Oli grabbed Janet's arm to make sure she didn't go ass over teakettle from being bounced out of Bobby's arms, then hastily removed his hand as soon as he was sure she was steady. "Alex is . . . a little tipsy," he explained to her and Bobby with a sheepish smile that he was secretly rather proud of himself for dredging up. "Sorry."

"What the . . ." Janet began indignantly.

Her protest was interrupted by Alex giggling loudly. "Oli's a bad driver. We didn't hit anyone until I let him lead."

Bobby, who had initially found himself alarmed when she fell against him, was now remembering that she hadn't imbibed anywhere near enough alcohol tonight to go from zero to smashed in the three minutes since he'd last seen her. It took him another second to realize that she and her partner in crime had to be completely faking it for Janet's benefit, since Oli knew as well as Bobby did that Alex couldn't be drunk. Apparently his prayers for rescue had been answered after all. He grinned down at her. "You ok, there?"

"Little dizzy," she replied, noticing that the expression in his eyes had changed from concern to amusement and giving him an answering smile. "Maybe I shouldn't have had done that last shot."

He set her back on her feet without any assistance from her - she seemed perfectly content to let him hold her up all night - and agreed, "Yeah, maybe you shouldn't have."

Oli, although not privy to the conversation they were conducting in near-whispers, had seen Bobby's posture relax when he figured out what was going on. "Sorry, Bobby. I thought maybe you'd want to keep an eye on her while she's like this."

"You were taking care of her up to now," Janet snapped at him. "Why do you have to shove her at Bobby? We're busy dancing, if you couldn't tell!"

Alex, pleased that her current role allowed for it, giggled drunkenly again. "Dancing? Come on, Janet."

"Because she's not my job," Oli informed Janet, ignoring Alex's remark. "She's his. And I have better things to do than baby-sit a drunk cop."

Alex widened her eyes dramatically and stared at him as if he'd wounded her deeply. "You do?" she asked breathlessly. "Things better than me?"

"That," Bobby broke in, putting an arm around her shoulders and subtly pulling her toward him and away from Janet and Oli, "is enough of that. Oli, thank you for bringing her out here to me. Alex, honey," he went on, eliciting another giggle, this one startled, from Alex, "maybe we should get you home. Come on."

She smiled gaily at Janet, who was visibly angry, and gave her a wave as Bobby led her away. "Night, Janet. You really should stay away from those cream products."

They heard Janet's offended squawk mixing with Oli's deep laugh as they walked off the dance floor.

Bobby drew her to a stop near the bar and sighed. "Thanks," he told her, giving her a half-hug with the arm he had around her shoulders.

She slid an arm around his waist and rested her head against his arm. "Hey, what are partners for? And I did promise not to leave you alone with predatory women tonight."

"You're right, you did. How'd you get Oli to play along?"

"It was his idea, actually. He spotted you guys first. Me, I turned around just in time to see her grab your ass."

He scrubbed a hand over his face and groaned. "Let's not discuss that part. I think I'm going to have nightmares."

She wrapped her other arm around him, holding him in a loose hug, and shifted slightly so that her head was resting against his side. "Poor Bobby, to have women chase you no matter where you go. How you must suffer . . ."

He gave her a sour look, but at the same time, he moved his hand from her shoulders to the nape of her neck and slid his fingers into her hair. "Are you going to tell me how you and Oli came up with this, or are you going to keep making fun of me?"

She waited an extra second, just to make him wonder, before she replied, "He had been going on about how he's surprised you didn't say anything when Jimmy groped me at dinner, and I was trying to explain that you knew I could handle it myself. And then, with absolutely perfect timing, he spotted you and acknowledged that maybe I wasn't the one that needed protection. So we decided to rescue you. It was fun, actually."

"You play a pretty good drunk."

"Yeah? Maybe I should consider including it in my undercover repertoire."

"I don't know," he said thoughtfully. "We don't seem to require a drunk very often around MCS."

"Would have done me good in Vice, but yeah, I guess it's a little late now. Guess I'll have to keep letting you be the weird one."

He abruptly tightened his arm around her, making her yelp in surprise. "Uh, sorry. Just . . . Janet's watching us, and it looks like she invited Jimmy to the show."

She groaned and buried her face in his shirt. "What do we have to do to get the message through her thick skull?" she mumbled into the lapel of his jacket.

"Which message? That I'm not interested, or that you're drunk?"

