Work Text:
Because it amuses me greatly to consider someone meeting CE and not recognizing him
Imagine your friends are getting married. The big day is imminent and its all hands to get everything accomplished before wedding bells will ring. Her sister and his brother claimed the coveted titles of Maid of Honor & Best Man, respectively, but also have been on airport duty as the final countdown begins and relatives from all over arrive. As such you’re doing all you can to help them out – and help to relieve some of the stress load – by running as many of the errands as you can. Without a car it’s slightly tricky (you live and work close enough that public transport makes more sense to avoid the additional hassle of payments associated with a vehicle). You’re doing all you can via taxi, train, or ride sharing services.
With the MOH on relative retrieval, you’ve also volunteered to be the point of contact should anybody in the wedding party have any questions. Directions, with a little over two years in Boston under your belt you’re pretty confident you can get them from point A to point B – and dining recommendations, which you’re certain you can help with – are easy enough to handle as you’re tracking down altered dresses, picking up floral arrangements, and the like.
+ Status? +
You eye the text from the bride, your friend Amy, and respond back:
~ Great! Going down the list. ♫ checking it twice ♫ ~
Her reply comes quickly:
+ Honey you’re not Santa +
It makes you grin, tapping out a follow-up:
~ No I’m more important ~
At least, you felt important, earlier. But after an hour of juggling the bags hanging off of you, you have to wonder just what you were thinking when you volunteered to be one of the runners when you knew perfectly well you didn’t have a car. Maybe a rental wasn’t out of the question. Your aching arms certainly would appreciate not having the handles of assorted bags cutting into your skin.
It’s as you’re picking up the groomsmen’s tuxes that you get another text from Amy, letting you know that her soon-to-be-husband’s best friend miraculously was able to make it back to town for the wedding and since he rented a car he’s been nominated to help you return to Command Central faster.
+ actually he volunteered, because he’s a good man. SHOULD have been the Best Man but he was worried he wouldn’t make it back and … that’s another story. but this way you guys can get back here faster and hang with us at the house for a while! +
When an unfamiliar number pops up on your screen a few minutes later you glance at the incoming message, apparently from the guy sent to help you out – a photo of the street corner, accompanied by one word of text: hey.
HEY. Cause that’s super helpful. Plus – you squint at the screen of your phone – is that street corner even close? It’s maybe… ok, maybe three blocks away. You swipe over to send him your exact location and then return to the task of collecting the tuxes. When the chime to the shop sounds you don’t even pause to check if it could be your ‘helper’ arriving, you just finish signing the slip and start to situate the garment bags in your arms.
A quiet commotion drags your attention away from the problem of how, exactly, to pick up the bags you’d set on the floor at your feet now that you’ve got the garment bags to contend with. A guy is standing in the doorway – a looker, not to put too fine a point on it – and is making a show of looking around as he plucks his sunglasses off his face and hooks them on the collar of his slightly-too-tight-but-perfect-for-showing-off-his-muscle-definition shirt. The commotion is the group of guys closer to the door than you that are clearly cheering the late arrival of the last member of their pack.
.
He takes in the store and all the racks of formal wear, only giving the group a small wave before continuing his perusal of the space. His gaze slips over you and then slides back for a brief appraisal before moving on again, giving you ample time for your own meandering appreciation of him.
Then his focus returns to you and he tips his chin up in greeting. Not the final member of the rowdy pack of groomsmen also in the shop, then. This must be the guy, the best friend of the groom, here to help. You were the one holding all the bags. Clearly you’re the one he’s been sent to find.
“Sorry.” He grins through his apology, the humor in his face slightly catching, “Took a minute to find a place to park.”
He masks it well, but you hear the slightest inflection that identifies him as a native Bostonian. It may be subdued, but you suspect it grows stronger when he’s home again. The too-good-looking-for-words man is here to help you. With things. So many things other than the errands that you’re meant to be running.
“Hey,” he performs a quick double-step to close the final distance between the pair of you, reaching out as he does so. “I’m Chris…”
You’re still caught in the loop of assessing him. Maybe he’s not too-good-looking-for-words? He’s got a little more scruff that you usually like, for starters. His hair a little long, his beard a little wild. There’s still this air to him of ‘I know I can get away with flirting with anything that moves’ despite it all. Is it the shirt, and the muscles that are clearly for the benefit of others? Or maybe the way his pants perfectly outline his –
“Packages! Here you go.” You shake yourself, forcing your eyes up as you shove the garment bags into his hands, “Thank you. So much. For helping out.”
“My. Pleasure?”
