Fic: Mixed Signals (Karen/Ryan, PG-13)
Title: Mixed Signals
Author: bridgetmoon
Pairing: Karen/Ryan, refers to past Karen/Jim
Disclaimer: No infringement intended.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Karen didn't expect to run into Ryan - at Bloomingdale's, of all places - and she definitely didn't expect to be so tempted. Set between S3 and S4.
Warnings: None
Written for the Rare Pair Summer Exchange at ipod_ovenmitt.
There’s a saying that, for all its size, if you stay in New York long enough you will eventually run into everyone you know. But that didn’t prepare her to see Ryan Howard on the fourth floor of Bloomingdale’s. Which is probably why she failed to recognize him when, while trying to catch the attention of a shoe clerk, she became vaguely aware of someone watching her and took a quick glance at the mirrored wall. She only registered one of Manhattan’s endless supply of work-hard-play-hard boys, a little out of place on a women’s floor of Bloomie’s, but otherwise typical.
Karen had other things on her mind that evening, things that had her somewhat guiltily succumbing to the lure of retail therapy. She had spent the afternoon in another grindingly humiliating circuit of employment agencies, and was now putting off heading “home” to her college roommate’s studio couch. She tried to remind herself that it would have been the same if she had come to the city directly from Stamford, and never made that ill-fated detour for the sake of a man who was in love with someone else. And then she wondered what it said about the current state of her life that defining herself as a casualty of corporate downsizing was supposed to make her feel better.
Her former landlord had agreed to accept her few pieces of brand-new furniture in lieu of a penalty for breaking her lease; as a result, when she left Pennsylvania, the material evidence of her time on earth could be contained in the two suitcases she now had at Gina’s and a few boxes stowed in the back of her car. When they were fresh out of college, it would have been an adventure, but she couldn’t help suspecting that there was something depressing about a woman her age living this way, particularly when every morning she had to watch Gina leave for her analyst job in shoes that cost more than a month’s rent in Scranton.
So there she was, trying on some Stuart Weitzman pumps in a dark glossy red unlike anything she owned, when she looked up and there he was again, standing over her with two glasses of wine. She almost laughed when she realized who it was.
“I thought that was you,” he said, seeming to savor the contrast between the casual words and the flattering intensity of the look he was giving her. She supposed his natural talent for sending mixed signals must be serving him well in his new life. “I was just grabbing a meeting with one of the personal shoppers here - my mom’s birthday is coming up. What brings you to the city?”
“Job hunting,” she said frankly, smiling a little tightly, “I’m sure you’ve heard that I’ve emancipated myself from Michael’s ‘family.’”
He liked that. “Yeah, and, seriously, Karen, good for you,” he said, cocking his head and offering her one of the drinks. “I mean that. You can definitely do better.”
Good Lord, he was obvious. She accepted the wine and hid her amusement in a sip, just letting her eyes crinkle a little at him over the glass. The clerk who was hovering nearby gave no sign of impatience; if anything, he looked more deferential. Clearly his practiced eye had seen the invisible price tag on everything Ryan was wearing, and upgraded her a bit by association. Ryan set his own glass on the floor and crouched easily in front of her chair, his hands clasped loosely between his knees.
“What happened there?” he asked, making his big long-lashed eyes go soft and attentive. “Seemed kind of sudden.”
“Things just didn’t work out. It wasn’t that sudden, actually,” she said easily. She had given the same non-explanations to a number of different people in the past weeks. “All the signs were there, I just didn’t want to see them.”
He nodded, and something real flickered in his eyes, behind the false tenderness.
“Listen, I’m supposed to meet some people at Element, but that’s not ‘til later,” he said. “You eaten yet? Let’s hit 40 Carrots.”
“40 Carrots? Are you serious?” she felt her face pulling into a smirk again, picturing him in his Canali suit, hunched over a frozen yogurt with Oreo crumbles.
“Le Train Bleu it is,” he said, undeterred. “No talk about anything Scranton-related.”
Looking down into his absurdly waifish eyes, she was tempted, and she wasn’t sure why. He was only maybe three years younger than she was, but promotion or not, it was impossible not to see him as a boy. Not a “bad boy,” exactly, but not a particularly nice one, either. She used to scorn him for it, smug in her supposedly grown-up relationship. So why was it now appealing to her?
Experimentally, she raised her right foot and planted the sleek gleaming shoe against his hard little chest, the deep color looking like blood or candy against his dark clothes. He smiled in his sphinxy way and wrapped his fingers around her ankle.
“Are you going to get these?” he asked, tickling her with the ball of his thumb. “Karen, you have to get these.” And she thought, what the Hell, it’s what credit cards are for.
