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As he was making his way out of Café Diem, Jack Carter paused to cast a worried glance back over his shoulder at his friend Jo Lupo. Jo was sitting in the far corner of the restaurant, near the door to the kitchen, waiting for her carry out order. She was hunched over the counter, drumming her fingers against her arms and glaring at the wall in front of her. She was also dramatically, ostentatiously even, not looking at the man with the bandage on his forehead sitting further along the curving counter.
The man, Zane Donovan, was casting apprehensive glances at Jo while playing with his coffee mug. Jack thought he looked like a man screwing up his courage to throw down for a fight he wasn’t sure of winning.
Jack wished he had even the slightest idea of how to help them out of their obvious distress. Jo was probably one of the best friends he’d ever had in his life, been there for his lowest lows and had his back always, even that one time when she was the one who pulled the trigger. She’d been walking around with a swing in her step and a gleam in her eye for the last month or more. He’d been enormously relieved that she’d finally made her peace with all that had changed since everything else, well, changed. So he hated seeing her shoulders creep back up to her ears as her back knotted with tension. Especially because he finally understood what, or rather who, had been making her smile. He’d thought it was her commendation from Mansfield, and that probably was part of it. But most of it was Zane. Zane was making her smile. In the most old-fashioned of ways.
As for Zane, the man with the bandage, he had fallen in love with Jo. Jack was positive about this. There was no other explanation for the look on the poor guy’s face. And after today’s near disaster? Jack also believed that Jo loved Zane. Not the old version of Zane, who was a good guy but also an unbelievably arrogant little shit who took her far too much for granted, a new Nathan Stark in the making, but this one. New Zane. In all his much more screwed up, banged up glory. Not that either she or he appeared remotely ready to even acknowledge their feelings, much less deal with them.
Romantic complications were not in Jack’s ballpark. His best call was to suggest to Jo that she just let things be for a while. Don’t make any decisions that couldn’t be walked back. He hoped she’d been listening, but Jo wasn’t very good at patience. Or uncertainty. Jack sighed and turned for the door. He had done all he could. It had been another catastrophe-barely-averted, Eureka sort of day and now he was going home. A broad smile stole across his face. He didn’t actually skip, but he felt it on the inside. Allison and the kids were waiting for him.
Jo stared at the wall, knowing she had to turn around and deal with Zane. Only, she had no idea would happen when she did. What she wanted to do right now and what she knew she ought to do right now were so different that she felt like she was being ripped apart at the cellular level. She wasn’t exactly sure what that would feel like, of course, but it always sounded horrible when Henry said it. She surely felt horrible right now.
What she wanted was easy. She wanted to twist her fist into Zane’s shirt and drag him into the nearest, most secluded place she could find and fuck him until neither one of them could walk without staggering on rubbery legs. Reassuring herself with her hands and her mouth and her body that he was safe and alive and whole and not blown to bits along with the rest of Main Street.
She had nearly lost him, again, today. It had terrified her, left her almost unable to think, to work, or to give her entire attention to averting the crisis at hand. She’d gotten a grip on herself, of course, and the day was saved. But the waves of panic had only receded when she planted herself at his side. Today, that worked out fine. It turned out that was exactly where she needed to be. But there was no guarantee things would always work out like that.
Which was a huge fricking problem. If she couldn’t do her job properly because of her feelings for him, then she had to choose. Him or the job.
The job was what she had. Everything she had in this timeline. She’d turned out to be damn good at it, and she was getting even better, every day. It gave her opportunities to grow and shine in ways her old deputy job never could, stuck forever as Jack’s second. Her last quarterly evaluation since the time travelling had even earned her a formal commendation from Mansfield himself.
Zane, well, he liked her. He liked having sex with her. A lot, she smirked briefly to herself. He liked having sex with her a whole lot. But he hadn’t by look or word or deed offered even the smallest hint that he wanted anything more than a lot of really, really great sex. Which meant she didn’t have him. Not really. Not like before. And continuing to sleep with him was just confusing matters. So. The job. Her job. It had to come first.
All she had to do was stick to her guns, she told herself. The sexual part of their relationship had to end. This time. Finally. For real. Before things got any more out of hand. Before she was truly incapable of doing the one good thing she had left. No matter that it was the last thing in the world she wanted to do. It was what she had to do, for her sanity and his.
