sort through them a little bit. Maybe if she stayed here all night she could get at least a couple of the pieces processed after she finished the cases sitting on her desk.
But which evidence pieces should she process first if she could only get to one or two tonight? In the midst of categorizing the evidence bags in her mind, and placing them in different groups on the table, Molly didn’t realize Liam and Jon had stopped pleading their case.
Or that Derek had come to stand right behind her as she sorted through the evidence bags. He reached over and took the bag out of her hand and laid it on the table, and picked up two others near it.
Startled, Molly spun around, then immediately regretted it as she found herself trapped between the evidence table and Derek’s hard body. Oh, dear lord. Was she supposed to be able to come up with actual words right now? Something coherent?
Derek took a small step backward, just enough so he could hold one of the evidence bags up between them.
“This one is most important,” he said softly, holding up a small bag with what looked like part of a phone or communication device. “Although I know it’s partially melted and will be difficult. The other is just the prints from the dead guy to run for ID. Should be simple. Both as soon as you can manage, Molly. But I know your other work here is also important.”
Molly just nodded.
Derek hooked a finger into the hip pocket of her lab coat. He took the two small evidence bags and dropped them in. But instead of letting her go as she expected, he placed both hands on her waist.
Molly pretty much forgot how to breathe.
“Thank you,” Derek said, his gravelly voice playing havoc with her insides. “I know this means more work for you, and I’m sorry.”
“It—it’s okay.”
“Did you eat dinner?”
“Um, today?”
Derek shook his head and sighed. “I want you to eat something, all right?” His hands tightened the slightest bit on her waist. “You’re too tiny as it is.”
“Wh-what?” Since when was Derek aware of her eating habits?
“And not the vending machine. A real, proper meal. Promise me you’ll go down to the cafeteria tonight and eat something if you’re working here a long time.”
Molly nodded.
“And not tomorrow morning. Tonight, okay? In the next couple of hours,” Derek asked again. “Promise?”
“I promise.” Molly forced the words to come out with no stammer.
Derek smiled, and for a second looked as if he was going to say something else, but then Liam and Jon began talking to each other as they repacked the other evidence to be placed on the in-processing shelf. Whatever Derek had been about to say in that moment was gone.
He dropped his hands from Molly’s waist and took a step back. “Thanks for processing that communication device tonight. I’m hoping it may be a key piece in the Chicago case.”
Without another word, Derek turned and walked out the lab doors. Jon and Liam said their goodbyes as they left, too. Molly finally began breathing normally again.
But as the doors closed, she heard it, although they obviously didn’t mean for her to: quiet laughter and the words Mousy Molly.
Molly stayed where she was against the evidence table as if glued there. It wasn’t Derek who called her mousy, it was never Derek. But it was everyone else. Molly didn’t think Jon and Liam meant any harm by the expression, but it was true. Molly was mousy in all its elements: nervous, shy, lacking in presence or charisma. Heck even her coloring was mousy: brown eyes, brown hair.
Okay, yeah, it hurt a little bit. Molly didn’t want to be mousy. And really most of the time she wasn’t that bad. It was just when she was around Derek that she became unbearable to herself.
Molly brought her hands down to her waist where Derek’s had been. Derek had actually touched her. That didn’t happen very often. Although they saw each other a few times a week, Derek was very careful not to touch her in even the most casual way.
He really hadn’t touched her at all since the time he showed up at her condo three years ago—drunk—and they’d had sex.
Molly still grimaced when she thought about it. He’d been inebriated, he’d needed a friend. She should’ve just made a pallet for him on her couch and let him sleep it off.
Instead of taking him to her bed and having the most wonderful night of her life.
Except Derek had been gone when she woke up the next morning. And he had never brought it up again, so she assumed he didn’t remember much about that night at all. But Molly did. She also remembered their embrace in the lab about a year ago... The only other time he’d touched her.
Molly sighed and pushed herself off the table. There was no way she was going to start thinking about this again. She had entirely too much work to do. She would put in a call to David, the newest young tech, and see if he was willing to make some extra money by coming back in and helping her with this processing.
There was a lot of important work to do and she planned to get it done. She might be Mousy Molly like the guys said, but there was one thing she knew how to do well: her job.
Derek cringed when he heard Jon and Liam’s Mousy Molly comments as they followed him out the lab doors. How he hated that nickname. He knew the guys didn’t really mean any harm by it, neither Jon nor Liam would ever purposely be unkind to someone like Molly, but Derek still hated it.
“I think you probably could’ve pushed to get more of our evidence processed tonight,” Jon said with a little snicker as they walked down the hallway. “I don’t know why Liam and I even tried talking to her. We should’ve used you from the beginning.”
“It’s not like that, Jon.” Derek kept walking, hoping they’d just drop it. They had a meeting with Omega’s Critical Response Division Director Steve Drackett in five minutes, teleconference with state officials not long afterward.
Both men laughed. “Uh, it’s exactly like that. Of course, it’s always like that with Molly when it comes to you,” Liam told him.
Jon continued, “Yeah, if you had asked her to process all our evidence tonight I bet she would’ve done it. If she could’ve managed to get a sentence out.”
Liam stopped walking and, with a dramatic sigh, grabbed Jon by the waist and pushed him up against the hallway wall. Liam pulled out a pen and held it in front of Jon’s face.
Derek stopped to watch the show that was obviously for him.
“Just this one piece of evidence, Molly.” Liam deepened his voice to mimic Derek, wiggling the pen and keeping his other hand on Jon’s waist.
Jon’s falsetto was even more annoying, especially given he was three inches taller than Liam’s
