Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Hookups And Hangups ❯ Chapter 2 ( Chapter 2 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Oh. My. God.

"We've met," Bulma growled, as Goku looked back and forth between the two blind dates, waiting for the hands and pleasantries to extend.

The man huffed, rolling his eyes to the side dismissively.

"Oh, really?" Goku exclaimed, addressing Bulma. "Great! Well then, you know Vegeta is a partner at Bardock Vejita and Sons, right? He was the top administrative and civil law litigator in West City, until they made him partner. Now he just gets to lean back in his cushy office chair and boss us around from the other side of the glass." He sent Vegeta a wink that may as well have traveled a great distance just to hit the man's hardened pout with a smack and fall gracelessly onto the floor, ignored.

"I'm still just a measly paralegal," Goku admitted good-naturedly, giving a gracious smile to Chi Chi, who squeezed his arm.

The treacherous witch. Bulma looked daggers at Chi Chi. She wasn't satisfied with running Bulma's life, no, she had to find her someone plucked from the lawyer pool again. Someone that rivaled Chi Chi’s own position of senior associate at Baba and Korin, where she had the pleasure of bossing around the large staff in the name of keeping the founder's pristine reputations. Eh, maybe she was being too hard on her best friend. Chi Chi only wanted the best for her. They just had...completely opposing definitions of what was good for her.

"And Vegeta, this is Bulma. She owns B's Dubs in the West Bottoms. It's a Volkswagen repair shop in the old manufacturing part of town!"

She had to applaud Goku's kindness. There was no trace of mockery in his introduction, only genuine, honest-to-goodness good will.

Vegeta, however, snorted loudly, rolling his eyes dramatically and sipping his scotch before turning his burning gaze elsewhere. "Delightful," he muttered dryly.

"We've been friends a long time," added Chi Chi, smile dripping with sweetness in hopes of reeling in Bulma's potential husband. Who was she kidding. If Chi Chi thought that this thing could work out between her and him, she needed to rethink Chi Chi's loyalty. Bulma sent her a dramatic scowl that Chi Chi ignored.

Vegeta responded to Chi Chi's histrionics by giving her a thoroughly dastardly smirk, an elegant eyebrow winging, which earned an almost comical frown from Chi Chi.

"Why don't we say hi to Paragus and Turles, Cheech, heh heh?" Goku suggested, already pulling Chi Chi away. "We've already ordered dinner for everyone, it should be here soon," he informed them with a broad smile.

"Just order drinks and get to know each other!" Chi Chi trilled, her eyes nearly squeezing shut with the wide smile she sent them even as Goku twirled her away, waving over her shoulder.

To Bulma's irritation, Vegeta spoke as soon as they turned away, glancing down with repulsion at her watered down Pepsi.

"Soda? Really? How quaint."

Bulma grit her teeth.

"Can I get you a refill?" A voice asked from across the bar, and she tried to unclench her jaw enough to smile politely at the bartender.

"A Long Island Iced Tea. In your biggest glass," she replied pleasantly. Well, it was an attempt at pleasantly. …A failed attempt.

"So you've now graduated to drunken sorority girl? Good to see evidence right before my eyes that evolution is making leaps and bounds in procuring the best and the very brightest in our industrial sector." He leaned his elbow on the bar and smiled at her devilishly. His voice was smoothly arrogant, dipping into his raspy, lower registers only when he was saying something particularly hurtful.

She glared at the bar in front of her and tried really, really hard not to swipe and hiss at the bastard like an angry wild cat.

"I'm going to need more than this to deal with you," she explained as the bartender sat down her glass, "you stuffy, pretentious, tight assed—"

"Ah, I see your use of the English language is as impressive as your ‘profession’—“

Bulma shoved her face under his. "Don't you dare patronize me, not until you hit puberty, short stack!"

"Puberty must have happened quite recently to you, yourself, given the way your buttons are popping at the seams," he whispered raspily in her face. "What, did you think you could fit into your skinny friend's clothes tonight? You might rethink your figure," he whispered, baring his teeth at her in a nasty smile.

"Ah, ha ha," Goku laughed awkwardly, loudly, from behind them. "Seems like you guys are already hitting it off. Great. That's...great."

