Status: Complete

In Over My Head

2/5

Steve, Tango, and I finished analysis around eleven PM and had to wait around for film crew so that we could dramatically brief Jay and Grant on the findings. (My K2 session was a hit. I even got Jay to apologize, even though he told me I was stupid for asking that ‘harm’ question. But I already knew that, so it didn’t bug me). Once filming was finished, it was quarter to twelve, and Steve and Tango kicked me out of their room so that they could “freshen up” (Tango’s words, not mine) before our little outing.

I hurried down the hall to my own room, where I mussed my hair and smudged on some eyeliner and changed into tighter jeans, heels, and a fashionably droopy tee-shirt because, hey, who knows who’s going to be eyeing you at a small town bar, right? Right. Steve and Tango banged on my door at ten after twelve, and I shouted that it was open, which it was. They came in (no choo-choo pants in sight, sadly) and stared around the room a bit.

“Shit, your room is so much nicer than ours.” Steve noted, then sat down at the table in the kitchenette. Tango flung himself down across the loveseat on the opposite wall and nodded his agreement.

“I know.” I said through a mouthful of toothpaste. I spat and rinsed and emerged from the bathroom. Tango whistled through his teeth with approval.

“Shut up, Dave Tango.” I said, smiling anyway. “Might as well try for free drinks, right? Old men love buying me drinks.”

“That’s disgusting.” Steve said. “You know what they expect in return for those free drinks, Hale? Favors. They’re dirty old panty-bandits.”

I stared at him with wide eyes for a minute, then laughed so hard, I was doubled over. Steve grinned and Tango just stood there and shook his head.

“Okay, look.” He said, “That was gross. Can we just get the hell out of here?”

“Fine, fine, let’s go.” I said, still chuckling. I stuffed some money deep in my pocket (just in case there were no dirty old panty-bandits who wanted to buy my drinks) and the three of us left my room to meet Jay and Grant in the hotel lobby. Halfway down the hallway, I asked Tango for a piggy-back and he obliged. We strolled into the wide open atrium like it was the most normal and socially acceptable thing in the world. Jay and Grant shook their heads like indulging parents, and we set off on foot toward a bar we’d seen just down the road.

The bar was a little place called Dave’s, and it was a tad bit too flashy for what little it offered. It was about the size of my hotel room and completely plastered with neon signs, outside and in. There was a tiny pool hall (two tables) through one doorway, and toward the back through another was an empty dining room crammed full of tables and a few booths.

There weren’t very many people there, only a few twenty-somethings and some older men who were crowded around one end of the bar and who looked up when we entered. Steve and I locked eyes and broke into stifled laughter. I bit one of my knuckles to avoid making a scene.

“What do you want?” Steve said, fighting a smile and reaching across himself to point to the bar.

“Buying me a drink, Steve? What does that make you?” I said with raised eyebrows.

“I’m buying you a drink so that none of them,” He jerked his head back toward the group which was just beginning to notice the fact that I was not holding anyone’s hand and was seemingly there without a date, “Will be tempted to. Remember what I said, Hale.” He tapped a finger against his temple. “What do you want?”

“Guinness. Draft.” He nodded and started to walk away. I grabbed his arm and said, “Thanks, Steve.”

He shrugged and shook me off with a grin. I smiled back and turned around to find that I’d been left alone in the middle of the room. Jay and Grant were seated at the bar with their backs to me, already shelling peanuts and watching playbacks of the last Patriots game, and Tango was trying to chat up a blonde who looked a little too old for him. I claimed a high bar table in the back corner and sat down, happy to be somewhere without the presence of a camera crew or someone in a TAPS tee shirt telling me how much they love the show and wondering if they could be on it sometime or something stupid. My life was fantastic, but I enjoyed some solitude now and again.

Steve returned with our drinks a minute or two later and took the chair opposite mine.

“Bless your heart.” I sighed happily, and dug into my pocket. “How much do I owe you?”

“Nothing.” He said.

“Really?” I said.

“Shut up and drink it, Hale.”

“Right.”

We sat there for a long time, the conversation drifting between our favorite investigations, our favorite tattoos (His list was much longer than mine, mostly because I only had, like, four), what we’d wanted to be when we grew up, and finally, when the table was half-covered in empty beer and shot glasses, how “fucking fantastic” the night had been. It was around this time that Tango approached with a wary look on his face.

