"But that's my point. With you, I'm just – safe. To be however I really am at that moment, whether it's strong and brave or sad and weepy, or silly or nerdy or neurotic or sentimental or calm. I've never felt safe like that with anyone else." She was looking at him now with a vaguely surprised expression, as if what she was saying was a revelation even to herself. "Damn," she said, quietly. "I really love you."

He watched her face. "So you didn't mean it when you said so before?"

"No, it's not that, it's – I guess it's getting real now. You've been so amazing since my dad died, I know it hasn't been very much fun. But here you are and I don't know how I would have gotten through this without you."

"You would have."

"Yeah, I suppose. But I just…" She put her hand on his face. "I keep being surprised by it. It's my own history messing with me. I'm waiting to start feeling stifled, or impatient, or for you to start being unreasonable and demanding, but instead – every morning I wake up and I'm still happy to be with you. It's a new thing for me."

Reid could hardly think how to respond to that. "It's new for me, too."

"I didn't plan to get into this right now, but – I just want you to know that wherever we go from here, I'm…I'm all in," she said, smiling.

-How to Fight Loneliness, Chapter 31

one month later

Reid waited calmly, holding his cards close to his chest. Rodney was the only one still in the hand; Morgan, Fred and Aziz had all folded. Rodney was sweating bullets trying to decide. Finally he sighed. "All right, call." He lay down his cards. "Two pair, nines over fours."

Reid laid down his own hand. "Jacks over eights."

A general outcry went up from the poker table. "You son of a bitch!" Rodney yelled, but he was half-laughing, too. "How you do that, huh? How the hell's he do that?" he said to Morgan.

"I don't know how he does half the things he does," Morgan said, tossing his cards back into the pile.

Reid collected his chips. "I could teach you, but I'd have to charge." Uproarious laughter from the rest of the players. Reid looked around at them, puzzled. It hadn't been that funny. "What?"

Fred gaped at Morgan. "Does he not know that he just quoted 'Milkshake?'"

"Do not even," Morgan said, holding up a hand.

"What'd I quote?" Reid said.

"Never mind, kid. I think it's time for more beer." Morgan got up and went to his fridge.

Reid had played poker with Morgan and some of his cop buddies a few times now. Rodney was DC police, Fred was ATF and Aziz was a Maryland state trooper. "So, Reid," Fred said. "You got a girlfriend?"

"Yes," Reid said, suppressing the smile that still wanted to rise to his lips whenever he answered that question in the affirmative. He was still getting used to having that answer instead of the opposite one.

"Yeah? She hot?"

Morgan sat back down, handing around bottles of Guinness. Reid took one. He'd learned to like Guinness hanging out with Morgan. "You've met her, Fred. You remember Emily? She came with me to the gym a couple of times."

"Oh yeah! Oh hell, man, she's your girlfriend?" Fred said. "She is fine."

Reid squirmed in his seat. "She's very beautiful, yes."

"No, no. That's how you describe a fucking painting on a wall. You got a hot girlfriend, man. Own it."

"I'm not comfortable discussing Emily like she's a piece of meat."

Suddenly Rodney slapped the table, his face going wide-eyed with surprise. "Shit, Morgan! Emily? This is Emily's boyfriend? That means he's the guy! That guy!"

The other men at the table hooted and whooped, except Morgan, who just looked mortified. Reid raised an eyebrow. "Morgan, what are they talking about?"

"Uh…nothing."

"Nothing? This guy's our damn hero, man! I've been dying to shake his hand! Lemme shake your hand, man," Aziz said, extending his hand across the table. Puzzled, Reid shook it. "You are the man, man."

"Thanks, I think. Why, exactly, am I the man?"

"Well," Rodney said, leaning forward with an air of delicious gossip about him. "According to Morgan here, you have some mad skills in the bedroom department, you know what I mean?"

Reid stared at Morgan, incredulous. "And how would Morgan know anything about that?"

Morgan harrumphed. "All right, here's how it went down. So me and Garcia were talking, and she got to telling me that one time she, JJ and Emily went out and had a few beers, and of course they started talking about sex like women do and Emily said that one time you and her went for three hours straight and that's all I know about it," he said, everything after the word "sex" rushing out of him at warp speed.