"No, no!" Chi Chi laughed nervously, waving her hand in the air as if all this were a joke between friends. "Bulma's just, like that, you know, she has...a dry sense of humor!"

"Vegeta's sense of humor is as salty and desiccated as the results of my sexual dry patch," Nappa grumbled into his fourth scotch from beside them.

"Look, the server's here! He brought dinner! Sit down, sit down!" Chi Chi gestured at the table reserved beside them like a mother hen.

As Bulma sat in her seat, she felt her dates suit coat brush her arm, and she jolted, looking up to see him sit next to her, fixing her with a testy glower. Then he smiled impishly. "Oh good, look's like the waiter brought my steak dry and overdone," he crooned, "just like my date."

Bulma returned his unnerving mien and then turned her nose up, cutting her steak gracefully. Or at least, trying to.

"What a gentleman you are," she hummed softly. "He brought my steak bloody. Just like I like my men," she whispered harshly, swiveling her head sharply to give him a heated, hateful glare.

"So why don't we get to know each other a little bit," Chi Chi offered, smoothing her skirt as she sat and then fixing them with a demure smile. "Vegeta no'Ouji, why don't you start? I'm sure Bulma would be interested in hearing how you got into managing the Freeman case."

Bulma looked up at him sharply. "Excuse me? The Freeman case, between Congressman Freeman and Isaac Pressman?"

"Why, yes," he responded, smoothly cutting his steak. "I'm shocked to see that you are, indeed, literate."

Bulma, surprisingly, ignored the bait, quite serious for the first time tonight. "Of course I know about it. It's a case involving the gerrymandering of the neighborhood my business is in. If Freeman's very illegal manipulations are ignored, the levy passed for the neighborhood's renovation will fall through. Our rent and taxes will skyrocket, and all the good people who are self-employed in my neighborhood will lose their source of income and their homes. It's a matter that impacts a lot of helpless people," she explained urgently.

For the first time that night, Vegeta regarded her with an interest that went beyond how to best insult her. He cast a puzzled look at the little blue haired loud mouth from the corner of his eyes as the bite of steak delicately held by his fork hovered near his mouth. "Indeed." He bit off the steak with his teeth and prodded his summer squash with detached boredom, churning over his response. Finally, he shoved his fork through the veggies and his mouth twisted up in a smile. "But I'm heading the prosecution."

"What?!" Bulma screeched, loud enough to silence the tables around them.

Vegeta couldn't help but give a small smile as he popped the grilled squash in his mouth.

"Why on Earth would you do that?" She hissed frenziedly, fixing him with an intense blue stare from under her fallen curls.

His eyebrows cocked, barely looking at her out of the corner of his eyes. "Why not?"

"Because you're using your power for evil! You're playing for the bad guys. That's why!" She yelled sincerely, Chi Chi's hands turning nervously in her lap at the scene her friend was making, as Goku regarded Bulma with befuddled concern. "What kind of lawyer does that?"

Vegeta looked at her strangely.

Vegeta's eyes flicked over the other couple.

Had Goku set him up with a total idiot?

"Because that's my job," he said slowly, as if talking to a toddler. "I'm a lawyer."

"Oh, fuck off, you geriatric overdressed indistinguishable twit," she sneered, as Chi Chi and Goku stared in horror and Vegeta's eyebrows fell into a glower that promised doom, his chiseled jaw tightening in waspish offense. Bulma barely had the time to bask in the satisfaction from it, what with all the pure disgust she was feeling at the moment. For this man, for her friends. "There's a special place in Hell for Axe-cologne wearing, self-interested attorneys like you."

"Goku," Vegeta snarled, his head snapping toward his co-worker. "Why in the Hell did you set me up with this lunatic?"

"Ummmm," Goku stared at them, slack jawed.

Chi Chi's salad fork drooped in front of her parted mouth and was starting to lose some of its bits of cheese and bacon.

"Because my 'friend' here wanted me to fall in love and marry you you sick disgusting crusher of disadvantaged people's hopes and dreams," Bulma snarled. "This is probably the worst date you've ever set me up on, Cheech, and you have certainly put me through one after another. I trusted you." Chi Chi's face paled as Bulma thrust her napkin onto the table. "Well, I mean, I didn't really believed I'd like anyone you set me up with, but I at least trusted that I could peacefully ignore them and make you happy. And where the hell are the nachos?" Bulma slammed her hand on the table before standing up, wrenching her coat from the back of her chair. "Thanks a lot. It's been a real pleasure," she issued snidely, tugging on her coat backwards, before flipping it around with frustration.

