A/N: I'll try to get Chapter 8 up by next weekend. I'll be out of town until then. Thanks for reading.

Roger

CHAPTER 7

Calleigh walked through the front door of the bar and stopped. She stood in the entry way that led into the main bar area and started scanning the room for the crew, ignoring the growing number of male eyes looking at her. Suddenly, she caught in the corner of the eye a hand waving around. Calleigh turned her head to see Valera waving at her. Walking over to the table, she looked at who was sitting there: Valera, Eric and Horatio, who was pouring Eric another glass of beer from one of the pitchers at their table. Obviously, she wondered where Ryan and Alexx were. "Where's Ryan and Alexx?" Calleigh asked as she took the empty chair next to Valera. Valera raised her arm and pointed over to the pool tables where Alexx and Ryan were playing a game of pool. Calleigh looked at Ryan, who was standing still and leaning on his pool cue, with a frown on his face as Alexx was busy circling the pool table, lining up and sinking shot after shot after shot. Calleigh let out a laugh and said to Eric, "I see that Ryan is learning his lesson to not play pool with Alexx." Eric snickered as he spoke back to Calleigh. "We all decided that tonight was the night Ryan would 'get his cherry popped' and get his ass kicked by Alexx. He made the mistake of taking up Alexx's challenge to a pool game. I bet he now knows why everyone was quiet when she asked." "Did they place a bet?" Asked Calleigh, who shifted in her seat to get a better view of Ryan. "Of course." Answered Eric. "They bet that the loser would buy the next round of pitchers. The icing on the cake was when Alexx pulled out a 20 and waved it in front of Ryan and told him that it was his if he could make one shot." "He is so screwed. The poor baby." Calleigh barely managed to get the words out before breaking down in laughter, clearly enjoying the moment.

"I see that having the day off sure put you in a good mood." Valera said as she pushed her glass over to Horatio, who picked it up and started to pour beer into it. "Oh, I definitely got my batteries recharged," replied Calleigh, who took a good sip of her beer. "It also helped that I went out to lunch with a great friend and got a lot of things off of my chest." "Hey, I almost forgot to tell you that you can write out the check for your 'therapy session' to Dr. Horatio Caine," Horatio said as he looked at Calleigh and then quickly winked at her so she knew he was not being serious. "I'll be generous and knock off 10 percent of your bill since you bought lunch." Calleigh stuck her tongue out at Horatio, who simply grinned. Eric and Valera laughed. Horatio was happy that they were enjoying themselves. The four of them looked over at Alexx as she was now walking back to the table with a big smile on her face. Calleigh looked back over at Ryan to see what he was doing. Ryan was still standing by the pool table, shaking his head with a look of disbelief on his face. Her eyes followed him as he walked over to the cue rack to put his and Alexx's cue sticks away. Alexx sat herself down next to Horatio and pulled out the very same 20 dollar bill that she put up for her bet to Ryan. "Guess who got to keep her money?" Alexx said in a teasing tone. Everyone at the table laughed. Alexx picked up a pitcher to pour herself another drink. Calleigh then realized that since Alexx had sat down next to Horatio, Ryan would be sitting next to her. Calleigh felt her heart beat faster. She quickly sat up straight and shook her head to let some of her long hair hang down on one side of her face. Calleigh reached down to her vest and unbuttoned it, feeling comfortable enough to wear it open. She looked up at everybody to see if they were paying attention to what she was doing. Eric and Valera were looking at Alexx as she was talking about her pool game, so they didn't notice anything. And then she looked at Horatio. Horatio was nodding his head to Alexx's story to show that he was paying attention, but he was staring straight at Calleigh, with a slight smirk on his face.

"There's that smirk of his again. He knows what I'm doing." Calleigh thought to herself as she looked right back at Horatio. She wrinkled her nose at Horatio and turned her attention back to what Ryan was doing. Ryan was now heading back towards the table, looking down at his feet. Ryan lifted his head to see who was at the table. His face brightened up when he saw Calleigh sitting there, then felt a wave of fear overcome him when he realized that she was sitting next to the only empty seat. In all the times that they've all gone out, Ryan purposely made sure that he didn't sit next to Calleigh for the fear that he couldn't keep it together being that close to her and end up saying something inappropriate, due to nerves. He could barely muster the nerve as it was to look across at her when they would go out to the bars. He would only look at Calleigh if she directly talked to him, but he would never start up a conversation with her. At work he was fine with talking to her all the time, as long as it was work-related. However, when they were out together in public and away from work, he couldn't deal with the stress that a personal connection would bring up and would keep quiet or talk to someone else at the table. Calleigh sensed this at first when he started going out with the team. She thought he was being shy because he was new and didn't want to make a wrong impression. After a while, she noticed that he would start a conversation with everyone else but her. Calleigh at first took this the wrong way, thinking he was just being rude. But one day at a get-together, she realized that when she would yet again start a conversation with Ryan he would act jittery and avoid looking at her for more than a few seconds when they talked. She had a feeling that he had developed a crush on her. His actions every time they talked since then proved her right and in a way, pushed her thoughts about Ryan into another direction she had never thought of before.

