Welcome to Gaia! ::

Zoe had been staring down at her nails as she waited for Ryan to come to the door, and when he opened it a bit faster than she was expecting, she still had a hand splayed out in front of her. It was honestly a nervous gesture, an attempt to keep her eyes and mind on anything at all instead of letting herself idle and consider the conversation she'd had with her father not even an hour ago.

She pulled her eyes away from her examination and stuffed both hands into the pockets of her sweater dress, offering him a tight smile. She was through the door quickly, unhooking her shoulder bag and letting it drop carefully next to the wall near the door. Her gaze took in Ryan, and then swept across the apartment, noting the dog that he had curled up on the couch. This place felt more like a real home - like a place someone actually lived and existed.

The tight smile on her face warmed a little.

"Sorry about being late." The tell-tale smell of Greek takeout lingered in the air and she almost laughed, but it was obviously pleasing by the way she was relaxing so quickly. She had already begun to notice that he had a way of doing that - no matter how they'd been forced together, he made an effort to make her happy. "Dad came home from his business trip today, so there were things to talk about."

Yet she wasn't going to be stopped from her nosiness - even before he had the door shut she was walking the perimeter of the room slowly, noting the guitars and the television program he'd turned on. The girl had an eye for observation - and Ryan was very much living in a bachelor pad.

"This is actually a lot more charming than I expected, for a bachelor."

Zoe smirked as he slipped away to get her what she assumed was wine to match his own and was not disappointed when he finally returned. She took the glass from him and drew a long, satisfied sip before her gaze shifted to the dog.

"As long as they don't rip my clothes, I don't much mind them either way. I've never had one, though Cassy and I asked for all sorts of pets as kid. We made a power point presentation about getting a shelter mutt when we were in middle school." She smiled at the memory, despite her next words. "Mum hates animals, so. That was that."

There was a small roll of her shoulders in a slight shrug before she turned and folded herself gracefully on the couch next to him. The wine-colored sweater dress had a zipper up the length of one thigh that pulled it tight across the tops of her thighs, showing just a skim of her dark skin above the thigh-high boots she'd donned for the occasion. It was casual, by Zoe terms, without layers of cloth and dozens of accessories. Even her make-up seemed casual by comparison - a flair of eyeliner and mascara, with a nude lip.

Of course, even casual for Zoe likely meant she spent forever working out the details to the appropriate level.

"Well, I suppose he must have had a talk with your Uncle." Her fingers drummed her pointed nails against the glass slightly, distracting herself with the c***k, c***k, c***k. Then she sighed and leaned back into the couch, looking sidelong at him. "This is an awkward.." she started, then shook her head, deciding that being direct was important. They both already knew that the situation was something absurd that most people didn't have to deal with. "He said we had until New Year's before they plan to announce it, and that I needed to have all the plans finalized for Valentine's."

A small knit of her brows made her face seem tense, and she buried her gaze in her wine glass as she brought it to her lips again.

Zoe raised a brow at the wording he chose over his dog - stuck with her? She wanted to ask him why, and how, but the look he buried into his own wine glass made her second guess herself. When there were so many things around them threatening to weigh them down, she supposed it wasn't fair to drudge up something that would add to that.

But she would remember and eventually, she would ask.

"I envy the way you're able to just put things out of your mind, I wish that was a quality I'd learned. Though I suppose being overly critical and aware of everything is helpful, at times." She laughed gently just to ease the tension out of her shoulders, willing herself to relax. They had made these plans before her father had decided to set more weight on her shoulders and she owed it to Ryan to forget about the path they were barreling down together. Knowing him would ease the strain by the end, or at least some of it.

Beneath all of her teasing and easiness, Zoe truly was constantly thinking about the future and her place in it. Their place in it, as she kept reminding herself.

"But I'm not above enjoying myself right now," that, at least, was added with a small smile. She drew another long sip of her wine before she set it down next to his, then leaned back into the cushion. "Especially when you've got such a silver tongue in your mouth." The wink was met by a mischievous curl at the corner of her lips, below a narrowing of her bright eyes. If she had to be distracted, Ryan certainly was good at it.

She turned partly on the couch so that she could tuck one leg under herself, leaving the other draped over the side. It let her face him and she leaned into the back, propping an arm up on the top of it.

"You're doing a pretty good job at convincing, you shouldn't worry about that so much. I have to admit I just like to string you along a bit, I don't want you getting bored too quickly." Or herself, for that matter.

Despite the forwardness in his words and the s**t-eating grin that spread across his lips almost instantaneously, Zoe laughed. It was an amused, impish sound as she thought about what he was saying.

She really hoped he never lost that edge to surprise her.

"I've had no reason to show you my tattoo," she countered, running a finger down her side to mark where it was beneath the sweater. The hand stopped at her hip and an eyebrow raised. "You can't just ask me to take my clothes off for you, Rurik. That's no fun at all." Her grin answered his own then, eluding that there were actually very fun ways to get her clothes off - but the crinkle at the corners of her eyes also suggested she wasn't going to tell him about it.

