Title: A Flamingo Sang in Berkeley Square

Pairing: CJ/Toby

Rating: PG

Summary: “Now that’s more the Toby I know and love.”

Spoilers: I haven’t seen past the end of season six so anything up to then is fair game.

Completed: February 2006

~~~~~~~~~~

Part One

Toby found himself sitting in his study, staring at the phone. When Molly had asked, well pleaded, with him to look at schools with her, he’d been excited. It was probably the first time she had asked him to do anything rather than petition her mother. Her second request was the problem.

He picked up the receiver and dropped it back in it’s cradle. This had been going on for over an hour, ever since Molly had asked if CJ could join them on their trip. No would have been too easy. Instead he told her he’d see what he could do. A small voice in the back of his head, one that sounded way too much like Abbey, kept asking him why it was so difficult to make a simple call. He smiled knowingly, the answer painfully obvious, and picked up the phone, dialling her number only to replace the phone back in it’s cradle again.

Two seconds later the phone rang. Reluctantly, he picked it up. “Yeah?”

“Dialling my number and hanging up doesn’t constitute keeping in touch,” her voice stated dryly.

“I . . .”

“You couldn’t decide whether you wanted to talk to me or not.”

He hated how easily she could read him. “I was thinking . . .”

“About me?” she asked, her smile cascading down the phone line.

It was going to be one of those calls, he decided. “Will you let me finish a sentence?” he growled.

“Fine.” CJ stretched out on her bed, repositioning the pillows beneath her head.

“Molly is looking at colleges. She wants to visit Berkeley.”

“Good school.”

“Yeah. Her mother’s pushing for Georgetown. Closer to home.”

CJ twisted the cord around her fingers. “So when is it?” He was insufferable, grouchy and at times she wanted to strangle him but she missed him. They’d been friends for thirty years, through some of the worst times in both their lives, but he had also shared some of the best times.

“The open weekend is in two weeks.”

“Book an extra room and email me your itinerary,” she said, wondering if this time they could get through a weekend without fighting.

“What about the baby?”

“Tobus, she’s eleven, hardly a baby. And besides it wouldn’t kill Danny to be a father occasionally.”

Toby had never pried into their relationship, in truth he wasn’t sure if he asked the questions whether he’d like the answers. “I’ll see you then.”

“And pack something casual to wear, it’s California.”

He grumbled something uniquely Toby as he hung up.

~~~~~~

CJ lowered her single black bag to the floor and waited.

The receptionist finally glanced up from her computer. “How can I help you today, Ma’am?”

“You should have a reservation in the name of Ziegler.”

A few clicks later and she smiled at her. “Two rooms. Are you Mrs Ziegler?”

An image ran through CJ’s mind and she couldn’t suppress the smile. A long time a go she had daydreamed about being Mrs Ziegler, then after all the years she’d worked with him the idea was horrifying. Now the words older and wiser sprang to mind.

“If only,” came a voice from behind. “Maybe Mr Ziegler wouldn’t be such a cantankerous so-and-so. Hey CJ.”

“Hey, Molly.”

“Dad’s parking the rental. Here’s his credit card.” She took the registration card from the counter top and began to fill in the details. “He hates this part.”

“There are parts he likes?”

“Not really.”

CJ shook her head and watched the scene play out. By the time Molly had checked them in, Toby appeared in the lobby with a suit carrier and a strangely brightly coloured rucksack.

“Have a nice day,” the clerk said, her smile as false as the sentiment, already moving onto the next customer.

“Two double rooms. You guys can take one, I’ll take the other. Call me when you wanna eat.” Molly disappeared into the elevator, the rucksack slung over her shoulder.

Toby stared at CJ, shuffling his feet back and forth. This was the moment he hated most - the awkwardness that seemed to follow them all their lives - wanting to kiss her but not knowing if it would be ok but knowing anything less and he’d see pain in her eyes. “Josh bought her the bag,” he offered by way of explanation.

CJ had never doubted he was an idiot but sometimes he excelled himself. “Hello, Toby,” she said moving towards him. Her arms found their way around his neck as she kissed his cheek.

His hands finally found their way to her back and he held her a moment, the aroma of her perfume filling his senses. ”CJ.” He finally stepped back. “We’re sharing a room?” It came out as more of a question than a statement.

“It’ll be like old times.”

On campaigns in their youth, they’d collapsed on top of blankets too tired to get undressed, or on floors when they’d been allowed barely a hour to rest and in the White House they had shared couches during emergencies. But that seemed like a long time a go.

“You ok?”

