Not long after that, O'Hara comes to him and asks if they can have dinner together because she needs to talk to him about something, and Lassiter's heart sinks because he knows that this can only mean one thing.
"I got a call last week from a recruiter with the U.S. Marshal's Service."
They're sitting in a little Mexican restaurant two blocks away from the police station. Lassiter has tried to brace himself for this conversation, but it still feels like a shock.
O'Hara continues, her eyes focused on her enchiladas instead of on him. "They said they had been impressed by our arrest record, and that they need more female marshals, that they're looking to diversify their ranks. They offered me a job." She looks up at him, and there are unshed tears glistening in her eyes. "I don't know what to do, Carlton. I can't imagine not working at the SBPD."
"O'Hara," he reaches across the table to take her hand "if you let this opportunity pass you by, I'll never forgive you, and more importantly, you'll never forgive yourself. Take the job."
After that, things seem to move too fast. A little less than a month later and Lassiter is at O'Hara's going away party, though at least she's not going very far; she's being assigned to the Santa Barbara field office. Lassiter has had too much to drink and he knows it, but he can't quite seem to make himself stop. The alcohol softens the unwanted jealousy he feels about O'Hara getting offered a job with the Marshals, and it smoothes over the fear he feels that he'll never again have a partner that he gets along with as well as he does with her.
They're at Tom Blair's Pub, and now that it's after midnight, the party is starting to wrap up.
Juliet is hugging McNab, standing up on her tiptoes to get her arms around his neck, and he lifts her up in a big bear hug, a few tears glistening on his cheeks as O'Hara whispers something in his ear. Good God man, Lassiter wants to say, pull yourself together, but he doesn't have the energy. Buzz leaves and O'Hara comes back to the table, where it's just her and Lassiter now, sliding into the booth beside him to rest her head on his shoulder. She's drunk too, as evidenced by the fact that she's picked up his hand and is playing with his fingers, humming softly to herself.
"I can't drive right now," Lassiter says "and clearly you can't either. Wanna share a taxi?"
"Sounds good, partner" she replies a little sadly, and he fishes his phone out of his pocket to make the call.
He gives the cab driver directions to O'Hara's apartment first, and she holds his hand for the entire drive, not letting go when they get to her place. "Come in with me," she says. "I'm not ready for tonight to be over yet."
He stumbles into the apartment after her, following her to the sofa, where she pulls him down beside her, pulling his arm around her shoulder and curling herself into his side. Lassiter feels a little awkward because he and Juliet have never been so overtly physical, and in any case he's never been particularly adept at expressing affection, but she's warm and soft beside him and after a few minutes he relaxes, inhaling the mixture of her fresh peach scent and the fruity girly drinks she had been putting away all night.
"I'm scared," she says quietly. "I'm scared about what's going to happen once I start this job. What if they find out I'm not good enough?"
"Why the hell would you think that?"
"Because they noticed me because of our case solve rate, and I don't know how much of that was due to Shawn. What if I get there and they discover I'm a fraud?"
"Damn it O'Hara, not this again! Who's been solving cases since Spencer left town, huh? Who arrested the Banyon Street Killer, and solved the Wozinski robbery?"
"We did," she says, sounding a little more confident. "You're right, I know you are."
"Damn straight. I could kill Spencer for messing with your head like this. Look, I must be really drunk or I would never say this, but however he did what he did, Spencer was obviously an amazing detective. Maybe we relied on him a little too much the last couple of years. But just because he was good, that doesn't mean you aren't good too."
"Thank you, Carlton" she says softly, and he's confused, because shouldn't he be thanking her for smelling so nice, and for the way her soft breasts are pressed against his side?
Maybe he shouldn't have had that last drink. Or more accurately, the last three.
"Thank you for training me, and for being my partner, and for being my friend." She tips her head back and kisses him on the cheek, hesitates a moment, then moves her mouth a fraction of an inch so that she's really kissing him. She shifts, swinging one leg around so that she's straddling him, and now they're necking like teenagers, and oh, it's nice. It's REALLY nice. Juliet, his smart, brave, competent partner, with her tongue in his mouth and her fingers in his hair, gasping a little when he pulls her closer.
