Eye of the Beholder

Author’s Notes: Thank you Christina, onewing, blue_lioness, amh and Desiree for your reviews. You guys are the best.

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“Oh God, please tell me Bobbi didn’t just walk in the door,” she moans as she drops her face into her hand.

“Not the she-slut, the he-slut,” he clarifies quietly.

“Great, just what I need right now,” she groans. “Has he spotted us yet?”

“Yup and he’s headed this way,” he warns.

“Lovely,” she grumbles under her breath.

“There you are,” Jeff growls a few moments later.

“Wow, how incredibly perceptive of you, Jeff,” she replies with false cheerfulness as she looks up at her ex-boyfriend. “I guess you won’t be needing that trip to the ophthalmologist after all. So, how is Bobbi?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Jeff snarls leaning towards her. “Thanks to you, that stupid little cunt gave me crabs.”

“I hardly see how you getting a sexually transmitted disease is my fault,” she responds, an amused look on her face.

“Well, if you had put out, maybe I wouldn’t have been doing your roommate,” Jeff snaps.

“And there are those two little words again that make these conversations so much fun,” she points out with a grin. “‘If’ and ‘maybe’. If I had thrown my morals out the window to slack your carnal lust, than maybe you would have stayed faithful. You’ll excuse me if that doesn’t inspire great faith in me in your ability to keep it in your pants. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we were having a private conversation.”

“Now you listen here, bitch!” Jeff yells as the manager comes hurrying over.

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” the manager insists. “I cannot allow you to harass our patrons.”

“You can’t kick me out, I’m having dinner with my friends,” Jeff tells the man as he plops down in Hank’s seat and Doug’s eyebrows threaten to become one with his hairline.

“Would you please explain to me why I would want to have dinner with an ex-boyfriend?” she asks, one eyebrow arched while the manager hovers nearby.

“I’d bet you’d rather be having dinner with your big, blue ape,” Jeff says in a disgusted tone of voice. “I’ve seen the pictures of you sucking face with him. Bet you spread your legs for him. Bet you two do it doggie style, too.”

“I’m going to ask you this nicely only once, Jeff,” she states, eyes narrowed and just barely holding onto her anger. “Will you please leave?”

“Make me,” he sneers.

“Gladly,” snarls a deep voice just behind the intruder.

Before Jeff can react, a pair of long arms with blue, furry hands, reaches around the man and picks him and the chair he’s sitting in up. Hank easily lifts his occupied seat and marches across the restaurant where the manager waits for them with the front door open, Jeff yelling his protests all the way. Hank steps out into the cold night air, upturns the chair, dumping Jeff out onto the sidewalk and then marches back to the table.

“You might want to sit in the other chair now,” Doug suggests when Hank returns. “After all, Jeff did admit to having crabs.”

“Very good advice,” Hank agrees as he replaces the chair he’s carrying, moves around the table and sits down. “Though, truthfully, there’s no way I could contract a STD from sitting in the same chair as an infected person.”

“Yeah, but there’s the whole, ‘eww, ick’ thing to worry about,” Doug points out.

“True,” Hank nods in agreement as turns to see Amanda furiously sketching away. “What are you drawing now?”

“You giving Jeff a ride,” she tells him without bothering to look up. “The look on his face was priceless.”

“At this point there’s no point in talking to her,” Doug tells Hank. “Once she gets drawing, she’s pretty much useless.”

“Am not,” she mutters back as the server arrives with their dinners and she barely looks up.

There’s a minor amount of disruption as the plates are sorted out as the food is served and she takes a couple of bites before going back to her drawing. Hank watches her, slightly amused by her absolute concentration on that piece of paper. The slight frown on her face as she works is, in his opinion, adorable and it takes a great deal of will power not to just grab her and kiss her.

“Don’t bother trying to talk to her,” Doug says as he stuffs a French fry in his mouth. “You can say whatever you want and all she’ll do is make these noises like she’s pretending to listen.”

“You must be joking,” Hank scoffs as he takes a bite of his dinner.

“Observe,” Doug replies before turning his attention to the woman across the table from him. “Amanda, sugar?”

“Hmm?” she hums in response.

“Hank and I are having an affair,” Doug states in all seriousness and Hank’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise.

“Uh-huh,” she mumbles back, not looking up from her drawing and Hank’s not sure which of the two just shocked him more.

“Your sister’s decided to come out of the closet,” Doug continues, trying to keep a smile off of his face. “She’s leaving her husband and joining an all girl’s biking gang. She’s going to make money doing poll dancing at strip clubs.”

“Uh-huh,” she repeats.

“Your parents are Satanists and have orgies at their house once a week,” Doug says, a small snicker managing to escape his lips.

“Uh-huh,” she echoes.

“Incredible,” Hank murmurs in stunned surprise. “Nothing you say gets her attention?”

