Chapter Seven

Angie, being true to her nature, arrived at the precinct late. Usually, she skipped such workplace events, so she found herself at a lost on exactly how dressy or how casual she should dress. She decided to go the middle ground with a pair of skinny jeans, boots, a dressy sweater, complete with a blazer. However, her indecisiveness cost her some time and before she knew it, she was late.

She was sure Vega was probably already inside, annoyed with her tardiness, but as she rounded the corner, she quickly saw his familiar stance. A wave of relief washed over her as she realized that he was true to his word, like always, and had waited outside for her. In his left hand, he carried a tray of something that she couldn't quite make out from the distance, but as he turned finally spotting her, she couldn't hide the smile from her face.

They had decided earlier that they would attend the office annual Christmas party together, in which, she was grateful for. There was no way she would have been able to face this party alone. All the fake holiday cheer, or even the drunken antics of her coworkers would be enough to have her running fast in the other direction, but she understood her partner's reasoning behind why he insisted that they go.

He knew this would be her first Christmas spent alone without her son, Manny. In his mind, the party would offer her a distraction, perhaps even a night of fun, and for that she was appreciative, that he cared enough about her that he would give up his own night, so she wouldn't have to be alone. Vega was a good man; she loved him for that, for caring so much.

As she approached him, he offered her his free arm and without hesitation, she tucked her own arm beneath his, resting her head gingerly against his upper bicep. His wool coat tickled her skin as she pressed herself even closer to him, inhaling deeply the scent of his cologne, finding the closeness familiar and comforting. With him, she could always allow her guard down, to be herself completely. She tucked a curl behind her ear and lifted up her hand, gesturing to the package of cookies that she had brought.

Her partner couldn't hide the amused expression from his face as he glanced down at the cookies. "Seriously, Angie, Oreos," he shook his head, indicating his amusement of the situation. "I see you went all out for the occasion."

She couldn't help but laugh at his comment, both knowing she wasn't much of a cook of any kind. "Hey, at least I didn't show up empty handed," she reasoned as she buried her face in the warmth of his coat.

"At least you shown up," he corrected, his voice lower than normal, but she understood the gratitude behind it. They both knew this party wasn't their thing, but the effort for simply showing up counted for something.

She detected a sweet aroma and instantly her eyes landed on the tray that he carried in his other hand. She lifted a brow inquiringly and slightly elbowed his side. "What's in the dish, partner," she questioned.

He chuckled, knowing his partner's ability to sense food a mile away. "Oh this," he teased lightly. "Nothing, really. Just Fordelejos, an old family recipe."

The admission caused her to grip his arm tighter, forcing him to stop walking. He turned and faced her, giving her a puzzled expression over her sudden action. She stared at him for a moment, warmly taking in his features. She felt a mixture of admiration and wonderment. "Look at you," she whispered softly, her eyes tracing the length of him. "My partner's a regular Martha Stewart. I didn't know you could bake."

"I have to remain a little mysterious," he replied, lowering his eyes to the floor; his attempt to avoid her sudden scrutiny. But she was suddenly more aware of him, for the first time. "Have to keep you intrigued somehow," he added softly, almost as an afterthought, something that he didn't really intend on speaking out loud. But the words were out and she had heard them.

Slight apprehension rumbled within her stomach, fluttering forth like a million butterflies being released from their nets. Hesitantly, she lifted a hand, touching the side of his face. The moment her fingers encountered the warmth of his flesh, his eyes came back up, locking with hers.

"Vega, you always have me intrigued." Her voice was soft and dangerously intimate and the words seemed to hang there in the space that separated their lips. She suddenly wanted to know everything that there was to know about him, wanted to read him like a good book, one in which she never wanted to put down, but instead get lost among its pages, somehow become part of the story. And no matter how many times she read it, she would always find something new, something that she didn't pick up on the first time around, because that was how he was. Always unfolding and refolding, leaving her to discover all the new facets of him, always completely captivated.

His eyes searched her face, trying to expose any sign of hesitation on her part or at least some explanation on exactly what was transpiring between them. When he was greeted with no protest, he took a step closer to her, and she caught her breath in her throat, clasping her fingers along the base of his neck, in her way, anchoring him to her. He leaned in preparing to kiss her, their lips only inches apart when her stomach picked that precise moment to growl loudly. The sudden interruption caused them to weaver, nervous laughter escaping from them both as the missed opportunity vanished within the air around them. Instead he placed a kiss gently on her forehead and stepped back. "Hungry?"

