Oh lookie! Another chapter! Thanks for all the reviews you guys! They mean everything to me and they keep me writing. And I'm glad not all of you have abandoned me after my five-month hiatus from writing fanfic. Without further ado, I give you a dripping wet Booth.
Chapter 30—Swim
Booth stepped inside the Jeffersonian, extremely thankful to be inside an air conditioned building after the short walk from his SUV.
"Bones! You ready to go?" he asked, seeing his partner rustling through some papers on the platform. No one else was to be found.
"Um, yeah," she replied, looking up from the papers in her hand. "Give me just a minute to put these away and grab my bag."
I never thought it would be that easy to get her out of here, Booth thought to himself, surprised by the lack of argument from his partner.
"Everyone else left over an hour ago, I was just waiting for you," Brennan explained as she re-emerged from her office and walked toward Booth.
"Wow, Bones, you're ready for the weekend on a Friday afternoon. I'm impressed," he teased her, opening the door and venturing back out into the heat.
"Well, since I'm leaving in the morning for Peru, it didn't make sense to open a case from Limbo," Brennan explained, hurrying toward the parked SUV, her bag bouncing softly against her hip.
Twenty minutes later the pair had parked and emerged into the humid air surrounding the Hodgins estate, where they were promptly waved inside and shown where to change and leave their things.
Booth was done first, and after being led through a maze of hallways and rooms, he was pointed outside, where he could see the rest of the team spread out around and in the enormous pool. Stepping back into the humid air, he greeted everyone and dropped down into a chair to wait for his partner's appearance.
Looking around at his co-workers, he smiled at the strange combination.
Zack, who was already in the pool, was the resident genius with the wacky experiments. Booth could already see his pale shoulders turning pink in the sun.
Hodgins, who was using the excuse of putting sunscreen on Angela to cope a feel, was the billionaire bug enthusiast.
Angela, who was thoroughly enjoying Hodgins' wayward hands, was the slightly eccentric artist.
Cam, who was lounging in a chair and clearly enjoying the attention of the pool hand, was the head of and voice of reason of the misfit team.
The sound of the sliding door opening brought Booth's attention back to his partner, the heart and soul of the team of scientists.
He was shocked to see her step outside in a bright blue bikini, carrying herself the same way she did around the lab or a crime scene—confident and sure of herself.
She approached Booth, who still hadn't managed to tear his eyes away from her, her self-assuredness wavering momentarily. "Booth, will you put sunscreen on my back?" she asked, her gaze on the ground near her feet.
"Oh, sure, Bones," Booth replied, the question having snapped him back into reality.
While he lightly rubbed the sunscreen into her soft flesh, he tried not to think about her body or the smooth curve of her spine. Angela's sudden appearance next to them helped to distract him from the curve of her body where her spine dipped inward before moving back out at her waist. It was a place his hand was well acquainted with, from resting there as they walked, but he had never actually seen.
As usual, Angela was talking a mile a minute, but Brennan was having trouble focusing on her friend's words while Booth's hands were gently making their way down her back.
"I'm sorry Ange, could you repeat that?" she asked for the third time, finally able to pay attention to her friend when Booth lifted his hands from her skin. She tried to ignore the intense feeling of disappointment she felt when his hands moved by focusing her attention on something else, like the words currently coming out of her best friend's mouth.
"I do, occasionally, leave work early," Brennan told her friend, rolling her eyes at Angela's snort of disagreement. "Why are you all so amazed?"
Continuing to debate about her work habits with Angela, her attention wavered as she watched Booth out of the corner of her eye.
He had stood up from the lounge chair, catching her complete attention when he peeled his thin t-shirt from his sweaty skin and made a beeline for the pool. Diving gracefully, with hardly a splash, he had caused the rest of Brennan's argument to die somewhere between her brain and mouth.
Trying to shake off her distraction, Brennan turned back to Angela to find a mischievous smile across the artist's face.
"What?" she asked, trying to play stupid. She knew what that look on Angela's face meant, but also knew it was easier to head it off by feigning ignorance than to debate over her supposed attraction to her extremely well-built partner.
"Oh nothing," Angela teased, "just noticing how you couldn't take your eyes off your knight in shining FBI standard-issue body armor… or, I guess his lack of."
"Angela!" Brennan hissed, trying to keep her voice low and neutral, so as not to attract Booth's attention. "For the hundredth time, I'm NOT attracted to Booth! I was just distracted by the scar on his back."
She knew her argument was getting her nowhere, but she truly had noticed the scar, however it had been the smooth, firm planes of his back that had really caught her attention. She already knew about the scar.
"Uh huh."
Angela's Cheshire cat smile reappeared as Brennan's attention was once again caught by Booth, who was swimming in circles, obviously enjoying the water.
"What was that, Ange?" Brennan asked again, not having heard her friend while she had watched Booth shove Zack under the water and the scientist coming back up gasping.
Angela repeated her question, Brennan's eyes still fixed on the blue water and the man in it.
"I don't know. How do you play chicken?"
