oscar isaac characters with an s/o who subtly paints the furniture
Saw this on Insta and thought it was really cute so have some blurbs 😊
If there is any I have missed that you would like to see, let me know (but bear in mind I have not seen all of Oscar's performances so may turn some down!)
Steven Grant
Once he saw it, he was confused as to where it came from, because he doesn't remember it being there before
But then he catches you painting another flower on the skirting board one slow Sunday afternoon
Thinks it's the cutest fucking thing he's ever seen
It brings a bit of brightness into the flat
When he approaches you about it you’re immediately apologising since you actually only spend half your time at the flat
“Don’t be silly, I want to know if I can join you?”
Marc Spector
Noticed at the same time as Steven
Was also confused because he couldn't remember if it was there before or not
Feels like he's losing the plot a little because more small paintings keep popping up but he isn't sure where they're coming from
Finally notices it's you when you've left your paints out on the coffee table one afternoon when you've had to rush to work
And it all just clicks in his mind
Goes out and buys you all the paint you want because he wants all your artwork on the walls
Jake Lockley
Honestly, he spotted you the first time you did it, like immediately
Loves that you do it, thinks it's cute
But he also thinks it hilarious to add onto your artwork and not tell you
So much so that you think you're losing the plot, because "you do not remember painting a duck with those flowers?"
He plays ignorant, obviously
But you catch him one day painting and wordlessly join him
Now it's become a weekly thing you do together
Llewyn Davis
Poor baby doesn't have furniture
But he crashes as yours quite a bit and he's noticed the small pieces dotted around your apartment
He likes them, he thinks they're cute
He was out auditioning one night when he noticed his guitar, there was a bunch of daisies painted on the back
His guitar is his pride and joy, and if it were anyone else he'd be fuming
But he's not
He feels warm, like a piece of you is with him wherever he goes
Now every gig he does, he comes to you, and asks you to do another painting, "for luck"
Blue Jones
This one is a bit risky
Because there isn't an awful lot of recreation in the asylum, so you bribed some orderlies to get you some paint
And you got a total of three colours, but that's fine, you can make it work
Brings a bit of brightness to the asylum, since everything is grey
Blue is pissed and wants to know who is doing them
You, somehow, manage to break into Blue's office and - essentially - throw up a middle finger at him, and do a bunch of paintings around his office, in really obvious places
He catches you in the act since he comes back from lunch early
You're fucked
He has you on your hands and knees, scrubbing at each painting in his office, then he puts you in solitary for two weeks and has your paints disposed of
However, he notices a small painting of lavender under his desk that was missed in the clean up
He keeps it there
Nathan Bateman
You wouldn't dare, his coffee table alone costs more than your rent does in a year
Richard Alonso Muñoz
You already have your paintings up in the house so he loves whatever artwork you do
Honestly, I don't think you'd hide it from Richard, he probably told you to go nuts when you moved in
Takes photos of your work all the time to show his buddies at the prison
Some of the prisoners have asked if you can come in and do an art class for them, which you are happy to do on a weekend when you have more free time
Richard has put in the request but it hasn't been approved yet
Richard starts buying the seeds/bulbs for flowers you paint, to go in the front garden
Learns all about them in books, and how to take care of them
Now and then requests you to paint a flower he's seen in said books
Poe Dameron
Like Blue, gets confused on who is painting across the base, but obviously isn't pissed about it
Gets seriously confused when he finds one of the paintings in his personal room
He asks BB-8 but he hasn't a clue either
Until one day, BB-8 comes to Poe with a small little painting of Poe, of all things, on him
But BB-8 is so amused about it that he doesn't tell Poe
He catches you when you're painting something on his X-Wing
Scares the living daylights out of you when he calls you and asks what you're doing
You apologise, and tell him you'll take it off as soon as
But he tells you not to bother, because it's a - albeit crude because of the size - little portrait of you, and him, and BB-8
He refuses to wash it off and if it ever fades, instantly asks you to redo it
When you get married, he paints on wedding rings
Santiago Garcia
You're his roommate since you worked together in the forces
He had no idea you could paint
Strangely doesn't catch you for the longest time
He thinks it's Benny playing a trick on him, or Frankie
Grills them for the longest time until you finally admit it was you
You tell him it helps with the nightmares, that it calms your mind
After that, Santi doesn't bother you with it
When he sees you painting on his dining table leg, he makes you a coffee and just sits next to you and watches silently
Now every time you tell him you're going to paint, he comes and just sits, watching you
It's therapeutic for you both
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Ready-Made Family
Characters: Richard Muñoz and F!Reader
WC: 6251
Other Pieces: This is a stand alone.
