A/N: Obviously, I don't own a thing. If I did, things would be very different. It is what it is. Anyway, this is my first attempt at writing for Chicago, PD. Enjoy.
He'd tried to prepare himself. On three separate occasions, Jay had given his mind a stern talking to. This is probably temporary. It won't last when Voight finds out. I can't make her choose me over her career. Workplace relationships are tough. His heart had stuttered at each statement, not wanting to accept the possible outcome of what had been happening the past couple of months.
All the warnings in the world, however, hadn't readied him for the ache and the pain he felt when he realized that it was over. For good.
Erin had made the call. He respected it.
But he didn't like it. Everything in him rebelled at the idea that the only touching that would occur between them now was accidental, a mistake, purely professional. Jay pulled the pillow up over his head, holding it there and squinting his eyes shut. Shit wasn't fair. How the hell was he meant to just turn everything off again?
His fingertips still craved the long slope of her exposed back as she lay on the bed before him. His arms yearned to pull her close to him, a warm body perfectly fit to his own. His stomach turned when he realized his sheets still smelled of her. She'd been wrapped in them this morning, lightly teasing him while they ate their breakfast. Croissants and orange juice. The last supper. Or breakfast. Or something.
Had he been this maudlin and melodramatic over his last break-up? Jay didn't think so. But then he hadn't been broken up with by a woman he'd seriously thought might be IT, had he? Had he been foolish, thinking she had thought that as well? She'd accepted his picture of the future without even blinking, a soft smile and a deep kiss gifted to him when he'd accidentally let it slip that he wouldn't be averse to having children with her one day. He'd mentioned wanting to teach his son, their son, to fish. He'd stumbled over an explanation, blurting out variations on 'I was just thinking hypothetically, Erin! No pressure!' and she hadn't minded. She'd told him his blushing was very endearing, sweet even.
And then she'd ridden him hard.
Add that to the list of things that was on the 'Not Gonna Happen Again' list. She'd been pretty definitive, not hesitant or wavering over the words that he'd tried to prepare for. That almost hurt more than the break itself, really, the realization that he'd felt so much more for her than the other way around. He'd thought… Well, apparently he'd thought wrong.
Friends, though. He could handle it. He'd handled it for more of their relationship than not, after all. Friends was good. It just, well, friendship didn't give permission for him to kiss that sensitive skin on her neck as she urged him on, and friendship wouldn't give him opportunities to hear her soft moans when he finally sank into her body early in the morning before work.
Friendship was boundaries and lines and restraint, and his craving and want and hunger and, damn it, his love, wanted more. They wanted everything from her, and he'd been so close to accepting the possibility of a happy ending that the denial of that was a heavy weight he wanted to be rid of. Maybe next week or next month he'd wake up and find it gone.
Maybe one day his eyes wouldn't follow her with blatant yearning, and maybe one day his hands wouldn't need to touch her soft skin. Maybe one day his mind wouldn't be filled with the 'what if's and 'we should's and the 'i want's.
Or maybe not.
