find me a date ch 3a & 3b updated 10/12
Thursday, breakfast
Gil woke up around 4pm headache free. For the moment at least. He crawled into the shower, needing to feel the pulsating water to fully bring him out of his slumber. When he was done he wrapped a towel around his waist and walked towards the kitchen, wanting to eat breakfast before brushing his teeth. The first thing he saw was that he had left the lights on last night. The medication must have been stronger than he thought because he was certain he had turned out the lights before going to bed. The second thing he saw was Catherine. In his kitchen. Cooking That at least explained why the lights were on.
“Catherine?”
“Good morning, Gil. Hungry?” She was cutting peppers for what he assumed was an omelet.
“Yeah, actually, I am.” He stood there, staring at her, thinking how did she get in here. “Catherine…”
“The complex manager let me in when I told her I needed to check on you. So take that puzzled look off your face, put some clothes on and help me with this.” She dumped the peppers into a bowl and handed it to Gil. “I cooked some bacon earlier, chop it up and put it in here.”
Gil complied, but only because he wasn’t sure what the hell was going on. His townhouse was filled with the smells of morning breakfast causing him to realize how hungry he actually was. After finishing the bacon he opened the fridge and pulled out several oranges to make some fresh juice. Most people would have just grabbed the carton he had in the fridge and gone with that, but Gil preferred fresh squeezed. He also felt that since Catherine was doing the cooking he should do a little something extra for her.
Gil’s skills in the kitchen were really not well know among the CSIs. Most of his team assumed he ate out for most of his meals. He did eat out often, it wasn’t really an option with his job. However, he preferred to make his meals at home when possible. His mother had taught him to cook at a young age. She approached her cooking as if it were a piece of art she was creating and she had instilled that quality in her son. Catherine and Lindsey were really the only ones who were clued in to his prowess in the kitchen.
Catherine finished the omelets about the same time that Gil finished making the juice. Catherine had dished up the food and carried it the table where they sat down to eat. Both sat in silence, enjoying each other’s company and the good food. When they were done eating Gil took the dishes and placed them in the dishwasher. Catherine was sitting on his sofa, staring out the window.
“So, Gil. It’s Thursday.” Catherine said, still peaking out the blinds at the city below.
“Yes, it is.” Gil was dreading this talk.
“Don’t you have something to tell me?” Catherine twisted around on the sofa so that she could look at him. “Like, who I’m going out with this weekend. And where?”
Gil finished wiping the counters off and placed the dishtowel in the sink before answering her.
“Catherine, You asked me to find you a date at the END of shift on Tuesday. We haven’t even started shift yet. I still have several hours before I have to tell you who your date is.” Ok, it was an excuse, a lame excuse at that, but it was all he had.
“Gil, you haven’t found one for me yet, have you?” She was grinning her Cheshire grin and Gil knew instantly that she was just teasing him.
“Well, Catherine. It is not exactly easy to convince a man to go on a blind date and it’s even harder when that blind date is you.” This was more like it, teasing each other, pushing each other’s buttons to see just how far they could push without crossing any line.
“It has to be a lot easier to find a date for me than for a 50 year old, 5’11” workaholic living in a hermetically sealed condo…”
“TOWNHOUSE!” Damn it, he thought, she knew he hated that word. It sounded so like a condom.
“CONDO!” She knew he hated that word because to him it sounded too like condom. She had to agree with him, but still…
“Well, Catherine, I’ve asked every man I know. I even had Brass go back through our cases and find the men that had been released who might be interested in you. And all of them turned me down. Said something about your being old, not having a personality and being fat.” OK, that might be crossing the line.
“I happen to know that a certain Sexy Kitty would kill for the opportunity to take me out,” she said laughing, “so bite me, bugman!”
“Anywhere. Anytime, Catherine. Just say the word.” Both were laughing now. Gil was thinking to himself that this felt right, felt like they used to act around each other.
“So, the migraine’s gone then?” She really was concerned for him. He did not look good at all last night.
“Yeah.” He smiled, knowing now that that was the real reason she was there.
