Note: Is this story really that bad that nobody wants to read it, never mind actually review?
Chapter Three: Boys Will Be Boys
He let Delko drive him to the club. The place, Frost, was relatively new and Speed was looking forward to checking the place out. He liked to learn as much as he could about any new businesses that opened up, especially clubs, because people could be murdered anywhere. The bouncer at the door let them enter for free when he found out they worked for law enforcement. Supposedly Frost was cop friendly because the owner had such high respect for the uniformed peace keepers. And it never hurt to have a few law enforcement personnel in your club just in case someone decided to start a fight. As he followed Delko through the crowd he took in the atmosphere. The walls had been painted an ice blue and the floor was a shade darker. The lights that colored the dance floor gave the floor the illusion of being made of ice. It must have really messed with the mind of drunken people and Speed wondered if that was on purpose. They stopped at the bar, made of bullet-proof glass to look like a giant block of ice, and paid for their sodas. Now they just needed to find Calleigh somewhere within the mass of dancing and withering people.
Passing by a pair of chicks making out Speed wondered if maybe this hadn't been such a good idea. It was a Friday and they had a high profile case which meant that they would be working through the weekend. He should have been at home trying to catch a few hours of sleep, not threading through a crowd of people that danced hypnotically. He thought about just setting his drink down on an empty table and heading back out. He could call a cab to take him back to the lab where he could hope on his motorcycle and head home. But that meant ditching Delko who'd given him a ride and paid for his soda. Plus this was his chance to return to normal. His doctor was good at stressing that he needed to spend more time doing the things that he used to do, that he needed to get his life back to normal.
But had his life ever been normal to begin with?
He sipped his soda and looked up to catch Delko waving at someone. His eyes followed the direction of Delko's gaze to find that Calleigh was seated at a table with two other people. It wasn't until he got closer that he realized it was Ryan and the new tech guy, Cooper. He didn't really know either one of them. Ryan had not been in the lab much that week as crime scenes were worked. And Speed was kept busy with testing trace evidence that he didn't make it to the audio-visual room. Now it looked like his night with his two friends was going to be whole lot less fun. Still, he would make the best of it. Calleigh gave him enough time to set down his drink before getting off her stool to embrace him for the second time that day. Usually he didn't care for all the hugs and whatnot but if it made her feel better than he was willing to put up with it.
"I'm so glad you decided to join us," she said, her smile as bright as any spot-light. "Maybe I can get you out on the dance floor."
"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Speed commented, sliding onto the last remaining free chair. He found himself sitting between Ryan and Delko. He quickly reintroduced himself to Ryan and Cooper just so that he could feel he knew them somewhat. Cooper quickly launched into a conversation with Delko and that's when Speed realized that his best friend had been spending free time with other people. The hours that Delko spent at his place in the last few months were few and far between and now he believed he knew why. And it hurt. But what could he do about it?
Calleigh asked him to dance and politely declined, muttering something that he knew none of them could hear. Turned down by him she moved on to Ryan and didn't even give the poor guy a choice, just took hold of his hand and pulled him out onto the dance floor. Cooper and Delko remained deep in conversation. Speed felt like he wasn't even sitting there, like he was dreaming the whole thing or a spectator that could watch but not interfere; like the dude in A Christmas Carol. He sighed, wondering when his life had come to this point. His friends had found other people to fill their time and his job made him panic. Maybe it was time to move on; perhaps he would finally return home and deal with the past that he always tried to run away from. He knew that his mother would be happy to see him and he had to admit that he missed her. When had he last gone home? Sure they'd been down to see him shortly after he'd landed in the hospital but even they couldn't stick around forever. They were retired and money wasn't just growing on trees for them. He polished off his soda and told Delko that he was going to get another one.
Taking the empty glass he headed for the bar. He left the used glass on the bar top before heading for the door, pulling his cell phone out of his back pocket.
