Kiss Me Cate Pt. 01

She slipped the top off the soup and tried to inhale the smell. She sighed and tore open the tissues and began clearing her sinuses as best as she could. She stood and shook out her clothing so she wasn't all tangled up and sat down cross legged turned towards me. She eventually dug into it and sighed, after a few spoonfuls the lines around her eyes smoothed and she seemed to relax a little.

"Oh and there's this." I handed her the box of tea with an infuser.

Her eyes went wide. "You dear man." She said her mouth opening in awe, which turned quickly into a smile.

"I never found out what you were drinking last summer so I got one of my favorites, it's a black tea blend. Not before bed though, it's got a healthy kick of caffeine."

"What do I owe you for all this." She asked clenching her teeth. I just grinned and shook my head. "Oh no, no you can't do that. I'll just wing it and give you some money then."

"Don't fight me, you don't have the energy for that and to grade twenty seven assignments over the weekend."

She sighed and fell over backwards slowly. "You're right. I feel all done in and it's only seven!" She sat up quickly. "Have you eaten? I'm the worst person ever." She said grabbing her head with both hands. "You can't eat that, I've eaten out of the container. No use both of us being sick."

I laughed. "Relax, I had a sandwich from the deli on the way over. I'm fine. If you're done the rest can go in the fridge." I held up the bottle of nasty green medicine, wiggling it back and forth. She scrunched up her nose at it. She let out a few small rasping coughs. "Look, it's alcohol free."

She closed one eye and cocked the other at me. "Aye, and that's the problem now isn't it." She said in a broad Irish brogue. "I'm not opposed to a dram or two when the feeling hits me, and I know what's in the whiskey." I couldn't help laughing. She had such a great sense of humor, and here she was looking like a mess and still completely beautiful at the same time. "You said it tasted awful." She said scrunching up her nose again.

"I usually rinse it down with water." I replied and went to the kitchen and searched the cupboards for a glass and filled it. I sat down and looked at the dosage cup and eyeballed her. "You barely look like you weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet. I'm not sure that a regular dose would be too much."

"Just pour me a shot boy-o I can handle it." The broad accent returned and she started weaving as if she were about to fall over. We both laughed, which started another coughing fit. "Oh hell." She said reaching for the bottle and looked at the dosage and poured her shot and tossed it back quickly. She made a most impressive face and grabbed the water and rinsed it down. "You're right that is foul."

"It works, within an hour you should be out cold like a mackerel in a fishmonger's stall."

"Charming." She looked at me for a long moment. A decision had been made, it showed clearly on her face. "Thank you. I guess I was wrong, I do have a friend here." She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around my neck hugging me closely. She began to cough again and tried to release me as she covered her mouth. I just pulled her tight and supported her back until she stopped. "Damn it to hell." She gasped. I just began digging my fingers into her back willing the muscles to relax. "Don't do that or I won't let you leave."

"Coughing is hard work, and rough on the back." I said as I rubbed her back. Her chin rested on my shoulder, her head against mine as I worked firmly but gently with my finger tips. She let out a sigh. A few minutes passed and I felt her palms pressing my shoulders as she sat back.

"Thanks, really. I don't know what I've done to deserve this kind of treatment but I really do appreciate it." She looked at me, her hands fidgeting in her lap nervously.

"Do you remember what you said to me when you first asked me to be your teaching assistant?" I said smiling. "You said you were scared as hell. I remember it like it was yesterday, and the first thing that popped into my head when you said that was, 'Things are never quite as scary when you've got a best friend.'"

She smiled. "Well I'm glad you came to my rescue. Now shove off so I can get some of this magical sleep you propose is going to happen thanks to your vile potion."

We made a hasty and awkward goodbye at the door and I made my way down the stairs slowly. I looked up at her window from outside for a few minutes and saw the light go out. I was glad, she was going to get some sleep and not go over the mail and papers I'd brought her.

* * * * *

"Ham or bacon?" I asked.

"What, what are you talking about?" He could hear her turn her head and cough.

"I'm making you breakfast, and as soon as we get those papers graded, I'm putting you back to bed." I replied.

"Oh are you now?" A note of challenge in her voice.

"I am."

