Title: The Long Con (1/2)
Pairing: Olivia Spencer/Natalia Rivera, mention of Emma, Frank etc.
Rating: K+
Summary: “So what do you do Natalia Rivera?” Isn’t that a question. Con artist isn’t exactly a, notable and well-respected profession.
Disclaimer: i own nothing
Word Count: 4,850/8,026
AUTHOR'S NOTE: this is ridiculously AU. i have no idea where this plotline came from, but it was a trip and a half to write, so i hope you enjoy it. seriously: no. idea.

THE LONG CON (PART 1)

You try to blend in, hiding your eyes behind sunglasses and stealing into dark corners when the light hits you. You’re not supposed to be here, stuck in a town called Springfield, because it seems like a small town with curious little people and it’s too risky and you’ve got too much to lose.

Well, if you want to be honest with yourself, you don’t have that much to lose.

Just another chance at a job.

But your car broke down right outside of the township and now you’re out eight hundred dollars so some guy with a bandana tied around his head and grease on his hands can stick his dirty fingers into your baby – your cherry red El Camino – and attempt to fix whatever he thinks the problem is.

You guess you could fix it yourself, but you don’t have the time or the parts and your stomach is practically eating itself.

Bandana Man points you in the direction of Main Street; tells you to check out a place called “Company” because they have a burger that’ll blow your mind. That’s not the only thing he wanted to be blown, you smirk as you amble down the street in the dark.

Company looks inviting from the outside, all warm lights and family fun and it’s exactly the kind of place you don’t want to go, because it’s exactly the kind of situation you don’t need.

Company looks like a place that makes you want to stick around for a while.

You can’t afford it, because this job gets harder and harder and staying in one place too long gets all kinds of confusing.

So you steer yourself across the street and meander through the doors of an industrial building called Towers: this is exactly what you need. It seems like it’s a no-name, no-number place. You can get a drink and be on your way.

“Pick your poison,” the bartender – a boy who doesn’t look a day over seventeen – asks with an easy grin.

You flirt back, because this feels good, getting noticed even if you’re not trying to.

“What’s the best you’ve got?”

He takes a long look around the Spartan bar. “Fan of whiskey?”

“Fan of everything,” you shrug.

A glass is dropped in front of you – two fingers of Scotch on the rocks – and you grin, tossing it back fast and hard.

“That was impressive,” a voice says in amusement, floating down the countertop towards you. You spin slowly in your seat and see a woman smirking at you, her hand raising her glass at you. She’s drinking a martini and it’s almost predictable.

She’s the kind of woman that scares you, legitimately scares you. Because you’re the type of person who weasels your way into someone else’s life and this woman at the other end of the bar, she’s the type to just drop in, cause a commotion and leave with a bang. She scares you because she’s the type of woman who undermines your carefully laid plans.

So you don’t actually even know her, but that doesn’t matter.

You make snap judgments. And you’re good at it.

“Stick around,” you find yourself saying with a sweetly dangerous grin. “You should see what I do with Scotch neat.”

This woman, this mystery woman, lets out a low laugh that makes you stop and stare for a second before you laugh along; just a moment’s hesitation while you listen to the rich sound echo off of your entire glass.

“Another one Olivia?”

The woman – Olivia – nods enthusiastically and places her empty glass where he can reach it. “Don’t skimp me on the olives Remy, alright?”

The boy grins and ducks his head and, just for good measure, throws in two more olives over the three that are already in the glass. He looks up for approval, gets it, and heads out from behind the bar, leaving you and Olivia by yourselves.

“Got any tricks involving olives,” she asks you, spearing one of them and lifting it into the air.

“If only it had a stem,” you sigh wistfully.

So, you say in the back of your mind. Springfield might not be so bad.

You recline in your seat and watch for her next move.

She leans forward in slow motion. “Olivia Spencer,” she offers.

“Natalia Rivera,” you reply, taking her hand and shaking it. It’s warm in yours, with the chill of her martini just hidden underneath her grip.