"Great. Let's do this again sometime." Vegeta's sarcasm was evident.

"Ughhhhh," Bulma growled, before grabbing her tall glass of spiked iced tea and, to the shock of everyone at the surrounding tables, downed it in one go, throat bobbing rhythmically, breasts heaving slightly under the buttons of a severely stressed blouse. As the dregs of the alcohol were swallowed, she slammed the mug down on Vegeta's plate with a crash and strode to the door. She wasn't at all trying to be overly dramatic. Oh no, she was simply furious.

“Bulma—“ she heard Chi Chi call in the unsettling quiet of the restaurant.

Bulma swiveled, threw her arms up in the air and walked the rest of the way to the door backwards on wobbly heels.

"No," she announced. "I'm out. PEACE." She backed into a table, spilling some guest's wine.

"What the hell, lady—"

"Fuck you," Bulma sniped, pointing at the indignant, sharp-dressed man whose date, certainly half his age, stared at her incredulously under a thick layer of makeup. "I'm a mechanic."

And that's when Bulma turned and walked out the door.

"That was the fire exit," Chi Chi said weakly. "I tried to tell her."

Chi Chi and Goku's eyes slid sideways toward Vegeta.

Vegeta began shaking his head vehemently. "Oh, no," he protested, "no way. I am not going out there. I look forward to never speaking to that walking tragedy again."

"You're the one who made this mess," Chi Chi accused him, raising her voice. "You should be the one to clean it up!"

"She's the mess. And...and you—" He pointed at Goku and then Chi Chi, deeply not appreciating being given responsibility of this. "You're the ones who set this disaster up."

At Chi Chi's hard, flat stare, Vegeta sighed sulkily, scowling. Not even he was immune to Chi Chi's talents.

"Fine," he barked, standing. "But I want nothing else to do with the nutcase. And after this, I'm going home, and you'll pay for this by paying for this wretched dinner."

He slammed the chair into the table, turning to follow her path of destruction towards the fire exit and glowering at anyone who dared to look at him.

Chi Chi and Goku watched the man stride across and open the door roughly before the door closed slowly behind him.

"Goku," Chi Chi intoned softly, "I don't know if this is your worst or best idea."

The couple gave each other harried stares.

///

Vegeta let out a gravelly sigh as the cold air hit him like a wall and the door shut behind him. A flash of blue caught his eye, and he turned to his left, where, to his exasperation, the nutty woman was climbing on to the fire escape and slowly making her way down. He found himself striding towards her, a sour expression marking his face. "What the hell are you doing?"

Bulma jumped when she heard him and stopped her descent to look up. "I'm getting out of here," she replied defensively.

"And you couldn't use the front door?"

"Um, the door locks from the outside," she explained sheepishly.

Vegeta went stiff with alarm.

"I tried to get back in when I realized this was the wrong door," she explained in an even smaller voice.

Vegeta whipped around to stare at the innocuous wooden door. His eyes bulged. Now he was stuck out on this terrace? With her?!

"You've got to be kidding me. What a farce," he snarled.

"Why are you out here anyway? It's not like I asked you to come out here," she snapped, brows furrowing, fists clenching on the ladder.

"I don't want to be here," he retorted petulantly, eyes sliding away self-consciously.

She smirked. Chi Chi had gotten to him. Seemed he wasn't as immovable as he liked to appear. "Want a little cheese with that whine?"

His attention snapped back onto her. "I'm not the one stuck out on the third floor fire escape ladder in the middle of January in heels." This time he grinned predatorily.

Her eyes narrowed. "Now I remember why I left." As if to prove her point, she started her way back down with a firm stomp...only for the fire escape steps underneath her to give way and tumble to the ground below her. Bulma let out a frightened shriek and gripped the cold metal for dear life.

"Someone should really have tightened those fucking bolts!" She screamed, legs kicking in the air.

Vegeta jerked his hand out to her.

"I'll fall!" She wailed, eyes watering in the frigid wind.

"You'll fall anyway." His face was screwed with both concern and a new, amused exasperation.

