"So you want me to keep this a secret." Greg had a smug expression on his face.
"Not forever, just for anther day or so." Sara explained softly.
"And I should do this because…" Greg wasn't so sure it wouldn't be more fun to let the entire lab know that he'd caught Nick and Sara exchanging a kiss, albeit a rather innocent one, but what information he chose to leave out could certainly be embellished in the mind of the listener.
Nick shot him a glare. "Look man, Warrick thinks he pulled one over on Sara and I and we're just trying to make him squirm for a while, to make him think twice about doing it again."
Greg looked amused. "Well he did pull one over on you two, and from what I can see, that's not an entirely bad thing, at least for you." He was disappointed on some level that Sara appeared to be taken.
"He just doesn't know that we caught him." Nick quirked a brow at him.
"Just a couple of days, we'll tell him before Ned and Carla get here." Sara added, glancing over at Nick and smiling.
"Carla?" Greg's interest was definitely piqued.
"Down boy." Nick chuckled. "She's marrying Ned, man, so you might want to back off a little."
Warrick chose that moment to saunter back into the locker room and only caught the tail end of the comment. His eyes were wide in shock. "Sara, you're engaged?" He shot Nick a glare and just shook his head.
Nick wasn't sure what to say; the one thing Sara didn't want to have happen was happening.
Greg decided to just play along for the time being. He reasoned that when Warrick found out the truth that the fireworks display around the lab would be well worth keeping his mouth shut for a while. He grinned and stepped over towards Sara and pulled her into a bear hug. "Congratulations, Sara."
She whispered in his ear. "You are a dead man." She pushed him away and cleared her throat as Warrick continued to stare at her.
"How well do you know this guy, Sara, you were gone, what ten days and you're getting married?" Warrick had his chest puffed out and the protective big brother role was in full swing.
"I'm gonna head to the briefing so one of us isn't late." Greg flashed Sara a cheesy grin and gestured towards the door with his thumb. "You want me to pass on the happy news?"
Sara shot him daggers and gritted her teeth.
"Now, Greg." Nick raised an eyebrow at the younger man that conveyed that if he thought he was going to get away with this he had another thing coming. "This is Sara's gig, not yours."
Greg just winked and walked out of the locker room.
"This could have been your gig, you idiot." Warrick didn't see any reason for pretense at the moment. He decided that if Nick couldn't tell Sara how he felt about her after spending ten days alone with her, that he was going to do it for him. Warrick wasn't going to stand by and let Sara marry some stranger until she knew that her coworker was in love with her.
Sara bit her lip to keep from giggling as her eyes widened at Warrick's outburst.
"Excuse me?" Nick looked at Warrick a bit incredulously.
Warrick narrowed his gaze at Nick. "You heard me. You spend ten days alone with Sara, who I know you're in love with, in a tropical paradise and she comes back engaged to another guy."
Sara had her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing, but Warrick thought she was in shock.
"Yeah, he's in love with you." Warrick explained as he looked over at Sara before shooting Nick another glare. "Of course he's too stupid to admit it." Warrick sounded exasperated. "I knew that you'd need a little push. I even went so far as to rent one of your rooms, at twice the cost mind you, so they'd tell you a pipe broke and flooded it, just so you two would have to share a hotel room." Warrick just shook his head in disbelief. "And she still came back engaged to another guy."
Nick had to bite his lip to keep from snorting out a laugh. He really didn't think that Warrick would crack so soon, but maybe his overactive imagination had pushed him over the edge, especially after what he thought he'd overheard.
Sara on the other hand could no longer stifle her giggle and as she pulled her hand away from her mouth she glanced over at Nick.
It took Warrick a moment before he began to sense that he obviously didn't have the whole story. He quirked an eyebrow at Nick and Sara who were both now having a hard time controlling their laughter. "What's going on?"
"Uh, I have to get to my briefing. I'll let Nick explain." Sara stepped towards the doorway, but was abruptly stopped as she felt Nick grab a hold of her hand.
"Oh, no, we're in this together, babe." Nick retorted with a smirk as he leaned down and kissed her quite soundly.
When Sara didn't immediately pull away and seemed to return the kiss with equal fervor as her arms drifted over Nick's shoulders, Warrick cleared his throat. "You two are messing with me, aren't you?" There was a part of him that was mad that he'd been had, but knowing that his money hadn't gone to waste made him chuckle.
"What's going on in here?" The sound of Gil Grissom's somewhat annoyed tone of voice caused Nick and Sara to step apart. He had a single brow raised and he peered at them over the rim of his glasses. "Sara, the briefing."
"I was just…" Sara couldn't keep the smile off of her face as she felt Nick's hand at the small of her back.
"I can see what you were doing." Grissom shot Nick a meaningful stare.
Warrick let out a chuckle.
"I can explain." Sara continued.
"The briefing." Grissom left it at that, not wanting to hear all about what appeared to be a budding romantic relationship between Nick and Sara. While he may not have been willing to take the risk to pursue her himself, he didn't want to torture himself with all of the details. If she was happy, that was enough. He turned and headed down the hallway towards the break room where Greg and Sophia were already waiting.
"So there's no Ned." Warrick probed with a smug expression.
"Oh, there's definitely a Ned." Nick countered with a smile. "And he really is coming out later this week."
Sara smirked. "To marry Carla."
"We didn't lie to you, man. We just didn't tell you all of the truth." Nick looked smug.
"I really have to go." Sara looked up at Nick with a smile and then gave him a quick kiss before turning towards Warrick. "Try not to kill him until we can explain."
Warrick just chuckled as Sara breezed out the locker room and then shot Nick a stare. "Spill it man."
