Bend It Like Becker

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Chapter 18 - HAND-HOLDING HABITS

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"So did you two have fun today?" Abby asked as the four of them walked out of the exhibit hall.

"Oh, yes," Jess answered. "Thanks so much for suggesting it."

Becker nodded as well - he'd found the Pet Show quite enjoyable. Correction: he'd found being with Jess at the Pet Show quite enjoyable. Jess's exuberance always seemed to make everything a little cheerier.

"So what was your favourite part?" Connor asked.

"The kittens!" Jess squealed, and the memory of her sitting on the floor with a lapful of tiny tumbling furballs was enough to make Becker's teeth hurt. "Weren't they just the cutest things ever?" she gushed, and Becker nodded, even though he felt that that title should go to her instead.

"What about you, Becker?" Abby inquired. "You seemed to enjoy the service dogs, yeah?"

"Did he!" Jess confirmed. "I couldn't get him to stop asking the trainers questions."

"I wanted to see if there could be a way to train one for ARC purposes," Becker explained. "You have to admit that it would've been useful to have some sort of hunting dog with us at the meadow the other day."

"Yeah, handy until the dog ate the lizards," Jess teased.

"Petrolacosaurus," Connor corrected automatically.

As Becker rolled his eyes, Jess asked, "So what about you, Connor? What was your favourite part of the Pet Show?"

Connor smiled at the memory. "Watching Abby totally show up that prat who claimed to be a reptile expert. He didn't know nothing next to my genius of a fiance here, and she's far better looking to boot," he said, putting his arm around Abby and giving her a quick peck on the lips.

Becker had never been a big fan of public displays of affection, but he was starting to change his mind, thanks entirely to Jess. He wasn't sure if she'd noticed, but they'd actually held hands for the majority of the day. Each time it would start with Jess eagerly grabbing his hand in order to drag him over to some display she wanted to see, but once there, she'd forget to let go. Becker didn't want to make a big deal of it by suddenly releasing her hand for no reason, so each time he merely held on until she let go, usually to coo over an adorable baby animal of some sort.

Her actions were entirely innocent, much like an excited little girl reaching for her father's hand, but Becker had to admit he enjoyed the feel of her hand in his. Only on a friendship basis, he would struggle to remind himself when he'd notice his mind starting to focus on her touch. But even with such reminders, his mind kept going back to last night, the way her hand had felt pressing his against her thigh, the way she'd looked in the darkness, the way he'd wanted to kiss her...

"...have a preference?"

Becker suddenly noticed that all eyes were on him following Abby's question. Having no idea what was asked, he merely shook his head, mumbling, "No preference."

"I vote for pizza," Connor offered, making Becker realise the question must've been about supper.

"You ALWAYS vote for pizza," Abby complained.

"Yeah, and what's wrong with that?" Connor asked. "If I like something, I want it all the time. Just like you," he said, playfully reaching for Abby again, but she pushed him away.

"But we just had spaghetti last night," Abby pointed out.

"So? Pizza ain't spaghetti - it's pizza. Help me out here, Jess."

"I'm good with pizza."

"Becker?" Connor asked hopefully.

Becker had a sudden memory of Jess's garlicky breath upon his cheek last night, and he answered absently, "Yeah, pizza."

Connor grinned smugly back at Abby. "You're out-voted. Pizza it is."

Abby frowned and gave Becker a friendly swat. "You're supposed to take my side. Otherwise I never get my way against these two."

However, Becker's mind wasn't on food or on being Abby's tie-breaker. Instead, he was still considering Connor's comment. He, too, didn't grow tired of things he liked, only in this instance he was thinking of Jess. Over the past week they'd spent practically every waking moment together, not to mention most sleeping moments as well, yet he wasn't growing tired of her in the slightest. To the contrary, he was discovering more and more how much he enjoyed her company. Perhaps it wasn't such a bad idea to have given her the key to his flat after all.

But she was just a friend, he reminded himself. He shouldn't be thinking about her as much as he was. It was like a vicious cycle - the more time he spent with her, the more time he wanted to spend with her. And that was making it difficult to remember that they should keep their friendship platonic.

So perhaps he needed to go cold turkey and stop seeing Jess. Not that he could avoid seeing her completely, since they still had work and the football team. But he could certainly stop spending all his spare time with her. The more time they spent apart, the easier it'd be to keep the whole "friend" concept in his head.

So that was the obvious solution: no more spending time with her.

"Okay, we'll meet you there," Jess called to her flatmates as they headed away across the carpark.

That is, no more spending time with her once they finished supper tonight

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"Now don't mind me," Jess said as she entered Becker's flat and tossed down her bag. "Feel free to do whatever you need to do. You won't even know I'm here."

She pulled her laptop out of her bag and sat down on the couch. In a way she was looking forward to this evening - a time to relax and catch up with her on-line life. Once the laptop was booted, she asked, "So what's your password?"

"What?"

Jess looked up at Becker, who was still standing awkwardly by the door. "Your wifi password? So I can jump on-line."

"Oh. Uh. Here, I'll type it in for you."

He hurried over and took the proffered laptop.

"Paranoid much?" she teased. "Though I guess it's what I should expect from the Head of ARC Security, yeah?"

