Author's Note: Yes, I am rushing to finish all my stories before the premiere tonight. I won't get them all posted, but I can finish this.
"By the way… Johnny thinks we're up to something." Mike tries to keep his voice casual staring ahead at the long stretch of beach in front of him, rather than at the beautiful girl walking beside him.
"Yeah, I know. He came to talk to me about it the other day before you went to jail." Paige answers, kicking along a shell down the beach.
"What did you tell him?" Mike tries to keep his voice neutral, feeling like a coward. He's testing out the waters, hoping to find clues of what Paige thinks about the idea of the two of them dating. He's constantly getting mixed signals from her.
"I didn't tell anyone your secret Mike. I just said we were having issues." Paige says, misinterpreting Mike's intentions in questioning her.
"Yeah, well I don't think he- um, suspects that. I think he thinks we are… y'know… I kind of let him believe that you and I were…" Mike is blushing bright red and can't seem to get the words out. He wonders what it is about this girl that makes him so tongue tied.
"He think's we're banging?" Paige just comes right out and says it in her usual blunt way.
"Well, something like that. He saw you asleep in my bed the other day, and I didn't know what to say, so I just let him believe that we were…" Mike lets the words trail off. He studies her face for a reaction waiting to see if he should say something more.
Paige looks thoughtful at this, but doesn't seem too ruffled. "Yeah, probably the best alibi for what we're actually doing investigating Briggs." She finally says calmly, "It's one explanation for why we're spending so much time together."
"You don't have to. I can tell him." Mike quickly rushes in. He doesn't want Paige to feel like he's pressuring her into a fake relationship. He knows as a woman in this business, rumors of sex can damage her reputation.
"No, it makes sense." Paige says dismissively, clearly not finding this as awkward as Mike. "We can tell everyone the truth once we get to the bottom of this."
"So should I, um… hold your hand or something?" Mike asks, his fingers reaching for hers. If she's going to play his fake girlfriend, would he be kissing her to keep up the show? How far would they take this charade? Something about the idea of their first kiss being under false pretenses bothers Mike, but at the same time, he's been wanting to kiss her for months. Maybe if they pretend first the lie will become reality.
"Nah, it makes more sense that we would try to cover it up." Paige says lightly, looking down curiously to where Mike's fingers have entwined with hers, "I mean aftera ll, if something were really going on, we wouldn't want everyone to know."
"We wouldn't?" Mike repeats, his throat feeling dry. If Paige and him did get together, he'd want to scream it to the world. He pulls on her hand as he asks, and stops walking so she is pulled around mere inches away to face him. He stares down into her eyes, and he tries to decipher her. He wants to kiss her. He always wants to kiss her, she's very kissable, but with everything that has happened he wants to kiss her more.
As he lay there dying on the floor of Bello's safe house his one regret, other than not avoiding that knife, was that he was going to die without Paige knowing him. Without him knowing her. He wanted to know everything about her, and he swore if he lived through that he would tell her everything. He was shocked that he actually had lived through the whole ordeal, but that feeling hadn't faded. Despite her reaction in the hospital, he still wanted her to know him. All of him. The dark parts along with the good.
He wanted to know her too. Everything. He knew so little about her, but he knew she was complicated and private. Despite her happy approachable demeanor, she really was a very hard person to know. Maybe it was because of her demeanor. She deflected everything with a joke, or a smile making it impossible to get to know the real her hiding behind those deep green eyes. As Mike stares into those eyes he knows, if nothing else, he wants to know what it's like to kiss her.
He begins to lean forward, his eyes closing, but she stops him.
"Mike, I meant what I said before about Abby. You can't get too close." Mike can hear the unspoken meaning behind her words. He would not know what kissing her felt like any time soon.
When he first came here, he knew from the second he saw her that she would be a distraction. The attraction for Mike was instant. For a while, he thought that he was alone in these feelings, but now he knows this is not a one sided crush on his side, she feels something too. He's not quite sure which is worse. Because now she's telling him, without words, that this thing between them can't be realized, or even spoken of. That there is no hope for them dating.
He stares at her, sure his emotions are written across his face, while hers are locked away behind a carefully constructed mask.
"All the same, maybe you should sleep in my bed tonight." Mike watches her face carefully for a reaction as he cautiously mentions it trying to sound casual, "Just to keep up the facade, you know?"
Paige lifts an eyebrow at him suspiciously, "Is that all?"
"I've been having nightmares. I sleep better with you..." Mike catches himself, "... I mean with someone, beside me."
Mike keeps his eyes cast downwards at the beach, kicking the sand as he waits for her reaction. He expects a lecture on how he'll adjust to the mental damage of Graceland eventually, and how he's still a newbie. Instead, he feels her lips gently brush against his cheek. He raises his eyes questioningly to see her's close to his. He cocks his head and focuses on her soft pink lips, wondering if that was finally the invitation he'd been waiting for. He brings his eyes back up to hers, looking for permission, his lips so close to hers that he can feel the breath of her words ghost over his skin.
"I'll see you tonight. Don't lock your door." She whispers softly, before turning and walking away from him, towards the house. In the window of Graceland, Mike sees Briggs's form looking down at them on the beach. Mike absentmindedly wonders if the kiss was just a show for Briggs, or something more.