Chapter 92: May 2014
“How was the shopping trip?” Tim called out when he heard
the door shut.
He was in his office, jazz playing loud, staring at the
proof version of The Traitor Within. He hated this part of it. Writing the
story in the first place, lot of fun. Editing, that was pretty good, too; it
was always interesting to see what another set of eyes thought was happening.
Proofreading? He’d rather watch paint dry. Tim had already seen the book so
many times he could barely see what was on the page, and when things did jump
out at him, they were usually the sort of change that was so big he couldn’t
make it.
This point in the journey there were no real rewrites, it
was just fine tuning, like spelling issues or turning a comma into a semi-colon.
He also didn’t much like this phase because he was fifty
thousand words into Deep Six part five and he really didn’t like stopping that
dead to go back to Deep Six part four.
“A lot of fun!” Abby said as she came in. “Tony’s got really
good taste in jewelry.”
She sat on the edge of the desk, one foot resting between
his legs on the seat of his chair, turning him away from the proof and toward
her.
“Glad to hear it.” He bent forward and kissed her knee,
resting his chin on it, looking up at her. “Good to know one of us had a fun
afternoon. Ziva going to be happy?”
“I think so. Unless she was lying about loving sapphires.”
“What’s it look like?”
Abby took her phone out of her pocket. “He made me promise
to delete this after you saw it. Doesn’t want her running into it by accident
or by snooping on my phone.”
“He thinks she might snoop?”
“I get the sense he didn’t come up with a great excuse for
why the three of us were out this afternoon.”
“Why were you three out?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask what our cover story was.”
Tim shook his head. “Amateurs.”
“Breena and I are bad liars to begin with. Everyone is better
off if we don’t get asked, than if we end up having to try and cover.” She
finished flipping through the images on her phone and showed him the ring.
He stared at it, smiling. “It’s beautiful.”
“Yeah.”
He looked at it for another minute. Round cut white diamond,
some sort of white setting metal, a ring of sapphires around the diamond, and a
small, round, white diamond at either side.
“What’s the setting?”
“White gold.”
He nodded, then shook his head a little, wry amusement on
his face. “How big is it?”
Abby held up her fingers about a quarter of an inch apart. “Why
are you shaking your head?”
“One of his goals was to outspend me on an engagement ring.
I think he might have.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Really?”
“That’s what he told me. Ziva went with me to buy the
stones, so that was his absolute minimum price.”
Abby rolled her eyes a little. “That’s silly.”
“I told him that, too.”
She looked at the ring on her finger. Then thought about
what Tony spent. “Do I want to know how much this cost?”
“Depends,” Tim said with a smile. “Are you going to slap me
upside the back of the head if I went a little bonkers on it?”
“No. But by ‘a little bonkers’ do you mean ‘a little’ or
‘full blown insane?’”
He leaned back in his chair, fingers tracing down her leg. “Probably
closer to ‘full blown insane’ than a ‘little.’ You like it?”
“I love it.”
He grinned. “Then ‘full blown insane’ was exactly what I
needed to do.”
She smiled at him and looked at her ring again.
“Do you want to know?”
“Nah.”
She shifted her gaze to his proof copy and the very few red
marks on the page. “How’s it going?”
“Slow.” He stuck out his tongue and rolled his eyes. “Two
hundred more pages to go.”
“Yippiee!” Tim truly appreciated the amount of sarcasm she
managed to work into that one word.
“Exactly. What’s on for the rest of your day?”
“What’s your deadline for that?”
“Nine on Monday.”
Abby looked disappointed. “So you actually need to finish
it?”
“Yeah.” The whole paying for the wedding thing would be
significantly easier with a pile of cash, and they weren’t going to send him
any more of it until the proof was marked up and sent back.
“In that case, Bioshock 3.”
Yeah, it came out months ago, but their game backlog is
pretty steep these days. They only got into it a week earlier and it was
awesome! He stared at her for a minute, images of sitting next to her, playing
it with her in his head. “You’re killing me.”
