Jane decided a strategic retreat was in order. He wasn't giving up. Far from it. But clearly he'd misjudged the situation. He needed to convince Lisbon he was perfectly healthy and heart-whole before attempting another date. He resigned himself to playing the long game.
For the next four weeks, he flirted with and teased her at every possible opportunity, but did not suggest any shared extra-curricular activities. He made a point to bring the team donuts every week, and volunteered for coffee runs with great cheer. He staged several elaborate plots at work to reassure her. By the end of the four weeks, he'd gotten her to yell at him three days in a row, and he knew then his campaign to convince her he wasn't on the edge of madness was a success. Satisfied, he headed into the weekend with a light heart.
He called her on Saturday morning. "Come over to my place tonight," he told her.
"What is it this time?" she groused. "So help me, Jane, if you've pissed off another mob boss—"
"Just come over," he cut her off. "Seven o'clock. Don't be late." He hung up before she had a chance to argue.
At seven that evening, his phone buzzed with a text message. I'm here.
He frowned and called her. "Hi," he said.
"Hey. I'm downstairs."
He waited. "Are you going to come up?"
"Come up to your room?" She sounded confused. "What for? I thought you wanted me to pick you up."
He suppressed a sigh. "I invited you here. Did you think I was trying to get you to give me a ride to stir up trouble with another crime lord?"
"I…yes?"
"I invited you here," he repeated. "Will you please come up?"
There was a long pause. "Okay."
The line went dead.
Lisbon knocked on the door a minute later, dressed in jeans and a leather jacket he'd always been partial to.
"Come on in," he said, ushering her inside with a hand at the small of her back. "I made dinner."
"You cooked?" Lisbon looked over at the hot plate in the corner, where he'd managed a kind of improvised stove top lasagna.
"Yep," he said, moving over to the kitchen area to poke at his creation with a wooden spoon. Satisfied, he turned. "Take a seat," he said, gesturing to the little table with two chairs in the corner. He poured her a glass of wine and presented her a plate of carefully crafted appetizers.
Lisbon shrugged out of her leather jacket and took a seat. "These look really good," she said, peering at the appetizers.
"Help yourself," Jane said.
Lisbon took a bite of one of the delicate morsels and made a noise that went straight to Jane's gut…and other parts of him. "Oh, my God," she said, moaning a little. "This is amazing."
"I'm glad you like them," he said, pleased. She scarfed down three more, and he made a mental note of which ones made her made those little noises of pleasure he was determined to elicit from her as often as possible in the future.
"This is fantastic," she said, taking another. "I'm starving. Trained at the gym with Cho today. He doesn't mess around."
"Glad to be of service," Jane said.
Slowing down a little, Lisbon took a sip of her wine and looked around, noting the tapered candles on the little table, the expensive glass of wine in her hand, and the elaborate meal Jane had painstakingly prepared. "Nice set up," she teased him. "What is this, a date?"
"You know, for a detective, you've been very slow to catch on," Jane said, setting down a plate of lasagna, bread sticks, and salad in front of her. "This is our fifth date, and you're only now realizing we've been dating for weeks."
Lisbon choked on her wine. "I—what?"
Jane took a seat and took a bite of his lasagna. "A lesser man might have been discouraged if you tried to commit him when he tried to confess his feelings to you, but I remained hopeful that perseverance would win the day, and here we are." He raised his glass to her. "To you, my dear."
Lisbon stared at him. "You—what is happening right now?" she said, a little dazed.
"You aren't going to have me examined for mental illness again, are you?" Jane asked. "Do you really think it's so crazy that I might have developed feelings for you after spending so much time in your delightful presence over the years?"
"Feelings," Lisbon repeated faintly.
"Romantic feelings," Jane clarified. "Feelings of lust and longing and other words that start with 'L.'"
Her eyes dilated when he uttered the word 'lust.' She hastily took a sip of her wine to cover her confusion. "I, uh—" she said, grasping. "Fifth date?" she finally landed on.
"Yes." Jane took another bite. "Mariani ruined the first one. I had no intel on him, by the way. Pure bad luck. The audit ruined the second. Then Cheney," he huffed, still indignant about that one. "Then you thinking I'd lost my marbles, just because I was trying so desperately to tell you how I feel."
She watched him, transfixed. "How you feel."
"How I feel," Jane repeated. "Namely, deeply, wildly in love with you."
"This…this is a joke," she said uncertainly. "You're putting me on."
"I assure you, I'm not," Jane said, fixing her with his most intense gaze. "If you need more evidence, I invite you to come over here so I can prove it to you."
