"Pink?" Booth questioned. "No. No way Bones. I just can't be any sort of man and wear a pink colored shirt."
"Technically, it's salmon," she corrected holding it closer to see the color difference.
"Which is a fancy word for pink." He shoved the shirt away with a grunt. "No. Moving on."
"Fine. But I happened to think it was very masculine." She placed the shirt at the end of the rack and moved further down the aisle.
"Yeah, about as masculine as a grapefruit peeler," he muttered sarcastically.
.
.
"So shoes next?" she asked biting the end off her pretzel stick before dipping it again into the small tub of warm cheese.
"I guess so," Booth sighed tearing his own pretzel in half. "I gotta say Bones, I didn't think you could shop like Angela but you've proven me wrong."
"Angela taught me well," she smirked.
"Yeah, tell that to Jack's Visa bill. I can't believe we bought so much. I don't even think I owned that much stuff to begin with."
"We could have bought less if you had not insisted on purchasing those ridiculous robot shirts." She blocked his pretzel with her own from the cheese tub.
"They're called Transformers Bones. And they are cool. Buying three is not ridiculous. Besides that I bought everything else you told me to."
"Not the salmon shirt," she pointed out.
"What did I say about pink?"
"It would look very handsome on you."
"No."
"Fine."
She dipped and chewed again and Booth could tell something was on her mind. This wasn't unusual for her; she always looked like she had something to say.
"Something you want to talk about Bones?" he asked her.
"Hm?" She pulled her brows apart quickly, trying to hide her thoughts from being expressed on her face. "I was thinking that this afternoon when we purchase you a new cell phone instead of creating a whole new account we should simply put you on mine. It would financially beneficial for both of us." She slid the remained of the cheese dip and her pretzel in front of him. "Do you want the rest of this?"
"You want us to share a phone plan?" Was it just him or was that so domestic it tasted sugary sweet?
"What do you think?"
"Well for one thing my old contract isn't up so I'd have to pay the disconnect fee which is really high."
"Did you have insurance on your phone?"
He snorted. "That insurance is for suckers Bones. No one actually uses it and it's a total rip off, like car rental insurance."
She clasped her hands in front of her and looked thoughtful. "So if you stay with your current carrier you're going to have to buy a phone out of pocket correct?"
He shoved a bite of cheese gooped pretzel in his mouth. "Yup."
"Or, we could pay to rid you of that contract, sign you up on mine and receive a new phone free of charge. Do you know how long you had left in your contract?"
He shrugged. "A few months, a year, a lifetime, who knows?"
"Well we'll just see about it when we get there." She rooted around her purse for her phone, pulling it out and holding it up for him to admire. "See? We could have matching phones."
"Sure Bones," he replied with an eye roll. "If you don't have an iPhone, you don't have an iPhone."
"Precisely."
.
.
Was it clothes that made the man, Booth pondered, or in this case, the clothes the woman was picking out making the man. He wouldn't lie and say he didn't make a damn good salary for his hours put in at the Bureau but Bones…well her pennies shined just a little brighter than his.
"I think we should take them," she finally concluded looking at the pile of shoes in front of them scattered across the floor.
"Take what? Which ones?" he asked slipping the shoes he came in with back on his feet.
Duh. "All of them."
He scanned the floor counting at least ten different branded boxes around them. "I don't need ten pairs of shoes, Bones. I don't think I've ever owned ten pairs of shoes at one time my entire life."
"Booth you need all of them," she reasoned. "Work. Exercise. Casual. Sandals."
"Okay maybe, but these?" He held up what he could only call a boat shoe. When was the last time he was ever on a boat? The last boat he even saw was Sully's and he would have given the man these shoes had it made him leave any faster.
"I like them. It matches several of the outfits we bought earlier." She smiled examining them again. "You don't like them?"
"They're alright I guess," he replied with a shrug. "Although I'm not hip on owning outfits."
"Why not?"
"Because my name isn't Ken." He began placing corresponding shoes in their respective boxes.
"That makes no sense. And if you don't like them then don't buy them." She helped him stack the boxes. "But you're going to need several pairs." A pair of Italian sling backs caught her attention as she passed by them. "Oh look at these."
"I don't think they have those in my size." He pried them from her hand. "We're not here to perpetuate your shoe shopping problem, we're here to correct my problem of my shoes are now crispy." He placed the shoe back on the plastic holder. "Now move along."
"Good bye," she said sadly waving as they moved to the check out.
"They'll miss you too."
"Booth you never let me have anything nice," she huffed flopping her Visa on the counter.
.
It was just before dark before they returned back to the apartment, bags in toe and both exhausted from the full day of shopping.
"Let's just order in tonight Booth," Brennan told him dropping her armful of bags on the couch them falling next to them. "Oh it feels good to sit down. I'm too tired to cook."
"Fine by me," Booth replied. "What do you feel like?" He placed the new pair of shoes he wore home by the door and went to pull a couple beers from the fridge for them.
"Exhausted." She popped the top on her beer and turned it to her lips, the cold liquid settling in her belly and cooling her off effectively.
"Not physically," he chuckled. "Although I'm that too. But I meant was what do you feel like for dinner?"
She pulled the elastic from her hair and let her hair fan out behind her. "My scalp hurts. And I don't care about dinner, as long as it's hot and I don't have to prepare it."
"Chinese it is," he decided.
"I'm too tired to act surprised."
"Awh Bones, did I shop you out?" he teased putting her bags from the couch to the floor and pulling her feet into his lap.
