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“Oh.” Nate looks at Sophie first—he knows that tone of voice, it’s just a question of whether it’s genuine or not. The look on her face says yes. Then he follows her gaze—
“What?” he asks. She’s watching the other three the same way she might watch a pile of kittens.
“I think it’s cute,” she says.
“What?” he repeats, irritated.
“You know, the flirting—”
“Flirting?” Eliot’s shoving Alec, hard, and Parker’s laughing at the both of them.
“Yeah.”
“Which ones?”
“All of them.” She waves her hand just a little, encompassing the trio without attracting their attention. Nate gives her one last look of questioning, then claps his hands to get everyone back on track.
--
“Alright, alright,” Nate says, responding to Sophie’s raised eyebrow and head tilt towards the couple at the bar. “I’ll admit it. They seem to be doing… Something.” Something romantic, or at least more than platonic. It’s Parker, so he still can’t quite wrap his mind around it, but they’re talking, and he’s willing to stay out of it as long as it doesn’t affect the dynamic of the crew. “That still doesn’t account for Eliot.”
Eliot, who spent the bulk of the job flirting with Jennifer Pearson. Who’s nowhere to be seen at the moment, which also means he had no part of this moment with Alec and Parker.
“Patience,” Sophie says, which is a way to answer the question without saying anything at all. Nate returns the raised-eyebrow-significant-head-tip look when Eliot gets hot and heavy with Kaye Lynn not two weeks later. She brushes it off with barely a blink.
--
The first time that Nate really starts to consider it as a possibility is when he finds Alec standing with his arms spread wide, staring off into the snow, and asks him what he’s doing.
“At least Eliot gave me a hug,” Alec says, as if it’s some measure of consolation.
--
There’s a certain point when Nate can’t say that Sophie’s wrong anymore. Not that he’s going to bring it up—he’s sure she’ll do it on her own, probably at the most inconvenient time. The only thing he can say is that Eliot doesn’t know it yet.
--
When the other three come back from DC, Eliot knows. Sophie meets his eyes, a small smile on her mouth. Just a little bit smug, and she’s happy for them at least as much as she is about being right. Nate doesn’t bother trying not to smile back.