Still 5 Days Left
So much for fixing the thing between them.
But okay. They could both use a little time to cool down, and God knew there was plenty to deal with in the meantime. In fact, coming in today wasn’t such a bad idea, given how much Lucas had to do.
He was adept at compartmentalizing. Compartmentalization was a necessary skill in his position, and the ability to separate himself from most equations was part of what made him good at his job. That’s what he’d heard in every performance review for the past four years:calm under pressure, operationally reliable, a steady hand and a cool head in volatile situations.
Not that there were so many volatile situations in Silver Pine.
All the same, operational assessments consistently identified Silver Pine RA as a model of field office efficiency and investigative productivity. No one had ever had to call on Salt Lake to clean up a mess in Lucas’ region. Lucas knew how to keep calm and carry on. His middle name was Control. Well, no. It was Dexter. Control would have been preferable. Or Contained. He was also very good at containment.
Anyway. Especially at this time of year, there was a lot to contain. A lot to compartmentalize, if you wanted to put it that way. Riley had put it that way once or twice. Not in criticism. Observation.
Or maybe ithadbeen criticism. Lucas was starting to wonder if he understood Riley as well as he imagined.
Lucas sighed, lifted the file out of the top tray on his desk. Never mind the end-of-year case management stuff: pushinghis team for case closeouts, preparing final case summaries and reports for “The Temple” (as the Salt Lake FO was only half-jokingly referred to by its satellite offices), and signing off on inventory control, evidence chain-of-custody logs, and audit readiness.
Thatstuff Lucas could do in his sleep. He also still had performance evaluations to complete (including Riley’s—not that that would ever be an issue). He had to finalize Q1 coverage, including the January training and travel, and—the big one looming over him—he had to complete his budget review and resource requests.
Nobody knew better than Riley how many balls Lucas had to keep in the air this time of year. Maybe that was part of what made Riley’s demands feel so frustrating and unfair.
And yet, despite Lucas’ best efforts, the recollection of Riley’s face—that flash of unfamiliar vulnerability—Lucas couldn’t shake it, couldn’t concentrate the way he needed to. Forty-five minutes of unproductive staring at columns of numbers that might as well have been cuneiform passed.
Abruptly, muttering words he would not have said in front of Baby Jesus, he pushed his chair back from his computer, and strode down the hall to Riley’s office.
Call me up
Tell me all the things you wanted me to say
Write ‘em down
In a letter send it to me in the bottle that we saved.
Hey, if Riley was so into the holidays, how about a little Christmas music? A little less not-so-subliminal messaging and a little moreI’ll Be Home for Christmas?
Lucas came to a halt in Riley’s doorway. Riley, clicking away at his computer, stopped typing to greet him with a look of polite and professional inquiry.
Ruefully, Lucas said, “I don’t know what happened there. Earlier. I apologize.”
Riley shrugged. “No need.”
The fact that Riley was still polite and professional indicated that hell, yeah, there was need for an apology.
“I’m sorry. I’m just…” Lucas drew a deep breath. “Stressed.” It was the truth, though not a legitimate excuse for being an asshole. “You know what the end of the year is like.”
“I know.” Still polite. Still professional.
“Can we—let me take you out for a nice dinner tonight and we can—” The word stuck to the roof of his suddenly dry mouth. “Talk.”
To his alarm, Riley hesitated.
“My treat,” Lucas added quickly.
It was usually his treat, but that wasn’t quite as generous as it sounded because Riley was still paying rent for an apartment he’d barely stepped inside since March. And that was because, although the Bureau did not have a non-fraternization policy, Lucas could not—would not— tolerate the idea that the minute the scope of his relationship with Riley was common knowledge, members of his team might, almost certainlywould, start speculating and second-guessing his every action, every decision regarding Special Agent Christopher.
So, although they were basically living together, Riley was still maintaining the polite fiction of a separate residence. Which, given the fact that they worked in an office full of FBI agents, probably fooled exactly no one.
Riley took another second to reply, “Sure.”
