And the game was underway, Simon flexing the deck and peering over the top of his glasses, before shuffling and dealing the next hand. Megan glanced around the kitchen table, studying the faces of her fellow poker players for a moment but was soon distracted by an odd feeling. She turned to examine the room more closely but saw nothing unusual. So shrugging, she resumed studying her cards.
"Is there something different about the loft, guys?" she ventured.
"Different?"
"Yes. Not sure what it is, but something feels ... different, as though something has changed."
"Has anything changed, Chief?"
"Not that I know of. Looks the same as last time, right, Jim?"
"Never mind fellas. Must be my imagination."
But Jim started to wonder what Megan could have seen that he, a sentinel, could have missed. The place was a little cleaner, maybe. It smelled like tortilla chips, salsa and beer.
Blair was dressed a bit less casually -- a very tiny bit. Nothing really noticeable if you hadn't been his roommate for, oh, three and a half years.
But she had said that something had changed about the place. And a person wasn't a place so she couldn't have been noticing ...
Blair wearing a new aftershave, one with a very subtle flavor to it, not overwhelming to even his sensitivity. Or Blair wearing that shirt. A new shirt the color of his intensely blue eyes.. She couldn't have meant that.
And he reached out to dip his chip into the salsa, wondering what she could have meant.
And Blair was puzzled by Megan's comment, which he took to heart because she had shown herself to be very observant, to be one who didn't let things go if they seemed ... odd. So he wondered what she could have noticed that he hadn't.
Maybe Jim had left the sofa resting at a slightly different angle after he vacuumed under it in preparation for tonight's game. Didn't seem likely, though.
He looked around, puzzled that she would say something had changed.
He didn't see it. The only difference he could see was that Jim was wearing a shirt he had never seen before, one that seemed to match his intense, light blue eyes. But it couldn't be Jim.
So Blair reached out to dip his chip.
Before he could get it into his mouth, a bit of salsa dripped onto his chin and threatened to plop onto his new shirt. But before he could make a move, Jim had scooped it up onto his forefinger and sucked it off. Then, reaching over with a napkin, he dabbed at Blair's face, from chin to lip.
And then realizing that several pairs of eyes were on him, Jim froze a moment, before catching himself and saying, "Can't take you anywhere, Sandburg."
"Yeah, yeah, Mom -- just play cards," was all Blair said before returning to ponder Megan's question. And then he wondered why he still felt puzzled by it, why he had not let it go by now.
And then he realized that he too felt something had changed.
And Jim glanced up from his cards to see a look come over Blair's face, a darkening of his eyes and a slight deepening in the color of his cheeks, as though the lighting in the room had dimmed.
Jim took another swig of beer then licked his lips to catch an errant dribble, looking away quickly when he noticed Blair glancing quickly at his lips, then glancing just as quickly away.
Jim thought a moment, then reached out with just one finger, to slowly trace the outline of Blair's lower lip.
Clearly something had changed.
Since June 13, 2000, people have read this snippet.