“New in town, huh?”

You chuckle softly. “What gave it away? My drinking skills?”

She laughs hard – harder than before. “Wow, you are new. Everyone here can pound ‘em back, so that’s nothing different. But, it’s a small town, you know everyone in it by the fifth day.”

“The fifth day? It took God seven to create the world,” you can’t help but snipe.

“Six,” she mutters.

“I’m sorry?”

She clears her throat, and smiles. “He rested on the seventh day, didn’t he?”

The laugh that bubbles up inside you is so loud that the entire bar area turns around to watch you wipe tears from your face and she’s right there with you, clutching her stomach and grinning maliciously.

“So what do you do Natalia Rivera?”

Isn’t that a question.

See, back in Chicago, you were Natalia Aitoro and you were a waitress at a grease spoon, working nine to five, working a man named Trevor Dylan – a millionaire with an affinity for girls in short skirts – until you got your money and ran.

And in Atlanta, you were Natalia Augustino and you worked at a coffee house, as a barista, dragging the town philanthropist – Archie Taylor – along by your little finger.

In that small town right outside of Dover, you were Natalia St. John and everyone, including the obscenely handsome and obscenely rich Jimmy McRoy, thought you were an Avon representative, former beauty queen with a heart of gold, but the only thing gold was the engagement ring on your finger.

Apparently, in Springfield, you’re going to be Natalia Rivera – your God-given name – and you’re not sure what you do.

Con artist isn’t exactly a, notable and well-respected profession.

 “I’m still looking,” you decide on saying, slipping into the seat next to her as she raises on eyebrow and gives you a puzzled look.

“Looking, huh?”

You smile, your dimples reflected in the glass mirror behind the bar and almost wink at this woman sitting next to you.

Conning women isn’t something new to you; it’s just something you don’t do as often as you con men. Men are easier, for lack of a better word. They’re more trusting and charmed by your dimples and your smile and the way you can run one finger down into the crook of their suit-clad arms and then they’re like putty in your hands, their money is yours.

With women, it’s more, complicated. They’re less likely to want to jump in bed with you right away, and they’re more likely to want you to stick around.

They still go for the dimples though.

Always.

“Know anywhere I could find some work?” Olivia only grins back and her eyes sparkle a little.

“I’ll keep an eye open,” she promises and you give her another wide grin.

“You do that.”

“Another drink?” the bartender – Remy, you remind yourself – ask, clearing your empty glasses.

Olivia looks at you, but you tip your head, gesturing to her that it’s her choice. So she shakes her head no.

This is always the part in the plan where it gets interesting, because she’s either going to say goodbye, or she’s going to…

“Want to finish the conversation somewhere else?”

Hook. Line. Sinker.

“I guess that could work,” you respond, getting up from your chair and pulling hers out for her.

“There’s a park not too far from here, whaddya say?”

A park. It’s not her hotel room, but you don’t need to get into her sheets to get whatever money she has laying around. You don’t actually even need to go anywhere with her anymore, because all you have to do to get her wallet is hug her goodbye, slip your hand into her pocket and pull her wallet out.

Your older brothers Rafael and Nicky called you “Dodger” growing up, because when everyone was wishing they had money for the ice cream truck, you were the one trading coins stolen from the offertory basket at church for jack sets and playing cards.

Sometimes, when Rafael calls you from prison, he still calls you Dodger.

You still hate it.

“It sounds good. Are there ducks?” She laughs out loud again and nods her head.

“Yeah, there are ducks,” she assures you, trying to keep a straight face. “Loads of ducks.”

“Well, color me curious,” you say in an “aww-shucks” tone.

You feel your feet hitting the sidewalk, but you’re not sure you’re actually walking, because she keeps looking at you every odd step and there’s something different about this Olivia Spencer that you can’t put your finger on and for the first time in a long time, you’ll feel just a little guilty when you steal all this woman’s money.

But you’re a con artist.