CW: Angst; idiots in love; pining. Mentions of infidelity.
When Richard Muñoz’s next door neighbor moves in, he’s not home to see it. His previous neighbor—an old man of his mother’s generation—had moved away to Florida, and the house had sold quickly.
But he’s not there the day the moving trucks pull up, and he doesn’t meet you right away. One day, it was Mister Forni next door, his evening news and game shows blaring through the shared wall of the connected homes. The next day, seemingly overnight, it was much quieter, though Richard could sometimes hear sounds through the wall. Talking, too low to make out the words. Music. Television, sometimes, and it seemed bright and cheerful, like kid’s programming.
-----
He doesn’t meet you until spring, when the April thaw starts in earnest and you are in your front yard, surveying the abysmal condition of the flower beds. Strewn with trash whipped around by winter winds, full of dead plants. Richard goes out to take stock of his own front yard (in far better shape than your own), and he tilts a nod at you when he catches you looking at him.
He starts to make the few steps over, hand extended to introduce himself, but he’s stopped short by a child—a little girl—flying down the front steps and tackling you around your knees. You give a quiet oof at the impact, and then you gift Richard a rueful smile over the girl’s head.
You introduce yourself, and you introduce your daughter, Rowan, who grins at him shyly, ducking behind you as she does. You hold out your hand and Richard takes it, shakes it briefly while giving his own name.
You’re lovely, in an understated way. Your hair is up in a neat ponytail, and you’re wearing an oversized barn coat in the spring weather. No gloves, and Richard checks on the sly—no wedding ring, no engagement ring.
“We share a wall,” you tell him. “If we’re ever too loud, please let me know, okay?”
Richard says he will, but he knows he won’t. He’s too shy, too reticent, too willing to let others walk all over him.
-----
But you and Rowan aren’t loud at all. Sometimes he hears the two of you—you seem to enjoy singing together around dinnertime—but it’s never too loud or too long or too late.
He sees you more than he hears you. In the front yard, when you and Rowan (the little girl armed with a plastic shovel) whip your flower beds into shape. More often in the back of the house where you park in the alleyway. Unloading the little girl from her car seat, unloading groceries. When summer comes, Richard grills outside a fair amount, and you and Rowan often take your meals out there in the sunshine.
Richard is painfully shy, so he only ever nods and smiles when he sees the two of you. Maybe you’re shy too, or closed off, because you only ever answer with your own nod and maybe a small wave.
Your little daughter, though? Rowan? She has a bold assurance, not an ounce of shyness now that he isn’t a stranger. She waves at him wildly when she sees him. She shrieks his name—Mister Muñoz, polite to a fault. And her enthusiasm is doubled when his dog is with him. The little girl is dog-crazy, wants one of her own, begs you within Richard’s earshot about how she wants one just like Bianca, small and fluffy and white, and how the dog could sleep in bed with her…
You always shoot him that same rueful smile, just as you had the day he met you. A little beleaguered, as if you hear Rowan’s pleading for a dog all the time.
One summer afternoon, when Rowan’s pleading is particularly persistent, Richard kneels down beside the little girl and points out, reasonably enough, that she lives next door to Bianca and is welcome to visit with her whenever she wants.
Another smile from you, but this one is more thoughtful.
“You’re going to regret that offer,” you tell him, but he won’t, not once. He doesn’t know it in this moment, but this is where it begins. In this moment, Richard is only a lonely single man with a weakness for how Rowan waves at him wildly, happy to see him. A weakness for the way you smile at him over her head, like you and he are sharing a secret.
-----
It starts slow. At summer progresses, Richard learns more about both you and Rowan. Rowan, he learns, is four and in pre-school. She’s charmingly polite for a small child. She’s a picky eater, but you often use reverse psychology to trick her into trying new foods. Her favorite color is pink one week, then yellow, then green.
