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“What does a girl want to hear?” he asks, looking at her with more sincerity on his face than she thinks she’s ever seen. But there’s uncertainty there too, in the tone of his voice, and it’s discomfiting; she doesn’t have a playbook for this version of him.
“I wish I knew.”
She regrets it the second the words leave her mouth because they taste like a lie and she knows he’ll see it; he always does.
But she’s also resentful of the way he’s taken to pretending not to read her lately. Ever since she started dating Marcus it’s like he’s biting his tongue. She should be grateful, she supposes. At least he’s not actively disrespectful or snarky about it.
And yet, she can’t help the bitter feeling that’s been rising in her, that because of Marcus he’s closed himself off to her, maybe even locked the door. His respect feels scarily like indifference, like they really are nothing more than colleagues.
Not for the first time, she considers that maybe what they were before the FBI existed only in response to his obsession with revenge. Maybe now that he’s moved on from Red John, he has no real need for her either.
But his question is the closest he’s come in weeks to expressing any interest in her feelings and as she sits in the silence of her own lie, she’s not sure which she fears more: having him challenge her on it, or having him ignore it entirely.
“You know what, I need the restroom, I’ll be right back,” she hears herself saying suddenly, an escape from having to find out the answer.
—
In the restroom, she looks at herself in the mirror and tries to calm her harried breathing.
Having dinner alone with him was a bad idea, even if it is for the case. She doesn’t know how to be in close quarters with him right now. It used to feel so easy, so natural, and now it just feels like walking a tightrope.
What does a girl want to hear?.
She hates him a little for asking that because now her brain can’t stop searching for the answer and the truth is she’s not sure she wants to find it.
It’s too complicated, too fraught with risk, and she just wants her life to be simple again.
Marcus is simple. Marcus says exactly what he feels. Being with Marcus requires so little of her.
It doesn’t exhaust her.
She breathes in deeply and tells herself that all she has to do is get through this dinner and go home to him. There’s no reason to keep interrogating her history with Jane as though it has any bearing on the present.
So she steels herself to finish this dinner with him by focusing on the case. No more forays into the personal. Only, she steps back into the hallway and he’s there waiting for her, so close that she practically walks right into him.
“God Jane, what are you doing here.”
“It wasn’t an insult,” he says carefully, almost earnestly.
“What?”
“When I said I love that you’re predictable. I’m sorry if it came out wrong. I would never say something intended to insult you or make you feel bad about who you are, Teresa.”
She can’t focus, feels her breath hitching again. He’s far too close to her and she needs him to move before he sees more things she can’t hide.
“It’s fine, forget it,” she says, trying to walk past him.
He doesn’t let her though and puts his hand on her arm to keep her there. He doesn’t hold her with any real force and she could push past him easily enough if she wanted to and he knows it.
But his eyes on hers won’t let her move.
“It’s a compliment,” he continues seriously. “It’s one of my favorite things about you. You know who you are, you’re always certain of your decisions.”
“Not always,” she breathes out without thought, overwhelmed by his closeness and the emotion in his voice. He’s looking at her with that sincerity again and she feels everything she’s pretended not to feel for a decade hit her with such force that she feels utterly stripped bare.
It’s not like she's ever had that much armor against him but right now, in this moment — there’s absolutely nothing. All her conflict, all her doubt, all her longing, race through her as she looks at him. Recklessness floods her thoughts and she has to know, just once, what it’s like to kiss him.
Then she can put it away and move on, she tells herself as justification.
(That’s another lie and she knows it. She’ll keep it, just like she did his letters; a secret indulgence to ward off her sorrow and fill her heart.)
The last thought in her mind before she stretches up to kiss him, is to wonder if this will surprise him.
As soon as her lips touch his he loses all restraint and hers goes right along with him. His hands find her waist as his mouth opens to her and he kisses her over and over, lips never leaving hers for more than a microsecond. Her hands find his hair of their own accord and her tongue meets his; she has never felt less in control of her actions in her entire life.
(Actually, it feels a little like shooting a gun. It’s a contradiction that’s hard to explain. Shooting a gun requires absolute control — and yet, it also doesn’t. It becomes so instinctual that when she pulls a trigger, she has no real sense of herself actively deciding to do so. Kissing him feels like that too.)