She swung her legs under her, her knees finding purchase against the very last step before it just gave way to empty space. "You're an asshole! Why would I trust you? You'll probably let me go!" The metal grating was biting into her knees, the ladder swaying slightly in the breeze.

Vegeta's eyes rolled upwards and he sneered, though not unattractively. "Just give me your hand, you fatalistic, poor-excuse-for-a-dramatic-exit-giving wacko!"

Bulma's arm shot out, and she angrily slipped her hand into his and gripped tightly. "I hate you," she growled as he pulled her up, as she, for the moment, relied on his strength and common decency to save her from the thirty foot fall. He yanked her up with surprising ease, and she helped him push herself the rest of the way before falling against him and letting out a breath, craning her neck upwards to look into his eyes. He's not that short, her stupid, terrified brain thought absently.

"Thanks," she murmured, before he loosed his grip on her, and she tucked her hair behind her ears as it whipped her face. She caught the faint scent of his laundry detergent and deodorant, an agreeable blend of fresh cotton and the gunpowder musk of a saloon.

"You're pathetic," he commented dryly.

Her expression grew stormy. "And you," she seethed, poking him in the shoulder, surprisingly firm under her finger, "you are much more human than I anticipated. My gratitude remains," she said cooly, before stepping away and crossing her arms over her chest. "How are we going to get back inside? No one can hear us knock."

"Woman, you are too much trouble," he found himself sighing, but not without a small amount of begrudging humor.

"I have a name," she huffed.

"What, Totally Foolish? Entirely Mental? Thoroughly Cracked?"

She let out a little frustrated shriek and stomped to the other side of the terrace as far away from him as she could manage on the wide walkway, glancing back at him malevolently before leaning her butt against the railing and slipping her heels off one by one. The pavement was shockingly cold against her hosed feet, and as Vegeta's face screwed with irritated puzzlement, Bulma hurled the shoes off the balcony, one by one.

"Hey, you!" She hollered down. Vegeta grew a look of horror as the small blue haired woman leaned forward over the rail and hollered at passersby. "Hey! We need help! We're stuck up here!" In an effort to be heard, the woman leaned her body even further out over the railing, and Vegeta moved to grab her by her arm and jerk her back upright.

"Are you insane?" He roared.

"I'm strategizing! It's more than you can say, just standing there!"

"Look!" He pointed at the corner of the terrace, where another fire escape ladder hung inconspicuously.

"Woohoo!" Bulma pumped her fist excitedly and shuffled over to the ladder sans shoes. "Chi Chi's going to kill me when she learns her designer shoes are kaput," she muttered.

"I'll go first," Vegeta volunteered with irritation.

"Is that how the adage goes? Gentlemen first?" Bulma remarked wryly.

"I figure if you go first, the chances of you hurting yourself are off the charts. I'm just mitigating my chances of being slapped with a lawsuit.”

Bulma regarded him flatly.

“And that way,” he added with enthusiasm, “I can see your face when I reach out to catch you, but retract my arm back," he smiled twistedly, "and say 'Sike.'" He leered.

"Just go already," she ordered, shooing him towards the ladder. As he stepped onto the ladder a lot more gracefully than she had, she followed, frowning. "And you better not try to peek up my skirt."

He stopped to look up at her with hot contempt.

"Although I don't know how that's possible," she muttered. "I can barely walk in it."

The frigid wind ruffled his upwards spiking hair as he regarded her darkly. "Not interested," he hissed.

"Well me either," she sniffed, watching him advance down the ladder until there was enough room for her to join him.

The two carefully made their way down the rickety ladder against the cranberry night sky, a few raindrops splatting against their hands and cheeks. "My hands are getting numb," Bulma whined, before the heel of her foot hit something soft and warm.

"Woman!" She heard him snap from below, and she looked down as Vegeta swatted her foot away from his shoulder. "Hold on!"

"What's the hold up?" She complained, staring at the top of his head as he angled his body to look down. They were about to the second floor now, their ladder hanging from a wall that adjoined another terrace, this one dark and abandoned just below them.

She had the strangest urge to touch his hair. Delicately, she reached out with her toes and ran them over the top fringes of his hair, regretting the hose that stood between her bare feet and his soft, thick hair. He swatted her foot away. She smiled.

