Chapter 4: Prep
"There isn't really a number, is there."
Finch hesitated—then sighed. "No, Mr. Reese. There isn't. What gave it away?"
John shook his head, smiling a little. "You need to come up with more convincing cover stories. We never get a number from The Machine that isn't urgent."
"The moment was opportune. I overheard Joss say that she wished she could go somewhere with you. And the dress she was looking at was truly beautiful. The invitation just came yesterday, and it is unfortunately one of those events to which I'm usually compelled to go. I dislike the sociopolitical grandstanding, but it's part of doing business. I did briefly consider taking Ms. Shaw—"
"Nuh-uh. No way. Absolutely not. I plan on spending tonight with the real love of my life. Even though he snores and sheds and takes up more than his fair share of my bed, he's still better than a lot of male humans I know." Sam was stretched out on the couch at the far end of the Library's main room, with Bear curled up beside her blissfully getting petted.
"—with me, but somehow I doubt she will have as good a time as you and Detective Carter will," Finch continued as if Shaw hadn't spoken. "I believe Bear would benefit more from her heavy petting than I would."
John choked on his coffee. There was a strangled snort from the couch as Sam said, "Seriously, did you just crack a joke, Finch?"
"I never joke, Ms. Shaw, it was an accurate assessment of my current evaluation of the relationship you share with our erstwhile four-footed teammate."
"Uh-huh. Okay." Sam sounded unconvinced; and only John, from where he was standing by Harold's computer desk, could see the tiny wicked half-smile that barely curved Harold's lips.
"Is it okay to wear a tie, or do I absolutely have to wear a bowtie?" He studied the two lengths of silk in front of him. Ties he could deal with. Bow ties flustered him.
"A bow tie, Mr. Reese, absolutely. This is a business partner of mine and appearances are important. Which is why I asked you to go with Detective Carter. She can pull off elegant and sophisticated, whereas sophisticated is not Ms. Shaw's forte."
"Hey." Sam struggled to sit up, but Bear refused to move. "Damn it, move over, you big walking muff, I have to go beat some sense into Finch there…"
John escaped the Library with the sound of Sam's threats ringing in his ears, bringing a smile to his face. Whether either Finch or Shaw realized it or not, their initial hostility towards each other had evolved into a wary respect for each other's skills and abilities, and they might, in time, become friends. In the meantime, however, he was heading over to Joss's place to help Taylor dress. He'd drop the boy off at the school dance, then come back and take Joss to the mixer.
He wanted to put off putting on the tie until the last possible moment—he hated the feeling of something around his neck. Too much potential for a hostile to grab and use against him. So when he rang Joss's doorbell—contrary to his usual custom of inviting himself in via lockpicks and the back door—he was still carrying the tie.
Joss yanked the door open on his second ring—and he barely stopped himself from laughing. Her hair was in curlers and she had some kind of cream on her face, but her eyes were sparkling and happy and her smile was broadly exuberant. "Come on in. I'm trying to get Taylor ready while I'm trying to get ready. Give me a few minutes."
He stepped into the living room and closed the door as Joss yelled up the stars, "Taylor! John's here!"
"Cool!" Pounding footsteps on the stairs, and suddenly Taylor was squeezing past Joss on the steps. "Are you gonna drive us to the dance?"
"Yes. I'll take you to pick Lia up, drop both of you off at the dance, then come back and pick your Mom up and take her out to the business dinner. You said a handful of your friends are going out after the dance to hang out, so if you can have them drop you off back at the school I can pick you up there around midnight—" he stopped because Taylor was shaking his head.
"Mom called Grandmom last night. Said she was going to be working tonight and asked if I could stay over there. So after the dance, my friend Manny's older brother's going to drop Lia off at home and me off at Grandmom's, and Mom'll pick me up from Grandmom's tomorrow morning. And I texted Lia with the plan and she said she's cool with that. Manny's older brother is in the Marines, home on leave, and Mom's met him and likes him, so you don't have to worry about who I'm with."
John understood a couple of things at once. One, his hasty kiss of the night before had been understood—and two, Joss was definitely interested, or she wouldn't have arranged for them to have the entire night uninterrupted an alone.
A certain part of his anatomy was perking up at the thought.
"Okay. Are you ready?" He put the ties down on the coffee table, then put two small cardboard boxes also on the table.
"Yep!" Taylor was bouncing in eagerness. "How do I look?"
"You look great." John reached out and gave the tie a twitch, settling it around Taylor's neck, then held out one of the boxes. "I stopped at the florist. It's customary, when a boy takes a girl to a dance, he brings the flowers. So here's a boutonniere for you," he opened the box, pinned the blue rose into place on Taylor's lapel, and handed him the box. "This one goes on Lia's wrist. You put it on her when you pick it up." Taylor nodded solemnly as he tucked the box carefully under one arm. "All right. Let's go. Lia's waiting."