CJ nodded, taking a step towards her bag but he slipped past her, grabbing it before she could, and motioned with his head for her to move. Picking up the key card, she headed towards the elevator.

“So what’s the plan?” she asked when the doors had closed.

His lips quirked upwards. “Dinner with my daughter.”

“And afterwards?” Her voice, she couldn’t help but notice had a flirty quality about it.

“Well, I guess she’ll lock herself in her room and we can catch up.” He suddenly felt unsure of himself, the knowledge that they were going to be alone in a room all night suddenly binging forth a plethora of emotions he had never really dealt with.

“I bought scotch. The good stuff.”

The lift doors pinged open and she stepped out. “You wanna make out with me now, don’t you?” she asked over her shoulder, striding down the hallway.

Toby came to an abrupt halt. It wasn’t the first time she had asked him that, that had been twenty nine years ago after a few drinks. She’d asked him on and off for years in teasing, the last time had been two days before she told him she was moving in with Danny. Sometimes he wondered what might have happened if he‘d given a different answer. For the first time he didn’t have a witty come back and he wasn’t sure if she was teasing. When he finally started walking again, she had disappeared into the room, and the moment was lost.

~~~~~~

The hotel restaurant was bustling with activity when the three of them finally arrived. They would have eaten sooner but CJ had insisted on hearing all about Columbia and Josh and Donna‘s antics and Martha had taken her time in getting ready. Teenagers and their parents occupied almost every table and Toby’s party had to wait a few minutes to be seated.

“So you were really called Flamingo?” Molly asked, never tiring of hearing about their White House days, and taking a seat on the opposite side of the table.

“I tried to have it changed.”

“It stuck.” Toby grinned inanely. “Every trip we went on we’d try to find something Flamingo related and buy it for her.”

“By we, he means Josh and him.”

“Figures.”

“And you heard about the turkeys in my office?” CJ asked.

“When I was about five.” Which was the first memory she had of her father talking about CJ, although she suspected he’d probably talked about her long before that. “And Sam and his call girl.”

They both looked at her in surprise.

“Josh likes to tell stories too.”

CJ nodded. “Has he told you all about the idiotic things he’s done?”

“Andi really hadn’t let her spend that much time with him,” Toby said, closing his menu ad waiting for the waiter to appear.

“Don’t you think we should fill her in?”

Molly settled back in her seat to listen, mentally priding herself on planning the weekend. Her father seemed genuinely relaxed and happy, and CJ was laughing. To top it all she was gathering yet more blackmail material she could use in an emergency. The more stories they told her over dinner the more apparent it became that Toby was connected to CJ in a way she couldn’t imagine her mother had ever been. They finished each other’s sentences like it was as natural as breathing and her father couldn’t stop staring at his so-called best friend. The tension for once over dinner was more sexual than argumentative. By the time they ordered coffee, Molly had decided three things - her father was in love, CJ was confused, and they both needed a helping hand in realizing their potential.

~~~~~~

Part Two

“I’m gonna crash,” Molly announced, getting up from the table. “I’ll see you at breakfast.” She wasn’t the least bit tired but now she had finally gotten her father and CJ together without the rest of the clan, she intended to see where it led them. It wasn’t as if the room hadn’t been filled with unutilised sexual tension all evening.

“What time?” Toby asked before she disappeared.

“It’s the weekend. Eight-thirty.”

“Wanna take a walk?” CJ asked, when Molly had gone and he turned back to the table.

He pulled a face.

“You wanna go back to the room already? I thought I’d taught you to treat your dates better than that,” she grinned, the bottle of house wine going to her head.

“I brought you to a hotel and bought you dinner.”

“It takes a little more that that to get me into bed,” she announced a little too loudly in the middle of the reception.

Oftentimes, he didn’t know what to say to her, not quite sure if she was teasing him or serious. “Do I get another chance?”

She’d given him a lifetime of second chances, after all that’s what friends did. But they didn’t have a lifetime left and it suddenly seemed important that they start getting things right first time. “There are only so many chances a man can get.”

He wasn’t sure how he managed to get it wrong so many times with CJ but he did. Occasionally he wondered if the friendship should have ended when they had missed the chance at romance, but she was his one thing he couldn’t walk away from.

They rode the lift in silence, eyes fixed on the door, neither sure what to say, the light mood from dinner evaporating.

Inside the room CJ pulled the bottle from her bag and placed it on the table between them. “Are we too old to forget everything and get drunk?” More than anything she wanted them to just be CJ and Toby, two old friends, who haven‘t seen so much in such a short time.

