"You know, you should take more care in leaving your office door closed..."
Isabelle looked up from her work, a smile immediately taking charge of her face as she laid eyes on the man propped against the frame of the door.
"Well, I typically don't have men the likes of you standing at my door." She smirked.
"Ah, but secretly you want me standing at your door." He moved further into the office, closing the door behind him.
"How did you know?" She quizzed, folding her arms over her chest as she leaned back in her chair.
"I know you better than you know yourself, mon cherie."
She let her head fall back, a laugh bellowing from the depths of her soul as she watched him stand on the other side of her desk, a smile on his face.
"That's all I get," He exclaimed, mock hurt lacing his voice. "A laugh?"
"I'm sorry," she suppressed her giggles long enough to stand and come around to the other side of the desk, now standing opposite him. "You know I can never take you seriously when you call me names in French..."
"Or any language for that matter." He smirked.
"Oh, Sebastian, to what do I owe the pleasure of you popping up in my office?" She grinned, now enveloping him in a warm hug that he wasted no time embracing.
"Checking in on my best girl."
"I bet you say that to all the women..." She chuckled, kissing his cheek softly.
"Only the beautiful ones." He winked playfully.
"Are you home for the wedding?" She quizzed, paying no mind to his mention of her being beautiful, as he had been doing it for years.
"Of course," he beamed. "I wouldn't miss your sisters big day for anything!"
"Good, now I have someone to dance with and won't have to endure the grueling game of twenty questions from my family's senior citizen population."
He couldn't help the howl of laughter that plagued him, his eyes sparkling a brilliant blue as he took in her most recent statement.
"They'll ask if I'm your man." He smirked, taking her hand in his and swinging their conjoined limbs back and forth.
"Oh Sebastian, you've been my man for so long..." Isabelle grinned, allowing him to continue holding her hand. "What will you tell them!"
"Well, naturally I'll tell them yes." He dropped his hold on her hand, moving to sit in the chair opposite hers at the desk.
"I wouldn't expect anything less from you Stan..." She mused, taking a seat in her chair.
"You never should my Belle." He wiggled his eyebrows at her, his blue eyes shimmering in the offset light of the office, his elbows now resting on her desk while his hands cupped his face.
He looked on at her the way a small child would watch their mother in the kitchen, and Isabelle couldn't help but feel the shiver creep up her spine as she felt his eyes on her.
"How long are you home?" She broke the silence.
"A while," he smiled. "We're finished promoting the newest film, so we've got a bit of a break before they start filming the third movie."
"Who would have thought..." She sighed over dramatically. "My best friend, the infamous Bucky Barnes!"
"Oh hush," he waved a hand at her sounding like somewhat of a verklempt old woman with a raspy voice, and Isabelle broke out into a fit of laughter again. "You know how I feel about all the attention!"
"Oh!" She squealed in delight as he continued his show. "You sound like my nonna!"
"Your nonna loves me," Sebastian affirmed, quite matter of factly if she had anything to say about it. "She wants you to marry me and give her little half Romanian and half Italian great-grandkids with my blue eyes and your caramel hair."
"Sounds like you've given this a lot of thought." She snickered from behind her coffee mug, his head shaking as he recognized it as the mug he had sent her from the set of his latest film. The Captain America shield was emblazoned on the front and the words 'on your left' were directly underneath it.
"Well, you know how the rules work my Belle," he spoke, his mind now back in the conversation at hand. "Not married by thirty five and I'm going to put the ole ball and chain on you."
"It's the other way around my dear." She rolled her eyes, folding her arms across her chest again.
"Whatever," he waived his hand absently in the surrounding area. "Point is, you know that it's true. Why would you stick yourself with some dud when you can have me?"
"Well, at least I know what I'm getting myself in to if I shack up with you."
"Our parents would be delighted." He countered.
"Oh Seb!" She squealed in sarcasm. "Take me now!"
"You're a loon!" He laughed, watching her as she dipped herself back a bit, the back of her hand resting on her forehead.
"Ah, but you love me in spite of it." She winked.
Sebastian couldn't take his eyes off his best friend, regardless of how many years they had known each other, or how long they had been inseparable. He was indefinitely attracted to her in both a physical and non-physical sense. He was in love with everything about her personality, her sarcastic wit and ability to bicker with him in the lightest sense. He loved her eyes, uncharacteristically green for an Italian, but stark in comparison to her natural olive complexion and long caramel locks. Isabelle DeLaura had been the first person to befriend Sebastian at the age of twelve when his mother uprooted them from Romania and came to New York. She lived in the apartment across the hall from him, with her older brother Joe, younger sister Cora and her parents, and immediately the two became inseparable. It wasn't until they had gotten older and began to find interests in other things did his true feelings for her surface, along with his deep adoration for her.
"Hello, earth to Mr. Romania, are you there?"
Her voice snapped him out of his daydream, and he shook his head slightly before grinning cheekily at her.
"Yea, totally here..."
"You spaced." She spoke, clicking on her desktop a few times before pushing the mouse away.
"The flight got to me..." He tried to reason.
"Well, I'm closing up shop, it's not every day I get you to myself, so come on, let's get out of here." She smiled, standing once more before locking the drawers up and grabbing her overly large purse and hauling it over her shoulder.
