Different kind of comfort

Chapter 12 - The Castle Loft

Rick Castle's POV

As soon as I had hung up I smiled wide for myself. I loved hearing her laugh, especially when it was to my jokes. I had been serious though about my mother. When she moved in I decided to take advantage of it and told her that she needed to promise to take care of Alexis the days I really needed to go do something else or if I had a date or something like it. And I knew she would be available tomorrow because I had heard her saying she didn't have any classes tomorrow so that's how I knew she would do it without complaining. Plus she seemed very acceptable when it came to Kate. I had never seen her be so positive about one of my relationships before. She didn't like Meredith at all, didn't even before Meredith cheated on me, the only thing she liked about her was that her granddaughter became nothing like her. I chuckled as I thought about it. I had been the one raising Alexis for the most of the time so there was no way she would be able to end up being like her mother. And Gina was another woman my mother did not approve at all. But since the first second she met Kate it was like something changed when it came to the opinions she often had on my girlfriends. It was like all of that had disappeared and that she could see nothing wrong with Kate at all. No complaints or whatsoever about Kate or our relationship. She even wondered when we were going to announce it so that other women wouldn't try to hit on me while I was on book signings. To be completely honest I had been thinking about it, making our relationship official. But I didn't want to do anything Kate wasn't okay with, and it felt like she wasn't ready for that right now. I glanced at the clock and figured Kate would be at home in about two hours so I still had some time to write and plan the day we had for ourselves tomorrow.

"What are you doing?" mother scared me for the thousandth of time and I gave her a look. "Sorry!" she exclaimed but I could see she enjoyed it a bit.

"I'm writing, oh and can you babysit Alexis tonight?" I asked and she smirked at me.

"Going to Katherine's? I really hope you're serious about that girl because you two seem so perfect for each other" she said and I could feel a small blush on my cheeks.

"Yes I am, and promise you won't say things like that to her" I begged her and she looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

"Why not?" she asked and I sighed.

"You might scare her off, I want to make this right" I said and she smiled in a way I hadn't seen her smile at me before.

"Which means you are serious about her" she stated and I felt my cheeks getting hotter.

I tried to change the subject so I asked the first thing that popped up in my mind.

"She's taking the day off tomorrow to spend time with me, do you have any suggestions on what we could do?" I asked and didn't know if I was already regretting asking or if she would actually be helpful this time.

"Well, she does have a wild job right?" she stated and I nodded. "I would say she would want to do something peacful, something that won't remind her of work... oooh maybe you could take her to the mystical tree?" she said and I thought about it.

"That's actually not a bad idea, thanks mother" I said and she shine bright.

"Any time kiddo" she said with a wink before she left my office.

I thought about the place we had all fled to a little once in a while to escape the city. My mother had taken me there when I was a kid and we had continued to go there when Alexis was born. It was our little special place and from what I'd seen no one else knew about it. We had never invited someone else to go there, not even Gina or Meredith who both I had been married to once. Even Alexis had agreed on not showing the place to her mother because she wanted it to be our place. I had taken her there many times when she was a kid so that I could tell her stories and even write some down. We had started to call it the mystical tree since we had been sitting under that tree every time I had come up with new stories for her to hear. And mother was right, it would be the perfect place for Kate to relax. Plus maybe she would feel more welcome when she got to know no one else knew about it. Perhaps it could be another step into our relationship, I really wanted it to go further than just this. I continued to write on the story based on her. I wasn't sure if she would like what I had written, I didn't even know if she would take it good that I had based the main character on her and used her as my inspiration. Maybe she would be mad and that could be the end of our relationship, but I really hoped she would find it an honor. I didn't stop writing until I heard the familiar sound of a text being delivered to my phone. I took my phone and smiled when I read the message.