She updates Richard on her new favorite colors with a serious look on her face, as if she is conveying grave news. He always makes sure to receive these updates with an equally serious look, a stern nod of understanding.
You? You’re more reticent, happy to just sit and listen to your daughter chat with Richard and Bianca. But you open up over time.
You work for the city, in the parks department as a city planner. Stable work with stable hours, which helps since you are single mother.
Once, when Rowan is engrossed with Bianca (brushing her out gently, as Richard demonstrated), you sit closer to him and talk to him in a quieter voice, so your daughter can’t hear.
“Her father isn’t in the picture at all,” you tell him. “We divorced when she was two.”
“I’m sorry,” he replies softly, and he is sorry for Rowan’s sake and for whatever hurt you had or still have…but a selfish part of him who relishes these moments with the two of you isn’t sorry at all.
You gaze at him a long moment—so long that he squirms under the force of your attention. So long that he wonders if he messed up and said the quiet part out loud, or if you’re a mind reader.
“Don’t be,” you finally say. “He was a terrible father and a worse husband.”
-----
Summer fades into autumn, and Richard would despair, would worry about the loss of these moments with you and Rowan in your backyard, but by the time the weather turns cool, your reserve has burned off enough that you consider him a friend.
Sometimes you and Rowan come to his home, but more often, he comes to yours. He brings Bianca and has a coffee with you some weekend afternoons while your respective daughters (his small and white and furry, yours currently mad for the color purple) play.
You’re still reserved. Richard is sensitive, and he’s good at sensing someone’s feelings. Between his natural understanding and the little you’ve told him, he can guess that you’re wary of men in general. That if he were any other man, you’d never invite him into your home. That you have only let him in because he’s gentle and because he’s good with Rowan. He humors your daughter, genuinely enjoys spending time with the little girl.
-----
Halloween is never a holiday that Richard celebrated much. The most he’s ever done is buy a few bags of candy that he leaves out in a bowl on his porch for the children to help himself to. But a week before, you knock on his door and ask for a favor.
“Rowan wants to go trick-or-treating, but she’s scared.” You glance at him, and he can see it written on your face, how much it pains you to ask for help.
“What do you need?”
“I wanted to see…if you’d join us,” you say. “You and Bianca, maybe. I think she’d feel braver if she had a few buddies with her.”
Richard nods, agrees to it immediately. “Do you want me to dress up?”
You shake your head, laugh lightly. “I wouldn’t want to put you out. Don’t worry about that.”
Other men may have seedier fantasies, but this has always been one of Richard’s: you and him, Rowan and Bianca, trick-or-treating together. Well, the fantasy was never so specific, but this is as close as he’s gotten—family stuff, time spent together. It’s easy to pretend that you’re his wife, that Rowan is his daughter, and that you’ll all return home to the same house where Rowan may throw a tantrum over the candy. That he’ll get her to sleep after reading her a story, and that you and he will pick through the haul for your own favorites before heading to bed too, where he’ll wrap an arm around your shoulders and pull you to him, both a little foot-sore but happy…
Just a dumb, tame fantasy, but so easy to fall into.
Rowan is dressed up in all white with furry ears perched on her head, and skipping beside Bianca, it’s obvious what inspired the costume. You are looking at Richard when he realizes, and he catches the soft smile you gift him.
-----
Thanksgiving comes, and it’s a stark difference to Halloween: you and Rowan pack up your car and head upstate to spend it with your family.
Richard? He’s on his own again, just him and Bianca.
But there’s a difference this year. Before you leave for your long weekend, you knock on his door. When he answers, you can barely meet his eye—you’re reserved, of course, but Richard also thinks you’re shy and moments like this further that theory.
“I made you this,” you mutter, not looking at him. “For Thanksgiving.”
It’s a pie: a glorious looking pastry with golden crust, the heavenly scent of apples and cinnamon wafting out of the tin covered with plastic wrap.
“To say thank you,” you clarify. “For being…well, for everything, I guess.”
He starts to stammer out a protest, say no, that he should be thanking you, that you’ve given him far more than he’s given you, but you’re already turned away and fleeing down his steps, and something is different about your reticence here.
