"Would you mind putting on more water for tea?" Rowena asks her boyfriend. She's stretched out on his couch, surrounded in spreadsheets and six different pens. Her suit jacket is tossed on an armchair, abandoned for one of Spencer's cardigans nearly an hour after work. Since cases have a nasty habit of stealing Spencer from her, it's been mutually agreed that it's a good idea for them to spend time together after work. Rowena drives, either to her place or his, and work ensues with only a minimum of play.
"No problem." He fills the hot water kettle without taking his eyes off of her, a feat he's long since mastered. She has a habit of borrowing his sweats, cardigans, work shirts, and Spencer does not mind one bit. The sweater is longer than even her skirt, and with her thick framed glasses, he's inclined to agree with her previous statement about being a nerd just like him. "How's the accounting going?"
"It's accounting, how do you think?" Rowena responds dryly. "How's your paperwork?" Spencer looks down at the letter filling with text to his mother and swallows hard.
"I will, uh, defer to your oh so apt response." He murmurs.
"Ha! Nice try, Rosenberg Brothers!" She jumps up, pumping her fist in the air like a character in her favorite anime but her papers go flying when she does. "Oh, damn it." Spencer chuckles from the kitchen and resumes writing, and Rowena comes in with an empty cup and a tea bag of Darjeeling between her teeth.
"Has your victory over misplaced decimals backfired?" Spencer offers up jokingly and she pouts. He smiles at the childish expression and starts to subtly tuck away the letter to his mother like he's done a million times around the team, but Rowena is too sharp.
"What's that?"
"Nothing." He answers, pulling an event report over the letter and folding his hands atop them. She sits beside him, examining him carefully, but he ignores it. He's always been this way, reluctant to point of defiance about his past. With a checkered past herself, she's very forgiving but she's given him details as he's asked, and Spencer doesn't return the favor. If she even hints at the reasons for the Dilaudid addiction, Spencer clams up. She's opening up to him, but he's not ready for the same quite yet.
"Spen?" She asks softly, her hand touching his elbow, but he jerks away.
"I said it's nothing." Spencer responds sharper than he intends and hurt instantly resounds in her dark eyes, but his fear of her knowing the truth after only five months overwhelms his desire to be honest. Unable to bear the sight of her hurt on her always expressive face, he turns away. Rowena's seat beside him suddenly feels cold.
"Okay." Rowena stands slowly and goes to the hot water kettle, confused at Spencer's sudden harshness. It's literally nothing she's ever seen from him before. Happily, her phone rings and Rowena beams when she sees the name. "Cal!" His existing discontent is magnified by the joy in her voice; selfish though it is, Spencer wants to be the only man who can make her sound so happy. "Yeah, I'm fine. Spencer is too." He winces at the hesitation in her voice. "Really? Sergeant? You're kidding! When's your promotion ceremony?" Rowena's practically dancing on her toes. "I'll do my best to be there, I promise. Okay. Bye, Cal." She hangs up the phone and turns to him, a smile having replaced the hurt he put there and it somehow enrages him.
"You look cheerful." He mutters and Rowena tilts her head at him.
"I assumed you heard. Cal's being promoted, I'm happy for him."
"How exciting." He says, utterly deadpan. Frustration with his inability to deal with telling her what he ought to and Rowena's close relationship with her former partner have combined to gnaw at his stomach, and Spencer feels a dreadfully familiar urge for a vial and needle. He should talk to her, he knows it, but he can't.
"Okay, what's your problem?" There's silence as Spencer considers the sundry answers for that question and Rowena feels her last nerve beginning to fray. "Alright, fine." Her papers rustle loudly as she packs them up and he watches her, frowning.
"Where are you going?"
"Down the block to the Beanery for some coffee." She's starting to get a little pissed off and space seems to be the best answer. She doesn't commit to not coming back by grabbing her keys from the counter, but the door slamming is a pretty good hint that Rowena is none too pleased. He stays seated numbly, unsure of what to do.
Rowena has no such problem, and her kitten heels click softly on the stairs of his apartment building on down.