A/N: I know, long evil wait for this update...but school is sucking away at my will to live and/or write...
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Bobby," Alex murmured a few seconds later, pulling back from the kiss. "Not that I necessarily have a problem with making out like teenagers every now and then, but . . . you want to give me more of an explanation than 'She said you melted' before we go on with this?"
He looked at her blankly for a second as his distracted brain tried to process her words. "Um . . ."
"Tell me what Annie told you," she prompted when she saw confusion on his face.
"That's . . . basically it. She said that I was an idiot for not noticing what's right in front of me and missing how you react when I touch you." He cocked his head to the side, looking at her curiously. "Why, what did she say to you?"
She was tempted to blurt out something about being his favorite food, but instead just shook her head; she didn't feel like trying to explain Annie's convoluted metaphor right now.
He took her chin in his hand and held it still so that she couldn't turn away while he scrutinized the tense expression on her face, which told him that there was something else, something she didn't want to tell him. "She said something that hurt you. Look, you have to understand that she -"
"She didn't hurt me," Alex interrupted him. "She just . . . surprised me."
"How?"
She sighed. "Are you still afraid I'm going to ask Deakins for a new partner someday?"
"Huh?" he grunted, baffled by the seemingly unrelated question.
"That's what she said. Well, at least partly. She said that she knows you so well that she can tell you're sure it's just a matter of time until I stop wanting to work with you. So, is it true?"
He sighed and looked away. "Annie talks too much."
"Is that a 'yes'?" she tried again, not willing to let him avoid such an important question. Whether it made him uncomfortable or not, she needed to know if he trusted her; if he still believed she'd desert him, they were going to have to work on their partnership until he was convinced that she was staying.
"Sometimes I think about it," he admitted reluctantly. "Usually when things are going really well and I'm waiting for the bubble to burst."
She gave him a tiny smile. "Want to hear exactly how she tried to explain it to me?"
"Uh . . . I'm not sure. Will it be more embarrassing than anything else I've already experienced tonight?"
"Doubt it. You'll probably laugh."
"Alright," he said, still skeptical. "Go ahead and tell me."
"She said, and I quote: 'He looks at you like you're his favorite food and he's on a diet.'"
He blinked and repeated blankly, "You're my favorite . . . food?"
"That was pretty much my reaction too. When I looked at her like she was nuts, she tried again and said that you look at me like I'm the best thing that ever happened to you and you wish I weren't."
"I have to have a talk with her about playing amateur psychologist," he said, trying to sound unconcerned by the turn this conversation had taken.
"How about you have a talk with me, about why tonight is the first time I'm hearing about any of this?"
"Oh," he shot back, leaning slightly away so he could see her face more clearly, "and you've been up-front about everything that's been going through your head? We both know we've been avoiding this for years."
She countered his movement away with her own movement closer to him. "Point taken. But I'm serious about talking."
He took her hand in his, fingertips tapping out a nonexistent melody on the back of it. "I know what you're saying, and I realize you're right, but do you think . . . uh . . ." He broke off, unsure how to phrase his request without making it sound like an avoidance tactic, and just concentrated on the touch of her hand instead.
"Do I think what?" she prompted, watching him watch her. "That we could forget this happened until the end of the night?"
His fingers stopped moving and he looked up at her in surprise. "Sort . . . uh . . . sort of."
"Ok, Scarlett," she teased. "I can do that, but you have to promise that you're not going to try to run away from it when we are out of here."
"That's . . . it? You don't mind?"
She leaned forward a little more, pulling her hand out of his and lifting it to cup his cheek. "Believe it or not, I'm having fun, too. I'd rather ride the night out and then worry about this . . . thing between us."
He let out a breath, surprised at how painless this conversation was turning out to be. "So if we forget about it for the night, then how do we . . . are we still . . .?"
"I'm still your girlfriend and you're still the commitment-phobe," she said with a playful smile, only a few inches away from his face. "We could treat it like . . . a kind of practice."
"Practice?" he asked. "Practice for what? You mean . . . how we'd act if this," he said, gesturing to them and their intimate position, "became real?"
"Yeah," she said, a little defensively. "The way I see it, it's either that, or we go back in there with insane amounts of tension between us because we're not sure if we're allowed to touch each other."
"So we just . . . go back in there?" he parroted dumbly.
She pulled back to look at him. "Well, that was my plan, but you sound slightly doubtful about it."
"It's not that I'm, uh, doubtful. I'm just . . . not sure what normal is, anymore, which makes it hard to tell myself to 'act normal.'"
" 'Normal,' as in how to act around me, you mean?"
"Yeah. But I know we do have to go back out there," he added with resignation. "I'll figure it out." Standing up, he pulled her up with him. "Ready?"
She found herself once again nose-to-chest with him as he inadvertently pulled her up a little too close, and, taking a small step back, just enough so she could breathe without drooling on his shirt, she studied his face for a second. "No, I am not ready yet, Detective Goren." Her arms wound themselves around his neck, her fingers dipping slightly inside the collar of his shirt, and she applied gentle pressure to pull his head down toward her.
"Alex . . ."