“Tango!” I said breathlessly, having been drunk-giggling over something that probably hadn’t been funny in the slightest. “Isn’t this night the best ever?”

“You’re smashed.” He said. “Wow.”

“I’m not.” I said, pushing my bangs back off my forehead. “It’s hot in here, though.”

Tango regarded me for a moment, then shook his head and looked at Steve. Unfortunately, Steve was on about the same page as me. He was smiling quite a lot.

“Fuck, so are you.” Tango said. Steve just shook his head. “Okay, well, I’m not going to worry about it because neither of you are driving. If you wander off into the night somewhere, it’s not my problem.”

“Oh, Tango, don’t be mad.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “I’m only a little buzzed.”

“Yeah, okay.” He said sarcastically. Of course, in my state, sarcasm didn’t quite register, and I took his words at face value and offered him a big, stupid grin. He laughed, shook his head, and went on to say, “It’s almost four in the morning. I’m going back to the hotel.”

“We’ll come after the game’s over.” Steve said, barely concealing a grin and pointing above us to a wall-mounted television screen that wasn’t even turned on. Of course, this struck me as exceedingly funny, so I put my face in my hand and laughed until I couldn’t breathe.

“Right. Okay. I’m going, and it will not be my fault when you wake up in a ditch somewhere. Remember that.” Tango said.

“It won’t be your fault, Tango.” I agreed.

He grinned and shook his head again, clapped Steve on the shoulder, squeezed my wrist, and left. Steve and I looked at each other and laughed again, and for the half hour that followed, we couldn’t really stop.

“Okay. Okay.” I said between giggles. “Okay. I think we need to go back.” I spoke slowly, carefully, so that my words didn’t slur. I knew, deep, deep, deep inside my brain that I was, in fact, quite tipsy. The benefit of this was that I was aware of it enough that I could somewhat try to hide it. I slid down from the table without wobbling too much, and Steve and I walked toward the door.

It took us a long time to get back to the hotel. By the time we walked through the automatic doors into the lobby, the sky was a rosy pink at the horizon. The lobby was empty, but I could smell breakfast already being set out.

“It’s really late.” I said, trying to whisper but failing miserably. I winced at how drunk I sounded. “I should go to sleep.”

Steve nodded and pulled me by the hand toward the elevator. I felt like a little kid, but that was okay. He pressed the button for the floor our rooms were on, and we rode up in silence. He still hadn’t let go of my hand. We walked out into the hallway with carefully measured steps. Stumbling wouldn’t do, especially since we ran the risk of seeing Jay and Grant. They liked to be up early to oversee the packing and preparation that went on the days we shipped out. Running into them while we were not only drunk, hand in hand, and in no way capable of getting up in a few hours to drive home, would not have gone over well.

Steve had to help me with my room key, and that’s about where my memory stopped working.

Fucking fabulous.

-x-

And this is why I don’t usually drink.

I was lying in my bed with my eyes closed, having just woken up to realize that my head was sort of feeling like it was going to implode. I made a quick assessment of myself without moving, mentally going through a list of things that might be wrong with me. I decided I wasn’t going to throw up, nothing was broken, and that I was in fairly decent shape. Aside from the whole brain-throbbing-inside-my-skull thing, of course. And there was a weird ‘whooshing’ sound in my right ear that I couldn’t really explain. I’d never woken up after a night of drinking to such a side effect. I tried to think back over the previous night.

Oh, my God.

I’d just noticed the fact that the ‘whooshing’ sort of sounded like breathing. And the fact that I was a little warmer than usual. And the fact that there was a hand in the small of my back. And, worst yet, the fact that my legs were entwined with someone else’s. I sat bolt upright and stared at the wall for a minute, completely terrified of what I might find if I looked to my right.

Okay. Okay, think. Okay.

I worked furiously to get my brain to cooperate, but couldn’t seem to get it working past Steve and the room key. I swept the room with my eyes, still careful not to look directly beside me. My shoes were by the door, the sleeper-sofa loveseat had been half unfolded. I realized with horror that there was a black and yellow TAPS baseball hat sitting on the bedside table.

Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.

Since I’d known him, I’d secretly harbored a suspicion that there were three things that Steve took his hat off for: sleep, showers, and sex. The possibility that any one of the three had happened here last night made me want to throw up. Not that I didn’t like Steve. On the contrary, maybe I liked him quite a lot. But, shit, things were going to be awkward. I started searching the room again for more evidence.

