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“Nick, you don’t understand!” Jess protests down the phone, “You can’t just bring it to me, it’s locked in my desk!”
“Knight, I keep telling you, it’s not a problem.”
Resisting the urge to bang her head against her steering wheel, she retorts, “It really is, Torres. I’d prefer you didn’t bust my desk to get it out.”
“Seriously Knight, I’m not gonna bust you’re desk. Just give me a sec and I’ll-“
Three quick thuds sound muffled down the phone then, “Aha! Got it!”
“Torres? Nick? What did you do?!”
“There’s a secret trick to getting into your top desk draw.”
The arrogance is clear in Nick’s voice and Jess rolls her eyes, asking indignantly, “And why do you know that but I don’t?”
“Well, I saw McGee do this to… this desk once.”
Jess might find his pause suspicious if she isn’t already almost positive she knows what it’s about anyway. It happens sometimes, when Nick goes to tell an old story but it involves a certain agent who used to sit at her desk and she knows he’d rather not think about.
She respects that but she will admit that she’s also curious. And she knows all this bottling up isn’t good for him.
“What were you trying to steal?”
“Hey, I wasn’t doing anything!”
Scoffing at his protestations, Jess murmurs, “Yeah, right.”
“I’d only been here a few months, barely knew anyone! McGee got all impulsive and couldn’t wait two seconds for… it to be unlocked so he could get his engagement ring out.”
Again, there’s that awkward pause, the shuffle around her name. It’s obvious who he’s talking about to anyone who knows him but he still refuses to acknowledge her existence.
Hoping that if she acts like nothing is wrong he might open up at little more, Jess asks incredulously, “Bishop was keeping McGee’s engagement ring? Why?!”
The longer Nick doesn’t reply, the more uneasy she feels but when he finally does speak, his voice is almost warm.
“He was turning into Gollum and it was nerd solidarity.”
“…okay then.”
If that was supposed to be an explanation, it wasn’t a very good one – and he still hasn’t actually said her name – but at least he’s no longer pretending Ellie never existed.
Baby steps, right?