You ignore the odd expression on his face, ducking back down to pick up the other bags by your feet. Those few bags scooped up you start towards the door, “I’ve gotten the placards and programs that Amy had them run off for late RSVPs, and the um…”
He’s quick, somehow beating you to the door even though you’re pretty sure you left him in your wake, that you left him standing beside the racks of pants in your haste to get your brain on a safer track. Since Chris sent you the photo of the street corner, presumably close to where he parked, you know which direction to turn once the pair of you are out on the sidewalk. Chris has the garment bags containing the altered tuxes for the groomsmen slung over his shoulder. Crowded as it is, he draws close, almost bounding along beside you, “So, what’s left on our list?”
That’s a safe enough topic. You consider all that you’ve accomplished before his arrival, glancing down at the bags in your hands, “Well, um…. Oop!” The pair of you have to part to battle your way through a larger group of people walking in the opposite direction. The flow of foot traffic keeps you divided on opposite sides of the sidewalk for the length of the block.
When you stop at the corner, waiting for the light to change, Chris shimmies through the crowd to get to your side again and finally hear your response to his question. He’s grinning when he makes it to you, the pair of you following the signal and stepping off the sidewalk to cross the street, “Ok. Let’s try that again. Where are we headed next?”
“Your car, for starters.” You laugh, lifting the bags that are weighing your arms down. “We need to go by and confirm the changes to the planned meal for the rehearsal dinner tomorrow with the caterers, make sure they have an up-to-date head count as well, and then pick up the bouquets and boutonnieres for the wedding party. The florist said they’d deliver the centerpieces for the tables and her bouquet the morning of the big day.”
You start to slow down, wondering if he parked on this side of the intersection or the other. Are the pair of you approaching his rental? Do you still have another block to go?
Chris tips his head slightly to the side, “Isn’t that cutting it a bit close?”
“They offered to deliver them to the hotel tomorrow with the instruction to keep them in the fridge but…” You shrug at him, taking the opportunity to re-situate how many bags you’re holding in each hand. The paper used for the programs and placards was gorgeous, yes, but heavy too. “But Amy said she didn’t want to chance them looking wilted… Although they’ll probably make them up tomorrow and store ‘em in their shop, honestly. Same difference.”
“Just don’t point out that detail to Amy?”
You smirk at him and the accuracy of that thought. “Exactly.”
Before you have the chance to fidget and adjust the bags again, he holds out his hand, “Here. Hand some over. We’ve got another half a block to go.” The fact that you get a reprieve from two of the bags barely keeps you from suppressing a groan. He eyes the bags you still carry, then takes stock of all he’s got, “We… should be able to fit it all in the back. ‘N’ hang-up the suits, of course.”
His hesitation gives you pause, “Of course.” You wait, taking a few steps before asking a follow-up question, wanting to know what type of vehicle to be on the lookout for, “What did you rent, anyway?” You half expect him to tell you he got the biggest SUV on the lot. Maybe a truck. If you’re getting an accurate read on him that would certainly fit his personality type.
But then why would he be worrying over fitting everything in the vehicle?
“A Mustang.”
You check just to see if he’s messing with you, but he appears to be entirely serious. But then, how would he have known that he would be roped into running wedding errands? His plan was probably just to come and celebrate with Amy and Connor.
When he veers off down a side street you follow suit, only to have him stop abruptly beside a white two-door coup. Now you understand his concern. You’re tempted to dig your phone out and text Amy one word:
SERIOUSLY?!
But that would require an extra set of hands. As it stands the text to your friend will have to wait, at least until Chris gets the car unlocked and you offload the bags into the trunk. He pauses to tap at the handle of the passenger’s side door, unlocking the vehicle, before stepping around to the rear of the car to access the trunk.
.
“I suppose I should be thankful it’s not a convertible.”
Your muttered comment wasn’t exactly meant to be aloud, but it draws a laugh out of him. “They didn’t have any on the lot. But they’re supposed to have decent trunk space in those, too.”
You follow him around to the back of the car rather than muddle around, trying to figure out how to get into the passenger’s seat without dropping or squishing any of the bags.
Best. Decision. Ever.
This way you are graced with a fantastic scene playing out: Chris pauses at the trunk, wiggles slightly, and then pops one leg up so that he can balance one of the heavier bags on his thigh. He bends quickly to use the hand he just freed up to pop the trunk open, hardly wobbling as he does so. You quirk your eyebrows up in surprise, and in appreciation of the way his khakis are molded to his leg, which is exactly when he realizes that you’ve followed him.
He may be wearing his sunglasses again, but the sun makes the darkened lenses all-but-translucent. You get a clear display of how delighted he is that he caught you staring.
Oh hell. Did you say best decision ever? Scratch that. Make that worst. Worst decision ever.
“Good balance. Ah… Sorry. Um. Here.” Apologetic, you shove the bags into his hands as he turns towards you. You need a distraction, “Amy says you’re Connor’s best friend? How did you guys meet?”