There were no clothes on the floor. That had to be a good thing. In fact, I was still wearing my jeans and tee-shirt. That was a great thing. It ruled out the two more mortifying s’s, anyway. Relief came in waves, but only for a minute because the bed had started moving a little. I bit my lip and looked to my right.

He had his clothes on, too, and that was good, but it still didn’t remedy the fact that he was there in the first place. We’d slept together in the literal sense. Like, legitimately together. Not only sharing a bed, but his hand had been under my shirt, pressed into the small of my back. Our legs had been all tangled together. I’m pretty sure my head had been on his chest most of the morning. It was bad. It was beyond bad, it was abso-fucking-lutely terrible. What made it worse was the fact that he was about to wake up.

I probably should’ve gotten up and made it look like I hadn’t just been sitting there, having a mental freak-out, but I didn’t. I hugged my knees to my chest and blushed a little when Steve finally opened his eyes.

“This isn’t my room.” He said sleepily, scrubbing at his eyes with his fists. “And you are definitely not Tango.”

I looked pointedly at the mussed bed sheets and said, “What does that say about the two of you?”

He chuckled, then winced and put a hand to his forehead. “What the hell happened last night?”

“I’ve been wondering the same thing.” I said with a sigh. “I don’t think we, ah, did anything. But, y’know. Things happen, I guess.” I blushed again. He sat up and glanced past me at the clock on the bedside table.

“It’s late.” He said simply, then put his head in his hands. “Fuck, how much did I drink?”

I started to laugh, but stopped myself when my own head started throbbing. We must’ve been a pathetic sight, both sitting - fully dressed, if not a bit wrinkled - in an unmade hotel bed, heads in hands, room askew, with little to no recollection of what had happened the night before. I decided to change the picture, and heaved myself up out of the bed to go in search of the Aspirin I knew I’d packed somewhere. Steve stayed where he was, only reached across the bed for his hat.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so hung over.” I said, locating the bottle in the bottom of my duffle bag and going into the bathroom to fill a glass with water. Steve chuckled and, a minute later, he was standing in the bathroom doorway, hat on, leaning against the wall and squinting against the lights.

We stood there and looked at each other for a minute, not saying anything and not moving. I wasn’t sure about him, but I was kind of wondering what we were supposed to do now. Honestly, what did people do after waking up in the same bed and determining that they didn’t have sex, only slept together in a way that suggested something far more complicated than friendship? Honestly, I kind of wanted to kiss him for some reason, but I didn’t because my breath was probably terrible. He was cracking his knuckles and biting his lip, and I realized he was probably nervous about getting caught by someone we knew. With that, things got about a hundred times more complicated. It didn’t help that everyone (camera men, production crew, investigators, everyone) was currently staying on the same floor. It also didn’t help that, with a glance at the screen of my cell phone, I’d determined that it was nearly eleven o’clock. People would’ve noticed our absence by that point, and ‘people’ included Tango, which was bad because he was completely incapable of keeping his damn mouth shut about anything.

“Okay.” I said, snapping myself out of my thoughts and into ‘let’s figure this shit out’ mode. I offered Steve the Aspirin and sat myself down on the edge of the bath tub. “Okay. How’re we going to make this look like nothing happened?”

“Nothing did happen.” He said after sipping from my half-empty glass of water. He set the medicine bottle down and leaned against the bathroom counter, tattooed arms crossed.

“I know.” I said, blushing for the third time and hating myself for it. “But it’ll look a little suspicious when we both emerge at the same time, you in yesterday’s clothes, about an hour and a half later than either of us usually does. You think Jay’s not going to notice?” I snorted at the impossibility of the idea. Jay never missed a thing. And, since I was thinking about it, I realized that Grant never did, either. He was just nicer about it.

“No, I know. But who said we have to make something out of nothing, you know? So I fell asleep in your room,” He looked down at his feet and I saw the color rising in his face. “It’s nothing.”

I was going to reply when there was a knock on the door. My heart fell and Steve looked fairly terrified for all his bravado. I sat there like an idiot for a minute, staring up at him with a blank expression.

“Carling! Hey, open the door.” Of course it was Tango. Of course.

Goddamn my life.

“Stay in here.” I hissed. Steve nodded and backed further into the bathroom. I stood and tried to smooth myself over a little before opening the door. Tango looked me up and down before grinning.

