Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage nor am I associated with Dean Devlin, Timothy Hutton, Gina Bellman or Kari Matchett.
Complicated
I watch them, not quite meeting each other's eyes, rarely addressing each other by name, but obviously comfortable with one another, and know it must be something, if not love.
He never touches her. She doesn't kiss him. They aren't a couple.
But they could be.
He doesn't act with her the way he does with the others. She's more like a friend, someone he needs, than a colleague. I know these people are his family, no matter what they might say, but there's something different in the way he treats her.
It's less about him, though, than it is about her. This dark-haired, mysterious woman with more than one accent and a terribly familiar perfume. It's about the way her eyes follow him across a room, allowing me a glimpse at a buried longing.
He used to come home with that perfume on his jacket, that's why I know it so well. I never thought he was cheating on me though what I imagined to comfort myself, I don't know. Nate couldn't have. He would never have been able to live with himself. But I can't help but believe she ever made it easy on him.
And now she's the one pining, wanting him when he barely notices her, except sub-consciously as the only person he trusts, though God knows why.
But then I catch him tracing her curves when her back is turned and it brings a smile to my lips. If anyone can catch him, hold him, I imagine it's her.
---
Tara? No, no, he's supposed to be with Sophie. I mean, she's nice enough. Foreign aid worker and all. But there's a very, very small chance she was telling the truth anyway.
"So what happened with Sophie?" I ask, unable to contain my curiosity.
"Uh, that got a bit… complicated," he answers, and I very nearly roll my eyes. He's never known what was good for him.
I say it later, just to see what he'll do: "I knew it! You're dating Sophie!"
"I am not dating Sophie." His voice is firm, strained, as though it's just not the right term, the same way 'boyfriend' isn't the right term for what Alex and I have. Or, not the same way. Just that… that they're complicated, like he said.
Terribly, inexplicably complicated.
Something tells me, even when I was in the picture, that they were always that way.