Thanks Marlou. Gin... what WAS I thinking?
He's probably not your cup of tea; he's not really mine, to be honest, but we're friends so somehow I guess something worked out.
The thing about him is... he works too much. He works all the damned time which I'm sure is) factor numero uno why he doesn't have a social life. I'm pretty much... yeah, I'm his only friend. Not that his team doesn't consider him a friend, I'm just not sure if he considers them back is all.
The first thing that we bonded over (and yes we bonded, is that so difficult to imagine?) was scotch. This was way back, fifteen maybe sixteen years ago. He was new to the city, I could tell; he didn't have even a hint of a tan. He walked through the doors of CSI with fucking snow in his hair and I wasn't so sure how welcome a northerner would be in such a sunny city. But he was on night shift; figured, right?
Anyway, it was a bottle of scotch; I brought it to his office and we both ended up tipsy enough to warrant a cab ride home. We talked about a lot of stuff in the two hours that we just lounged in his office. I talked about my divorce, my daughter and he... well he muttered about his ex-fiancé and why he'd left her in the great white north. Better off for him, a woman who cheats once is liable to cheat again... as I know all too well. Anyway, back to Grissom, the man didn't even accept the ring when she tried to give it back to him.
I think that's what got me. Before I knew it we were meeting in bars after shift, ordering up a bottle of Jack and just being out, out in the world. It seemed the both of us had allowed our exes to control our lives for far too long.
Football, we watched some football but mostly baseball. He was a Cubs fan, Cubs and Red Sox and I was a Yankees fan but hey, we worked past that. There were chips and beer and normal guy stuff and I was happy to be able to trade war stories with someone who was as brashly cynical as I was.
Bottom line, we had. It was a good time, still is.
Over the last few years... well, we've both changed, that much is obvious. I've become more open (I'd like to think so, anyway) and he's... uh, he's essentially closed himself off to the world. He's stopped having drinks with Catherine with the exception of the odd outing between the three of us. But yeah, I know why.
Gil's been distracted; he didn't like being torn from work to begin with but it's gotten worse. It was difficult for him to share anything with me, even if it was the box scores of last night's game. Over time he cracked a bit, but still... when he came to me with personal issues I knew it had to be big.
So, when he came to me regarding his inability to get over a certain someone I was uncharacteristically surprised.
"I uh, it's just not..." Gil said, trailing his finger around the rim of his glass. He hadn't touched his whiskey and I was worried; it was the good stuff.
I sat back; apparently our very own Miss Sidle had him wrapped around her pinky and didn't even know it... or maybe she did. No, she wouldn't do that. Besides, after the way he had treated her I was surprised she was still interested. "What is it? Can't get her out of your head?"
He just looked at me, sullenly. "It's not that. She's always... been there, I think."
What could I do? I just nodded. I mean... I'm not an idiot and I'm obviously not blind. Their not so subtle glances were, uh, well... not so subtle, as I said. Everyone knew that Gil had a thing for Sara just like everyone knew Sara had a thing for Grissom. I'm not eloquent, so sue me. Moving on, Gil was in a pickle. See, when love finally smacks you upside the head after nearly fifty years of hiding, it tends to disorient.
Maybe he didn't wanna talk about it...
"I don't uh, want to talk about it."
Who's good? That's right, I'm good. Either way, he had to talk about it. It was clearly eating him up inside. "Drink your drink and see how you feel after that." So we just sat side by side and sipped our whiskey and made absent-minded comments about the game on the television.
An hour later, he was sufficiently tipsy and ready to spill it all. Alcohol, one of the most powerful social lubricants, gotta love it. "Well, you asked her here, didn't you?"
He nodded and hung his head; god, he was torn. This was both amusing and damned sad. Funny how women could do that to us guys, funny and depressing. But hey, considering what we do to them... "Yeah, I did. And, jesus Jim... I..."
"Listen, I don't know much about dating since well, I haven't had a date since... god I can't even remember when. But let me say this... after you did what you did to her, and she's still sticking around... it's not for the job, that's all..."
He was silent, waiting for me to fix his problems or something. "But hey, just, you know, take her out on a date. Tell her how you feel, something like that." Come on, this was the best I could do!
Gil scoffed at me and finished his whiskey. He was shaking his head; he was either pissed at himself or just piss drunk. I figured it was probably the former, so I let it go. "I can't just take her out on a date Jim, it doesn't work like that."
"And... why doesn't it work like that?" A valid question, right? Yes! Thank you!
"Because," he began, finding absolutely nothing to back that up with. "Because... it doesn't."
I left it there, no need to push him into that gray area where I scare the shit out of him and he finds it difficult to speak with me any longer. Besides that, I had to piss. So I went to the bathroom and when I came back there were four more drinks sitting on the bar in front of him; he pushed two my way.
So instead of talking about it, he drank his feelings down until he couldn't feel feelings anymore. Does that make sense? Well it did to me. That's what we did for the rest of the evening, we got drunk. Eventually I cut him off, I had to. He would have drank himself unconscious with the way he was knocking 'em back.
So I poured him into a cab around two and told the cabbie to take him by Sara's place. Not where he wanted to go at all, but where he needed to be. God, he was going to be pissed at me.
But hey, what are friends for, right?