She started kissing him in the taxi. They had drunk Sauternes at Le Train Bleu, and now she held the base of his head in both hands and tasted the sweetness on his lips and tongue. His hand hovered and then touched her - her shoulder, her hair, her waist - with surprising delicacy.
She was still tingling from her second orgasm when he started talking again. Incredibly, he seemed to be complaining about work, and how short-sighted his fellow executives were.
“Ryan? Please don’t tell me how much your job sucks,” she said, turning onto her side to face him.
“I’m not,” he replied, seeming genuinely surprised. “I’m just… You know, there’s so much that needs to change, but nobody has the balls to say it. No one really shares my vision. I’m working my ass off for something no one else can see, and don’t get me wrong, I love every minute of it, but…”
A shadow crossed his face. Then he looked at the clock.
“Um, Karen? I need to get ready to go, I guess.”
“You’re going to the club?” she demanded, “Now?”
“It’s just…I promised these guys, they’re expecting me, you know?”
“Right,” she said, wrapping the sheet around herself as she sat up.
“Are you mad? Karen, don’t be mad,” he said, moving to help her gather her clothes.
“I’m not mad,” she told him, and she wasn’t; mostly she was just keenly aware of the futility of using one person as a distraction from the pain left by another. She got dressed quickly, putting on her old, comfortable shoes to walk to Gina’s building. He walked her down, and at the door, took her hand and kissed her.
“You’re the sort of girl - woman - who’s got a vision of your own,” he said. “I’ve always sensed that about you. It’s why I feel comfortable talking to you about that sort of thing.”
She promised to call him.
As she headed up Fifth Avenue, she thought about what he had said, about wanting someone he could share visions with. It was bullshit, of course, but there was something behind it that seemed to be trying to show itself to her. She wondered if she wanted to see it.
A few people sat on the steps of the museum, and one bald old man watched her pass with bleary eyes.
“Pretty Mama, you shouldn’t be alone,” he said, and though she didn’t acknowledge him, the words seemed more like a wistful observation than a nasty come-on. Maybe it was his tone; he sounded more defeated than anything. “Don’t even know,” he muttered as she walked on. “Don’t want to know.”
All the signs were there, I just didn’t want to see them.
She remembered that she had used those same words when she told Andy about Jim dumping her, and he had said, “Is he really just a big douche, after all? I never wanted to believe that either.”
And she had laughed a little. But she said, “No. If he was just a douche, it wouldn’t be so damn sad.”
Author: bridgetmoon
Pairing: Karen/Ryan, refers to past Karen/Jim
Disclaimer: No infringement intended.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Karen didn't expect to run into Ryan - at Bloomingdale's, of all places - and she definitely didn't expect to be so tempted. Set between S3 and S4.
Warnings: None
Written for the Rare Pair Summer Exchange at ipod_ovenmitt.
There’s a saying that, for all its size, if you stay in New York long enough you will eventually run into everyone you know. But that didn’t prepare her to see Ryan Howard on the fourth floor of Bloomingdale’s. Which is probably why she failed to recognize him when, while trying to catch the attention of a shoe clerk, she became vaguely aware of someone watching her and took a quick glance at the mirrored wall. She only registered one of Manhattan’s endless supply of work-hard-play-hard boys, a little out of place on a women’s floor of Bloomie’s, but otherwise typical.
Karen had other things on her mind that evening, things that had her somewhat guiltily succumbing to the lure of retail therapy. She had spent the afternoon in another grindingly humiliating circuit of employment agencies, and was now putting off heading “home” to her college roommate’s studio couch. She tried to remind herself that it would have been the same if she had come to the city directly from Stamford, and never made that ill-fated detour for the sake of a man who was in love with someone else. And then she wondered what it said about the current state of her life that defining herself as a casualty of corporate downsizing was supposed to make her feel better.
Her former landlord had agreed to accept her few pieces of brand-new furniture in lieu of a penalty for breaking her lease; as a result, when she left Pennsylvania, the material evidence of her time on earth could be contained in the two suitcases she now had at Gina’s and a few boxes stowed in the back of her car. When they were fresh out of college, it would have been an adventure, but she couldn’t help suspecting that there was something depressing about a woman her age living this way, particularly when every morning she had to watch Gina leave for her analyst job in shoes that cost more than a month’s rent in Scranton.
So there she was, trying on some Stuart Weitzman pumps in a dark glossy red unlike anything she owned, when she looked up and there he was again, standing over her with two glasses of wine. She almost laughed when she realized who it was.
“I thought that was you,” he said, seeming to savor the contrast between the casual words and the flattering intensity of the look he was giving her. She supposed his natural talent for sending mixed signals must be serving him well in his new life. “I was just grabbing a meeting with one of the personal shoppers here - my mom’s birthday is coming up. What brings you to the city?”
