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“I thought you had a date.”
“I thought you did.”
The dimly lit bar was the kind sought out to nurse wounds and drink alone. It was not the place for chance meetings with a colleague. There was a moment of uneasy silence, broken by a quick gaze up and down. His crisp shirt, her eyeliner. They were both too well-dressed to deny it.
Ziva gave in first, her shoulders slumping as she took the vacant bar stool beside Tony.
“There was a traffic accident at 6th and M. I called to say I would be late. His girlfriend answered.” She caught the bartender’s eye, pointed at Tony’s empty glass, and held up two fingers.
The man in the apron obliged without a word, as though sensing the heavy mood between them. She didn’t ask for change.
Tony winced. “Ouch.” He hesitated, then picked up the fresh drink, swirling the amber liquid around the ice cubes gently. “Mine was married. Guilt got to her; she called and came clean when I was already at the restaurant.”
Ziva inhaled sharply. “You have been seeing her for two months!”
“Three,” he muttered. “Turns out I was the revenge affair for her husband’s cheating.”
Her shoulder bumped his. “You were starting to care,” she said softly, studying her own drink.
“Maybe.” He shrugged and took a swig. “Doesn’t matter now. You?”
“Only two dates.” She sipped, savoured. “But I was a mistake, apparently. At least that’s what he was trying to tell his girlfriend before I hung up.”
Tony set his glass down, fingers brushing hers. “God, we really know how to pick ‘em.”
She laughed, low and rueful. “We really do.” They fell silent, drinking again.
Their shoulders shifted closer, a familiar pressure from other nights when all that was needed was to forget. A question, asked silently, but one that the other had never failed to answer.
“You deserve better than that,” she said softly. Her knee joined her shoulder, brushing against him.
“So do you,” he glanced sideways, catching her eye just a fraction too long.
They fell quiet, shoulders close, knees nudging, each sip of their drinks falling in perfect sync. They both knew this silence and where it led. A promise of comfort, desire, companionship, however fleeting. It had been on hold for a while, with these new connections, but now, with the sting of rejection and wishes that had crumbled before they could be spoken aloud weighing heavily, it seemed instinctive to fall back into each other's orbit.
Tony’s hand landed on the bar, their pinkies brushing. Ziva didn’t pull back.
The lean in that followed was familiar, almost habitual. The same wordless moment on other nights when the world had been too much. The understanding that when words didn’t help or were too hard to speak, solace could be found in the other's body.
Their lips met, soft and whiskey-tainted, then deepened almost imperceptibly, his hand on her jaw, the tilt of her head. It was a rhythm they had known often, one that had never failed to bring relief. It had worked before - after long cases with crappy outcomes, easing the ache of the job, general disillusionment with the world, or simply scratching that itch. Never before had it come off the back of a sudden breakup.
Tonight, the closeness that had once been a refuge only emphasised why they were here: the people they had chosen had not chosen them. Given in the wrong spirit the kiss wasn’t hungry, or tender... it just didn’t land. Instead of erasing the emotional bruises, it pressed into them, a reminder that this was not who they had expected to end the night kissing.
They parted, not abruptly, but definitely. Ziva’s eyes dipped down and away, and Tony muttered something that sounded like sorry.
They separated deliberately, sliding apart, shifting on their stools, their fingers brushing once more before settling back into their own space. A definite boundary suddenly sprang up between them, silent and impenetrable. But somehow, it was the kind of denial that didn’t sting because it made sense. This was something that never should have been started in the first place.
It wasn’t cold or awkward, just mutual acceptance and understanding. Tonight, this wasn’t the answer.
“Huh,” Tony murmured. “Guess we can make good decisions occasionally.”
Ziva lifted her glass. “Apparently so.”
Whatever came next could only be a substitute. Not the person they wanted to be with, nor the other’s first choice. They had already come off second-best tonight. Repeating that would be like rubbing salt into fresh wounds, a cruelty neither wanted to feel nor felt capable of inflicting.
They fell quiet for a moment, pondering how close they had been to something that would have hurt far more than what they had already learned about the dates they believed they could trust. An act that would have damaged something much more delicate and taken far longer to heal, if it could at all.
“Well,” Tony lifted his glass with a quiet, rueful laugh. “Here’s to shitty ideas.”
Ziva snorted softly. “And not following them through.”
“To mutual heartbreak.”
“To looking in all the wrong places.”
There was no malice when they spoke. They were both to blame. Already the memory of the ill-timed kiss was fading, replaced by the quiet comfort of the dim light, soft music and the presence of someone who knew how it felt. It was a kind of pain that could be borne in parallel, rather than in unison.
They’d find the old rhythm again; they both already knew that. It hadn’t been a never again, just a not tonight. For now, sharing the same space, no longer touching, but still close enough to pull the thoughts out of each other’s heads, was enough.
“To not settling for a consolation prize.”
“To not becoming one.”
They touched glasses, drank once more, and with it, washed away the last lingering taste of a kiss that should never have been.