He doesn’t know it now, but this is the moment it begins for you. Or nearly so: he’ll find out later that it was the night before, when you contemplated the things you had to be thankful for. That Richard Muñoz drifted near the top of that list, so much so that you stayed up late to bake him a pie in thanks.
-----
You go away for Thanksgiving, but when you return, you’re hollow-eyed. Deep circles under your eyes like bruises. Even Rowan seems subdued.
Richard gets a bit of the story from you during one of your playdates. Bianca and Rowan are in your living room, snuggling on the couch and watching a cartoon. You and Richard are in your kitchen, drinking coffee and picking at pastries you picked up from a nearby bakery.
“We saw my ex. Rowan’s father,” you say. You push around a few stray crumbs on your table, make a neat little pile of them. You glance up at him, then clarify, “we grew up next door to each other.”
“Ah.” Richard hates himself in these moments: he never knows what to say and is often reduced to stupid one syllable words. He has no wisdom or comfort to offer most times, though you seem to just need a listening ear from him.
You voice drops a little, and you lean forward so he can hear you. “He remarried and has a new baby. Rowan saw them outside. I didn’t think she put it together…he left when she was so young, you understand. But I think someone said something she overheard. She asked a lot of tough questions on the ride home.”
“I’m sorry.” He swallows hard, then adds, “is she okay?”
You shrug. “I think so. But I think…maybe I should take her to see someone. Like a child therapist.”
“It couldn’t hurt, her having someone else to talk to.”
You nod at that, but he can see the misery on your face. From what, it’s hard to tell: your ex moving on, your daughter hurting, needing outside help for her to work through her feelings. Richard knows that you’re fiercely independent, and he would bet his pension that you are toughest on yourself.
“Hey,” he says, and he waits until you look at him again. “Are you okay?”
You blink at the question, look startled. He wonders when the last time anyone asked after your own feelings. Probably not for a long while, judging your reaction.
You answer with another shrug, which is answer enough for him. You’re not okay at all.
-----
There’s family drama and angst that Richard can’t even begin to guess at, but again there’s a selfish upside: you spend Christmas at home, no traveling.
Even better, you invite him to Christmas dinner.
“It’s nothing elaborate,” you warn him. “We have a small turkey, but it’s still too much for the two of us.”
Richard hasn’t shared a Christmas with anyone since his mother died, and his breath catches in his throat when he realizes the gift you’re giving him. He feels sick all of a sudden, flushed and sweaty, and he struggles to accept. Struggles to ask what he can bring, how he can help.
You watch him a long moment, your usually-wary eyes bright and curious. “You don’t have to bring anything other than yourself and your dog.” A beat. “And if you want to come over obscenely early, you can join me in watching the little gremlin unwrap Santa’s presents.”
“I’ll be there,” he manages to say, and his voice is still choked up a bit. Another beat of you studying him, and then you reach out. Lay your hand on his upper arm, a bracing touch that only lasts a second, but it buoys Richard through the rest of the day, the rest of the week, all the way through Christmas morning.
-----
Richard arrives Christmas morning early, but not early enough.
You answer the door and you’re absolutely charming: in flannel pajama pants and a shapeless sweatshirt, bare feet and tousled hair. And a huge yawn.
Rowan is right behind you, bouncing up and down, squealing his name.
“Richard!” She shrieks, and it hits a decibel that makes you wince as you put a steadying hand on the head of your daughter, trying to calm her glee just a bit. “Santa came!”
“You must have been good then,” he answers with a smile, and you snort softly at that, smile at him.
“Mommy said I had to wait for you,” Rowan says, and there isn’t a bit of petulance in her voice. In the months since he’s gotten to know the little girl, he’s found her to be sweet-natured to a fault. Willing to share with others, crying in sympathy when other children cry.
“Thank you for waiting.” He jostles the bag in his arms, and he kneels down by Bianca and unclips her leash. The dog is familiar with your home now too, and she scampers inside and joins your daughter by the Christmas tree. You smile at him again, tell him good morning, and you reach past him to shut the door.
“Ro, just let me and Richard get some coffee and we can start, okay?” you call out, and you gesture for him to follow you. In the kitchen, though, you frown at his bag.
“I told you not to bring anything,” you tell him.
