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It’s a fine day at the office for the thirty seconds it takes Grace to get to her desk, across from Wayne, with Cho behind that, and then last night’s dinner conversation comes crashing in like a freight train. She doesn’t know how she ever forgot. She spent the whole car ride home dissecting every word of Wayne’s theory. She lay awake eyeing the ceiling, picturing the office, the very place she currently stands but with only Cho and Jane around. Then she fell asleep, woke up, took a shower, had breakfast, got all the way to the office, sees both the gossip monger and the gossip’s subject, and all she can think is—is Wayne right? Are Cho and Jane sleeping together?
At dinner, she’d choked on her water and nearly spit it out. A violent coughing fit later, she told Wayne he was crazy. He was more concerned with her well being than convincing her he was right. But once he said it, that’s all she could think about. All they talked about for the rest of the dinner. She demanded evidence, some concrete reason for his absurd accusation, and he shrugged noncommittally and told her it was just a feeling. Detective’s instinct. There’s no way he’s right. Grace shouldn’t even entertain the thought—it’s unprofessional to pry into the private lives of her coworkers. It’s immoral to project an illicit relationship onto her peers. It’s reprehensible to picture them naked, next to each other in bed, Jane rolling onto his side and propping his handsome face up one hand to flash Cho a coy wink and a smile. Cho’s smiles are rare, but maybe a naked Patrick Jane would be one of the few things that could weasel them out of him.
Wayne glances up from his desk, casting her a puzzled look—she’s standing there, hand on the back of her chair, frozen as she blinks between him and Cho. Cho pays her no mind, as usual. She should pay him no mind. He’s all over her mind and that’s all Wayne’s fault, and she’d glare at him if she weren’t too flustered to function. She blurts something like, “Coffee,” and spins on her heel, meaning to make a hasty escape to the washroom and splash cold water on her face.
Except she walks right into a solid wall of man. She yelps and reels back a fraction too late. Jane makes a choked noise and steps back too, fumbling an upturned teacup and catching it right before it hits the floor. The plate underneath slips through his fingers and clatters noisily against the linoleum. Hitting his hands and shoe must’ve cushioned the impact, because it doesn’t shatter. Grace tenses, expecting a break. Expecting it all to break. There’s a pool around the plate and a streak of damp fabric down Jane’s pant leg. At least it’s to the side, not his crotch, so it doesn’t look like that kind of accident. But it is on his waistcoat. All over the place.
He gingerly twists around Grace to set the empty cup on the corner of her desk and starts stripping out of his jacket, then that waistcoat, and it’s soaked through to his white undershirt. The pale fabric shows the stain more noticeably than his dark grey pants. Grace is frozen in shame and guilt and can barely stutter out, “Oh my god, I... I’m so sorry...”
“Eh, it’s fine,” Jane tells her, as casually as he’ll tell them the weather or a murderer’s secret identity. He doesn’t look the least bit worried, even though she’s ruined a fine suit. He even spares her a smile as he comically shakes his pant leg out. “It’s fine; accidents happen, even to the most graceful.”
“I didn’t... I’m sorry. I’ll... I’ll go grab a towel...”
He waves her off and saunters right around her, leaving the plate and a trail of drip marks. She swivels to watch him approach Cho’s desk, and then he inexplicably demands, “Cho, give me your shirt.”
Grace’s brow furrows. Wayne visibly stiffens. Cho, fully dressed in his own tan suit and white button-up, not all that dissimilar to Jane’s, bluntly says, “No.” He doesn’t bat an eye at the odd request. He doesn’t look over. He simply keeps typing on his computer like a disheveled blond menace isn’t looming conspicuously close to his personal space. Jane chuckles like the rejection’s par for the course and cute.
“C’mon, don’t make me take Rigsby’s. Do you really want to see me in another man’s clothes?”
Grace would do a double take if she weren’t already staring. He says it with such ease, like all of them care deeply about whose clothes they’re all wearing. It would’ve sounded strange without Wayne’s wild speculation still ringing in her ears, but with that new groundless theory, she can’t help seeing ground. Does that mean something? Jane has that twinkle in his eye like it does. Like Cho, specifically, should care whose closet Jane raids. If Jane uses another man. But Jane always has a twinkle in his eye and teases everyone all the time.
