Finding Home {Jack x Katherine}

Chapter 12

Bill sat at one of the tables outside of the coffee shop he was waiting for his friends at. He had always known Katherine would bring in Darcy to help her with the exclusive he offered but now that all three of them had been hit, he was beginning to get antsy. Maybe he shouldn't have trusted her with the story. Then again, the police weren't anywhere near where Darcy had claimed their friend was.

He waved his hand when he saw Darcy weaving through the crowd, cup in hand. "I thought you said, Kathy was coming." He said when he noticed the last person of their trio was nowhere to be found.

"Hello to you too, Bill. I'm doing well, I hope you are." Darcy greeted dryly. "Yes, Katherine is coming, she's just held up at the office right now." Bill didn't need to know that Jack had surprised her with a rooftop picnic and that she would be running a little behind. Darcy was afraid he would use that against her somehow.

He at least had the decency to look sheepish. "Sorry. It's just not getting stopped and it's starting to make me feel anxious."

Darcy rolled his eyes. "Katherine's not a miracle worker. She's got good instincts, yes, but she's a one woman operation who still has an actual job to do."

"Why couldn't she have taken the job with you? Or I could have found her something." He sighed before taking a sip of his drink.

"If she didn't take a job with me, you know damn well she would have never taken a job with you."

Bill slumped in his seat a bit, looking over at his friend exasperated. "What I did was so long ago! I apologized and we made up. I can't believe she still doesn't trust me."

"Just take the fact that she took this story as a win." Darcy didn't feel like getting into this argument with his friend. Each time he and Katherine remotely tried to let their guard down around Bill, he just gave them just another reason as to why they now kept him at arm's length.

Bill nodded. "I know, I know." He then sighed, looking over at Darcy. "So, tell me, how's the new beau?"

Across the street, Romeo was headed towards the office building Darcy's magazine was based out of. He just so happened to look over to the small cafe, remembering how the other boy raved about the cafe that was near his work. Just in the hopes of potentially seeing Darcy, he had looked over but he wished he hadn't.

Romeo witnessed what he had perceived as a tender moment between Darcy and another boy. The other's head was turned away so all that was in view was the back of his head. Darcy had just laid his head on top of the other's hand. The other boy lifted a hand and it seemed as if he was going to comfort Darcy. He couldn't take anymore so he turned the other way and ran back to the train station. He had ruined his chances.

What Romeo didn't know was that Darcy had groaned in annoyance before laying his head on the table, over Bill's hand. Bill lifted his hand to push Darcy off saying something about how couldn't he wait until Kathy got here to be dramatic. Bill then grew a little serious and sighed when Darcy didn't sit back up. "What happened?"

"I told him I was falling in love with him." Darcy answered, sitting up finally and rubbing at his forehead in an attempt to remove the diamond pattern from the cafe table.

Bill just gave him a way to go look. "Well, now you just need to get back out there. Find a rebound. Get Kathy to take you to one of those gay bars."

"Where am I taking you to?" Katherine asked as she walked over to the table causing Darcy to look up. The boy smirked and motioned to his bottom lip in a silent attempt to tell her that her lipstick was smudged. She caught on and sat down with wide eyes before grabbing the napkin dispenser and a napkin, using the metal container as a mirror to fix her makeup.