You did, but it paralyzed him. Richard grew up in a household that took gifts when visiting other homes: bottles of wine, cut flowers, a dish to pass around at a dinner party. You did tell him not to bring anything, but he has decades of home-training fighting against him, and he tells you so.
“Besides, I couldn’t not get Rowan anything,” he points out.
“You spoil her,” you reply, but you’re smiling at him as you pull down a mug and pour him some coffee.
He got you something too, but he doesn’t say so. He’s usually rendered near-mute around you, but the thought thundering through his head is, of course I want to spoil her, I want to spoil you both.
-----
It’s a morning of surprises.
Rowan is surprised when Richard hands her his gift, which is just a purple stuffed unicorn with a rainbow mane and tail. It’s poorly wrapped—he never had the knack for wrapping misshapen gifts—but the little girl shrieks in delight, then surprises him with a fierce hug and a smacking kiss to his cheek.
“I love it!” she says, hugging it tight to herself, her words going high-pitched in delight. “Thank you!”
But then she sets it gently beside him on the couch and scampers off, and here you reach out and touch his arm.
“Thank you,” you tell him softly. “She got you something, but…just act happy, okay?”
Before you can clarify, Rowan is back and thrusting her own poorly-wrapped gift into his hands. Richard is surprised (he expected nothing, and the only gifts he ever gets are from his union, which sends out fruit baskets when a new contract is ratified). He makes a show of unwrapping it, and it’s several things in a gift box that he takes out one at a time and marvels over while Rowan claps beside him and you hide your grin against the rim of your coffee mug.
A pair of socks with little white anchors on them. A bar of fancy soap, marbled and swirled green and white that smells like peppermint. A tin of mints. And a toothbrush.
Rowan only half-accepts his hearty thanks, already turning back to her new toys, and when he catches your eye, you burst into laughter. Real laughter, and Richard realizes it’s the first time he’s really heard you laugh.
“Do I…smell?” he asks in a low voice, and your laughter doubles, folds in on itself until your eyes are watery from glee. You have to set your coffee down, and you swipe at your eyes once the merriment dies down.
“No,” you manage to wheeze out. “I asked her, but there was literally no logic behind what she picked out.” Another wave of laughter, and you reach out and steady yourself against him, grip his bicep through his sweater. “She just saw something, said Richard will like this, and threw it in the basket.”
He chuckles along with you, but he gives a mock-rueful shake of his head. “I think I’ve been walking around stinking all this time, and you’ve been too nice to tell me.”
“You haven’t!” You shake your head too and wipe away the tears of glee. “You don’t!”
“Liar.”
But the surprises continue: once your laughter dies off for good, you tell Rowan to hand Richard a certain gift that was set off to the side. It’s wrapped in crisp silver paper, clearly by you, and he unwraps it to reveal a framed photo. It’s the three of you and Bianca, from Halloween. He remembers when it was snapped—you had a neighbor take your phone and get a few pictures of you and Rowan, but at the last minute, you waved Richard in.
“It’s dumb—” you start to say, but Richard cuts you off gently. Firmly.
“It’s perfect.”
There’s a gift for Bianca (a giant treat that she gnaws on for the rest of the day), and Richard’s own gift for you (a French press, because yours had been broken in the move and you hadn’t gotten around to buying a new one).
When you invited him over for the day, he had the idea that it would just be for the noontime dinner you have planned…but Richard spends the whole day and most of the night too. And it’s as magical as anything he’s ever imagined in his loneliest hours: he helps you with the meal, he helps you clean up, the two of you side by side in your kitchen. There’s an ease to you now, he realizes. You aren’t as reserved with him; you let some more of your walls down.
Afterward dinner, the three of you (Bianca in the corner, gnawing on her treat) sit on the couch and watch Christmas movies. It’s all child-friendly fare, oldies, and Rowan nods off, her little head pressed against his arm. You nod off too, curled against the arm of the couch, and Richard thinks it may be possible to die from a broken heart, because that’s what it feels like. His chest feels too tight, as if it’s been stuffed too full from all the love—or at least conviviality—that he suddenly has.
When the two of you wake up (and it’s cute, how you both are a little grumpy after a nap), there’s an evening meal of leftovers and pie, another movie. You put Rowan to bed, tuck her in with her new stuffed unicorn, and then you rejoin Richard.