“You look like hell.” He said cheerily.

“And you have a stupid earring. What do you want?”

“Ouch?” He said, obviously more confused than hurt. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Hung over.” I said honestly and he nodded.

“I figured you would be. You were definitely feeling no pain last night.”

“I know, Tango.” I sighed. “What’s up?” I tried to nonchalantly shift my weight so that I blocked his view into the room.

“Do you know where Steve is? He didn’t come back to the room last night.” Tango craned his neck to see past me. I moved fractionally further out into the hall so that I could close the door another half an inch. He noticed.

“No.” I said, regardless of the knowing expression that had become apparent on his face.

“Really?” He put his hand on the door and pushed it open a little. I resisted and that probably made things worse. “You haven’t seen him?”

“Really. Tango, come on, I have to finish packing.” I said. As I watched, a grin spread across his face. I felt the color drain from my own, and, reluctantly, I relaxed my hold on the door.

“Packing things like your size eleven Nikes, there?” He said, narrowing his eyes and pointing over my head at a spot on the floor behind me. I glanced back in horror and, sure enough, there were Steve’s shoes, looking like sin in the middle of the floor.

“Tango, you’re such a dick!” I said, crossing my arms.

He laughed and pushed his way into the room. The door swung shut behind him. It was at that point that Steve emerged from the bathroom, hands in pockets, head tilted down a little. I leaned against the wall with my arms crossed.

“Oh-ho!” Tango said, his voice rather loud. “What is this?” He looked back and forth between me and Steve, gradually noticing the tousled appearances, the day-before attire, the tired expressions, all of which could (and, without a doubt, would) be misconstrued.

“Could you keep your fucking voice down?” I said. Tango only grinned.

“Well, well, well. I guess I figured it would happen someday. I didn’t think it would be while we were on an investigation, but, hey, it’s as good a time as any, right?”

“Tango, shut your fucking mouth.” Steve said. It was odd, I didn’t think I’d ever seen him legitimately angry before, but he certainly was. His mouth was set in a grim line and his eyebrows had knitted together. Tango shut up.

“Nothing happened.” I said calmly. Tango raised his eyebrows skeptically. “Nothing at all. He just fell asleep here.”

“And that’s nothing?” He said.

“It’s nothing.” Steve said. Tango crossed his arms and looked around the room again, like he might see more evidence of what had happened last night. I glared at him and he got the hint.

“Fine, okay. Nothing happened.” He chuckled and moved toward the door.

“Tango.” Steve said warningly.

“Your secret’s safe with me.” He said, pausing in the doorway to put his right hand over his heart. “You guys better hurry up. All the equipment’s packed.”

He looked at us again, laughed once, and left.

Steve and I glanced at each other before moving quietly around the room to gather up our things. Not that he had many to gather, but the sentiment was nice. After a few minutes, he sat on the edge of the bed and looked at me carefully. I paused for a moment in my packing, a tee shirt in one hand and a pair of jeans in the other, to look back at him.

“Well.” He said. “I guess I’d better go pack my own stuff.”

“Right.” I said.

I wanted to say some other things, too, like ‘what does last night mean’ and ‘are things going to change’ and ‘what if it really wasn’t so bad’, but I stayed quiet. I just thought about how, for a minute or two before I was fully conscious that morning, I’d heard his breathing without really knowing it was his and nestled myself a little closer to it. It had been nice to be enveloped in someone else, and not only goose down bedcovers and a mountain of pillows. Maybe I shouldn’t have panicked. Maybe I should’ve kept laying there and pretended like it was real-life for a little while. I wondered how he would’ve felt to wake up to find our legs still entwined. I wondered if he would’ve minded.

I shook myself out of my day dream to find that gooseflesh had erupted over my arms and Steve was still looking out at me from underneath his hat. I smiled weakly.

“The hallway sounds quiet.” I said, because he looked like he was ready to make his escape.

“Yeah, it does.” He stood up, shoes on, and walked to the door. “See you at the van.” He said, and then he left.

I changed into traveling clothes and tried to forget the feeling of his hand at the small of my back. The more I tried, the harder it was until it was like a ghost of it was still there.

I need a coffee. I thought, and left the room, dragging my suitcase behind me.
♠ ♠ ♠
Okaaay, okay. I know I said that a comment would get the next one, but nobody ever comments me on this site. FOREVER ALONE.
Thanks for reading :)