Title: Coffeeshop, Ch. 7
Rating: K+
Spoilers: There's a hint at Twilight, but nothing terribly obvious.
A/N: Well, dear people, we are nearing the beginning of the end. Which, in plain English, means that you have this chapter and one more to go, and then this little fic is going to be finished. I do apologize for the long break between this chapter and the one before--sometimes life gets in the way of writing (sadly). But I'm glad most of you seem to be liking it so far…again, thanks for all the great reviews. For all of those who are worried about Twilight angst popping up all of a sudden—or for those who might actually want it to—all I can say is just keep on reading!! And, as always, I hope you enjoy. :)
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About the time that two certain NCIS agents started coming in together on Saturday mornings, I started hounding Mike to go to weight-lifting sessions at the local gym. Mike is a nice boy, even if he is pretty clueless most of the time—well, all of the time, if you want to be completely honest. But no matter how nice he is, his arms are like toothpicks. And since I was absolutely certain that one of these days those two would send me crashing over in a dead faint out of sheer unimaginable shock, I wanted someone around who was at least capable of catching me before my head made contact with the floor. It really wasn't much to ask, I thought.
As it turned out, I shouldn't have even bothered trying.
They'd been coming in regularly every Saturday morning for about ten and a half months, sometimes laughing and holding hands, sometimes quiet and tired-looking. I couldn't imagine that it was easy, keeping up a relationship with a job like theirs. As far as I understood it, federal agents didn't really get things like breaks or personal time. Their lives revolved around work—at least, that was what I heard from the FBI, CIA, NSA, and NCIS personnel who stood in line on a daily basis. But somehow or another these two particular agents seemed to have found a way to balance their profession and their hearts. Which was downright impressive, to say the least.
The last couple of weeks they'd looked terribly stressed, though. I didn't know why, but I wondered sometimes if it had something to do with the shootout between federal agents and Colombian drug dealers on top of a building that the news had reported a couple of weeks ago. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that there was more to the story than that—but I full well that if any federal agencies were involved, hell would freeze over before the general public ever got the truth. All I knew was that whatever had happened up on that rooftop had scared the hell out of Agents Gibbs and Todd. And that scared the hell out of me.
However, life tends to go on whether you're scared stiff or not. Which is why I was nagging Mike to clean the windows and I was scrubbing coffee stains off the stainless steel drip machine when the huge U-Haul pulled up out front.
I was mildly surprised at that. I mean, rationally I realize that U-Haul drivers are people too. They eat, they sleep, they put their pants on one leg at a time, and they need coffee, jut like the rest of the earth's population. (Otherwise, we'd go out of business tomorrow.) But usually U-Haul drivers have a pretty specific time frame to follow, since they're hauling other people's stuff for a living—and to add insult to injury, the city police don't really approve of them parking on the curb. Something about blocking visibility and taking up too much parking space.
But all was suddenly made clear when a little silver economy car zipped around the bulk of the U-Haul, cutting off three drivers and eliciting a chorus of honks in the process, and screeched to a stop against the curb. It wasn't his car, but I only knew one person who drove like that. Looked like I'd better get two coffees ready…one black, one mixed Colombian.
She was the one who hopped out, however, her red coat flapping in the cold wind and her dark hair flying around her face. I was already drooling over her black leather gloves when she blew in the door, puffing a little from the frigidity of the air. I didn't know where she bought her clothes—or how she managed to afford them on a federal agent's salary—but I really wanted to tag along when she went shopping. The woman definitely had an eye for style.
Brushing errant strands of hair out of her eyes, she set her purse on the counter and smiled at me, her brown eyes twinkling with a hint of mischief.
"Do I need to order, or would that be incredibly redundant?" she asked teasingly.
I smiled back—it was kind of hard not to, she was so full of perky energy—and held up Agent Gibbs' signature black brew.
"Got it," I said smugly. "How could I forget?"
She grinned wryly, one eyebrow quirking up a little.
"Yeah, I guess we're pretty predictable," she said. Then she looked around and sighed.
"God, I'm going to miss this place." She watched as I started the grind for her Colombian, and shook her head a little. "You don't happen to have another branch of this shop in Norfolk, do you?"
I had to admit, I was a little bewildered. Why she cared what kind of coffee shops were in Norfolk was beyond me. But I might as well answer her anyway.
"Sorry, this is the only one we've got. It's kind of a small-scale operation," I said apologetically.
Her lips puckered in a frustrated pout.
"Damn it!" she huffed. "I swear, that man has all the luck. He gets to stay in D.C. and drink decent coffee while I have to drive all the way out to Norfolk and make do with the local Starbucks. He's going to pay for this, I swear."
I couldn't help it; the busybody in me just rose up and took over.
"You're moving to Norfolk?" I asked casually as I mixed her coffee, hoping she wouldn't get mad at this unwarranted intrusion into her private affairs. She looked up, slightly surprised.
"Yeah," she said, a glimmer of pride peeking through her next words. "I'll be heading my own team there—which isn't half-bad for a junior agent coming up through the ranks." She looked wistful for a moment. "I'll miss Headquarters, though. There's something about being in the middle of all the action that's just addictive, I guess."
I did an inward double-take as she pulled off her gloves and dug around in her purse for her wallet. What was going on here? Had they broken things off, had he fired her, had they decided that they just couldn't handle the tension of working together any more? I was biting my tongue in half trying not to ask when she held out her debit card.