“Up for some coffee?” you ask, and of course he is.
When he finally gathers up his gifts and Bianca and goes to leave, he’s surprised when you stand before him. You hesitate for a beat, then give him a hug. It only lasts a few seconds, and your shyness blooms at the motion because you don’t quite meet his eyes when you murmur your thanks, when you murmur how happy you were that he joined you and Rowan.
-----
You invite him over for New Year’s Eve too, but it’s less of an affair. Rowan has a normal bedtime, so it’s just dinner with her…and then drinks with you, as the two of you wait for the new year to start.
It’s the closest thing Richard has had to a date in years, and if he’s nervous, you seem doubly so.
“I had an ulterior motive, inviting you over tonight,” you tell him. You don’t look at him which is your tell, he realizes. It’s the sign that you’re nervous or shy. He makes a noise of assent for you to continue, and you do after you take a big sip of wine.
“I wanted to say, Rowan really likes you. I do too, but I have to put my daughter’s feelings first.” Another sip of wine, and you turn to face him. “I’m not saying it’s anyone’s fault…well, I guess it’s my fault, but you’ve become kind of a father figure to her.”
“Okay,” he replies, not sure where you are going with this, but his stomach sinks at the somber look on your face.
You shake your head. “I shouldn’t have let it get this far. She talks about you all the time. She always asks when you’re coming over.” You hesitate again, then add, “she mentioned you to her therapist, you know. Told her that she has a new dad.”
Richard feels sick to his stomach, because the first place his mind goes is…not a good place. He works in a prison, after all. Works with some of the worst people, and some of those people hurt children. That’s what he thinks you may think, and he flushes at the insinuation that he has nefarious intentions. Indeed, he’s not made many proactive moves in this entire relationship with you and Rowan. He’s been buoyed along on the current, and he starts to stammer out a defense of himself, that he’d never hurt Rowan or you, that he never told her he was her new father…
You place your hand on his arm, still his fumbling torrent of words. “I know, Richard. I know.”
“I never told her I was her father,” he protests anyway. “I thought I was being nice—”
You cut him off again. “You are nice.” You sigh and shake your head. “Listen, we both really like you, but Rowan is confused. She’s in therapy, and it sounds like she has a lot of big feelings about her bio dad leaving. I just don’t want to confuse her any more than she already is. She’s only four.”
“I understand.” Richard swallows hard against the tears rising in his eyes, and he offers you a feeble smile.
You shake your head again, and you give a growl that sounds like pure frustration. “I’m sorry. I’m not being clear. I’m not telling you to go away and stay away, Richard. I’m just saying…her therapist and I have clarified the difference to her about who her father is, and who you are. I just need you to understand, and I need you to promise me something.”
“Anything. Anything at all.” A shard of hope lances through him, sharp, and he’d promise anything to stay in your lives…
“Promise me that when you meet someone and…have less time for us, that you’ll fade out quietly.” He looks at you, and he’s surprised to see your own eyes glassy with tears. You look him dead-on, and there’s a fierce quality to your expression—the closest he’s ever gotten to a mother bear, he’ll realize later.
“Promise you won’t just disappear on her,” you add. “Promise you won’t be like her real dad and just…disappear.”
Richard turns over your words in his head, and he realizes what you’ve alluded to: that he’d meet someone else and move on with them, leave you and Rowan behind. Have less time for us, you said. Not Rowan. Us.
Maybe it’s the wine, or maybe it’s sitting so close to you on your couch as the old year ticks away its final hour. Something makes him brave when he’s only ever been passive and a little cowardly.
Richard reaches out and takes your hand in his. He only means to hold it, but then he lifts it to his mouth and presses a gentle kiss to the back of it.
“I promise,” he says. “But I’d never disappear on either of you. Not ever. I’ll stay until you send me away.”
It makes you blink, and a tear breaks free and starts to trickle between the lovely curve of your cheek and your nose. The courage never comes easily to him, but once he has a taste, he finds a bit more in reserve: he reaches out with his other hand and brushes the tear away, and when you blink a second one free, he gets that one too.
“Thank you,” you whisper.