She smiled widely at him. “You got to play for three hours
on Friday while I was trapped in the lab.”
“True.” And because of that she’d be mostly going through
bits he’d already done, still… Bioshock!
“You going to be able to break for dinner?”
He checked the clock, four hours until they usually ate. Two
hundred pages of careful reading to go. “Yeah. This goes well, we might be able
to play together after dinner.”
“Ohhh!”
Being on the other side of the your-buddy-is-getting-engaged
thing was pretty cool. First off, it’s always easier to be the sounding board
than it is to be the guy coming up with the ideas in the first place. Second of
all, and granted, it wasn’t like Abby was going to say no, but still, when
you’re the buddy, there’s no risk involved, and that’s pretty nice. Thirdly, he
is really, genuinely pleased that Tony’s feeling ready to take this step, and
he’s happy about it.
Really happy.
Which might be why Ziva’s a bit suspicious when he more or
less wrestled the keys away from her and drove them, very slowly, back from
gathering evidence on May 22, 2014.
She “knew” Tony had made reservations to take them out for
their anniversary, and Tim, very carefully driving ten miles an hour below the
speed limit, making them later and later for that dinner was driving her crazy.
What she didn’t know, and Tim did, and why he was driving so
slow, is that Tony, as soon as possible, had booked home and was getting their
real dinner set up. Sure it was take out, but it was really good take out, and
though Tony hadn’t been too specific about his plans with Tim, he’s fairly sure
the whole apartment will be decked out in flowers and candles and all the rest
of the traditional Hallmark card/Valentine’s Day style romance that Tony seems
to do so well.
So, Tim’s job, as soon to be best man, is to deliver Ziva to
Tony’s place as slowly as possible, making sure he’s had time to get everything
set up.
And Tim’s doing a good job of it. Even though at this point
she’s getting awfully close to threatening to shoot him.
“McGee, if you do not speed up I will… That’s the exit! Why
are you driving me past our exit? I have to get back to my car, home, and
changed, and Tony’s going to be there in less than half an hour.”
“Relax. Check your go bag.”
She’s glaring at him, but digs through her bag. He looks
away from traffic for a second and sees her come up with a pink envelope. She
slits it with the knife Tony had made for her, unfolds the paper inside, and
reads it quickly.
“It says, ‘Don’t kill McGee.’ Why is Tony giving me a piece
of paper with instructions not to kill you?”
Tim shrugged. When Tony told him that once Ziva started
asking questions to let her know about the note, he had certainly expected
there to be something more than “Don’t kill McGee” in there as well.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Tony’s.”
“And why are you doing that?”
“He asked me to.”
“And did he ask you to drive at this infuriatingly slow
pace?”
“Actually, yes, he did.”
She sighed and glared at him again. He grinned at her.
“And what is going to happen when I get there.”
“I don’t actually know.” Sure he could hazard an extremely
accurate guess, but he doesn’t, as a matter of fact, know.
She’s watching him carefully, and really listening to what
he’s said. “Then what do you think will happen?”
“Not telling. It’s a surprise.”
“Hmmm… And would this surprise have something to do with
Abby, Tony, and Breena all vanishing together on Saturday?”
“That’s entirely possible.” And with that Ziva smiled, and
began talking about the case.
 |
| Mr. Romance in action. |
A second later he got a shot of Tony’s apartment, picnic
dinner laid out in the center of the living room floor, candles lighting
everything gold, along with Look good?
Yeah, looks good. Have
fun.
No ‘Good luck’?
You don’t need it.
On Friday, May 23rd, he and Abby headed to the
Bullpen, waiting for Tony and Ziva to get in. And yeah, seeing both of them
glowing with happiness was a very good thing. Seeing Gibbs kiss Ziva’s cheek
while hugging her, and then pull Tony into the hug as well, that was even
better.
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