Chapter Four
Disclaimer, header in Chapter One
Notes: Again, major warm fuzzies to each of you who has read, reviewed, etc. Thanks for taking the time--you guys are pretty awesome. ;-D Sorry Ch. 3 was so short, but this one is a nicely sized chunk , I hope. (And in case you're wondering, I finally figured out how many chapters the rest breaks into…three more to go…)
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Pure restlessness forced him to his feet again. He had already walked the length of his house more times than he could count, but the jangling of his nerves was little improved. Maybe he did think better on his feet, but he fretted better that way too. Without even checking his watch, he knew that barely ten minutes had passed since the last time he called. Where was she? She had been calling him nearly every day recently, usually at the same hour; they had established a pattern. That's why he was home now. Why she was not was the mystery. He had been playing mind games with himself for days, testing his resolve, weighing and discarding reasons why he should play it safe and let her do the calling. The arguments for passivity were many: control, deniability, safety, habit. They just didn't work so well when he wanted to hear her voice this badly. Grissom rubbed the molded plastic of the cordless in his hand. How could she not be home by now? They'd wrapped up the bus case hours ago. He had assumed he would see her at the lab when he returned from the arrest in Barstow, but she had left without him. He sighed. She didn't leave "without you." It's not like you were expecting to go home together. She just left, that's all…before you could find out where she was going looking so good. The suit, the hair…the lipstick. He was pretty sure that the shade was new, some coppery color that glimmered when her lips moved. He ran the back of his hand across his mouth. Where was she?
She could have gone out with Nick or Warrick, he supposed, but surely they would have invited him and Catherine to join them. As far as he knew, Sara had not gone out with those guys by herself before, so there was no reason to think she'd start now--unless she "needed" Warrick again. Grissom rolled his eyes. Well, at least he knew Greg wasn't in the picture; the boy was still hunched over his instruments as Grissom left the lab. The pacing continued, each step more frustrated than the last. With a distant look, he wandered through the living room and toward the kitchen island. He noticed the half-eaten dinner still sitting on his kitchen counter, but it aroused no greater interest than it had an hour before. The only thing that he could focus on, ironically, was the complex algorithm governing the way his bulk rolled to the outer edges of his feet as they struck the hardwood floor, which was a strange twist on the straight ahead, heel-to-toe stride that most men have. His father's bowed legs condemned him to a rolling gait, but it had never been this bad before—he was constantly fighting to keep his balance of late. Whatever was wrong, it wasn't something he had time to think through just then. He had bigger problems.
The bedroom was the only place left to go if he wanted to keep moving. He had taken the first few steps toward the open doorway when a quick flash of panic gripped him. What if she's with him again? Maybe that's why she dressed up in the first place. She had done the same thing for that damn first date—if that was indeed the first, he noted darkly. She had worn red and done something to that curl at the bottom her hair…there had been new lipstick then, too…he contemplated the perfectly made bed directly in his line of sight, biting down hard on his lip. She wouldn't. After what he had said, she wouldn't still go out with that guy. Or any guy, surely. A prickling heat stung his skin and colored his face despite the coolness of the room. He chided himself for harboring ridiculous suspicions and closed his eyes to shut out the image of her smiling and laughing with this man he had never seen, but still feared. Sara would never do that to him again. Not now, when she knew how he felt. There was no need for her to look elsewhere. She knew that, didn't she?
But…what precisely did she know? Nothing definite, nothing absolute about what he felt or what he wanted. He'd waxed poetic with talk of beauty, but what did that mean when it came to making sure she was his? It meant I love you. But who could know that except me? Four words when three would have done. Four, when three would have secured her voice, and her face, and her lips… As he sank down onto the edge of the bed, his shoulders slumped in defeat. Crazy or not, he would have to call again. He raised the phone from his lap, and quickly punched in her number. One ring. Two. Three. His thumb moved towards the release button, desperate to disconnect before her machine could record even the slightest proof of his futility.
"Hello?" Her voice rose higher than usual on the second syllable.
"Hi." He tripped over his tongue. "It's, it's me…I mean, Grissom."
"Oh hey," she laughed, breathing hard. "I just came through the door." She exhaled happily. "Glad I got in when I did. I nearly missed you."
"Yeah," he said, his throat tight. He looked down at his lap. "So…you were out."
