Read my Lips

Chapter 7

Spencer knew Elaina had the day off. Her schedule was in the email she sent him at the beginning of the week. But he was still a little disappointed when he arrived home from work and she wasn't there. Spencer didn't ask the reason for her absence. He just assumed Eliana had some obligations to take care of relating to the doctoral degree she was in the process of earning from the university. Her coworker Lynn arrived earlier that morning in her place, wearing bright pink scrubs and a matching fringed scarf around his head. Reid liked the man. He was similar in personality to Penelope, perpetually upbeat but not in an annoying way. And more importantly, his mother seemed to enjoy Lynn's company as well. But entering his apartment to find Lynn singing off key show tunes in his living room wasn't the same as coming home to Elaina.

It was Friday. Which meant Spencer needed to take his mother to her new respite care facility for the weekend. He was pleasantly surprised to find her packed and ready to go when he arrived home. Lynn had Diana's weekend bag checked and waiting by the door. And all her medications were labeled and sorted with the proper documentation in a separate bag. This included the unapproved memory recovery drug Spencer was giving her, which courtesy of Eliana, were now labeled as her daily multivitamin drops. Lynn followed Spencer and his mother over to the facility in his lime green Volkswagen Beetle. When they arrived, Spencer had to sign a few documents. But other than that, there wasn't much for him to do. Lynn took care of giving the facility caretakers all the other necessary information. All that was left for Spencer to do was hug his mother goodbye and hope that she enjoyed herself while they had a much needed break from each other.

"Are you going to the party?," Spencer asked as he and Lynn walked out to their parked cars together. Lynn gave him a questioning look, complete with a very dramatic raise of his sculpted eyebrows.

"Party? What party?," Lynn asked. He sounded interested for a moment, like he might be ready to get in his nightmarishly painted car and follow Spencer somewhere else. But then he tipped his head to the side and asked, "Hold up, are you talking about Liana's trivia party?" Spencer nodded his head, which caused the other man to burst into laughter. "Oh no honey," he declared. "You won't catch me at that dorkfest!" Lynn snapped his fingers and slung his hip to one side, slapping it with his hand. "I'm going out to the club. See if I can get me a little strange tonight!"

"Oh," Spencer said. It took him a moment to realize what the other man was implying about his plans for the evening. But when he did, it made him laugh. "Good luck with that," he offered.

Lynn responded with a big friendly smile. "Good luck to you," he teased. "You'll need it where you're going."

Lynn's rings flashed in the late afternoon sun as he waved goodbye to Spencer and climbed into his car. His music was blaring as he sped away out of the parking lot with a stream of smoke wafting out his window. Spencer stared after the man, shaking his head with a smile on his face. Like Eliana, Lynn wasn't what Spencer had in mind when he pictured the ideal caretaker for his mother. But there was no denying that she seemed to be doing well under their watch. The last few days, his mother seemed happier than she'd been in years. And Spencer was starting to realize that having her live with him long term might actually be a possibility. The thought of that filled him with happiness. Despite her laundry list of problems, he loved his mother and wanted her to be a part of his life and not just someone he wrote letters to about it.

Spencer sat in his car, staring down at his phone like he'd been doing all day. Eliana texted him the address of the party. But other than that, he hadn't heard anything from her. He sucked in a long hard breath, forcing himself to let it out slowly. And then he plugged the address into the navigation screen in his car.

His mother's care facility was slightly outside of town. The drive back into DC and over to the location of the party took Spencer about forty minutes. He spent that entire time debating on whether or not to call Elaina and tell her he was on his way. Or just show up and surprise her. He decided it would be better to call. But by the time he figured out what he wanted to say, he was already pulling up outside the house. So Spencer shrugged his shoulders and checked to make sure his glove box was locked. He kept his gun with him, even when he wasn't on an active assignment. Then he locked his car and headed up the walkway of the modest brick house.

The door swung open before he was even done knocking. And Spencer stepped back in shock at the appearance of the host. The man was wearing a rubber halloween mask, one that was meant to make him look like a Clingon. It wasn't really that frightening at second glance. But it did take Spencer by surprise when the door was jerked open.

"Password for entry," the man in the mask demanded, altering his voice so that it sounded deeper and more ominous than Spencer guessed it usually was. Spencer stood there feeling as confused as he looked. Elaina didn't say anything about a secret passcode, he thought. And she didn't mention the costumes either. Maybe he wasn't at the right place. Spencer took a step back, considering the predicament he suddenly found himself in.

Just as suddenly as he had jerked the door open, the doorman ripped his mask up and off his head. There was a big smile on his face. A familiar smile. The Clingon guard was Kevin Lynch, Penelope's on and off again boyfriend.

"Dr. Reid?," Kevin asked. "What are you doing here? Did Penelope invite you?"

Spencer shook his head. He was even more confused now than he was before. If Kevin was friends with Eliana, that meant Penelope must know her. And he was sure she would have mentioned that when he had her look up Eliana's entire life history on her computer. But she never said anything about it.

"No," Spencer responded. "She's here?"

This time Kevin was the one to shake his head. "Naw. She's pissed at me again," he explained with a laugh. Spencer would be hard pressed to picture the two of them fighting. But he supposed they must. All couples seemed to, at least once in a while. "If Penelope didn't invite you," he asked, moving back and ushering Spencer into the house, "...who did?"

"Eliana," Spencer said. Even just saying her name made him smile. And Kevin must have noticed the change in his expression. Because he smiled back. "Does Penelope usually come to these parties?," Spencer asked. "She and Eliana know each other?"