“Never.” He disappeared out into the corridor, only to return seconds later with a full ice bucket.

The cubes dropped into the glass with a clink, the whisky cascading over them.

CJ savoured the taste, as she dropped onto her bed.

“You weren’t kidding. It is the good stuff.” Toby propped up his pillows and leaned back, his hand resting on the wall over his head.

CJ picked up the remote and the TV flickered to life. It had become a course of habit. Every morning over breakfast, every evening before she fell asleep, she would watch the news.

Toby poured himself another drink, his own nightly ritual and held up the bottle.

Holding out her own glass for a refill, CJ continued to stare at the screen.

“What happens if a major news story breaks in the middle of the night?” he enquired, dropping ice into her glass.

“I get a text message on my cell.” Or invariably someone from her studio called. “It used to drive Danny nuts.”

“That was the reason you two didn’t get married?”

She could think of stupider reasons, had invariably asked other people much the same question. “No.”

He waited, drumming his fingers on the wall over his bed.

“You never asked me back then.”

“It was none of my business.”

She turned to look at him.

“Your love life has always been a little bit of a mine field. You were upset. I didn’t think it was the time to start another fight.”

“Thank you.” In truth he had shown the true strength of their friendship in the days following Danny’s departure. He had phoned daily, even offered to come visit. When she had refused he’d cajoled Donna into dropping everything and flying to California. A week of shopping, sunbathing and girlie banter had not eased the pain but had put things into perspective.

“Why did he leave?” he asked, his voice hesitant, his eyes seeking a change in her demeanour.

“He didn’t. I threw him out.” Danny, she’d locked out, his belongings she’d thrown onto the driveway. “I guess some people would say I was the one being unreasonable but getting drunk and having a one night stand at the Correspondents Dinner was a little too much to accept.”

Toby didn’t say anything, watching as she downed the rest of her drink and shuffled down the bed.

“He told me it had never happened before, promised me it wouldn’t again but I couldn’t trust him. I wish I hadn’t been told but . . .,” she trailed off. There had been too many old friends at the dinner not to tell her the details and in hindsight their relationship had run it’s course. It was a long time ago and she had to let go of the bad feeling she harboured, if only for her daughter.

“I’m sorry.” He saw her body lift as she smiled weakly. His words all too often not said. He was sorry for a lot of things, not least for not knowing six years ago when he could have beaten the crap out of the reporter. Her body finally seemed to relax and when he rose to his feet and peered over she was asleep. He turned off the TV and arranged her comforter over her before partially undressing and getting into bed. Sleep for him took a while longer as he watched her sleep and his imagination ran wild.

~~~~~~

CJ wound down the window and leaned back in her seat. “That, Molly, is the smell of fresh air.”

Molly giggled in the back seat as her father groaned and rolled his eyes. “And with a 178 acre campus we’re gonna be experiencing plenty of fresh air.

“See you’re gonna love California,” CJ called over her shoulder. “And just think how much fun your dad’s gonna have when he comes to visit.”

“Yeah. We can walk Strawberry Creek as I tell him all about my love life and he tries not to have a panic attack.”

“Is there a special someone?” CJ loved to watch Toby go that special colour when he was getting frustrated and she failed to contain her smirk as he leaned in to listen.

“Not right now. They all seem to want you to put out on the first date.”

The car swerved slightly and CJ suppressed a grin.

“What about your dad? Has he been putting out much lately?” CJ enquired, her interest getting the better of her.

“I’m sitting here,” Toby growled, scanning the road for a parking space.

“Well there’s no point me asking you, you won’t tell me.”

Molly leaned forward in her seat, already enjoying the day and she had yet to see the campus. Aunt CJ and her father were always a riot together and if her mother was right, and she generally was, CJ brought out the best in him. Of course that was because her father had a monumental crush on her, not that he would ever admit it.

“Once in a while, CJ, it would be nice if you could stop using my love life for sport,” he snapped as he manoeuvred into a space.

CJ slunk back in her seat, wondering how far the fighting would go this time.

“Maybe it’s because she doesn’t have a love life of her own,” Molly mused.

“When you become a woman of a certain age and aren’t married a love life isn’t so easy to come by.”

Toby glanced at his friend and mentally cursed. He always seemed, however hard he tried not to, to upset her, and that was the last thing he wanted to do. “It’s not just women of a certain age.”

His daughter didn’t miss the way CJ’s hand gently squeezed his in reassurance.

“So where do you wanna start the tour?” Toby asked, glancing over his shoulder.

“The residences and the restaurants.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Well if all I’m going to be doing for four years is eating, sleeping and studying, I want to make sure I like the facilities.”

“Ok,” he said, less than convincingly. “But if the stories CJ has told me are true, you’ll be doing a little more than those three things.”

“You’ve been holding out on me, CJ,” Molly grinned, bounding out onto the pavement and waiting for them to join her.

“When we’re alone I’ll tell you what I really got up to.”

Toby’s imagination went into overdrive.