She smirked up at him, allowing her hand to fall from his jaw down to his shoulder, where it now rested firmly. "You know me. I'm always hungry." She smiled warily, knowing the fleeting moment had indeed passed. "So what exactly are fordelejos," she asked, noting that she didn't do a very good job at pronouncing the name, but at least the conversation returned to normal.

He smiled, catching her failed attempt, but chose to ignore it. "Fordelejos are a popular dessert around Christmas time. They're basically small pocket pastries, made of a flaky, thin crust filled with a mixture of ground almonds, eggs, sugar and lemon. You seal them shut, fry them, and afterwards dust them with sugar. Even you couldn't mess these up, Angie."

She laughed loudly at the revelation. "Think you may have too much faith in me there, partner."

"Always," he stated rather defiantly, almost daring her to challenge his belief in her. When she said nothing, he reached under the aluminum foil and pulled out one of the triangle pastries. "Here, try one," he offered, holding it out for her, expecting her to take it from his hand. But she found that she didn't want to loosen her grip on his shoulders, didn't want to lose that connection with him, so instead, she leaned forward, taking a bite of the dessert from his hand. His eyes darkened as he watched her, licking his own lips from the sight.

The sugar melted against her tongue. She could taste the sweet flavor and the lemon, her eyes growing wide. "Oh my god, Vega, these are delicious!" She glanced up to meet his stare, catching him swallowing hard. Suddenly it dawn on her how they must look standing out there in the hallway, her holding on to him for dear life and him feeding her. She could feel herself blush. "Um, maybe we should go inside. Don't want to eat all of them before we get in there."

He coughed, nodding his head in agreement, and without saying anything, simply slipped his hand into hers. Together, they walked into the room where the party was being held. It took Betty only a minute to spot them, she waved and picked up two glasses of champagne and headed over to greet them.

"Oh here we go," Vega whispered in Angie's direction as he turned around to busy himself with making room for his tray of dessert. He then reached for her package of Oreos, snickering to himself as he dropped them among the other platters that contained cheese and crackers and shrimp. Only his partner would bring store bought cookies to a party.

"Thought you two could use a drink," Betty said, as she extended the tumblers out to them.

Both Angie and Vega graciously accepted the glasses, quickly downing the contents. "You look nice," Vega offered.

Betty glanced down at the short green, glittery dress that she wore, trying to pretend to not know how well the dress fit her. "Oh this old thing," She joked. "You two look," she paused noting their empty glasses and how quickly they had swallowed them down. "Thrilled to be here," she finished, reaching for their empty glasses and frowning. "You made it just in time, we're about to start playing some party games!"

"Oh boy," Angie said meekly. "I might need another drink for that."

Betty stared pointedly at her friend. "You're not getting out of this, so don't even think about it." Before Angie could even think to reply, Betty was already waving to someone else. "Oh there's Tom, I have to go say hi. Don't you two dare disappear." And with that, she turned and faded once more into the crowd.

"Games," Vega questioned. "Whose idea was it to come to this again?"

Angie hissed, listing an arm and playfully hitting him on the chest. "That would have been yours, partner."

"Well what do you say we bail?" He asked, glancing at her sideways.

Angie narrowed her eyes at him, inspecting him closely for any sign that he was joking. "But we just got here," she began cautiously, not sure if he was testing her or not.

He shrugged. "Suit yourself, games it is."

She quickly grabbed his hand, leading him towards the door. "I'm sure they won't miss us," she shouted over her shoulder as they made their way undetected through the room and back out into the hall.

Once there, they both leaned against the wall, making sure that indeed no one had spotted them leaving. To their relief, nobody had followed them out. Angie rested her head against the wall and closed her eyes. "Think we're getting too old for this," she asked softly.

She could feel her partner smiling beside her, even though she didn't open her eyes. "No, not too old; we just have better things to do with our time than playing office games."

She snorted and cracked open an eye to peek up at him, amused. "And what exactly are these better things that we have to do, that you speak of?"

He grinned, reaching over to brush a stray curl from her face. "Oh you know… watching The Breakfast Club and eating store bought cookies and milk."

"Now you're reading my mind," she said, tugging on his coat and gesturing towards the door. "Let's blow this popsicle stand." She practically had the door opened when he reached out and stopped her.

"Listen, I know we agreed not to get each other anything for Christmas, but I got you something small." She watched as he reached inside his coat pocket and pulled out a small box and handed it to her.

