It had been a couple of weeks since you returned to London after your chance meeting with the one and only Richard Armitage at the Happiest Place on Earth, spending a day with him that was all thanks to your best friend making herself scarce both during the day and before he even asked her to join you for dinner. Just as he had predicted he was very, very busy and the only time you got to talk to him was when he called you either over the mobile phone or when he saw you were 'available' on the Skype program.
Seeing his face via Skype and hearing his voice that way as well as by mobile phone were one thing but what you really wanted was to be able to see him in person, little knowing that he was wanting the exact same thing and had managed to wrangle a few days to go back to London and be with you at your home, where you now lived alone after your best friend had moved in with her longtime boyfriend, and of course he had arrived looking like a very sexy drowned rat due to the sudden downpour of afternoon rain.
"For God's sake Richard come in here before you freeze to death" you said, commenting on quite the chill wind accompanying the clouded skies and torrential rain, shutting the wood door behind him before heading into the bathroom to retrieve a towel for him along with clothes that your brother had left, guessing them to be around the same height. "These at least were my brother's" you said as you came back with clothes and the towel but before you could utter one more single word, Richard pulled you against his damp body, tilted your head upward and kissed you passionately.
Initially surprised at his movement, you soon wrapped your arms around his neck as he tried to pull you even closer towards him, your tongues now fighting for 'dominance' but of course he always won that particular battle between you. Pulling away, before you could do or say anything, he kissed the tip of your nose; the one thing that he knows you hate and yet he is still doing it, always followed by a laugh that you can feel deep in his lower chest, a kind of laugh that is friendly and warming, never meant to be seen as sarcastic.
"Oh I missed you so much" he whispered in your ear as he held you, gently rocking the both of you from one side to the other, one hand gently holding your head onto his chest so that he knew he wasn't dreaming, that he really was there with you. You knew not to ask him how long he had with you before he had to go back to work because that would mean the both of you were counting down the days, hours, minutes, seconds until you were separated once again by the work that you knew he loved doing.
He eventually changed into your brother's clothes after a hot shower which had been at your insistence because you didn't want to be responsible for him falling sick with the flu or any other similar ailment while he was working because that would have thrown the entire work schedule off not just for him but for everyone else as well. By the time he returned to the lounge, you had one of your bigger mugs of hot chocolate set on the wooden lounge room table next to yours, pulling a large green blanket around yourselves as he sat down beside you.
The empty mugs long forgotten as he leaned against a corner of the sofa, your legs over his and your head on his chest with his arms wrapped loosely around one shoulder and the other on your arm as the two of you snuggled together, trying to keep as warm as possible as a result of the sudden weather change that was going on outside the closed windows, and it was his heartbeat that almost lulled you to sleep again had it not been for his mobile phone vibrating in his back pocket, which he answered with a puppy-dog apologetic look.
You could only hear what he was saying on his end of the line except for a few words on the other, but by the end of it the facial expression Richard gave you was a combination of sad and happy. "The plug has been pulled on this movie" he explained as he brought you back into his long arms, "They say we will still be paid what we were offered for the parts we were playing but Paramount doesn't see any hope or guarantee that this film will be released in a cinematic aspect; it could go straight to DVD/Blu-Ray".
As sad as you were for Richard at the loss of this true opportunity to show the world that there was far more to him as an actor than just the part of Thorin Oakenshield, there was the flipside: he was coming home earlier than expected and he would be staying until the curtain goes up for the first time on a theatrical version of The Crucible and although he had no idea, you had every intention of surprising him by turning up on Opening Night but for the time being you had to make him think you wouldn't be there.
And it worked. As soon as the curtain went up on the first night of his performance, he got the shock of his life when he saw you sitting there with your sister Gabi, but the professional that he is, he recovered fast from the shock and threw himself into the first performance of the production, wondering in the back of his mind just how you had managed to convince him so easily that you would not be able to be there, especially when of the two of you, he was supposed to be the one who was a seasoned actor.
Gabi left after the curtain went down and an usher came and got you, bringing you slowly through the backstage area until you reached Richard's dressing room door. You knocked on it twice and waited for him to open it, which he did, swiftly pulling you inside and closing the door, pinning you against the wall and kissing you, asking between kisses just how you had managed to fool him, especially as he had gone out on the stage thinking that the one seat he had reserved for you, and the other for your sister, were going to be left unoccupied.
"You certainly did manage to surprise me" he whispered into your neck when you explained that you had it planned out, but the one thing you most certainly were not going to do was to let him have his way with you in his dressing room, for which he promptly apologised and added that it was not his intention, he was just running on adrenaline caused by his first big theatre performance in a while combined with the shock he felt when he glanced out of the corner of his eye and saw you sitting where he hoped you would be.
