Summary: Grey knows the moment Bob starts liking her, because that's when he starts touching her.
Word Count: 800
Notes: NSFW for muffing and masturbation.

Touched

Grey knows the moment Bob starts liking her, because that’s when he starts touching her.

 

It’s Thanksgiving, and after stuffing her full of delicious food, Bob still has enough leftovers to feed an army. He hands over an enormous package of them before she goes, and as he does, their hands brush. He doesn’t seem to notice.

Grey notices.

Most people give Grey a wide berth, like they’re afraid of her. But after she and Bob spend Christmas eating Chinese food and watching Barbara wage love and war through the Roman Empire, the touches become intentional: brushing against her in the hall, a light tap to her arm or shoulder to punctuate a remark. They don’t feel intrusive, like Penn’s shoulder-punches. They feel friendly, joking… good.

One lunch, when Bob’s pulled away in mid-word, his hand trails across her shoulder, and it starts feeling too good.

Larkin notices. While Bob’s back is turned, she gives Grey a glance over her shades and asks in SGSL, “He’s handsy with you. Do you mind?”

Grey shakes her head. Larkin relaxes.

“Good. We don’t need another Penn.” She sinks her teeth into a burger—from Thanksgiving to New Year’s, she gives up her diet. “Is he…?”

Grey’s cheeks flame and she signs, “It doesn’t matter.”

Larkin clearly doesn’t believe her. Before Grey can stop her, she calls in English, “Hey, Doshi! You seeing anybody?”

“Ha! Relationships are a waste of the good stuff,” Bob replies, grabbing his bag and slinging it over his shoulder.

When he leaves, Grey tells Larkin, “Stop it.” Even if Bob likes women like her (doubtful), they’re partners, counterparts. It’s not like Larkin and Pritchard, who work different shifts. Bob and Grey’s fraternization would be the worst kind. Impossible.

Besides. Grey won’t be here for much longer.

Larkin holds up her hands. “Just looking out for you.”

“It’ll pass,” Grey insists. “Always does.”

She likes Bob. As long as they don’t discuss his wandering hands, as long as it’s in the gray zone of propriety, it can continue. Bob keeps to deniable things: leaning on Grey when reaching for something, the occasional hand on her shoulder, nudges to get her attention.

Around New Year’s, going over StanG, Bob’s hand is warm on her arm when a manager goes by. Bob pulls away, busies himself with papers, and Grey realizes that friendly men don’t worry about touching someone in front of management. Flirting men do. And if Bob isn’t interested in a relationship…

She can’t oblige, and there’d be no point anyway, but she still burns, and now nothing gets her attention like Bob’s hands, soft and graceful, with tapered fingers that belong to concert pianists or Renaissance paintings. She’s spent years training herself not to talk with her hands, but Bob dances with his.

And now they’re dancing with her, increasingly confidently as Bob learns to read her. He keeps touching her, light and fiery—arm, shoulder, low back—and she keeps letting him, keeps pretending not to notice. He keeps calling her Grace. Naming something makes it real, and hearing her name on his tongue… it can’t go anywhere, but it’s been a long time. It’s hard not to want.

One night, she dreams of Bob’s clever hands running up her neck, under her shirt, down her pants. She dreams of Bob’s wicked smile and velvet voice (“I like getting to you too, Grace,”) his fingers curling into her right there, and then she wakes up, hot, aching, not done.

Grey squirms. Desperate and rebellious, she touches herself the way Bob in the dream touched her, the way she used to before her parents caught her and showed her Human Sexual Pathology. When she slides her fingers up into herself, her long-denied body combusts—finally, finally—leaving her limp and panting, her shorts wet and clinging to her thighs.

That hasn’t happened since the accident. For a moment, all she can feel is relief, gratitude at the healing.

Then reality sets in, and she throws clothes and sheets into the laundry basket. Enough is enough, she tells herself. She’ll ask Bob to stop. Things won’t be the same, but what matters is keeping her mind on the job, even if he stops touching her.

She tosses and turns all night, sleeps through her morning alarm, misses her run, comes on shift muzzy and irritable from the lack of exercise.

When she arrives at her office, Bob is there with coffee. He must be on his second cup; he’s unusually cheerful and lively for the hour, and when he passes Grey’s mug to her, their hands brush. It feels like lightning.

He doesn’t seem to notice. “Rough night, boss?”

Grey opens her mouth to tell him. Sighs.

“Yes,” she says.

And that’s the closest she gets.