"Huh?" Distracted by the need to juggle various bags as she tried to cradle the phone between her ear and shoulder, she barely heard him. God, didn't realize I bought so much stuff, she thought, slightly dismayed by the evidence of her own enthusiasm. "Yeah. I was, uh, shopping."
"Shopping?" He didn't bother to hide his surprise.
"Hey!" She protested lightly. "I have shopped, on occasion. Well…as a catalog junkie, maybe a little more than that. I used to order everything that way, or online. But I've decided on a new regime: from now on, I have to make at least three-quarters of my purchases in person. Human contact." She shook her head. "I have no intention of ending up with some Greek god in the slam on my AOL buddy list."
His smiled. "Are you sure? I hear captivity tends to inspire eloquence."
"Yeah, well, they can inspire someone else." Her bags fell unceremoniously to the floor as she straightened her neck out of the crimp that had held the phone in place on her shoulder. She secured the instrument in one hand before turning to pull a can of soda out the fridge with the other. "The Marks case was a word to the wise. I refuse to end up like that," she said emphatically.
"But you couldn't. That's not your life…grasping at affection from strangers, imagining things that aren't there."
The second time, she shook her head hard enough to make her hair sway gently.
"Well, I hope not. I mean, I definitely don't go 'looking for love,' but maybe I am susceptible to…" She hesitated, weighing her words. "…assumptions."
"No, you're not." He blinked. "You're not that easy on yourself."
She considered that briefly, trying to decide what it meant. "So, anyway," she shrugged, "after that case, I came home and tossed my little catalog collection in the trash, along with the takeout boxes and all the menus. That was the first step. And then, I—" Her lips closed just in time. There was no need to go down that road, no need at all. Maybe she could tell him someday, but not now. Not when things were still so unclear.
"And then you what?"
She pushed idly at one of the shopping bags with her foot. "And then…I…took stock of my life and how I was living it, I guess. I was sitting at home every night because I chose to, not because I had to. It was like I had turned all the locks to keep myself in, rather than to keep anyone else out. So I decided to…open them."
"Meaning…" His voice was wary. If she had stopped sitting at home alone, it begged a question, one that he was not at all sure he wanted answered if it meant what he thought it did. He felt his fingers begin a nervous drumming against his thigh.
She glided over the truth of the phone call, the night at the diner, and everything that had followed since. The date had meant something, she figured, but not the rest. She had never even let the man touch her, not once. It hadn't occurred to her as a possibility, even.
"I just started… doing more. Nick said I should get out more and he was right. So I started going out to eat, and to…movies." She rushed ahead. "I even looked into about taking some random class like…I don't know…ceramics or drawing. It was too late to register, but I've got the schedule for next time." She shrugged. "I've always liked doing stuff with my hands, anyway."
Her eyes drifted back to the various sacks on her floor, some glossy and multicolored, others rough and brown. "And, I did this—shopping. Just making more of an effort in general to get out," she finished softly.
Grissom stilled the minuet his fingers were playing against his leg, and pulled himself to his feet. Pacing, again. As he made his way from the bedroom back towards the kitchen, the partially consumed dinner on his counter stared back at him in a bizarre kaleidoscope of color. Creamy orange, grass green, brick red…translated, salmon, green beans, and red potatoes—poached, sautéed, it hardly mattered. It was a dinner he had made so many times that it could hold no new tastes or sensations, no matter the preparation, or the spice. Routine, but joyless.
"I can understand that."
Can you really? Sara frowned.
When she neither accepted nor denied that possibility, he cast about for something to move them away from the edge.
"Well, given the new regime, what did you buy today?"
"Well," she began cautiously, almost as if she were about to reveal how she had pulled off some fantastic sleight of hand, "I bought a good many things, in fact." She bent forward at the waist and began rifling through the bags. "Let's see…there's the shoes. Girly, totally impractical, but they looked great on my feet and they're actually comfortable. Oh, then there's the wreath for the bathroom…"
"Why would anyone want a wreath in their bathroom?" He asked skeptically.
Sara smirked at his naiveté. "Shows how little you know. It's good feng shui to have vegetation in the bathroom. And my plant wouldn't survive in there; you know how orchids are. So, I got a wreath made of bay leaves. It looks great, green and bushy, but still orderly. And it smells amazing."
