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“Miss Grant?” Kara leans against the door, her knock fumbled and awkward. She doesn’t usually bother about interrupting Cat; she’s only approving the newest layouts.
“Hmm?” Great. Total disinterest.
“I don’t know if you talked to Adam…”
“I did.” Cat is retreating behind her desk, but Kara’s used to that. Sometimes it’s a defense mechanism, like with the letter discovery. Other times it’s a power ploy, to give Cat something to loom over in Kara’s general direction. “He’s leaving. He’s going back to Opal City.”
“So soon?” Kara can’t exactly claim to be surprised. He looked pretty chewed up for a guy who hadn’t even managed a full date with her.
“Yes, and don’t think for a moment I don’t know why,” Cat puts the layouts down at last, before practically collapsing into her chair. “Clearly no son of mine is impressed by the blushing maiden routine. I’d say he’s cutting his losses, but he assured me we’ll see each other now that I’m back in his life.”
“So he’ll visit,” Kara deduces. “I’m really glad I didn’t screw that up for you.”
“You don’t have to have screwed up for you, either,” Cat sighs. “My son deserves the best. The best schools, the best homes, the best girlfriends. You need to learn how to become a better date. The best date.”
“Miss Grant-”
“This is a condition of me not firing you for contacting him in the first place,” Cat cuts her off, waving one finger in that imperious way she has. “Get back on the phone to Mario’s place, make a reservation for 8 tomorrow.”
“For?”
“Two,” Cat says deliberately, as though Kara has lost all control of her faculties. “Make sure you wear something a little more daring this time. Pink is not an option. Consider that your first tip.”
“Of course,” Kara mutters, sensing her chance to escape this awkward conversation at last. “If that’s what you want.” She’ll just have to find out which godawful dating coach or lifestyle guru Cat is inflicting on her by showing up tomorrow.
The red cocktail dress is a risk, and Kara spends half the walk from the taxi to the table pulling it up at the top or down at the hem. An appreciative glance from the waitress though, and she decides to let it be. It’s not much more revealing than her super suit, after all. The heels are still tricky to walk in, and she’s so focused on not faceplanting that she doesn’t even notice who’s waiting at her table until the chair is pulled out.
“Miss Grant?” She squeaks, blindly accepting the menu that the server hands her. “What are you doing here? I mean, not that I’m not glad to see you, but you have a dinner at 8, too. Did I misunderstand the reservations?”
“You need to learn to date,” Cat reminds her. “As in apparently every other area of your life, you’re going to need guidance from me. Be grateful, Keira. I’m going to transform you into a social butterfly. With substance.”
“Oh,” Kara is at a lost for another word, whether in English or Kryptonese. “Thank you?”
“Start with the wine list,” Cat instructs, tutting as Kara is reluctant to part with the menu. “Nobody wants to see how your eyes light up at the mention of steak until at least after the first drink.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. That sort of undisguised lust will make a man feel unwanted in comparison.”
Kara wriggles in her seat, hungry and more than a little confused. “How did you know I wanted steak, anyway?”
Cat rolls her eyes. “Barolo,” she instructs their waitress when she returns a moment later. “The Callavotto, I think.” Kara balks at the price on the winelist. She didn’t think they put prices when things cost that much.
“So, what’s my first lesson?” Kara asks, settled in her choices because yes, she’s absolutely having the steak and who cares if she’s that predictable. “Is there going to be a PowerPoint or anything, because I don’t think they have any screens we can use.”
“Polite but insightful questions,” Cat tells her, and she actually puts her phone away for once, slips it right into her purse. “Give me your best shot.”
“I should ask you fo-for real?” Kara sputters. “And you’ll answer?”
“If you impress me, yes,” Cat replies. “Do I have to tell you that the weather, my journey here and my favorite color are all off limits?”
“No,” Kara mutters, her three easy openings shot down in a heartbeat. “How’s Carter?”
“Personal, manipulative, using insider knowledge,” Cat answers. “I like it. And he’s wonderful, as always. You shouldn’t ask things you already know the answer to.”
“Right,” Kara’s moment of victory deflates. It might just be a very long evening.