It might be nice, but it's also totally weird. Lassiter wants to move his hands, but the thought of being grabby with his partner is so alien that he feels frozen. For all that she instigated things, O'Hara seems similarly stiff; she's still kissing him, but she feels practically rigid in his arms.
After a few minutes, she pulls away and smiles a little ruefully. "This isn't going to happen, is it?"
"I don't think so," he replies, not without a degree of sadness, because as warm and welcome as she is against him, kissing her like this should be more than just "nice".
She moves off of his lap. "Don't leave," she commands, as she starts to walk out of the room. "I'm just going to put us on some coffee. I think you should stay here tonight." She blushes at his confused look "In the guest room! I'm still really tipsy, and I think you are too."
He waits on the sofa, willing himself not to replay the last few minutes in his mind, trying to figure out if he regretted that they had stopped or if he was relieved.
"We don't have the right kind of chemistry," she says from the doorway. He looks up at her. She's still looking a little blushy, not quite meeting his eyes. She reaches out to hand him a cup of coffee, and he gets up to take it, then sits back down, feeling suddenly exhausted.
"I mean, we have great chemistry in other ways, but we've spent so long ignoring and suppressing any kind of um, sexual feelings towards each other that we've missed our chance."
Yeah, it's relief. This, with O'Hara, is the best relationship he's ever had with a woman, including his ex-wife, and he doesn't want anything, especially an ill-advised drunken hook-up, to ruin it.
"Shawn and I had chemistry," she muses, resting her head against the doorframe. Lassiter winces slightly; this is the most she's talked about Spencer since the day after Henry's funeral, and he's not sure he's comfortable with it. "Not intense, passionate chemistry exactly, but fun chemistry. We had fun together. Although sometimes, I felt like I was playing den mother to him and Gus."
She takes a sip of her coffee, then adds thoughtfully "You had great chemistry with Shawn too."
Lassiter chokes on his coffee and Juliet's eyes widen. "Oh! Not that kind of chemistry! I mean, I didn't think the two of you were going to start making out or anything." Her forehead furrows slightly "Well, not most of the time, anyway. Just that you worked well together, you know? You butted heads all the time, but there was always an arrest at the end of the case. That's good chemistry."
Lassiter sets his coffee cup down and stands up carefully, because his head is still spinning. "If you're finished insulting me," he says, keeping his tone light so that she can tell that he's not actually mad "I'm going to go sleep this off and try to forget that we ever had this conversation. Where's the guest room?"
She points down the hallway. "On the left. If you want to take a shower in the morning, there are towels in the hall closet." She hugs him. "Thank you again, Carlton. Good night."
He passes out as soon as he hits the sheets, and awakens a few hours later in a strange bed, feeling like he's floating in between sleep and consciousness. His head hurts, but not as much as it probably should after the amount he drank the night before, and he can still recall with perfect clarity O'Hara talking about chemistry. Most of the time, she didn't think the two of them were going to start making out, she had said about him and Shawn. Spencer. His mind drifts back to a night a few years before, before Spencer had started dating Juliet, not long after the Drimmer incident.
He and Spencer had been on a stakeout. O'Hara was on vacation in Miami visiting friends, and half the department was out sick with some sort of flu, and somehow Chief Vick thought the obvious solution to their manpower problem was to send Spencer out on an overnight stakeout with Lassiter, despite the fact that Carlton insisted he would be much happier going it alone.
Stuck in a car for eight hours with a hyperactive man-child was not Lassiter's idea of a good night on the job, but he resolved to make the best of it, a resolution that lasted approximately twenty-five minutes in, as Spencer debated who was the better reality show judge, Nigel St. Nigel versus Simon Cowell, put his sneakered feet up on the dashboard, and got cheez doodle fingerprints all over the car. Lassiter had finally snapped at Shawn to stop acting like an ill-mannered teenager, and Shawn shot him a look so amused that Lassiter wondered briefly if Spencer had been itrying/i to get under his skin. If so, mission accomplished.
