.
***
Zoey's brow shot up in surprise as she opened the photo that O'Hara had just texted her. The man in the picture was obviously unaware of it being taken, his back to Ellie as he stirred something on the stovetop. DeSilva had his sleeves shoved up and his stance was loose, obviously comfortable in the kitchen.
"Holy shit," she murmured to herself, then looking up as Arthur plopped back down in the booth seat across from her. She closed the photo and turned her phone face down to the table, giving him a softened smile.
He'd drawn his hood up over his head, hands stuffed in the wide front pocket of his hoodie. Zoey gave him a questioning look before glancing behind him at the group of teenage boys he'd had to wind through to get back to the table. They were too busy throwing food and garbage at each other to notice her watching them.
"Embarrassed by the American aunt?" Zoey asked loosely, trying not to make it sound like an accusation.
"What? No, sorry," he rapidly tugged his hood back down, beautiful brown curls getting ruffled as he blushed. There were moments when she saw Eleanor in him, more by mannerism usually. Unless he was smiling - then his hazel brown eyes lit just the same as his mother’s. "They just give me a hassle sometimes."
"Maybe you should tell DeSilva."
"He makes them back off when he's around," he shrugged, fiddling with his phone but not looking at it. Zoey imagined that Ellie would be quick to tell him to put it away if he did but he didn’t take advantage of her vacancy. Instead he just kept popping the corner of the case off and on again, shrugging in regards to his headteacher. "He suspended one of them last term and they lit his car on fire."
Zoey blinked and shot him a surprised look, hand stilled with her drink cup half to her mouth and hovering. "Seriously?"
She was more than impressed.
"Didn't scare him off, though." And obviously so was Arthur.
Zoey smirked, took another drink as she studied his face. The boy obviously respected DeSilva. "You like him."
"He's all right." Right. Just all right.
She set her drink back to the table, one shoulder rising with a shrug. "Your mom likes him."
"Yeah, I know," he admitted, face pinched as he cast a look back over his shoulder and then ducked lower in his side of the booth. "He likes her."
"Is that so bad? He seems like a pretty nice guy."
His features were still pinched, soured. "You want her dating someone you see every day?"
"I like to see her smile, Arthur,” she shrugged hard, pressing back in the booth with a smirk of her own. “It’s gotta be lonely sometimes, being her. And work isn’t making it any easier on her.”
He was sweet hearted enough to look a little sheepish as she made her point, his finger still pulling off the corner of his phone case. "Yeah, I guess."
He was a good kid, supposed attitude aside. Soon it would be excruciatingly difficult to leave him.
***
"Books away, now," he told her gently, voice culled low as he leaned her way. "Pencil down."
She felt him at her back, so close and warm as his hand pressed the rail of her high backed kitchen stool. The scent of some brown sauce was thick through the room, spiced and comforting as his other hand lifted over her own. Eleanor half turned her head as he poured her another glass of cabernet, feeling his chest against her shoulder. She watched him pour, hand rising so that she could rub a silent appreciation against the front of his sweater with her knuckles. The fabric was surprisingly soft and she stretched her fingers up to catch his jaw as he set the bottle down.
"Time to eat," he murmured, turning his jaw into her fingertips.
Ellie met his eyes as he looked over her face and she felt herself smile, the movement subtly slow and natural. There was no expectation in the way he was looking at her and she appreciated that. But when his eyes dipped to her mouth she couldn't help but lick her lips. His groan had her tightening her fingers on his jaw and pulling. Their mouths met with strength, the kiss strong and fast. She was half up from the stool when both his hands took her face, palms warm. Their awkward position went forgotten as he blindly used the bridge of his shoe to shove the stool back and aside, one hand lowering to pull her up by her shirt. Eleanor let him shift them, enjoying the way he was sucking along her tongue and backing her against her own kitchen island at once. She loosely put her arms around his neck and just delighted in one of his hands lowering further, brushing past her hip to slip behind her and pull her close. The speed with which their position became so intimate had her head a little swimmy, her attention caught up and cast off.