And guilt isn’t a built in emotion with people like you.

At least, not in abundance it’s not. 

“See? Ducks,” she points, and by God, there they are, littering the park like yellow and white polka dots and you find yourself awed by the site before you. “I told you there were ducks,” she says proudly.

“You didn’t tell me it was an army of ducks.”

“Well, they won’t be fighting any wars or anything, but there’re a few of them I guess.”

“A few?” you ask incredulously. “This is an entire insurgent of ducks. If animals ever rule the world, the ducks would take over the government. If there was ever an overthrow, ducks would be behind it. If, somehow, Animal Farm came to life, it’d be the ducks ruling the entire system. If ducks…”

But she cuts you off by leaning to the side and grabbing the bottom of your face, right underneath your chin, her fingers grazing the small scar from when you fell face-first into the glass coffee table, and she comes in real close and this is all not going according to plan, but she smells like a martini – extra dirty and dry – and cigar smoke and her face fits into the crook of your neck like it belongs there.

Which is ridiculous, because you’re only here until that man with the offensive bandana fixes your damn car.

“Too fast?” she asks, breathless, against your skin, sending a shock through your entire body.

“Keep going,” you manage to stutter out, your breath catching suddenly.

You’re not sure why because she’s just another woman, just another potential job and you’re just here because your car broke down.

“Keep going,” you hear yourself whisper again as her mouth presses even closer against your overheated skin.

So she does, her tongue tracing the hollow of your throat and her hands sliding across your waist and God, this is a public park, in the middle of this stupid little town, surrounded by ducks.

“Not here,” she whispers, reading your mind, so she takes your hand and drags you back down the street, just a little ways, to a car – that you assume is hers – and drives about ten minutes while your hand presses against her thigh, to some hotel – The Beacon you catch quickly as she drives into the employee parking lot – and it should feel cheesy, but it just kind of feels right.

“This is my hotel,” she whispers, her voice filled with something like pride. She sneaks you through the back entrance, grinning as she grips your hand tighter and the kitchen staff just whistles at you and grins and one Spanish guy calls out from behind a frying pan. “pieza caliente, jefe!”

Olivia frowns, but you giggle and push her – because she stopped moving – and her body presses up against yours while the kitchen staff whistles again, louder this time.

“You understood that?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. “What’d he say?”

“It doesn’t matter.” You get on the elevator and end up pressed into the corner, laughing into her hair.

“Nope,” she agrees, her hands under your shirt already, already burning their mark into your skin, but that good kind of burning that really makes you shiver instead of cower and you want to do the same but she’s got your hands pinned behind your body and its okay, for now.

The ding brings you out of your haze and you smirk before using your body weight to push her backwards out of the elevator to come stumbling out into the hallway and she laughs – one of the down low laughs again – into the crook of your neck, pulling you back against her again and pushing her own body against a door.

“This is it,” she says, coming back to look you in the eyes.

You smirk, dimples and all. “So,” you say slowly. “Are you going to open the door,” your voice drops to a whisper, “or are we going to do this right here.”

Without looking, which is something you need to give her credit for, she disentangles her arms from your shirt and opens the door with a small bleep.

“Not my style,” she whispers.

You want to know what her style is.

The door shuts behind you, blocking out the world and then it’s just the two of you, staring at each other, breathing heavy and in the back of your mind, you imagine a cheesy romance movie where you’d rush to meet her in the middle and your bodies would collide with nothing but sweetness and your mouths would bruise fantastically.

But instead, you saunter to her, one hand pressed against her shoulder, pushing her back, until her legs hit the bed and she falls back onto the mattress fluidly, her eyes never leaving yours.

You take a minute to study her: the insane rise and fall of her chest, her eyes dark and lidded, her own smirk.

Smug is a good look on Olivia Spencer, Hotel Owner.

Smug is actually wicked sexy on Olivia Spencer, Hotel Owner.

You gesture one hand vaguely. “Take that off.”