He grabbed his bag, headed out of his apartment, closing and locking the door behind him. He opted to take the stairs instead of the elevator using the few flights as an early morning exercise. When he stepped outside the bright sunlight greeted him and made him thankful that he had grabbed his sunglasses. Waiting for him behind the wheel of a company Hummer was his boss. Horatio didn't say anything to him until he closed the passenger door.
"I saw your bike in the parking lot this morning and thought maybe you were in early," he remarked, pulling out of the parking lot. "I'm glad you called me."
Speed looked out the window instead of at Horatio. "I went out with Delko last night but…I don't know, I felt like I was a fifth wheel or something. When I decided to go home I figured it would be best to just hit the hay instead of having someone drive me to the lab and then having to drive home." As an after thought he added, "Thanks for coming to get me."
"No problem," Horatio responded.
They spent the rest of the ride in silence, the radio crackling only once and it was a call about an attempted burglary on the other side of town. Speed wondered what was on Horatio's mind as he drove toward the lab. Here it was a Saturday morning and they were going into work. When he took the job all those years ago he knew that it would require he work on weekends when cases popped up near the end of the week. He'd actually been looking forward to it. The more time he spent on the job the less time he had to sit in his apartment reading books. The less time he had to sit and think about what he'd left behind, what he was trying to forget. Nobody, not even Horatio, understood why he'd moved to Florida for a job dealing with dead people. He was hoping that nobody ever found out. Some secrets were meant to stay buried forever.
Horatio pulled the Hummer into the crime lab parking lot. A ray of sunlight reflected off of Delko's pick-up truck and Speed felt a numbing sensation in his stomach. How pissed off was Delko going to be at him? Would he choose to make a scene or say nothing at all, just brood in silence? Speed found that he was somewhat reluctant to get out of the Hummer and find out. He was thinking that it would have been better to stay at home, maybe call in sick. But that could have had unspoken consequences after his little freak out from yesterday. No, as much as he didn't want to confront Delko, he was going to have to do his job. This was one of those cases where all hands were on deck.
He managed to get to the locker room without seeing Delko and into the Trace Lab without running into him. From that point on he let his mind and his focus be entirely consumed by the work he was doing. From yesterday's collection he had a lot of bags to go through, tons of tests that needed to be run. One little insignificant piece of evidence might just break the case. After about an hour of listening to the machines buzz and whir he grabbed his headphones and put them on. Music cut out the rest of the world and left him with the scientific aspects. Today he'd decided to listen to some new group that he'd heard on the radio. The CD had come out just the other day and he'd picked it up on his way home from the lab. So far he liked what he was hearing. They had an interesting sound to them.
Between his music and his work it was like the rest of the world wasn't there.
That was until Delko walked into the room. At first Speed didn't realize that he was there because he had his back to the door and his headphones on, bobbing his head in time with the music. When he turned around, a piece of paper in his hands, he saw Delko just standing there and it startled him. He dropped the paper, happy that he hadn't been holding a vial of evidence. Pulling off his headphones, shutting off his Ipod, he bent down to retrieve the test results he'd been reading over.
"Something I can do for you?" he asked.
"You know why I'm here," Delko replied. "Why did you just leave last night without saying anything to anyone? I thought that maybe something had happened to you until the bouncer told me that he saw you climbing into a cab. What kind of friend just ditches without a word?"
"What kind of friend invites someone along only to act like they're not there?" Speed shot back. He'd been hoping to avoid this but apparently that wasn't going to be possible.
Delko looked at him with a cocked eyebrow. "What the hell do you mean?"
"Oh I don't know. Calleigh goes off dancing with Ryan and you sit there talking to Cooper like I'm not there," he explained. "I figured you wouldn't notice I was gone."
"But I did notice," Delko said. "And it hurt to think that you would just leave without saying anything."
"I'm sorry, Delko. But how do you think I felt sitting there like I was invisible?"
"Get over it, Speedle. You weren't around, things change, people change."
Speed decided that he didn't want to listen to this anymore so he headed for the door, brushing past Delko as he went. "I see that," he muttered, not even bothering to look back. He let the door close between them.