He offers a stifled shrug, his arms loaded down with the bags you’d just fostered off on him, replying as he turns to reposition everything in the trunk. “We go way back. Grade-school, probably. Probably recess? Out being — ” he ducks up from putzing with things in the trunk, following your progress as you dismount the curb and slide into the passenger’s seat of the car. He half-frowns as he bends and rearranges the way the garment bag sits overtop of all the others, deep in thought, “ — the little terrors that we were, and like, just gravitated to one another I think.”
“Mm. Combine and amplify the mayhem?”
“Something like that.”
You check which of the two locations is closer, caterer or florist, and then swipe the app aside to tap out a quick message to Amy:
~ Tuxes & programs retrieved. Yes I checked for spelling errors ~
+ K. What do you think?? +
~ You found the right seamstress, definitely. ~
~ & even considering the rush job they did a great job with the printing etc ~
+ Of HIM you dunce +
~ I hate you & myself for being slightly attracted to that hot mess of a man ~
+ lol +
You drop your phone into your lap when Chris settles in beside you and starts the car, his eyes dipping to the device before he cocks an eyebrow at you, “More errands added to the list or status check?”
“Status check. Florist first, or caterer?”
“You’ve got the list, wedding buddy. You point the way.”
The pair of you stare at each other for a moment before you narrow your eyes at him, “We’re going to sit here until I tell you which one first, aren’t we.”
“Glad you’ve accepted that.”
You roll your eyes and point as you sigh out the answer he’s looking for, “Caterer. Give me a minute and I’ll pull up the directions.”
He waits for your navigation app to start reciting directions, not pulling out into traffic just yet. While he idles the car, waiting on you, he asks, “What about you?”
“What about me, what?”
“Classic wedding question. C’mon.” In your peripheral vision you see him motion to himself before waving his hand towards you, “Friend of the groom….”
You answer as your phone finally pulls up the directions, “Friend of the bride, I suppose. Though I met them both at the same time.” The memory stirs: the bar, the drinking, the eventual horrible, horrible singing — “Karaoke night.”
“Oh.”
He sounds far too intrigued. You regret revealing that detail immediately.
“No. Whatever you’re thinking. No. Get it right outta your head.”
He glances aside quickly before focusing on the traffic again, his look almost angelic. Almost. “What?” He laughs, “That was a noise of acknowledgement.”
“Right. And I’m a duck.”
He takes his time giving you another once-over, just like he had upon walking into the tailor’s, the traffic allowing him ample opportunity. “A duck, huh.” He waits till his eyes hit your face again before continuing, his humor at your choice of words evident, “I must be ‘quakers’ to think you’re cute, then.”
The giggle bubbles up from within you, immediately followed by a groan. “Wow, Chris.”
“I know.” He flattens his hand out over the top of the steering wheel, pointing his fingers momentarily towards the road before resuming his grip, “I know. That was a bad one.”
“So very bad. A little funny.” You offer him a caveat as a saving grace, “But so bad.” Another giggle escapes, and you wipe a tear from the corner of your eye, noting that his cheeks and a growing portion of his face have tinted pink. “Erm, so what do you do when you’re not shepherding carless damsels around the city?”
He swallows, seemingly grateful for the redirect when he glances away from the road to look at you for a moment. He tips his eyebrows up, though he doesn’t reply until his attention is back on navigating through the traffic, “Most recently – I was pretending to spearfish.”
It draws another laugh out of you, “Spearfish?”
“Yea,” he halfway mimes as he speaks, one hand always on the wheel, “you use a harpoon type thing and –” he pauses when he risks another glance your way to find you giving him a quizzical look. “—I wasn’t very good.”
“Ah… huh.” You continue to squint at him, unsure if the reassurance that he wasn’t very good with the harpoon-type-thing is supposed to instill confidence, or if he’s just flat out avoiding giving you a straight answer.
“What?” he chuckles.
“I’m trying to figure out if you’re having me on again.”
“No.” He shakes his head, adopting a faux solemn manner, “Scout’s Honor.”
Again he’s got you rolling your eyes and shaking your head. You respond lightly, waving your hand at him, “Ok. Pretending to spearfish. You could just say that it’s something boring, like banking. Don’t have to make something up.”
“I dunno.” He hems, “Not sure I’d buy it if I told me I was a banker.”
“But spearfishing, clearly. Definitely buy that.”
He snorts, and then straightens up in the drivers seat slightly. “Oh! I actually know a few banking jokes.”
“Ok. Hit me.”
He closes his right hand into a fist and presses the knuckle of his index finger to his mouth, exaggerating the clearing of his throat before beginning, “What do you call the new girl at the bank?” He barely waits a beat and then delivers the punchline, darting his focus over to check your reaction, “The Nutella.”