"Shh," she murmured. "Consider this a refresher course on how to act with a girlfriend." Then, not giving him time to respond to her comment, she slid the fingers of one hand into his hair and kissed him.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
They re-entered the ballroom five minutes later, Alex tugging nervously at the back of her top, which was beginning to come untied again. Pulling him to a stop against the first wall they encountered, she held up a finger to tell him to wait. "Hold on, I need to adjust. Stand behind me, would you?"
He obeyed, but said as he moved to block her back from the rest of the room, "Uh, what exactly do you mean, 'adjust'?"
"Re-tie. Whatever you want to call it. This top was not intended to be worn during vigorous activity." She reached behind her back and tugged on the loose end of the middle tie. "And this," she added, holding up the string for him to see, "is rather critical to my staying decent."
She had a point, he decided, at least judging by the way the sides of the shirt were gapping around her now that the string was untied . . . a state which exposed just enough of the curve of her breasts to tantalize him. Figures, he thought. It just had to be now, when I can't satisfy my curiosity without being afraid we'd be walked in on by old classmates. "Do you want me to do that?" he asked, realizing as he pulled himself out of his reverie that she was trying to re-tie the strings blindly.
"Yeah, please," she replied, dropping her hands. "Just tie it in a bow, and then re-do the bottom one while you're at it."
He turned his focus to the task at hand and did his best to not notice the expanse of bare skin she was unashamedly presenting to him. "This is, uh . . . very pretty. The outfit, I mean," he added hastily. "Is it new?"
It was impressive how he could maneuver his large hands to do such a delicate task, and do it as well as she could, she mused. His hands were warm, too, and . . . no, this was not a good thing to start thinking about right now. Forcibly distracting herself, she raised one hand to brush away some strands of hair that had escaped her french twist and looked over her shoulder at him. "Yeah, it is. You enjoying it?"
Unable to resist, he leaned forward and dropped a kiss on the temptingly exposed curve of her shoulder as he moved his hands to the second tie of her shirt. "It would be impolite of me to say yes to that, you know," he told her as he tied the string as neatly as he could.
When she felt him drop his hands, she turned to face him with a playfully skeptical look. "I thought you said that it's only in public that you won't do 'lewd.'"
It took him a moment to put his jaw back into place and regain his composure after that comment, but when he did, he just smiled back and slid his arms around her waist, allowing his fingers to brush the skin of her back as he pulled her into him. "Well, I consider high school reunions to be pretty 'public;' I don't know about you."
"Oh, fine," she said, giving him a peevish poke in the arm. "Be that wa-"
She was interrupted by a voice from behind Bobby's shoulder calling his name, and they released each other guiltily, turning to see who was speaking.
"Bobby Goren?" repeated the woman standing in front of them, who Alex quickly identified as the ugly-duckling-turned-swan, Emily Vincent, whom Susan and Janet had referred to at dinner. The look on the congresswoman's face was almost shy, and Alex suppressed the mischievous urge to assure her that Goren didn't bite.
"Emily," he said, giving her hand a squeeze and displaying one of his genuine, boyish smiles. "Or should I call you 'Congresswoman'?"
"Ugh," she responded with a roll of her eyes. "Let's stick with 'Emily,' if you don't mind. I thought I spotted you earlier, but I wasn't sure. I finally worked up the nerve after that second glass of wine I had with dinner to say hello and potentially look like an idiot if you turned out not to be you."
"Well, uh, you found me and I am me," he said awkwardly, not sure what the proper response to her statement was. "Although technically, you found both me and my, uh, girlfriend. Emily, this is -"
"Alexandra Eames," Emily finished for him. "I know. You two get around."
Alex and Bobby looked at each other, then back at her. "Uh . . . we do?" Alex asked, wondering what the woman had heard about them.
"Well, I should say that your reputations get around. If you never noticed, politicians get all hot under the collar at the thought of befriending a pair of star detectives. You're a popular topic at fundraisers - who's met you, who's been associated with a case you worked, how much publicity they got out of it, and so forth. Oh, and it's nice to meet you, Alexandra," she added, belatedly realizing that she'd cut off Bobby's formal introduction.
" 'Alex,' please," Alex said. "And I'm not sure which part of that I should be most alarmed by: the fact that we're a popular topic at parties or the fact that politicians are hot under their collars for us.
"I've always hated politics," Bobby said easily, slipping an arm around her shoulders. "There's entirely too much hotness under the collective political collar, all the time." As he'd intended, that got a laugh out of both women. "So you know all about us," he said to Emily as he felt Alex wrap an answering arm around his waist, "but we don't know anything about you other than your job title. How have you been, anyway? Still playing chess?"
"When I get time, which isn't too often anymore. Dom challenges me to a game every now and then, though."
"Dom?" Bobby asked. "Vincent? I hadn't realized that he was the 'Vincent' you married. Dom did chess with us for a few years," he explained to Alex. "Is he here tonight?"
"He's here, at least technically," she said, somehow managing to look both exasperated with and tolerant of her husband's behavior. "Probably holed up in a corner somewhere to avoid having to talk to anyone. He doesn't make a very good political wife," she joked. "No hand-shaking or baby-kissing for him."
