Oh, look. Another glorious morning. It makes me sick."
Alex blew on her fresh cup of coffee, the steam wrapping round the tip of her nose as she took another sip. As the eldest Sanderson sister on the screen voiced her distaste for the picturesque dawn, the sun outside was just beginning to peak through the crack in her curtains.
A thin strip of sunlight leaked through the crack in her curtains and landed on the face of the still sleeping man beside her. After they had both fallen asleep on the couch the previous night, Alex had woken up with a numb arm and ache in her left leg. Despite the sore limbs, she wouldn't have traded the uncomfortable bed for her regular one, not if it meant she had company during the loneliest hours of the night.
Spencer's eyelids fluttered in response to the irritating rays of light. He blinked a few times, his sleepy eyes taking in the 90's Halloween film playing on the TV before flicking to her instead. "You know, Hocus Pocus, was the first Disney production to use digital special effects."
She smiled into her next sip. If any other man had woken up on her couch, spouting off IMDb fact about one of her favorite Disney films, she would have been confused, but this was Spencer. She would have thought it was weird if he hadn't provided some obscure fact first thing after opening his eyes.
" And with that," she said, thrusting a bowl of half-eaten candy in his direction, "happy Halloween. Chocolate eyeball?"
Eyebrows raised, he reached for a foil-covered treat sporting a green and purple eye on the wrinkled silver wrapper. Alex assumed he took the offered treat more out of confusion than actual craving.
"So you don't have any actual food in this apartment, but you have a bowl full of enough candy to feed all the children in our apartment complex," he said in a voice still scratchy with sleep, amusement lacing his statement. Considering Spencer's skill with numbers, it was likely an accurate assessment, calculated right down to the last three year old on the third floor.
Last night they'd had to order Indian takeout after he'd gone hunting for food in her pantry and found only cans of cat food and a stale bag of store-bought popcorn.
Alex laughed, reaching for another eyeball and unwrapping it. "I bought them for my class, but apparently adults aren't as addicted to sugar as kids are, so I had a fair amount left over. No need to let all that perfectly good, processed sugar go to waste." She nodded at the skull-shaped plastic bowl she'd replaced in the middle of the coffee table.
"So you're a fan of Halloween?" Spencer asked, a conspicuous amount of interest glowing in his half-sleepy eyes as he unwrapped his own candy and popped it into his mouth.
Although he returned his attention to the screen where the witches turned poor, unfortunate Thackery Binx into a yowling cat, she could tell he was more interested in her answer than the colorful action on screen.
Interesting, she thought to herself. Dr. Spencer Reid was a massive Halloween fan. Somehow that fact made him even more adorable than before.
"Well, to be honest, Christmas and Thanksgiving are my favorites since those are the times of year all my family is in one place, but Halloween ranks way up there." Her fingers wandered back to the candy bowl on the table, her index finger tracing the pattern of perfectly even skull teeth on the open mouth. "Actually, this is the first year in a long time that I won't be home to take my nieces trick-or-treating."
Longing for her family laced her tone despite her attempt to keep it out of her answer.
She continued to stare at the lifeless skull staring back at her rather than the man on the other side of the couch, finding it easier to direct her vulnerability at something other than him. Last night, when she'd told him the reason she had moved to an opposite coast, she half expected him to dash out her apartment door and not look back. Instead, he'd sat there, held her hand and told her that he understood. Admitted that he'd experienced that same level of loss himself.
His reaction had both shaken and impressed her in equal measure.
He was initially silent after her statement about missing trick-or-treating, but then, in her peripheral vision, she saw him shift closer before a slender hand reached out to join hers at the candy bowl, snagging another shiny treat. His knuckles brushed hers in a silent gesture of sympathy before his hand retreated back to his own lap.
"I don't have any nieces we can take trick or treating, but I do have three godsons whose parents are having a Halloween party tonight if you'd maybe be interested in going with me."
His voice got so quiet by the end of his sentence that she had to lean closer to catch the rest of his suggestion. His shyness made her a bit more comfortable, feeling as if it had put them back on even footing after her vulnerable confession about missing her family.
"If you're sure your friends won't mind me crashing their party," she began, noticing his posture straightening in interest at the sound of her acceptance, "then that sounds like a lot of fun."
He smiled, full and bright, making her heart skip a beat at how happy something as simple as her agreeing to go to a party had made him. "I'll text JJ and let her know."
Alex didn't have to ask who JJ was since Spencer had mentioned her and her little boys, the aforementioned godsons, more than once. As he pulled out his phone to send the text, she resettled into her comfortable spot on the couch, but not before moving slightly closer to him. It didn't escape her notice that he had done the same, both closer now to the middle of the couch rather than the opposite sides they'd slept on.
Risking it further, she shifted a fraction closer under the pretext of pooling the couch blanket on her left side into a cocoon for Jack who had previously been squeezed between her hip and the left arm of the sofa.
"He needed a bit of extra room," she murmured, scratching the top of Jack's head while he turned in circles to find the most comfortable position in his new spot.
"That works out for the best," Spencer answered, pocketing his phone after it dinged with a response from his friend.
"How's that?" Alex asked, shifting her hip just one more inch to the right until she could feel the heat of him through the barrier of her sweatshirt and pants. Not being able to resist the lure of him, she closed the last scant amount of space between them the same time he did.
As the edge of their hips met, he wrapped a slightly hesitant arm around her shoulder, fitting them together like two pieces of a newly formed puzzle. "I needed a little less space," he whispered against her right ear over the sound of the witches predicting curses for the town that hanged them.
She snuggled a bit closer, burrowing into his warmth as they settled in to watch the rest of their movie. "Me too."
The material of his sweater absorbed most of the sound of her answer, but the flex of his fingers against her arm told her that he knew.