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“What do mean the table is taken?” Niles hissed into the phone. “Listen, he’s not the only Patrick Stewart in the world! What about getting me another table?” When the maitre d replied, Niles exclaimed, “Not for another six months?! Look I have a tenuous hold on the woman I love and I told a lot of very elaborate lies to get a table at your restaurant so surely you can do something.” Then he was met with dial tone. “Hello? Hello?” Angrily, Niles punched the End button on the cordless phone. They hadn’t even left CC’s apartment yet and the evening started to fall apart.
All he wanted to do was take her out for an actual date that involved candlelight, wine, and food made by the latest and greatest chef. Sure, he’d have to clear out most of his meager savings for the evening, but it would be more than worth. Was it too difficult to ask that he prove that he could be worthy of CC Babcock? Surely not.
But after promising her a night at Gotham, he called ahead to confirm the table only to find that the real Patrick Stewart had taken his reservation. Niles had used the actor’s name to score a last minute reservation; it wasn’t his fault if the maitre d thought he was the Star Trek icon. Besides what were the odds Patrick Stewart would actually show up? Panicking, he tried to think of another place to dine when CC came out of her bedroom.
“Hello, hello,” she greeted in a smoky, sultry voice and for a moment Niles forgot to breathe.
She wore that velvet strapless dress she’d donned three years earlier when they shared a very heated kiss that haunted his dreams…fantasies…and pretty much most of his waking thoughts since. Niles mentally slapped himself for all of the wasted years of snapping at each other. Had he acted on his feelings earlier, he could’ve had the pleasure of seeing her in more evening gowns…only to get her out of them again.
“Um, I-you look…I mean…damn, I…” Niles managed to babble.
CC let out a sparkling laugh. “Speechless there, Butler Boy?”
“Only be-because you-you…” Oh there was an insult in there somewhere, but he just couldn’t do it. “You look wonderfully beautiful.”
His response made her cheeks turn red. “I better. I spent the last year and half trying to get back into this damn dress.”
“You’d still be beautiful even if you hadn’t lost the weight.” Bloody hell, he sounded like a lovesick fool…but no denying the truth.
He could tell she didn’t quite believe his words so CC deflected, in true fashion, with humor. “Easy there, Don Bubbles. I don’t want to hose you down. Are you ready to go?”
Crap, dinner. “About that…ah, it appears the restaurant lost my reservation.”
“What?! How do they just randomly lose your reservation?”
Shrugging, Niles pursed his lips. “They only gave a vague explanation, but we can go-”
“Grab your coat,” CC ordered heading for the door. “We’re going over there right now, and we are getting table!
Unfortunately their trip over to Gotham didn’t yield them a table; the owner did threaten to ban CC after the commotion she cause, yelling at every employee in her path. Luckily in the tirade she never discovered the reservation wasn’t actually under his last name.
After leaving, they drove around to some of the other Manhattan hotspots only to find that everything was booked. No matter how much CC yelled or name dropped, no one would give them a table.
An hour later, they were still riding around the city looking for a suitable restaurant.
“Love, let’s just stop here,” Niles gestured out the window of the town car, not really sure what street they were on. As long as where they stopped had food, he didn’t care.
She scoffed. “You want to give up?! There are five other places we haven’t tried.”
Resting his head against the back of the seat, he groaned. “I’m starving.”
“Please. You’re about as round as Santa Claus.”
“You can’t tell me you’re not hungry because your stomach has been making sounds akin to a gurgling swap for the last twenty minutes.”
CC opened her mouth with a retort, but at that moment her stomach replied for her with a loud, bubbly growl.
“That’s it, we’re stopping!” Niles leaned forward to the chauffeur. “You can pull over at the corner here.”
He practically had to drag CC out of the car, talking over her loud protests. When she discovered they had stopped in front of a sports bar, she dug her feet in even further.
“A sports bar?!? No way,” she shook her head vehemently. “I’m not going in there wearing this dress.”
“Don’t worry Princess Grace, I’m sure the dry cleaners can get the smell of the common folk out.” He took her arm firmly, yet gently. “Let’s go.”
They entered to cacophony of cheers and yells. The bar was mostly full of men and women wearing t-shirts and jeans.
“Whoah,” the greeter said when they made it to the podium. “Fancy Dress Night is usually Friday nights.”
Niles smiled well naturedly, beating CC to whatever insult was on the tip of her tongue. “Table for two, please.”
“You got it.” And the college aged boy led them to a table. They did get a few stares at the state of their overdress, but for the most part, everyone was concentrated on the baseball game on TV.
“FYI, our Bud and Bud Light pitchers are nine bucks tonight,” the greeter informed them.
“Are the Yankees playing?” Niles asked.
The young man gave him a disgusted look and CC merely shook her head. “You’ll have to excuse my friend here,” she spoke. “He’s old and decrepit and British.” Then to Niles, “This is a Mets neighborhood. It’s the Mets and Phillies tonight.”
After the greeter left them, she opened her menu. “It appears we’ll be sacrificing martinis for something akin to horse urine.”
“You would know.” He grunted when she kicked him hard in the shin. That was going to bruise later.
“Do you know what you’d like to order?” he managed to wheeze out.
Shrugging, she replied, “Their burgers don’t look too terrible.”
Niles’ eyebrows rose. The woman ate hamburgers?
Moments later the waitress arrived and they placed orders: he chose the barbeque chicken sandwich and CC went with the bacon cheeseburger with a pitcher of Bud Light.