A number of possible ways he could react to this sprung to Reid's mind and were quickly analyzed. First of all, he could get mad. Mad that Emily had talked to her friends about their sex life, mad that Garcia had repeated it to Morgan, mad that Morgan had repeated it to his friends. This option was quickly put aside. Was he actually mad? Or did he just think he ought to be mad? Women talked about sex with their girlfriends, this was true. Men talked about it even more. He didn't, but mostly because he'd never had a sex life to talk about before nor anyone to talk about it with, and he kept his mouth shut out of deference to Emily's feelings. But if Emily was talking about it to JJ and Garcia, she'd have a hard time getting mad at him for talking about it. And she had to have known that Garcia wouldn't keep it to herself. Besides, it wasn't as if she'd told them he had a tiny penis (which he did not) or that he was a lousy lay (which he was not). It was something complimentary and impressive.

Second, he could be the gentleman and decline to comment. That was certainly his first instinct, and probably the wisest course of action. His intimate life with Emily was private, after all, and just because Emily had shared with her friends didn't mean he had to. Not that Morgan's poker buddies were really his friends.

But there was a third option: play along. He was playing poker with men and drinking beer. And now his sexual prowess was being praised third-hand by the woman he was sleeping with. Wasn't this the sort of locker-room scenario he'd never gotten to participate in? What was the harm? It was normal. A kind of normal he'd never been.

All these considerations passed through his mind in the time it took everyone to process Morgan's revelation. The other three men at the table were watching him raptly.

"She said that one time we went for three hours straight?" Reid said.

"Is it true?" Fred asked.

"I'm afraid not."

The other men deflated a little. Morgan clapped him on the shoulder. "Aw, that's okay, kid."

Reid looked him in the face. "It was more than just the one time," he said, cocking one eyebrow.

The uproar that greeted this statement blew him back a little. Hoots and hollers and clapping and cheers. Morgan laughed, shaking his head like he couldn't believe what he'd just heard. "Damn, pretty boy," he said. "Just when I think I know you."

"Dude! How do you do that?" Rodney exclaimed. "Seriously, how? I mean...three damn hours? You don't look like you got it in you – uh, no offense."

"None taken," Reid said, tossing some peanuts into his mouth.

"You gotta share your secret, man. Spread the wealth."

"So to speak," Aziz said, sniggering.

"There's no secret," Reid said.

"There's gotta be a secret! What is it, protein shakes? Some kinda weird herb from Guatemala?"

Reid laughed. "No, nothing like that. There's no secret."

"Then how do you do that? Don't be like that, man! Help a brother out!" Rodney said.

Reid looked around at them. "Anyone can do it. It's very simple."

"So we're stupid! Spell it out, man!" All of them were looking at him with rapt expectation. Even Morgan, although he was trying to play it cool. Reid felt an odd surge of something he'd never experienced before. These men, these macho men, were looking up to him and asking him for advice about sex. He knew it was shallow and juvenile and beneath him and damn, it felt good.

"All right," he said. "Here it is." He leaned forward and spread his hands like he was revealing a magic trick. "Breaks."

They all blinked, frowning. "Breaks? That's it?" Aziz said.

"That's it. Take breaks."

They were all looking at each other like such a thought had never entered their minds. Reid was astounded. It seemed like such a normal thing to do. "So...how's that work, exactly?" Rodney asked. "I mean, how do you just take a break?"

"Umm..." He felt his face reddening. He didn't particularly want to go into exact detail of how he made love to Emily. The last time they'd gone for hours together it had involved a trip to the kitchen for cookies, a shared half hour in the Jacuzzi, a massage, a long conversation about public places it might be fun to have sex, and a pause to check the Weather Channel. But all that was too much information for this conversation. Maybe he could keep it general. "Well, you do one thing for awhile. Then you take a break, maybe get up, get a drink, then do something else for awhile. Then you relax, talk a little, snuggle. Then you do something else, then you pause again - are you getting the idea? You ramp up, then you relax. Repeat as needed."

This description was so inadequate that Reid almost hated to leave it at that even while his sense of propriety demanded that he say no more. How could he put into words what it was really like to spend that time in bed with Emily, touching each other, sometimes just holding each other, breathing in each other's air, talking or not talking, bringing each other high and then coming down so they could do it again. Energetic minutes followed by languid ones, laughing and tickling and kissing and stroking, trying new positions, going down on each other. Most nights, they had sex as one normally thought of it. Some foreplay, pick a position or two, get each other off. It was good, but he'd come to really cherish those times when they took their time with it. It felt like mortar, cementing them together, another layer every time they engaged in that kind of sex, building something strong between them.

"Damn," Fred said. "That sounds – kinda nice. Less pressure."

