Chapter Text
The club was dark and dingy as Strike entered, spotting Nick and Ilsa sitting by the bar. The invitation had come at the last moment, with Ilsa texting him that afternoon that they’d be in the area for one of Ilsa’s work parties.
The alcohol was clearly flowing, lights were flashing, and the music was loud and pumping, causing a pleasant thrum within Strike’s chest. It wasn’t his preferred local, but for Nick and Ilsa, he figured he could tolerate an hour at most…until he saw her.
He was first greeted by the sight of Ilsa’s tall frame against the bar, her black-rimmed eyeglasses reflecting the colored lights that flashed around her, very nearly making her a beacon in the dim club.
The next thing he noticed was the flip of shoulder-length red-blond hair and long, lean legs. It struck him for the first time that he’d never seen her legs before, at least not from behind, and certainly not in as short of a dress as she was wearing. Robin had donned a sparkling dark mini dress, which he would later discover was a pleasing forest-green color. The dress stopped mid-thigh, leaving a more than pleasing view of her arse. Strike immediately looked away from that particular region and found Ilsa smirking at him over Robin’s shoulder. She shook her head in disdain, and Robin turned to see who her friend had noticed.
“Hiya!” Robin was the first to greet him, yelling over the beat of the music that vibrated around them. “I didn’t know you’d be here! I would have offered you a ride.”
“S’okay,” Strike leaned in, speaking directly into her ear. “I didn’t know I’d be here either. Ilsa invited me, but I never confirmed one way or the other.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re here!”
“Me too,” he yelled as the music somehow grew even louder.
“Drink?” Robin offered, gesturing toward the bar.
Strike nodded enthusiastically. “Yes fucking please.”
Robin ordered a glass of wine for herself and a pint for Strike, bringing it over to him. He had settled at a seat at the bar and watched as Ilsa pointed out all of her co-workers to him. Mostly of the female variety. Mostly of the single variety. But when Robin arrived, placing a pint in his hand and smiling at him prettily, he gave up feigning interest in Ilsa’s set-up charades and focused his attention on Robin.
“You having fun yet?” he asked.
“I’m having…something. It’s quite the place. Not my usual style, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to try it once.”
Strike nodded in agreement, taking in his surroundings. The crowd was much younger, more Robin’s age than his own. Even Nick and Ilsa looked like they belonged. Strike wore his years and he wore them well, but he was no longer at the point where he could feasibly blend in with the thirty-something crowd.
He leaned back, taking a pull on his pint as he continued to watch the people around him. He was so enthralled at their antics, that he barely registered his partner gazing at him.
“This was never my scene, in uni, or after,” Robin told him, gesturing toward the dance floor. “I preferred staying at home with a good book or going to the library. There was this librarian...always wore cardigans. He looked...well...he looked like you, y’know, if you wore cardigans.”
Strike snorted at this, but in the back of his mind, couldn’t suppress the thought that Robin was imagining him in a cardigan right about now. “You’ll never find me in one,” he told her, still chuckling softly.
“Nor would I want to. I like your coat just fine,” she replied, reaching a hand out to brush at his lapel. A beat passed between them before Ilsa herself quite literally passed between them.
“Alright, you two! Break it up! Robin’s here for me, and they’re about to clear the floor for karaoke.”
“What!!” Robin cried. “I thought I was here for drinks and dancing. There was NO mention of karaoke!”
“C’mon Robin, I’ve heard you singing in the shower! You and I both know you have a decent set of pipes on you, don’t even try to deny it.”
“I…” Robin trailed off.
Strike was sure Robin was flushed with embarrassment. Not only was he now jealous that Ilsa had heard her voice, but he now had to think about anything but Robin in the shower.
“Voice like an angel, this one,” Ilsa said, turning to Strike.
“Oh yeah?” Strike replied, raising his brows at Robin.
“OH yeah!” Ilsa interrupted. “C’mon Robin, they’re starting in five and we’re first up. Finish your drink, and maybe have another. We’re gonna bring down the house!”