"Yeah," he conceded, "I imagine it would. Dried bay leaves are much more pungent than fresh ones. Diffusing that aroma in a small room could be appealing."
"Exactly."
"So is that everything?"
"Nooo…I haven't mentioned the best purchase of all. You know how the best finds are the one you never went out looking for in the first place? Well…"
"Yeah?"
Sara reached into the bag nearest her right foot; the tissue paper fell away as she grabbed a handful of silk.
"A dress. Not just any dress, mind you…a great dress. Silk, thin strap, with a sort of V-shaped draping across the chest…it's hard to describe, but…" By this time, she had pulled the wispy item entirely out of the bag and was holding it aloft in one hand.
Sara, in a dress. Intriguing. "What color is it?"
"Oh, red. Deep red."
He nodded. "That sounds right. Red's your color. "
She grinned. "Is it now? You do realize that 1 in every 12 men in the world is red-green colorblind. How can I trust your judgment?"
"First principles, Sara. If I were colorblind, I wouldn't even been able to perceive the color red well enough to say whether it flattered you or not. Like with the red suit you wore today. I would have thought it was a green suit if I were--"
"Protanomalous," she finished for him, smiling. "Someone with a red-weak color deficiency. OK, so you're not colorblind. Glad to hear it. I get called a fashion 'don't' often enough as it is; the last thing I need is a recommendation from you that makes that worse."
"A fashion…" He squinted as the rest of the phrase escaped him. "Who calls you that?"
"Guess," she quipped.
He pondered for a moment, frowning. "First of all, your wardrobe is none of Catherine's concern. And second," he continued, his tone becoming lighter, "while I can recommend the color, I've never seen the dress, so I can't comment on that specifically. I would be speaking in…hypotheticals."
"Then…make it concrete." After the barest hesitation, she went a step further. "Time and place."
"I'm sorry?"
She took her time, toying with the words. "Name the time and the place. Me. You. The hypothetically flattering dress. Concrete enough for you?"
As it often did at such times, the moist tip of his tongue flashed between his lips. How the hell…? What am I supposed to say?
"Sara."
"Yes?"
The ragged sigh gave him away. "I don't think that…"
She closed her eyes tightly. Of course you don't.
"Never mind."
"I …"
She held up a hand he could not see. "Forget it. I swore I wasn't going to do this, so…just forget it."
"What does that mean?"
Her eyes roamed the room, seeking out the corners where it was easy to hide. "I promised myself that I was not going to be the one to ask. Call it female pride, call it stubbornness—whatever—either way, you will have to ask me." Her voice softened. "I'm not trying to be difficult…and I'm not some pre-feminist throwback who would never dream of asking a man out." She pivoted sharply, her feet moving automatically to measure the distance from her living room to her bedroom, and back again, before coming to an uncertain stop near her sofa. "But I just can't do it this time, all right? That's…something that I need you to do. I can't really explain it, I'm sorry, but that's how I feel."
"You don't have to explain," he said, so quietly she strained to hear him. "I get it."
"Do you?"
The quiet doubt in her voice brought him to his feet. "Yeah, I do. It's only fair."
He resumed his pacing, so did she. Both moved slowly through their respective spaces, heads down, watching their feet take them…wherever. It was Sara who recovered first. She attempted her trademark smile and straightened her shoulders. There was always time to puzzle this out later; she just wanted to enjoy his company right now. Heading back towards the refrigerator, she tugged on the handle. "So. What are we having tonight? Did you eat already?"
"Kind of," he admitted, chagrined.
"Grissom, I can't believe you. How could you not wait for me?" She put her hand on her hip. "You really are a paranoid squirrel. Gotta fatten up for winter, huh?"
"Shut up."
He loved her laugh.
******
Perhaps the most curious sensation came down to the undeniable pleasure of watching her eat. Her hands were small and finely boned, and the highly polished silver threw off kaleidoscopic glints and gleams with each move she made to spear and cut. The most mundane of human acts, he knew, but still full of precision and grace. If he had not been watching her so closely, he might have missed it. A morsel misjudged and sliced too large, slid awkwardly onto an unsuspecting tongue, and a funny grimace as it filled her cheeks close to capacity. The utensils clattered onto the table as she hid her mouth behind one hand, trying not to laugh. He kept staring even she blushed and struggled to tame her mouthful. Rude, no doubt, but he could always blame it on the optical stimulus created by the candlelight flickering across her skin. Rather he could, but he no longer had to. The simplicity of that change brought a contented smile to his lips.