"I think I gave my last ten to the U-Haul driver for putting up with Gibbs' driving," she said dryly. "I'm gonna be broke by the time we hit the interstate."
I tried hard not to chuckle, secretly a little relived that they seemed to still be together. That still didn't explain the sudden transfer, though. I was still puzzling over it as I handed her the two coffees and watched her pull those gorgeous gloves back on.
"Thanks," she said, and then looked around one more time with a little smile. "Hey, I guess there's always Saturdays. I'll get myself a grande to make up for the sludge I'll be drinking the rest of the week."
I nodded, pleased that I'd still be seeing the two of them sometimes. I'd kind of gotten used to watching them sit at the little table by the window, like a small reminder that sometimes things actually went right in this world. I jolted out of my little reverie as she picked up the coffee and turned around to walk out.
"Bye!" she said over her shoulder as she left, smiling a little at something behind me. That was when I turned around to notice Mike propped up against the window, cleaning rag dangling from one hand, with an extremely dopey look on his face and his mouth hanging open. Out of respect for innocent passers-by, I walked over and firmly closed it.
"Get moving," I said, planting both hands on my hips in my best no-nonsense stance. He jerked upright and started rubbing the glass furiously, but I noticed his eyes were zeroed in on the dark-haired agent who had stopped next to the silver car.
I had to admit that I was watching too, since now the silver-haired driver had gotten out too and taken the coffee out of her hands, placing it on the car's roof despite the brisk wind that was currently sweeping down the street. Smiling mischievously, she put both gloved hands on his cheeks, laughing as he winced at the contact with the cold leather. He slid his hands around her waist and pulled her closer for a quick kiss that was startlingly intense for all its brevity. I couldn't blame Mike for his pathetic little sigh as he leaned his forehead against the windowpane; I wished I had someone to hold me like that too.
They stood there for a moment, wrapped up in each other as her gloved thumb caressed his cheek and his hand slid farther up her slim back. Even with boots on, she was barely tall enough to reach him without standing on tiptoe. He didn't seem to mind, though, his head tilted over hers in a gesture of unconscious tenderness. After a moment they broke apart, exchanging a brief glance before he turned to hand her one of the cups resting precariously on the car's roof. She rounded the front of the car and slipped into the passenger's side as he started the engine and slammed his door shut. And I couldn't help but smile when, before he floored the accelerator and zoomed off as usual, he leaned over and gave her a quick peck on the cheek. There might be a lot of things to worry about in this world, but the two of them breaking it off didn't seem to be anywhere on the list.
I drifted around in a dreamy sort of daze for about fifteen minutes afterward, thinking of true love and happily ever after in a disgustingly sentimental fashion, before it hit me—literally hit me, right between the eyes. Which is why I still blame Mike for what happened next.
Because all of sudden the nagging feeling that had been bugging me for nearly twenty minutes made absolute sense—the feeling that I'd missed something important, the feeling that I'd had the key to the little mystery of the U-Haul and her sudden transfer right under my nose the whole time. It had to do with her gloves somehow—something about when she'd pulled off that beautiful leather to fish around for her wallet. I'd been too busy lusting after buttery-smooth calfskin to exercise my normally sharp talents of observation, and I knew there was something I'd missed.
Standing stock-still at the counter, I replayed the little scene in my head, thinking through every move she'd made in an effort to recall whatever it was that I'd overlooked. We'd been talking about Agent Gibbs' driving skills—or lack thereof—she'd taken off her gloves to get out her debit card, and then handed me the little slip of plastic. That was it—it was something about her hands when she'd offered me the card, something new and different. Something that sparkled…
I said that the realization literally hit me between the eyes, and I wasn't even kidding. Because when I realized what she'd been wearing on the fourth finger of her left hand, I gasped out loud, whirled around, and promptly hit my forehead against one of the cabinet doors on the back wall that I'd left open earlier. Before I could do more than make a small groan of protest, the world exploded in a shower of little sparks and then went abruptly black as I felt my feet slide out from under me and a brilliant bloom of pain begin to spread throughout my brain.
When I woke up, I had two lumps on my head—one on the front from where I'd hit myself with the cabinet door and one of the back from where I'd fallen and banged my head against the floor. From the way it felt, I thought the floor should have a dent too, but apparently even I wasn't that hard-headed. It didn't help that Mike kept hovering around, apologizing profusely for not catching me and simultaneously offering me a pillow, a chair, and a glass of water—which when combined sounded less than comfortable. I finally shooed him away and stumbled to the bathroom to get myself a cold compress for my injuries.
Standing there in the harsh light of the fluorescent bulb and staring at the bright red mark scored across my forehead, I shook my head a little and winced at the sudden pain. Well, it looked like I'd gotten all the answers I wanted, albeit at the rather high price of a cracked cranium. Agents Gibbs and Todd weren't breaking it off, moving apart, or anything else remotely related to ending their relationship. And I could hardly blame their director for transferring her to another office. I wouldn't keep two of my best agents on the same team if they were engaged, either.
But despite my usual thrill of being proved right, my happiness for two people who had finally figured out how to make it work, and my shameless indulgence of a hidden soft spot for soppy romance, I still had one bone to pick with life. Things had turned out perfectly—except for just one thing.
Dammit, I'd told Mike to go to a gym.