"Will you stop just for a minute?" He was really focused on something.

"What are you—?"

"Oh shit," she heard him say from below her.

"What?" She barely had time to ask before he was scrambling back up. "What's going on?" She squeaked as he climbed up behind her, pressing his chest against her back and knocking the air out of her, coming to stand on the stair just underneath her.

"There's a drug deal going on down there. What kind of neighborhood did you bring me to," he griped, looking harried.

Her mouth parted in a slow, smug smile as she regarded him from over her shoulder, the poor guy trying his hardest to hang on to the ladder but keep his distance from her. A few tumbling chuckles escaped her. "Oh, you sad, naive, privileged rich kid. It's probably just some kid buying this week's weed—"

Two gun shots rang out, buffering the brick walls and echoing fiercely around them, causing a ringing in their ears as they stared at each other in the pulsing light of gun fire with alarm. There was shouting and scuffling from just below them. Their hearts hammered in their chest.

They stood rigidly against one another as the sound of men arguing preceded the slam of doors and pounding footsteps before the ladder trembled and clanged with the weight of another person below them. Vegeta and Bulma's eyes never left the other's as they felt the person below them descend quickly down the ladder, waiting for him to look up, to spot them. But before they knew it, the ladder clattered and shook as the person jumped off at the bottom and sprinted across the street. There was more gunfire across the street as the man disappeared into the shadows between buildings, and then the wail of sirens in the distance.

Bulma watched the shadows across the street with wide eyes, clenching the ladder, but the sirens seemed to wake Vegeta from the spell of terror. He scrambled down the ladder, leaving Bulma to gape after him.

“What—“

"Hurry up before the cops get here! I'm not getting my license revoked because you're an idiot."

Bulma's eyebrows shot upwards and she didn't ask anymore questions, climbing after him quickly. The descent was much easier without heels as both the sirens and the rain opened upon them. She felt the ladder shake and lighten as Vegeta jumped off the last few feet, and she hopped down after him, landing jarringly upright and with an unflattering, "Ooph."

He pivoted, trying to locate the front door of the building, but another shot was fired, this one ricocheting off something close enough to create sparks against the brick wall beside them.

Bulma squealed before he tugged her in the opposite direction, deeper into the alley. They raced through the dark, oxfords and feet slapping against the pavement as the sky opened up a deluge and blue and red lights finally coursed through the alley behind them, growing dimmer as Bulma and Vegeta came out the other side of the alley, right into the middle of a busy street. A few cars slammed on their brakes and laid on their horns, and they flinched, before Bulma snatched his hand, pulling him across the rest of the street. "C'mon!" She threw her arms over her head to protect against the rain and raced forward down the city sidewalk, looking back every few seconds to make sure the stubborn man was following.

He took long strides behind her, too prideful to run, his white tailored shirt damp and translucent against his skin. She hopped up the steps of a stoop and searched frantically in her coat pocket for her keys, feeling his presence finally behind her, his chest brushing her back as he tried to get out of the rain and under the enclave. Just as she was getting seriously impatient, the old knob turned and they spilled inside the dark foyer of the renovated apartment complex, Vegeta shutting the door firmly behind them as soon as they cleared the entryway.

They both thrust their fingers into the blinds of the nearest window and peeked outside. No cops or criminals lingered behind, only a curtain of rain that looked as if it were melting the street lights with its weight.

The blinds snapped closed as they both let out a relieved breath and looked at one another. Vegeta's long thick hair lay flattened in thick tufts against his head, and Bulma's own curly hair was already starting its frizzy rebellion.

She was the first to let out a chuckle, and Vegeta smirked at her, letting out a delicate, disbelieving snort.

"Come on," she ordered, still smiling, walking towards the elevator, the gold doors opening benevolently for them as they neared. An older gentleman exited, and the sight of him broke the spell between them as they shuffled awkwardly into the elevator. Bulma pressed button '4' and rung out her long hair, water splatting against the elevator carpet.

Vegeta cast her a scathing look, and she rolled her eyes at him. "Can you possibly be even more uptight?" She complained.

"Why are you such a barbarian?" He snapped back. "Were you raised by wolves?"

She rested her hands on her hips as she watched the elevator numbers slowly climb.

"Why would Goku even like you," she mused.