“You want anything while you’re waiting for food?” the girl asked with a thick New Jersey accent.
“Yes, we’ll have the chips and salsa,” CC requested.
“Mild, Medium, or Hot?”
“Hot.”
“You sure? The hot salsa is pretty damn hot.”
“We can handle it.”
Gathering the menus, the waitress informed them she would bring out the beer with the appetizer. Niles eyed his date questioningly.
“What?” she asked.
“You know this is a Mets bar; you ordered Bud Light and a bacon cheeseburger. Have you been kidnapped by aliens? When should we expect the call back when they want to return the real CC.”
“Oh, Niles, the things you don’t know could fill the Library of Congress.”
The waitress returned minutes later with a tray holding their beer and appetizer. After checking to make sure everything was still okay, she left them to their food. Niles poured them the icy cold beer in frozen pint glasses.
“All right,” CC said, stirring a chip into the salsa. “Let’s see if this is really hot.” She took a bite and her eyes went comically wide as her face reddened. Coughing, she smacked her chest a couple of times before reaching for the beer. Niles was too busy laughing, but then he stopped when she took down the whole pint in one breath.
Taking in his confused expression, CC asked when got her breath back. “What, you think an Upper East Side Princess can’t drink?”
“A barrel of whiskey or scotch, yes, but not cheap domestic beer.”
“By the way I wasn’t being a baby about the salsa, I just nearly choked on a piece of chip. And thank you for just sitting there and watching me die.”
“Oh please you were never in any real danger.” He rested his arms on the table. “But you’re avoiding the subject. How does someone like you know about baseball and beer?”
Her jaw tightened ever so slightly. “At my first and only year at Columbia.”
“Columbia?” He tilted his head in confusion. “I thought you’d gone to finishing school.”
“I did…after my mother pulled me out of Columbia,” she pretended to be interested in watching the condensation fall from her once again full pint glass.
“What happened?” he wondered gently.
Taking a deep breath, CC finally looked at him. “I convinced my parents to let me go to college so I could find a suitable husband there. I even made a case for living in the dorms; I knew it would be the best chance for meeting people.
“The thing they didn’t consider about Columbia was that it wasn’t a school for rich kids; people from all walks of life went there including kids who had to take out student loans to pay for tuition. For the first time in my life I wasn’t surrounded by trust fund babies.”
The corner of her lip rose at the memories coming to the surface. “Those kids were actually the most fun. I made friends with a bunch of fantastic people who stole dorm furniture from other floors; pulled the fire alarm in the dead of winter; and went to parties where there were keggars of beer. There were a few kids who were hardcore Mets fans and we met someone’s room to watch the game. They were the ones that taught me about baseball and made me a fan too.
“My folks never visited until the spring semester.” Now she concentrated on the bottom of her glass again. “When my mother met my friends, she was so appalled I was associating with such riff raff. After I came home for finals, she informed me I would be going to finishing school. She didn’t want some ‘beer swilling son-in-law’”
Niles didn’t miss the slight crack in her voice. Not for the first time, he felt exceedingly angry with her mother. Blast, no wonder the woman enacted stone walls around herself.
He reached across the table and squeezed her hands. “Do you ever keep in contact with any of your classmates from Columbia?”
She shook her head. “I lost contact with them when I left.”
“I’m sorry.” Niles mentally shook his head; he wished he could offer more than an inane platitude.
The corner of CC’s mouth rose. “It’s okay. I did wonder for a long time what my life would have been like had I stayed.”
“If you stayed, you might have never met me. And then what would your life be like?”
“Happy,” she deadpanned.
Niles pretended to be offended by her comment, but she just laughed.
“I knew if I had never met you, I’d get more of this beer.” He gestured to the pitcher.
CC snorted. “Beer that you’d let go flat. You’ve barely drank anything.” She nodded to his mostly full pint glass.
“Do you think I can’t chug a beer?”
“No, I know you can’t chug a beer.”
He topped off his glass to the same level beer CC had. “Oh you’re on, Babs.”
They’d gone through a second pitcher by the time their food arrived. CC nearly shot beer out of her nose when he’d tried to slug back the brew, but ended up choking. He managed to get Bud Light all over his suit. They ate their dinner with gusto and cheered with the rest of the crowd as the Mets won with a walk-off home run.
After the third pitcher of beer, they left the bar quite tipsy. CC used her cell phone to call the driver for a ride back to her penthouse. The cool night air felt amazing after being in the stuffy bar for a few hours. When CC started to shiver, Nile offered her his sports coat.
“Mmmmm… Eau de Bud Light. So much better than Armani or Gucci cologne.”
Niles chuckled at her joke, but then noticed she studied him pensively. “What is it?”
“You know I was thinking…it wasn’t until several years ago that I didn’t regret not being able to finish my degree at Columbia.”
“Why?”
Her eyes softened. “Because finishing school led to me to meeting Sara, which led to getting a job with Max, which led me to you. I …I don’t…no, I can’t imagine my life without you in it.”
Niles felt his heart swell. This was the second time today she confessed more of her feelings for him. Damn if he wasn’t one lucky man. Wrapping his hands around her waist, he pulled her in for a long, slow kiss. He tried to show his thanks with the way he pulled her close and brought one hand up to brush his thumb against her jaw. They didn’t pull apart until the driver honked the car horn at them.
CC thumbed the lipstick off of his mouth, and Niles felt his breath catch at her gentle touch.
“C’mon, Niles. Let’s go home.”