"Some of the best conversations I've ever had with Emily have been in that situation," Reid said. "It creates intimacy. And when you take your time, there can be several, uh, iterations." Blank looks. Reid sighed, exasperated. "You can both get off more than once, okay?" Nods and exclamations of understanding now.

"I think my wife would like that. If we could find the time. I mean, with the kids and the house and everything…"

"Make the time. At least once in awhile. Your relationship should be a priority too, right? Isn't everything else built on that?"

"You sound like you've been reading Cosmo," Morgan joked.

"No. I just think it's important to pay attention to my relationship with my girlfriend."

"Sounds like one lucky girlfriend," Fred said, smiling.

Aziz looked thoughtful. "Is it weird that I kinda wish I was your girlfriend right now?"

The rest of them exchanged glances. "Yes," they all said in unison.

"And you guys always do it like that?" Rodney asked.

"Oh God, no. Once in awhile. You do have to carve out some time for it."

"And it pays off in the end?"

Reid sighed. "Like you wouldn't believe."

"All right, all right," Morgan interjected. "Has Dr. Reid schooled you all enough for one night? Or can we play some poker?"

"So I can school you in that, too?" Reid said, smirking.

Aziz snickered. "Pwned."

Emily's apartment was quiet and dark when Reid got home. Their rule of no overnights during the workweek had gone out the window after Emily's father's death, and by this time Reid was spending probably five out of seven nights here. He'd bought duplicate razors and toothbrushes to keep here and more and more of his clothes were migrating into Emily's closet. He even had his own drawer for underwear and socks. Thoughts about moving in together were becoming more and more insistent in his mind as they grew closer to approaching that state on their own.

A few nights ago, they'd turned a corner, or at least that was how it had felt to Reid. He'd woken up to find her out of bed and working, unable to sleep. Emily had told him that she really loved him, in a way that was new and different and a little scary, and that she was committed to their relationship, whatever the next step was. Reid was feeling them moving steadily away from "you and me" and toward "us." It felt good. It felt secure, and that was new to him.

He heard the TV playing upstairs and saw the glow of light from the bedroom. He hung his coat in the closet and went up. Emily was sitting on top of the covers in her nightshirt, her laptop open on her legs. She smiled at him as he entered. "Hi," she said.

He dropped his messenger bag by his side of the bed and went around to her side to kiss her hello. "What are you doing?"

"Just catching up on some paperwork. You smell like beer."

"Yeah, I'm going to take a shower."

"I'll finish this up before you're done."

He went into the bathroom and brushed his teeth, then stripped and showered. He put on boxers and a t-shirt and emerged, beer smell banished. Emily had put away her laptop and was idly flipping channels. He sat down on the edge of the bed near her feet, hitching one knee up to face her. "Anything interesting on?"

"Not unless you're enthralled by reruns of 'Law & Order.'" She turned the TV off, tapping her toes on his leg. "How was poker?"

"Oh, the usual. Beat the pants off some guys who thought I'd be a lightweight." He picked up her foot and set it against his shoulder so he could massage her leg. Emily smiled and shifted down in the bed, practically purring with the attention. "Had a rather interesting conversation with Morgan's friends."

"Yeah?" she said, eyes closed as his hands stroked up and down her skin.

"Mmm-hmm. They wanted some sex tips."

Her eyes opened and she frowned at him, blinking. "From you?"

"Seems that they'd heard via Morgan via Garcia via someone in this room who is not me that you and I have, on occasion, had sex for three hours straight."

Emily groaned and put her hand on her face. "Oh, my God."

"Come on. You had to know that Garcia wouldn't keep that to herself."

"Maybe...I was half in the bag during that conversation." She looked at him sheepishly. "Are you mad?"

"Are you kidding? I'm their new god."

"I don't know what I was thinking, blabbing to Garcia and JJ." She thought for a moment. "No, I do know what I was thinking. I think I just wanted to brag a little about how good I got it," she said, giving him a coquettish look. "And I just know that people wonder about what it's like in bed with you. Maybe I wanted to shut them up a bit the next time they go to call you cute or adorable, like you're a bunny rabbit with no sexual identity."

"Well, you didn't go into any gory detail, so it's no big thing."

"What did you tell the guys?"

"Generalizations. They thought there was some big secret, like an herb I'm taking. I told them to take breaks." He shrugged. "I kept it vague."