Again, there’s that inflection to his words reminding you that he grew up here. Does it get more pronounced if he’s hamming it up, or the longer he spends back in Boston? Shoving the questions to the back of your mind again you raise your eyebrows at him, “Way to sell that one. Didn’t even let me guess.”
“Everybody’s a critic. Tell me a joke, then,” he laughs, “with proper timing.”
You press your fingers to your forehead, thinking. “Ok. Um… What do you call a gossiping bank employee?”
Chris tilts his head, a light frown appearing on his face. “Er….”
Ultimately, he shrugs in response to prompt you to continue and you giggle, “A story-teller.”
The pair of you spend the next twenty minutes of the drive trying to out-do (or out-groan) one another with bad banking jokes, and horrible puns. As you start to run out of puns you fall back on pick-up lines and one-liners. The result is that the pair of you end up falling away from the innocent, horrible jokes into the realm of the raunchy, loving every minute of it.
“Ok, ok.” He ends up conceding, “I’m calling it, unless you want to switch to another profession. I’m pretty tapped out on bank jokes.” He side-eyes you, “Though something tells me you have a few more.”
“Maybe.” It’s entirely too fun making him laugh, or squirm, or tip his eyebrows up in surprise. His beard and longer, wind mussed hair, don’t hide half as much of his expression as you initially thought. Very emotive, this one. You now have a few more goals added to your mental list for the remainder of the weekend: tease him mercilessly and make him laugh as much as possible. You offer a half-shrug, “I’ll happily be declared the winner.”
“Oh… It was a competition.”
There’s something delightfully dangerous in his tone.
“Of course,” you nod, “And to the victor go the spoils.”
He’s quiet for a moment, thrumming his fingers on the gear shift as he waits to merge into the other lane. Traffic makes the move difficult, that and the fact that he’s refusing to use his blinker. He only manages to get halfway into the lane before speaking again. “Dinner?”
What? You blink, cocking an eyebrow at him, “What?”
“Or drinks.” He shakes his head, scowling at the car that seems to be getting a little too close to the rental, before screwing up his face again and giving you a toothy grin, “I know. Shots when we all go out tonight. On me. And I’ll drink two to every one of yours.”
“Is this you trying to get blitzed, or thinking you need to sweeten the pot?”
“Which one of those gets you to say yes?”
It’s so tempting to immediately say yes – but then it’s also tempting to see if he’ll keep upping the ante… There’s also the question of the wisdom of saying yes to him, of continuing to flirt with this all-but-stranger your friends sent to help speed along the errands you were running for them. The moment for wondering if it was wise or not passed you by long ago.
“You know,” you hem, stalling answering him outright, “you could severely be underestimating my tolerance levels.”
“Or maybe you’re underestimating mine. I’ll have you know I’m the drinking game champion.”
“Now that? That I believe.” You’re really just giving him a hard time. It’s not that anything he’s said to you has the air of a lie to it – things outside the realm of normality, the realm of possibility, but no outright lies.
Your words net you a sharp look from him, one eyebrow cocked. “Back to that, huh. Scout’s honor,” he repeats, “Spearfishing. Anyway, what do you do?”
“When I’m not rescuing carless damsels, you mean?”
He snorts, failing to keep from loosing a chuckle. “You too, huh?”
Making him laugh is quickly becoming a favorite thing. It’ll be even better when you don’t have to worry so much about distracting the person driving the vehicle. You emit a long faux-put-upon sigh, “Full time job, some days.”
Your quip is rewarded with a devilish, and delicious, grin. His voice drops slightly as he glances over at the next red light, clearly curious. “Seriously, though.”
“Hmm, so Amy and Connor nominated you for driving duty – ”
“Assigned a wedding buddy.” He corrects, following the directions of the navigation, turning before pulling up to the curb for the caterer’s building.
“And didn’t give you any details?” You wait till he shakes his head, putting the car into park. It’s perfect. You unbuckle your seat belt and wink at him over your shoulder before opening your car door, “I’m in banking.”
He doesn’t seem quite sure if he should laugh or not. He sputters, flushing scarlet as he tries to figure out how to respond. “You- you’re… but you said?? We just spent the better part of the ride making fun of…”
You talk over the rest of his sentence. Suppressing a giggle, you wiggle your fingers at him and half-sing, “♫ I’ll be back in a minute. ♫”
The moment you’ve turned your back, walking up to the door of the caterer’s building, you’re texting Amy. You were doing just fine running errands on your own before being assigned a wedding buddy. Wedding buddy! Look. He’s already got you agreeing with the notion. Now there’s flirting and laughter and… Someone must pay for this.