Ryan kept walking towards the table. He wasn't sure what to do. He was still amazed at himself for finally getting the nerve last night at Lombardi's to have Calleigh sit with him when he ate, but she didn't sit right next to him. Besides, it was a private moment that didn't have the rest of the team sitting around the both of them, watching their every move and listening to every word. And the fact that Calleigh kissed him afterwards changed everything. Since he didn't get the chance to talk about last night before the get-together, he wasn't sure at what was going to happen. "I guess tonight will be the ultimate challenge to keep it together," Ryan muttered under his breath. "It's time that I stood up to it and took a chance." Ryan looked up and his eyes caught Calleigh looking right back at him. "God, her eyes are beautiful. So full of happiness and life. I could spend hours staring at them." Ryan thought to himself as Calleigh placed a huge smile on her face. He pulled out the chair and sat down next to Calleigh. "Hey there, stranger." Calleigh said to Ryan as he sat down and pulled his chair in. Ryan turned to face Calleigh. "Hi, Calleigh. Did you enjoy your day off?" "I sure did. How was work?" Calleigh replied, as she deliberately moved the hair away from her face with her hand and tucked it behind her ear to see if Ryan would react. She watched as Ryan's eyes followed her hand to the side of her head, then turned his eyes back to hers. Seeing him react the way she hoped he would, Calleigh felt butterflies form in her stomach. As Ryan was about to answer Calleigh, he was interrupted by Eric. "Hey, Ryan. Don't you owe H. a little something?" "Oh, yeah." Ryan mumbled as he reached into his pants and pulled out 30 dollars. "This should cover the next round of beers." Ryan placed the money on the table and looked over at Alexx, who winked at him. "You should have told me that Alexx was a killer at pool." Ryan said to Eric. "Dude, you had to learn on your own," Eric replied as he picked up the money and handed it to Horatio. "All of us here at the table have left some establishment with our wallets being a little light not from the drinks, but because of 'Minnesota Fats' over there." Alexx laughed at Eric's compliment. Ryan looked over at Alexx. "Alexx, how did you become such a great pool player?" "Honey, it was my father's hobby. What better way of bonding with your dad than to learn his hobby and share it with him?" Alexx said as she reached over and squeezed Ryan's hand. "Thanks for being a good sport over it." Ryan smiled and nodded. Calleigh looked at Ryan's other hand and wondered if she should take it into her hand. "I sure would like to." She thought to herself.

Ryan turned back to Calleigh. "I'm sorry, Calleigh. I didn't answer you. Work was very busy today as usual. It was a lot harder without you around." "Really?" Calleigh replied. "Yeah", Ryan answered, trying his hardest to keep a straight face. "Because I had to pick up the slack and do some of your work…I was getting used to being lazy on the job." Calleigh gave Ryan a playful shove, causing the both of them to break out in laughter. "Hey Ryan," Eric said as the two of them turned away from each other and looked at Eric. "If being lazy on the job is your kind of thing, you should transfer to Ballistics." The whole table laughed and then Calleigh threw a napkin at Eric. "When I get done with you, Mr. Delko, the only oxygen tanks you'll be using are the ones that keep you breathing in the hospital bed!" Calleigh then playfully lunged across the table at Eric, laughing the entire time while Eric made faces at her. Valera reached out and grabbed Calleigh. "No, Cal! There are witnesses!" Valera said jokingly as she pulled Calleigh away and back to her seat.

"Folks, we have a problem. And it's a pretty serious one." Everyone stopped to look at Horatio as he now had their attention. The table was quiet for a moment as everyone waited for Horatio to explain the situation. Horatio stood up, with a very serious look on his face. No one knew what he was about to say. Horatio looked at everybody and spoke. "I'm afraid that under these circumstances, it might not be possible to carry on here tonight with the problem we have at hand." Everyone at the table started looking at each other, not sure what Horatio was getting at. Finally, Eric decided to speak up. "What is the problem?" "The problem Eric, is…" Horatio paused. He looked at everybody at the table who were now leaning towards him. Horatio broke into a smile as he finished his sentence: "…that we are out of beer." Everybody groaned as they leaned back into their seats, realizing that Horatio was pulling a fast one over them. "I'll go and get ourselves the next round, thanks to Mr. Wolfe." Horatio spoke with a chuckle as he picked up the 30 dollars and walked towards the bar. The rest of the team waited until Horatio was out of earshot before they looked at each other, finally breaking into fits of laughter.

to be continued...