She sighed. "I could murder a few rashers of bacon. How long? Do I have time for a shower first?"

"A few minutes, I'm right around the corner, it depends on how quick you are." I said with a laugh.

"Hurry up then." A few minutes later I was climbing the stairs with my laptop bag over my shoulder and a couple bags of groceries hanging from the other. She waved me in closing the door behind me, then leaned back against it. "Am I to have the nurse-maid treatment daily then?"

"Yes." I smiled, set down my laptop and took the groceries to the kitchen. The corners of her mouth turned up, and a look of resignation came over her face.

"Well I'm going to take that shower. If you can't find anything let me know." She said and slipped open the knot of her robe, her flannel pajamas hung loose on her frame as she went into the bedroom and closed the door. I heard another door close a few moments later and the hum of a water running through the pipes. I began making breakfast. The water eventually went off, and I stopped and pictured her, the water dripping off of her as she wrapped herself in a towel. I nearly took my finger off and decided to pay closer attention to the knife in my hand. The homely bumps and thumps of her moving around made me smile. She eventually popped the door open, a puff of steamy air faintly scented with a whiff of spring flowers wafted into the kitchen. She walked out in jeans and a dark blue hoodie with an Irish football team logo over her heart. She toweled her hair a bit longer and laid the towel across the back of a chair and began running her fingers through it combing it out to dry.

"You'd better dry that or you'll catch your death of cold." I said barely containing my laughter.

She gave me that shrewd one-eyed glance. "A bit late for that now isn't it? Besides we're both learned adults and know that a cold is caused by a virus, not wet hair." She closed both eyes and took a deep breath, then another. "Though I admit a hot shower did wonders for my chest." I leered at her sweatshirt. "Pervert." She said, responding to my lascivious glare.

"Pervert ya say darlin' and me slaving away to make ya breakfast." She giggled, the sound rose like bubbles rising in champagne.

"Keep practicing, you need it." She paused looking at me for a moment. She leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. "Don't take that the wrong way, but thank you for everything." She turned and padded over to the sofa in her stocking feet and logged into her laptop. She looked over her shoulder and grinned. I hadn't moved. "Don't burn anything now." Surprised I turned back quickly, nothing was burning, besides me.

Breakfast was a hit, I was glad to see she had an appetite for someone so slim. She got up to refill her tea and set her plate in the sink. "You know, this could get me into trouble if people were to suppose why you keep coming here."

"I'm your assistant, if they want to read more into it than that, that's their problem."

She chuckled. "How old are you again?"

"I'm twenty-three."

"Still so naive." She began to tick off her points on her fingers. "I'm your professor and as such, your mentor. I'm directly responsible for the grade you get in my class. I'm the only woman professor in the department." She added, "Stuffy old bastards," before continuing. "You're a very attractive and personable young man." I didn't miss that she emphasized the 'very' in her point. "If I weren't to let my ego get out of control, I'd say I'm not half bad myself. All of this precipitates disaster if someone were to decide to cause trouble."

I stared lost in thought for a few minutes. "I should drop your class then. It will make it safer for you and we can see each other, I mean, if you'd like... I know I would." Her eyes went wide.

"That's not what I meant! I just need to be very careful and stay completely professional. If what happened at my last job were to happen here... some fool gets bent out of shape because I won't sleep with them, a quick smear campaign, then I'd be run out of town as the whore of Babylon! Which is even more hilarious since I haven't gotten any in over a year!" Her cheeks flushed, her Irish was fully 'up' at the moment and that admission stopped her in her tracks. She slapped her hand over her mouth. I couldn't help myself, the laughter just poured out of me. She ran into her bedroom slamming the door behind her.

I began cleaning up the dishes and setting them in the rack to dry.

"I can't believe I said that." She said, startling me. I turned to find her right behind me and leaned back against the sink while I dried my hands.

"I have a proposal for you." I said. "I'll stop coming over to play nurse for you if once this class is over you'll let me ask you out on a proper date." Her cheeks were still flushed, but not nearly as red as she was before. Her eyes seemed a little redder as well, not owing to her being sick. Whatever she expected me to say when she came out of her bedroom, that wasn't it. Her mouth fell open in shock.