Lisbon looked decidedly tempted, but still wary. After a moment's hesitation, she said, "Fifth date." Only this time it was more thoughtful, as though she were turning the idea over in her mind, examining it in a new light.
"Yes," Jane said again. He took another bite of his lasagna. "I think you should plan the next one, though. Maybe my luck will finally turn if you're in charge of planning our next outing."
"Sixth date," Lisbon said slowly. She took a bite of her lasagna and chewed thoughtfully. "Okay," she said finally. "I'll plan the next one."
Jane lifted his head quickly, letting out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Really?" he said, his heart swelling.
She nodded and gave him a shy smile that shot little bolts of lightning through his heart. "Yeah. Least I can do, after all the effort you've put in on the first few."
He couldn't help himself. Before he knew it, he was on his feet and by her chair, leaning down to kiss her.
Lisbon's mouth was soft and warm and sure beneath his own. She put her hand on the back of his neck and threaded her fingers through the curls there, tugging him closer. She deepened the kiss. Lightning shot through his whole body and shorted out his brain.
"Oh," he sighed into her mouth. "This is so much nicer than being kidnapped."
She laughed at him and pulled away. "Way to set the bar high," she said, her eyes dancing with mirth.
"This set the bar," Jane said with feeling. "This, right here."
She patted him on the chest. "Let's not let all your hard work go to waste," she said, kissing him once more. "Come on, let's eat."
Jane wasn't remotely hungry, but he ate mechanically and smiled at her foolishly while she tucked away her lasagna, salad, and bread sticks. After she finished, she sat back and sipped her wine, eyeing him over her glass with very much the same look she'd given him that night they'd taken down Mariani. The sparkling-eyed, knowing, fondness look. Jane realized he was in very big trouble, because she'd been looking at him like that for all of ten minutes and he was ready to move mountains and part oceans for a glimpse of a promise of five more.
"You know," he said, nonsensically. "I have a variety of options to choose from for dessert."
"Yeah?" Lisbon said, smiling at him indulgently. "What options?"
"Tiramisu. Chocolate mousse. Milk Duds. M&Ms. And Red Hots."
She raised her eyebrows. "Red Hots, huh?"
"I've developed a bit of a fixation on them in the past few weeks," he confessed, watching her mouth.
She finished her wine and leaned forward. "You know what," she said conversationally. "I've been thinking about our date."
"Which one?" Jane said, still mesmerized by her mouth.
"The sixth one," she said. "I've decided we should go on a picnic."
"I like picnics," Jane said, unable to look away.
"Great. I'll pack the picnic." And she got up and rummaged in his cupboard until she found the package of Red Hots. She held it aloft. "All packed. You ready to go on the picnic now?"
He licked his lips. "Yes, please."
She took him by the hand and dragged him over to the bed. "How convenient this picnic blanket is all ready and waiting for us," she remarked. She opened the box in her hand popped one of the Red Hots into her mouth. She gave him a little shove onto the bed and he sat down hard, still staring at her.
She popped another Red Hot into her mouth and then bent to kiss him. He whimpered a little at the pure heat of her mouth, spicy and sweet against his. He wound his hands in her hair, unable to believe how lucky he was, after all this, that she wasn't running for the hills, that she was here with him, and—even more unbelievably—willing to get closer.
He lost all sense of space and time. There was only heat and softness and strength and sweet, spicy sugar against his tongue. Later, he concluded a significant portion of time must have passed, but he had no consciousness of it. He was only mindlessly, deliriously happy.
"Oh my God," he panted, when he regained some semblance of his wits again. He took her face in his hands and kissed her deeply. "Best…picnic…ever."
"I'm good at planning dates, aren't I?" Lisbon said, beautifully, gorgeously smug.
He had to kiss her again. "The best."
She kissed him back. "I think I'll plan some more," she decided.
"Lots more," Jane said, nodding vigorously. "I'll help. There should be—really a lot. No skimping. There should be many, many, many dates to come."
She looked over at him. "What do you want to do for the next one?"
"For the next one…thousand," he said, "I foresee…more dinners. More movies. Perhaps some music. Some plays. Some dancing. And many, many more picnics."
Her eyes sparkled at him again. "I'm a fan of the picnics."
"Me, too," he said fervently.
"For the next one, I'll take you out to dinner," she informed him. "There's a diner over off I-5 I think you'll like."
He snuggled closer. "It's a date," he said, a little hoarsely, and held her tightly to him.