"Hold-the-doors-hold-the-doors – "
Instinctively, Colleen pressed the 'Doors OPEN' button and Jack McCoy dived into the elevator.
"Thanks," he said.
"Going to the foyer?" Colleen asked as the doors closed again.
"Yeah," McCoy said. "Glad to see you're feeling better, Mrs. James."
"Thank you, Mr. McCoy," Colleen said primly.
The elevator ground slowly downward.
"Mr. McCoy," Colleen said, after a moment's internal debate. "Mr. McCoy, thank you for the chocolates – but I would prefer it if you didn't do it again."
"You don't like chocolates?" McCoy asked. Colleen shot a glance at him and was surprised to find he looked genuinely interested, as if the fact that a legal secretary didn't like chocolates was an important thing to know – as if a legal secretary was an important enough person in her own right that her likes and dislikes counted for something.
"No – I mean – yes. I do. But – I would prefer it if you didn't give me chocolates. Or flowers. Or anything. Thank you."
"Mrs. James," McCoy said, "I know I have a reputation in this building, but I can assure you I have no improper designs upon your person."
Colleen laughed aloud at the thought that Jack McCoy would entertain any designs upon her at all. "I never thought you did," she assured him. McCoy had a definite type — slim, polished, and above all smart. The last woman he'd look at would be a short and dumpy typist who, as Dan so often reminded her, was lucky to have passed the secretarial school examination, forget about the bar.
"Then why?"
"Mr. James doesn't like it," Colleen said.
There was a slight pause. "I see," McCoy said quietly. Colleen turned to look at him and found him regarding her steadily. "Is it just my chocolates that Mr. James disapproves of?"
"Oh, no," Colleen hastened to assure him. "It's not personal at all."
"I see," McCoy said again, just as quietly.