After that, Spencer contented himself with playing with the radio and making the occasional smart-ass remark about passing cars and pedestrians. At one point he started a surprisingly non-annoying conversation about Clint Eastwood movies (they both agreed that iThe Outlaw Josey Wales/i was an underrated classic), but for the most part he was quiet, though he fidgeted almost constantly, tapping his fingers or his foot. Lassiter decided he could live with the fidgeting if it meant keeping this, dare he even think it, congenial peace between them.
It was around four o'clock in the morning when Lassiter noticed that Spencer was staring at his hands. Or, maybe he wasn't; it was entirely possible he was more asleep than awake, since he had been quiet for an unusually long period of time, so long that Lassiter was startled when he spoke.
"The spirits are telling me that I should read your palm, Lassie."
"What?!" Lassiter jerked back slightly in his seat, taken off guard, but before he could react further Shawn had snatched his right hand and was holding it palm up in a surprisingly strong grip, examining it closely by the dim light provided by the streetlights.
"Spencer, what the hell – "Lassiter started to say, but Shawn interrupted him.
"Sshhh, Lassie. Psychic at work here."
"I'm not interested in your psychic bullshit –"
But Shawn continued as if he hadn't been interrupted, reaching with his free hand to touch one of the lines on Lassiter's palm.
"This is your life line," he said, tracing the line with his finger. "Don't worry, Lassie, it's nice and long. You'll live to see the Grumpy Old Cop's Retirement Home. Now, see this? This is your head line. See how it and the life line start at the same point? That means that you're ruled by logic. That's why you have so much trouble accepting my amazing powers."
As he spoke, Shawn continued to gently map the lines with his fingertip, following the dips and whorls of Lassiter's palm with a soft, barely there touch, and Lassiter caught his breath as he realized he was suddenly, ragingly hard, aroused in a way that he couldn't remember being since he and Victoria had been lusty newlyweds. And all because Shawn – Spencer, of all people! – was holding his hand. He only hoped that the poor lighting in the car would make it impossible for Shawn to make out his condition. He knew that he should pull away, but as loathe as he was to admit it, he didn't want to because it felt so good.
"This is your heart line. The little lines going through it mean you've suffered heartbreak. Poor Lassie." Shawn's thumb stroked across the lines, as if he could erase them with a touch. "But see, the second half of your heart line is strong and unbroken. Good things are coming your way."
Shawn had been leaning forward slightly, looking at Lassiter from underneath his lashes, an unusually intent expression on his face. Lassiter found himself responding in kind, shifting a little closer and unwittingly licking his lips as he looked at Shawn's mouth.
"Lassie," Shawn started to say, then blinked like he was waking from a dream. "Is that Bradshaw coming out of the warehouse?"
"Shit!" Lassiter yanked his hand away from Shawn, focusing on the suspect they were supposed to be watching in the first place and cursing himself for falling into Spencer's web of weirdness for even a few minutes.
Chemistry. Lassiter relives the memory of Shawn's fingers wrapped around his wrist, feeling like maybe it was all a dream. He's heavy and slack with sleep, and something else too as he realizes that his hand has slipped inside his boxers.
No. He's not going to jerk off in Juliet's spare bedroom. He's not a fucking teenager; he has more control than that. Or if not control, he at least knows to take a cold shower.
He makes it to the shower, but at the first blast of cold water his resolve melts and he adjusts the temperature to something more comfortable, which does nothing to abate his hard-on but which does do wonders for his headache. He leans his forehead against the tile, and he can't seem to stop himself from reaching down to wrap his hand around his cock. When he comes, it's not to thoughts of Juliet's sweet, drunken groping, or Marlowe's post-prison enthusiasm, or even his ever reliable pin-up girl fantasies, but to the memory of Shawn's fingers skimming across the palm of his hand.