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September 22: ...blue suede shoes?
Neal takes Kate and Lilo to Bella and Edward's wedding.
"You can take them off when we get there," Kate says to Lilo's whining about having to wear shoes when they're going to be going to the beach. If Lilo actually meant anything by it, Kate might be annoyed, but she half suspects Lilo's doing it to distract her. The last person she took to a wedding was Declan, for Will and Magnus's wedding, and she's trying not to think about that, or the fact that everyone she lets herself feel anything about seems to disappear.
Cramming those thoughts along with the stupid butterfly flutter of nerves for how she's dressed (not because it's Neal, of course not), Kate smoothes down her blue and gold halter-tied sarong then twists her hair up to hold in one hand and grabs one long dangling gold earring to hold by her ear. "Up with earrings, or down without?" she asks Lilo.
Overburdened by the oppressive weight of shoes on her feet, Lilo has melted into a puddle of sprawled limbs on the floor, her black hair spread out like a oil spill. She breaks off mid-whine in order to study Kate, tilting her head this way and that like a photographer composing a scene. "Down," she decides.
Mouth twitching with a grin for Lilo's antics, Kate reminds herself to scour the boutique for a camera for Lilo or see if Sam can cobble something together for her out of parts from that storage hut of theirs. If Hank were here, she'd already have the best camera a little girl could want. And more ohana. She'd ask Tesla but she's running out of non-sexual favors to pay him back with.
"Grow a few more inches and you and I can go into business as stylists," Kate teases instead and lets her hair fall again and puts the earring back with the others. She palms a few drops of coconut oil and finger combs it through her hair until it gleams. There's a knock on the door just as she's dabbing on a new perfume concoction (which reminds her she wants to talk to Druitt of all people), light on the jasmine, heavier on the spice. "Get that, Lilo? Remember what I said. No spoons, no biting, no kicking. Everything else is fair game."
Lilo whines again, then drags herself and her useless shoeclad feet over to the door. She stretches way up for the handle, can't reach and has to actually stand. The mulish expression on her face conveys exactly how annoyed she is by this turn of events. Once the door is open, she stares up at Neal unblinking then turns around and shouts, "Kate, your boyfriend is here!"
Then she flops back onto the floor.
Neal hadn't thought twice whenever Kate asked him to accompany her to a wedding. Despite a less than auspicious start on the island, what with having to go around and re-introduce himself under his real name to people he'd lied to, he's trying his hardest to just be normal. And this is what normal people do: they get dressed up, they go to fancy gatherings, they celebrate. He's good at pretending to be normal.
He'd found a lightweight suit and tie -- not quite as impeccably tailored as the clothes he favored, but good enough for an island wedding -- and made his way over to Kate's. When the door swings open, he was a little surprised that no one was on the other side of it, until his gaze slides down lower, to Lilo, first shouting, then dramatically falling to the ground.
"Well, hello to you, too," he says, looking down at her. He doesn't react to the boyfriend bit -- she's a kid, that's what kids do, and he isn't going to let himself be pushed into some sort of what are we-based existential crisis by it. Instead, he just grins, charming as can be, and steps right over her. Lilo, as he'd been made well aware, is, well, Lilo.
"You look great," he says, smile getting a bit more honest as he set eyes on Kate. "Not going to ask what you had to do to bargain with the clothes box to get that outfit."
Boyfriend might not be fazing Neal, but it stabs Kate through the chest. One more time, she crams the memory of the first time she'd used it with Declan that tries to surface and the memories of other people who might have become that, with time. Whether Neal will ever be one of them, Kate doesn't bother with. Putting a label on Caffrey that isn't Gucci or Armani's kinda like trying to make a statue out of mercury and Kate's no sculptor.
She glares at the puddle of Lilo on the floor. "Remind me that 'boyfriend' goes on the list of words you're not allowed to use in public, urchin. And get up. Elvis would never show up at a wedding already filthy." Dirty pool, but sometimes, you just need a little help from the Big Guy.
Smiling through a sigh, she rests her hands on Neal's chest and straightens his already straight lapels. "Saying you look great's about like saying the sun rose, but in case you need to hear it, you look great. Maybe you can talk my secrets out of me later."
Lilo reluctantly unpuddlizes, because Elvis is a powerful motivator. Even though Kate doesn't know for real if Elvis went to a wedding dirty. Maybe he was fighting in the war and he had to stop and be the best man for one of his fellow soldiers while shells fell all around him. Then he would be dirty. And maybe not even be wearing shoes. But Lilo doesn't say that and just slumps around the door like six years of gloom and tragedy while Neal and Kate are all kissy face at each other.