Emily sat up, pulling herself into his lap and twining her arms around his neck. Reid let his hands slide around her waist. "So you didn't tell them about that thing we do?" she said.

"God, no. That's private. You didn't tell JJ and Garcia, did you?"

"No way. Some things aren't meant to be shared, even with your girlfriends." She kissed him, a slow and lingering kiss full of unspoken promises. "You want to do that thing tonight?"

"Hmm," he said, kissing her back. "Keep talking."

It was a Thursday night. For once, Reid and Emily were hanging out at his place. She had asked if they could, giving no reason, and had insisted on cooking him dinner in his apartment. In fact, as it just now occurred to him, she had been unusually chirpy and accommodating all evening.

She was buttering him up.

"You want some more coffee?" she asked, standing over him where he was sitting on the couch, working on his laptop.

"You know what I'd like the most right now?"

"What?"

"For you to just ask me whatever you're working up the nerve to ask me." He peered at her over the tops of his glasses.

Emily fidgeted, looking sheepish. "That obvious, huh?"

"The mistress of subtle has left the building."

She sat down on the ottoman. "All right, here it is. My uncle Brian is having a big family Easter thing at his house in Philadelphia this weekend and my mother would really, really like us to come."

"Us?"

"Okay, me. But I told her that 'me' meant 'us.' At least I hope it does."

Reid sighed. Hotch had given everyone a four-day weekend, and he'd been looking forward to it. Looking forward to getting some work done, looking forward to spending some time with Emily, looking forward to sleeping in and having sex and talking for hours. If there was something he'd rather do less than drive up to Philadelphia and spend the weekend with Emily's uncle Brian and the rest of her family, he couldn't think of it at the moment. He looked at her pained expression. "How long would we stay?"

"We'd drive up Saturday evening, come back Sunday evening. I don't want to spend the whole day up there any more than you do. But Mom – I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I think she needs me. It's been hard for her since Dad died." She looked down at her hands, restlessly twisting together between her knees. "I need to try and stay close to her, Spencer. It's just her and me now."

Reid refrained from reminding her that she also had him. He understood that she meant family. He reached out and plucked one of her fidgety hands and held it in his own. "What time do you want to leave on Saturday?"

Emily's car pulled up to her uncle Brian's house (although 'mansion' might have been more accurate) in Bala Cynwyd just after seven o'clock in the evening. They both jumped out of the car, glad to be free of it. They'd spent half the ride arguing and it hadn't made for a very pleasant drive. Still half-resenting the time away from home, Reid had wanted nothing more than to put the three-hour drive to good use and get some reading done. Normally Emily was quiet while driving, so this seemed like a reasonable extrapolation, but today she'd been chatty. Nervous, he realized, and uncomfortable making this visit, but her desire to engage him in conversation had irritated him, which made him snappy, which made her defensive, which made him even more irritated.

Still, she grabbed his hand as they walked up to the door, either wanting to put forward an image of solidarity or needing the reassurance. Either way, he was on board. Brian answered the door himself, smiling. "Emily, how great to see you! And Dr. Reid, welcome." He hugged Emily and shook Reid's hand as he offered these greetings. "Come on in – no, Garrett will park your car and get your bags," he said, as a man in khakis and a polo shirt who could have passed for a cousin went by them. Reid realized that the man was 'the help,' as it used to be called and perhaps still was in some quarters.

"Is Mom here?" Emily asked as they came inside.

"She's in the study on the phone with your grandmother," Brian said. "I ought to go give her some moral support. You guys make yourselves comfortable. Have a drink. We'll be out in a few minutes." He patted Emily's shoulder and vanished back into the house, leaving Emily and Reid in the den-like room he'd led them to.

Emily flopped into one of the leather couches. "You want a drink?" he said, nodding to the wet bar in the corner.

"Nah, I better stay sharp," she said. She got up and came over to him. "Thanks for coming," she said, quietly.

He shrugged. "I can't let you face the hordes alone."

She leaned against his shoulder. "We won't stay any longer than we have to."

Before Reid could answer, a door to their left opened and a man about Emily's age came in. He was handsome and put-together in an Ivy League kind of way. Reid looked at his clothes and his features, reminiscent of Brian's, and deduced that this must be Emily's cousin Hobart, about whom he'd heard much. Hobart and Emily had been very close as children and still were. Hobart hadn't been around when Emily's father died, he'd been in Denmark on business. He had been at the funeral, Reid was told, but in the hubbub they hadn't met and Reid didn't recall having seen him there. Then again, he'd been distracted. Emily grinned. "Hey," she said, going to hug him.

