#SDFDSFDS EXACTLY GET THE COOK WHO LOOKS MOST LIKE A FELON

[ortizselene]

Something had dissolved between them— the awkwardness, the stilted hello's and clipped answers, but still so much uncertainty lay between them.

Confusion, and difficult feelings.

Difficult feelings that weren't just magically disappearing.

But Selene will take complicated over nothing; she'll take complicated over silence, dull, droll questions about each other's work experience.

Because. She did want to hear about Kieran's career— she wanted to hear about every conference and promotion. But Selene longed for it to be light. Peppered with laughter, and not just because their parents had pushed them together at lunch and he felt obligated to exchange information with her.

The drinks. Smiles. Jokes. Those felt good. It felt like a blurring between past and present.

Kieran selects the filet sliders, mushrooms as an accompaniment, and, to the delight of Selene, a side of pomme frites as well.

Something warm glows inside her chest.

Selene seizes her fork, hovers over the beets in surprise when Kieran flags their server's attention at the last moment.

'Oh, and - could we do two more of the Black Tie Margaritas, please?'

The high crawl of her eyebrows.

'It’s your first day,'

"Honestly?"

Selene wraps her fingers around the glass, brings the rim up to her lips with a languid shrug.

"You don't even need to explain."

Who the fuck would judge Kieran, for how he chose to handle his day. Meetings, packed into every minute of his day, emails, interviews, emails, Howard fucking Kennedy demanding explanations.

What was a drink or two at lunch?

Selene thought about drinking, or doing something else to cope; she clung to excessive exercise, her rabidly followed routines, rigid rules, but sometimes she just wanted to drink herself into a puddle. Because. Well.

In a few months she would be doing the worst thing she'll ever do, and she would be doing in white lace.

Wasn't it natural to crave a drink, once you'd realized you were betraying yourself?

( She looks at Kieran, and the high, handsome slope of his nose, that stormy blue shade of his eyes, and thinks with a terrible wonder if she was somehow betraying him too. If he saw it that way. )

Those kind of questions pique her nausea and despair.

"Anyways-" Selene gives her drink a jolly little shake, jostling the ice cubes inside the glass. "I have not backslid so far that two drinks are gonna render me inebriated at work."

A beat.

A grin.

"Some of us maintained their collegiate skills."

She spears a beet, takes a delicate bite.

"Don't say that."

Kieran couldn’t help but notice the inflection in her voice. Was she just panicked about aging, the same way mostly everyone in their late twenties felt? Was it … something else?

It had been ten years since they’d first met. What did the next ten years have in store for them? Maybe they’d reconnect by then. For real, that time. Maybe this marriage to Kane would somehow make them closer, and they could go back to being best friends.

Hah.

She smiled at him, softly, gently, after mentioning that they were the future. There was something familiar in that smile, something that brought him back to sharing meals in the mess hall. They used to really believe that. Did she still believe it? The more time went on, the more Kieran was afraid he was doomed to become just like his father.

Kieran could probably devour the roast meal on his own, but he was set on the filet sliders. Selene ordered her pomme frites, and he had to hide the small smile that was forming on the edges of his mouth.

It was Kieran’s turn next.

“I’ll have the filet sliders, please. Medium rare, with a side of sauteed mushrooms, and … pomme frites for me, too. Please. Thank you.”

Kieran relinquished his menu to the server, but before they left, he had another request.

“Oh, and - could we do two more of the Black Tie Margaritas, please?” Kieran held up his drink, smiling politely at the server. “Thanks.” He took a sip, looking at Selene. Well. Maybe she wouldn’t be interested in another drink, and she was under no obligation to have it, really. But - why the fuck not? She was marrying into the Kennedy family. She was about to experience a completely different type of hell now. She got to have Howard Kennedy as her boss and father in law.

And then the server was off. Kieran poured some of the dressing on the side over his salad.

“It’s your first day," Kieran said, offering a sheepish explanation for why he'd just ordered them another round of drinks.