COVERT : Spencer Reid (II)

28

My head rocks in my skull. I tip over and groan. I'm too old for this shit, and it honestly felt like I drank the perfect amount. My front hits something warm. A body. My eyes shoot open and I fling myself back.

Spencer is asleep beside me. Well, only technically. My heart is racing. Fingers find my chest, and I'm clothed in the pajamas I put on. But, I don't remember him coming here. Only his arm is on the bed. The rest of him lies on a blow-up mattress below me. The angle his arm lies cannot be comfortable. I press down on my collarbones, trying to reach my own heart and press it back into its place.

It's too dark in the room to make out much else. My bed moans beneath me as I slip back to the spot I was in when I woke up. Were our hands touching? I lie on my side and try to press it into the spot. No. They weren't. I felt his hand, the warmth of it what truly woke me from being half alive.

Slowly, I lean forward. I rest my hand on top of his, feeling his knuckles beneath my hand. I didn't play in the band like Stéphane, so I wouldn't know what instrument Spencer would play. Maybe you'd call them piano hands, but I can't just imagine him touching a keyboard. He could play the clarinet, fiddling with his mouth pieces with a reed between his lips. Of course Reid would play an instrument with a reed. I could also imagine him with a viola. Not a violin. He'd never play melody. Maybe he'd even play a cello, his long body hunched over one to play it.

After a few minutes, I decide to get up. The kitchen is quiet, so I put on coffee for both of us. As always, an ungodly amount of sugar is in his mug. When Estelle and I moved in here, we bought kitchen supplies to match for dinner parties. I thought white would be classy, but Estelle insisted on colour. Only our mugs aren't perfectly matching. We never had fun mugs before, and Spencer only has souvenir mugs. It confuses me that a man with a perfect memory would need so many reminders of where he has been, but I'm grateful at least since we never mix up our coffees.

I return to the room and put his coffee on my desk. I end up pulling out my laptop and doing some work. Slowly, I hear him stir.

"Morning," I close it and put it down on my nightstand, substituting it for the coffee next to mine.

"Good morning," he sits upright. He stretches to reach the coffee, and with half lidded eyes, he is already sipping it.

"When did your flight get in?" I ask.

"Late last night," he says. "I called you, but your brother answered."

I check my nightstand, and my phone isn't there. I must have left it in the kitchen. I try not to groan.

"He invited you over, I take it."

Spencer takes a sip, "he wanted to give me a talking to before Valentine's Day. It was quite fun actually. I got the impression it wasn't his first time trying to warn off a boyfriend."

"Was he drunk?" I peer at the doorway, where somewhere down the hall he should still be sleeping. I should have checked before coming here.

"Stone cold sober," Spencer says. He reaches over and touches my hand. "He seems like he's doing well, Colette. I think he's really happy you're looking out for him."

I roll my eyes. Spencer squeezes my hand. I slide to the edge of the bed, and then lower myself to the floor, careful not to spill my half empty coffee cup. My mug finds a spot on my desk next to him, and I lie down with him. Our heads barely fit the singular pillow, temples pressed together. Our fingers are intertwined.

The ground is hard though, the blow-up mattress basically completely deflated and I wince.

"I need to buy a new one of these," I wince as I roll over. "This is torture."