She feels his hands tighten around her waist, acutely aware of every change in pressure of his body touching hers, and suddenly he’s twisting them. She feels the hard plane of the wall against her back but more than that, she feels the warmth of his body pressed against her with a kind of fervent desperation.
The only coherent thought in her head is that it doesn’t feel like this with Marcus.
That jolts her back to reality with a sick lurch of guilt as she realizes what she’s done. Is doing.
(Her tongue is still in his mouth after all.)
She’s never cheated on someone before, never thought herself capable.
A bitter part of her wants to ask him if he knew she was capable of it. But she’s not sure she’s ready to learn that he knows her own flaws better than she does.
She turns her head to the side, breaking the kiss, but he doesn’t pull away or let go of her and she doesn’t move either. He rests his forehead against her temple and she can hear the heaviness of his breathing.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” she says in a shaky voice. “I should go.”
His hands fall from her waist and he stands upright again, giving her space to move, but he doesn’t respond and she makes the mistake of looking up at him as she steps aside.
His eyes are on hers and his face is anguished. “Teresa…” he tries to say, voice cracking with emotion.
She doesn’t let him finish, “I can’t do this right now, Jane.”
—
Her heart hammers in her chest as she knocks on the door to his Airstream three hours later.
He looks at her with confusion when he opens the door and she rushes to say, “I brought cannoli,” as though that's any kind of explanation for her appearance at his door after what happened between them.
“You didn’t come here this late just to bring me cannoli,” he says bluntly, stepping down to meet her on solid ground.
“No,” she agrees, quietly, putting the bag down at her feet. “It’s about Marcus.”
His mask breaks ever so slightly and she sees guilt and sadness flash through his eyes.
“I won’t say anything, I promise. It’s my fault, I let myself get carried away out of selfishness. But I’m not going to ruin your happiness, I swear. I really want you to be happy. The most important thing to me is that you do what makes you happy,” he says intently, shaking his head as his voice catches on the words.
“I am,” she tells him softly before she steps forward and kisses him.
Again.
—
Her words don’t properly make it to his brain because her lips are on his again and he is completely consumed by the rush of how it feels to kiss her.
He tries to resist, he really does, but kissing her feels so right and butterflies swarm in his belly and all he can do is follow the selfish allure of indulging in this moment before it’s gone again. Her hands are on his face and the kiss is slower and softer this time but no less heady for it.
He never wants it to end.
But she pulls away gently and he braces himself for her goodbye. Her hands cradle his face, her eyes are fixed on his, and her voice is so soft when she speaks his name, “Jane.”
It hurts, how much he wants her and he can’t speak for fear of saying something true that she doesn’t want to hear.
“I ended it with Marcus,” she says slowly and carefully.
“Why?” he asks, surprised and unsure how to respond.
“You know why.”
He shakes his head, “No, I don’t.”
Her hands fall from his face and he mourns the loss until he feels them on his chest instead.
“Because I couldn’t avoid the answer to your question. What does a girl want to hear? The truth. I just want to know the truth, Jane. What do you want?”
“You. I want you,” he chokes out, finally letting it all break free. “I was such a fool. I was so scared of what I feel for you and I thought we could just keep living in the status quo of being partners and that would be enough but then Marcus came along and I couldn’t…I really wanted you to be happy, I really wanted you to have a good man. So, I tried to be selfless and not feel what I feel and not let you see what I feel but the truth is…I love you, Teresa.”
She smiles and exhales as though she’s been holding her breath, “That’s what I wanted to hear. I think it’s what I’ve been wanting to hear since you came back, Jane. I was just too scared to admit it to myself.”
Her words finally register and when he looks at her he believes it; she is doing what will make her happy. She’s choosing him.
“I love you,” he tells her again, softly now as he tucks a finger under her chin and leans in to kiss her gently.
“I love you too,” she answers when his lips leave hers again.
He leans in to rest his forehead against hers and whispers, “So you’re not going to DC?”
He can actually hear the smile in her voice when she answers, “No, Jane. I’m not going anywhere. Except maybe inside. Because it’s late, and I don’t really want to drive home, and because I have cannoli.”
“That’s right, you brought cannoli,” he grins, joy beginning to take hold as reality sets in and he let himself feel it in full. He loves her and she loves him and there’s actually nothing at all standing in their way.
“Come on in,” he tells her, knowing that it’s an invitation to far more than just his home.
—
She takes his outstretched hand.
She knows it, too.