Disclaimer: I don't own them, but they do do such good things when I play with them...

A/N: Let me know what you think! ...This is like the longest game of pool ever. :) Also, I was going to put this in the last chapter but apparently I posted it without putting anything in the last chapter, not even a disclaimer, but I've played pool only sparingly, and never well. So if my lingo or descriptions are a little off... I'm sorry. I googled "How do you play pool?" in order to write this chapter. :)

Hope you enjoy. Also, this is probably the last update for the day--it's the fiance and I's three year anniversary on the 12th, so we're going out for it tonight. :) Hopefully the last two chapters can tide you over 'til tomorrow...

Chapter Eight:

"I… what?"

He smiled, and this smile seemed to be the most genuine I'd seen so far. "I… wanted you to come here so that we could get to know each other… not so that I could push the line between flirting and sexual harassment." At my blush, he grinned. "Not that that isn't fun too… But I want to know more about who you are, as a person."

I frowned and he smiled, looking around for his next shot. I had very few happy childhood memories—I mean, as a child I had often been happy but… looking back at those moment with an adult eye, it was like a dark veil placed over something once bright and shiny. Baking cookies with my mother—waking up to the thumping against the walls, because my mom didn't have enough eggs for the breakfast my father had wanted. At the time I hadn't known the two were connected… as an adult, the memory was enough to make me think I'd never eat another chocolate chip cookie again.

He tilted his head at me. "Too many to choose from?"

I offered a smile, though I knew it didn't reach my eyes. I settled on one of the few that didn't have some particular cast over it. "…My dad teaching me to ride my first bike outside the B&B. I was… six, I think. He and my brother had taken me to pick it out, because they'd sold my brother's first bike at a rummage sale before I was born. It was bubblegum pink, with a white seat, pedals, and handlebars…and a white basket on the handlebars. …There were flowers and… maybe a Barbie sticker… on it… and sparkly silver streamers from the handlebars. I was scared but…"

I smiled at the memory, having not expected to actually feel good reliving a moment from my childhood.

"…My brother and I would play superheroes. …He was a lot older than me, but it was one of the games he still thought was fun, or… at least would humor me with. He ran and got his superman cape from Halloween when he was younger and tied in around my neck, and when I peddled and my dad held on… I could go fast enough that the cape flew out behind me and my brother said I looked like I was flying. …In a few days he had me whizzing down the hills of town with him, my cape flying behind me. …I felt like I was wonder woman."

I glanced at him when I finished, a little uncertain and surprised at myself for this revelation… but he just grinned and lined up a shot, making it and promptly missing the next one on purpose. I smiled, turning his question around on him… because I had a feeling that this answer would be so much more satisfying than snapping at him about why he wanted me here… when I knew, even if I wouldn't admit it to myself, that I wanted to be here as well.

"Your happiest… childhood memory."

He smiled, watching as I surveyed the table. "I don't know if just one moment stands out in my mind. …It's more like a place. My dad was a botanist, so we can a big greenhouse out back. In the summer it was always unbearably warm and sticky, but in the winter, when it was cooler during the days… I would go in there with him. Then the warm, moist feeling was welcome… He was perpetually dirty, smears of dirt on his nose and a line under his fingernails. He would have a portable radio out there with him, set to a classical station… Sometimes I would help him or watch him… but lots of times I would lean against the table he had out there, sitting in the warm dirty barefoot, and read while he worked. …He used to call it our 'man time' when my mother would complain that she wouldn't see us for hours and then we both came back covered in soil. …It was out there that I fell in love with bugs. He liked to teach me which ones were good for his plants and which ones weren't…"

And I could see it vividly in my mind—a little boy with curly locks, probably lighter than his hair was now, and big blue eyes… leaning against a wooden table leg, innocent, bare little toes curling into the dirt, nose stuck into a large book while the sounds of classical music and gardening tools being picked up and set down crept in the background.

I didn't intend to miss this shot—I just did. I was still thinking about that little boy. He came up behind me. "Try again—I meant to help you with your first shots through this first game, but I got caught up… Here." He moved me to an easy shot and bent over me again, his warm, broad, solid chest against my back, his hands guiding mine to make the shot. I cleared my throat as he pulled back to stand erect.

"I, uh… Did you want me to keep going or… since I missed the first one…"

His smile was soft… almost lazy. "Keep going."

