Words in italic are Logan's thoughts.

Evening Encounters, Chapter 2

Sighing.

More sighing.

Can't my life be simple just for one evening? Mike Logan stared at himself in his bathroom mirror. His hair wet from washing it, trying to remove the remnants of Mango Chutney that had seriously threatened to ruin his mood for a week. What kind of waiter loses his grip on his chutney? Draping the red towel around his shoulders, he unlocked the bathroom door and walked into his main living area to be greeted by the grin of one very (seemingly) patient Alex Eames, who had driven him home in his tempered state.

"I still can't believe you complained about it." She said to him with amusement. At least she's having a good time. Suddenly wondering what had compelled him to ask her to dinner in the first place... he watched her smile at him. Oh yeah, that was it.

"Hey, we got dinner for free. Don't knock it." He replied, dryly. He grinned at her as he sat down and suddenly noticed the way she was looking at him. He looked at her suspiciously before asking, "What? I didn't miss some did I?" He began fingering his hair to check for stickiness.

She laughed, "No, it's all gone. I promise." She held her hand up in mock honor.

"Then what?" He asked, looking down at his pants to check he hadn't splashed water anywhere embarrassing or that he hadn't spilt his dinner earlier and not noticed because he hadn't even bothered to check.

She used her thumb and pointed towards his CD cabinet. "I found something."

"My CD's? Thanks." He commented sarcastically and after a pause added, "They weren't missing."

She snorted in response to that and then shook her head. "No, I found a specific CD, actually a few CD's, that were quite interesting." Once again that grin would not remove itself from her face.

Huh? "You don't like my taste in music?" Grunt and pause. "What's wrong with Zeppelin?"

"Zeppelin is a legend. I'm not referring to that. I like your taste in music." Damn her, she's being purposely cryptic.

"You can stop beating around the bush now." He said, bringing on his best 'stern' look, but it only seemed to make her laugh. Now I know why Goren rubs his neck in frustration.

She leant into him and whispered. "ABBA." He blinked. His head kept moving from her to his CD cabinet several times. He blinked again and then stared at her. He opened his mouth to argue with her and she raised her hand to stop him. "No, no, it's definitely there. I checked."

"They..." pause "were a birthday present." He had to find an excuse and that was the best one he could come with it. Well, she's going to see right through that one

She snorted. "No need to deny it, you're a dancing queen." He raised his eyebrow at her. "And a closet fan." she added and laughed his very fish-like expression he was putting on.

"Okay. Okay." He held his hands up in defeat. "Look, seriously though, come on. I mean, let's face it I haven't listened to those CD's in years."

"They do have some dust going on." She agreed, with a laugh and then looked at him in the face. She pointed at him whilst she spoke in a very serious tone. "You are going to have to get out of town."

"Why?" He asked, concerned at how serious she seemed to be taking it.

"Because I'm going to tell everyone." She replied, finally full-out laughing at him since she could no longer hide it in. He pursed his lips together trying to contain himself but the sound of her laughter was making it incredibly hard.

He looked at her, making a point of trying to look annoyed, upset, angry, frustrated, but after all of two seconds he face split into a smile and he playfully slapped her on the arm. "That's for snooping through my stuff."

"You'd have done the same thing if we'd gone to my place." She said, logically. Knowing full well that the instinct of a cop doesn't remain at the office or with their badge.

"Ha, that'd never happen." He replied and she looked at him with a raised eyebrow. He had been smiling but it quickly dropped when he saw that she may have taken what he had said the wrong way. Damn. "I mean because you would never have let chutney fall into your hair." Her expression softened and then she smiled.

Shrugging, "True. Although I have to say you did come up with a more ingenius way of getting me into your apartment than most guys would have." She said, shifting a little on the seat so she could face him as it was getting difficult to just turn her head to him. "I can't think of any other man who would have done that. Very original." He wanted to tell her that he didn't do it on purpose but he figured she knew that because her tone of voice told him that she wasn't mad at him at all, in fact, she seemed to find it amusing. Of course, he also wanted to point that she had offered to drive him home so that he could wash his hair but he didn't want to spoil it.

It seemed that the tension that had been between them at the restaurant had completed vanished. "So, uh, while you were snooping did you find anything that you'd like to watch?" He asked, wondering if she had really snooped or half snooped and whether she'd truly want to stay.

"Well." She looked at him. "I did find some interesting DVD's, although I can promise you that your Sinatra movies are not among them." She glanced at him and then picked up a particular case and looked at him with curiosity,

"Ah, well, see, what can I tell you?" he crossed his arms and grinned, "I have a thing for dinosaurs too." He took the Jurassic Park case off her and stood up. "You want to watch it?" he looked at her, curious if she was just pointing out the choice because she found him strange or whether it was because she actually like it. He couldn't tell.

"Sure." she replied with a shrug and then she showed her interest by adding with a smile, "I've never seen it."

He looked at her in shock in response to what she had said, and he had to do a double take. "You've never seen Jurassic Park?" She shook her head to reply, finding it a little strange that he found that strange. "Lucky for you I have the better one out of the lot then." He put the DVD in the player and waited to make sure it loaded. Knowing my luck the damn thing won't start. It did, however, begin loading and he sat back down. She poked him as soon as he did and Mike looked at her finger and then at her. "What?"

"Popcorn." She replied, thinking that surely he thought it was strange to watch something without food.

"Popcorn?" He asked and she nodded.

"Yeah, or something similar." He looked at her thoughtfully and then stood up.

"I have just the thing." he said as he wandered off into his kitchen. She watched the screen whilst he was gone, fascinated in the story that Dr Grant was telling the young boy to frighten him. She was so into the film she didn't notice when he returned. "Here you go." He handed her a spoon and small tub.

She smiled, gratefully taking the cold tub from his hands. "Ice cream." she pointed out with a grin. "This is much better than popcorn." He had let her hold the tub since in his experience women did like to control the ice cream and it seemed he'd made the right choice. Although he had a feeling she wouldn't have minded to much if he'd held it.

They watched the movie in silence for a good few minutes before Alex decided to speak up again, not taking her eyes off the screen, she said, "Thank you."

"For what?" he asked, turning to face her, trying to get a better view of her face. Thankfully, she turned round to give him some eye contact and he saw that for once this evening she was being serious about it, and not joking.

"For giving me a better date than my TV." She replied with a smile, but this time it wasn't from amusement, it was a sincere smile and he smiled back.

"You're welcome." it was all he said, it was all he could say. They both turned their heads back towards the TV and watched the rest of the movie in peace.

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Thank you for reading. Since this was prequel to Morning Meetings, and if you haven't read that (and you actually like this) then you could read that one too. I haven't decided if I'm going to keep it up, you'll know when I know.

Also I don't actually know if Logan likes Zeppelin or watches Dinosaur movies. But, in this one, he does. ;)