The moment feels so heavy, though. Richard hates that you have this past where your ex hurt you and Rowan so badly that any other man being kind carries its own hazards. He hates that Rowan has to see the therapist, that you carry such heavy burdens alone. It’s almost a new year, and he wants to see you smile for it.
“Besides, you’re the only two ladies who’ve ever put up with my stink for so long,” he adds, and it startles a laugh out of you.
It diffuses the heaviness hanging over the evening, and when the new year starts, Richard feels a hopefulness that is more substantial than the nebulous feeling he had when he first starting hanging out with you and Rowan.
It doesn’t hurt that when he lifts his arm in invitation—definitely the influence of the wine, by now—you look at him for a moment and then lean against him.
-----
It’s deep into January when Rowan addresses the issue herself. You are out running errands, and Richard is babysitting, though your daughter tends to test her limits, wheedling for more snacks and a skipped nap.
But you reminded him before you left (“You’re the adult here, Richard. Don’t let her boss you around”), so he remains gently firm in her schedule, and when he puts her down for her nap, she brings up the topic you broached on New Year’s Eve.
“I know you aren’t my daddy,” she says. “But you’re my friend, right?”
“I am.”
“You’re not my best friend though,” she clarifies.
Richard chuckles, and he guesses that he ranks lower than Bianca, though it doesn’t bother him.
“I’m okay with that, niñita.”
-----
The angst over Rowan’s therapy seems to settle and level off, but you and Richard….that’s a different issue.
He’s shy and uncertain, and he has the sense that you’d cut him out of your lives in an instant if you feel it’s the right thing to do for Rowan. But you’re shy too, still hurt and walled off, though your walls come down a little bit each time he is with you.
And while he’s not that experienced with women, your shyness seems to have shifted. It doesn’t seem to be the same reticence of before: now it seems more fragile, like you might have your own hope that you’re fostering.
He knows more about your past with your ex, and it only infuriates him further. The boy next door, high school sweethearts, married young. Your ex had wanted kids more than you had, and he had cajoled you until you finally gave in and agreed. You got pregnant, but your ex started to steadily drift away in the final months of your pregnancy.
When Rowan was a year old, you caught him cheating on you.
When she was two, the divorce—an acrimonious thing, full of venom—was finalized. You and Rowan moved back into your parents’ house to rebuild, and after a couple of years, you moved here.
But one day, in the beginning of February, you fix Richard with that bright gaze you have sometimes, and it’s paired with a soft smile.
“I’m glad we moved in next door to you,” you tell him.
“I’m glad too.”
You look like you want to say something else, but then you seem to think better of it and remain silent.
-----
Thing is, if you’re shy and Richard is shy, the two of you would stay in a painful stalemate forever. The three of you spent time together, and both you and Richard trade off on babysitting duties: he watches Rowan for you sometimes, and you help with Bianca when he has late shifts.
It's a regular Saturday when he babysits Rowan. You have a mountain of errands to run, and you offer to make him dinner if he can just watch the little girl for a few hours. He waves off your insistence for quid pro quo, as he always does, but he never turns down dinner with you and Rowan. For one thing, he loves the little family unit the three of you have. For another thing…you’re just a damned good cook.
Over the course of the afternoon together, he and Rowan watches a cartoon, then reads some books, then color together. Then, to his everlasting dismay and chagrin, she wants to play beauty shop.
He loves Rowan like his own, but…he really hates playing beauty shop.
But he obliges, and he allows the little girl to treat him like a fancy lady (her words, not his). She puts plastic clips in his hair, puts plastic beads around his neck, and then she gives him a makeover. Your mother, Rowan’s grandmother, gifted her a child’s kit of play-makeup: glittery, bright stuff mild enough for a kid’s skin, and that’s what Rowan smears all over his face over the course of play. She coos over him, pats his cheek kindly, tells him he’s very, very pretty and that all of the girls in school will be jealous of how pretty he is, and Richard dies a little inside but he’s also touched by how gentle of a kid Rowan is. He doesn’t remember kids being that kind when he was young.
The only problem is that you show up entire hours before he was expecting you. Just as Rowan is putting the finishing touches on him (an inexplicable glittery sticker on the back of each hand), just as she stands up and starts squealing, saying he’s very, very lovely, you walk through the door.
