He really needed to start checking the peephole before opening the door.
Mercifully, he wasn't met with a bullet this time but a shower of fruit at warp speed instead; cherries, oranges, apples, guava, an apricot hitting him squarely in the face, the spiky leaves of a pineapple grazing his arm as he stood there being pelted, spatters of grape juice burst against his chest. It was like some surreal juice commercial.
Through the shock and riot of color raining down on him, peaches and watermelon flying past his ears, he spotted 5 feet 4 inches of scowling Persian-Irish fury at the door. She was yelling, sure, but in the midst of the attack the only words he actually caught were "...fucking prick!". She was as pissed as he'd ever seen her.
His cheek hurt from the apricot, he suspected that it hadn't been ripe. Having jettisoned the contents, Dani then swung the fruit platter through the air, metal connecting with his chest and midsection, causing him to double over winded. As he wheezed, she shoved past him into his room, leaving him coughing face-to-face with the bewildered Room Service guy, who had stuck around to see his precious cargo delivered.
"Um, should I call security?", the young man asked Charlie nervously.
"Yes!", yelled Crews, hand pressed to his cheekbone.
"No!", hollered Reese from behind her partner.
"Um...", hesitated the boy, technically having just witnessed an assault, albeit an unconventional one. "I thought she was staying here. Is she your wife?", he asked hopefully.
"Uh, no.", Charlie shook his head emphatically.
"Hell no! Never in his wildest dreams!", shouted Dani.
"Ummm..." The boy scratched the back of his head, unsure.
"It's okay, I got this. Really. Thanks.", Charlie passed him a handful of bills and began to push the door closed.
"Dial zero for front desk..if you need to...I mean...they can get security here in like a minute.", the young guy whispered into the crack before he disappeared from view.
The door clicked shut. Charlie turned towards Dani, pacing up and down the rug, still agitated but rage under control now. Although he could easily detail her every feature, enough so that the forensic artist guy back at the station could produce a portrait of his partner the stuff of photo realism, he somehow wasn't prepared for how beautiful she was. That stabbing pain in his stomach started up again.
He approached but took a step too far and stopped abruptly when she flinched and her heckles rose with his nearness. The last thing he should do was try to touch her, he told himself. Even on a good day, that was not acceptable. He wasn't sure what that made last night...an exceptional day, maybe? Something like the comet that passes earth once every five hundred years?
"Dani?", he said softly, trying to placate.
He saw her realize that he hadn't called her Reese, that it implied a change in their relationship. Too much? Too quick? Hell, if she was going to object to him using her first name maybe they shouldn't have done what they did last night. He was pretty sure that that implied a change all right. Perhaps that's what she was here to tell him.