Chapter 7
Brass knocked lightly on the door. He was glad that Grissom and Sara had worked things out, but the complications in his friend's love life were going to be the death of him.
Sara's red rimmed eyes startled the veteran cop.
"Where's the big guy."
"Asleep"
"I have the new keys."
Sara's glassy expression took in Jim Brass. "So did you know that he was sleeping with every CSI and suspect in Vegas."
Brass propelled Sara into her apartment and closed the door behind him.
"Sara what happened?"
She looked like she had been drinking. He doubted that she had, but he surveyed the small kitchen and living room just to be sure.
She didn't speak. He waited. He was good at waiting. That's why he and Grissom were such good friends. He could endure his brooding silences and dark moods. After a while he began to talk.
"Cookie, men are stupid."
She snorted disdainfully.
"It's true. Notice how we always catch male killers, like that!" He snapped his calloused hands.
"But women, women are smarter. They rarely get caught cheating. They hardly ever get convicted of murder. That brings me to my next point. You see a woman looks across the room and she knows. You saw Gil strolling across that campus in Boston and you knew. You stopped taking applications. Now men they look across the room and they know too, but it scares the shit out them so they run and they keep running and while they are running they do some more stupid stuff. They sleep with other women. Doesn't matter who she is, what she looks like...none of that matters because we are stupid enough to think that we can screw the love off. Now me... I am an old man and if the maker decides to give me another shot, I won't run, but that's because I've been married and divorced. I know that you can't run and you can't hide. But, a guy like Grissom. A guy who's been single and footloose for years, he doesn't understand that, so he runs, even when one of his nearest and dearest friends tries to talk him out of it. You see Cookie, because you are the smarter sex you have to forgive us for our stupidity. We are doing the best we can with limited brain function."
He stood and kissed Sara on the forehead. "Cookie, I gotta get some sleep. Here's old blue eyes keys and Cookie....punish him some, but not forever."
She smiled thinly and thanked him.