Jennifer Jareau sighed and rubbed her tired eyes after she read for about the thousandth time the email she had received from Detective Mac Taylor of the NYPD Crime Lab.
She hadn't applied for the position of communications director, hadn't even known it was open. Detective Taylor simply said he'd heard good things about her and seen her give a few press conferences, and now that the position was available, he was, as he put it, "interested in talking about the possibility" of her coming to work for him. He could fly to Quantico to meet her, or he could arrange for her to fly to New York and spend the day with him and his CSIs, whichever she preferred.
Wow, she said to herself as she leaned back in her desk chair. What to do, what to do? Of course she was flattered, and honored, but she loved the team, loved the BAU. As crazy as it might sound to the uninitiated, they were family. Reid was like a little brother, Morgan an older brother, Pen and Emily sisters, and Hotch, well, he was just Hotch. The BAU had felt like home from her very first day on the job.
But an opportunity like this didn't come along every day, and she had to admit it did stir her interest. A top position on an elite, high-profile CSI team. A new city. A new beginning. A new life away from David Rossi.
She shook her head at the last thought, wondering why she even considered him. For God's sake, Jareau, she admonished herself. Get a hold of yourself. You're a 33-year-old woman, not a schoolgirl.
She didn't know if she would go so far as to say she and Rossi were officially an item, but they had been seeing each other for weeks, and she was starting to feel like he might be stringing her along. They both were cautious, and they both agreed that their relationship or whatever they were calling it was not something they needed or wanted to share with the team. Not only was Rossi was a senior agent, and JJ a young agent making a name for herself, as demonstrated by the email she had received from Detective Taylor, but it was rumored that he was the reason most of the rules regarding fraternization between agents existed, and a known fact that he had three ex-wives.
Their differences were an unspoken source of tension between them, and just when JJ thought they should at least try to talk, he distracted her with a sweet gesture or a passionate kiss. It was as if he had a sixth sense about her, and even as the thought warmed her, it left her cold. If he knew what she was going to say before she even opened her mouth, he had to know the trouble he was causing her, didn't he?
It was with that cold settling in the pit of her stomach that she fired off a reply to Detective Taylor's email. The team was on stand down this week – would Friday be okay for her visit to New York?