Cho doesn’t respond like a man who cares whose clothes anyone wears. Or like a man who cares that a particularly attractive man is stripping next to him, unbuttoning a stained shirt with almost sinful slowness and elegance. Cho doesn’t respond at all. Jane makes it a whole show, like he does everything, fingering one button after another, exposing rosy peach skin small swath by swath. So of course Grace is glued to the sight. Even Wayne is. Cho isn’t.
Wayne interjects, “I wouldn’t give you mine either.”
Eyes only on Cho, burning into the side of his uninterested head, Jane counters, “I could hypnotize it off you in seconds.” The shirt falls and hangs open, clinging to Jane’s shoulders, and Grace is disappointed in herself for being disappointed it doesn’t come the rest of the way off. Jane’s hands gingerly find his hips.
Cho tells him, “Do it, then.”
“I’d rather have yours.”
Wayne, sounding genuinely offended, asks, “What’s wrong with mine?” Which shouldn’t but somehow makes Grace think: does he want Jane in his clothes? Like a man wanting to see their girlfriend in their sweater? But that’s all ridiculous and she needs to stop.
Jane still doesn’t do Wayne the courtesy of looking over, but tells Cho, “He sweats too much. You smell nicer.”
He was only just coming over when she came in, tea freshly brewed, not like he’d been around either Wayne or Cho long enough to get a proper whiff, and the only thing she can smell from where she’s standing is a faint hint of Wayne’s aftershave. No sweat or cologne or whatever Cho smells like. Which makes her think that Jane instinctively knows what Cho smells like. And likes it. And that doesn’t have to mean anything but she’s already spiraling. Cho deadpans, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Now give me your shirt.”
“Then what would I wear?”
“Why do you need to wear anything?” Grace chokes. Jane continues, with a vaguely reasonable explanation instead of just trying to get Cho naked: “You’re sitting at your desk, inside, alone with people who know you well enough to give you the benefit of the doubt and understand your situation. I’m the one Lisbon’s about to drag out on a case. I need to be dressed for it.”
They don’t have any active cases that require an immediate field trip. Wayne starts to ask, “What ca—” But Cho says over him, “That sounds like a you problem.”
Jane snorts, grinning from ear to ear, all gleaming white teeth and sparkling eyes and that sort of enticing glow that sucks everyone in and could charm absolutely anyone except, apparently, Kimball Cho. Jane playfully groans, “Cho, sweetie, honey, let’s not play games like this; just give me your shirt already.”
Cho’s in the middle of another stone-cold, “No,” when Lisbon appears next to Grace. Even with Jane having foretold her coming, it still makes Grace jump. But she might just be jumpy. She’s on edge. She really meant to go grab a towel.
Lisbon tells them all, “Look alive, people; we just got a new case. Rigsby, Jane, you’re with me. Van Pelt, Cho, I want you on standby; I need you to look into—” Mid-sentence, she dips into a withered, “Jane, why is your shirt open?”
Jane quips, “Because Cho’s being stubborn.”
And Grace corrects, “Sorry, boss, it’s my fault—”
But Jane insists, “No, it’s not; yours would never fit me.”
Grace blinks. In the corner of her eye, she can see Wayne looking pointedly at her, eyes wide, brows up, chin down, that hushed “I told you so” look that she doesn’t understand. Surely if they were sleeping together, Cho would’ve just given Jane his shirt. Except then he’d be shirtless. Which would be ridiculous, even at the office. She should’ve just gotten towels. Jane could go home and grab a new one. It’s all ridiculous.
Except, while everyone’s turned to Lisbon, and Lisbon’s glaring at Jane, Grace could swear she catches Cho throwing Jane’s bare chest a lightning-quick once over. An appraising, approving eye. Which he wouldn’t need to do if they were already sleeping together and intimately knew that sight. Assuming they don’t make love with their clothes on. Although one could easily see Patrick Jane naked a hundred times and still want more, or maybe it’s those dazzling eyes and that winning smile playing tricks on her like usual. Or playing tricks on Wayne. He must just be projecting.
Lisbon shakes her head, dismissing all the nonsense with an impervious strength Grace could only hope for. She tells Jane, “We’ll stop by the lost and found. Let’s go.”
And Jane tragically sighs, “They won’t smell as good,” but follows.