First week back at work since together happened.
And it had now happened, he decided; there had been a point on Sunday afternoon when he lay his head against her belly and she combed her fingers through his hair and it was peaceful and no longer self-conscious and it felt like it all just fit. They felt still. They felt like the unwobbling pivot at the center of the universe.
That moment became his marker of when together had really started. So he could now chill out, he told himself. Except he didn't feel very chilled right now.
All he had to do was walk across the office. Just like he had a million times before.
It was as if he couldn't remember how it was supposed to go. He tried to recall how it used to be...one leg seamlessly in front of the other, casually walking along just like he always had before he started sleeping with Dani Reese.
Walk like a normal guy, dammit!
But he didn't feel like a normal guy. He felt like people could tell just by looking at him, they'd see it in his gait because he didn't look the same on account of him not feeling the same.
He took the first few paces, concentrating desperately on not seeming like a man who was trying to hide anything, nothing at all, especially the fact that the first thing he had heard that morning was her purring sexual demands into his ear. Or that when they were done, she had driven him back to his place to collect his car so that they could arrive at work separately today, just in case anyone who was watching would note that she had driven him in three times already this week. Or that, the times they had been at the office, the last forty minutes or so of the working day were so unbelievably tense, each of them counting down the clock until Dani felt it was an acceptable hour to finish up, that Charlie could barely breathe. They raced back to her apartment in taut silence and went at each other with such fury that Dani had begun to avoid her neighbors and put out her trash after dark. He felt like it showed on his face and if he schooled his features to a neutral expression it just travelled down his limbs and registered there instead.
He made it the six or seven stiff and stilted paces to the middle of the office floor where Dani was in conversation with Tidwell. She gave him a look as he drew up to them and noticed Tidwell squinting at her partner. When the Captain's cell buzzed and he turned away to answer it, Dani leaned in to Charlie and hissed.
"What the fuck is wrong with you? Did you slip a disc or something?"
"No, I'm fine. I'm just trying to...be normal. You ever try that? It's harder than it looks."
"Why do you have to be such a freak, Crews? I thought you said you were going to be fine with this?", she whispered at him.
"I am fine. I'm more than fine - that's the problem, Reese."
"Jesus. Well, how about you go and be fine over there? I'll deal with Tidwell, you try not to draw attention to yourself."
He obediently walked back over to his desk, trying to mask a slight hobble.
Tidwell finished up on his call and turned back to Dani.
"He okay?", he asked, gesturing to Crews, who was now trying too hard to look casual, tapping a pen on the side of the desk, pretending not to have his eyes and ears trained on his partner.
"Same as ever.", she shrugged.
The back of her neck felt hot. She felt uncomfortable. Damn it, Crews was right, normal was difficult when you tried.
"So, uh..", Tidwell ran his hand through his hair, the hair Dani had made him get cut. He hooked a finger under the collar of his shirt, a shirt she had suggested he buy, and tugged. "My sister is getting married."
"Your sister? The one in New Jersey?"
"Yeah, Veronica! That's right!", Tidwell was encouraged by the fact that Dani remembered. "Well, this will be her third marriage actually. Us Tidwells are nothing if not persistent!"
Ugh, he was looking at her weird. Dani knew when he was building up to something. She glanced over at Crews, who was now pretending to concentrate on balancing his pen on the bridge of his nose; she half hoped he would come back over and rescue her and half hoped that he would suddenly get the hang of normal and get on with some work.
"Well, that's great. I'm happy for her, I hope it works out.", she said politely, almost formally, hoping to end the conversation there and then.
"You do? Well maybe you could tell her that in person? ", he chanced, grimacing slightly at his delivery. This had sounded way better in his head.
"Why would I do that? I've never even met your sister."
"As in, if you came to the wedding. As my date. You could tell her that in person...", Tidwell trailed off, he knew it was hopeless.
Her jacket brushed her arm. Attached to it was Crews' hand and outstretched arm. It was his way of interjecting, literally, in a conversation he didn't much like.
"Do we have a body?", she asked, trying not to sound hopeful.
"Yup, let's go, Reese.", Charlie said, having recovered his normal, after all.