Surely the friendship they’d been developing would survive that? And if it didn’t, if the only thing he’d wanted from her was heaping amounts of No-Strings-Attached sex after all, well, then fuck him. He wasn’t worth her job.
Zane was almost as tense as Jo. He could not remember ever in his life being this nervous about his near-term prospects with a woman. Normally he would have cut and run weeks ago. Only, he liked his days, and his nights, filled with Jo Lupo. A lot. He didn’t want that to change. He wanted, in fact, for it to get easier. But before it could get easier, he had to get her to agree. The challenge, at this moment, was she wasn’t even looking at him.
Today had been a hell of a day. It began, as all good days began lately, in bed with Jo. She’d been a little peeved that it happened to be her bed, in her room at Jack’s house, but not so peeved as to throw him out. Jo had needs, she did, and Zane, he was an excellent provider.
Once he got to GD, his latest project started out its beta run brilliantly, performing beyond even his most ambitious projections. Which was about when Jo had arrived to announce, again, that last night, or rather, this morning, was the last time. No more sex for them. It was all out of her system. Thanks and so long.
He hadn’t believed her any more than any of the other times she’d announced this. Rather less, in fact, and after almost two months he was getting a bit tired of the charade. He had understood why she was trying so hard to keep everything casual. Why she didn’t want their relationship – whatever it was – to be community knowledge. At least at first. Between their tangled pasts and their current present, it seemed the smart move for them to figure out what they wanted from each other before they went public.
Sneaking around, like they were crazy high school kids rather than grown ass adults, had even been sort of fun. He’d skipped high school and so missed out on that particular adventure when he was fifteen. But the novelty had worn thin. He wanted to just date her, like a mostly normal guy with a mostly normal sort of life. Which was maybe why he had accidentally on purpose run into Jack and Allison on his way out of SARAH this morning. Trying to force Jo’s hand, without getting into a fight about it.
Then Fargo did something stupid. GD had to be evacuated. Civilians rushed to the shelters. The town saved with less than five seconds to spare. Not par for the course, exactly, but well within the range of possibilities for Eureka. Exciting, if you were into that sort of thing. Which, he was discovering, he kind of was.
Only, in the middle of everything, he and Jo did have a fight. It was about her withholding crucial information relating to the crisis of the moment. She had substituted her judgment for his about what he needed to know. About his own damn program. That…couldn’t happen again. Not if he was going to be continuing to expand the scope of his responsibilities at GD. Which he fully expected to be doing. He wouldn’t second-guess her or the way she did her job, but she could not manage him so much he couldn’t do his. That put too many other people at risk.
Before they could deal with that, though, they had to actually be talking. Not staring hopelessly in opposite directions. God, did dating suck. Which is why he’d spent his entire life avoiding it. Too bad he had no intention of avoiding Lupo. Or letting her avoid him.
‘Give me a sign,’ Zane thought hard at her back. ‘Just one sign. Then I’ll know how to begin.’
Jo knew if she turned, and looked at him, their eyes would meet. If their eyes met, he would come over to her. If he came over to her, he would smile. If he smiled, she would smile back. He would be charming. She would be awkward and uncertain. He would get a little anxious. Which would make her anxious. More anxious. More likely to stick her foot in it again.
Jo could still hear the hurt in his voice, from earlier that day. She’d said something panicky and mean in the stress of the moment. He’d recoiled instantly, demanding to know, “why you gotta be like that?”
She didn’t want to hear that hurt again, knowing she had caused it. Which was yet another reason to end all the emotionally confusing sex business. A spark, no matter how hot, was no reason to drag out the inevitable crash and burn. Not the friendship, she insisted to herself. Just the sex. And the sex was, after all, just sex. Just really fantastic sex. No love. See? No hurt. Easy, right? She would just explain it to him, carefully and thoroughly, and he would agree that she was right.
Then Zane would be safe. Her job would be safe. GD safe. Eureka safe. Everybody safe. Easy.
The sign Zane was waiting for arrived, as it so often did with Jo, suddenly. She spun on her stool, leaned her elbows back against the counter, swung one leg across the other, and met his eyes. She raised her brow and asked, “Tired of staring?”
“Not really,” he replied, a faintly sheepish grin tugging at his mouth.
She snorted quietly, then nodded at the empty seat next to her. “Well, when you are.”
