Agent Perotta looked incredibly beautiful in her understated, pale blue dress. Angela had been wrong about this ostentatious red dress, it was too much. She felt as though everyone in the room was staring at her. Everyone except the person whose attention she was most anxious to procure.
Booth looked completely out of the character in a steel gray suit and baby blue tie. She tried not to watch him, but she couldn't help it. He looked so handsome, smiling down at Perotta over the candlelit table. The soft light playing with the rugged planes of his face. Her heart constricted for a moment with jealousy and her hand moved to her chest to ease the ache.
"Brennan, Sweetie, I promise you this was a good idea" Angela said. But Brennan could not help but disagree with her friend. Maybe she could sneak out early and head back to the lab. Her friend kept making unsolicited comforting remarks, making her feel more than a little bit pathetic. She saw Booth and Perotta stand up from the table next to them and wondered glumly if they were planning to dance again. Her heart did a quick flip flop when his eyes found hers and he winked playfully at her before walking towards the auction in the back of the ballroom. What was wrong with her that a simple wink from her partner could elicit such a significant biological response?
Wendell stood only moments later and asked her if she'd like to check out the auction with him. Angela kicked her under the table and she assumed that meant this trip to the auction room would be counted as "trying" for purposes of their wager. So she accepted Wendell's hand and followed him into the other room.
"You are shameless Angela. Using your ex boyfriend to make Booth jealous." Hodgins accused her, his tone was obviously more amused than offended.
"I've used you in more shameless ways than that" she teased, loving the way his eyes darkened and knowing exactly which post-break-up encounter his mind had drifted to.
"Speaking of shame" Cam interrupted "You promised you would tell me the Valentine's Day story later. And it's later buddy so spill." She demanded.
"God Cam you are ruthless" he complained. "Here? In front of all the interns? Seriously?"
"I can dismiss the interns if you'd like" she offered helpfully. "I'm sure they'd be willing to give us some privacy.
"Fine…. Fine" he agreed miserably, and the interns scattered, leaving Angela, Cam and Hodgins huddled conspiratorially at one corner of the table.
"So I flew Angela to Tahiti in my private jet where we had dinner and a beautiful evening walking along the beach. I called ahead to have roses all over the hotel room and fruit and champagne and all the usual romantic hotel crap." Angela had slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. She would have to wait until he was done, or Hodgin's would never get it all out. "So we start to… you know…" he blushed uncomfortably at Cam and Angela rescued him.
"Mess around. We started to mess around." she explained.
"Yeah, uh... mess around...and Ang pushes me onto the bed and jumps on top of me." he slid his eyes to Angela's meaningfully "Which I love by the way." The electricity betweeen the former lovers was so strong, even Cam could feel it. Angela blushed, and Cam's eyebrows shot up. It took a lot to make this woman blush.
"So anyways," Hodgin's continued regretfully "They covered the bed in long stem roses, not rose petals like I asked.... and I got a thorny rose stem jammed up my rectum that had to be uh… surgically removed." Cam and Angela burst into hysterical laughter drawing curious looks from the surrounding tables and resentful glares from the interns who had missed out on the story. Hodgin's eyes narrowed as he watched the woman he loved and the woman he worked for laugh at his humiliation. They tried to apologize and stop a few times, but it became apparent that this particular laugh attack would not subside any time soon. After a few quelling glares and grimaces he couldn't help but join in their laughter. It was undeniably funny after all, and it had been long enough ago that he could finally look back on the whole thing with some perspective.
"Worst Valentine's Day of my life." He explained when he finally caught his breath.
"Best Valentine's Day of my life." Angela countered through tears of laughter.
Squint laughter could be heard all the way in the back of the room, where Booth was making fun of the things rich people would pay for. It was nice to be around someone who's resources were similarly limited for a change. Perotta had offended at least three rich old ladies in the ten minutes they'd been walking around the silent auction. He heard Wendell and Bones talking behind him, and supressed his irritation at the attention Bones was getting from Angela's ex tonight. "That Wendell guy, he seems pretty normal for a squint." Perotta said casually. He smiled. This was good. "Yeah, he's just as smart as the rest of them but he has the whole social thing going for him too." His date nodded thoughtfully and stole a glance at the young scientist.
"Hey Wendell you got half a mil to drop on this earring?" he moved aside so Wendell could see the enormous stones displayed on the table in front of them.
"I don't date the kind of girls who wear a million bucks on their ears." he grinned boyishly.
"What kind of girls do you date?" Perotta asked curiously. Atta girl. Now they just needed some time alone and everything would work itself out.
He caught his partner's attention. "Hey Bones, remember this place?" Booth held up a brochure for a hotel in Vegas they'd explored during one of their cases in Sin City.
"Is that where that tiny concierge woman accused you of stealing?" she asked.
"That's the place" they laughed and huddled together to look through the brochure. "Maybe I should bid on this and go back down to visit her. You think she'd be happy to see me?"
"I really don't think she would Booth." She answered earnestly.
"Hey Booth, you mind if we trade dates? Agent Perotta promised me a dance." Wendell asked from somewhere behind him. He waved dismissively over his shoulder.
"I am not your…" Bones started to yell after them but must have thought better of it. "I'm not his date" she whispered to him.
"Of course you're not." He laughed out loud at the idea.
"What's so funny?" she demanded.
"Nothing…" she glared up at him, indicating she would not be accepting that explanation.
"Okay fine, it's just….Wendell is so obviously not right for you."
