Moments Like This
She relished moments like this. Dreary, wet afternoons, with the dimness outside exacerbated by the gray tinting that coated all the windows on the outer perimeter of MCS. She resented the harsh brightness of the fluorescent lights overhead intruding into her cozy darkness and her private thoughts.
She relished moments like this. Times –like right now—when she could gaze across their desks at her partner and just think. He was usually so in tune to her –so aware of her—that a mere split-second glance cast his way was enough to draw his attention. But right now, he was so engrossed in his reading –so lost in his own world, that she was safe from detection.
And it was during these quiet moments that, somehow, the same thoughts and questions came to the forefront of her mind. Why had fate brought them together as partners? Why had she stayed? Why did he have to be so smart, and charming? So bright and interesting? Why, when –and even more curiously to her—how had he endeared himself to her so?
His moods and behavior over the past year or so certainly weren't endearing. Infuriating was more like it. Alex went through her mental checklist, remembering all his antics; from his dismissive treatment of her, his brooding and sulking, his "desk-clearing incident" –he's damn lucky the Santa mug was on my side of the desk that day—to his rogue mission at Tates.
She tried to pick on his flaws –tried to talk herself out of her attraction to him, but it was no use.
He's definitely grayer, heavier –so why the hell does he still look so damn good to me? Is it his eyes? His voice?
Alex chuckled at herself. She didn't know why she rehashed these things over and over in her mind. Her questions always led her to the same answer.
Unable to resist the urge, she quietly, slowly, rolled her chair back a few inches, still unnoticed by Bobby. She gently tugged on the drawer handle, sliding it open just enough so she could spy the crumpled up wad of paper that she had safely tucked away at the back. She smiled.
A sexy voice asked, "Something funny?"
"Nah, just thinking," Alex answered, then pretended to be hunting for something in her pocketbook that was stashed in the same drawer.
Bobby shrugged his shoulders and went back to his reading.
Alex stole one last glance at the handsome man sitting across from her. Her heart and stomach fluttered.
A few years before, Lynn Bishop had saved that ball of paper. On Alex's first day back from maternity leave, while alone together in the ladies' room, Lynn relayed the story of Bobby's antics on that day. "I didn't mean to be nosy, but I am a detective, after all," she explained. Lynn placed the ball of paper into Alex's hand and merely said, "I think you should read this."
It held the answers to all of her questions.
Fin.