Disclaimer: I don't own them, I didn't create them, and I don't profit from them. But I'd love to have coffee with George and Jorja.
Author's Note: This idea came from the several hours I spent trying to figure out what color to paint a room, and I'm still trying to figure it out. Who knew there were so many colors of blue?
"You still coming over later?" Nick glanced at Sara as he stowed his gear into his locker. He tried to keep his voice even as he spoke, trying not to give away the butterflies that seemed to have take up residence in his stomach.
She smiled at him, trying to keep her own voice calm, hoping that he didn't notice that her hands were shaking a little as she tried to open her locker. "Uh, yeah. I just need to run past my apartment to change into something that won't matter if it gets paint on it."
Nick couldn't help but grin. "Great."
She let out a soft chuckle at his enthusiasm. "So have you roped anyone else into helping you paint your spare room?"
"Well, Catherine said she already had something planned with Lindsey, Greg claims he has a hot date with Lisa the new receptionist, and Warrick's got a few errands to run and then he said he'd be over." Nick replied, studying her face a bit too intently and fighting the urge to reach over and tuck a stray curl behind her ear.
Sara raised an eyebrow. "And what was Grissom's excuse?" She hadn't really expected that their supervisor would volunteer anyway, but she was interested to see what excuse he'd come up with for getting out of the task.
Nick hoped his face didn't reveal the sinking feeling he had in his stomach at Sara's mention of Grissom's name. "He said that painting wasn't his thing."
Sara observed a slight wince in Nick's eyes when she mentioned Grissom's name; for some reason that made her smile at Nick and she felt a flip in her stomach. "Well I guess it's you and me for a while then."
Nick grinned. "I guess it is." He stood there just staring at her for a moment until he realized what he was doing. He nervously cleared his throat and then glanced away to close his locker. "Well, I guess I'll see you a little later then."
"Ok." She smiled as she watched him leave, feeling a slight blush in her cheeks as Nick glanced over his shoulder and caught her staring at his butt.
Several hours later, Sara stood on Nick's doorstep dressed in a faded pair of old button fly Levi's and a snug fitting red T-shirt. She knocked on the door, waiting just a few moments before Nick opened the door. She smiled. "Hey."
"Hey, yourself." For whatever reason, Nick thought that her old jeans and T-shirt were quite possibly the sexiest thing he'd ever seen her in. He just stared at her for a second before he realized he'd better open the door a little wider and let her in.
"So what color did you decide to paint the walls?" Sara smiled at him, noticing the old black T-shirt he wore along with his faded blue jeans.
"Blue." Nick replied with a smile.
Sara laughed. "Blue."
Nick raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong with blue?"
She shook her head, and laughed again. "Nothing's wrong with blue. It's just that the human eye can distinguish millions of colors and you just call it blue."
He smirked. "Well it is blue, but if we're going to get into specifics, it's called Blue Enchantment."
Sara looked at him for a long moment and then realized she was staring. She averted her gaze down the hallway and cleared her throat. "Uh, so I suppose we should start painting"
"Uh, yeah." Nick motioned for her to follow him to the spare room. He had already taped the ceiling and the baseboards and removed the switch plates.
They fell into an easy rhythm, each of them with a roller in hand as they covered the walls with Blue Enchantment. After they'd gotten the first coat on, they stepped back and studied their handiwork.
"What do you think? One coat enough, or should we put on another for good measure?" Nick glanced over at Sara curiously.
She took a step back, as she studied the wall, not paying attention to the proximity of the tray of paint the rollers were sitting in or the bucket next to it. As she tripped, she began to fall back and she reached out to steady herself, only getting a fistful of Nick's T-shirt, before pulling him down with her. The tray of paint spilled all over the drop cloth that covered the floor, forming little pools and Sara's foot caught the handle of the paint bucket, tipping it just enough to spill a fair amount, and as Nick put his hands down to brace his fall, they landed directly into a pool of paint.
"I am so sorry." Sara looked at Nick a bit wide eyed as he hovered over her, not really paying attention to the fact that paint was slowly seeping into the leg of her jeans.
"Uh, that's ok." He suddenly found himself staring into her eyes, his heartbeat accelerating. "Are you ok?" What he resisted earlier that day, he didn't this time. He reached over to brush a curl back behind her ear, leaving a streak of paint on her cheek in the process. His eyes widened. "Oh, I'm sorry."
Once Sara realized what he was talking about, she started to laugh at the situation. During the entire process of putting on the first coat of paint, they had barely gotten a drop on themselves.
Nick started to laugh too and he couldn't help but watch her mouth, and her seemingly irresistible lips.
In the twinkling of an eye, he kissed her and as he did, Sara kissed him back. It seemed as if an electrical current carrying all of the pent up tension that had built up between the pair over the last four years was surging between them. Their hands began to roam as the kiss intensified.
When they finally broke apart to catch their breaths, foreheads pressed together, Nick smiled. "You have paint on your face."
She smiled back. "So do you." She leaned up and kissed him again, getting lost in the sensation of Nick's lips on hers, neither one of them seemingly aware of the paint on the floor anymore as their legs tangled together.
It wasn't until a loud knock sounded at the door that they pulled apart, chests heaving. Nick looked down at her. "I should get that. It's probably Warrick."
She just nodded as he tried to disentangle himself from her and then offered her a hand up. He couldn't resist giving her one last kiss before walking out of the room to answer the door.
It wasn't until Sara had followed him out into the living room and Nick had already opened the door to let Warrick in that she realized that their little encounter in the other room was going to be a little difficult to hide. There on the faded blue denim of his jeans, Nick had a pair of palm prints in Blue Enchantment on his butt.
Warrick glanced over at Sara for a moment and immediately his eyes widened in surprise before he looked over at Nick and started to chuckle.
"What?" Nick looked at Warrick quizzically before glancing back at Sara and then at Warrick. Just as he made eye contact with Warrick, his own eyes went wide and he looked back at a blushing Sara just as she crossed her arms over her chest, not quite covering the smeared blue palm prints on the front of her red T-shirt. "Oh."
"Yeah." Sara whispered softly as Nick stepped towards her.
"Nice jeans, man." Warrick quipped as he caught sight of the prints on Nick's butt.
Sara looked at Nick apologetically as she pointed towards the back of his pants.
Nick closed his eyes as a smirk crossed his face.
Warrick continued chuckling at the discomfort of his two coworkers, sure that if either one of them realized that were sporting so much evidence of what they'd been doing prior to his arrival that they probably wouldn't have answered the door.
Trying to break the awkward tension in the room, Nick cleared his throat. "Uh, we were just trying to decide whether the room needed a second coat."
"Is that what they're calling it these days?" Warrick quipped before dissolving into laughter again.
The End