Rowan turns in surprise, then points at her handiwork in obvious pride. Squeals “look at Richard, mommy!”
Richard turns in surprise, sees the way your eyes widen, hears the sharp intake of breath, and he wishes he could curl up and die.
He’s never heard you laugh so hard or so long. Just when it starts to die down, you look at him again and start back up. You laugh so hard that tears roll down your face. You laugh so hard you start to cough.
“Oh, goddammit,” you wheeze when you finally make your way over to him. “Does she torture you like this every time you watch her?”
“I usually have more time to clean it off,” he replies, smiling at you. He looks ridiculous, but what a small price to pay to have you so happy, even for a moment.
“I’m so sorry.” You look at him, giggle again, and it makes his heart feel light, his chest filled with warmth.
“I’ve been told I’m very pretty,” he teases.
“You’re usually very handsome,” you answer. “But right now, I’m sorry to say, but you look like you’ve been attacked by a gang of demented clowns.”
He flushes at your sudden compliment. He’s rendered unable to speak. And you don’t seem to notice because you turn to Rowan and tell her to clean up her toys, and then you turn back to Richard and hold out a hand to him.
“C’mon. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
He still can’t speak, so he lets you lead him to the bathroom, and he perches on the edge of the tub and watches as you take down a bottle of something, a few squares of cotton that you douse with the bottle. Then you turn to him and gentle as anything, you clean his face.
“I know this stuff comes off with water,” you say softly. “But it can still dry out the face.”
“O-okay.”
“This is makeup remover. Better for the skin.”
He nods, but his chest feels suddenly tight: you’re standing right over him, as close as you’ve ever been to him, and your light touch makes him break out in goosebumps.
“You can tell her ‘no,’ you know.” You say it with a teasing lilt.
“She likes playing beauty shop.” The words come out in a croak, rough around the edges.
You hum at that. You reach over and get another square of cotton, squirt the makeup remover on it. Do another pass over his face, and he shuts his eyes against the feeling of your hands on him, such a chaste touch but still intimate. He can’t remember the last time a woman touched him so gently or at all—
“Richard,” you whisper, breaking him from his reverie. He opens his eyes and looks up. Sees you gazing at him. “Would it be okay if I kissed you?”
“W-what?”
You smile at his stammering. “Can I kiss you?”
He nods. He tries to swallow but his mouth is suddenly dry, but he has no time to worry about it because you place your hands on the sides of his face and tilt his head up, and then you’re bending your own head, and then your lips are on his, light as air, and all of Richard’s painful worrying disappears.
He’s glad you lead him. You have a better handle on this moment then him. You pull away for a moment, gaze down at him, like you’re trying to gauge his reaction. When he smiles up at you like a dope, you smile back and kiss him again. You slip one hand back; you push your fingers into the curls on the back of his head, and he sighs into the kiss. He doesn’t know what to do with his own hands so he keeps them folded in his lap.
When you pull away a second time, you press your forehead against his.
“I’ve wanted to do that for a while,” you whisper.
“Really?”
You lean back a little and look at him, and now your soft gaze has a sorrowful slant to it.
“I was hurt pretty badly. It…it took me a long time to get up the courage.”
He reaches out his hands and takes hold of yours, and it makes you smile. “I’m glad you did.” A beat. “Because I’m a coward.”
You snort, squeeze his hands gently, then lean forward and gift him a third kiss, a light peck on his lips.
“I think any man willing to wear glitter eyeshadow is pretty brave,” you joke.
He opens his mouth to joke back, but Rowan yells from the hallway that she’s cleaned everything up and she’s also starving and what are the two of you doing in there and can she come in and help but also she’s starving and what’s for dinner—
“The little monster beckons,” you sigh with a roll of your eyes. “Are you still going to stay for dinner?”
“If that’s okay…”
You smile…no, you grin at him. “More than okay.” You hesitate, then add, “I’d like you to spend as much time with us as you want.”
“Careful, cariño.” The term of endearment slips out, makes you smile wider. “You say stuff like that, you’ll never get rid of me.”
A fourth kiss, this time a playful smack that makes you laugh, duck your head a little in faint embarrassment before you tell him, “sounds good to me.”
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