He wasted no time in accepting the invitation. He had no idea why she’d decided to stop ignoring him. He was very glad she had, of course. Now he had a chance to engage his own preemptive measures.
“Hey,” he said, taking the seat.
“Hi,” she replied, spinning back around, her eyes seeking safety in the wall again, gearing up to begin. She’d thought she might have a few more minutes to get her words in order. His sudden move left her tongue-tied.
Allies, Zane had decided. That was the strategy. Put them on the same team, not opposite sides. Get her home, naked, in bed. Then later, when she was relaxed and getting sleepy, they could, he hoped, have a short conversation about work related information sharing. As in. All of it. Always.
“So. What did you tell Carter about us?”
“About what?” she turned to look at him, startled by his question.
“About us?” he said, gesturing between them. “I need to know. So we can keep our stories straight.”
“Stories! We have no stories!” she exclaimed.
“Ah,” he nodded sagely. “Truth then?”
Jo glared at him. “I told him it was over. Between you and me. That last night was it. That it was out of my system.”
“Hmm.” He raised his brow in faux consideration. Situational deafness was definitely another one of his go-to tactics. It’d been working really well for weeks. She’d announce she was done, curiosity satisfied, no more sex. Friends, no benefits from here on out. He’d ignore her words, pay attention to her flushed cheeks and hot eyes, and decide to assume they were still on. He hadn’t been wrong yet. And right now? Flushed cheeks and hot eyes. “So you’re planning on sneaking in again tonight.”
“No!” Jo felt the ground tilting under feet. This was not going how she planned. Never went as she planned. Not that she’d had a very much of a plan. Stick to your guns was a great theory. So was ‘explain yourself.’ But both were a little short on actual step-by-step instructions. A little short on ways to keep her pulse from speeding up or her glance from dropping to his mouth. Ways to keep from thinking about the feel of his hands on her skin. She’d blown it every day this week, for fuck’s sake. What on earth had made her think this was going to work now? “No!” she insisted, again. She couldn’t quite bring herself to meet his eyes.
“Hey. Whatever.” He said. “The whole teenagers-hiding-from-dad thing has a certain appeal. I get that.”
“I’m not sneaking in.” She tried to sound firm. Instead she sounded exactly like a high school girl being teased by her boyfriend. How the hell did he do that to her?
Job. She needed to concentrate on her job.
“You’re spending the whole night with me?” Zane grinned happily at her, knowing full well it wasn’t what she’d meant, but he was charging through whatever door she opened. “I’d like that.” He sincerely would. The nearly dying part of the day had reminded him, in case he needed any reminding, that time was precious and that he shouldn’t waste any of it.
“Zane!”
“Okay.” He shrugged, “I can come home with you, but I overheard Vince and it sounds like Carter’s got the whole Blake clan over right now. My place will be quieter. And more private.” He fixed his expression into one of thoughtful consideration. “I think you should come home with me.”
“This morning was it,” she hissed. “It is over.”
He leaned closer, getting well inside her space, to murmur, “I definitely do not recall you throwing me out of bed this morning. In fact, what I do recall is your very firm request that I not stop…”
“Okay,” Jo interrupted him, a blush heating her cheeks, warmth blossoming somewhere below her belly. “Yes. I remember.” She did. Vividly. Damn him.
“Did he ask how long we’ve been sneaking around?” Zane asked, returning to a safer distance. To Jo’s relief.
Jo looked everywhere but at him. Was it just instinct, or something more that made him zero in on her weakest points, time and time again?
“Ah,” he said, understanding immediately. “What did you tell him?”
Her voice was dry and a bit choked and she didn’t look up from her hands, even as she shrugged, a failed attempt at casual unconcern. “You know. Five or six weeks.”
“That is… a really interesting way of counting to eight.”
“Eight!”
“Eight.”
“No way.”
Zane caught sight of Holly Marten and Isaac Parish, who had just entered the restaurant. Allies in his cause. Not that they knew that, but who cared? “Holly!” he called loudly, spinning on his stool to face her, “How long have you been in Eureka? Lupo and I have a bet going.”
“Seven weeks, five days.” Holly replied promptly. “Oh, and twelve hours,” she looked at her watch, “thirty…seven minutes.” Then she smiled brightly, looking back and forth between them. “Who won?”