She didn't move for a moment, staring at the perfectly wrapped box. "Vega," she scolded. "We said we wouldn't do this," she said, lifting her eyes up to look at him. He moved the box closer to her until she reluctantly accepted it. Peeling back the wrapping paper, she noticed the words 'Tiffany and CO.' engraved on the box and right away she caught her breath. Her eyes grew huge as she once more glanced over at him. "You said you got me something small. This had to be expensive."

He just shrugged, pretending that it wasn't a big deal. "It is small; you would see that, if you would just open the box already."

She didn't realize that her hands were shaking until she reached out to pull off the lid. She enjoyed jewelry, but she could never really afford the really nice stuff. And once she saw the piece in the box, she knew right away it was the real deal. She was greeted with a sterling silver necklace, slightly longer in length, which is how she liked them. The chain was bounded by two hearts. Words evaded her and she turned to face him. The only thing she could see was that there were two hearts connected; their hearts.

"Here, allow me," he said, reaching for the box and pulling out the necklace. Somehow, she managed to make herself move as she pulled up her hair, allowing him access to her neck. He quickly clasped the chain together, allowing his fingers to trace the length of it down her skin. She could feel herself tremble under his touch and she knew he had to feel it too.

"Vega, this had to cost a fortune," she managed to whisper as her fingers reached up to touch the hearts. "It's beautiful."

"Nothing but the best for my girl," he said softly and she could hear the admiration behind each word, how the statement bordered on possessiveness. And how it made her heart raced in her chest.

"I almost forgot," she suddenly said. "I got you something, too." She reached into her satchel pulling out the gift and handing it to him. "Guess we both don't listen very well," she acknowledged, watching him carefully as he discarded the wrapping paper to expose her gift.

A surprise expression washed over his features as he glanced at her. "Angie, how in the world…"

She nervously bit the patch of skin on her thumb. "I know you like collecting record albums and I sort of overheard, not that I was eavesdropping or anything," she rumbled on. "I know you were trying to complete your Beatles' collection and the deal fell through." She stepped closer to him, inspecting the album cover.

"Love Me Do/P.S. I Love You," he said out loud, staring intently at it. "It's limited to only 250 copies; it was proven to be quite the hard find. How did you," his voice faded away as he stared at her.

"I'm a detective," she teased. "Perks of the job, calling in some favors. It's the real deal. I had it checked out and everything. Do you like it? Did I do good?"

"I love it, Angie. It's perfect." He reached out to her, pulling her in tightly for a hug, folding her into his arms and kissing her on the head. "You're the best partner anyone could ask for."

She smiled into his neck, shutting her eyes, attempting to hold back the tears that were beginning to build within her eyes. She finally pulled away, grinning at him. "Don't get all sappy on me," she teased. "What do you say, we get out of here?"

"Not yet," he said, tightening his hands on her hips and pulling her flushed against him. She tilted her head back, attempting to look at him, but the movement only granted him better access and before she could protest or respond, his lips pressed against her own.

It felt like a match meeting gasoline; a sudden explosion of emotions, all bubbling to the surface at once. Their bodies moved in union, tangling their limbs around each other, their lips crashing harder against each other, tongues desperately seeking to taste more.

Somewhere lost among the heat and sizzle, they both realized they needed air to breathe and reluctantly pulled apart, both still desperately gripping hold of the other for balance, of sheer fear of losing the other. They stood quietly for a moment, neither knowing what exactly to say.

It was Vega, who broke the silence first. Out of nowhere, he began to laugh hysterically. Angie found herself thrown off by the sudden outburst. "What's so funny," she asked, confused.

He pointed in the direction of the door, the area just above her head. She glanced up and saw the mistletoe hanging and right away she was horrified. "That's why you kissed me," she whispered, feeling hurt and wounded at the realization. She needed air, needed to escape from what was happening. He seemed to sense this in her and quickly reached out, grabbing hold of her arms.

"No, Angie, that's not why I kissed you. I didn't even see the damn mistletoe until afterwards, which is why I laughed. It's like fate had it set that we would have our first kiss tonight, but we didn't need fate's invention, don't you see," he clutched the sides of her face, forcing her to look at him. "I kissed you because I wanted to kiss you. I needed to kiss you. I had too because if I didn't, I felt as though I would die. That's why I kissed you, because I never wanted anything more."

She smiled, lifting her arms to wrap around him. "In that case, we can't allow perfectly good mistletoe go to waste," and with that she found his lips once more.

THE END