After refusing to look at him as she chewed, she finally did manage to get the food down. She lowered her hand with an embarrassed half-smile. "Cut me some slack, would you? Why were you staring at me like that?"
She started to reach into her lap for her napkin as she spoke, but he was too quick for her. In a moment, he had wound his own napkin around his forefinger, raised his hand to her face, and pressed the cloth softly against the corner of her mouth. When he did not stop there, and chose to skim his way across to the opposite corner, her eyes widened. She began to part her lips, but before she could speak, he was at the center of her mouth to admonish her with a firm, yet gentle touch. Her lips closed. Lowering his eyes from hers, he concentrated on the precise translation of what he could feel of her through the white linen into words. There was nothing to brush away from her mouth, and no reason to linger quite so long, as he well knew. She knew nothing of this, however, and thus had no choice but to quietly submit to his ministrations. He found himself wondering if being touched felt as remarkable as touching did in this specific instance, but when she moved to raise her hand to his, he was careful to pull away before she could make contact.
"Did you…get it all?"
He nodded. She stared back at him, pupils dilated, eyes unfocused. He offered his ghost of a smile; her eyes dropped down to the table. Turning her head slightly away from him, she sent searching glances into every corner of the room as if she were noticing their surroundings for the first time. When she spoke again, he could hear a slight breathlessness.
"A bit of a trek from the city, but…really nice." Her eyes swiveled back to his. "Good choice."
As he watched her watching him, the last bit of tension he held inside finally melted away. It had been a trial, trying to think of a suitable place to take her for this first time. He had to avoid places where they were likely to be seen by someone they knew, but still impress her, somehow. Then he remembered this place. It happened to be a favorite of his, and although he had mentioned that fact to Catherine once, it was not a place she was likely to frequent. She wasn't a big calamari fan. Fortunately, Sara loved seafood and prodding her to say whether eating it posed a problem for her vegetarianism had been relatively easy. The mental effort involved in trying to anticipate everything else that she might want on this night to be, by contrast, had nearly given him hives. As usual, though, the actual experience turned out to be much less complicated than he had feared. He always managed to forget how easy she was to be with.
"Glad you approve. I've always liked this place."
"Classic, but unpretentious."
"Exactly," he smiled.
He had already picked up his fork again when her sudden interest in the precise rearrangement of the two votive candles in the center of the table caught his attention.
"So, now that we're no longer dealing in hypotheticals," she said casually, "…what's your judgment?" She raised one slender shoulder, then slowly let it fall; one of the thin straps of her dress grew slack and slipped just off her shoulder. "With all the staring you've been doing, a girl starts to wonder."
He forced incomprehension onto his face. "To wonder what?"
Her subdued laugh melted into a sigh as she looked away. "You're really going to make me ask, aren't you?"
"Well, I agreed that you wouldn't have to ask me out, but I never said anything about who would initiate compliments." He eyed her shrewdly. "Do you want me to tell you how you look?"
"No, I…." She laid her right hand against the table firmly, palm first, even as her face reddened. "Forget it. Moving on…"
He lowered his chin at her. "You shouldn't give up so easily, Sara. That's not like you."
"Maybe not," she agreed, raising her eyes from her plate. "But making this big intellectual thing about needing to see the dress in order to say anything more than hypothetical about how it might look, and then once you do see it, you don't say a word all night… Now that…that is exactly like you." She gave him a knowing look. "You can't even deny it, can you?"
When he persisted in playing the Sphinx, she rewarded him with the vexed look he loved. "No, I can't," he laughed.
"You little shit."
"Poor baby," he mouthed teasingly. She crossed her arms in front of her; which only made him laugh again. "Poor pretty baby."
"All dressed up for a date with a fool," she muttered grimly.
Satisfied that he had gotten under her skin, he leaned forward to lay his hand on her arm, which still lay folded against her body. "You know, the look you get on your face is priceless." His laughter settled into an appreciative smile as he took in her every inch of her that he could see. "I think you look …exactly as I imagined."
Doubt hovered in her eyes until he let his thumb begin an unhurried, rhythmic stroking of the back of her hand. Her mouth softened.