“Good.” She stood up and walked over to the counter, picking up her purse, “I’ve got to go pick up Linds from track practice. I’ll see you at work.” She opened the door and was gone. Edited by: iceecatz at: 10/12/05 8:03 pm
ibreak4CSI Registered Member
Posts: 18
(9/28/05 9:23 pm) Reply
Re: find me a date ch 3a
Great chapter, just like all the rest! More soon, please!! =)
Re: find me a date ch 3a
chapter edited to add the following:
Gil still had several hours to kill before going into the lab so he decided to check out the auction sites and see if they had any good deals on Roy Rogers memorabilia and original Pink Floyd vinyls. One of the sites he was looking at had an ad at the top for a service called E-Harmony that said it could find you a compatible match. He clicked on it and looked through the information about the company and decided that it might be legitimate enough. He registered Catherine and spent the next hour filling in the extensive profile questionnaire. After he finished her profile he pulled out his credit card and paid the registration fee. Then he went back and scanned in his favorite picture of Catherine. It was from one of Lindsey’s birthday parties. She was sitting beside Lindsey on the playset, both of them swinging as high as they could. Catherine had a look of pure joy on her face. When he was done he went back to searching for more Pink Floyd. His inbox would notify him of anyone interested in her.
Disclaimer: don’t own them, will trade you for them. I’m sure I’ve got something worth trading.
Spoilers: none
Thursday at work
Grissom arrived at the lab about 20 minutes late because he had been programming his cell phone to receive his email alerts. He hurried to his office to grab the night’s assignments and hand them out. Warrick, Greg and Catherine were given a B&E off the strip. He assigned himself to work with Nick and Sara on a missing persons complaint, thinking that at least this would buy him some time to find Catherine’s date. Before he could get them all out of the break room his cell phone went off. Grissom grabbed it and saw it was a message from E-Harmony. He put the phone away deciding now was not the time to be checking the message.
“Uh, Grissom, you’re not going to see what that was about?”
“I know what it was about, not important. OK, people, let’s go.”
Everyone gathered their things and headed for the Denalis. Grissom climbed in as his phone beeped for the 2nd time. He looked at the display, another E-Harmony email, and put it back on his beltclip.
“Grissom, that’s two messages, don’t you think you should check it?” Sara said.
“Nope.” Grissom didn’t even look back, just kept driving. They arrived at the scene a short while later and while getting his gear his phone went off again.
“Gris, you got another message.” Nick said as he grabbed his case.
“I heard it.”
“You avoiding someone?”
“Nope.” Grissom grabbed his case and walked away.
Grissom walked up to Brass to get an update on what was going on.
“Neighbor called it in, said the mail was piling up. So she tried calling, got no answer and then came over and saw the back door open. She went in and didn’t…”
Grissom’s phone went off again. He looked, another match.
“Don’t you think you should listen to that? Could be the sheriff.”
“If it was the sheriff I’d turn the phone off.”
“Yeah, well, whoever it is has left another message,” said Brass as Grissom’s phone beeped again.
“I need to go process this scene.”
“Sounds like you need to check the messages to me.”
“Sounds like you need to be questioning the witness to me.”
Grissom finally found his way to the interior of the scene. Once inside he gave instructions to Nick and Sara about what he wanted done. It took a little big longer than normal because his phone went off three more times before he could finish telling them what to do. When Sara tried to ask him what was going on he just gave her that Grissom stare that said it was none of her business.
Nick was working in the kitchen with Grissom the next time his phone beeped.
“Hey, man, you got a girlfriend that we don’t know about?”
“What?”
“A girlfriend? I mean no one pages a man that often unless they are in love or pissed off at someone they are in love with.”
“Process Nick.”
“Right, bossman. Don’t discuss your personal life.” Nick photographed a piece of evidence.
Grissom’s phone beeped again. He was beginning to regret registering Catherine at E-Harmony.
“I, uh, think I’ll go see how Sara’s doing on those prints.”
“Why don’t you check those messages while you’re at it!” Nick said as his flash indicated another photo.
“Nick. Process. Now”
“Yes sir!” Nick laughed to himself. “The bossman had found a woman, a very persistent woman.”
Grissom stopped halfway between Sara and Nick in order to check his messages. A total of 10 new messages flashed at him from his display screen, all from E-Harmony. All of them wanting to meet Catherine.
The first message was from a man in Georgia. His profile was good, but the distance between Georgia and Vegas was not so good. Grissom quickly typed in a reply stating he appreciated the interest but that “she” wasn’t interested in a long distance relationship.