“Seriously,” Kara continues, walking Cat to her car. The driver holds the door open, face impassive. “I don’t know what was in that wine, but I’ve never enjoyed any red wine that much! I know it doesn’t affect me, but still…”
“Ah, the arrogance of youth,” Cat accuses, a little unsteady from the second bottle which she polished off while Kara raved about everything from the texture of her steak to the color of the walls. “Just because you won’t have a hangover in the morning.”
“I won’t,” Kara admits. “Because… I’ll take an aspirin and drink some water before I go to bed. Obviously.”
“Well,” Cat says, shimmying across the backseat with hopefully a modicum of grace. “What are you waiting for? Get in.”
“I can walk,” Kara insists. “Or get a cab, it’s really no problem.”
“Get in,” Cat insists. “I’m not risking you being snatched from the street again.”
Kara’s expression falls at that, and Cat realizes she never did get the full story. The car ride will be a perfect time to grill Kara about Supergirl and her doppelganger. She could have mentioned it at dinner, but a surprisingly interesting ramble through 17th century Spanish art, the Democratic primary, and exactly how irritating Maxwell Lord is, had passed well over three hours without Cat even noticing.
A thought itches in the back of her mind about Supergirl once again, but Cat’s buzzed and her stomach is satisfied, and she’s actually enjoying Kara’s company. So she ignores it. That tonight is going so well is just proof that she can use Kara to make Adam happy. Adam, whose name hasn’t been mentioned all night, but that’s just to avoid awkwardness, surely.
Yes, this is yet another successful Cat Grant plan.
“This is me,” Kara says, hand instantly on the door handle. Cat’s been asking way too many questions about Bizarro, and Kara is even worse at lying when she’s approaching food coma levels of sated. “No Amber Alerts tonight, huh?”
“That’s how you end a date?” Cat is straight back into hypercritical mode, Kara can practically see the mask slide back into place. “First of all, any date worth your time will walk you to the door of your building. No doorman?”
“Miss Grant, do you even know what part of town we’re in?”
“Cat,” she insists. Leaning over to open the door before Kara can. Kara glances away when she realizes she can see straight down her boss’s pale blue blouse. “Now come on, I hate leaving a job undone. Even one as pointless as trying to make a seductress out of Kara Danvers.”
“Hey!” Kara protests. “If a date was that mean to me, I wouldn’t let her walk me to the door. Or him. I mean, either is good. Oh God, did I…? That wine really was something else.” She wishes she really could blame it on the alcohol. There’s something about Cat Grant and confined spaces that make Kara want to confess her every last sin, and a few things that aren’t really sinful at all.
“If you’re quite done coming out…?” Cat opens the door and instead of opening her own, clambers over Kara and out onto the sidewalk. The contact makes Kara gasp, but she’s fairly sure Cat doesn’t notice. There’s some fairness in the universe, maybe. “I’m waiting.”
Kara steps out of the car and reaches in her purse for her keys. The night air is getting a little chilly and she shivers in her dress that’s really not much protection at all.
“Wait,” Cat sighs, reaching back into the car and retrieving her blazer. She slams the door closed a little too hard. “It’ll only drape on your shoulders, but you’ll make it indoors without pneumonia.”
The jacket smells like spring, the way always does this time of year. Kara wishes she knew which of the many Barney’s orders were combined to make this rich scent that’s so uniquely Cat, and maybe one day she’ll work out each of the elements.
“So,” Kara says at the door. “Let me guess, I should always leave them wanting more? Say something witty and seductive? Then slam the door in your face?”
“Nobody closes the door on me,” Cat says with no small amount of smugness. “You say something memorable, at least. Something they’ll think of all day when trying pathetically to resist texting you.” Kara wonders when they started talking about ‘they’ in the abstract, instead of Adam in the specific. It’s the first time she’s thought about him since the entrée, in fact.
“What about the goodnight kiss?” She asks, mostly teasing. And a little, tiny, microscopic bit not teasing at all, but rather deadly serious.
And hoping.
The non-specific issue around Adam has become so much clearer in the last few moments. Kara can’t stop replaying their conversations in her mind, how staggeringly much of them was all about Cat, working for Cat, how everyone perceived Cat, and what Cat thought about things that Kara had no particular opinion on. It was supposed to be doing a favor for her boss. Kara realizes now that it might have been something much, much trickier.
