The smug look on his face could not remain when Irene's expression changed so easily, so drastically. His smirk immediately turned into a deep frown, his eyebrows turned upwards from vain triumph into surprised confusion, and his feet began to slip from their perch. Irene Norwood had always been a hard ass - hadn't that been the little taunt he had given her? The hard ass with the nicest ass. But now, she was looking anything but hard, or tough, or cold. She was looking downright human, in a way she never had before.
Gabby supposed she ought to look human, though. He was the dog, after all.
In all their time working together, Gabby had never seen Irene looking anything other than professional or irritated. So, to see her looking suddenly so vulnerable was absolutely unnerving to the man. Gabby might be a prat, a pain, a ruffian, and a flirt, but that did not keep him from being a good guy when it came down to it. He liked to poke fun, pick fights, and pull stunts, but he also did not like to see anyone truly hurt - anyone who didn't deserve it, anyway. And pain she might be, Irene Norwood was just doing her job, and he would never want to cause her any real distress beyond irritation, frustration, and scattered loss of sleep.
His feet dropped to the ground and he stared at her. "What? What did I say?" She had never sent him home early, usually preferring to grill him for every scrap of information that she was sure he was keeping from her, so he could not figure out why she would let him go now. His voice seemed more sincere than it had before, but he could not keep a bit of a challenge out of it. She had surprised him after all - he was not used to being surprised and, in this instance, he wasn't sure he liked it at all.