~~~~~~

“So where to now?” CJ asked as they walked away from the cafeteria.

“The faculty building.”

“What are you hoping to major in, you didn’t say?” she asked, perplexed.

“Mass Communications.”

CJ opened her mouth to speak and closed it again.

“See why she wanted you to come, now?”

Toby looked at the map, turning it upside down and frowning.

“You don’t know where it is, do you?” CJ teased. “And to think all these years you blamed Josh for getting us lost on campaigns.”

“Ok, smarty pants, you find it.”

Two minutes later they were inside the building, Molly wandering on ahead. “I thought for sure she’d go into politics.”

“Andi put her off.”

“How does she feel about me being here?” CJ asked quietly.

“She doesn’t exactly know,” he mumbled to his shoes.

“Toby!”

“I’m not married to her, I haven’t been for a very long time. It means I don’t need her permission to see you.”

“You ever did?”

He refused to look at her, pretending instead to study the walls.

“Please tell me you two aren’t fighting already,” Molly groaned, breaking away from her new friends.

“No, Toby was just filling me in on a few things,” CJ covered for him, reaching out and taking his hand.

“Now if you do that, I’ll be the odd one out. Everyone is gonna think my parents are still together and that’s not exactly an everyday occurrence.”

Toby glanced down at their joined hands and smiled as CJ tightened their grip.

“What do you think of it so far?” she asked as Molly continued to bounce up and down.

“The campus is beautiful. All that woodland. All those boys,” she whispered conspiratorially. “And the course is pretty expansive. I get to take electives in journalism and linguistics.”

“That isn’t what you think it is,” CJ said with a smile, swinging Toby’s hand.

Molly shook her head. “Bad CJ. And I get to take a political science course, which in this family is a pre-requisite for inclusion.”

“Go, finish looking around, I’m going to drag your dad outside.”

“Why did you do that?” Toby asked, when they found themselves out on the steps in the mid day sunshine.

“What? Drag you outside? Talk sex with your grown up daughter? Or hold your hand?”

“To be correct you’re still holding my hand so it wouldn’t be do that. . .”

Toby!”

“All of the above.”

“Because I felt like it.”

