TITLE: A Conversation with Tom About Sexuality
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 handled that, uh, thing you asked me to handle.”

“Thing?” Tom countered, face contorting in obvious confusion as he glanced up from his desk. “What thing?”

“You know… the thing… for the case. You asked me to take care of it.”

There had to have been something he’d requested from her, so why did he just keep sitting there looking at her with such damned bewilderment?

“You asked Claire about cause of death?” Tom hesitantly ventured.

“Yeah,” Lindsay nodded gratefully. “I mean, she doesn’t know yet, but I did ask. I just thought you’d want to know.”

“O-kay… great. Thanks for the update.”

Tom turned his attention back to his paperwork, and it very easily could have served as opportunity to avoid what was certain to be a remarkably uncomfortable conversation altogether. But instead of taking it, as would have been the wise, easy and rational thing to do, Lindsay hovered in the doorway, neither entering nor leaving Tom’s office.

When Tom looked up several moments after what should have been the end of their exchange, he seemed rather surprised to find her still standing there. So much for his exemplary cop skills.

“Was there something else?” he asked.

The question engaged Lindsay’s fight or flight reflex as surely as if Tom had bared his teeth and growled in her direction.

“Uh… no,” she threw out quickly, spinning on her heel. She cleared the few short strides it took her to the top of the steps, before pausing on the precipice, changing her mind once again, and retracing them to the doorway of Tom’s office. “Yes.”

Her surprise reappearance jerked Tom’s head back up.

“Okay,” he said, relaxing back in a casual manner that totally contradicted Lindsay’s own wound-up state.

With a quick glance backward, she stepped inside the office, pushing the door closed behind her. As if anticipating a big secret in response to the unusual action, Tom noticeably perked up.

“What is it?”

“Let me ask you a question,” Lindsay started cautiously.

“Alright,” Tom responded, motioning to the chair across from his desk.

Far too tense to sit, and trying to keep it easy to do so should she have to flee the conversation, Lindsay waved off his offer, crossing her arms over her chest instead.

“This is kind of awkward,” she warned, before setting her jaw tight and diving right in. “But… during our marriage… did I ever show any indication… at all… that I might not be entirely… you know… straight?”

For a second, Tom looked stunned, like she’d just smacked him across the cheek with a leather glove and challenged him to a duel. Then he broke into a somewhat embarrassed snigger.

“No,” he responded.

It should have been relieving. It was, after all, what she wanted to hear. So why did the notion that Tom found the question so amusing vex the hell out of her?

“No?” Lindsay asked with a roll of the shoulders that seemed only to increase her tension.

“No,” Tom repeated. “I never noticed any signs that you were anything other than straight when we were married.”

“Oh,” Lindsay nodded, with a smile that felt oddly forced. “Good.”

So, much as she suspected, everyone who thought they knew something was just completely off.

Who’d been closer to her than Tom? Arguably, Jacobi and Jill and Claire and… Cindy… were closer to her now, but, when they were married, if there were something to see, Tom really should have seen it.

And he didn’t.

He didn’t see anything. So, Pete and Jacobi, maybe they were both just totally incorrect in their off-the-wall assumptions about her feelings for Cindy. Women’s friendships looked different than men’s. It’s no wonder they thought they saw something more. Just because she and Cindy had gotten fairly close didn’t necessarily mean that they were on the path to anything closer.

That thought, which brought with it an unexpectedly bitter aftertaste, along with a myriad of others, were bounding so rapid-fire through her head, Lindsay nearly missed Tom’s next, unsolicited, pronouncement.

“Cindy was definitely the first indication.”

Stop. Wait. What did he just…

“Oh my God!” Lindsay exclaimed. “She is so not an indication of anything.”

“She’s not?” Tom asked, appearing honestly surprised.

“No.”

“No?”

“No!”

“Linds,” he uttered gently. “It’s okay. You can tell me stuff.”

Could I smack that charitable grin off your face too? Would that be okay?

She didn’t say it, but looking across the office at him and his ridiculously sympathetic expression, she couldn’t help the thought.

“There is nothing to tell. I have no idea why…” she broke off, flailing for words. “I don’t know what it is you think you are seeing, but Cindy and I… there’s nothing. I mean, we’re friends… but that’s all.”

“Really,” Tom was suddenly disappointed.

“Yes, really.”

Lindsay gritted her teeth. Not out of anger, but because, due to everyone’s persuasive conviction that there was something happening that wasn’t happening, it felt as if she was lying.

“Wow… okay.”

“You don’t believe me,” Lindsay mumbled.

“No,” Tom returned. “I’m just surprised. I actually thought she was more than an indication. That’s why I deferred to you on using her as a decoy. I thought you had a right to decide whether or not we put your girlfriend in danger.”

“Cindy is not my girlfriend!”

What in the hell was wrong with all these people?!?

“Sorry.” Tom held his hands up in front of him, shielding himself from her wrath. “My mistake.”

He could have been more convincing in his apology. As it was, Lindsay didn’t believe him in the slightest.

But that was hardly the worrisome part.

What scared her was that, throughout the majority of their conversation, she didn’t believe much of what she had said either.