Fast. It had happened very fast. His kiss was intense but lulling at once, somehow both desperate and comforting. The duality of the way he touched her… She felt her head get clouded up as she enjoyed the taste of whatever it was he was cooking on his tongue. And wine. And the intoxicating flavor of a sudden shared lust. Desire, between them, was delicious. It was hot and spiced and made her feel languid, drowsy almost. If she just let him keep it up then -
Shit.
Arthur would be simply mortified to find them so entangled.
She purposely pulled from the kiss but kept close, their heads still pressed together as he gave her a groan. She brushed her fingers up the back of his neck to assuage the intentional pause, liking how soft the short trimmed hair at the back of his head felt under her fingertips. He laughed, more to himself she assumed. When his head lifted and their eyes met she couldn’t help but match the bold smile he was giving her. Both his arms circled her in tighter and she wrapped her own around his shoulders as they grinned at each other like idiots.
“This is - ”
“We’ve barely met,” she laughed with him, feeling heat touch over her cheeks. “I’m not usually so - ”
“Me either,” he agreed, looking down at her mouth for a moment and then back up. “Maybe hands to ourselves for dinner.”
“Probably best,” she agreed regretfully, one last brush of her palm curving down his stubbled cheek. The way he turned his jaw into the touch made her gut tighten, though, and she fought the urge to kiss him all over again. “Stop being adorable.”
He grunted as he drew her arms down and purposely turned her back toward the island counter, her smirk getting spun away from him. “Stop being so sexy.”
O’Hara laughed as his hands squeezed her waist before dropping away from her. “I’m sorry, darling, but that is quite impossible.”
“Then romance the food instead, minx.”
She held onto her smile as she sat heavily back in her seat and reached for the wine he had poured. She was desperate for a drink or ten.
It was going to be a very interesting dinner.
***
So much for keeping their hands to themselves.
He could barely keep his right one out from under her shirt, the left braced against her lower back and keeping her close. Her head was tipped back from the graze of his mouth down her throat, his stubble brushing her skin pink as he kissed and sucked his way down. Ellie teased at his hair again with one hand, the other braced in the warm fabric of his sweater. She heard her phone vibrate against the table, the sound just barely managing to disperse the hazy cloud of pleasure she was getting from the feel of his teeth just barely nicking her skin.
“Hold on,” he whispered against her skin as she tightened up and tried to turn.
He kept her from the movement, pulling his hand from the skin of her waist so that he could reach for it instead. His movements were quick but controlled, lifting the phone between them as he looked up at her, his tongue slicking his bottom lip. She squinted at the tease, drawing a smirk off him as she swiped to answer the call.
"Yes, sweetheart? Everything all right?" she asked, leaning back into the counter, relaxed as his hold slightly loosened. Ellie kept her fingers pinned up in his sweater as he reached for her wine, though, eyes on his movements as he gulped down half the glass.
"Heading back soon - you need anything?" Zoey asked over the line, the question more a warning of their imminent return more than anything. She appreciated it immensely, blinking slowly as he sucked in his bottom lip, raking his teeth on it. What an incorrigible shit he was.
"A little more time maybe?" she asked, giving his shirt a tug as she nodded to the wine glass.
Thomas just shook his head in negation, keeping it from her as Zoey made a negative sound in her throat, the sound just barely coming across the phone. "I'll try to find some but we're getting tired."
"All right," she agreed, distracted as he set the glass to the counter beside her. "See you both soon. Take care."
"You have to go."
"Ellie," he exhaled, her name a slip of heat off his lips. His hands caught her in close to fight her sudden frenetic demeanor. "He'll be fine."
"He'll feel betrayed. I can't without - "
"Talking to him first.”
"Yes," she agreed against his mouth, kissing him again as her fingernails skidded down abs that were more defined than she had even expected. "Jesus, you're fit."