She keeps her eyes locked on yours, her fingers playing with the top button of her white shirt. “This?” she asks innocently.

Correction, you think quickly before all thoughts are blown from your mind. Smug Olivia Spencer is by far the most amazingly sexy thing I’ve ever seen.

“Yeah,” you breath out, all creativity gone.

Gone; like you want her shirt to be.

“Okay,” she says and you think you see her shrug but her elbows are pressed into the mattress so it just looks like she’s sinking further and you wonder if this is a big deal for her.

Not that it is for you, but this is a small town after all – there’s only so much diversity in places like this.

“Alright,” you whisper. “Al-alright,” you repeats as her hands come up and her fingers snag your belt loop and she pulls you forward until your thighs are pressed against the side of the mattress and then her fingers are moving, crawling across your stomach, right at the waistline, and hooking right behind the snap of your jeans. “Alright.”

“You said that,” she whispers, the top half of her body completely off the bed, her mouth almost pressed against your stomach as she pushes up your ratty old Southwest High t-shirt, the gray in stark contrast to the sharpness of her skin.

Without thinking, you hook a finger under her chin, like she did to you in the park and lift her head to look her in the eyes. Her hands still and you swoop down, eyes closed, but you find the corner of her mouth unerringly and she still smells like martini but now you can taste it as her tongue tangles with yours, shaking you to the core and making your knees tremble.

Her hands slide around your waist, pulling you forward, knees forward, until you’re straddling her legs and she’s back against the mattress again and staring up at you.

“I think maybe I’ve been doing this wrong,” she says, smirking again. “But I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to kiss me?”

So you do, tasting martini and power and something like cinnamon, feeling hot skin and smooth satin and something like the possibility of the sweetest danger.

A hand slide across the small of your back, dipping into the hollow there before she slides it back around and this time, she pops the snap and then it’s nothing but heat and stunted gasps and whispered words that cut through the silence of the over-sized room and slip out the hallway through the crack at the bottom of the door.

“Hmm,” she sighs later, turning over onto her stomach and looking at you with her eyes partially closed.

“Hmm?” you ask, not really focusing on her words, but on the way her back dips into the mattress on their volition, your hands traces the lines of her body, starting at the base of her neck and going down as far as you can reach without moving.

You thought she was beautiful before – with her smug smirk, in her business suit, because there was something appealing about that charcoal colored outfit.

But here, wrapped in some god-awful expensive and heavenly sheet, with just a genuine and lazy smile on, she’s brilliant.

“Hmm,” she repeats, smiling into your palm that you’ve pressed against her cheek. “You smell like an ashtray.”

You let out one bark of short laughter, sliding across the sheets to stretch out next to her. “Yeah, well you smell like –” 

“Watch it,” she warns, her nose nudging the base of your neck where there’s a small bruise in the shape of her mouth. “God, you have a dirty mind,” she chuckles. “And a dirty mouth.”

You can’t resist it. “Wanna clean it for me?”

“Oh,” she starts to say as her eyes drift past you, catching on something and then the “oh” turns into a shocked look and she scrambles out of the bed frantically, throwing clothes at you that aren’t yours. “We’ve got to…you’ve got to go.”

“I, uh, what?” This was going well, and now you’re being thrown out like a cheap hooker.

And it kind of stings more than you’d like to admit.

“It’s almost three o’clock,” she says urgently, like that explains everything. She slips your t-shirt over her head and pulls at the hem until it comes down the way she wants, the steps into some jeans you didn’t see before, staring at you, her eyes asking why you’re not getting dressed.

You’re holding her shirt and your underwear and nothing else.

What the hell does she expect you to do?

This is getting out of hand, you can feel it. You were just supposed to kill a few hours while that guy fixed your car; you were supposed to swoop in and use her; you were supposed to set the rules and she smirked and that all changed. She smirked and now, now she’s throwing you out.

Like. A. Cheap. Hooker.

Someone drops something on the other side of the door and you can hear a zipper being pulled back.