"It's not like I'm some compliment hound, you know, " she pointed out, a bit sheepishly.
"I know. You could be, though. You certainly look far too good to be here with me."
"You've got that right."
The look he gave her sparked a light, happy laugh. They stared at each other as he took a few moments to trace the raised veins he could feel on the back of her hand. Finally, he brought his hand back to his side of the table.
"Dessert?"
Despite the extreme warmth of the day, the night air had grown chilly by the time he held the restaurant's door open for her. They walked to his car in easy silence, his hand on her elbow. She weaved into him without warning. He tightened his grip.
"Oh! I'm sorry. This surface is murder with these shoes." They both looked down at her dainty-looking black sling backs.
He pursed his lips. "Are those the new ones?"
"Yeah. Nice heel, too, even if it's lower than what I would usually wear with a dress like this." She grinned. "Never say I don't do anything for you."
He urged her forward with his hand. "Oh? What favor are you doing me now?"
"I'm catering to your masculine ego by not wearing heels that would make me taller than you," she noted, her eyes twinkling. "And since that's straight out of Cosmo, you should thank them too."
"You do not read Cosmo." He was adamant.
"Only for the sex tips."
"Some of us don't need tips."
"That remains to be seen."
He sighed. "All right, settle down over there. You're getting a little frisky on that full stomach."
She just laughed.
By this time, they had arrived at the passenger door of his car. She reached for the handle in anticipation of his keying it open with his automatic opener, but when she pulled, nothing happened. He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around to face him. His hands slipped back into his pockets.
She looked puzzled. "Something wrong?"
"No," he said quickly. "I just thought you might want to put on your wrap before we go." He held out a large scarf in fine black wool, which he had been carrying for her.
"Well, it's a little late for that, isn't it? The car will be warm enough."
He raised his hands. "Hey, if you don't want it…"
She looked at him strangely, but shook her head. "No, I want it, I want it."
Grissom unfolded the scarf and stretched it between his arms. Deftly flipping one corner of the square of fabric over the other to form a triangle, he took a moment to ensure that it fell neatly, and then whipped it behind her so swiftly that his hands were smoothing the material over her shoulders before she realized what was happening. As he moved his open palms from just below the base of her neck down to her elbows and back, they both smiled.
"Better?"
"Much."
He watched her steadily, and finally stepped closer. She took a step back, but he moved forward an equal distance. The dance continued until her back was against the car door.
"Uh, sorry, but…I have fish breath, remember?" She laughed apologetically, and ducked her head.
"So do I…well, calamari breath, I suppose," he responded smoothly, eyeing her intently. "You'll have to come up with something better than that."
She thought for a moment. "I bite?"
He sighed, and squeezed her shoulders. "That would count as a turn on, not a turn off, Sara. Try again."
Her smile sparkled. "Okay, okay, just give me a second to regroup here. Hmmm…other objections to--"
He caught her with her mouth open, in the middle of her train of thought. They staggered slightly, arms entwined, trying to compensate for nearly losing their balance as he pressed her body firmly against his. Who could have guessed that her lips were so soft? The moment, visceral and intense, was sweeter than he had ever imagined; so sweet as to be virtually perfect…or at least it would have been, without the noise. He tried to ignore it at first, choosing to focus on sliding his fingers in and out of the hollow of her spine as he ran one hand from her waist up to the base of her neck. Still the sound persisted. He groaned his hazy protest against her mouth, but he had no choice but to deal with the intrusion. Keeping one arm around her, he used the other to fumble for his pager. Tiny as the thing was, it was surprisingly difficult to keep his hold on Sara as he did so. His hand felt clumsy and huge as its thick fingers scrabbled for the button that would end the aural offense. Why was this so hard? It was at the very moment that he noticed--Sara was shrinking in his grasp. He moved to tighten his hold on her waist, but it was like clasping at air. As the beeping grew louder and louder, she pulled her face away from his with a regretful smile and parted her lips to speak in the middle of a sudden halo of light…
He opened his eyes to brightness of the midday sun streaming rudely through his window. The clock registered its alarm insistently, blinking its ugly numerals in his eyes like a warning. One good smack silenced it. He closed his eyes in the hopes of going back to where he had just been, but it was already too late. He should have known.
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tbc…