Beneath his beard, his grin widened. There was nothing he could say to that, and more importantly she was still holding his hand. He had to stop himself from bouncing up and down like a school boy. After all they were friends and it was too early, or thirty years too late, to be reading more into it.

~~~~~~~

Part Three

“You do realise you’ve been grinning all day?” CJ said, a wry smile quirking at her lips. She’d watched him as they walked the length and breath of the campus, indulging Molly her every wish, and she really had not seen him so happy, but then his children had always brought out the best in him.

He shot her a glare.

“It makes a nice change.” There was something rather endearing about him when he was like that, that brought forth feelings she had often wondered about.

Toby mumbled something indecipherable.

“What, Dear?”

“I said if all a degree in Communications from Berkeley gets me is ‘nice’ then maybe I should think about a different school for Molly.”

“Now that’s more the Toby I know and love.” She pulled her robe from the chair. “I’ll take a shower before we eat.”

Toby watched her go, his heart in his stomach. He’d had a great day. Molly had been bordering on hyperactivity about the college and he’d walked around bursting with pride. Molly and CJ had teased him mercilessly and he‘d retaliated in kind. He’d had the best day he’d had in, well, ever. It had also given him an insight of what could have been.

“Any chance of a drink?” CJ called, her voice muffled by the running water.

Toby, disturbed from his reverie, set about fixing two drinks, his thoughts too emotive to argue with her. ”It’s ready when you are.”

“Can I have it in here?”

He hesitated. His oldest and, quite honestly, his best friend was naked on the other side of the wall. It wasn’t the first time he’d found himself in that position, it was just the first time he really realised what that implied. If he went in there she’d be naked on the other side of a curtain and although he‘d had years of acting professional, his body wasn‘t always so compliant.

“Toby?”

Sighing, he carried the glass into the bathroom and placed it on the sink unit, his eyes trailing on the tiled floor.

“Thank you.”

He closed the door behind him, letting out the breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. Something told him it was going to be a long night and it was going to take all the restraint he had not to unburden everything he’d been harbouring for years to her.

There was a knock at the door and opening it, Toby came face to face with his daughter.

“A group of us are gonna ditch the oldies and go eat,” she announced.

“Who? Where?”

“Dad. They’re all staying here. All looking at schools. We’re gonna find something cheap and compare notes. Back by ten.”

Toby really wasn’t a good parent, although not for the want of trying. Andi bemoaned him continuously for not being stricter but in reality his children had had him wrapped around their little finger from the day they were born. “Call me when you get in.”

“I’ll text,” she replied, grinning. She had no intention of interrupting his evening on the off chance her father wasn‘t as useless as she thought.

“Everything alright? CJ asked, peeking over his shoulder, her body pressed against his back.

“We’ve been ditched by Molly.”

Her arms slid around his waist, pulling him in from the hallway as she kicked the door shut. “Probably worried we’ll cramp her style.”

“Are you drunk?”

On one drink, there wasn’t a chance in hell she was drunk, but she did feel suddenly freer. “Is that your plan of action for tonight? She whispered against his ear, her voice light and teasing. “To get me drunk and take me to bed?”

He turned sharply in her arms until he was looking her in the face, losing himself in the almost violet of her eyes. “Who says I want you drunk?”

“You do things drunk you generally wouldn’t do when you’re sober.”

“It wasn’t that I wouldn’t do them sober. It was more that I wasn’t sure you’d want me to do them.” Later he might blame it on the exhilaration of the day but looking into her eyes, her lips so close to his, he couldn’t deny it any longer. “Or by my doing them you might inflict bodily harm.”

“I think I’m saying I want you to.”

“You think?” He pulled back slightly.

She nodded. “I know there’s this thing between us and this weekend has brought things to the surface that we’ve probably been ignoring for years.”

“I want us to be sure. There’s thirty years of friendship riding on it.” He couldn’t actually believe they were having this conversation.

“Then maybe we should do it properly.”

“Like a date?”

“Yeah.” Dinner and a glass of wine would give them both time to regroup. Not that she thought it would make any difference. She wanted Toby to take her to bed. That thought alone astounded her.

“Ok.” He stared at her lips, debating whether to throw caution to the wind. Sense got the better of him and the knowledge that he had waited this long they could wait a little longer. “Maybe I should take a shower too.” The water, he decided, would need to be ice cold if it was to have the desired effect this time.

~~~~~~

When Toby re-appeared from the bathroom, clutching a white towel around his waist, CJ was already dressed in a simple turquoise sun dress.

CJ looked him up and down and smiled. He was just as she remembered him, what hair he had left slightly greyer, his beard slightly unkempt but his paunch firmly in tact.

“See something you like?” he asked, lifting his suit carrier onto the bed and trying to unzip it one handed.

“Something I can work with,” she deadpanned, slipping her feet into the mules.

“Hey.”

CJ gave him a disarming smile and picked up her purse. “I’ll wait downstairs.”

He thought he was safe, but of course he was mistaken. As she passed by him, she grabbed the towel and yanked it down, laughing to herself. “Now I see something I like.”

“You know I could go off you,” he growled, desperately trying to cover his modesty.

“But you won’t.” CJ glanced back over her shoulder, her eyes gazing into his, almost sultry, and undoing all the work of the shower. “I’ll call a cab for ten minutes time.” She had a feeling neither of them would be in any condition to drive and she liked the idea of them holding hands on the way back.

~~~~~~

“I meant to say earlier, I like the dress, “ Toby whispered, sidling up to her and touching her arm.

In all honesty she’d packed the dress because she thought he might. It was now or never, she believed. If nothing happened over the weekend then it never would and they would remain friends into their twilight and beyond. “Thank you.” She turned and smiled. “Ready to go?”

“This place has real food, right? Not tofu burgers and Soya fries.”

“Steak. Fish. Pasta.”

Without asking he held out his hand, fingers splayed, waiting to see if she would take his hand.

CJ wrapped her fingers around his, increasing her grip as they walked out onto the sidewalk.

Toby opened the cab door and waited for her to get comfortable before he climbed in after her and sought her hand once more.

As CJ gave the driver the address and they pulled away from the hotel, Toby stared at CJ unabashed. She was as beautiful to him as she had been the first time they met and every hour he spent with her, she amazed him.

She smiled at him briefly, shaking her head in disbelief before turning to stare out of the window.

So far it wasn’t quite as he’d anticipated the weekend to go but he wasn’t complaining. Despite their constant bickering they did enjoy each other’s company and had always slipped easily into the familiar. Tonight was a little different despite the teasing and flirting earlier, they were both a little self-conscious about what was going to happen next. The cab ride was silent, not the least bit uncomfortable as the campus and sights of Berkeley flashed by and they each pondered the evening ahead.