“My kid,” she hisses violently at you and you just stand there with your mouth open and naked and holding her shirt and your underwear and nothing else.

She comes around the bed and grabs you by the waist, her hands pulling hard against your skin – not like before, when they pulled sinfully sweet. She pulls you hard back towards the other side of the room and she pulls a door open even harder and then she’s pushing, sending your knees crashing into a porcelain toilet bowl and it hurts but you don’t have time to think about it because your jeans are sailing at your head and then the door is slamming shut.

Well then.

You drop to the toilet seat and stare at the clothes in your hands. From the other side of the door, you can hear her open the door and laugh loudly.

“Hey Jellybean,” is muffled but you can still hear each syllable clear enough.

She named her kid Jellybean?

Slowly, you pull your jeans up and glance around frantically to see if she threw a bra at you while she hurling clothing. She didn’t.

So instead, you take a deep breath and button her shirt almost all the way but don’t bother tucking it in and you rake your hands through your hair, trying to get rid of all the tangles that say “hey kid, what’s up, why’s your name Jellybean, yes I just had senseless, stranger sex with your mother.”

You glance in the mirror, noting the errant strands just don’t want to stay put but you sigh: good enough.

When the door swings open, you have to give her credit for keeping her eyes in her head.

A little girl sitting on the floor – even though, you notice, the bed is perfectly made – looks up at you and just blinks. “Hi,” she exclaims.

You smile. “Hi there.”

She coughs and you turn to smile at her, but she tugs on the collar of your shirt that she’s wearing and points frantically at her collarbone and you realize that she’s trying to tell you that you didn’t do a great job at hiding the obvious mark on your neck, but this kid with the heartbreaking adorable smile just kind of tilts her head.

“Did someone hit you?”

No, you want to say. Someone bit me.

But you hold it in and flash the dimples and this kid, she just smiles wider. “Mommy said that when someone hits you, you should show ‘em your right hook,” the kid turns to her. “Right Mommy?”

She swallows visibly and you frown, crouching down to eye level with this kid. “Hey,” and you wait until you’re staring into her little eyes. “Hitting someone back isn’t the right way to deal with that. Next time someone hits you,” you pull back. “Why is someone hitting her?” you ask her mother, but she just stares back at you, slack-jawed. “Anyway, if someone hits you, you should turn the other cheek. Show them that you’re better than them. Don’t sink to their level.”

The kid nods solemnly and frowns at her mother. “I told you that’s what you’re supposed to do,” she says with a huff, turning back to you. “I told her, but she said I should hit ‘em back.”

“Yeah,” you frown. “Good advice,” you mutter under your breath.

There’s an awkward silence that settles while you’re crouched there, watching this kid color a bunny purple and the sky green, which just seems weird but okay enough, and finally, finally Olivia sighs and stands up.

“Emma, baby, this is Natalia,” she says, pointing at you. She pauses. “Mommy’s friend.”

“I’m Mommy’s daughter,” the kid – Emma – says cheekily.

You stick your hand out jerkily, nothing like the smooth extension you had earlier in the bar, talking to the woman who put too many olives in her drink. Emma takes it anyway and shakes it, her tiny little face set in a tiny serious expression.

“It’s nice to meet you,” she says, her little forehead scrunched together and goddamn this just might be the cutest kid you’ve ever met. “Hey!” she says suddenly, sending you crashing back onto the floor and she pauses to look at you like you’re the strange one before turning back to her mother.

Olivia is staring at you, trying not to laugh and you’re just sitting there with your arms outstretched like someone’s going to help you up and your legs tucked at your sides awkwardly.

You probably look like a floundering fish out of water.

You feel like one.

“Hey what, Jellybean?”

And there’s that weird nickname again.

“You said I could have ice cream today,” she accuses, pointing a finger at Olivia. You stop flailing and tilt your head to look at Olivia.

She doesn’t look like the type of mother to promise ice cream.

She doesn’t look like a mother.

