Sara was still smiling when she woke up and she stretched out leisurely in her bed, glad that she had plenty of time to get some housework and a run in before work that night. She might have even rolled over and gone back to sleep if her cell phone hadn't rang just then. She furrowed her brow as she reached for it and checked the caller ID. "Sidle." Her voice was laced with sleep, but it was evident in her tone that she was smiling.

"Did I wake you up?" Nick's tone was flirtatious. He'd been up for several hours already and had waited as long as he could before calling her.

The eagerness in his voice wasn't lost on Sara. "No, I woke up a few minutes ago. You?" She fingered the edging on her comforter as she considered that this call from Nick was causing a fluttering sensation in her stomach.

"I've been up a while." He hoped he didn't sound too eager, but after the previous night, he really wanted to spend some more time with her before he had to be at work.

Sara smiled into the phone. "So what are you doing?"

"Uh, getting ready to take a run, was wondering if you might want to join me?" He really didn't need the workout, and he wasn't sure if after all the dancing they'd done last night if she would really be interested.

"Yeah. I was planning on going later, but I can go now." The thought of spending some time with him was very appealing and she sat up in bed wondering to herself if she should take a shower before working out so that she wouldn't look so rumpled.

"Should I pick you up?" Nick wasn't sure why he felt so nervous about asking her to go running. They'd run together numerous times, and after last night's date, he really shouldn't be nervous. Still, this was Sara and he really like her and things between them weren't as defined as he would like, although from all that he could pick up, they were definitely heading in a direction that pleased him.

"Sure." Sara reasoned that it would take him at least ten minutes to get to her apartment and that would give her enough time to throw on her running clothes, run a comb through her hair and brush her teeth.

"Ok, then." Nick was definitely smiling and from the way his words sounded in his own ears, he was far too eager. But Sara really didn't sound like she minded and his smile spread into a grin. "I should be there in about ten or fifteen minutes?"

"Ok." No time for lounging in bed, Sara walked across her room and immediately opened up a drawer to pull out some running clothes. A pair of shorts and a tank top ought to do it, what with the temperatures already at least into the high seventies if not low eighties.

"See you soon." Nick felt like a complete dolt as he hung up the phone.

Sara couldn't help but smile at how eager he sounded to see her and she wondered how this thing between them would play out while they were at work. She furrowed her brow. That was one little complication she really hadn't thought about in any great detail, even when she'd been so fixed on Grissom. The dynamics of a workplace relationship were complicated at best. At least she and Nick were working different shifts, but still, there were those at the lab that frowned on romance at work; although, surprisingly, Ecklie didn't seem to be one of them. Two people from his own shift when he was the dayshift supervisor had dated a rather long time and had eventually gotten married and he had even allowed them to work cases together; it was Grissom that she wasn't sure about.

Sara had barely finished brushing her teeth when she heard a knock at her door. She glanced at the clock in her bathroom and smirked as she realized that Nick must have been walking out the door to his car when he called her, or he'd sped the entire way, and considering Nick it could have been either. She grabbed a ponytail holder on her way out of the bathroom and pulled her hair back as she walked to the front door.

Nick looked as nervous as a teenage boy on his first date as the door swung open. "Hey." He just stood there and smiled at Sara when in reality what he really wanted to do was take her into his arms and kiss her.

"Hey." Inwardly Sara laughed at the vast vocabulary they were generating. She felt a flip in her stomach as she glanced at his lips and wondered if it would be too forward to kiss him, even in light of last night. Of course then they'd had plenty of ambiance to lead into the kisses they'd shared and they hadn't really established where this thing was going other than on a second date.

Nick broke the somewhat awkward tension by gesturing towards his Denali. "How about a couple of miles and then a couple of lattes?" Maybe over coffee he could work up his courage to tell her that he was interested in a real relationship with her, not just a series of dates and see what she thought.

"Sounds good." Sara let out a slightly embarrassed chuckle as she realized she didn't yet have her shoes on. "Just give me a minute."

"Sure." Nick watched as she turned and disappeared into her bedroom, emerging a few moments later with her shoes and socks on and a fanny pack that he assumed held her wallet and keys.

About an hour later, the pair were seated at a table in a neighborhood Starbucks sipping iced lattes. It had been a tad warm out for an all out run and so after they'd gone a mile and a half, they'd called it quits and driven over to the coffee shop.

Nick studied Sara out of the corner of his eye as they sat next to each other at the small round table in the corner of Starbucks. "I really had fun last night."

"Me too." Sara couldn't help but smile. Not only had she found Nick to be an incredible romantic, she'd had fun trying to recast 'Smoky and the Bandit' with him.

A smile began to spread across Nick's face as he leaned forward in his chair and cradled the latte in his hands. "So I was thinking…" He let his words trail off as he watched her body language.

Sara arched her brows at him inquisitively as she fiddled with her straw a bit nervously. "And?" She could tell he had something specific on his mind.

Encouraged, Nick pressed on. "Well, I was thinking that I wanted to see more of you."

Sara tried to keep her smile restrained. "There is still that second date." Although in the back of her mind she wondered if this right now could qualify as that date.

"Well, that's true." He reached over and enveloped one of her hands with his, brushing his thumb over the back of her hand. "But I was thinking that I wanted to date you, not just take you on another date."

Sara just looked at him, her smile unabashedly spreading out across her face and exposing the gap between her two front teeth. Date Nick Stokes. She had certainly thought that what was happening might turn into that, but she hadn't really expected it quite this soon.

Her smile gave Nick courage to continue. "It's just that I know you, we'll we've known each other a while and I care about you. I don't really want to see anyone else. I want to see you." He gave her hand a squeeze and his eyes seemed to caress her face.

Sara let his words sink in for a minute. For some reason, even though she hadn't expected to hear him say something like that so soon, it wasn't unwelcome; it just felt right. Maybe it was because she'd known him for years, and maybe it was because that book she'd read had given her a measure of clarity that she hadn't had before, but whatever it was, she found that she wanted to give whatever this was between them a chance.

"Am I overstepping my bounds here?" Nick's brow was furrowed now as he studied her, a bit of worry creeping into the back of his mind that he was blowing it by being so forward.

Sara smiled and squeezed his hand in return, shaking her head. "No, you're not. I think I'd really like that." She watched as a grin spread across his face and then her eyes fluttered shut as he leaned in and softly kissed her, his lips tasting faintly of coffee.