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Caitlyn's mother always managed to make dinner feel like an interrogation. Normally Caitlyn was the “prisoner” interrogated herself – as such she was always thankful for evenings like this. Evenings on which Jayce was here and was the victim of her mother's judgmental gaze.
“So, how is the Hexgate coming along?” she asked, while holding the glass of wine in her hand.
“Good,” Jayce muttered. Just in time he reminded himself to look at her and give her a somewhat honest smile. “We should be finished before spring.”
“How long exactly, do you think?”
“Uhm.” Jayce's gaze drifted towards his plate, as if it knew what the best answer would be. (Caitlyn knew the truth: There was no good answer. If he answered with a timeframe to small, he might not make it – if he answered with a timeframe to long, she would criticize it as well.) “Uhm. Maybe another twelve weeks.” He took a sip of the wine himself, before muttering into the glass: “If nothing goes wrong.”
Of course Caitlyn's mother noticed, raising her eyebrow, but left it uncommented for now.
There were other questions, though, her mother could think of. Quite a few, in fact. And thus, Caitlyn spent her dinner, sitting at the table, eating her meal and hoping her mother would not shift her attention towards her. Because ever since Caitlyn had made the decision of becoming an enforcer, her mother wanted to be informed about her every move.
“She only means well,” her father always said. He was of a softer demeanor than her mother, after all. Right now, though, he just exchanged a gaze with her, while clearly sharing the same thought: “Don't be noticed.”
By the time the maid served dessert, Jayce already seemed exhausted. Not that Caitlyn did not understand it. But at least the well of questions seemed to finally have ceased. Jayce slowly ate his spoons of iced cream with liquor, as hie was looking over to Caitlyn.
There was an unspoken question in that gaze. He was asking her to speak and Caitlyn tried to communicate her answer: “After dinner.”
It still took a nightcap, before her mother finally allowed for Jayce to excuse himself. The two of them knew, of course, where they would be meeting. There was a small balcony in the East of the building, by the servants' quarters. It was a place her mother did not come often. A place where they could speak in private.
“You look exhausted,” Caitlyn noticed, as he finally joined her.
“Sharp as always.” He smiled, then sighed and leaned against the banister. He stared out onto Piltover, the city still alight in the dark of the night.
“I am sorry, about my mother,” Caitlyn muttered.
“It's not like you can change anything about it,” Jayce replied. “And I assume she has the right to ask those questions. She is investing into me after all.”
This got Caitlyn to chuckle. “Well, I get the same treatment every other evening.” The fact that her mother had recently caught her with a girl had not made it any easier. Because, it seemed, that Caitlyn was just a bit wrong for the family. She did not want to be a business lady – and she was also not very into the idea of marrying some rich guy in some political move and get at least two children. Yeah, no, that was not happening. Men… She looked over to Jayce, who by all accounts was considered handsome. Still, it just did not do it for her.
Much to her surprise, she found him sighing once again. In this deep, mellow way, that showed that someone was burdened with something. Well, no, she was not kidding herself. She knew this kind of sigh exactly.
Please, she prayed in her mind, let it not be, what I am thinking.
Her natural curiosity made her ask though: “What is it?”
“Hmm.” He did not look at her, instead staring up at the sky, where the light of the city seemed to dim the stars. “Have you ever been in love?”
Oh, please, no. She shrugged. “Kinda.” Maybe she should've told him about her girlfriend – but it was all too complicated. “Why?”
Another long pause, as he pondered the question and Caitlyn could not shake the anticipation. “How do you know that you are in love?”
Again she found herself shrugging. “I don't know. It feels like you are falling fast and your cheeks get quite flushed.”
“They get flushed when you are drunk as well, though,” he observed.
She waited for him to continue, already preparing herself to rebuff him. “What is this about, Jayce?”
Another sigh. “You can't tell your mother!”
At this she rolled her eyes. “Duh!”
“Okay.” He took a deep breath. “You see… Work is hard right now. Like, your mother… and the council. Everyone expects us to finish the Hexgate, right?”
So he was taking the long way around. “Uhum,” Caitlyn replied.
“So, I do work with Viktor a lot, right?”
“Uhum.”
“So, yeah… We pulled another all-nighter two days ago, you see?”
Now Caitlyn's eyebrow rose a bit. She could just not help it. “Uhum.”
“And as the night went on, we got more and more distracted.”
“That's why you don't work through the night.”
“Yeah, well… Anyways,” he said, only to stop and stare out to the city once again.
Caitlyn waited. For five seconds. For ten. Then she prompted: “So, anyways?”
Now it was him who shrugged. “We started goofing around, you know?”
“Goofing around?”
“Ah, we edged each other on to do stupid things.”
“Stupid things, like what?”
“Ah. Just stupid stuff. Like, I imitated Heimerdinger, we joked about confronting your mom, then we started to sing stupid songs, and we might also have drunken a bit of ale.”
“Also not very conducive to getting work done,” Caitlyn observed.
“Indeed.”
Silence and Caitlyn groaned. “Oh, come on, don't let me pick your brain. What is this about?”
He blushed at this, looking away once more. “Well… Inbetween us goofing around, Viktor… He might've kissed me.”
“He might've?”
“Well, yes. No. I don't know. I might've kissed him. I am really not sure. It is all a bit hazy.”
Once again her eyebrow rose. “A bit of ale?”
“Okay, maybe it was some more ale.”
She sighed and shook her head. “Please don't tell me, it was your first kiss.”
“It was not!” he quickly reassured. “It was not! Just… the first time kissing a guy.”
“Well, does it make a difference to you?”
“Of course it does! He is Viktor!” Even in the dark of night the blush on his face was now clearly noticeable.
There was a part of Caitlyn that grew giddy now. This was not about her – thank the Gods – so really, this was more like those pajama parties with other girls that she had only heard about. Just that Jayce was a guy six years her senior. “So, do you like him?”
“What?”
“Oh, c'mon, Jayce. It isn't that hard of a question. Do you like him?”
“I don't know!”
“How can you not know?”
“I just don't, okay?”
“Well, maybe it is time than for you to find out.”
Maybe it was only than that Jayce saw the glimmer in her eyes. He looked at her confused. “What are you proposing?”
“I…” She paused. Actually she did not quite know. Because really, she mostly had crushes so far. And those crushes had almost always been a result of what started as one-night-stands. But she knew at least what a crush felt like. That she knew for certain. “Do you think he likes you?”
A non-commital shrug. “I don't know. I mean…” He rubbed his cheek, as he had taken to do, whenever he was nervous. “I mean… Uhm.”
“Uhm?” she echoed with a bit of dry sarcasm.
“Well, I mean, we kissed. Like, for real.”
“But you did only kiss?”
Even though Caitlyn had believed, Jayce could not blush any further, she had been wrong. Now his ears were burning as well. “Yeah, of course. I mean…” He stopped himself, before he could say anything stupid.
At this Caitlyn sighed. She put one hand onto his shoulder. Really, she might not be the best person to give love advice after all. Because it all had been so much simpler for her this far. But she was in fact well versed, when it came to a certain kind of novel, that involved a bit of romance and a lot of sex – not that she would ever admit this to anyone. “I think…”
“You think?”
“I think you should just try it again.”
“What?”
“You get what I am saying,” she muttered. “Try kissing him again. While you are sober.”
At this proposal he swallowed hard. “But what if he…”
“Then that is something, you need to find out as well.” She smiled at him. “Say. Have you ever been on a date?”