TITLE: A Conversation with Pete About a Friend
PAIRING: Lindsay/Cindy
DISCLAIMER: Women’s Murder Club does not belong to me. The characters do not belong to me. They are the property of James Patterson, 20th Century Fox Television and ABC. (Well, not anymore. Jackasses.) I have no problems with that as long as I can borrow them for short bursts and use them in pursuit of my own enjoyment. I am not trying to infringe. Though, I don’t know why anyone has a problem with fan fic. After all, it really is a compliment. If anyone wants to write fan fiction about my book, feel free. 

“There aren’t a lot of women who would agree to a long distance relationship, especially an intercontinental one. At least not so quickly.”

Unsure whether that comment was supposed to be a compliment, an insult, or just a somewhat unnecessary statement, Lindsay raised an eyebrow at Pete across the table and swirled the ice in her drink.

“I guess I’m not like most women,” she responded.

“I’d agree with that,” Pete smiled his most winsome smile, the one that said “I was a star football player in high school and I’d love to put you in this shiny new Mercedes today”.

Lindsay smiled back, giving some thought to the unexpected statement. Was it that peculiar for her to respond in the affirmative to his suggestion? He was the one who’d brought it up. And she really was fine with it. It’s not like she didn’t have a lot going on in her life before he walked into it, and those things were still going to be there no matter how often he waltzed in and out.

“I have my job and my friends, which do consume a lot of my time,” Lindsay reminded him, internalizing a grin at her coming wickedness. “You would actually be kind of an inconvenience.”

“Is that right, Inspector?”

“Yeah, it is. You know how I am about my job, and my friends… they are totally needy. I mean, Jill and her love escapades, out of control. Claire has her own issues that she’s trying to keep quiet, but she’ll share eventually. And Cindy,” Lindsay dropped her eyes to her drink, struggling to come up with an adequate description, “she’s just a constant source of challenge. A couple of weeks ago I let her ride along on a hostage rescue and she just had to get in the middle of it. When it was all over, she was lying in the doorway, covering her head with her hands, and she kept saying, ‘I’m a pancake. I’m a pancake.”

She laughed lightly in remembrance and glanced across the table, coming up short at the look she was getting in return.

“What?”

“You’ve told me that story.”

“Have I?”

“Yeah. That was the day of our first date, remember? It’s all that you talked about.”

“I guess I forgot,” Lindsay felt oddly scolded. ”Sorry.”

“Mentioning it or the date?” Pete asked, not entirely humored.

“Mentioning it,” Lindsay responded, though it really should have been obvious.

“All of the times?” he asked. “Because that wasn’t the only time you’ve brought it up.”

In all of their interactions since they’d met, Lindsay had never gotten to see pissy Pete. He wasn’t particularly attractive.

“It was funny,” she explained, though why she owed an explanation she wasn’t sure exactly. “I mean, afterwards. While it was happening it wasn’t too funny.”

“I wouldn’t imagine it was,” Pete sighed and set back in his chair, eyeing her to an extent that was almost unnerving, “watching her walk off into a dangerous situation where she could have been killed.”

“Exactly,” Lindsay asserted. Even now, the memory left her particularly ill at ease, and she felt the familiar sensation of her throat closing and tried to will away the sudden knot in her stomach.

“Remember the first night we slept together?” Pete abruptly changed the subject.

Lurching in surprise, Lindsay glanced around to see if anyone else awaiting their flights had overheard. The nearest person sat eight feet away and looked like he could desperately use a hearing aid, so she felt pretty secure in their privacy.

“Uh, yes,” she replied. “Of course.”

“Do you remember what you said to me?”

“I guess not,” she shrugged.

“You said that you wanted it to be special,” Pete informed her.

Lindsay flushed as all due mortification set in.

“I actually said that?”

“Yep.”

“And you still wanted to have sex with me?”

That drew a laugh from the suddenly fairly somber Pete.

“I’m pretty sure that a castrated duck would want to have sex with you.”

Lindsay was pretty sure that it was meant to be flattery, though the imagery wasn’t particularly pleasant.

“A castrated duck? What made you go there?”

“It’s just the first thing that I thought of,” Pete said, laughing again.

Now Lindsay was having a hard time remembering why she’d wanted to have sex with him. If that was the first thing that came to his mind, maybe she should rethink this whole ‘see you a couple of times this year’ thing.

“That night, I thought you meant, you know, us.” Pete paused just long enough to allow Lindsay to start dreading where this was going. “The more I thought about it, I started thinking that maybe you were talking about the bigger picture, about you getting back in the game. Now I think that maybe you were talking about wanting it to be special as in not with me. You wanted to get back in the game with somebody else.”

Lindsay stared at him, stunned. Then scoffed heartily.

“No. That’s crazy.”

“Is it?”

“You are the only person I’ve seriously dated since my divorce,” Lindsay reminded him of that somewhat awkward fact. “Who else could I have wanted it to be?”

Under Pete’s unwavering scrutiny, Lindsay’s mind supplied an instant image that she promptly shook from her head. They’d just been talking about her, so of course her mind went there. And, if the timing of this subject was any indication, clearly that’s where Pete’s mind had ventured.

“Oh that’s just… absurd.”

“I was still thinking,” Pete uttered. “Who’d you come up with?”

That earned him his first ever, highly warranted, glare from her.

“Listen, I’m not trying to get on your bad side,” Pete gently treaded. ”I’m really not. It’s the last place I want to be. I’m just trying to help you out.”

“By confusing my relationship with Cindy with something way beyond what it actually is.”

“By helping you recognize that you’d like to double-stack your favorite pancake.”

Lindsay’s mouth dropped open.

“You did not just say that.”

And she did not feel a surge of heat straight through her core or suppress a full body shiver when he had.

“Okay. I didn’t say it,” Pete responded, getting to his feet and grabbing his carry-on. “I should get to my gate.”

Lindsay was so annoyed with him at the moment, she couldn’t say she cared all that much.

“I’ve got to get out of here anyway,” she muttered. ”I have to meet my… friends.”

Damn him for making it seem like a dirty word. And for smirking when she uttered it.

“You go do that,” he said, leaning over to kiss her on the cheek. “Give me a call either way.”

Lindsay looked up at him, knowing, but refusing to acknowledge, what in the hell he meant by that.

“Whether it’s me or it’s her,” Pete clarified in the face of her intentional confusion.

Then he walked away, leaving her with unbidden thoughts and absolutely no buffer against them.