"That sounds like a challenge," Neal says to Kate, hands resting lightly on her hips. His voice is pitched low, not that he isn't positive that Lilo would still listen in if she wanted to, but because if she's going to, at least she'll have to work for it. "I like challenges. I may take you up on it." He leans in to brush a kiss across her cheek, and whispers in her ear, barely concealing a chuckle, "She's really always like this?" He jerks his gaze back to Lilo as he pulls away, and the smile on his face says that he's amused by this all. Neal likes danger and thrills and the exotic, but sometimes, he likes the concept of a white picket fence, wife-kids-and-dogs sort of lifestyle that he knows he'll never have. This -- a wedding date with a sort-of-more-than-friend and a petulant six year old -- might be as close as he'll get.
Eyes close and stomach flutters for the graze of his lips across her cheekbone, and Kate adds that to the list of things she's ignoring today. It's getting to be a long damned list, and she knows what Will would say about that but she's getting as good at ignoring that annoying tug of the needle on her emotional compass as she always used to be at leaving at the first sign of a shiver in the needle. She glances past his shoulder at Lilo who has climbed to her feet and now sags like she crested Everest. Shaking her head minutely, Kate answers with a wry, "No," because, "Believe it or not, this is a pretty good day. Dance with her later, and you might even see her smile." And he might get more than lucky, too.
She slides her fingers between the buttons of his shirt to rub the backs of them against his abs before she steps away to upchin at Lilo and tip her hand toward the door. "All right, I can hear you thinking. Time to go before your mouth starts running to match it. Sooner we get there, sooner you can lose your shoes."
Lilo makes a horrible face at Kate, more monster than little girl, but dashes back to the door anyway. She wants to go to the wedding more than she doesn't want to wear shoes and she definitely doesn't want to stay here and watch Kate and Neal be all gross at each other forever and ever when she doesn't even have a movie to watch. Neal was all right for a haole but he obviously didn't know anything about kids.
Neal smiles as Kate runs her hands down his chest. He could get used to this, very easily -- her hands on him, the way she looks at him, having her at his side. In, you know, a purely only-a-little-more-than-friends way. Relationships had a bad habit of ending poorly for Neal, he knew full well. He'd just enjoy it while it lasted, instead... whatever it was.
"Shoes are overrated," Neal says to Lilo, gentle smile on his face. "I'm itching to get out of mine, too." Well, that and some other things, particularly if he could get Kate to indulge him in helping, but that wasn't a conversation for little ears.
He adjusts the knot of his tie, not that it needs it much, then held out his arm for Kate. "Shall we?" he asks, nodding his head towards the door. "Like Kate said, countdown to shoe ditching time." Maybe that's a bigger draw than sitting through a wedding. He couldn't quite blame Lilo on that. He's just old enough to have mastered the art of not fidgeting, that's all.
"You can take them off when we get there," Kate says to Lilo's whining about having to wear shoes when they're going to be going to the beach. If Lilo actually meant anything by it, Kate might be annoyed, but she half suspects Lilo's doing it to distract her. The last person she took to a wedding was Declan, for Will and Magnus's wedding, and she's trying not to think about that, or the fact that everyone she lets herself feel anything about seems to disappear.
Cramming those thoughts along with the stupid butterfly flutter of nerves for how she's dressed (not because it's Neal, of course not), Kate smoothes down her blue and gold halter-tied sarong then twists her hair up to hold in one hand and grabs one long dangling gold earring to hold by her ear. "Up with earrings, or down without?" she asks Lilo.
Overburdened by the oppressive weight of shoes on her feet, Lilo has melted into a puddle of sprawled limbs on the floor, her black hair spread out like a oil spill. She breaks off mid-whine in order to study Kate, tilting her head this way and that like a photographer composing a scene. "Down," she decides.
Mouth twitching with a grin for Lilo's antics, Kate reminds herself to scour the boutique for a camera for Lilo or see if Sam can cobble something together for her out of parts from that storage hut of theirs. If Hank were here, she'd already have the best camera a little girl could want. And more ohana. She'd ask Tesla but she's running out of non-sexual favors to pay him back with.
"Grow a few more inches and you and I can go into business as stylists," Kate teases instead and lets her hair fall again and puts the earring back with the others. She palms a few drops of coconut oil and finger combs it through her hair until it gleams. There's a knock on the door just as she's dabbing on a new perfume concoction (which reminds her she wants to talk to Druitt of all people), light on the jasmine, heavier on the spice. "Get that, Lilo? Remember what I said. No spoons, no biting, no kicking. Everything else is fair game."
Lilo whines again, then drags herself and her useless shoeclad feet over to the door. She stretches way up for the handle, can't reach and has to actually stand. The mulish expression on her face conveys exactly how annoyed she is by this turn of events. Once the door is open, she stares up at Neal unblinking then turns around and shouts, "Kate, your boyfriend is here!"
Then she flops back onto the floor.
Neal hadn't thought twice whenever Kate asked him to accompany her to a wedding. Despite a less than auspicious start on the island, what with having to go around and re-introduce himself under his real name to people he'd lied to, he's trying his hardest to just be normal. And this is what normal people do: they get dressed up, they go to fancy gatherings, they celebrate. He's good at pretending to be normal.
