Pizza Party
Disclaimer: No, I don't own CSI. If I did I'd be taking a proper holiday in Mexico instead of teaching English for 50 pesos an hour (for those of you keeping score, that's just under $5 US). So you wouldn't get much if you sued me either.
Rating: K+
A/N: I'm on a little bit of a posting spree today! As always, please R&R (and yes, this is a one-shot. Sorry). Alex, thanks for pointing out the mistake. It's fixed now:)
"So, any plans for your weekend off, Catherine?" Nick asked as he poured her a cup of coffee.
"Yeah. Lindsay's having a couple of friends round for a sleepover and pizza party. I'll probably spend half of Sunday cleaning up the kitchen." She accepted the coffee with a smile. "Thanks."
"Pizza party?" Sara asked. Catherine took a sip of her coffee before she answered.
"They each get to make their own pizza," she explained. "Or put the toppings on at least. After what happened last time I bought the bases pre-made."
"What happened last time?" Greg wanted to know.
"Flour fight," she sighed.
"If it's so much trouble, why bother?" Sara asked. "Why not just order in?"
"Because it's fun," Nick told her. "Haven't you ever made pizza before?"
An unreadable expression flitted across Sara's face and was gone.
"No," she answered. Seeing the surprised looks on their faces, she shrugged. "I'm not much of a cook, okay."
"But making pizza isn't cooking," Greg protested. "It's art."
"Art?" In spite of herself, Sara laughed. Greg had that effect on her.
"Sure," he replied enthusiastically. "Getting just the right balance of meat and vegetables: pepperoni and bacon and sausage, peppers and onion and mushrooms. Arranging them so that they compliment one another to create a pizza that is both delicious and aesthetically pleasing.
"Then there's the whole ham-to-pineapple ratio, and the eternal question: do I really want olives and anchovies, or am I just putting them on because I expect them to be there?"
Nick shook his head. "Man, you have spent way too much time thinking about this."
Greg grinned. "Dedication, Nick, dedication. I'm telling you, pizza-making is an art-form. And I am an artist."
"You're a nut," Sara told him, but Nick thought he detected a note of wistfulness in her voice.
"Whatever." Catherine finished her coffee and stretched. "Grissom better hurry up with those assignment sheets. I am so not pulling overtime tonight."
That turned the conversation to overtime and the relative merits and injustices thereof, and Sara was relieved to see the subject of pizza-making safely forgotten. She supposed it was just one more of the simple childhood pleasures that she had missed out on, and that wasn't something she particularly wanted to discuss with her co-workers.
"Hey Sara."
At the sound of her name, Sara looked up from her journal. Several nights had passed since the pizza-making conversation, and she was reading while she waited for shift to start. Nick walked into the break-room, smiling as usual, and as usual she couldn't help but smile back.
"Hey Nick."
Nick helped himself to coffee, leaned back against the counter and took a sip, then made a face.
"Greg not in yet?" he asked.
"'fraid not," she replied.
"How do day-shift drink this stuff?"
"I don't know, but maybe it explains why Ecklie is the way he is."
"I don't think anything could explain that."
They both laughed.
"So," he asked, "are you doing anything after work?"
"Yeah, I have a hot date. Me, Hallmark movies, and a big tub of chocolate ice-cream."
Her sarcasm was intended to deflect attention from the fact that she did not, in fact, have a life. It was after all Nick who had once told her that she needed to get out more.
Nick chucked.
"Well, if you can bear to stand them up, I was wondering if you'd like to come over to my place? We could have a proper meal and then watch old movies."
She smiled and nodded. "Yeah, that sounds good."
"Great, just come on over whenever you finish work."
"You're not going to wait for me?" she asked.
"I know you too well, Sar," he teased. "Why wait here for you to finish your overtime when I could be waiting in the comfort of my own home with the Discovery Channel for company?"
Sara poked out her tongue and decided that tonight was one night when she would be leaving on time.
"Hey, I wasn't expecting you so soon." Nick seemed pleased when he answered the door, rather than annoyed, and Sara smiled.
"Maybe you don't know me that well after all," she suggested.
"Maybe not." He stood aside. "Come in, come in."
She followed him through to his kitchen, marveling as always at how homey Nick's place was compared to hers. For her, home was a place to avoid wherever possible, used only for essential purposes like eating and sleeping and the occasional private drinking binge, an attitude which could no doubt be attributed to her upbringing. To Nick, however, home was a haven, a place to hang out, to relax, to socialize. Perhaps that was why any violation of the security he felt in his own home hit him so hard.
She stopped in the doorway of the kitchen, blinking at the array of bowls and plates that covered the sideboards, all containing different diced meats or vegetables.
"What is all this?" she asked, amazed.
"This," Nick told her, "is your first lesson in pizza-making."
She knew he was grinning at the expression on her face, but all she could do was stare. After a moment, he went on.
"Now, Catherine went for the easy option, pre-made bases, but I always say a true pizza-maker makes his own base."
"Uh, right."
"Or her own base, of course. It's actually pretty easy: the basic ingredients are flour, water and oil. So," he clapped his hands and rubbed them together, "give your hands a scrub and let's get started."
"Okay." Sara felt doubtful. She had never done this before, and she just knew that she would mess it up and make a complete idiot of herself. "I really am a terrible cook, you know."