~~~~~~

Part Four

As the waitress showed them to their table, Toby glanced around the restaurant. He was being over cautious he knew, after all they had been out of the White House for years but the last thing he wanted was someone to recognise them and start throwing around accusations again. They’d lived through enough of those during his trial.

He pulled out a chair and waited for CJ to sit before he pushed it back under the table. He hovered over where to sit, finally sliding into a seat next to her, his body positioned as close to hers as possible.

“Can I get you something to drink?” The waitress handed them a wine list.

Toby merely glanced at it before ordering the most expensive bottle of red.

CJ shook her head in amusement.

“Well, you did say you were paying.”

She didn’t mind paying, she probably earned more than him anyway. “Yes, I did. So anything look good on the menu?”

“I wasn’t looking at the menu,” he whispered with a mischievous grin.

“This is why you’ve had so many first dates.”

“No, that was because of you.” For years he had tried to date after Andrea, never succeeding in finding the right woman but in hindsight he knew it was because no one could meet the pedestal he had CJ on.

She blushed noticeably.” Toby!”

Toby opened the menu and pretended to read it. “So am I supposed to ask all the usual dating questions? Where you’re from? What you do? Do you have a big family? What do you do in your spare time?”

“Considering you know everything about me, that’s a little redundant.”

“So I should just move on to the pertinent questions? Do you like the right or left side of the bed? Which position do you prefer?”

The waitress re-appeared with a bottle of wine and poured a little into Toby’s glass.

After tasting it, he nodded. “Are you ready to order?”

Toby ordered steak, CJ chicken and the girl disappeared.

“You’re incorrigible,” CJ chided, lifting her glass to her lips.

“So encourage me,” he muttered under his breath..

“You can tell me everything you’ve been doing.” She leaned forward and waited, the first taste of wine adding a flush to her cheeks..

“I told you everything there is to tell last night.” He took a lengthy sip of wine and filled both of their glasses to the brim.

“This could be the shortest date on record,” she laughed.

Toby took her hand in his own. “You shouldn’t judge the quality of a date on length or conversation.”

“I don’t.” Her glass seemed to be emptying on it’s own accord.

He gazed into her eyes, turning her hand over in his own. “I’ve known you half my life.”

“Huh-uh,” she mumbled watching him nervously.

“I can count my real friends on one hand.”

“Toby.” She knew he was trying to talk himself out of dating her and she knew why. He was more frightened of failing than he was of actually having to commit.

“Josh. Abbey. Will. Donna and you.”

“We’ll still be friends.” What ever happened in the cold light of day, and she wasn’t ready to talk about tomorrow, she would always want him as her friend.

“I’m not good at this dating thing.”

“Try thinking of this as the last date you’ll ever have.”

He looked up from his soup.

CJ toyed with her salad. “So how is everyone? Josh and Donna? Will?“

“Josh and Donna are still acting like newlyweds,“ he replied.

“Don’t tell me, her foot ended up in your lap again?“ CJ laughed, propping her chin up on her hand and gazing into his eyes.

He forgot about his soup and grinned. “Yeah, it wasn’t until I cleared my throat that she realized.“

CJ ran her fingers up his thigh. “She didn’t notice the difference in proportions.“ She had noticed many years ago in the middle of a particularly tedious staff meeting and had had to hide her face in a folder.

Toby coughed and captured her hand bringing it back onto the table. “Will’s finally gonna be committee Chairman.”

A waiter arrived with their main courses and Toby ordered another bottle of wine, the first having almost disappeared.

Alone again, they toyed with their food, neither really hungry but both needing something to focus on.

“Huck has his choice of schools narrowed down to seven.”

Her fingers played with her hair as she gave him her full attention, loving the tone of his voice as he talked about his children.

“He wants to study law.”

As he continued to regale her with stories of their friends and his children she flirted with him, subtly then not so subtly - curling her hair around her fingers, touching his arm when she spoke to him, running her fingers up his thigh. Her laughter at his jokes brought forth his own laughter and finally she was holding his hand over the table.