"He leaves that to you?" Alex asked, wondering if the woman was purposely joking about the stereotype or if that was really just her world.
"Unfortunately, yes. Even the ugly ones," Emily said with a grimace. "Not quite what I envisioned politics being back when I got into it."
"How did you get into it?" Bobby asked. "I remember you as being too shy to get up in front of a class of bored teenagers, let alone half the legislative branch of the US government."
Emily gave that a moment's consideration, trying to think of a good explanation. "Probably," she finally said, "the same way the shy, submissive Bobby Goren I remember found himself playing a famous detective: I just kind of fell into it. Dom and I moved upstate - well, technically it's downstate, but you know how everything outside the City is considered 'up' - after I finished law school, to a town called Tuxedo. When the kids started middle school and I didn't need to be home for them during the day anymore, I found myself with a lot of free time on my hands. I started out on the school board, moved on to town council . . . and somehow, when I wasn't paying attention, I ended up a politician instead of just a lawyer who happened to be active in the community."
"You have kids?" Bobby asked, slightly incredulously. It was a big adjustment to think of any of his high school classmates with children, given that he remembered them as barely out of childhood, themselves, and he figured it would take him a few minutes to absorb the reality.
Emily's face relaxed into a proud smile. "Yeah, we decided we needed more torture in our lives than just law could give us. Jenny started college this year, and Christopher is a junior in high school." She paused, shaking her head as if reprimanding herself. "But you don't care about that. That is, unless you guys have kid stories of your own to swap . . .?"
There was a moment of silence as they processed her words. Then, eyes widening, Alex shook her head. "No, no kids for either of us. We've . . . fallen a little behind schedule when it comes to life outside of work." She usually tried to avoid thinking about how she'd probably never have children of her own, and she wished now they hadn't gotten themselves into this conversation.
Noticing the hint of wistfulness in her voice, Bobby tightened his arm around her and rested his cheek on the top of her head. "Hopefully one day," he said, as much to Alex as to Emily.
"I can certainly understand the falling behind thing," Emily said, nodding. "If I hadn't had mine before I got into public service, I don't think I would ever have gotten around to fitting them in. But you know, you still have time. You've built your careers up so high that the NYPD would probably hire a babysitter for your kids if either of you demanded it, rather than lose you."
"Now there's a thought," Alex said with a grin. "But forget the reactions of the brass; I think Bobby might implode if I got pregnant." Especially with his child, she thought to herself. Imagine, a mini-Goren doing laps in my belly! "He barely survived the last time I went on leave."
"I wouldn't implode," he protested, knowing as he said it that it was a lie. He'd been worried about her enough when she had been pregnant with her nephew; he suspected that if the child was theirs he'd be tempted to handcuff her to her desk chair. Whether that counted as "implosion" or not, he didn't know, but either way, he was pretty sure he wouldn't survive the pregnancy, since Alex would probably kill him before the nine months were up.
"You'd spend the last trimester whining about getting stuck with a new partner," she teased, twisting around under his arms so she could face him, "just like you did last time."
"I didn't whine. I just . . . pointed out to a few people that Bishop wasn't as good as you."
"You whined, Bobby. Face it." Looking back at Emily, she said, "We're a co-dependent partnership, what can I say?"
"I guess it would be hard not to be," Emily said with a shrug. "If you're always together, for work and play, I'd imagine you get used to having the other person there."
Bobby and Alex looked at each other thoughtfully.
Hell, she thought, I'm only with him at work, but I'm ALREADY used to always having him there.
Co-dependent, Bobby thought, I guess that's what it is. I certainly depend on her. And hey, I certainly wouldn't balk at having her with me for "play," too. He pulled her a little closer and laced his fingers through hers when she raised a hand to where his dangled over her shoulder. "You have a point, Emily," he said. "It's definitely a little too easy to get used to."
"Nah," she scoffed. "When you're in love, you have to take the 'easy' where you can get it. Take it from someone who's been married way too long: there'll be plenty of 'hard' to balance it out." She took another look at the odd picture they made, Alex's small frame against Bobby's hulking one. "Do you guys mind if I ask how you deal with dating when you're working?"
She was answered by complete silence and a pair of cautious looks. "We, uh, just don't flaunt it," Bobby finally managed vaguely. "Crime scenes generally aren't romantic to begin with, so it's not so much of a conflict . . ."
Having been given an extra few seconds to think while Bobby spoke, Alex had a better answer: "Like you said a few minutes ago, the Department wants to keep us. They know from experience that neither of us is anywhere near as good when paired with someone else as when we're with each other, so as long as we're not obvious about it, they're willing to tolerate it."
Bobby looked down at her, impressed by her thoughts, which actually sounded pretty viable. "Don't ask, don't tell."
"Makes sense," Emily said with a nod. "I was just curious because I know I've seen you together a few times over the years, and I never noticed anything unusual between you."
That was an easy one, Alex thought. "Yeah, well," she said with a chuckle, "it's hard to notice anything unusual when 'unusual' has become your trademark version of 'normal'."