"Don't worry." Nick smiled. "I have five older sisters: I'm well trained."
Nick's cheerful confidence was infectious, and Sara soon found herself getting into the spirit of things. Cooking wasn't like chemistry, especially with Nick. There were no exact measurements here: he scooped out flour by the cup, measured salt by the 'pinch' and didn't hesitate to add a 'drop' more water when he deemed the dough too dry. It was nice to bury her hands in the contents of the mixing bowl and feel the warm stickiness clinging to her fingers as she kneaded.
She was surprised to see green flakes appearing in the dough, and glanced at Nick, who was sprinkling in some kind of herb.
"Oregano," he told her. "The secret ingredient."
He was standing very close to her, and her mouth suddenly felt dry. She looked away, fixing her eyes on the bowl once more.
"Your secret's safe with me."
"I never doubted it."
She was aware that he was still watching her, then, after a moment, he cleared his throat and moved away slightly.
"So, once it's thoroughly mixed we need to let it stand for a bit. Otherwise you get a very thin base and it burns too easily."
"It has to rise?" she asked. "Like bread."
"Exactly right." He leaned over her shoulder to look. "I'd say that's ready."
She lifted her hands from the bowl, leaving the dough in a ball at the bottom and picking off the odd clinging remnant before heading to the sink to wash her hands. Nick covered the bowl with a damp cloth.
"Meantime," he offered, "I have some potato chips to keep the hunger pangs at bay, so how about we go check on those movies?"
In the end they settled for Fox, which for once was showing something they both considered worth watching. They munched in companionable silence until Nick remarked that he thought the dough would be ready. It was, and he divided it into two portions, showing Sara how to roll and shape hers so it fitted her pan.
"Okay," he said when he was satisfied, "now for the tomato sauce."
"Don't tell me you made that too?" she teased.
He chuckled. "No, I cheated on this one. I bought it at the store yesterday."
As he spoke he smoothed sauce onto his base with an expert hand, then indicated that she should take her turn. She felt slightly clumsy, but she had seen what he did and thought she did a credible job of imitating him.
"What next?" she asked.
"Now the cheese," he told her. "And then the fun begins."
She was amazed at the array of toppings he had made available for her. Mushrooms, red and white onions, green and red peppers, tomatoes, pineapple, sliced olives, jalapeño peppers… She estimated that it must have taken him an hour or so to prepare them all, not to mention grating the cheese, and she was touched. Never in all her life could she recall anyone going to such an effort just for her, just to give her something that she hadn't even asked for or needed but had simply mentioned once in conversation.
Dates had bought her flowers and drinks, even dinner, or taken her out to the movies, and Grissom had given her a plant and a textbook, but Nick hadn't just spent money on her. He had spent time and effort as well, something he didn't have to do, something she had never expected him to do. Something which, as a friend, he had no obligation to do. Something which, being Nick, it must have seemed perfectly natural to do.
"Having fun?" he asked, noticing that she had fallen silent. He sometimes wondered about Sara's past, and the fleeting sadness he had seen on her face when she admitted that she had never made pizza had started him wondering again.
Unlike him, Sara never talked about her childhood or her family, never took time off to visit them, never seemed to think of them even at Christmas and Thanksgiving. More than once he had considered simply asking her about them straight out, but he knew she was a private person and would likely resent any perceived intrusion.
Now, however, she was grinning.
"I suddenly understand what Greg meant about the balance of flavor and aesthetics," she told him. "I mean, is it overdoing it to use red onions as well as white? Do I really want pineapple, which is sweet, on something which is essentially savory? And olives. Do I really want olives, or are they just a habit?"
She looked at his pizza, which was topped with a selection of diced meats and ready for the oven. He caught her eye and grinned.
"Me like meat," he told her in his best caveman voice. "Meat good. Make strong." He flexed his arms to demonstrate and she doubled over, helpless with laughter.
After she had straightened up she sprinkled a last few pieces of pepper on her pizza and dusted her hands dramatically.
"Done?" he asked.
"Done," she confirmed.
He slid both pizzas into the hot oven, then uncorked a bottle of red wine and poured them each a glass.
"All part of the authentic Italian experience," he told her as he offered her one.
"Don't tell me you had wine with your pizza back when you were a kid?"
"Naw, but mom always had a glass when we made pizza. I think she needed it after seeing what we did to her kitchen."
Sara kept glancing from the oven to the clock and back again, and Nick laughed.
"It won't cook any faster if you keep watching it," he told her. She blushed.
"I can't help it. I want to see what it tastes like."
"Well, we might as well catch some more of that movie while we wait," he suggested, then practically had to shepherd her out of the room, still looking back at the oven.
Ten minutes later, she hovered at his shoulder as, with over mitts on his hands, he removed both pizzas, now steaming deliciously, from the oven. He dished them onto plates and sliced them, then handed hers to her.
"Let it cool a minute first," he advised. "Otherwise you'll just burn your mouth and you won't really taste it."
He ignored his own advice and pulled a crispy bit of bacon from the edge of his pizza, popping it into his mouth and murmuring appreciatively.
"Mmm, good."
Sara blew on her pizza, trying to hurry the cooling process, then lifted a slice to her lips. Her eyes met Nick's as she bit into it. It was the best pizza she had ever tasted.