“The goodnight kiss?” Cat repeats back to her, momentarily stunned. She walks a fine line with her attraction to her assistant, constant and irritating though it might be. Adam was supposed to be the solution. Giving up Kara to keep Cat’s son back in her life was a masterstroke, a sacrifice of something she never really expected to have in the end anyway.
Yet here they are, the palpable chemistry overriding the safest of plans once more. Somewhere between Kara arriving and the first glass of wine the date training had become a real date, and Cat feels cheated at the thought of finishing with a handshake and some feedback on Kara’s performance.
“What are we doing?” Kara asks, the words obscured slightly as her chin drops towards her chest. “This was practice, we were supposed to…”
“I’m sorry,” Cat blurts, because that’s apparently something she says while Kara is a part of her life. “I didn’t mean to interfere.”
Kara scoffs at that. She knows better than almost anyone that Cat always means to interfere.
“This was a date,” Kara declares, lifting that proud chin again, certain in her conviction. “We dated, and now it’s over and I think we should say goodnight in the same spirit of the rest of the night.”
“You’re saying…?”
“I want my kiss,” Kara is terrified, but she doesn’t waver for a second. Cat’s never been more proud of her. “I think you want it too, and we both tried to use a distraction that’s never, ever going to work.”
“I can’t take you for myself,” Cat whispers as Kara reaches out to touch her cheek. “I’ve already been so selfish.”
“You can’t take what I’m so willing to give,” Kara insists, and she presses her lips against Cat’s for a fleeting second. It’s the spark for some very potent gunpowder, and even Cat can’t outmaneuver an explosion like this. “Now kiss me,” Kara breathes, and Cat does, with more enthusiasm than she’s felt for anything in a very long time.
“Oh, Kara,” she pleads when the kiss finally, reluctantly ends. Cat’s lips are tingling, and her head is spinning in a way that wine could never hope to touch.
“I have a dating question,” Kara says, brushing a strand of Cat’s hair back behind her ear. “What if instead of a ‘goodnight’ kiss, I want one that says ‘come upstairs’?”
“I think that was it,” Cat admits. “How do you know I’m free tonight?”
“Because I know your calendar better than you do, but by all means head back to an empty penthouse,” Kara starts to get a little huffy. Cat kisses her again to smooth the moment she just ruffled.
“That was the ‘can I come upstairs’ kiss,” Cat tells her, smiling against Kara’s cheek because parting completely seems ridiculous right now. “Shall I text the driver to leave, or will you?”
“Already done.” Kara holds up her phone, texting with one hand. “Shall we?”
“To answer your… God … question,” Cat pants, landing against the pillows with no ceremony at all. The sunlight from the huge windows is blinding, but she doesn’t have even a trace of a headache. “Yes, more sex does make the morning after less awkward. That’s a great dating tip, Kara.”
“The student becomes the master,” Kara says, laughing even as she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “Or should that be ‘mistress’?”
“Save something for the third date,” Cat pleads. “Who do you have to sleep with to get coffee in this place?”
“You’re looking at her,” Kara replies, pulling free from the sheets and padding across the bare floors to the kitchen, sated and gloriously naked. It’s going to be a problem at work, Cat already knows that. And probably never anything public, not least for Adam’s sake. But as she watches Kara reach for the mugs and hum some happy little tune as she fires up the coffee maker, Cat already knows she’ll want mornings like this again and again.
“Miss Grant?” Kara asks cheekily, leaning on the ‘door’ into her bedroom area.
“Hmm?” This time Cat’s attention is on her right away, bright and warming and still just faintly terrifying.
“I brought your coffee,” Kara continues, walking over but withholding Cat’s mug until a kiss is offered in exchange. “Thanks for the dating advice, by the way. I really feel a lot better about my love life this morning.”
“I did tell you I’d make you into the best date,” Cat reminds her, smiling into her coffee. She just need it even more than usual, with the workout Kara has given her. Even Kara feels slightly exhausted. “And you know I always have the best.”
“You can have her again if you finish that quickly enough,” Kara suggests.
Cat finishes her coffee in two mouthfuls, and pulls Kara close once more. If this is dating, Kara tells herself, then it might not just be so bad after all.