"Perhaps he recognizes a superior when he sees him."

She huffed.

She couldn't believe it, but she...she might be growing used to his snide commentating. It was losing its power to get under her skin. Instead, she was beginning to relish it, as it blossomed into a unique game between them.

"That explains why he paired you up with me, then." She smiled sweetly. "Chi Chi has been trying for almost two years now to find my equal."

"Two years and still no match?" He tucked his hands into his wet suit jacket and smiled venomously down at her. "It sounds to me like you're a lost cause," he suggested.

The elevator came to a stop jerkily and the old doors opened with a hard woosh, and Vegeta stepped out, smirking over his shoulder at her as she tried to come up with someway to explain how it wasn't a personal failing that she didn't have a man in her life.

She stepped out of the elevator, her mouth gaping like a fish, and finally she huffed, sauntering past him with as much dignity as she could muster before freeing the keys from her pocket and sliding the key into her door.

Time enough to tilt his head to to the side and wring out his own hair. He shook his head of the rest of the moisture and looked up to see the woman smiling back at him, entertained, and he swiftly caught up to her, hiding a faint blush with a glower.

She wouldn't let it go. "You know," she mused, and he cut her a look that just dared her to go there.

She did. "Even after a hard rain, it still stands up. How much hairspray do you go through a week, honestly?"

A growl recoiled from his chest, and for an instant, he lost his self control, waving his hands wildly around his head. "It just does this, okay?!"

She let out the first sincere laugh she'd had all night and opened the door, flicking on the light and stepping in. She shut the door lightly after he stomped through the doorway, and he took in the modern, tidy apartment with barely concealed surprise. He was expecting more...cars on cinder blocks.

"Let me get you a towel and an umbrella. I think Goku might have some clothes here that you could borrow. But that's just between me and you." Her voice became muffled as she trailed into a bedroom at one end of the spacious front room. "Chi Chi's father is still a devout Catholic, so as far as he knows, Chi Chi and Goku have only gotten as far as holding hands."

She strode back out with a pile of clothes and two oversized towels against her chest, setting them on the couch. "I could use a drink. I really wasn't expecting to be in the middle of a gun fight tonight. You?"

"What is this, Compton?" He shrugged out of his wet suit jacket, tugging the clinging, heavy sleeves off each arm.

"This is a very nice neighborhood," she protested from the kitchen, where, dripping onto the tile, she reached up on her tippy toes and grabbed two shot glasses from the shelf of a cupboard. She uncorked an extra large bottle of premium vodka and poured them generously. "In fact, I'm pretty sure the only reason we live here is because Chi Chi was convinced it was the only place worthy of a woman so dignified as she." Bulma snorted.

"Social climber," she heard Vegeta mutter snarkily from the living room.

"You know, if she wasn't already spoken for, I'd say that Chi Chi was more your type of woman." She walked into the living room carrying both their drinks and the bottle squished between her breast and her forearm, swallowing as she saw him toss his tie on the couch, his tailored shirt unbuttoned at the neck, the cut of his compact waist tapering into his pants surprisingly dashing. She turned her gaze quickly toward the coffee table, where she sat the drinks, hiding a blush that his deep brown eyes caught. He watched her down her drink and then reach her hand up her skirt, yanking the tops of her thigh hi's down.

"What kind of woman do you think I like?" He asked playfully, watching her tug the remaining hose off her dirty feet, his lingering gaze becoming a little frown as he glimpsed her unexpectedly muscular thighs.

"I'm just saying that both you and Chi Chi are...arrogant and hard to please," she finished, difficultly.

"That woman is not my type."

"Funny, that's how I feel about you." She smiled with barely contained glee at the jab.

He looked at her flatly before falling to the couch with a huff, giving the glasses a glance, his tailored trousers rising just enough over his ankles for her to note his pristine leather shoes. Gack.

"You are not my type in the slightest," he huffed, his nose in the air, before rolling his head against the couch to look at her with a smirk. "I like my women way less loud. Preferably with a commitment that only lasts as long as the morning. Now give me that glass."

She couldn't help but smile at him, tucking her legs under her butt, their wet clothes temporarily forgotten.

She handed him his drink, pouring herself another as he downed his shot. She immediately refilled him.

