"Well that was certainly a memorable science fair." Booth smirked as he followed Bones into her apartment, thankful that she had decided to come along to see Parker present his popcicle stick skeleton project instead of going with Hacker to the Bon Jovi concert. His son had been beside himself with excitement that he had the bone doctor there to help him present his science project. Even Rebecca had thanked her, all the while giving Booth a look that spoke volumes of why she thought Bones had really come along. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on his part.
"Clearly the boy used a variation on the traditional baking soda and vinegar with the cola and Mentos, but I don't think that he took in the variable of how low the ceiling was." They had both been standing a little too close to avoid the fallout from the chemical reaction of a science fair volcano. And since Booth always kept a change of clothes in his SUV, it seemed completely logical for them to go back to her place and take advantage of the fact that she had two bathrooms to clean up in. That and neither one of them seemed to want to end the evening quite yet.
"Clearly." He couldn't help but smile at the way she seemed perfectly at ease despite the fact that she had goo matting her hair and her makeup was all smudged. He didn't even want to ask whether or not her blouse could be dry cleaned, but it looked ruined from where he stood. She was definitely all mussed up and sexy as hell.
"Do you think that Parker had a good time?" She had noted that the boy had done a wonderful job of reciting the bones correctly although there hadn't been nearly the crowd reaction that there had been to the volcano that had doused the crowd. She smiled at Booth - he had every reason to be proud of his son.
Booth grinned and then let out a soft chuckle. "He was covered in goo, of course he had a good time. I'm pretty sure that Rebecca wished she'd been standing somewhere else though." She had taken the brunt of the eruption quite by accident and had taken it all in stride. Of course that had meant that the plan to go out for ice cream after the science fair had been given a raincheck, given the way the evening turned out.
"She was a very good player about it though." Brennan decided that she was definitely going to have to buy a new blouse. She glanced over at Booth and realized that he was just as much of a mess as she was and she felt the corners of her mouth pulling into a smile in spite of it.
Booth caught the start of her smile and offered up one of his own. "Sport, Bones. She was a good sport." He really didn't want to talk about Rebecca right now, he wanted a nice quick shower and a change of clothes and then some of that Thai food that Bones had insisted on ordering on the drive over.
They looked at each other for a long moment and then with a smile flickering across her face, she jabbed her thumb towards her bedroom. "I'm just going to go clean up. There are towels under the sink in the guest bathroom."
"Thanks." He watched her disappear into her room and as the door clicked shut behind her, he chided himself for staring so openly and headed off to clean up as well. He wasn't really sure what was happening here, but he wasn't going to think about it too hard. It hadn't been all that long ago that he'd put his heart out there, which was how he'd ended up seeing Catherine and Bones had been seeing Hacker. He couldn't just assume that with the two of them presumably out of the picture that Bones had actually changed her mind. He was going to go out of his way to kill his hope though either.
A short while later, they were lounging on her couch devouring cartons of Thai food, both of them freshly showered and looking much less sticky than they had been before.
"Oh, I'm sorry you had to miss Bon Jovi." He felt bad that she was missing a band that she really liked, especially given the fact that he knew she'd had a teenage crush on Jon Bon Jovi, but the fact that she wasn't the one that was there with Hacker made him feel a little less bad about it.
"I'm not sorry I missed the concert. I'm just sorry that Andrew is there with Catherine." This was coming out wrong, she didn't actually want to be there with Andrew, she just thought that if Catherine made Booth happy then she wanted that for him, despite the fact that she was coming to the conclusion that she had been hasty in rejecting him herself. "I mean you seemed to really hit it off with her and I'd hate for you to jeopardize your new found relationship and an opportunity for sexual intercourse because Andrew is making a drive on her."
Booth felt his hope welling up as he set his carton of Thai down on the coffee table and turned to look at her. "It's making a move, and it wasn't going anywhere." Nothing like a little truth to help ease the awkwardness of the moment. He smiled at her. "I think she wanted it to go somewhere, but I didn't feel any spark." The fact was, Catherine wasn't Bones and even though she was beautiful and nice and funny, she was never going to be Bones. And no matter how many times she showed up at his place wearing lingerie under a trench coat or brought him cups of coffee, he realized that he just wasn't interested and he couldn't make himself pretend.
"Oh, well then perhaps she and Andrew will hit it off." She hadn't really considered the implication of admitting that out loud to Booth, but as she found herself looking into his eyes, she felt a warmth building inside of her.
"I thought you and Hacker were getting along." He hoped that things between her and Hacker had finally taken a flaming nosedive into the ground.
Brennan glanced over at him. "I don't think that I'll be seeing Andrew again socially." As charming as Andrew was, he wasn't Booth and it wasn't fair to continue seeing him when she knew things weren't going to go anywhere. She would probably have to inform Andrew of this fact, but somehow, with his people skills, she reasoned that he would already intuitively see it coming.
"Oh." He seemed a little surprised. Very pleased, but definitely surprised, or maybe it was just hopeful. She was here with him, or maybe he was here with her, the bottom line was that they were here together even though they weren't really together and maybe being together was just a matter of time.
"It seems that although the idea of seeing Bon Jovi in concert was very appealing to me, seeing them with Andrew was not." Brennan smile at Booth a bit conspiratorially. That seemed to sum things up quite nicely.
Booth felt his hope swelling eve more inside of his chest or maybe that was his ego. Either way, he found himself scooting a little closer to her. "I'll buy you one of their CDs and we can listen to it really loud. I might even dim the lights so we can raise our lighters." He had no idea if she'd pick up on his homemade concert suggestion, but it did make her smile.
"I would let you." The idea of sitting in her apartment listening to a CD with Booth sounded far more appealing than the evening that she'd turned down. "Except that I think I already have all of their CDs, so really you wouldn't need to buy one."
"Well what are we waiting for then?" No better time than the present to disturb her neighbors with a little loud rock and roll on a weeknight.
"Oh, but I don't have any lighters, so we'd have to skip that part." And maybe it wasn't such a good idea to dim the lights when he was looking so irresistible.
"Well then we'll do it another time." Booth's fingers reached out of their own volition and found a tendril of her hair that was curling up at the end as it dried. He realized what he was doing and he cleared his throat softly and reluctantly let go. "Looks like you got all of the goo out of your hair."
"Yes, the combination of ingredients in the shampoo were very effective at removing the sticky substance." Brennan held herself back from reaching out and touching his hair which appeared to be goo free as well.
Booth sensed that they were having another one of those moments, but it was up to her to make it happen if it was going to - he'd put his heart out there already. The moment passed with a slight yawn and an exchange of smiles. "I should really go. We've got court in the morning and Caroline isn't going to be pleased if either one of us nod off on the witness stand."
"Yes, court." She was surprised that it had almost slipped her mind. "So I guess I'll see you in the morning then."
"I can pick you up if you like." He knew that she'd probably go into the lab early to make sure she had her notes.
"Sure. Yes." Since when did her genius level intellect get reduced to simple one-word sentences?
He nudged her with his shoulder and smiled before he pulled himself up off of the couch. "Thanks again for helping Parker out."
She followed him to the door. "It was no trouble at all. Parker is very bright and he selected an excellent project." Of course she was a little biased about the subject matter of his project, but even she had been impressed.
Booth paused for just a moment at the door and shared another smile with her. "See you in the morning, Bones." He caught a glimpse of her smile and a wave before he closed the door behind him. His faith in eventually had been bolstered and he could wait.