The second message was from a manufacturing engineer in Phoenix. He had already been married three times according to his profile and was currently on the look out for wife number four. Grissom just deleted the message without even replying.
The third message was from a doctor in Reno. He had his own practice and volunteered twice a month at a local clinic that served the community’s poor. He had been married once and had two sons. Grissom sent a reply asking him for more information about himself.
The fourth, fifth and six messages were all from total losers as far as Grissom was concerned and he deleted them as well.
The seventh message was from a gentleman in the Lake Tahoe area. He was a computer programmer who spent his off-time cross-country skiing and mountain climbing. His photo was, in Lindsey’s language, hot. Grissom fired off a reply asking to chat with him so “she” could get to know him a little better.
Messages eight and nine were from men who lived in New York. Grissom deleted these also, muttering to himself that any man who couldn’t read Catherine’s profile correctly (no long distance relationships) wasn’t worth his time.
Message ten was from a man in the Vegas area. His profile stated he was a business owner (hotels and casinos) and that he recognized Catherine from a picture he had seen in Sam Braun’s office. The gentleman said that he was shocked that a woman as beautiful as Catherine had to resort to searching online to find a date and that had he known she was available he would have approached her himself. Grissom wasn’t sure what to do with this one. He stared at the screen trying to decide how he was going to reply back when Sara surprised him.
“Somebody’s popular tonight.” She pointed to his phone.
“Aren’t you supposed to be printing?”
“Done. Care to tell me who it is that can’t wait to hear from you?”
“Don’t see that it’s really any of your business.”
“Fine. Listen, there’s some kind of bug in there and I really didn’t want to get too close to it, could you…”
“Sure.” Grissom reached to put his phone in his pocket and started towards the room Sara had come from, not realizing that he had missed his pocket and the phone had landed on the carpet below. Sara quickly grabbed it up. It was unusual for her supervisor’s phone to ring like it had tonight and even more unusual (at least in Sara’s mind) for him to not confide in her about who was calling.
Sara quickly found his messages and started to read through them. All of them were from E-Harmony, a service Sara was intimately familiar with. She just couldn’t believe that Grissom Grissom had to resort to this to find himself a date. Obviously now would be a good time to ask him out again, but first she had to finish going through his messages. What she saw shocked her. It had never occurred to Sara that Grissom might be gay, but with all these matches being male it had to be true. Why else would he have turned her down every single time she asked him out. Surprisingly enough, the idea of Grissom being gay didn’t bother her near as much as his being interested in Catherine or Sofia.
“Hey, Grissom.”
“Where’s this bug? I can’t find it?” Grissom was crawling around on the floor and it was making his knees hurt.
“Forget the bug, Gris, there was no bug.”
“But you said…” He was going to have to medicate his knees for nothing.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Sara looked at him with as much understanding as she could muster.
“Tell you what?”
“That your…that you prefer…”
“Prefer what Sara?”
“Men. I mean I never would have asked you out in the first place had I known.”
“Sara. Stop. What are you talking about?”
“The messages on your phone from E-Harmony. They’re all from men.”
“You checked my messages?”
“I was concerned about you.”
“Sara, first off, you have no business checking the messages on my phone. Second, I’m not gay.”
“You’re not? Gre…I mean, um, do you want to talk about this over breakfast?”
“No! We’ve been through this before, Sara. I’m not going out with you.”
“But…then who are these matches for?”
“I can’t say.”
“Fine, I’ll ask Catherine when we get back to the lab, she’ll know. She always knows.” Sara smiled bitterly. Why wouldn’t he confide in her?
“NO! Look, Cath asked me to find her a date and I’m having a little trouble so I decided to try this. It was a bad idea and I wish I hadn’t done it. You can’t say anything to her. You have to swear to me you won’t say anything.”
“I won’t say anything on one condition.” This was her opportunity and she wasn’t about to waste it.
“Sara, give it up. I’m not going out with you.”
“How did you…never mind. I was going to say you let me help you find her a date.”
“Sara.”
“It’s either let me help or have breakfast with me or I tell Catherine what you’ve done. It’s your choice.” Sara smiled triumphantly. This was a win-win situation for her.
“Fine. You can help.” Grissom sighed and thought to himself, “This cannot be good.”
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