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She had grown to really like going up to his apartment for dinner. Never in the elevator, of course; that thing was a deathtrap and everyone who lived in building three knew it. How the newest building in the complex could have the shittiest elevator she’d never know, but it didn’t matter because nothing on the face of the earth could get her to go in it. No way whatsoever. Not even the promise of a good make-out session, good booze, and the softest leather jacket and matching leather pants with strategic places to hold knives.
No. That elevator was a lawsuit waiting to happen.
Good thing Jim Kirk was loaded.
She’d never really asked him about it. She'd heard vague rumors that prior to the big apocalypse he was a bouncer at Jo’s bar, then he went away for a few months and came back richer than Midas. So he didn’t get it the same way most people did through wishes. However he got it, he earned it. Had to give him props for that. But she wondered just how you became a multimillionaire – sorry, billionaire – in three months without selling your soul. Because she knew if there was one thing Jim would never do, it’d be to make a bargain that stupid. He’d met Lucifer up close and personal. He was on speaking terms with Crowley at one point, she’d heard.
He knew better.
“So how’d you make all that money?” she asked, taking a sip of her drink. It wasn’t anything alcoholic, but she knew he had a good bar and a mean way with making decent mixed drinks without alcohol. This was something not too fruity, but kind of sour but still a little sweet. He said back home, it would taste a little different, but it would be mixed with Romulan brandy. She kind of wished she could try that. “Don’t tell me you did high-end Italian porn or something.”
He choked on his beer as he tried not to laugh. “Is that seriously what people think these days? I told people what I did. I never hid it,” he said, shaking his head as he got up to take his empty bottle and his plate to the kitchen. They never bothered to eat at the table. They always ate in front of the TV, usually with one of the cheesy movies Jim liked so much playing on the screen. She would laugh at his collection, which ranged from action movies to Disney films to silent movies from the 20s and 30s to foreign films in languages she was honestly surprised he knew to comedies that were right up her alley, but he always managed to get her attention fixated more on the endless amount of trivia he knew more than the movies itself. One day she was going to make him play Trivial Pursuit with her and kick serious ass against everyone.
“So what did you do?” she asked, picking up her own plate and following him into the kitchen.
“Corporate spy,” he said with a slight shrug. “It’s part of the reason I’m a brunette now. Looked more like my facetwin that way, less like me.” He set his plate in the sink. “I was told I was more debonair as a brunette.”
“I don’t know,” she said, tilting her head slightly and pursing her lips together. “You’d look kind of hot as a blonde. I mean, not totally my type, but still cute.”
He shook his head, giving her a mock-pained look. “Cute. I am wounded, Hathaway.”
“I said as a blonde you’d be cute. You’re pretty sexy like this.” She gave him a flirtatious look, mostly teasing. Sometimes she wasn’t. Not often. They were good friends and she didn’t want to screw it up like everything else seemed to get screwed up. Jim understood her, sometimes better than Lissa did, and Lissa had shared head space with her. He just...got her, she guessed.
“Alright,” he said, shaking his head and turning on the water, adding soap to the side of the sink closest to her so the dishes used to cook the meal could soak a bit. No matter how many times she told him that he’d gotten really really good dishwashers for the building, he still insisted on washing everything by hand. She kind of wondered about that but never asked. There was a lot she wondered about Jim but she figured she had time to find out. She didn’t open up to everyone full on anyway herself. He was patient with her; she could be patient with him. “Enough flirting. Time to clean.”
“Now wait. I kicked your ass sparring. I think I should help myself to some of that really good chocolate pudding you always have when I come over and you should do the dishes,” she said, tilting her head and giving him a look.
“Yeah, but I only have enough pudding left for one of us and I had my ass kicked plus I had a meeting with the mayor’s assistant about funding for the Center because Rose had class and he was an ass because he couldn’t hit on Rose,” Kirk said, reaching for the spray hose by the faucet so he could rinse off the plates. “And I got hit in the balls with a soccer ball. So I deserve the pudding.”
“You’re James Tiberius Kirk,” she said, scoffing slightly. “You’re supposed to have balls of steel.”
“Tell that to a ten-year-old girl kicking a ball with all the fury of every woman who has ever been wronged in all of existence,” he said. “From five feet away.”
Rose howled with laughter. “You got kicked in the junk with a ball kicked by a ten-year-old girl? And you’re bitching about it to get the pudding?” Her laughter stopped suddenly when she got a face full of water. Sputtering, she wiped the water from her eyes to see Jim standing there, water hose in hand, grinning at her. “Bastard.”
“Who’s bitching now?” he said. She reached over for the small pot that was in the sink full of soapy water, lifted it out, making sure there was water in it, and tossed it in Jim’s direction. He tried to move out of the way but most of it landed on his pants leg. “This means war.”
Soon he was shooting the water hose at her and she kept taking potfuls of soapy water and slinging it in his general direction, and as the floor became wetter and wetter they bean slipping and sliding until Jim’s legs slipped out from under him and he reached for Rose’s waist, pulling her down with him as he landed butt first on the tile with her on his stomach. She was almost completely soaked, and there happened to be a large dry patch on his shirt and she just so happened to have some water left in the pot she was still holding. She poured it on the dry patch and then smirked down at him. “Victory is mine,” she said triumphantly.
“I think I hit my head,” he said, sitting up slightly and rubbing the back of his head.
The smirk disappeared as concern took over. She edged more towards his legs as he sat up and then pulled at him so he was bent over at the waist, examining the back of his head. “Well, you didn’t crack it open like an egg, so no need for stitches,” she said. She thought for a moment, then quickly pressed a kiss to where she guessed his head had impacted the floor. “Do you have ice cream?”
“Triple chocolate,” he said.
“You get the pudding and an ice pack, I’ll eat you out of your supply of ice cream, and as soon as you find me something dry that kind of fits we’ll curl up and watch a movie while my clothes dry, okay? The kitchen can just stay a mess tonight.” He nodded slowly and gave her a grin before she carefully bounced off his legs. She forget that roughhousing with her usually led to injuries. But that made it more fun sometimes, too.