Zane grinned triumphantly. “I won.”
“What did you win?” Holly asked, all eager curiosity.
Zane turned to look at Jo, taking no small delight in her obvious frustration. Whatever the game, Lupo really hated losing. “That’s up to Lupo, here.” His tone and expression were as gleefully insinuating as he could make them. Which was a lot. He had been practicing most of his life.
“Oh.” Holly looked doubtful. She was sure she’d missed something. Security Chief Lupo and Zane Donovan had a really intense relationship. Even Holly could sense that. She was just never sure if they were going to yell at each other or have sex. Or yell at each other and then have sex. She liked to be sure. Ambiguity made her nervous. They made her nervous.
Her companion, Isaac Parish, hadn’t missed anything at all. Unlike many physical scientists he was more than capable of accurately interpreting human interactions. He just didn’t care. For a while now he had suspected that Donovan and the Enforcer were quietly banging away. For the better part of two years the man had a steady parade of new women dropping by Parish’s lab whenever he had a project there. They carried coffee in their hands and invitations in their eyes. But for months now, the only woman who came by was Lupo. That her hands were usually empty and her eyes often full of irritation didn’t change the facts on the ground. But they hadn’t made it his business or interfered with his work, so he was happy to ignore their personal lives as thoroughly as they ignored his. He cleared his throat and gently steered Holly away to a booth on the other side of the room.
Zane leaned into Jo and dropped his voice, “What do I win?”
Jo sighed deeply. Hoping it camouflaged the faint shudder that rocked through her when he accidently on purpose, damn him, leaned against her shoulder as he whispered in her ear. Her fingers itched to seize his shirt and pull him close so she could kiss him. He wasn’t dead. He wasn’t blown to bits.
Maybe Jack was actually right, this time, she thought. Just be in the moment. God knew it was what she really wanted to do. Be with Zane. No labels. Then they could talk about the job. How to handle it. That might even be easier and more productive than her repeatedly announcing an end she couldn’t stick and him learning to ignore her declarations in favor of welcoming her kisses. “Fine. But…”
He interrupted her before she could continue. “Good. We do need to talk. But other things first, yeah?”
She turned her head to look at him, surprised by his sudden shift in tone. His face and voice were serious, his eyes firmly on hers and not dropping to her lips at all. If he hadn’t still been leaning against her, his shoulder warm and strong and so very, very present, she might have wondered if she were dreaming. Would this actually work? Talking about how their professional lives intersected?
God she had been so stupid today, when she didn’t tell him all she saw on the PALS, and then told him she didn’t care. It was mean and hurtful and not even true. “Right. I’m sorry.”
He closed his hand over hers, stilling her nervous fingers. “I’m glad, but that’s not the point.”
“What is the point?”
She looked confused. Because she was Jo and she hated being confused, she also looked faintly irritated. So he explained quickly, “We both have jobs to do at GD. And we need to work together to do them well.”
Jo was too astonished to make a sound.
“But, in the meantime,” he rushed on, “I won! I also saved your life. So we have celebrating to do first,” he grinned.
Jo recovered instantly, as he’d hoped she would. “I saved your life before you saved mine! Everyone’s life, actually!” she declared, her spine snapping straight and her eyes shinning with indignation.
He grinned easily at her, pretty sure now that his plan was going to work.
They continued to squabble gently about who was more responsible for saving the other while they waited for their orders. They were still squabbling when they left a few minutes later, take out boxes in hand.
They seemed to be quite unaware of the number of eyes that followed their progress. Including those of the owner of Café Diem.
Vincent shook his head as he watched them go. He’d considered putting their meals in single box. To put them on notice. They were observed. Their secrets were less secret by the day. Practically by the hour.
He dithered too long and his nerve failed him. But now he watched as Zane held the door for her with one shoulder, his other hand moving to the middle of Lupo’s back, to usher her through. Vincent noticed, because he was an observant sort of man, that Lupo didn’t even loose a beat. Still talking, still walking. No glaring, no tasing, no outrage. Like it was the most natural thing in the world for Zane Donovan to put a possessive, sheltering, guiding hand on the small of Jo Lupo’s back. For him to take the outside of the sidewalk as they passed by the windows. To behave, in short, like a man courting a woman who welcomed his attention.
Next time, Vincent thought. One box. Definitely.