He laughed into her mouth, another kiss hot mouthed between them as he pulled her head closer. The heat of his hands in her hair made her head swim a little. "Boxing. And some fencing. I was a soldier before teaching."
Ellie groaned as he nipped her bottom lip between his teeth, just barely there pressure as one hot palm stroked to her cheek. "You needn't sell me on it, I'll buy."
"Soon," he groaned as her fingertips caught the waistband of his jeans, dipping just into them enough to tug him closer. His instant answer to the taunting was to grab her up higher and closer, clutched into his chest. "Never wanted a woman more."
"None of the other mums, huh?"
"Could lose my post for this if it was deemed inappropriate," Thomas told her, voice lush as his hands rose up her rib cage. His thumbs curved the edges of her breasts through her sweater, making her inhale sharply. "No, Ellie. None of the others."
"I see," she exhaled as his hands drew her in even closer.
"Do you?" O'Hara looked up as he said it, meeting his eyes at the question. The intense bright blue brought her in closer, snugly wrapped in by his left arm. His face was more serious than it yet had been and she nodded assurance as she studied the sweet little lines that crinkled in the corners of his eyes.
"Yes," she whispered as she tugged on his shirt for emphasis, making sure that her tone was sincere, genuine. "I'm really am flattered."
Thomas nodded, empty hand rising so that he could sweetly brush his fingertip down her nose in a movement that would have been annoying from anyone else. "Talk to your son."
"I will," she agreed with a whisper and a nod, enjoying the way he dipped in for one more kiss.
***
She knew the mood in the house was elevated as soon as Arthur held the door for her, the steady thump of upbeat music coming from the kitchen. She heard him groan from behind her as she pulled off her jacket, hanging it as he tossed his backpack up on the next hook over. Zoey laughed to herself as the music continued, shaking her head at her friend’s obvious happiness.
“Megan Trainor usually means a good mood,” he offered, not realizing that she had beaten him to that assumption. His mother’s mood had been more than obvious from the text Zoey had received less than half an hour before, the entire body of the message just a long unbroken line of exclamation points.
She slipped her shoes off as he slapped at the lock and then headed for the kitchen, leaving her to follow. She kept slower, moving down the entry hall a few steps behind him and grinning as she watched Eleanor try to make the boy dance with her. Her efforts were destined to fail, his eyes rolling back as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and tried to at least make him sway with her. The music was loud but Ellie’s laugh still broke over it as he groaned and tried to escape.
The kitchen still smelled delicious but Zoey saw no evidence that anyone had been there, O’Hara’s dishes and paperwork the only thing on the island. The dining room was dark at the other end of the kitchen. DeSilva was gone and had left no sign of himself.
“I hate this song,” Arthur complained loudly, wiggling out of his mother’s hold and heading for the refrigerator. He jammed down the volume button on the way by the Bluetooth speaker, the music suddenly leaving a vacant space in the room. It became an underscore to everything, the happy beat still keeping the smile in his mother’s eyes as she leaned against the counter.
“It’s fun,” Zoey argued as she headed toward the stove, snooping. Even the leftovers had been put away, the cook top wiped clean. She turned from the hip, giving O’Hara an arched glance as Arthur grabbed a bottle of water and headed toward the stairs. The brunette just lifted a shoulder, her smile half smug as they shared a knowing look.
“Thank you, Aunt Zoey, for dinner!” Eleanor mocked after him as he ditched them both, his empty hand waving his goodnight. She turned back to her friend with a sigh. “Can you imagine what he’s going to be like as an actual teenager? I am not prepared, Zoey.”
“He’s about to be late for ‘Call of Duty with the mates’,” she teased in response, the fake accent just as terrible as it had always been and still making O’Hara smirk as she rolled her eyes. “Like, thirty exclamation points via text? You don’t think that’s an exaggeration?”
The smile that tipped O’Hara’s lips said that it likely was not actually any exaggeration at all and Zoey enjoyed the moment, appreciating the near dreamy way the other woman looked at her.
She loved seeing Eleanor smile - there was little in the world like it.