DISCLAIMER: Women's Murder Club and its characters are the property of James Patterson, 20th Century Fox Television and ABC. No infringement intended.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
Cue Game
By Kristina K
Jill can't play pool to save her life. She holds the cue stick like she would hold a shovel and displays no precision whatsoever. And, after her third beer, she only gets clumsier.
The shirt she is wearing is Luke's and it's too big for her frame, too awkwardly sitting on her shoulders and too revealing of her cleavage, but so far Lindsay hadn't complained of that fact.
She takes her sweet time as she aims the cue ball at the ball number three to send it to the side pocket. Lindsay inhales deeply, propping herself against her cue, waiting for the inevitable because, honestly, Jill will miss that ball and all the rest of them with an aim like that. The cue ball finally hits the red one, makes a 'tok!' sound and then glides slowly towards the side pocket and stops without so much as grazing it.
"Ah, shucks!" Jill huffs with a childish thud of her boot against the floor and all Lindsay can do is stretch her lips into a wide smile.
"Move over," Lindsay drawls. She has a gum in her mouth and she chews on it like young Brando in The Wild One. As if her sleeves weren't rolled up high enough, she tugs on them even higher before she leans over the pool table and sets up for an aim. The tips of four fingers on her right hand dig into the felt, leaving her thumb sticking upwards as a bridge. She places the tip of the cue stick on it while she takes a firm but comfortable grip on cue's butt with her left hand.
Lindsay narrows her eyes: "Number nine, left corner pocket," she announces.
As Jill watches, everything slows down and she's not sure if the sudden slow motion is induced by too much alcohol on an empty stomach, or is her mind doing that thing minds usually do just as they get ready to take you to the fantasy land where Lindsay Boxer half sits, half leans against the pool table, tilts her head to the side and gives the swooning DDA that impish smile from under a loose strand of raven hair that just fell over her forehead. Lindsay's eyes scan her and she feels naked even though she's fully dressed, and Jill can tell what sort of thoughts are starting to form inside of the inspector's head by the way she squeezes that gum between her front teeth and then absently twirls it around her mouth with her tongue while her dark eyes so shamelessly roam Jill's body.
"Your turn." Lindsay's gum snaps loudly and Jill jerks as if startled from a dream. A daydream. Damnit.
All of Lindsay's balls are safely tucked in their pockets except for the eight ball, which managed to bounce off the pocket and make Lindsay lose her turn.
"Can we cut this short?" Jill asks, leaning heavily against her cue stick, "I'm starting to see twelve holes instead of six. No wonder I keep missing them."
"Are you submitting defeat?" Lindsay smirks.
"Offering a tie." Jill corrects.
"It's twenty-seven nothing in my advantage!"
"Exactly. You should be a gentleman and offer me a tie."
Lindsay snorts, "A gentleman?"
"Yes."
"And what do I get for being a gentleman?"
Slowly, Jill's mouth stretches out in a Cheshire cat grin. "Anything you want."
"You're drunk." Lindsay shakes her head with a smile. "You had three beers. You cannot be that drunk."
"And since when do you oppose a bit of liquid courage?" Jill challenges. "I missed lunch. And Claire caught me stealing an energy bar from her purse so I was deprived of an afternoon snack as well."
Setting her cue aside and reaching for Jill's to put it away as well, Lindsay exhales, "We need to get you into bed."
With a smile yet again bright on her face, Jill blinks sweetly at the taller woman, "My thoughts exactly. We should totally get into bed."
"Jill." Lindsay warns with an arch of her eyebrow, but with a bit of a smile tugging on the corner of her mouth, too.
Jill is nothing but innocence. "Lindsay."
"We have talked about this."
"No, you've talked about it," Jill reminds her, "I was just standing off side, pouting. And besides, the discussion took place while Luke and I were together. And guess what?" She pauses and then waves her hand in the air dramatically, "We're not together a-ny-more."
"So it makes it right, then?"
Jill's eyes narrow in that taunting manner and she breathes out, "You know how right it is."
Lindsay tsks and then stretches the gum contemplatively over the tongue with her front teeth. Jill knows how telling that move is.
"No." Lindsay finally says.
"No?" Jill frowns, taken aback. But, but, but…
"Yes. No."
"You are strangely and unusually dismissive," Jill accuses. "Is this about Cindy?"
Lindsay's eyes go wide. "What? No. Why would it be about Cindy?"
"Because it's not about Tom, since you're over him and everything. It can only be about the cute, little, meddling and awfully hard to hate crime desk reporter with red hair and sparkly eyes which never seem to do anything other than stare dreamily at you."
"Oh my god." Lindsay laughs. "You're insane."
"No, I'm drunk," Jill corrects, and suddenly she's actually very much sober, "and you're evasive. You know exactly what I'm talking about."
"And only way to prove you wrong is to sleep with you?"
"There doesn't have to be actual sleep involved, but..."
"No wordplay, please. Not when your blood alcohol level is elevated."
"Then what should I do, huh?" She steps closer and soon only a foot of space separates her from her inspector friend. "I'm pretty sure you know I didn't come over to play pool with you, seeing how eight-ball-or-any-other-variation-of-cue-game challenged I am. And I'm very sure you didn't invite me over to play and lose repeatedly just so you could feel good about yourself and so your tough-girl ego could go sky high. Am I right?"
"You're surprisingly expressive when you've had too much to drink."
"Again. Evasive. Stop it."
"I'm sorry," Lindsay mumbles, "But it has nothing to do with Cindy."
"Right." Jill smiles and closes in on Lindsay. Her fingers start at Lindsay's lapel and end up twirling a lock of Lindsay's hair between her fingers. "You're saying she wouldn't be insanely jealous and-or wilt like a stomped on flower if she were to know I was standing so close and doing this right now?" And by this she meant nuzzling her face in the crook of Lindsay's neck while her fingers moved from twirling that single strand onto balling a fistful of Lindsay's hair at the back of her neck.
"I seriously wouldn't know." Lindsay chuckles, with her eyes dangerously heavy-lidded.
Her lips attached to the side of Lindsay's throat muffle Jill's words. "Do you care?"
"Right now? Not particularly, no."
"Good." She smiles against Lindsay's skin and presses forward, opening a portal to that fantasy land she daydreamed about not so long ago, where there's Lindsay in all her cockiness, the dimmed lighting all around but very bright over the pool table, where there is her, kissing Lindsay in an urgent and hungry manner and where Lindsay kisses back just as hungrily. "How about that bed, now?" Jill manages to breathe out.
"Since there will be no actual sleeping involved," Lindsay rushes in between popping open two last buttons on Jill's – formerly Luke's – shirt, "I'd say pool table will serve for the purpose just fine."
The End