[Les - date night]

[seas_open]

It isn't her dream job, but it's enough that April can get by without looking like she's pulling money out of nowhere and that's all she really needs. She's assisting a self-employed lawyer around his office, which, as jobs go, really isn't all that bad. He's relatively quiet, the work is easy, and when he looks at her in a way she doesn't like -- which he has twice already -- all April has to do is suggest to him in a soft voice that he doesn't think of her like that.

But it's a job and she needs one. The only problem is that tonight, when she's supposed to be meeting Les at her place for their date, she's been kept late. There's a client still in the lawyer's office when she glances at her phone and realizes there's no way she's going to make it to her apartment before Les, so she texts him and tells him if that's the sort of thing he can do, that he should feel free to magic her door open. She doesn't leave keys lying around under welcome mats like she knows some people do, but she also doesn't have anything in her apartment worth stealing. There's nothing she's attached to in there at all.

So she tells Les to go ahead, wait inside, she'll be there in twenty minutes. By the time she gets her things packed up and is actually outside her apartment, it's more like half an hour and she's angry with herself. She's angry with her boss for keeping her late and she's upset that she's made Les wait, all of which are new feelings.

April loves to keep people waiting. It exerts a certain level of dominance, but now, as she walks toward her building, her heels clicking on the sidewalk as she digs her keys out of her purse, she only feels bad.

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[lesparker]

"Really?" Les asks his face brightening despite the night, despite the pain in the wound she's cleaning, despite their ruined date, and everything else. That April agrees to call him makes tonight turn out exactly how he hoped for deep down. It's why he was going to try. The reason for his nice clothes and the reservations. Because he wants this to be something more.

"Well. You did manage to save me," Les says, starting to smile. "And you tased a guy. I can't even explain how impressed I am by that." For one thing April carries a taser and she hadn't backed down an inch. "But I just didn't want anything to happen to you..."

He pauses for a second looking down, not wanting this to sound weird or freak her out. "That's why if you need a place to crash for a few days, you can stay at my place. Completely unrelated to that whole I like you thing that I, uh, just said," he says awkwardly then smirks. "But I wouldn't make you sleep on the couch if you consider it."

[seas_open]

The offer is both heart warming and scary at the same time, something April never would have known was possible to feel. Les does that to her, though, as he so often does, and it's not such a terrible thing to be a little nervous about what's to come. There's something sort of appealing in it, in the heart pounding and the panic that seems to be fluttering just at the edges of everything they say to each other right now. But he cares about her, her really does, and she lets herself just believe that for a moment.

Because that's nice, too. And she hasn't let herself believe anyone truly cares about her in a long time.

He's right, though, her place won't be safe to return to. There's a disaster left behind that she doesn't want to think about cleaning up and she doesn't need anything that's been left behind. She might miss her wardrobe, but there's certainly nothing in that closet she can't replace. Nothing worth getting hurt over.

"You'll let me share your bed?" she asks with a faint smile and an arched eyebrow. She's teasing him again, though there's a faint note of hope threaded in her voice, something she doesn't want to admit to.

[lesparker]

He's less nervous the longer his words settle in the air between them. It had seemed like such a big deal to just admit he likes April, like he would've been giving up something, or opening himself up to misery later on. But this is....better than he expects. Nice maybe. Like, there's a flutter of nerves in his belly. Not nerves. Just flutters because April's face doesn't completely shutdown at the idea of staying with him until she finds her apartment.

He's never done that. Ever. Gone through these lengths with a woman. But if April agrees he's more than happy to do it, give her one less headache to worry about in the middle of figuring out her mom's debt. It's just a place to crash, but it's more than that.

He smiles when she smiles, those flutters coming once more when she teases back at him. "I'm willing to give you some space. Yeah. Maybe a little bit," he says in a playful tone. "Just enough so you must cuddle me all night."

[seas_open]

The last time she had stayed all night with anyone it had been an act. He had been especially rich, she had wanted his money, he'd given her far more information about his accounts than anyone should have after only three months, but she'd spent nearly every night with him and for a time it hadn't been so bad. It had been an act, but there had been moments of it that had been nice.

She's not trying to get anything from Les, though, and although she's never told him the ways she's made her money, her heart suddenly feels heavy, like he might think she wants something from him other than just him. So she reaches up to touch his face, careful not to touch any of his injuries.

"I like you," she says, the words simple and yet so incredibly difficult to say. The last time she'd said it and meant it had been a very long time ago. "Thank you."