He'd found a lightweight suit and tie -- not quite as impeccably tailored as the clothes he favored, but good enough for an island wedding -- and made his way over to Kate's. When the door swings open, he was a little surprised that no one was on the other side of it, until his gaze slides down lower, to Lilo, first shouting, then dramatically falling to the ground.
"Well, hello to you, too," he says, looking down at her. He doesn't react to the boyfriend bit -- she's a kid, that's what kids do, and he isn't going to let himself be pushed into some sort of what are we-based existential crisis by it. Instead, he just grins, charming as can be, and steps right over her. Lilo, as he'd been made well aware, is, well, Lilo.
"You look great," he says, smile getting a bit more honest as he set eyes on Kate. "Not going to ask what you had to do to bargain with the clothes box to get that outfit."
Boyfriend might not be fazing Neal, but it stabs Kate through the chest. One more time, she crams the memory of the first time she'd used it with Declan that tries to surface and the memories of other people who might have become that, with time. Whether Neal will ever be one of them, Kate doesn't bother with. Putting a label on Caffrey that isn't Gucci or Armani's kinda like trying to make a statue out of mercury and Kate's no sculptor.
She glares at the puddle of Lilo on the floor. "Remind me that 'boyfriend' goes on the list of words you're not allowed to use in public, urchin. And get up. Elvis would never show up at a wedding already filthy." Dirty pool, but sometimes, you just need a little help from the Big Guy.
Smiling through a sigh, she rests her hands on Neal's chest and straightens his already straight lapels. "Saying you look great's about like saying the sun rose, but in case you need to hear it, you look great. Maybe you can talk my secrets out of me later."
Lilo reluctantly unpuddlizes, because Elvis is a powerful motivator. Even though Kate doesn't know for real if Elvis went to a wedding dirty. Maybe he was fighting in the war and he had to stop and be the best man for one of his fellow soldiers while shells fell all around him. Then he would be dirty. And maybe not even be wearing shoes. But Lilo doesn't say that and just slumps around the door like six years of gloom and tragedy while Neal and Kate are all kissy face at each other.
"That sounds like a challenge," Neal says to Kate, hands resting lightly on her hips. His voice is pitched low, not that he isn't positive that Lilo would still listen in if she wanted to, but because if she's going to, at least she'll have to work for it. "I like challenges. I may take you up on it." He leans in to brush a kiss across her cheek, and whispers in her ear, barely concealing a chuckle, "She's really always like this?" He jerks his gaze back to Lilo as he pulls away, and the smile on his face says that he's amused by this all. Neal likes danger and thrills and the exotic, but sometimes, he likes the concept of a white picket fence, wife-kids-and-dogs sort of lifestyle that he knows he'll never have. This -- a wedding date with a sort-of-more-than-friend and a petulant six year old -- might be as close as he'll get.
Eyes close and stomach flutters for the graze of his lips across her cheekbone, and Kate adds that to the list of things she's ignoring today. It's getting to be a long damned list, and she knows what Will would say about that but she's getting as good at ignoring that annoying tug of the needle on her emotional compass as she always used to be at leaving at the first sign of a shiver in the needle. She glances past his shoulder at Lilo who has climbed to her feet and now sags like she crested Everest. Shaking her head minutely, Kate answers with a wry, "No," because, "Believe it or not, this is a pretty good day. Dance with her later, and you might even see her smile." And he might get more than lucky, too.
She slides her fingers between the buttons of his shirt to rub the backs of them against his abs before she steps away to upchin at Lilo and tip her hand toward the door. "All right, I can hear you thinking. Time to go before your mouth starts running to match it. Sooner we get there, sooner you can lose your shoes."
Lilo makes a horrible face at Kate, more monster than little girl, but dashes back to the door anyway. She wants to go to the wedding more than she doesn't want to wear shoes and she definitely doesn't want to stay here and watch Kate and Neal be all gross at each other forever and ever when she doesn't even have a movie to watch. Neal was all right for a haole but he obviously didn't know anything about kids.
Neal smiles as Kate runs her hands down his chest. He could get used to this, very easily -- her hands on him, the way she looks at him, having her at his side. In, you know, a purely only-a-little-more-than-friends way. Relationships had a bad habit of ending poorly for Neal, he knew full well. He'd just enjoy it while it lasted, instead... whatever it was.
"Shoes are overrated," Neal says to Lilo, gentle smile on his face. "I'm itching to get out of mine, too." Well, that and some other things, particularly if he could get Kate to indulge him in helping, but that wasn't a conversation for little ears.
He adjusts the knot of his tie, not that it needs it much, then held out his arm for Kate. "Shall we?" he asks, nodding his head towards the door. "Like Kate said, countdown to shoe ditching time." Maybe that's a bigger draw than sitting through a wedding. He couldn't quite blame Lilo on that. He's just old enough to have mastered the art of not fidgeting, that's all.