“Hmm,” she says and instantly, you feel yourself start to breathe a little harder. “I guess I did,” she admits slowly.

Emma – this little ball of eternal energy, you’d bet – grins recklessly and jumps to her feet, racing to the door, Olivia following obediently. She grabs the doorknob but doesn’t turn it, just looks back at you.

“Well,” she says patiently, like she’s talking to an even smaller child. “Are you coming or what?”

“Jellybean, I don’t think that…” but you cut in with a smile.

“Ice cream? What sane person turns down ice cream?” Dimples again, this time at Olivia.

“No one,” Emma says seriously, nodding her head. “No one.”

“Right!” you exclaim, clapping your hands together so loudly that Olivia flinches at the sudden noise. “So, let’s get going. I like chocolate.”

“Vanilla is so much better,” Emma argues, running down the hall to the elevator.

A hand on your arm stops your smile half-way across your face; stops you in mid-stride.

“What are you doing,” she hisses, keeping one eye on her daughter dancing in front of the elevator.

Kids have no idea how to dance these days, you mutter silently. I used to do Thriller and the Hustle and…

Olivia tightens her grip slightly on your arm and you wince. “What?”

She grits her teeth – you can see her jaw tighten and the first thing you think is God, that’s hot. “What are you doing?”

“I was invited to go get ice cream,” you remind her slowly, punctuating each word. “And I actually kind of like ice cream, so…”

She doesn’t looks amused.

“If you don’t want me to come,” you rush to say in the next breath, but you’re not sure why you’re saying it, because you’re not exactly sure why her opinion means so much all of the sudden.

Geez, you scold yourself. Sleep with her once and you suddenly love her for life, huh Rivera? Just turn around and walk away now before you do something stupid, you warn yourself.

“No,” she breathes out. “No, you already told her you’d come. And now she’s expecting you to get chocolate so that she can get both flavors out of it, so, just come, alright?”

Vaguely, you remember her saying that earlier, in a very different tone of voice.

You’re not thinking clearly.

You’re really not thinking clearly.

Because instead of insisting, no, I should leave, you smile again and check to make sure Emma is still doing some stunted version of the robot and then you press Olivia – hard – against the opposite wall, stealing the protest from her mouth by swallowing it with a smile and a quick and easy press of your lips to hers. She lets out an oomph but you swallow that too, tucking your hands up into the space between her skin and your shirt and she shivers into you and this moment – however stolen – feels like it’s right and the world kind of fades.

The ding of the elevator shocks you back into reality and she pushes you away unsteadily, one hand lingering on your chest right above your heartbeat.

“Mommy,” Emma calls impatiently, waiting a beat before calling out again. “Natalia, would you guys hurry up?”

She looks up and down the hallway fleetingly: it’s empty and Emma is in the elevator, probably with one tiny finger pressed against the door open button, tapping her foot.

Then she leans in, smirking against your neck and kisses your pulse point.

And, God¸ you feel your entire body melt.

In the middle of a hallway in a hotel in someone else’s shirt, you melt.

“Mommy and Natalia, if you don’t get over here in ten seconds,” Emma calls out shrilly, sending you out of your melting moment and into the present. Olivia slips her hands into your back pockets and pushes you forward – gently, this time – into the big metal box and Emma just rolls her eyes and crosses her arms over her chest, trying for indignant and coming out endearing.

But when the elevator stops on the ground floor, she reaches for your hand, hanging limply by your side, and clutches it tightly, yanking you out and into the lobby foyer, marching purposefully towards the front doors.

“Jellybean,” Olivia calls from behind you, and Emma spins the two of you around. “I parked out back.”

Emma’s eyes light up. “Through the kitchen?”

You laugh along with Olivia. “Through the kitchen,” she confirms.

There are still some whistling when you walk back through, but no shouting, no Spanish, only heartfelt smiles and long glances of approval. Emma points out where she sits when Mommy lets me come and hang out and stops to show her the apron she wears.

It’s properly adorable.

part 2