This Could Get Messy (Ch. 1 revisited from Reid's POV)
Reid walked into the boardroom and scanned the table for an empty chair. There was one near the back, and he made his way to it, shaking a couple hands as he went. As he reached his seat he took off his lab coat and hung it on the back of the chair. He sat down directly across from Luke as Luke was looking up from the notebook he was scrawling in. Reid offered him a hey-what's-up chin lift but Luke just raised his eyebrows and turned his attention back to his notebook. Yeah, so the last time they had seen each other at the hospital hadn't gone so well. "Arrogant closed-off asshole." Yeah. He's pretty sure that's what Luke had called him. Nice.
Reid didn't want to be there. He had way too much work to do. The meeting really wasn't going to involve him anyway, but Bob insisted he be there, so that he could introduce him to the county commissioner and other municipal big wigs that were going to help "grease the wheels," as Bob had put it. To make things worse, Reid was hungry. He hadn't had time to grab his late afternoon snack, and his stomach was growling. He briefly considered running back to the oncall room to grab the bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos he had in his locker but decided there wasn't enough time until the meeting started. He patted down his pockets and came up with a pack of peppermint Trident. It would have to do.
Ignoring the chatting going on all around him, Reid leaned back in his chair, chawed at his gum, and watched Luke writing in his notebook. Luke moved his lips a little as he wrote, as if he was trying to speak the words onto the page, and Reid couldn't help but notice how red and moist they were. At one point, Luke seemed to be stumped as to what he wanted to write. His brow furrowed, and he rested the already chewed up back end of the pen in his mouth as he stared at the notebook. Reid wanted to tell him how bad chewing on plastic was for his teeth. He wanted to tell Luke how disgustingly germ covered the pen was and that the last place he should put it is in his mouth. Instead he kept quiet and thought, lucky fucking pen.
Reid tried to ignore the fact that Luke was wearing a shirt that was a size or two too small for him. He also tried his hardest not to notice that Luke obviously hadn't shaved that morning and had a light stubble on his chin and above his upper lip. Christ.
As the meeting began, out of the corner of his eye, Reid saw Luke close his notebook, push it aside, and run both of his hands through his hair. Reid glanced briefly at Luke's attempt to tame his untameable hair and suppressed a smile. Luke dragged his eyes up to Reid's and then settled them on his lips before straightening himself in his chair and looking toward the Oakdale city staff who were assembling at the front of the room. What the hell was that?
Reid loathed sitting still. He hated being idle. Even at home, he would sometimes pace behind the couch while watching TV. He couldn't very well do that right now, so instead he was happy to notice that the boardroom chair he was sitting in rocked, and he began pushing up off the floor with the bottom of his right foot. He kept his eyes on the talking suits at the front of the room, a look of interest on his face. He was great at faking sincerity. However, his mind was anywhere but the front of the room. In fact, his mind was directly to the left of him. On Luke. Luke, who Reid could see in his peripheral vision glancing over at him every now and then. Reid purposely rocked slightly slower in his chair. What the hell am I doing?
Reid had disliked Luke from the second he met him. Actually, he disliked him even before he met him. Two and half months later, he *still* disliked him. He was spoiled. And entitled, a personal-space-stealing do gooder who never shut the hell up. But he was also generous. And loyal. And hot. And fuck if Reid didn't like Luke stepping into the air around him, crossing the invisible boundary that most normal people respected. Yes, he disliked Luke. Sometimes he even hated him. But more than hating him, he wanted him. In his head, he had violated Luke's body a hundred different ways. And the wanting made him hate Luke even more.
And now here he was, sitting across from him in a stuffy boardroom, certain that he must have misinterpreted the way Luke had looked at his mouth a few mintues ago. Reid leaned forward with a sigh and crossed his arms on the table in front of him. He started bouncing his knee under the table. Apparantly the movement annoyed Luke because he caught Reid's eyes for a moment, gave him a dirty look, and jerked away from the table, swiveling his chair toward the front of the room.
Reid tried to focus on the meeting because thinking about Luke was an impossible situation. He was his patient's boyfriend, and no matter how he tried to spin it in his brain, he knew that anything happening between himself and Luke would be inappropriate. Unethical. Uncool. For this reason, weeks ago, he had asked Noah to keep Luke out of his orbit. The problem with gravity is that it's an undeniably tenacious force. Relentless.
Reid was brought out of his thoughts by the sound of laughter. Somebody must had said something funny because the whole room was roaring. Damn if he knew what was so funny. Reid didn't even try to fake it.
For the next few mintues, Reid actually did listen to what was going on in the meeting but mostly wishing they would wrap things up so that he could go grab a before-dinner snack. However, after awhile his attention waned and once again his eyes drifted back over toward Luke, who he was surprised to find facing him. He had a hand up to somewhat shield his eyes from the front of the room, and he was staring at what Reid realized was his left hand making lazy circles on the table in front of him. Reid looked back up in time to see Luke lick his bottom lip.
That was the moment that Reid knew things were not one sided.
He stepped his fingers toward Luke and sadistically enjoyed the flustered look on Luke's face when he realized he was found out. He forced himself not to smile. To make Luke squirm even more, Reid ran his middle finger over his eyebrow and then slowly along his parted lips, his gaze never leaving Luke's deep brown eyes.
When he saw Luke swallow hard, he turned away and let a smile finally come out, embarrassed at his lame attempt at seduction. I can't believe I'm such a fucking dork.