And my response to him this time was different—not the sharp, sudden realization of a bodily reaction… but the slow, warm, seeping kind of response to a constant stimulus—a familiar lover. How strange. My smile was lazy too. I picked an easy shot and made it, despite my aim being just slightly off. I missed the next and turned to him, expectant. He smiled. "…Another memory."

And though the first time he asked this I was apprehensive… this time I was not. "…My mom always told me that this wasn't a real memory—I'd just heard it told so often that I thought it was, but… I swear I remember this trip to the beach. I must have been two or three…my dad was working, but my mom stayed at home while I was little, and it was summer so my brother wasn't in school. We'd started getting ready just after breakfast—sunscreen and swimsuits and towels and packing a lunch, and then we'd walked down—we lived just a few blocks from the beach—and as soon as we reached the sand, I plopped down, pulled off my sandals, stuck my toes in and squealed… and then took off towards the water. My mom says I scared the life out of her—a two or three year old who had walked nicely by her side despite traffic and other pedestrians, and then the minute she stops worrying about me getting hit by a car, I take off towards the ocean."

I glanced at him and shook my head. "I don't remember all of that lead up… I remember the feeling of warm sand on my feet, and… I remember thinking I wanted to pick a good spot, because Brandon had been talking all morning about how to choose the best one—close to the water, but not too close… away from the crowds, with lots of sun… not a lot of rocks, because then there would probably be rocks in the water that would hurt your feet. And I remember my brother scooping me up and yelling at me for running off… I remember crying."

He frowned. "…That's one of your happiest memories?"

I smiled. "Well, I mean… I was happy until they stopped me. And it makes me smile now… three-year-old me wasn't all that different from twenty-six-year-old me. …Excitable, curious… eager to prove myself. …Emotional, especially when an authority figure is telling me 'no'."

I hadn't intended to give so much personal information, but the truth was I felt very comfortable with him already. He smirked. "For some reason that doesn't surprise me… You look like you've got one hell of a temper."

My eyes widened in surprise—I did, but I hadn't given him any indication of that—and he chuckled, proceeding to put another two balls in and then miss the third, intentionally. He glanced at me and I swallowed, thinking. "…Tell me about… your first kiss."

He grinned, leaning back against the table while I pretended to be thinking about my shot. "I played baseball, in middle school… but I wasn't very popular. I was the science nerd with the deaf mom and the dead dad so…you know, I was weird." My eyes snapped up to his when he mentioned his parents—his dad had died young too. I was that weird kid too. "…Anyway, I didn't really get along with the guys on the team but I was a decent player. After one of our games—my mom hadn't been able to make it… an employee had called in sick so she had to cover for her at the gallery—everyone went out for pizza because we'd won but I knew I wasn't really welcome, despite the invitation being shouted to the whole team in the locker room. So I took my time, everyone else filing out ahead of me to walk the few blocks over to the pizza place, and I was walking out alone after everyone had gone."

A waitress appeared, asking if we wanted refills as he paused and I quickly told her what we were drinking. As she left, I met his eyes and he continued.

"Outside the doors… there was a girl I had in my math class. …Not the type of girl who would go to a school game, but… she was very pretty. She said she'd been waiting for me… she wanted to tell me that she'd come to see me play and that she thought I'd done really well. …I can still remember how hot my ears felt, when she said that." He grinned at me, taking the drink offered to him by the waitress and continuing as she moved away. "Anyway… my mother raised a gentleman, so I offered to walk her home. She shook her head, asking why I wasn't getting pizza with the rest of the team… She must have heard them talking about it while she was waiting for me to come out. I shrugged and she stopped, right by the bleachers and pushed me back against the metal supports."

His ears were red just describing this rather brave middle school girl. "She told me how stupid they all were and then she kissed me." He paused, seeming to be deep in thought while I imagined a middle school Gil Grissom—curly hair a little darker, baseball cap askew on his head, eyes still bright… face a little younger, body lean and lanky with the long muscles of early teenage, his ears bright red from her compliment. "…I jumped about a foot when she put her tongue in my mouth."

I turned to him in surprise, startled out of my reverie, and laughed—both at the grin on his face and at my own surprise and at the ballsy girl from his math class who had known exactly what she wanted when she looked at him. …Not that I could blame her. He laughed too, and then we were both laughing, doubled over, clinging to our pool cues for support.

It felt good, to laugh with him. …Too good. Way, way too good.