Chapter 19: What Women Want

“Let’s take five, everyone.”

Aidan made eye contact with Kate through the glass partition of the rehearsal studio, gesturing with his head for her to meet him out in the corridor during the break. He’d been engrossed in the music when she arrived earlier, only exchanging the briefest of waves when he noticed her come in.

Now he grabbed her hand and led her toward a spare office down the hall, away from where the other band members and crew were milling around.

“So how was shopping?” he asked over his shoulder as they walked. "Did you have fun?"

“Oh yes. Fun fun fun.”

There was a bite to her tone that made him glance at her face. “What happened? Did you buy anything?”

“Indeed.”

He pulled to a stop just inside the door of the little office and put his arms around her waist, bending down to peck her on the lips before he spoke again. “Are you going to tell me what you bought?”

“Cocktail dress.” She leaned forward and rested her face against his chest, presenting him with a view of the top of her head.

“That sounds nice.”

“Yeah, it better be,” she said into his chest.

“OK then. So…”  He hesitated for a moment, trying to gauge the reason for her bad mood. “Um, can I have my card back?”

She chuckled and nodded, reaching her hand into her pocket. “Here ya go,” she said, shooting him a frosty smile as she placed in his hand the remnants of his credit card, now cut up into four pieces.

“What the fuck, Kate! You cut it up?”

“No, Aidan. I didn’t cut it up. The helpful lady at the Gucci store did that.”

He looked back and forth from her face to the pieces of plastic in his hand. “This is my Amex Black Card!”

She shrugged. “I believe the Amex fraud department may have left you a few messages this morning?”

“Shit.” He pulled a cellphone out of his pocket and looked down at the blackened screen. “I guess I forgot to turn it back on after the TV spot.”

“Yeah, there may be a few messages from me on there as well,” she replied. “You might just want to delete those.”

He flicked the phone on and looked at the screen. Thirty-seven missed calls. “Kate! What the hell happened?”

She shrugged again. “I told you. I bought a cocktail dress.”

“And?”

“And I gave them your card,” she continued. “And then I spent my morning with a lovely man from Gucci security and a very nice LAPD detective, talking my way out of a grand larceny charge—”

“Shit!”

“—which would have been a hell of a lot easier if I could have gotten ahold of my alleged larceny victim on some sort of communication device. Like, maybe a walkie-talkie? Or a telegram? Or—“

“OK,” he interrupted, beginning to grasp the reason for her annoyance. “You’re mad because my phone was off.”

“Ding ding ding! Give this man a prize!”

“I’m sorry!”

“I was inches from getting arrested, Aidan. Inches!”

“I don’t understand. Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of fancy lawyer or something?”

“Yeah. Believe me, if I weren’t a lawyer, I’d be spending my night in jail right now,” she replied. “And you can wipe that smirk off your face, because if you think this was funny—”

Aidan tried to force his features to compose themselves into a more serious expression, but he couldn’t keep his lips from quirking up into another smile. She was irresistibly cute when she got all riled up like this. “Wait,” he said. “So explain it to me like I’m stupid. What happened exactly?”

She let out her breath in a loud huff and wiped one hand across her eyes in a gesture of defeated exhaustion, but her voice was calmer when she spoke again. “The purchase triggered a fraud alert with your credit card company,” she explained. “Then when I obviously wasn’t the cardholder and no one could get the cardholder on the phone, they thought—“

“—they thought you stole it?”

She nodded.

“What the fuck? I’ve given my credit card to girls before.”

“Yeah?” she said, rolling her eyes. “Let me guess. You gave it to Julia Roberts?”

He grinned at her. “I never dated Julia Roberts, Kate.”

“Well, maybe if I looked like Julia Roberts, they wouldn’t have batted an eyelash.”

She was looking down at the floor, and he came back toward her, slipping one arm around her waist and using his other hand to tip her face up to look at him. “I’ll take you over Julia Roberts any day,” he said softly.

She rolled her eyes again, but she didn't resist when he bent his head to kiss her.

“So how did you get out of it?” he asked after a moment.

“I showed them one of the articles with me in the towel.”

He released her and let out a burst of laughter. “No way!”

She nodded. “It was the only way to prove I knew you,” she continued. “And then I paid for the dress on my own credit card, and they let me go.”

“So you actually bought the dress? Is it here?”

“No, I left it in the hotel.”

Her face had started to relax a moment ago, but he saw her eyebrows drawing together again in irritation now.

