Note: Thank you all for the reviews! They're very motivating (but it's been a busy week, and this chapter would not cooperate).
(I had a B&B dream last night that would make an action-packed story. I don't even know what my brain is thinking.)
Disclaimer: I don't own them.
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The aspirin helped a little, as did the sunglasses, but she knew that only time would truly cure the alcohol poisoning that made her feel so wretched. She sat at her desk, squinting at the bright computer screen, and glared at her ringing phone.
He'd called twice already – three times now – and she had no intention of picking up the phone. There was no reason why he needed to talk to her. After all, they no longer worked together. She found time was making her more annoyed rather than less that he'd fired her whole team because she'd done something he'd described as hot.
The voice-mail light blinked on and she picked up the phone and punched in her password. At his "Hey, Bones", she felt a twinge of excitement, maybe even happiness. In retaliation, she viciously erased the message.
She hung up the phone again and turned her attention back to the screen in front of her. She was finding it disturbingly hard to concentrate on the lecture she was preparing.
By the time Angela walked in and flopped down on the couch, she had only completed another two sentences. She wasn't used to her colleagues treating her office so casually, but Angela didn't seem to care. If only it were as easy to avoid Angela as it was to avoid Booth. Although she had denied it, she was still annoyed that Angela had announced to Hodgins and Zach that she'd slept with Booth. The way gossip spread through the lab, she was sure even Dr. Goodman had heard the story by lunch. This wasn't the first time she'd dated a colleague, and she knew there would be a professional price to pay.
Not that she was dating Booth, of course. It had simply been two people acting on a mutual attraction under the influence of alcohol. Now that they'd indulged their curiosity and no longer worked together, they would likely never see each other again.
If only he would stop calling.
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He had teams of agents running down all possible leads. He expected them to report back soon, hopefully with something more to go on, but until they did, he had nothing to do but wait.
He wondering what Bones was doing. She hadn't returned any of his messages – probably busy squinting at some old bones or something. Since it was three in the afternoon, she probably thought he'd figured out they weren't going to be having lunch together anyway.
Booth took another swig of his burnt, lukewarm coffee and forced his attention back to the case file in front of him. Maybe there was something he'd missed.
Six hours later, he pulled off his bulletproof vest as the ambulance's lights and sirens faded in the difference. He needed to forget the expression on that kid's face when they burst through the door. Nothing appealed to him more than dinner with the most intriguing woman he knew – unless it was skipping dinner and going straight to bed.
He fished his cell phone out of his pocket and checked for missed calls. Still nothing.
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It had been a long day, but she was determined to finish reading about the latest discoveries in the world of apolipoproteins before calling it a day. At least her headache was gone, and despite her fatigue, she was confident that she was again thinking clearly.
On a typical evening, she would have enjoyed a glass of wine as she caught up on her reading, but given her state of inebriation the previous night, she'd chosen to stick to water. She took a sip and forced her attention back to the journal in front of her. Was it just poorly written, or was it her physical state that made it difficult to concentrate?
When the doorbell rang, she was both irritated and glad to see Booth through the peephole. She stood there for a second, not sure whether to answer or not, watching him shift uncomfortably. When he raised his hand to knock, she gave in and pulled the door open.
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He didn't realize how nervous he was until he was standing in front of her door, waiting for her to answer.
It wasn't likely that she was still working – even brainiac squints had to go home sometime, right? - so either she was lying in a ditch somewhere or he'd done something to piss her off.
His mind went back to the night before – their stumbling journey up the stairs, the feel of her hair brushing his skin, the way she'd pushed him against his front door and practically crawled up his body. She'd seemed to be having as much fun as he was.
What the hell was her problem?
He raised his hand to knock and the door swung open.
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So. For Running Away, I was always at least one chapter ahead, so I was posting twice a week. I'm 0 chapters ahead on this one, so I suspect I'll only be posting once a week. Yes, I know that makes no sense because I was still writing two chapters a week for Running Away. I don't know why it makes a difference, but it does.
Leave me a review and we'll see if that helps. :)