"Emzilla," probably-Hobart said, hugging her back, lifting her an inch off the ground or so. "Thank God you came, it's like the Bataan Death March all up in here." He turned his perfect smile on to Reid. "Is this the infamous Dr. Reid?" he said, a smirky quirk to his voice that felt familiar.

Emily grinned. "Yes, it is. This is Spencer."

Probably-Hobart stuck out his hand. "Good to meet you. Hobart Hofstedter. Call me H, everyone does."

"Nice to meet you," he said, shaking definitely-Hobart's hand.

"Huh. I expected someone younger," H said.

"Your father said that, too," Reid said.

"Well, to hear Aunt Betsy talk, I was thinking you'd be like, twenty."

Reid sensed Emily going rigid at his side. "Why, what does she say?"

"Oh, you know."

"Pretend I don't."

"She told Mom you'd gotten yourself a boy toy."

Emily's face went stony. "Oh. Really."

"I told Mom that you weren't the boy toy type."

"Excuse me a moment," Emily said, and stalked out of the room, leaving Reid and H alone.

Reid looked at H, reassessing his initial impression. "You did that on purpose."

H glanced at him. "Em needs to stake her claim on this. Betsy's waiting for her to dump you and it's obvious she's not going to, so she'd better have it out with her sooner rather than later so they can both get over it." He wandered over to the wet bar. "What can I get you?"

"Brandy, if you have it."

"I do, indeed." He came back over with a glass for Reid and one for himself.

"You and Emily grew up together," Reid said.

H nodded. "Mostly. Not so much after they started traveling. But we've stayed pretty close." He was eyeing Reid. "I watched her with you at the funeral. I've never seen her like that with anybody."

"Like what?"

"Truthful." Reid didn't know what to say to that. H motioned him into a chair. As they both sat, they could hear Emily and her mother shouting somewhere else in the house. No words were intelligible, just raised voices. "Good," H murmured.

"Did she really say I was Emily's boy toy?" Reid asked.

"She did, indeed. Said she didn't realize Emily had been desperate enough to dip her pen in company ink, so to speak. She could have lined up some prospects if she'd known the situation was so dire. I'm paraphrasing."

Anger bubbled up in Reid's chest, but he'd leave it to Emily. He was certain she'd be angry enough for both of them. "I thought she liked me," he said.

"She does. In a way. She thinks you're smart and capable. That doesn't mean she thinks her daughter ought to marry you."

"Who said anything about marriage?"

H smiled. "You and Emily did, when you stood together over her father's grave like you were already family. That might not have been what you meant, but it's what everyone else saw. And don't think Betsy isn't getting calls from the bluebloods asking who you are and who your parents are and where you went to school."

"I'm Dr. Spencer Reid. My mother is a paranoid schizophrenic confined to a mental institution and my father is a deadbeat. I went to UNLV and then CalTech for my doctorates, of which I have three. All of which Emily knows and accepts, so I don't see how it's anybody else's business."

"It isn't. And really, Betsy knows it. She's straddling a tightrope and it's no small task. Robert's people are especially thorny. He was the golden boy of that family and Emily is his only child, so they're taking a keen interest in whose genetic material might someday be grafted onto the family tree. Betsy wants Emily to be happy, but she can get confused about what will make her so."

A cold ball settled into Reid's stomach at the mere mention of his genetic material combining with Emily's. That was a discussion that hadn't even been touched upon. "She's happy with me," he said.

"I know that. As does anybody with eyes."

Emily came stalking back in. "We're leaving."

Reid got up. "No. I think we should stay."

"I don't want to stick around here for you to be insulted!"

"I've been called worse things."

"I refuse to subject you to the idiotic snobbish pretentious…" She cut herself off. "It doesn't matter. Let's go."

"Emily, that isn't going to help. Then you're just the rebellious daughter who fled to avoid family scrutiny of her scandalous boyfriend. If she thinks I'm a boy toy then I say we stay so that everybody can see that I'm not."

H beamed at Emily. "I like him."

Emily sighed. "Are you sure? It could get ugly around here."

"Not because of us. We will be the souls of sweetness and consideration, then if anyone else is ugly they'll look like the assholes. And if your mother says unkind things about me or about us behind our backs everyone will say no, surely not that nice young couple."

She smiled at him, then looked over at her cousin. "There are advantages to dating a genius profiler," she said.

"Apparently," H said, grinning.