"Yeah, something like that," Becker mumbled as he handed the computer back to her.

She immediately opened up her browser and went straight to her email account. She was already about to reply to her third email when she noticed that Becker was still simply standing there, doing nothing. She looked up, asking, "Did you need something?"

"What? Oh...no. I, uh, was just going to ask if you'd like some tea or something."

Jess shook her head. "Like I said, don't worry about me. If I need anything, I can get it myself. I don't want to prevent you from getting done what you need to."

He nodded and wandered off, and Jess returned to her email. After sending a few more replies, she logged onto Facebook and updated her status:

Had a lovely day at the Pet Show. Cutest kittens eveh! Wish my flat allowed pets! :(

She had had a lovely day, and the kittens were adorable. But she'd lied when she told Connor that they'd been her favourite part of the day. The best part had actually been holding hands with Becker!

She's hadn't meant to at first. In fact, she hadn't even noticed that she'd taken his hand when she'd eagerly led him over to the kitten display. But when they'd reached it, she suddenly realised what she'd done. She immediately let go, pretending to be interested in the hairless Sphynx kittens so it wouldn't be so obvious that she'd momentarily forgotten that her hand was in his. However, it occurred to her afterwards that he hadn't balked at her touch; in fact, he hadn't even initiated a release. So the next time she absently took his hand - and it really had been an accident - she decided to try holding it for just a bit longer, just to see what he'd do. Amazingly he still didn't try to extricate his hand from her grasp, once again patiently waiting until she let go.

Which meant the next time she'd taken his hand hadn't been an accident. Nor the next. Nor the next. In fact, she started timing him, to see just how long he'd go without saying something. Amazingly, he never once showed any signs of letting go, even though Jess herself couldn't last for more than five minutes at a time. She found that, after too long, she'd start paying more attention to the feel of his skin against hers than what she was saying, and she knew from last night's disastrous conversation that she couldn't be trusted not to say the wrong thing. But regardless, she'd managed to spend a good part of the day with Becker's hand in hers, and she couldn't have been happier.

And supper had been lovely, too. Connor had insisted on having garlic on the pizza, and Jess was somewhat self-conscious about how her breath might smell afterwards, but eventually stopped worrying - after all, it wasn't like she was going to be kissing Becker later! In fact, her plan had been to merely drop him off at his place after supper; that is, that had been her plan until Connor brought up the topic.

"So how are you getting to work tomorrow, mate?"

Jess hadn't even though about that conundrum, and apparently Becker hadn't either for he looked momentarily confused before finally shrugging. "I can just take the Tube, I guess."

"The Tube?" Jess asked. "But there isn't a station anywhere near the ARC. And even if you transferred to a bus, the nearest stop is over a mile away."

"A cab, then."

"Don't be ridiculous," Jess said. "I can drive you."

"Jess, my flat is completely out of your way."

"So? I don't mind."

"Or you could always stay at our place," Connor offered. "Though personally, if I had to choose between our couch and the Cretaceous, I'd have a tough time picking."

Jess ignored Connor's comment, instead offering, "We could stop by your place to pick up your things tonight, and then you could simply stay over and ride in with me in the morning."

Becker paused before answering, and Jess was certain he was about to say yes when he frowned and shook his head. "No. I shouldn't. I really need...at home...I have loads of...stuff. I have stuff I need to do tonight. I'll be fine with a cab."

"But what if we get called out?" Abby asked.

Becker looked confused. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, what if there's an anomaly tonight? You wouldn't want to be hailing a cab at three in the morning, would you?"

"And time is of the utmost when there's an alert," Connor agreed. "You really should stay over, mate."

Jess watched Becker struggling to decide. It looked like he was just about to give in when he insisted, "No, really. I've, uh, loads of stuff."

Jess instantly saw the solution. "Then I'll sleep over at your place." Becker opened his mouth to protest, but Jess insisted, "No arguments. You're Head of Security - you need to be able to respond to an anomaly at a moment's notice. But don't worry - I'll stay out of your way so you can go ahead and do whatever you need to get done."

And thus after supper they'd stopped by her place to pick up her things before driving here.

Yet Jess was beginning to notice that Becker didn't seem quite as busy as he'd protested. In fact, he seemed to be mindlessly roaming from room to room, as if trying to find something to occupy his time. Why had he made such a big deal about being busy if he wasn't going to-?

Oh! The light finally dawned.

"Becker, if your big plans were to play video games tonight, please don't let me stop you. And there's no need to be ashamed - I think it's a perfectly valid way of spending your free time. I play some myself, you know." Of course, she mostly played Sorority Life, but he didn't need to know that.

"Uh...video games," Becker said hesitantly, as if he still wasn't sure he wanted to admit that that was his plan. "Right. Um, you caught me."

Jess smiled and watched as he walked over to his computer console and turned it on.

"I think I'll go put the kettle on," Jess said, now that Becker finally seemed settled. She set her laptop on the coffee table and went into the kitchen. As she shut off the tap, she could hear what sounded like gunfire in the other room. She smiled to herself, glad that he was finally going to be able to relax and enjoy his evening.

Though how she was ever going to be able to concentrate with such a racket remained to be seen.

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to be continued