"No," Kevin said. He scratched his head as he puzzled out the dates and reasons why his sometimes girlfriend didn't know one of his closest friends. "Liana's been in Morocco the whole time me and Penelope were dating. They never met. But I know Liana. We went to college together. A bunch of us met in intro to sociology freshman year. We've been friends ever since."

Despite his lack of secret passcode knowledge, Kevin gestured for Spencer to step forward into the house. And then he pointed at a framed photo on the wall. Spencer leaned closer to it, his eyes scanning over the group of smiling people in the picture. He spotted Kevin right away. The man looked almost exactly the same except his hair was longer. And next to him, there was a chubby girl with a face full of acne and a rather tragic Dora the Explorer style haircut. They were towards the center of the group with their arms around each other and big smiles on their faces.

"That's her right there isn't it," Spencer asked. The picture made him smile. For some reason, Eliana's caring disposition and quirky personality made more sense now that he'd seen what she looked like as a young adult. Because of his FI snooping, he knew more than he should about her upbringing. But seeing her, it was easier to imagine her childhood. She had an absent mother and a father that was career military. She moved around a lot. Always being the new girl, plus being awkward and overweight on top of that, must have made it even harder to make friends. Instead of letting all that turn her into a psycho killer, she started volunteering at the animal shelter and eventually gave over nearly six years of her life working with the peace corps to help those less fortunate than her.

"That's definitely her," Kevin confirmed, tapping his finger against the glass front of the picture. "WarpGirl!" He announced her nickname with enthusiasm and another big smile. And when Kevin realized that Spencer didn't know what he meant by it, he explained. "It's her pseud… She writes fanfic." As he spoke, Kevin moved closer and set his hand on Spencer's shoulder. "She's won the ASC award one year. And she won two golden orgasms. She's the shit. I'm not gonna lie, I have a few of her stories saved in my personal spank bank."

As the man made mention of his personal masturbation habits, Spencer became very aware of the fact that Kevin's hand was resting on his shoulder. He grimaced, tensing his body as he started down at the offending appendage. Spencer sincerely hoped that Kevin had washed his hands since the last time he read any of Eliana's stories.

"Shit, sorry," Kevin said, laughing a little as he jerked his hand back. "I forgot you're not a toucher." He pointed down the hall towards a set of carpeted stairs that led to the lower level of the house. "The bar is downstairs. Amber made pan galactic gargle blasters. Word of advice, don't have more than one unless you want to barf like a Ferengi!" With that, Kevin was pulling his rubber mask back on as he hurried towards the door to terrify the next party guest.

Spencer brushed off his shoulder and headed for the stairs. There was a low hum of laughter and conversation drifting up that steadily increased in volume as he rounded the corner of the staircase. The basement looked like it still needed a little work to be fully finished. But there was the promised bar in the corner. And people were milling about, drinking and talking or playing various card and board games at smaller tables that were scattered throughout the space. Some of them were dressed in partial costumes. But thankfully, none of them were wearing rubber halloween masks like the one he'd seen upstairs. A few people smiled or gave Spencer nods of welcome. But he was busy scanning the room for the woman he came to see.

Eliana was sitting at one of the small tables, across from a woman with light reddish hair and long legs. They had a chess board between them. But they were also holding some sort of playing cards in their hands. The other woman was vaguely familiar. If Spencer wasn't so distracted by Eliana he would have recognized her chess opponent as Amber Whitman, the woman that ran the staffing agency Eliana worked for. Out of the two woman, Amber noticed him first, her face lighting up with recognition before she knocked her foot into Eliana's ankle and ticked her head in his direction.

"I didn't think you were coming!," Eliana gushed. There was no pretense in her reaction. And she made no attempt to hide the fact that she was excited to see him. Elaina flopped her cards facedown on the table and jumped up to wrap her arms around his waist. Spencer was close with his coworkers. They were like family. But he never really had much physical contact with them. Or with anyone. Somewhere in his mind, he knew that being hugged caused one's body to release oxytocin, which in turn decreased the level of cortisol. Hugging decreases anxiety and can even lower your blood pressure. But the only thing that registered in Spencer's mind was that it felt good to have Eliana's arms around him again. And that he hadn't stopped thinking about the last time he held her when they were slow dancing in his kitchen since it happened.

When she released her hold on him, Eliana reached for his hand. She tugged him forward towards the table, smiling as she introduced him to her red haired friend.

"We've met," Amber said. "Well sort of. We talked on the phone. I run the staffing agency."

Spencer nodded his understanding. And it didn't escape him that Amber only smiled when she introduced herself. She didn't make any attempt to reach for his hand. Which meant she either hated shaking hands as much as he did, or that Eliana had cautioned her friend about the fact that he didn't like it. Spencer was guessing the latter. And he felt a surge of affection for the woman at his side. It was really considerate of Eliana to ensure that none of her friends made him uncomfortable.

Amber's smile widened. And she looked him up and down before she turned her focus to Eliana. "I told you it would be worth your while to take that job," she teased.

"You were right," Eliana admitted as she leaned slightly closer to Spencer. A lovely blush was creeping up her neck to pink her cheeks. And Spencer realized that perhaps having Eliana show up at his door wasn't a random coincidence. Her staffing agency friend was playing matchmaker for the two of them. The thought of it made Spencer grin. It wouldn't be the first time someone attempted to set him up. But it was the first time that wasn't a complete and total shit show disaster.

"Of course I was right," Amber teased. "I'm always right."

"...And so humble too," Elaina joked back.

In a not so subtle attempt to leave them alone, Amber headed to the bar for a SciFi themed drink. Eliana beamed another big smile up at him. And this time Spencer was the one to pull her against him for a hug. "I'm so glad you came," Elaina said. "Everyone else here won't be though, 'cause we're about to kick their asses at Trekkie Trivia."