They lapsed into silence as they drank their coffee, his hand covering hers on the table as they both realized that it was no longer now or never, it was going to actually happen.

~~~~~~

“Do you want to walk back?” Toby asked as they left the restaurant, his hand flat against her back.

She stared back at him.

“You’ve been telling me for years that I need to exercise more.”

“I thought it was falling on deaf ears.”

“I intend to outlive you. It’s the only way I can have the last word.” He grinned at her and offered his hand.

CJ entwined her fingers with his and began to move in the direction of the hotel. “That’s never gonna happen.”

They walked in silence for a block before CJ turned to look at him. “You know this could be a major mistake.”

“I’m supposed to be the pessimist.”

“For nearly half of our lives we’ve danced around this. You married Andi, I dated a long line of Mr Wrongs. And never once did I think we should be together.” Which wasn’t strictly true, there had been a time a long time a go when she had wondered what it would be like to be married to him.

“But my charm wore you down?”

“Something like that, Pokey,” she replied, her smile warming his heart. “Tell me when, when you …”

“Fell in love with you? Knew I was in love with you?”

CJ came to a halt, tugging him back when he continued walking. “Toby!”

“I’ll claim I’m drunk then I can say anything I want. And I still don‘t like being outside,” he began, encouraging her to move. “The first time I fell in love with you was twenty-nine years ago in Brooklyn. It lasted two years.” Two years of wanting to marry her but instead realising it was never going to be. “The next time I know I loved you was when you told me you were moving to California with Danny. Not sure when I fell that time.”

“The final time?” she asked, continuing to stare into the distance, not expecting such an open admission.

“That was the last time,” he said, almost inaudibly.

She couldn’t believe it, he was telling her he’d been in love with her for almost thirteen years. And he was only just telling her now. She slapped his arm.

“Hey. What was that for?”

“For not telling me.”

This was unchartered territory. He’d never really talked to her about anything emotional, except when David had died. It stopped him being vulnerable, it meant he couldn’t get hurt. Opening up to Andi had led to her telling him how she felt and he’d felt more pain than he ever thought possible. “I didn’t want, don’t want to spoil what we have. I leaned to live with how I felt.”

“Danny and I broke up six years ago.”

“And?”

“Why didn’t you say anything then?”

He shrugged, knowing she was in a bed place back then and didn’t have feelings for him. One of them hurting was enough.

“Ok, I’m asking too many questions.”

“You always do.” He rubbed his palm against his pants. “I should tell you one thing though. I’m not as principled as you. Getting me drunk would have been enough to get me into bed.”

“You mean I didn’t need to buy you dinner,” she replied, stopping in the middle of the street.

“CJ?” he asked, coming to a halt.

“I had a good time tonight.” Not that it surprised her, she just wanted him to know.

“Oh.”

She smiled lightly. “No, I had a good time. You can be quite charming when you try.”

“Does this mean …? he asked, grinning.

“If you can just try and not be yourself a while longer, maybe. But you could start with a kiss.”

Toby leaned in and kissed her cheek.

“If we continue at this pace I’ll be ninety before we actually do the horizontal tango.”

“And if we do what I want in the street we’ll get arrested.”

“Well we have two options, we can either call one of the fifty lawyers we know or we could go inside.”

Toby decided the latter option would lead to the more satisfying conclusion.

~~~~~~

The door closed and they found themselves standing in the middle of the room, staring at everything but each other.

The beds had become CJ’s main focus, her mind trying to decide whether they could sleep in hers or his. His would make it easier to slip out of if it became too awkward. Hers was offering up more of herself than she might want to give.

“Is this too awkward?” Toby asked, trying to look at her and wishing he could turn back the clock and not make the same mistake.

“Not really. We’ve been in more awkward situations,” she rationalised. “The night you slept on my floor because Josh and Mandy were having sex in your room. It wasn’t having you in my room that was the problem, you understand, it was Josh’s screaming next door.”

“I remember.”

“And there was the night we interrupted Abbey and the President. . . “

“CJ,” he whispered, running his thumb along her cheek. “Sometimes one word really will suffice.”

CJ closed her eyes briefly, leaning into his touch. Opening them again she found herself losing all concept of reality as his eyes bore into her. There was an imaginary line and she could see it falling further and further away. “Toby.” One word - begging, tender, wanting, predatory all at once.

Gently, he leaned in, his hand cupping her neck, bringing her lips to meet his. The kiss was soft, his lips pressing gently as his beard tickled her skin. Her hand on his hip cutting the distance between them and he found himself intensifying the kiss, something feral deep inside him taking over.