“Not a thing,” Doug chuckles. “It doesn’t matter how outrageous it is either. She’s off in her own little world right now. You try it.”

“You think I should?” Hank asks, a bit uncertain.

“Yeah, go for it,” Doug encourages. “The worse that’ll happen is that she’ll grunt at you.”

“Are you sure?” Hank questions nervously.

“Yeah, go ahead,” Doug replies with a wave of his hand.

Hank watches Amanda for a while, her pencil furiously flying over the paper making little scratching sounds as it goes. Her meal sits off to one side as the pad is taking the space the plate would normally occupy and every once and a while, she takes a bite of her food. She’s completely oblivious to him staring at her, admiring the way the light reflects off of her black tresses and the smoothness of her skin. He briefly wonders what such a beautiful woman would see in him and then he blurts out the first thing that comes to his mind.

“I love you. Will you marry me?”

SNAP!

“Ok, that got her attention,” Doug states in surprise several silent seconds later.

She stares unseeingly at the ruined picture in front of her, her broken pencil hangs uselessly from her nerveless fingers. She can barely breathe and she wants to swallow, but she can’t since her mouth is completely dry. She can feel her heart pounding against her ribs and she’s fairly sure that for the first time in her life she’s actually going to faint.

“Amanda, I…,” Hank starts.

“I, um, need to use the, uh, restroom,” she interrupts as she quickly stands up.

She’s so abrupt in her departure she doesn’t notice that she’s knocked over her chair or the pad of paper and the broken pencil have fallen to the floor. Hank carefully picks up the dropped and knocked over items, putting them back in their proper places. He glances at the paper she had been working on to see an outline of him lifting Jeff and the chair and in the middle of the work, a big gouge where she stabbed the pencil into the pad as she broke her pencil.

“Uh, Hank, remember what I said the other week about her going into this relationship too fast?” Doug nervously asks as Hank stares worriedly in the direction Amanda went.

“I believe I owe her an apology,” Hank states as he stands up. “I’m going to go check on her.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” Doug softly replies as he worriedly chews on his lip while watching the other man leave.

A few moments later Hank finds himself standing in the hallway that leads to the bathrooms. He catches Amanda’s scent and it ends at the door to the lady’s restroom so he knows she didn’t sneak out the back door. He takes up a position against the wall waiting for her and trying to stay out of the way as other customers come down the hall to use the facilities.

She emerges a few minutes later and he can see that her eyes are a bit puffier than they had been, the hair around her face is a bit damp and her makeup has been reapplied. She seems a bit surprised to see him standing there and they stand there staring at each other for several seconds before one of the other diners needs to get past them. After the man passes them, she doesn’t look back up at him, but she doesn’t move away either.

“I’m sorry,” he finally says. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I know that in this day and age people treat marriage as if it’s no more important than buying a pair of shoes,” she quietly states, staring at a spot off to the side. “But when I get married, I want it to be for life. The first time you joked about asking me to marrying you, I kind of understood, but this time…”

“Was less than sensitive of me, I can understand that and I do apologize,” he replies as he reaches out and gently strokes her cheek with the back of his fingers. “I swear to you that if I ever ask you to marry me again, it will be with ring in hand and on bended knee.”

“That’s both reassuring and frightening all at the same time,” she tells him as she captures the hand caressing her cheek with her own and then rubs her face against his fingers.

“For both of us,” he assures her just before leaning over and kissing her.

The sound of someone dropping something in the kitchen brings reality crashing back to them a lot sooner than they’d like and the kiss ends. He pulls her into a brief hug before he starts to gently guide her back to the table. As soon as they come into sight, a look of relief comes over Doug’s face just before he gives them a giant grin.

“I was beginning to think I was going to have to send out a search party,” Doug teases as they retake their seats.

“A thousand comedians out of work in New York City and he’s trying to be funny,” Amanda scoffs while Hank scoots her chair in for her, causing the ambassador to chuckle.

“Fine, be that way,” Doug pouts. “See if I share any of my movies with you.”

“I have movies of my own, thank you,” she points out while she pulls her plate in front of her.

“Yeah, in a box that’s taped shut with the word ‘FAMILY ROOM’ written on the side,” Doug reminds her and she groans.

“Brat,” she grumbles as she stabs her food with her fork.

“So, what do you have to say?” Doug asks, continuing in his tormenting.

“What type of toppings do you want on your sundae?” she mutters just before cramming her fork into her mouth.

“Not quite what I had in mind, but it’ll do,” he replies as he pulls out three square envelopes with what appear to be discs in them out of the inside pocket of his jacket. “So, we’ve got…”

“Wait,” she interrupts before turning towards Hank who’s been quietly eating this whole time. “Would you care to join us?”

“Doing what?” Hank asks after swallowing.

“Well, after dinner, Doug and I normally go back to my place, watch a movie and I make sundaes for dessert,” she tells him and she can feel butterflies starting to flutter in her tummy. “Would you like to join us?”

