"You were just fine a couple of hours ago," Kensi says darkly. "You were positively bursting with health and vigour, in fact. Go on, take him out." Just for added emphasis, she back-heels my shin. The woman has a kick like a mule.
"The honeymoon period is definitely over, isn't it? This is what it's going to be like from now on – being kicked out of bed for something that isn't even my fault," I grumble, more because I feel I've got to put up at least a token protest than anything else, and haul myself out of bed. The full moon is shining clearly through a gap in the curtains, casting a shimmering glow around the room. I pull them wide open and stare out into the night sky. "But it's a gorgeous night. Look."
"I'm sure it's lovely." Kensi rolls over and sprawls luxuriously across pretty much the entire width of the bed. "Have a nice walk."
"You really need to see this. Seriously."
Kensi takes a cursory look and then shrieks in horror. "Deeks! You do realise you are standing there stark naked?"
"You don't normally have a problem with that."
In fact, there are times when she positively tears the clothes off me. Then again, that might be because she doesn't like half my shirts and is determined to restock my wardrobe. What is it with women and wanting to dress men up like they're Malibu Ken or something? Mind you, knowing Kensi's family background, she probably just had GI Joe, whose most exciting outfit was the Marine dress uniform, so she's maybe just making up for lost opportunities. Mind you, he did have lots of cool accessories – although he was lacking the ultimate one: i.e. a nice piece of arm candy. Of course, that might have been due to the fact that he was lacking something else too. Isn't it just a little bit worrying that the action figure that represents our armed forces is gender-neutral? If you think about it, that has to be unpatriotic doesn't it? Or maybe it's just puritanically prudish? Either way, there could be whole generations of boys thinking they're abnormal because they don't look anything like GI Joe in the trouser department, after all. Not me, obviously, because I never had any worries there. I still don't, if you must know.
But if I thought Hetty was bad when it came to clothes (like the fact she has no taste and yet insists on deciding what Callen wears undercover half the time, which either goes to prove that he has even less taste than she does, or that he's even more sacred of her than I am), then Kensi is even worse. It's like she's determined to re-invent me or something. It's been a long time since I was dressed by a woman and looking back, I think it all started with that robe and recently it's moved on to trying to make me wear jeans one size too small. No way. I want to end the day with my body parts in the same state of repair they started off in, if you don't mind. She even bought me those underpants that David Beckham advertises. They was actually okay, because I do look kind of amazing in them. And before you say anything, I am not boasting. I know that I look fantastic in them, because Kensi told me so, shortly before she took them off. With her teeth. She's a clever girl, is Kensi, and very inventive too. And according to Kensi, I looked a whole lot better in those underpants than Mr Beckham. That's probably because I'm not covered in tattoos, which sort of detract from the main attraction, if you get my drift. Oh, and because I don't have to stuff a sock down the front either.
"I didn't say I had a problem with you being naked," Kensi protests. I should say not. "But anyone looking up from the street might."
"Can I help it if I make other men feel inferior?" They're all my very own, God-given assets, after all. Still, she probably does have a point: it wouldn't be the greatest career move to find myself up on charges of indecent exposure, so I move away. "Come on, Kensi – it's a beautiful night. Look."
Kensi raises her head just enough so that she can see out of the window. "Very nice." And then she looks back at me, standing there and wearing nothing more than moonlight and she gives me a sleepy smile that still manages to be incredibly alluring.
"It's more than nice. It's romantic." I stress that last word deliberately. As you know, men don't really do romance. Not unless we are forced to.
"Great. You can go out and be romantic with Monty." She's being kind of obtuse here, isn't she?
"Maybe we could go out and be romantic together?" I'm being as persuasive as I know how to be.
"Or I could stay here in bed?" Kensi snuggles back down into the pillows, with a beatific smile. "Enjoy your walk."
I've got one last card to play in this little game and I've saved the best till last. "We could go skinny dipping. Actually, I might just do that."
Bingo! Just like I thought, that has the desired reaction and Kensi shoots upright.
"You are not swimming in the ocean, not at this time of night. You're not well enough. You could have a relapse or anything."
"You just said I was well enough to take Monty out," I remind her, never having had the slightest intention of swimming at this time of year, when the Pacific has a tendency to freeze your balls off during the day, far less in the middle of the night. "So maybe you'd better come with me, just in case I have that relapse. I don't want you to lie here worrying about me." I think it's greatly to my credit that I don't sound smug at all.
"You're not going to be happy until I come out with you, are you?" Kensi says, heaving a dramatic sigh. She's not daft and she knows when she's beaten. Which she is.
"What a great idea. Why didn't I think of that?" Once again, she throws a pillow at me, and once again I duck. Sometimes I think Kensi has passive-aggressive tendencies, I really do.
Ten minutes later, and we're on the beach, where the air is crisp, with a freshness you don't often associate with LA. Okay, if you really want the truth, it's the middle of the night, it's cold and we're freezing our butts off out here, but the sky is cloudless and the moon is floating like some ghostly galleon across the vast darkness. That is some serious moonlight. We walk slowly along the sand, and Monty gambols ahead of us, having done the necessary the second we got outside. It only took two poop bags, so it wasn't that bad after all. You kind of get used to these sort of things when you own a dog, through sheer necessity if nothing else.
"You've got to admit it – this is romantic."
"We could have been romantic indoors." Kensi shivers dramatically, so I pull her close to me, wrapping my arm around her shoulders. She's wearing my favourite sweater, a thick, hand-knitted number in French navy, with a shawl collar and it looks incredible on her. I've got a feeling it's going to end up in her side of the closet.