Besides that, she was really waiting for the right moment to use the words he's knowingly armed her with. She remembered them, every little syllable, even if she knew they'd come out clumsy on her lips.

"You're making me a lot of promises you know. I have a magic sentence, and now you're assuring me that we'll always be entertained." She leaned forward just a little then, staring up into his eyes and running the hand along the back of the couch until it met his shoulder, then trailed down the slope of his upper arm. "You better hope I don't hold you to them all at once."

Another soft, amused laugh fell under her breath then and she reached for her wine where it was set on the table next to them.

There was no way to miss the heat in his voice, even with the smirk that rested on his face. At some point in their teasing, it had shifted from light-hearted fun to dancing around the edge of a cliff edge. She couldn't say that she minded it, she did like life to be a little more dangerous.

When the cold metal of his lip piercing touched her trapped hand, a thrill sparked along her flesh. It send a ripple down her spine, a small shiver, that was noticeable even as she tried to fight it. The smile on her lips had faded just so, leaving it to a curious lift of the lips, restrained by the sudden curiosity burning in her eyes. The heat in him was stoking her own - and she wanted, desperately, to know the words that had just passed his lips. She could have asked, but that did ruin the fun in it.

"Is that a challenge?" Her eyebrow raised as she watched him from beneath half-lidded eyes, peering through a thick splay of dark lashes. She shifted as she spoke, until she had pulled both legs under her and pushed herself up onto her knees. When she spoke again, her voice was very low and hushed, "because I don't think you know what I'm really capable of."

Just as she shifted closer, walking with her knees across the cushions and closer to the grip he had on her hand, and just as she was about to lean into him - there was a loud knock on the door. She paused and let her eyes jerk sideways, halting completely.

When she looked back at him, she seemed amused and leaned sideways into the back of the couch instead of forward like she had been intending.

"Saved by the bell, hm?"

As Rurik rose, none too happily, from the couch, Zoe leaned out and grabbed the wine glass he had stopped her from claiming just moments before. By the time she had relaxed back into the cushions and brought the glass to her lips, the door was all but slammed open. It made her jump just a fraction before she continued the careful sip she had been taking, gone unnoticed by either of the two men.

For good reason.

The kiss made her raise one neatly groomed eyebrow, but she didn't interrupt. Ryan didn't seem to be fighting it, which was more curious than the fact that it had happened at all. The thought made a slow, small smirk curl her lips behind her cup, letting it linger near her lips as she watched. She felt rather suddenly like a spider on the wall, observing a dirty secret.

Or two.

Kia?

Now both eyebrows rose and she let her gaze flicker from the muscular bloke that had sauntered into the room uninvited and unaware of what he had interrupted, then it followed Ryan as he slipped away to distract himself with pouring more wine. Well, it seemed introductions were left up to her, because he seemed quite suddenly too overwhelmed to face her. It made a soft, amused laugh pass her lips before she rose in a graceful flow from the couch cushions she had been tucked into.

"Sorry to disappoint, Jo, is it?" The wine glass shifted to her left hand and she held out her right, smiling in that knowing way that she had when she'd discovered the tip of an iceberg of secrets. "Zoe Katsaros."

She threw a glance over her shoulder, to where Ryan was standing, trying to avoid them.

"You should probably just bring that over here, dear."

"Absolutely not."

For all that the other man was word-vomiting a dozen things she supposed Ryan hadn't wanted to tell her yet, Zoe had remained rather calm as she stared down at them where they sat now. She was from a world where no one wore their emotion on the sleeve quite like this and it hit her and rolled off easily, like she was simply straining the information out of his panic until she was left with a pure, unbiased truth. By the time Ryan had tried to dismiss her, Zoe had gathered a few key bits of information.

First - Ryan had been engaged before, to a girl named Kia, recently enough that someone he knew very close (judging by that kiss that now complicated everything else about the moment) hadn't known they were no longer together.

Second - The girl wasn't around anymore. The way his mother had treated her, the way Ryan treated her, suggested that not only was she gone but that Ryan had to be at least somewhat over the fact. She knew him well enough to know that he wouldn't have given up on someone he cared about.

Third - There was something about Boris that she didn't know, but she had suspected that already from the way both Ryan and his mother spoke.

"That's part of this deal, you can't just dismiss me. That's not how it's going to work." There was a challenge in her eyes, in her words, and for just a moment Zoe Katsaros was every bit as domineering as her mother. But she wasn't upset, or angry. She had secrets and though she hadn't quite expected this level of them out of Ryan, she couldn't fault him for it. Jo couldn't have known he was letting slip things she didn't know.

Her hand tightened around her wine glass and she went to sit calmly by herself on the couch that she and Ryan had just been occupying. One leg cross over the other but her posture was rigid.

"Just tell him the truth, Ryan. Don't worry about my feelings, you aren't going to hurt them. For better or worse, right?" She seemed amused with herself, just a bit, as she took another sip of her wine but the eyes that stared over the top of the glass were calculating. She wasn't upset, but she was measuring and weighing.