The Secret Love Of A Unit Chief

6: Dinner at Rossi's Mansion

Sunday

Morgan, Garcia and Prentiss was at Rossi's house talking, it was 18:57, the three of them had arrived early to help set up. It was obvious something was wrong. Rossi and Emily had noticed how Garcia seemed nervous and twitchy, Dave finally asked.

"Penelope Garcia, what is wrong, you are getting more and more anxious by the minute."

"It's nothing Rossi."

Garcia lied.

"Sure, but i am gonna figure out what it is."

JJ and Reid arrived, Reid just as anxious as Garcia.

"Ok what is going on, it's just a team dinner why are the two of you having a anxiety attack."

They both shrugged like it was nothing.

"A better question would be why Hotch is late, it's officially 19:01."

Prentiss stated.

"Let's just take a seat, he won't be long."

Rossi suggested and they waited for about 5 minutes, until he started to get worried, thinking that Hotch might be hurt. Rossi then called him, he answered saying he was on his way, apologizing for the fact that he would be late, but not explaining why.

Hotch had gotten ready to meet the team, when he started to think about what happened the day before, he felt kind of bad for how he had yelled at them in a public restaurant. He knew they didn't mean to hurt his feelings, they just didn't think about how he would feel. He felt that might be partly his own fault, since he rarely shares his feelings to anybody. He blamed his dad for that.

He arrived at Rossi's shortly after the phone call, since he didn't live that far away. When he walked in the door, Garcia instantly ran up to Hotch when she heard the door open.

"Hotch i am so sorry, we didn't mean to..."

"It's ok Garcia, let's just go eat."

Hotch interrupted her, and walked into the dining room and greeted his team. They all sat down at the table and started eating. Hotch didn't really say anything during dinner, and of course Rossi noticed.

After they had eaten dinner, everyone went to the living-room. Hotch was sitting on the big couch, next to Prentiss, sitting on the other side of her was Morgan. JJ and Reid got the small couch. Garcia and Rossi each had their own chair. All of the furniture was facing a coffee-table in the middle of the room.

They were talking about a bunch of different things, Hotch still wasn't really apart of the conversation. Prentiss started to notice, she asked him quietly.

"Hey Hotch, you ok? You haven't really said anything."

"Yeah, i'm fine, Prentiss."

It was an obvious lie, but Hotch had been in his head for the last 30 minutes, not really paying attention to the conversation they were having. He had planned to come out to them the day before, but he hadn't actually planned how, so now he was starting to overthink about what exactly he should say.

"You are bad at lying Hotch."

"Only when i don't really care about the lie i am giving."

"Cmon Hotch what's wrong."

Prentiss wouldn't back down. At this point the conversation, that the others were having had ended, and all attention was now on them.

"Is it what we did?"

JJ asked, instantly regretting it once she received a glare from Hotch.

"JJ, What did you do?"