“Job hunting,” she said frankly, smiling a little tightly, “I’m sure you’ve heard that I’ve emancipated myself from Michael’s ‘family.’”
He liked that. “Yeah, and, seriously, Karen, good for you,” he said, cocking his head and offering her one of the drinks. “I mean that. You can definitely do better.”
Good Lord, he was obvious. She accepted the wine and hid her amusement in a sip, just letting her eyes crinkle a little at him over the glass. The clerk who was hovering nearby gave no sign of impatience; if anything, he looked more deferential. Clearly his practiced eye had seen the invisible price tag on everything Ryan was wearing, and upgraded her a bit by association. Ryan set his own glass on the floor and crouched easily in front of her chair, his hands clasped loosely between his knees.
“What happened there?” he asked, making his big long-lashed eyes go soft and attentive. “Seemed kind of sudden.”
“Things just didn’t work out. It wasn’t that sudden, actually,” she said easily. She had given the same non-explanations to a number of different people in the past weeks. “All the signs were there, I just didn’t want to see them.”
He nodded, and something real flickered in his eyes, behind the false tenderness.
“Listen, I’m supposed to meet some people at Element, but that’s not ‘til later,” he said. “You eaten yet? Let’s hit 40 Carrots.”
“40 Carrots? Are you serious?” she felt her face pulling into a smirk again, picturing him in his Canali suit, hunched over a frozen yogurt with Oreo crumbles.
“Le Train Bleu it is,” he said, undeterred. “No talk about anything Scranton-related.”
Looking down into his absurdly waifish eyes, she was tempted, and she wasn’t sure why. He was only maybe three years younger than she was, but promotion or not, it was impossible not to see him as a boy. Not a “bad boy,” exactly, but not a particularly nice one, either. She used to scorn him for it, smug in her supposedly grown-up relationship. So why was it now appealing to her?
Experimentally, she raised her right foot and planted the sleek gleaming shoe against his hard little chest, the deep color looking like blood or candy against his dark clothes. He smiled in his sphinxy way and wrapped his fingers around her ankle.
“Are you going to get these?” he asked, tickling her with the ball of his thumb. “Karen, you have to get these.” And she thought, what the Hell, it’s what credit cards are for.
She started kissing him in the taxi. They had drunk Sauternes at Le Train Bleu, and now she held the base of his head in both hands and tasted the sweetness on his lips and tongue. His hand hovered and then touched her - her shoulder, her hair, her waist - with surprising delicacy.
She was still tingling from her second orgasm when he started talking again. Incredibly, he seemed to be complaining about work, and how short-sighted his fellow executives were.
“Ryan? Please don’t tell me how much your job sucks,” she said, turning onto her side to face him.
“I’m not,” he replied, seeming genuinely surprised. “I’m just… You know, there’s so much that needs to change, but nobody has the balls to say it. No one really shares my vision. I’m working my ass off for something no one else can see, and don’t get me wrong, I love every minute of it, but…”
A shadow crossed his face. Then he looked at the clock.
“Um, Karen? I need to get ready to go, I guess.”
“You’re going to the club?” she demanded, “Now?”
“It’s just…I promised these guys, they’re expecting me, you know?”
“Right,” she said, wrapping the sheet around herself as she sat up.
“Are you mad? Karen, don’t be mad,” he said, moving to help her gather her clothes.
“I’m not mad,” she told him, and she wasn’t; mostly she was just keenly aware of the futility of using one person as a distraction from the pain left by another. She got dressed quickly, putting on her old, comfortable shoes to walk to Gina’s building. He walked her down, and at the door, took her hand and kissed her.
“You’re the sort of girl - woman - who’s got a vision of your own,” he said. “I’ve always sensed that about you. It’s why I feel comfortable talking to you about that sort of thing.”
She promised to call him.
As she headed up Fifth Avenue, she thought about what he had said, about wanting someone he could share visions with. It was bullshit, of course, but there was something behind it that seemed to be trying to show itself to her. She wondered if she wanted to see it.
A few people sat on the steps of the museum, and one bald old man watched her pass with bleary eyes.
“Pretty Mama, you shouldn’t be alone,” he said, and though she didn’t acknowledge him, the words seemed more like a wistful observation than a nasty come-on. Maybe it was his tone; he sounded more defeated than anything. “Don’t even know,” he muttered as she walked on. “Don’t want to know.”
All the signs were there, I just didn’t want to see them.
She remembered that she had used those same words when she told Andy about Jim dumping her, and he had said, “Is he really just a big douche, after all? I never wanted to believe that either.”
And she had laughed a little. But she said, “No. If he was just a douche, it wouldn’t be so damn sad.”