“Well, if Doug doesn’t mind,” Hank hesitantly replies.

“Heck, no, I don’t mind,” Doug assures him before getting a sly look on his face. “In fact, if you two pick the right movie, I might just have an emergency arise so I have to leave early. That way you two can have some, ahem, alone time.”

“You’d miss out on one of my sundaes?” she asks, trying to ignore the fact that her face is beet red and she can see out of the corner of her eye that Hank isn’t doing much better.

“Oh, don’t worry, my problem won’t develop until after dessert,” Doug grins.

“Naturally,” she states in a flat voice.

“So, what movie do you want to watch?” Doug asks as he holds up the envelopes. “I have My Big Fat Greek Wedding.”

Four narrowed eyes give Doug his answer.

“Ok, not that one,” Doug mutters as he flips that envelope to the bottom of the stack. “How about Phantom of the Opera?”

“NO!” is the emphatic answer from both of them causing Doug to jump.

“Ok, ok, I get the hint,” Doug hurriedly replies. “That leaves V for Vendetta.”

“After putting up with my family for a week, I could definitely use a little mayhem right now,” she admits.

“Me as well,” Hank agrees.

“I’ve got to remember to put more romances in my Netflix queue,” Doug mumbles as he puts the movies away. “Ok, blood shed and buildings blowing up it is.”

“Sounds like fun,” she states with a smile. “So, how was your Thanksgiving?”

“Ok,” Doug answers. “At least my cousin is still on speaking terms with me. Her apartment’s really tiny and she’s not the best cook in the world, but we managed and it was still better than spending it alone. Maybe next year we’ll have it at my place.”

“How many were there?” she asks.

“Her, her partner, their daughter and me,” Doug responds. “The estrogen in that apartment could have choked a horse, but it was ok.”

“Her partner still giving you grief?” she questions.

“Naturally,” Doug sighs. “You’d think that it was my fault that most of the men she’s known have been jerks. Luckily their daughter is old enough to tell her to stop being a twit.”

“She actually called her mother a twit?” she inquires in shock.

“No, she called her a bitch, I was just trying to be polite,” Doug answers.

“Ooh, teenage girls, gotta love ‘em or else you’d kill ‘em,” she moans in sympathy.

“Isn’t that the truth,” Doug chuckles before turning to the third member of their party. “So now that we’ve hogged all of the conversation, how was your Thanksgiving, Hank?”

“Oh, about the same as usual,” he replies. “My grandfather blames my mutation on my father, my uncle thinks that I’m trying to bring about the downfall of the United States, my aunt thinks I’m the anti-Christ, my father spends most of his time avoiding everyone and my mother looks at me with this very sad look in her eyes when she thinks I’m not looking. Unfortunately, my cousins aren’t much better, but at least they usually keep their mouths shut. The upside to all this is that my mother is thrilled that I have found a girlfriend and desperately wants to meet her.”

Both men glance over at Amanda and they can see her turning a lovely shade of pink.

“So, you’re mom’s really happy that you’ve found someone, is she?” Doug asks, not taking his eyes off of his friend.

“Ecstatic really,” Hank answers, also keeping his gaze on his girlfriend.

“She was ecstatic that you have a girlfriend?” Doug inquires in surprise.

“She was afraid that after my rather drastic appearance change that there wouldn’t be anyone for me to spend my days with,” Hank explains.

“There’s more to a person than appearances,” Amanda softly puts in.

“True, but not many can get past the appearance to find that out,” Hank replies.

“I feel sorry for them,” she responds as she reaches out and lays her hand on top of his.

“Thank you,” he replies as he captures her hand and then gently kisses the back of it.

“On second thought, maybe I’ll go home and you two can go rent a movie or something,” Doug snickers as he watches the couple.

“And miss out on one of my sundaes?” she teasingly asks and Doug lets out a whimper.

“You really know how to hurt a guy,” Doug pouts as the server returns with the check.

“Is it your turn or mine?” she inquires as she picks up the bill.

“I think I get the dubious pleasure this time,” Doug says as he reaches for the slip of paper in her hand.

“Actually, if no one minds, I’ll treat,” Hank states as he snatches the paper.

“I’m not going to argue,” Doug replies before turning to Amanda again. “You should bring him more often.”

“So you can humiliate me further?” she scoffs as she pushes her plate away. “I don’t think so.”

“Kill joy,” Doug mutters and Hank chuckles at their banter while he pulls out his wallet.

A few minutes later they’re standing on the same sidewalk that Jeff had not so long ago had been dumped on. A bitter cold wind whips past them causing them all to shiver as they turn up their coat collars and then head towards Amanda’s apartment. Another blast of wind causes her to move closer to Hank and his warmth and he cautiously circles her shoulders with his arm. When one of her arms wraps itself around his waist, he’s practically walking on air with happiness.