"You're asking me on a date? Are you serious?"

I nodded smiling. "Office hours only. I'll limit all communication to class work. No matter what my final grade, you'll consent to a formal date with me one week after the end of the semester."

She crossed her arms and turned and walked to the window looking out at the gray sky. "I was serious when I said that I'd have given you my number when we first met. You were sweet and charming, not brash and cocksure like so many of your peers. Then you'd have known who I was and all this could have been avoided." She turned back to me with a little smile. "Do you see? It's all your fault." Her shrewd look came back instantly. "What if either or both of us find ourselves otherwise spoken for before then?"

"A very pretty lady once said to me, "If it's fate that's brought us together, then it's likely to do so again" which leads me be very hopeful that things will work out in my favor."

"By now I'm sure you realize that the attraction is mutual, to be honest. That's something I warned you of already, the honesty part." She turned back to face me, a slight shiver ran up her arms. "I accept your proposition, calling it a proposal might lead to much different circumstances that neither of us are prepared for." She said laughing.

"Come over and sit, we have papers to grade." I said with a grin that I thought might break my jaw.

"Wipe that smirk off your face, all I did was agree to let you ask me out in a few months time, I never said I would accept." She added with a smirk of her own. We worked until early afternoon when I forced her to stop, by literally taking the folder of papers from her lap and holding it out of reach until she agreed to have a nap. Intransigent as a toddler claiming she wasn't tired, through a skull rattling yawn, she finally gave in and padded off to her bedroom. I woke her a couple of hours later with the promise of food and a few more papers to grade. I had gone over the correspondence and there wasn't anything major going on. She came out of her bedroom, face still sleepy, her hair in a static filled jumble.

"You were right." She let out a little yawn. "I needed that."

"Dylan knows best." I said, which she responded to by rolling her eyes at me. She went and splashed water on her face and brushed out the mass of into a soft fall. She blinked a few times as she sat down and picked up the top paper from the folder.

"Is there any tea left?"

"Sure." I hopped up and began preparing it for her. When I set it to steep I turned and realized she was watching me instead of reading the papers. Our eyes met and moments became minutes. The little timer I'd set for the tea pinged and the world began moving around us again. "You are so beautiful." I said, barely above a whisper.

She swallowed deeply and eventually smiled looking down. "Yes if you're into pale, sickly, red-eyed corpses, looking like a pile of dirty laundry, I guess you might say that." She chuckled which turned into a coughing fit. I poured the tea and brought it to her quickly. I reached behind her and rubbed her back. When she recovered, sat back and inhaled deeply. "Remind me, no comedy when I have a chest cold." She made me laugh with that.

"Deal."

We worked quietly for a few minutes. "If you'd said that, just that way, when we met I would have chased you down the block and tattooed my number on your arm." She said softly without looking up.

I smiled and replied without looking up either. "Could you just put it in my phone? I'm afraid of needles."

"Well your safe, I'm sure it's already in there now." She looked up smiling and flipped over the paper and took another from the pile. We finished the work and she had entered the grades in her online database. She put the papers back together in the folder to be returned on Monday and handed it to me. "I'll likely be fine, but just in case I'm too far gone to make it to class."

"How do you feel?"

"A little better, at first it felt like a horse was kicking me in the chest. At least now it feels as if he's not shod."

I laughed at that. "Don't make me go get the menthol rub."

"Oh hell no! I couldn't stand that stuff when I was a child, I'll be damned if I'll submit to it now. I remember smelling like it for a week after my Mum had stopped putting it on. The whole room would reek of it." We just stared off for a few minutes.

"What do you like on your pizza?"

"Hungry? I can..."

"No, you've fed me twice, there's not enough soup for two and I'm in no shape to grocery shop at the moment." She said holding up a finger to silence me. "Besides I found this little place that makes awesome pizza and delivers."

"We'll make an American of you yet." I said laughing. "Lady's choice."

"Be prepared, this is going to be somewhat healthy." She ordered a spinach topped white pizza on a thin crust. I groaned at the 'health food' pizza, she elbowed me and ordered a dozen wings to go with it. "There, at least you won't starve."