"Still with the obnoxious sized purse then?" Sebastian noted, a hint of sarcasm peeking through his words.
"What kind of designer would I be if I didn't have an obnoxious bag with the logo on the front?" She chuckled, leading him out of the office before turning to lock the door behind them.
"A bad one I would imagine." He laughed, following her to the elevator.
Once inside the confines of the small space, she turned to him once more.
"Did you drop your luggage off at home before coming here?"
"Uh, no actually," he shifted, his hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. "My car is waiting outside with my bags, I made him come here first so I could see you."
"Sebastian!" She scolded him, and he knew she was about to tell him he should have gone home to see his mother first.
"Before you say it, mama is away on business until next week." His hands held out in front of him as a sign of self defense and pleading.
"Oh," she visibly relaxed as the elevator stopped at the lobby. "Well then I can let it slide."
He laughed, guiding her out before pointing in the direction of the black Lincoln town car that was waiting for them.
"Come on, let's go back to my place and you can help me unpack." He winked.
"Do I have maid tattooed somewhere that I don't know about?" She stopped waking, looking up from digging for her sunglasses as she stood on the sidewalk.
"No, just best friend." He placated her with a sweet kiss on the cheek before opening the car door and gesturing for her to get in.
"My whole life." She mumbled with a slight laugh as she put the large shades over her emerald eyes, watching with interest as his eyebrows rose at her statement just as he got in beside her.
"Would you have it any other way?"
"Probably not," she mused. "My life would be less thrilling had the cute little Romanian boy not moved in across the hall."
"Hey now," Sebastian stopped for a moment to give the driver his home address before continuing. "My last interviewer called me devastatingly handsome."
"They were half right," she smirked, leaning her head on his shoulder. "You're handsome, but there ain't nothing devastating about it."
"You flatter me, amore."
"I try."
When the town car finally rolled to a stop in front of Sebastian's apartment building, the two quickly exited the vehicle. Isabelle waited on the sidewalk with the large rolling suitcase while Sebastian paid the driver, the brunette twirling his keys around her fingers in mock annoyance.
"Don't look so thrilled, Belle." He winked, snatching the keys from her hand as he passed her.
"How about I trade you the luggage for your keys..." She snickered, dragging his suitcase up the stairs behind her, trying not to trip over her heels.
"What's wrong, can't handle a mans luggage?" He turned around, giving her a look that she was already prepared to bite back at.
"Not when said man packs like a woman!" She grinned, a cheeky smile on her face and Sebastian immediately began to laugh, his hand reaching out to take the rollaway luggage from her, the other handing over his keys.
"Come on, let's get up there."
Belle wasted no time climbing the stairs ahead of him, stopping at his door on the third floor while he was still a flight of stairs behind her.
"Go in," he called up. "I'm right behind you."
"Okay!" She leaned over the railing so she could see him, and bit back a laugh.
Shifting the keys for the one that unlocked the apartment, Belle slipped it into the lock and turned, pushing the door open. She was immediately hit with the stench of mold and mildew, and as she entered the apartment she quickly learned why.
"Jeez! I was two flights behind you and you're just getting-" Sebastian stopped himself, his eyes going wide and his face twisting as he inhaled. "What the hell!"
"Holy. Shit." Belle whispered.
The walls were stained with water, ceiling to floor, and above them, a gaping hole where undoubtedly water had caused so much of a buildup that the ceiling had come in; the sheet rock now a pile on the floor in front of them.
"There's a hole in my ceiling!" Sebastian cried, shock lacing his voice as his blue eyes darted between the hole and it's remains.
"What the hell happened! Why didn't your landlord call you!" Isabelle was now walking around, inspecting the apartment for further damage. Two of the four living room walls were laden with water stains, and the leather of the couch had been drenched in the process. She carefully made her way into the bathroom, which, to her surprise was dry as a bone.
"Your bathroom is completely dry!" She called out.
"How the fuck is that possible!" He yelled from the kitchen.
"I don't know," her voice was closer now, and he could feel her presence in the room with him. "What's it look like in here?"
"Dry." He deadpanned.
"Where did it come from then?"
"My best guess is the apartment upstairs..." He trailed off, looking up and noticing there were an abundance of construction items visible through the gaping hole in his ceiling.
"Seb..."
"I'm gonna go talk to the landlord," he sighed, his index finger and thumb pinching the bridge of his nose. "Then I need to figure out where I'm staying."
Belle watched him with curious eyes, as if to even wonder how he could go stay at a hotel.
"I'm not letting you stay in a hotel Sebastian."
"Well I can't very well stay with my mother, she's got a one bedroom..."
"You're staying with me." She spoke firmly, arms crossed under her bust.
"In your one bedroom?"
"Shut up," she sighed. "We've shared a bed more times than we've probably shared with past flames, and if I have to have someone living in my apartment with me it better damn well be you."
"You can't be serious!"
"California King bed," she smirked. "I'm very serious."
"You're delusional, and I'm sleeping on the pullout."
"I don't have a pullout!" She exclaimed.
"Uhh, Belle!"
"Come on," she urged. "Go talk to the landlord while I pack up some more of your stuff."
He glanced at her with a shocked expression on his face, eyes wide and mouth turned up in a smile only Sebastian could give her.
"Go!" She ushered him out of the room and out the door before negotiating her way to his bedroom to pack some of his stuff.