"All of the above."

"Hmm." He looked down at her head lying against him, then back up at the pair who were watching them. "You up for doing something out of character?"

She snorted. "Have I done anything in character tonight? What are you thinking?"

"Pretend you can't keep your hands off me."

"Excuse me?"

"No, really. Come on, we're going to go chat with the gruesome twosome. Make it good."

She let out a sigh of resignation. "You so owe me when we get out of here."

"Yeah, I know. Let's go, start any time." He started walking toward the pair, pulling her with him.

Alex tripped over her first step completely by accident, taken by surprise by his sudden movement, but purposely kept up the unsteady walk as she started to follow him. "Hey, if you want me to be clingy, you've got to walk slow enough to let me cling."

"Sorry." He glanced down at her and slowed his pace, trying not to smirk when she grabbed his arm and pulled it around her while giving him a simpering smile. "Perfect," he whispered.

She grinned up at him and fluttered her eyelashes as they pulled to a stop a few feet away from the other couple.

"Janet," Bobby said conciliatorily, "uh, I just wanted to apologize for th-" He broke off in surprise as he felt Alex's hand slide up his back under his jacket. ". . . the interruption."

"Bobbyyyyy," Alex whined, tickling his neck just above his collar. "You promised we could . . ."

He retaliated by putting his hand in the small of her back, slipping his fingers under the bottom tie of her top. Chuckling with fake self-consciousness, he looked back at Janet. "It's been five years and we're still not out of the honeymoon phase."

"How . . . vulgar."

He felt Alex stiffen beside him, getting ready to shoot back an insult of her own - and that didn't figure into his plan of saccharine peacemaking. Doing the first thing he could think of to distract her, he yanked on the tie his hand was under, undoing one of the knots that held her shirt together.

He was gratified to see that the trick had had the intended effect. She gasped, immediately forgetting Janet's insult, and threw a hand around to catch the dangling string, hissing, "Bobby!"

"Hmm?"

"Re-tie that! Now!"

"Geez," Janet snorted from the sidelines as she watched Bobby duck his head to do as asked, "do you always do whatever she tells you?"

"Get a backbone," Jimmy added, deciding that he was a safe distance away and Bobby wouldn't come after him.

Alex suppressed a smile while Bobby went to work on her shirt. As insults went, the ones Janet and Jimmy had just lobbed were almost completely ineffective. Neither she nor Bobby was uncomfortable with the balance of power in their relationship, and comments about how Alex pulled his strings no longer fazed them. Just for the entertainment value, she assumed a thoughtful look and turned her head slightly. "I don't know . . . Bobby, do you always do what I tell you?"

"Only when you're the one with the whip," he mumbled carelessly, eyes still on her back.

After a second of startled disbelief, Alex broke into laughter so intense that she could hardly draw in a breath. Bobby calmly finished re-tying the knot he'd been working on, then remained bent over while he pressed his face against the back of her neck for a few seconds, just long enough that she could feel his lips curve into the huge grin he was trying not to let the others see.

Alex couldn't stop laughing, especially when she looked up and saw the flustered expressions on Janet's and Jimmy's faces. A fresh gale overcame her and she let herself collapse against Bobby, still shaking with giggles.

Bobby managed to compose himself fairly quickly, except for a tiny smirk that he couldn't get rid of. "We take turns," he informed the bug-eyed couple watching them, putting his arms around Alex with perfect aplomb when she slumped against him.

Finally getting control of her breathing, Alex pulled her face away from his chest and smirked at Janet, then affected a look of complete adoration and moved her eyes to Bobby. "Tonight will be my turn, right honey?"

"Oh, I don't know," he replied gravely. "After watching you in that outfit all night it might be hard to -"

"Excuse us!" Janet broke in.

They both looked up at her politely. "Yes?" Alex asked, slipping her hand back under his jacket.

"We're not interested in . . . that."

He managed to look surprised. "Really? Wow, I guess it's good I stopped dating you all those years ago."

"Yeah," the woman huffed, "I guess so. Ugh, why don't you and your drunk . . . thing just go home?"

"Now, Janet," Bobby chided her calmly, "there's no need for name-calling. Alex?" he added, looking down at her. "You ready?"

She slid her hand down from his shoulder to his waist and gave him a small squeeze. "Yep, ready."

They made it back to the bar before they were completely overcome with hilarity, but only barely.