"Yeah, but then we wouldn't have had the moon and the stars. Look." I turn her around so that she is looking out across the inky blackness of the ocean, where the moon is casting down this silver path across the water, like it is beckoning us home. "Isn't that amazing?"
"You're right." Her arm snakes around my waist and she slips her hand into the front pocket of my jeans. "It's beautiful. And it feels like we've got the whole world to ourselves."
Peace and quiet is a rare commodity in LA, but for once we are the only people here, and there is no sound of traffic, just the gentle sound of the water breaking onto the shore. We could be on an island, complete and separate from everyone and everything. Right now, nothing can intrude.
"Yeah, but this way we get to share it with each other." I pull her closer and she turns her head so that it is cradled in the crook of my elbow and we have one of these kisses that has no beginning and no end. If I had to measure love, I'd say that it is a thousand kisses deep.
Tonight is unique: it will never happen again and no-one will ever know about our moonlight walk across the silent sands. We are walking into the darkness and I have no fear at all, because Kensi is by my side and we are going forward together, side by side, trusting in each other. It's the way things should be and by some miracle, it's also the way things actually are. Since when did I get so lucky? We're making another memory, of a silver-tinged night, when we were completely alone and we had everything we could dream of. On a night like this you believe that anything is possible and we've got the whole of our futures just waiting to be written.
After a while we turn around and start to go back home, following the footprints we've made in the sand. And that's when I get one of my great ideas.
"Come on: jump up." I slap my butt invitingly.
Kensi looks at me as if I'm mad. "What are you talking about?"
"I want to give you a piggy back. Come on – humour me."
"You want to give me a piggy back? she repeats incredulously.
"It'll be fun."
Kensi just stands and looks at me, like I've lost the few wits I once had. Come on – you crack your skull hard enough to knock yourself out not just once, but twice – in the same month to boot – and you're telling me I didn't lose a few thousand brain cells in the process? Yeah – and Hetty is five foot six.
"Deeks – what are you up to?"
Once again, she's got me. But then she had me pretty much from the start. I've never been able to resist Kensi and somehow I don't think I will ever be able to resist her. Not when she looks at me like that.
"Alright. I just thought it would be kind of cool if someone was walking along in the morning and they saw these two sets of footprints – and then all of a sudden there was just one. Kind of like Robinson Crusoe, only in reverse." I don't know where these ideas come from, I really don't.
"You are completely mad. You know that, don't you?"
Of course I do. I'm madly in love. Head over heels, crazy in love. "Are you getting up then?"
Kensi starts laughing and jumps up, wrapping her legs around my waist. Once she's safely in position I start running back along the beach and she's clinging on, hugging me and laughing, one arm on my shoulder and the other one waving wildly in the air as she encourages me on, whooping with glee. All of a sudden the sheer madness of the situation strikes me and then I'm laughing too, laughing so hard that my knees give way and we both tumble down on to the sand and roll over and over, laughing and kissing and behaving like two kids who have just discovered they own the world and there is nothing they cannot do. And then we lie on the sand, holding hands, breathing in the sharp, sea air, bathed in moonlight, staring up at the stars and just laughing so hard that after a while Monty comes up to see what's going on. I don't think I've ever been so happy in my whole life.
15. Laugh.
Above all, be sure you laugh. If you don't have fun, it's not worth it, right? Make jokes, tickle, play games - have fun, and your love will last for a long, long time.
"How about we go and look at some places tomorrow?" I suggest and Kensi rolls over to look at me.
"Really? You're serious?"
"Believe me, I've never been more serious about anything in my life. If you still want us to move in together. You do, don't you?" Just for a moment, I'm beginning to wonder about that.
"Let me think about it, okay?" She rolls onto her back and stares up at the sky. I would be worried, only I can see this huge grin on her face. I start counting, and I actually get up as far as eight before she caves it. "I do. I definitely do."
So that's it then. We're really going to do this. Commitment, here I come. Just when I'm thinking that this is as good as it gets, I notice that Monty has got a seagull in his mouth. Or maybe I smelt it first, because it is an ex-seagull and, more than that, it is only half a seagull. I don't want to even think about where the other half of it is. I just hope it's not in Monty's stomach, that's all.
"Like I keep telling you, Deeks: he's your dog," Kensi says, jumping up to her feet with incredible speed, as Monty wags his tail happily, like he's done us some big favour. "Have fun."
As Monty advances towards me, Kensi moves further away. I don't blame her. I'd be doing exactly the same thing if I could, only Monty's planted his front paws on my crotch and he's leaning all his weight on the. One wrong move could potentially spell disaster, so he's effectively got me trapped. And, just to make things really great, the seagull is now dangling far too close to my face to make breathing pleasant.
"You just had to go and ruin everything, didn't you?" I ask, only Monty mistakes this for me telling him that I'm really thrilled by his hunting prowess and he dumps the repulsive thing right on my chest. Talk about the ultimate passion killer. Nothing says 'you're not getting into my bed' like the rotting aroma of dead seagull, after all.
Kensi starts walking up the beach, which is also upwind of the seagull. I just lie there, looking in bemused horror at the corpse and my dumb dog, and trying not to gag.
"Bury it," she instructs. "I'm going home to try to warm up."
"You could make some hot chocolate," I call. "And maybe put in some of those little marshmallows?"
"Do not even think of coming anywhere near me until you've had a shower," she commands, in her best 'she who must be obeyed' tone of voice.
That is sound advice actually, because the bird is really ripe. That's another of my garments going into the garbage, I can tell. But I can still turn things to my advantage: when I come out of the shower, I might just put on my David Beckham specials and really make this a night to remember.