Robin turned with a wary look on her face and signaled to the barman to request a shot of anything. He brought her a small shot glass full of clear liquid and she threw it back without a second thought, wincing and slamming the glass back down on the counter.
Strike had never been more turned on in his life.
“Wish me luck!” she joked, giving him a cheeky wink before she turned with a swish of her small dress and headed toward Ilsa.
“Good luck,” Strike whispered to his pint as she walked away, his eyes unapologetically remaining on her legs. God, those legs.
Robin made her way to the front of the dance floor, where a makeshift karaoke station had been set up. A few people were still milling about the floor, waiting for the singing to begin.
Ilsa and Robin were each given a microphone and Ilsa took the initial opening bars of her chosen song a cappella. Ilsa was tolerable at best, but that was the whole point of karaoke, Strike figured. The music began and she continued to the completion of her verse before Robin began to sing.
Bittersweet memories,
That is all I’m taking with me.
So goodbye,
Please don’t cry.
We both know I’m not what you,
You need.
From the moment she opened her mouth to sing, Strike very nearly dropped his pint. He turned to set it on the bar behind him. She had his full and complete attention. He was enraptured by her voice, which was in stark contrast to the words she sang. After the first few lines, he heard Nick’s voice in his ear.
“Oi, Oggy. You don’t close your mouth, the flies are gonna go in.”
Strike promptly closed his mouth and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, alright, alright. You knew she could sing like that?”
“Yeah mate, you didn’t? I’m surprised by that. Thought she bloody well told you everything. She’s full of secrets, that one is.”
“Yeah…” Strike trailed off. “I suppose she is.”
At that moment, the two men were silenced by the chorus of the song, as Robin rocketed into Whitney Houston’s famed “And IIIIIIIII will always love youuuuu.”
Her eyes were closed and her hands moved in time to her singing, as if she was feeling the words work their way through her body and out into her transfixed audience. As the saxophone solo followed the chorus, and Ilsa picked up the next verse, Robin’s eyes opened and she gazed out into the audience, not looking for anyone in particular, but hoping that she had the attention of one specific man.
Before she knew it, she locked her gaze with Strike’s and couldn’t bring herself to look away. When it was her turn to pick the song up once more, Robin sang a chorus of “I will always love you”s and not once did she close her eyes, or look around the room. Truthfully, there was only one person she was singing to. Though she wasn’t quite ready to unpack what that meant, Robin was ready to acknowledge that maybe, possibly, Cormoran Strike was the only man for her.
As the song reached its final notes, Robin closed her eyes and gave everything she had. She was greeted with a barrage of cheers, whistles, and applause from the people on the dance floor and in the bar area. She smiled brightly and took Ilsa’s hand, both women bowing simultaneously before making room for the next karaoke singer.
“Well now, that sure was something,” Nick said heartily as the women returned to their seats.
“How’d we do?” Ilsa asked, beaming at her husband.
“Robin, you were smashing,” he jokingly told her, as Ilsa playfully hit him on the chest. “You were lovely too, darling,” Nick continued, looking at his wife.
“No, it’s too late now, you’ve already done the damage,” she replied, giggling.
As the sound of Nick and Ilsa’s teasing faded into the background, Robin turned to Strike, who smiled at her softly. “Y’never told me you could sing.”
“I don’t tell a lot of people, I promise it wasn’t intentional,” Robin replied.
“Oh, I’m not worried about that. S’just, you have a nice voice,” he told her. “I wouldn’t mind hearing it more often.”
Robin inhaled sharply, “Yeah?”
“Yeah…”
“Alright then” Robin nodded, signaling to the barman for a fresh glass of wine. “That was quite the song Ilsa picked, eh?”
Strike took a swig of his beer before nodding, “Some pretty powerful words there.”
“Whitney has a way with them, doesn’t she?”
“Mmm,” Strike hummed, his eyes boring into Robin’s for just a beat too long. Or maybe just not long enough…
The moment was broken, as usual, by Ilsa. “Alrigh’ then, what song will the boys be doing then, Robin?”
“Bollocks to that!” Strike growled, though smiled at his friends.
“What he said!” Nick replied, and the four of them dissolved into a fit of laughter.