"Let me guess: you like fancy women.” He raised his eyebrow at her, but she was already feeling the warmth of the vodka, reigniting the remnants of the buzz from the Long Island that had evaporated with the scare on the fire escape. "Women with expensive jewelry and designer handbags and implants. Women that flatter you.” She rolled her eyes dramatically at the thought.

He shrugged. "I like a woman that takes care of herself."

"Hey, I take care of myself. I shaved for the first time in two months for this date."

She smiled into her glass as he nearly choked on his second drink.

"What you're refraining from saying is that the women you're into are gold diggers," she continued.

"I don't allow women close enough to touch my money." He held out his glass demandingly for a refill, and she refilled it with a moue.

"You're a real prick," she commented.

He gave her a warm smirk, before gulping down his third shot. He leaned forward and placed the glass on the glass coffee table, the hard muscles in his side flexing under his damp shirt, and he sat back, tucking his hands under his head casually. "And you're a nutcase."

"I'd rather be a nutcase than some woman pining for some shallow, rich man's attention every night," she said seriously, refilling her own glass as he gazed at her out of the corner of his eyes. "What is this, slouching?" She gestured at his nearly impeccable posture. "You never fail to surprise me, rich kid." She stood up and made her way back into the kitchen.

He smirked. "The quality of this vodka and class of your decor has me quite surprised," he called out.

"Don't be. It's all Chi Chi's doing. If you think this is nice, you should see my room. Although the vodka is mine. Cheech is more of a strawberry daiquiri and hard lemonade kind of gal." Bulma made a face of distaste as she peered inside the fridge, the chilly air reminding her that she needed to get out of her wet clothes. "Just because I'm blue collar doesn't mean I can't have good taste," she muttered.

"You certainly had me fooled." He smiled broadly, canines glinting, the only indication he was feeling relaxed. Bulma missed it, her head in the fridge.

"Don't you get enough arguing while you're at work?"

"What can I say, it's my bread and butter."

She snorted next to the milk jug, then froze as she felt him at her back.

"What you got in there?" He breathed behind her. She looked over her shoulder slowly to see him peering into the fridge.

She stifled a laugh. "Are you hungry? Just say so."

"What are you going to cook me?" He grinned, and she noticed he was gripping the bottle of vodka, a significant portion of it gone.

"I'm not cooking you anything," she replied incredulously, making sure to send him a critical look after glancing at his trophy hold on the alcohol. "I don't cook. I can hardly pour a bowl of cereal."

"Just like you can barely locate an exit?"

Her mouth parted, her brows drawing together. "Not all of us are as perfect as you. Your highness."

"That I am," he smiled down at her heatedly, his proximity to her making her skin prickle. Or maybe it was the standing in front of the fridge bit.

"I can think of a few things you could improve on," she retorted, turning into him and trying her best to look like she wasn't the least bit aware of the way he was looking at her. Cool us off, fridge.

"Like what?"

The liquor was definitely doing its job, because he was much more tolerable when liquored up. When she was liquored up. Whatever.

"You know, you're actually kind of cute," she said, before clapping her hand over her mouth. "I didn't mean that."

He pried her hand from her mouth delicately, before his smug, upwards curving smile pressed, warm and rich, against the corner of her mouth.

"I think you did," she felt him say against her skin.

"Are you going to cook me something?" She squeaked.

His hand slid hot and inviting over her jaw, and he angled her face up to his. "What are you hungry for?"

"Pancakes. Tacos. Green beans. I don't know do you like to cook?" She tittered nervously, trying to stop whatever it was between them that she knew was sliding swiftly out of her hands.

"I love to cook," he admitted huskily, before kissing her softly on the mouth. "Just tell me what you want, and I'll get right on it. I find it hard to back down from a challenge." He looked up at her from his eyelashes, and she was struck by the genuine heat there and the pool of warmth it generated in her belly.

"Where's your smart mouth now," he whispered into her parted mouth.

"I'll show you smart mouth," she growled, before grabbing the collar of his shirt and pressing her lips to his for a long moment.

She pulled away to regard him with amusement. "Why aren't you running away yet?” She chided, testing his consent by running her palm over his jaw down his strong neck, where his shirt gaped open. She fingered the first button, and it slid out of its coop, revealing the beginning of a hard chest underneath.

"I'd rather stay," he murmured assuredly.