“I’ll reimburse you,” he said.

“You better,” she shot back. “I can’t afford that thing.”

“How much was it?”

She paused for a moment, and spoke to a spot on the wall behind him when she finally replied. “Fourteen,” she muttered.

“Whatever,” he shrugged. “Fourteen hundred isn’t bad for a Gucci cocktail dress.”

“No, Aidan,” she said, still not making eye contact. “Fourteen thousand.”

He felt his jaw go slack. “What?”

“I know, I know. It was idiotic—“

“—Did you just say fourteen thousand? Dollars?”

“No. Fourteen thousand pieces of belly button lint.”

“Kate, that’s like a car!”

“No kidding.”

“Well no wonder it triggered a fraud alert!”

She buried her face in her hands. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Maybe I should drop you off at the dealership tomorrow and you can pick yourself out a Lamborghini!”

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “OK? It was stupid.” She pulled her hands away from her face and looked back up at him, expecting to see anger, but he was chuckling.

“It’s cool,” he said. “I’m glad. I’m glad you got yourself something nice.”

She nodded. “It’s nice. It’ll be good if I ever have to do a red carpet or something—“

Her words were cut off by the sound of a phone ringing. She looked at him questioningly. The cell phone he’d taken out before was sitting on the desk where he’d placed it a moment ago, but the ringing wasn’t coming from there. She watched as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a different phone, answering the call on the first ring.

“Yeah,” he said into the phone. “I know. I just heard… She’s here… OK, just have them reissue a new card… Yeah. OK. Thanks, man.”

Aidan clicked the phone back off and looked up at Kate. “Dean’s taking care of it,” he told her.

She didn’t reply. Her eyes were fixed on the phone in his hand.

“It’s the bat phone,” he said, holding it out toward her. Kate still said nothing, standing motionless and glaring at the phone.

“What?” he asked.

Finally she looked up, directing her glare at his face. “So that was on the whole time?”

“I told you,” he said. “Bat phone never gets turned off.”

She opened her mouth but closed it again without speaking, wordlessly pulling open the office door and stepping out into the hallway. Aidan caught her arm as she stepped past him.

“Kate,” he said. “Come on! Don’t be upset.”

She spun back around to face him. “I’m out,” she said. “I hope you and Dean will be very happy together.”

“Don’t be like that,” he replied, pulling her back into the room. He knew what this was, of course. He'd seen this script before, and it didn't have anything to do with the credit card. Every woman he'd ever dated – they always came up with the same request, sooner or later.

“Kate," he said. "Do you want to be in the bat phone? Is that what this is?”

She shook her head. “I don’t care about your stupid bat phone, Aidan.”

“Give me your phone.”

He held out his hand toward her, wiggling his fingers. Kate watched him for a moment, trying to decide whether to remain angry or give in to his attempt to make up with her. "Fine," she breathed at last, pulling her phone out of her purse and handing it to him.

He flicked through her contact list and began tapping in a number under his name.

"You know I've never given this number to a girl before," he said as he tapped. "Never." He glanced up at her seriously as he continued. "And you understand this is strictly for emergencies."

“I think this morning qualified as an emergency," she replied, holding out her hand to take the phone back.

“Wait,” he said, positioning the phone screen so she couldn’t see it as he continued tapping.

“What are you doing?”

“Ringtone,” he replied. “It’s downloading.”

“Is that really necessary, Aidan?” She reached out again to take the phone from him, but he held it up over his head, out of her reach.

“There,” he said, breaking into a grin as the download finished and he hit the screen with his thumb to make it play.

Kate tried her best to maintain her icy stare, but she couldn’t help laughing when she recognized the tune he'd chosen – the opening bars from Roy Orbison’s Pretty Woman.

“Are you done now?” she asked, reaching out for the phone one more time.

He shook his head, still smiling mischievously, and he held the phone in both hands as she watched him sink down to one knee.

“Kate,” he said. “You’re the one. I love you. Will you please accept this ring?”

“Give me that!” She snatched the phone out of his hands, but he could still see the laughter in her eyes as he rose back to his feet. “You’re such a child,” she said.

He put his arms around her again, and she allowed him to draw her back to him, looking up into his face.

“I love you,” he whispered.

She smiled and ducked her head for a moment before looking up to meet his eyes again. He felt his stomach do a somersault as he watched her lips form the words he’d been waiting to hear from her all week.

“I love you too, Aidan,” she softly whispered back.