She was indeed; out on the sidewalk in front of an old brownstone not that far from Taylor's and Joss's house. As they pulled up, John could see tension in her shoulders, see the lurking unhappiness in her eyes; and behind her, he could see two older people—her aunt and uncle, he supposed—standing in the doorway of the house. They frowned and looked disapproving; the woman could have soured lemons with her glare. Lia herself was tense and unhappy, and her eyes were suspiciously damp.
He stepped out of the car, walked Taylor up the front walk. Taylor was staring tongue-tied at Lia as he fumbled with putting the single blue rose, on its elastic band, around her wrist, and John suppressed a smile as he turned to her Aunt and Uncle. "We'll have Lia back by eleven," he told them—but it didn't ease the glare; if anything, the woman looked even angrier. As Taylor and Lia went down the walk, and he followed them, he could feel the two people glaring at his back, and he felt vaguely worried—and annoyed.
There was nothing wrong with a young girl going to a chaperoned school dance; Taylor had a good head on his shoulders, put there by a good mother with a clear, firm sense of right and wrong, which she'd imparted to her son; and they'd made arrangements to be chaperoned by an adult coming back. And Taylor knew to call him and Joss if he needed anything or if anything went wrong, and John trusted him to keep his promises. Coed dances might be frowned on in the tradition of the country they were from, but here in the US it was part of growing up, and both Taylor and Lia were sensible kids. It didn't seem fair that Lia would be made so unhappy over a simple, innocent little thing like this by her guardians.
Well, her Aunt and Uncle would have to learn to live with it. Her parents had said yes; her father had even given his daughter extra money to buy a dress with; there was nothing her aunt and uncle could say or do.
Lia started relaxing as Taylor helped her get into the car, but didn't breathe a sigh of relief until they were around the corner and heading for the school. "Whew. I thought for a while that Aunt Savi was going to stop me. I'm glad you came when you did." And then she said, shyly, "You look really nice, Taylor."
"Yeah. Mom's boyfriend took me shopping for a suit while my mom took my girlfriend shopping for a dress, I swear it's a conspiracy." Then he looked at his tie—and the color of her dress. "John…my tie matches Lia's dress."
"Yes. It does." John was enjoying every minute of this.
"And you got blue roses that match her dress."
"Yes."
"Um…did Mom text you a picture of the dress Lia chose just so you could pick the tie and flowers to match?"
"Yes she did."
"Man. Mom really does like Lia, doesn't she?"
John couldn't help it; he laughed aloud.
He wasn't laughing when he rang the doorbell to Joss's house half an hour later after dropping Taylor and Lia off at their school.
Joss looked different when she opened the door this time. Gone were the curlers; now her hair cascaded to her shoulders in delicate little curls. A mist of perfume hung around her, a delicate bouquet of flowers and fruit scents, not a bold, musky, attention-demanding scent like Zoe's. Cold cream was gone, replaced by soft tints of subtle brown around her eyes making her eyes seem larger and brighter; a soft rosy blush on her cheeks made her look younger and innocent, yet sexy and beautiful at the same time. And the dress that she'd been admiring in the store, the black velvet sheath, hugged her figure in all the right places. She had a gorgeous hourglass shape that he didn't see often in her police uniform or her regular everyday clothes.
He couldn't think of a single thing to say. So, instead, he held out the bouquet of roses that he'd picked from the florist at the same time he'd chosen Taylor's and Lia's flowers. Deep crimson roses with a delicate yet heady scent; the color of love, of desire. There was no doubt in his mind of how he wanted the night to go.
And when she looked up at him after taking the flowers, there was no doubt in his mind of which way she wanted the night to go. "Come on in. I'm almost ready, I just need to finish my makeup and put my shoes on. Let me put these in water first." And she turned and headed toward the kitchen.
And for the first time he saw the back of the dress.
His jaw dropped—he had to force himself to step into the house, robotically closed the door behind him. He hadn't seen the back of the dress at the store; or if he did, he hadn't noticed. But the plunging back line framed the creamy coffee skin of Joss's back perfectly in the white chiffon cowl, and the elegant small white train behind her followed her every move, glided with her steps. Graceful and elegant. Sophisticated. Just like Harold had wanted. No, he couldn't imagine Shaw being able to wear this dress. Not the way Joss was wearing it.
And suddenly all he wanted was to pull it off and get her out of it.
"John?" She paused in the act of arranging the flowers in a vase. "Are you okay?" She looked down at herself, then looked back up at him, a shadow of anxiety in her eyes. "Does it not look right?"
He found his voice from somewhere down in his shoes; his heart was somewhere in his throat. "No, no, you look…fine. Great." And then what he was really thinking slipped out. "Jesus, Joss. I don't think I can spend the whole night staring at you in that dress."
