He hears the song in the car with Calleigh, of all people, and tries not to swerve. Calleigh, who likes college radio this week, who tuned into Miami's finest, to happened to pick the radio station up that got a hold of what has to be the only copy of Gina and Birko's single in all of Florida.
"Can I ask you something, Speed?" Calleigh says.
For a horrible second he thinks maybe she's going to say something about the song. "I suppose."
"If a woman were to ask you to dinner, would you be offended if she then expected to pay for dinner?"
It's so far past what's on his mind that he doesn't even hear himself answer. He would appreciate the thought, but personally appreciates being able to share the expense of a meal. It's a nice gesture. It shouldn't at all be offensive, certain men simply do not understand a strong woman. Tim took a year and a half of women's studies courses at Columbia, nearly by accident, and they taught him very little except how to be polite when answering difficult questions.
The song's over by the time she replies. "Good," Calleigh says. "I'd like to think that if I asked you to dinner you wouldn't automatically think you still were obligated to pick up the check."
They're at the scene, he's shutting the engine off. "Are you asking me out?" Tim says, half-amazed. Calleigh can't possibly. She can't. She wouldn't. It's ludicrous.
"What if I was?" she says, and then grins, and smacks his arm. "No, I wasn't, Speed. We work together."
"We do," he agrees, and decides not to point out that she's worked with a lot of the men she's dated.
Tim goes through a half-hour of preliminary evidence surveying before he thinks about the song again. The tune's stuck in his head, which is fairly impressive for a song he's heard only once before. Something about it has caught his mind. Maybe he's heard it more than once. Maybe he heard it in Jersey.
"I'm done here," she says, "Alexx and H will be around in about an hour. You want me to wait?"
He got a ride from her; the scene has a couple of police cruisers parked around it, but no other CSI vehicles. "I'm fine," he tells her. "You go on."
"Speed," she says, "are you okay?"
He tells her, "I'm fine." The tune, whatever it is, is still playing in the back of his mind, insistent, unrelenting. He's sure he's heard it before.