"Why not?" she asked.
"He's too smart for you. You'd be bored if you didn't have someone to explain things to."
"I often date men more intelligent than Wendell." She pointed out.
"Yeah and how'd that work out for you?" He shot back sarcastically as he grabbed two glasses of champagne and handed one to her.
"You have a valid point," she replied "I have yet to experience a successful relationship with a man of above average intelligence." He was surprised at her easy acquiescence.
"Of course I have yet to have a successful relationship with someone of average intelligence either." He slid an arm around her waist and squeezed her quickly to his side. "'Yet', is the key word there Bones," he said and released her. She blushed self-consciously and moved to stare contemplatively at a bronze sculpture. The smell of her was still all over his jacket.
"God you smell good Bones. What the hell is that?" He buried his face in her hair and took an exaggerated breath. She pushed playfully at him and he pulled regretfully away.
"I got new perfume. Angela said it went with my outfit." She turned one dainty wrist towards him and tucked it under his nose. He inhaled deeply and suppressed the urge to kiss the spot where her pulse was beating against his face. "What do you think? Does it go with my outfit? Because I really have no idea what that means." She couldn't possibly have any idea what she was doing to him, so he played along.
"I don't know Bones. It's hard to say. Turn around; I have to see the whole outfit before I decide." She spun awkwardly in place, allowing him a long leisurely look at the dress he'd only gotten short stolen glances at up until now. She was exquisite. Her back was bare, her waste looked impossibly small and the neckline was so low he thought he might just start drooling again.
He drug his eyes up to her face. She just stood there, a serene expression marked her elegent features as she slowly sipped her champagne and waited patiently for his opinion.
"Angela was right;" he held her eyes "You look as good as you smell." Her soft red lips curved into a sensual half smile and he let out a slow even breath, in an attempt to control his raging hormones.
"Am I making you uncomfortable?" she asked.
"A little." He wondered what had possessed him to be so ridiculously honest. It was probably the dress. How was he supposed to think up a proper lie with her gorgeous chest on display for the entire world to see? She was looking at him, confusion puckering her forehead.
"Seriously Bones, how am I supposed to pay attention to my date when you're all…all" he gulped his champagne and nearly choked.
"All what Booth?" her eyes were playful, smoky and seductive and he lost all coherent thought.
"All… you know… wearing… you know… that dress and smelling sort of…you know all..." this was so painful. His mouth kept saying words even though his brain was telling him to stop.
"I didn't mean to distract you from Agent Perotta… I should let you get back to her." Her eyes dropped to the ground and her arm crossed over her stomach. Of course she would misunderstand. He makes a complete ass out of himself over her dress and she thinks he's trying to explain how he needs to get back to his date.
"She's dancing with Wendell." He answered, as he watched two of his favorite blond people getting to know each other on the dance floor.
"Are you irritated with him for taking your date?" she asked.
"Not at all." He said easily. "I guess that doesn't bode well for my relationship with Perotta does it?" He offered her an arm and they wandered slowly through the room, talking easily and examining each lot.
"Phillies tickets Bones! Look at these seats," he said reverently. "You have to bid on this."
"What? I don't even watch baseball Booth." She said dismissively, but she picked up the program and flipped absently through it.
"We could pick any game of the season! You know how much these cost?"
"Highest bid right now is $10,000.00." she read off the silent auction sheet.
"Whoa" he whistled.
"That isn't really too much for me. Do you want me to purchase these tickets for you and Parker?"
"No!" Ah, back to the money issue. "No thanks Bones. That's outrageous for tickets to one ball game." She shrugged.
"Maybe sometime we could go though." He asked. "I mean I know you don't like sports but you might have fun at a ball game with me and Parks. Sitting out in the sun, eating hotdogs, drinking beer…"
"I'm a vegetarian."
"They have all sorts of vegetarian food at a baseball game. Popcorn, cheese sticks, pizza, candy…"
"But I wouldn't understand what was going on in the game." She pointed out.
"Me and Parker, we would teach you. Guys love teaching girls about that kind of stuff." The look she gave him could only be described as coy. It was completely out of character and he had to take another couple deep breaths to keep from kissing her.
"Sounds fun," he was unreasonably pleased that she'd agreed to this plan. The thought of Bones in a baseball hat, yelling at the umpire was highly entertaining. What an odd fantasy. Not the kind of fantasy a guy usually had when he was thinking about getting laid.
"He said that he was having difficulty paying attention to Agent Perotta due to my dress and my perfume." Brennan explained to Angela as they freshened their makeup in the powder room later. "I apologized for distracting him, although I believe that distraction falls within the parameters of your desired outcomes for this evening's experiment."
"It's not an experiment sweetie. I just happen to know the two of you better than you know yourselves and I feel that I should make a profit on that knowledge." She grinned. "I can't believe you apologized for distracting him from his date."
"To be honest, I did not actually feel true regret; I simply told him that I did because it was the polite thing to say."
"Next time he compliments your dress, you give him a compliment back. Or you tell him you picked the dress out with him in mind."
"But I didn't pick it out, you did."
"Fine then tell him I said he would like it…. He'll know exactly what that means."
"But I don't even know what that means Angela."
"It means you wanted him to be distracted."
"I already told him that I was sorry that he was distracted. I can't say that, he'll think I'm being disingenuous." She protested.
"You were being disingenuous when you apologized."
"That is true." She agreed, slicking bright red gloss over her lips.