TITLE: A Conversation with Jacobi About Pete
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.

“I think you’re right. I think Pete’s gay.”

Lindsay settled her hip on the edge of Jacobi’s desk, gazing down at her partner, awaiting his usual backup. He raised a bewildered look to her, eyes trailing studiously over her face, and sat back.

“You think this now?” he finally responded. “After the two of you…”

“How do you know that?” Lindsay asked.

“I’m with you ten hours a day on our short days. I can tell when you alter the tempo you brush your teeth with in the morning. I certainly know when you’ve been laid,” Jacobi returned, adding more quietly. “Even if it wasn’t the most mind-shattering experience of your life.”

“You can’t possibly know that,” Lindsay scoffed.

“I’ve seen the man. He’s a pretty boy. By nature, pretty boys are utterly disappointing as lovers. They’re too worried about getting something under their nails.”

Shooting her partner a well-earned look of revulsion, Lindsay tried not to give the statement too much consideration.

“Why am I talking to you again?”

“Well, I’m guessing you want me to agree with you that Pete’s gay,” Jacobi immediately shot back. “So what’s your evidence? He’s metro, sure, but I really thought that asking you out disproved my whole gay theory.”

“Okay,” Lindsay paused for dramatic effect, hands spread in front of her in the universal, ‘Just wait… you’re not going to believe this’ gesture. “Pete was basically trying to imply that I was gay.”

She felt seriously slighted when Jacobi didn’t laugh. She really thought that was a punch line.

“Did you hear what I said?” Lindsay asked on a chortle, a semi-maniacal grin overtaking her face.

The proof of just how crazed she looked was evident in the way Jacobi pushed back a few inches and leaned as far away from her as he could manage in the confines of his chair.

“I heard it,” he answered.

“Don’t you think it’s funny?”

“Not particularly. It’s a label. Those usually end up hurting people.”

Lindsay’s humor faded in the face of Jacobi’s serious reply.

“Geez, Jacobi, lighten up,” she griped. “I don’t think gay is funny, and I have no problem if Pete is.”

“But you think he’s trying to recruit you.”

Now completely annoyed, Lindsay shifted against the desk, turning more fully in Jacobi’s direction with a huff.

“I don’t think he’s trying to recruit me,” she argued, glancing around at her colleagues. “I just think that he’s gotten the wrong impression, and I don’t know why a straight guy who’s sleeping with me would want to think that I’m gay.”

“Did you ever think that maybe he doesn’t want to think that, but he can’t help but think it?”

“Why can’t he?”

“Because maybe he’s right?”

The words left Jacobi’s lips so easily, it was as if he’d just been waiting to say them.

“No,” Lindsay countered in a slow drawl. “I was with Tom for six years. Did I ever show any indication of being anything other than completely straight?”

Lindsay held her breath until Jacobi shook his head and she sighed with relief.

“Can’t say that you did,” he admitted. “You seemed very much one half of a prototypical hetero couple.”

Lindsay bobbed her head in firm agreement.

“But…”

Of course he had one.

“There is always gay, and then there is newly gay,” Jacobi informed her.

“I’m neither,” Lindsay assured him, rolling suddenly tense shoulders, and trying not to show any fear. “But for the sake of discussion, what’s the difference?”

Jacobi seemed to find something delightful about the inquiry, smirking in response, and it peeved her greatly.

“Well, there’s Tom in HR…”

“Floral Print Tom?”

“That’s him,” Jacobi started as he nodded. “The one who wore the ‘Looking for Mr. Right’ t-shirt the day gay marriage passed, and had his entire bedroom decorated in boy band pictures all through high school.”

“You seem to know a lot about Floral Print Tom,” Lindsay teased.

As was his way in situations like this, Jacobi completely ignored the interruption.

“That’s always gay. Then there’s the really kind of conservative, even though you reside in the most liberal city in the country, and never really thought about it until a redheaded reporter weaseled her way inside of you with her enormous heart and her huge, sparkly bedroom eyes and made you think about it newly gay.”

Lindsay wanted to throw a tantrum, that’s what she wanted to do. And the more Jacobi said, the more she wanted to do it. As a kid, a passionate, unrestrained hissy fit always did make her feel better about an emotionally trying situation, and it had been quite a few years since she’d executed a proper one. If there were no other witnesses, Jacobi may very well have been watching her stomp around and pout like a preschooler who was unjustly exiled from the sandbox.

“I do not think about Cindy that way,” she said slowly and calmly instead, enunciating plainly so that Jacobi would comprehend. “Sounds to me like you’re the one who wants to sleep with her.”

“I never said that I didn’t. Think she’s interested?”

Jacobi grinned too broadly, and the disturbing, uninvited, memory of Cindy once describing Jacobi as sexy invaded her mind. She did everything in her power to unnarrow her eyes and wipe the scowl from her face, but it was too late. Her automatic reaction was already registered and cataloged in Jacobi’s ultra-vigilant mind.

“You should really watch that jealous streak,” Jacobi’s chuckle further increased her ire. “It might scare her off.”

With an audible growl, Lindsay pushed off the edge of the desk and petulantly trudged away.