Cheshire/Batman Pt. 05 The Chaser
By valucia
ALWAYS WANTS WHAT HE CAN'T HAVE...
Given its previous success, Bruce decided to make another one of his strategic middle-of-the-day dates. It was late Wednesday morning of the following week. He called her up and she told him to meet her at the gallery.
"I don't think you guys have met. Bruce, this is Ricardo. Ricardo, this is Bruce," Jada said, briefly stopping to introduce them on the way back to her office.
"Nice to meet you, Bruce. She hasn't stopped smiling since you met," Ricardo said, graciously slipping in a non-embarrassing comment. He could have easily revealed how much Jada talked about Bruce or how everyone liked him better than Ayano, but Ricardo happened to be tactful that day, to Jada's relief.
"Neither have I," Bruce said, making Jada beam. "Nice to meet you," he said, being dragged on through to her office.
"Would you like to come to a capoeira class with me sometime?
"
Jada asked after she closed the door. She was thinking it was time for him to meet Raquel. If he passed the first screening, she could move on to more introductions. But Raquel's was the most discerning opinion because she had the unique qualification of being the only person to really know about how awful her last relationship was.
"Oh, wow. Yeah. That would be cool," Bruce said, looking around at the various artwork on her walls. "I don't think I've ever seen it in person before. You've been doing it for years, right?"
"Since before I moved here. One of the
mestres
, Raquel, I've known her forever. She's one of my closest friends," she said, trying to adopt a nonchalant tone as she got her things together. "Besides, it's a really great workout. Everyone's really chill, they won't be gossiping about
Bruce Wayne
. You'll just be Jada's hot new friend."
Bruce noticed the opportunity to be called a boyfriend. Jada appeared pretty aloof. Which was good, because he wasn't sure if he was ready to talk about that yet. The lack of discourse on the subject was more due to his cold feet in regards to the whole Batman/Cheshire situation. The Bruce/Jada situation, that was going fine. He was trying to figure out if this relationship was good enough to go all in and tell her everything some day. If he became her boyfriend, wouldn't they be one step closer to eventually revealing his identity to her?
"I'm just your... arm candy, am I?" he said jokingly, leaning against her desk.
"My male bimbo. I guess so." she said, smiling and raising her eyebrows as she looked for her keys in her purse.
"How do you say 'boy toy' in Portuguese?" Bruce asked, leaning closer to her. She smelled really good. Most of his thoughts about her went well beyond friendly. It was kind of stupid to be referred to as a 'friend,' he decided.
"Why would I tell you that? Then we couldn't talk about you!" she grinned.
"You can call me your boyfriend if you want," he suggested. That was probably not a
huge
step, he justified. He wanted to keep seeing her and it had been a month now. "We both said we didn't like all the game-playing in dating. 'Boyfriend' is fine by me."
"Okay. Well, 'boy toy' is
brinquedinho
. And 'boyfriend' is
namorado,
" Jada said coyly. Internally, she was fluttering a little. She was always, always the first one to bring up this kind of stuff in a relationship. Yet, she was still hesitant to make this official. Why was it so fucking hard to trust men now? Was she broken? Or just careful?
"So, which am I?" he asked, consciously falling for her playing-hard-to-get act. He stood behind her desk with her and wrapped his arms around her waist.
"I guess you'll just have to listen very closely at the capoeira class and see what we call you," Jada deflected and then laughed.
Bruce loved that she was a little lukewarm towards him at times. The celebrities, the high-profile ladies-- they all loved being seen with a famous rich guy. He didn't want a woman who would give him whatever he wanted just because of his finances. It was true, a lot of aspects of his life were handed to him on a silver platter. It was fun to be the chaser instead of the chased. He wanted her to let him get to know her a bit more. The real her. That would give him some more information about their potential future.
Jada took Bruce to the zoo, bringing her sketch pad. Bruce felt strange going somewhere for no particular reason. It wasn't a mandatory gala. There wasn't a real goal in mind. It made him realize just how little socializing he had been doing these days.
They spent about an hour walking around the zoo and then settled on a sushi place for lunch. They had a long talk about Japan and were lingering at their table after the meal, staying for dessert. Another thing Bruce rarely did.
"That was great. And, now I have an idea for a new painting," Jada told him. "From the peacocks."
"We should go to my place, hang out for a while. Get dinner later. You could stay over tonight," he suggested over some green tea ice cream.
"Hmm... I don't have any pajamas at your house, Bruce," she pointed out purposefully, licking her spoon. Maybe she could get him to do something outside his comfort zone.
"Do you want to have pajamas at my house?" he asked.
"I wouldn't mind having pajamas at your house," she smiled slyly. "Look across the street," she instructed, looking at a storefront through the window behind him. Bruce turned and saw a store called
Herminie Renoir
. It was a French lingerie store. He turned back around and looked at Jada with a smirk that made him look reluctant.
"I won't try to boink you in the dressing room. I swear." she said, putting a hand over her heart and raising her right hand, which still had a spoon in it. Bruce still looked uncomfortable, but also like he thought she was being cute. Jada started negotiating. She wanted to do more fun sex stuff. The emotional closeness piece could wait.