We watched a little TV while we ate, and despite my groan of disapproval the pizza was actually very good. The company was far better. Two months, it was my idea and now I had to live with it. That didn't mean I had to like it.

"So why doesn't a looker like you have a girl?" The question was innocent, but I got the distinct feeling there was more behind it.

"Looker?" I laughed. "Well I do have to beat the ladies away with a stick, they're like bees on honey when I'm around."

"Distinct lack of modesty, check." She replied with a smile. "Seriously though, the campus is full of eligible young women, free of their parents for the first time. I'd think it would rather be like shooting fish in a barrel."

"Oh you wanted honesty." I smiled. I thought for a moment before responding. "I was the same way, but that gets old fast, or at least it did for me. I was done with the partying after my sophomore year. I didn't lead a sheltered life before then so I didn't feel the need to let loose. I'm not the most outgoing of people. I'm usually pretty shy."

She looked at me, her eyes gone dark gray in the dim light. She gave a slight nod after a moment.

"Stacy," I began, staring off into space, "we were together all of senior year. I don't know if there was going to be something that would come of it. I'm not sure if that's what I hoped for, I just didn't think that it would end so, abruptly. We were great friends." I looked over at Cate, she had one eyebrow cocked a little higher than the other waiting for me to complete my story. "When we graduated, she changed. It was as if this were a chapter in her life and she was done with it. She packed up, kissed me goodbye and thanked me for everything and turned the page to start the new chapter. I was part of the last chapter to her, or at least that's how it felt."

Cate laid her hand on my arm, her thumb stroked gently. "Sounds like it was a rough time. Was this just before we met?"

I shook my head. "Last year, I took a year off to work before deciding on coming back for my masters." We sat silently for a moment, I laid my hand over hers, stroking the back of her warm hand with my fingertips. I let out a cleansing breath. "Your turn." I said with a smile.

She grinned and turned her head, politely coughing into her closed fist, which began an actual coughing fit. I rubbed her back as she gasped for air. "I guess I deserved that." She said with a whispered laugh.

I laughed with her. "No you didn't but I figured if it was that moment where we open up about our pasts." I let the remainder go unsaid. She leaned forward and gulped the remainder of her lukewarm tea and leaned back heavily with a sigh.

"Only fair, right? We just tried to hard to make a square peg fit a round hole. We were at uni a few years ago. He was a gentleman, and a charmer." She added with a smile then turned at me shrewdly. "I guess I have a type, don't I?" She added with a short laugh. "He was Indian. Not an issue for us mind you, but our friends didn't seem completely comfortable, and our families were not at all fond of it. It was straining things greatly. I also noticed that when we were with his family and friends he treated me differently. I'm sure he felt the same about me and mine." She added critically. "I realized quickly that the charmer was just that, and that he had a misogynistic streak in him. I'm not sure if it was his upbringing or culture, but he began to treat me poorly even when we were away from his family. Well I'm a bit more headstrong than he anticipated and didn't put up with any of that."

I let out a soft chuckle and rubbed her hand gently, only just realizing that I'd taken it up again. We sat quietly joined at the hand for a few minutes. I traced my fingertips up her wrist and felt the pulse beating strong and slightly fast. I looked into her eyes, smiled and shook my head slowly.

"What?" She whispered, a grin tugging at the corner of her mouth.

"I just wish I hadn't made a pact not to pursue you for two months." I said smiling.

"What good is a hunt without a bit of a chase." She said, her eyes crinkling at the corners. "Though we mustn't let the hounds lose the scent now." She leaned forward and kissed me. My hand found its way to her waist, she leaned towards me and I drew her nearer. She stiffened and sat upright with a gasp. "Damn, damn, damn!" Her hands flew to her mouth. "Quick, mouthwash or something!" She pointed to the bathroom.

"Am I that bad?" I said suddenly self conscious. "Was there too much garlic in the pizza?" I cupped my hand over my mouth and checked.

"No! Here I am having at you and I've got the bloody plague!" She cried.

I couldn't help but laugh and pulled her back to me. "If I do catch it, then it will be worth it, if not then modern medicine won out. I got a flu shot a month ago."

"If you miss class from it, I'll box your ears."

"Then you'll just have to come take care of me, fair is fair, right?" I grinned.