A button and a distraction

Her button was undone.

He wished he hadn't noticed, but there it was, he had, and he could not go back and un-notice it.

Just that one button. Just enough so that he could see the little pink bow on her bra, a chaste Midwestern bra, he liked to imagine, because when would she have time to be anything other than chaste? He'd seen to that.

Someone should probably tell her. But how to do it subtly, subtlety not being his strongest suit at the best of times? How to say the words Donna and button without finding himself saying bra and betraying his wandering, iniquitous thoughts?

Through the crack in his door he saw the solution: Carol. Probably coming to pore over the Lemon Lyman website with Donna. He supposed it was an activity best enjoyed with friends.

"Just the person," he said, breezing - hopefully breezing - past the bullpen.

"Hi," said Carol, uncertainly. "Me?"

"Hi." He still didn't know how he was going to word it. "Could you step into my office?"

"Sure." She followed him, then waited. "Was there -"

"Yes. Listen, I know this is going to sound -"

Sitting at his desk, he looked at Carol and then past her: it was a reflex of which he was no longer conscious, this constant glancing towards the bullpen. He noticed, with a little disappointment, that Donna had already, well, rectified the situation.

"Never mind."

"Okay," said Carol, slowly, as if talking to a dim-witted child.

He heard them laughing, her and Donna. He imagined them exchanging rolled eyes. And he felt a little wounded at his thwarted act of gallantry - of selflesness, even, because although the barely open shirt had been a distracting sight it had certainly not been an unpleasant one, just a glimpse of what could be their future, if only, if he only, if circumstances only, the familiar scenarios running through his mind and always the same conclusion, the same defeated conclusion that the little pink bow on the chaste Midwestern bra was a long way out of his reach, years perhaps, forever perhaps, because surely she would get tired of waiting, if she was in fact waiting, waiting for him, and why shouldn't she, he was, after, all the picture of gallantry.

But. Yeah, yeah. He knew the reality of it.

He put his head down on his desk and counted to ten slowly.

Thanks to Judy Reeves for the writing prompt in her Book of Days, "her button was undone".