She frowned. "John, you saw this dress in the store. You knew what it looked like."
"I looked at the dress. I didn't actually see it." He hadn't really paid attention to the dress; he'd been imagining the woman he loved in it, and what she would look like when he peeled it off her and got her out of it. Seeing her actually in it hit him like a fist to the gut…and electricity to his groin.
She stepped out of the kitchen, and he simply couldn't keep his hands off her anymore. He stepped behind her, pushed her hair off the nape of her neck, and dropped a light, feathery kiss at the base of her neck, right at the top of her spine, as his fingers trailed down the smooth expanse of her back. She gave a soft sigh that turned his knees to jelly and his blood to liquid fire.
"We could always just stay here," he said thickly, completely forgetting that he and Harold had told her they were going out to this mixer to keep an eye on a number.
"We could, but then Harold would be cheated out of his attempt to give us a Valentine's day gift. In his own way." Joss smiled sweetly and slipped gracefully out of his arms.
His mind stumbled over her words. "You knew it was a setup?"
She walked back to him, chuckled as she picked up the bowtie from where he'd dropped it on the coffee table. "John, when are you and Finch going to stop underestimating me? Yes, I knew it was a setup. You—we've—never gotten a number that wasn't urgent. It was a transparent attempt at getting the two of us some time alone together, and you're being unusually dense—even for you—if you think I didn't see that from the start. I figured out your work with the Machine—you think I couldn't figure out a blatant setup?"
"Guilty." He stood there feeling foolish as her hands flew on the bow tie, weaving the little bit of fabric around his neck until she was done. He and Harold should have known there wasn't much that got past Joss Carter.
"There. Perfect. You know, it's nice to know that, as skilled as you are at a lot of things, there are still some things you can't do. Like figure me out. And tying a bowtie."
"I can field-strip a 45 in the dark upside down but I've never been able to figure those damn things out," he sighed as she patted the edge of the tie into place and stepped back.
"That's okay. You don't have to as long as you're with me," Joss gave him a sweetly malicious smile. "Let me slip on some shoes, grab my purse, and we can go. I figure we'll spend maybe an hour at the mixer, just long enough to nibble a little and have some fun. Then we'll come back here…and the real fun can begin."
His mind tumbled straight into the gutter. "I'll be waiting. Don't take too long."
She smiled at him. "I won't."
She was gone just long enough for him to get himself under control, but when she swept back into the living room in that dress, with heels on and a long dark wool duster, and a glittery pin holding the curls up off her right ear, he again wished they could skip the business mixer and just stay here. But one look at her face, the bright anticipatory gleam in her eyes, and the words died on his lips. She was looking forward to this, very much indeed, and he was not going to be the one to take this away from her.
He chose that moment to open the second box he'd placed on the coffee table earlier; the blue roses had been for Taylor and Lia; but these bright red ones were for himself and Joss. One he pinned to his lapel; seized by sudden inspiration, he took the other rose off its elastic wrist strap and tucked it under the pin in her hair. There were no thorns, so it wouldn't stick her, but the bright red looked beautiful nestled among the dark curls.
"Thanks, John," she said as he finished, with a smile that was full of warmth and love.
"Don't thank me until you've opened this," he said, and from the pocket of his jacket he produced a small box.
"John…I didn't get you anything!" She looked distressed even as she reached for it.
"I didn't get this for just you. I got it for both of us. Open it." And she did.
Inside, nestled on a bed of cotton, were two stainless-steel dog-tag style pendants on standard-length bead chains. Each pendant had an engraved, stylized J on the front; one had it in a flowing feminine script, the other was in bold, masculine block letters. And on the back, Army rank markers. Few people outside the military could read military markings, and few people would get close enough to realize that the back of Joss's pendant was engraved with the chevrons of John's rank, Sergeant First Class; and the back of John's pendant was engraved with the stripes of Joss's rank of Warrant Officer.
"John. They're beautiful." She took the one with the feminine J off its bed of cotton and grinned when she saw the Sergeant's chevron on the back. "Subtle. Very subtle. I love it." She reached up to slide the chain over her head, then tucked the pendant down into the front of her dress. "I'm never, ever taking this off."
He settled the other pendant, the one with the first letter of his name and the bars of her rank around his neck, wiggling it under the restrictive bowtie; it settled against his chest, warming slowly from his body heat, and grinned. He'd thought about the usual gifts one bought for a woman on Valentine's Day; chocolates, jewelry—but he didn't see her wear jewelry that often, had no idea what she'd like, and so had chosen these pendants for the two of them. From the look on her face, he'd made the right decision.
"Shall we go?" He held his right elbow out to her.
She linked her left arm with his. "Let's go."