Jane notices as soon as Lisbon walks into the office.

XXX

"Morning, Lisbon," he says cheerily from his couch, and when she turns to look at him there's something resting in her eyes that's not normally there. "How's Mashburn?" he asks then, because he needs to prove to her that he knows.

Lisbon frowns for a split second, and Jane almost misses it. "I don't know," she says. "How was he the last time you saw him?"

"Lisbon," Jane starts, and his tone is a touch condescending, so Lisbon turns away from him and marches into her office. "Lisbon!" he calls after her, his voice playful now. "Lisbon, c'mon! Denial is a river in Egypt!" he sing-songs as she slams her office door shut.

Rigsby starts laughing from his desk. "I get it," he says with a smile. "I get it."

Behind him, Cho looks up from some papers and shakes his head, and then Van Pelt spins around in her chair to eye Jane. "Why'd you ask Lisbon about Mashburn?"

"Oh no reason," Jane says as he stands up and stretches, waving one hand dismissively. "Just a hunch." (But really it's much more than a hunch, or even a hypothesis, because he knows. He can feel it in his bones, in his chest, and he saw it in the way Lisbon walked into the room.)

Jane walks over to Lisbon's office and rests his hand on the cool metal of the door handle, trying to think of what to say to Lisbon next. (He desperately wants to make her blush.) He watches her carefully for a moment through an opening in the blinds, noticing how the corners of her mouth tilt upward slightly even though she's doing paperwork. He likes Mashburn, and he likes Lisbon (of course), but something's not sitting right in his chest, and it's a weight that feels dangerously like a pile of what ifs crushing down onto his lungs.

He wonders briefly if his pupils dilate when he looks at her (and if she would even notice if they did).

With a quiet huff, Jane pushes the door open. "Did you at least give him a survey to fill out so he could rate your performance?"

Lisbon's mouth hangs open for a split second too long, and the blush that creeps into her cheeks and ears makes Jane grin. "What? I...What?" she stutters.

"Well, all open minded people should be willing to hear some critiques about how they execute their jobs. I thought you might be one of those people, Lisbon. That's really the only way a workplace can improve after all, if the employees are willing to take some criticisms."

She looks like she might throw something at him.

Jane eyes the stapler on Lisbon's desk and takes a step closer to the door.

"Can I give you some criticism?"

Jane's face brightens, because he'd much rather that Lisbon throw critiques at him than potentially bone breaking office supplies. "Sure."

"You're irksome."

Jane shrugs and makes a face (it says sorry, but there's nothing I can really do about that), and Lisbon continues. "You're also childish, selfish, and a pain in the ass." She begins ticking them off on her fingers, and Jane quickly becomes bored with the game he's playing (because Lisbon has suddenly changed the rules and he doesn't like that).

He's halfway out the door when his response slips out and ricochets against the office walls, stealing most of the oxygen from the room, and stopping Lisbon mid-tirade.

"That's why you love me," he says, but it doesn't come out in the joking way that he intends.