"Oh Booth you know just what I need," she purred as his thumbs dug into the arch of her foot. "I didn't realize how much a person really owns until you have to replace it all." She giggled softly as his finger hit a particular spot on her foot. "Are you pleased with all your purchases?"
He shrugged. "I guess. At a certain point you don't really care anymore and it all just blurs together."
"I'm sorry Booth…ooohh down a little…right there. Awh." She closed her eyes and snuggled into the couch. "I would have had you move in months ago if I had known you could massage feet like this…and, you know, not had Hannah."
Booth laughed hard enough tears began to form. "If I had known that was all it took…"
"What can I say, I'm easy." Her eyes flew open as she heard what she said. "Not in the sense that I'm sexually irresponsible," she corrected quickly.
"I know what you meant Bones," he assured her.
.
"So…" she began a few quiet moments later," I was thinking maybe we should make some rules."
Booth stopped thinking about trying to send his chinese order in telepathically and turned his attention to his partner. "What kind of rules?"
"House rules," she answered simply.
"Like don't drink out of the carton?" he asked.
"Do you do that? Booth that is highly unsanitary. The germs spread-"
"-I get your point," he interrupted," so what kind of rules?"
"Things such as…don't leave your socks all over the floor…you had a habit of that at your old apartment."
"Well it was my apartment and I liked having socks everywhere. Next."
"Fine. Considering we are both grown adults we might feel, every once in a while, the need to be alone and we don't want the other one to just walk in the bedroom." She avoided eye contact with him through her little speech.
"Bones," he laughed," are you talking about what I think you're talking about?"
"I'm talking about my need to write here at home and I need quiet and space to do that."
"Uh huh," he said skeptically. "Sure. Perhaps we should devise a system where if one of us might need 'alone time' the other will know and not disturb the other one."
"Such as?"
"Well in college we hung a sock on the door."
"That doesn't make any sense."
"Then what do you purpose Bones?"
"Well I can't think of anything now."
"Then why did you bring it up?"
"I don't know…I just thought of it I guess." Again with the avoided eye to eye.
"So you where thinking about alone time when I was sitting next to you rubbing your feet?"
"Is there something wrong with that?"
"Nope Bones, nothing wrong with that at all."
.
Booth tossed several clothing tags into the trash can next to the washer. Brennan insisted in showing him the specifics of her washer - like he was an idiot and couldn't figure out the hot and cold button - and helping him load it properly. They had purchased everything he would need for the summer and then some.
"That's going to bleed the first time so was that with the darker shirts," Brennan instructed pointing to a pile started on her laundry room floor.
"You know Bones," he said casually," I've been doing my own laundry for over two decades now and I'm pretty sure no one's died yet. So if you had something else to do, I would understand."
"I don't have anything else to do," she answered unfazed by his subtle hint.
"Fine," he sighed. "You really can be a smother mother sometimes." He measured the fabric softener into the plastic ball and dropped it into the washer.
"I don't know what that means."
"It means," he gently yanked his new clothes from her hands as she tried to sort them," you don't have to watch me like I'm going to burn the place down." He cringed after the sentence left his mouth. "That was a horrible choice of words."
"I don't think you're going to 'burn the place down', she repeated. "You just don't have a first hand knowledge of these appliances like I do."
"And what have I been doing Bones, banging my clothes on a rock?" He yanked -not so kindly this this time- another armload from her.
"I, damn it you can't put those together-"
"-watch me!"
"I just naturally assumed Hannah was doing all your laundry," she said quickly rescuing a group of white athletic socks from a pair navy blue boxer shorts. "These bleed Booth!"
"Maybe I want them that way, ever thought of that? And why would Hannah be doing my laundry? She wasn't a paid servant."
"Yes she was paid in dick, I'm aware," she answered bluntly shutting the lid with a hard slam.
"Jesus Christ Bones, what is wrong with you? And since when do you say the word dick?"
"I say a lot of things when you aren't around Booth." And with that she marched from the laundry room leaving him with a slamming of the bedroom door.
"This place should really come with a mental defective warning label," he muttered.
Brennan sat on her bed contemplating her conversation with Booth. She couldn't believe she just said dick to him. Dick. Why the hell was that even in her mind? Oh yes, maybe it was the fact she hadn't had any of that in quite a while. Or the fact that that dick was supposed to be hers after she would have confessed her heart to him at the coffee cart.
"Good grief Tempe," she told herself," it's been over a year, get over it already." She got up and looked at herself in the mirror over her dresser.
"This anger isn't doing anything for your complexion." She sighed trying to let some of irrational thoughts leave her body with the expelled carbon monoxide. Slowly, she pulled open the top drawer and looked at Jasper and Brainy Smurf sitting among her under things and panty hose. In her attempts to de-Booth her apartment she found not even through tears and angry words could she throw the two figurines out. They meant just too much to her. And even though she was angry, and hurt, and disappointed once again in herself, they had been given to her with what she knew now as love.
.
.
All his new laundry done later Booth tapped on her door quietly with his knuckles before he stuck his head inside the crack. " Bones?"
She was asleep, covered by a throw on top of the covers. Booth laughed at how a grown woman in her thirties could be compared to a three year old without an afternoon nap. Yeah, a nap would do her some good.
He was just about to close the door again when she shifted in her sleep, poking her legs out from under the blanket. So she hadn't gotten rid of everything. Temperance Brennan was sleeping in a pair of his socks.