The Keeping of Words | Spencer Reid

8 |Spoken and Unspoken

Coffee, a shower, and a good book. In that order preferably. The first few weeks of work were always the hardest- trying to learn everything over again from scratch, meeting bosses and coworkers, and figuring out a schedule. That was hard enough, but then there was still work that needed to be done.

Coffee was purchased and drained, and while Bianca intended to spend a long time in the warm shower, the sound of the ringtone she'd assigned to Spencer was enough to send her stumbling out to answer it.

"Are we still on for dinner?" he asked. Dinner. Oh shoot, she'd forgotten about dinner. If she backed out suddenly, it wouldn't be fair to him.

"Of course," she said. "The Indian place, right? I can be there in fifteen minutes." It was a frantic dance, dashing from the bathroom to her bedroom and trying to throw on something nice enough for a date. Watch, where was her watch? On her desk, of course. It would take her at least ten minutes to make it over to the restaurant, so she'd have to let her hair dry as she went, grateful for the perks of short hair. Only after a mad dash out of the apartment, on and off of the metro, and down the street, did she realize she'd forgotten her phone. It was too late for that now. Already twenty-five minutes had gone by.

"There you are," Spencer said, jogging a few feet to meet her. "I called you twice, I was worried you were running late."

"I forgot my phone, I'm sorry! It's been one of those days." One of those days that left her feeling frazzled, stressed, and wholly useless. If she couldn't even do this job properly, what was the point?

"You'll feel better once you've eaten." He pulled her close to him, one arm around her waist as a server led them to a table. At the very least, it was nice to get off her feet.

"So what made today so rough?" he asked.

"Do you have any idea how long congressmen talk?" she sighed.

"Well, in 1957 Democratic senator Strom Thurmond filibustered the Civil Rights Act for 24 hours and 18 minutes, so judging by that I'd assume many of them can talk for quite some time."

"You'd be correct in that assumption. I met with three today about American aid to Syria, and they talked for hours but never really said anything. And their listening skills sucked."

"That bad, huh?

Bianca nodded. "That bad." She could already feel the frustration rising again. She bit her lip and picked up the menu, trying to keep calm. This was a date. She was supposed to have fun.

"I strongly recommend the tandoori chicken," Spencer added. He'd politely refused a menu, having already memorized it.

"I don't know. I'm kind of leaning towards the saag paneer." She'd had chicken for lunch, a lunch that had mostly gone cold while she tried to get a word in with the congressmen, a lunch preceding hours of standing. Chicken seemed entirely unappealing at the moment, as did the Washington political scene. Politics fascinated her, but politicians left her feeling more and more disgusted.

"But that's spinach. Ew." His voice broke through the fog of thoughts, sounded surprisingly shocked.

"How did you get to be so tall if you didn't eat your vegetables?" she asked jokingly.

"I eat vegetables. Just not spinach. It's gross. Why would anyone willingly eat spinach?" He scrunched up his nose in disdain, like the word was something dirty, and she had to laugh at his expression. His features softened, the corners of his mouth curling up again. "There it is," Spencer said.

"What?"

"Your smile." He was too good to her. Bianca fiddled with the plastic edge of the menu, unsure exactly how to respond. It was just so easy to be around him, and he could read like her a book. He could read 20,000 words per minute, but it took only seconds to figure her out. As much as she loved books, she couldn't read his behavior like a profiler could. She had to ask in order to hear his stories.