It wasn’t that CJ hadn’t imagined kissing him before, she’d daydreamed about what that would be like, the memories of their youth so clumsy and inept. But she hadn’t anticipated that his lips could make her want him so much or that when they made love it would be so intense and so tender.

~~~~~~~

Molly watched her father stride into the breakfast room with a new found zip in his step. She grinned as CJ followed behind by ten paces. “Morning.”

“Did you have fun last night?” CJ asked, taking a seat and turning her coffee cup over.

“Yeah. Did you?” she asked pointedly.

Toby glanced at CJ and back at the table.

“I bought your father dinner.”

“Oh.” Molly couldn’t believe her father could have been so stupid until she saw the tiny blush that highlighted his cheeks. “Oh!”

“It isn’t what you think,” Toby mumbled, wondering how he was going to explain to his teenage daughter that not only could men of a certain age get some but that he’d slept with CJ on the first date. It was definitely going to lead to a lecture on do as I say and not as I do.

“You and CJ finally woke up and smelt the roses. You gathered your rosebuds while you may.”

“Your Donna-isms are quite scary,” CJ said matter-of-factly.

“Mom likes Donna. So, does this mean dad’s going to be spending more time in California?”

“I’m sitting here,” he grumbled.

“We haven’t really figured that out. It was more of an act now, think later kinda situation.”

“I hope you were careful,” Molly said mock-sternly.

Toby covered his face with his hands.

“I hope it works out. We were beginning to give up all hope.”

“We?”

“Mom, Donna, Me, Josh, although I’m not really sure he understood what we were actually talking about.”

“I figured it was now or never,” CJ commented, smiling as Toby’s eyes widened. “Yes?”

“I’m feeling cheap and tawdry. It’s like a major conspiracy.”

“Get over it, Dad. You got laid for the first time in years,” Molly quipped, rising to her feet and walking towards the breakfast selection.

Toby looked at CJ, still not quite believing that half an hour earlier she had been walking naked around their hotel room.

“What?” she asked, running her fingers through her hair.

He shrugged, trying to dispel the image before his reaction intensified.

“What time’s your flight?” It seemed impossible that they had finally gotten to this point and he was going to be leaving.

“Six. Wanna do something today?”

After last night’s performance there was something she wanted to do very much, but they had a teenager to amuse and no hotel room. “I guess we could show her the Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman’s Wharf.”

“I was thinking something more. . .,” he glanced around the room and leaned in to whisper in her ear.

CJ giggled and turned to kiss him.

“Geez, get a room,” Molly cringed, dumping her plate on the table.

“We were making plans.”

“That’s what your generation called it?”

CJ shook her head.

“So are we talking later, tonight, the wedding?”

“Wedding?” Toby stammered, spluttering coffee on the table cloth.

“Well you’re not getting any younger.”

“Thanks for reminding me,” CJ grumbled, wondering if they really were too old for this but not really caring. The time had come for living in the moment.

~~~~~~

“Have a good flight,” CJ said, hugging Molly.

“Yeah, cause he’s such a great travelling companion,” she grumbled, rearranging her back pack and stepping back. “I’ll be over there, reading my book.” Her father had barely let her out of his sight all day, frightened she might disappear in thin air. So she’d walked the sights with the two of them, her father constantly stealing looks at CJ when he thought she wasn’t looking. CJ’s hand had remained entwined with her father’s everywhere they went, until it slipped under the table over lunch. If she hadn’t loved them both so much she could have been violently sick. Of course as sweet as it was it also meant the two of them hadn’t talked about what happened next. The likelihood of them doing that in the airport seemed pretty slim.

She glanced back and groaned

Toby held both of CJ’s hands in his, staring into her eyes.

“Say something,” CJ urged, not wanting to ask the all important question.

“I’ll call you tonight.”

CJ nodded, knowing it was too much to expect him to say the words and knowing he was probably just as nervous as her.

“This is the final boarding call for Flight AA32 to Washington DC.”

“That’s your flight,” CJ said, the thought of him leaving suddenly depressing.

He dropped one hand and lightly stroked her arm. Glancing around the airport, he leaned in and kissed her long and hard on her lips.

Her fingers slipped from his as he turned and walked towards the gate.

CJ watched them go, Molly waving frantically as Toby handed over their boarding cards.

He finally turned and placed his hand on his heart, a gesture that, he hoped, voiced everything he felt because staring back at her he couldn‘t find the words. The last thing he wanted was to be on the other side of the country but she hadn’t asked him to stay and he couldn’t tell her he wanted to. Instead he was getting on a plane and what happened next was anyone’s guess.

The End

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