For A Smile They Can Share The Night – Extended

A Henry & Jo Story

By Brown Eyes Parker

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Rated: T for adult situations

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Chapter 1

I'm sat here, wising I were sober

Jo Martinez's throat was excessively dry, like somebody had stuffed cotton balls inside of it. She knew that she had drank one too many whiskey and root beers the night before, the pounding of her head and the sand in her eyes should have told her the whole story but there was a large party of her memory missing.

All she could remember was a tough case and leading Henry Morgan to a bar to get smashed after they'd closed it. She remembered all it had taken was two drinks mixed with soda and ice for her not to want to feel anything and to want to feel everything all at once, there'd been an Ed Sheeran remix playing from the speakers overhead, lyrics about getting drunk to feel something mixed with Henry's eyes, just as sad as her own.

Common sense had gone away with her third drink and she'd leaned into kiss him, not a stranger to kissing strange men in bars. Except this wasn't a strange man. This was her consultant. This was her friend, she didn't go around kissing her male friends but the liquor had dulled her senses, allowing her to do things that she didn't always do. . . like it did usually.

She waited for Henry to push her away, to ask her what she was doing but he didn't and she knew where the night was heading. Knew instinctively that she should stop it before it had even started, when morning came they would both regret what had happened between them.

She still loved her dead husband.

He was still married to a ghost.

But when she started, she was powerless to stop. All the other men she had brought home with her had never made her feel this good.

And now, in the gray light of early morning, with Henry's arm across her chest, with the beginnings of a whisky headache, she wasn't sure of anything or of where she was. She couldn't tell if they had made it to her house or the one that he shared with Abe. She didn't know if they actually did it or if they stopped before they had even began. Their half-state of undress didn't tell her anything, she knew they could have taken off only the important articles of clothing that had gotten in their way.

Jo wiggled out of Henry's grasp and slipped out of bed, searching for her jeans and her t-shirt. As soon as her feet touched the hardwood floor, she knew she wasn't at home. She moved a little more quickly, afraid to run into Abe because it would make her walk of shame a dozen times worse, it would make seeing him under different circumstances awkward.

Henry opened his eyes just as she was zipping up her jeans. He looked as bad as she felt while he sat up, exposing his bare chest.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He asked, his voice laden with liquor and heavy sleep.

"Is there anything to talk about?" Jo replied, pulling on one boot and then another one before finding her wine-colored sweater.

"I don't know," Henry answered, clearing his throat. "Did something happen last night?"

"We kissed," Jo said, it was the only thing she could tell him with complete honesty. "After that, I don't know. I want to say no, but I can't tell. Everything is a blur. Since we don't know, we can pretend last night never happened."

"Of course," Henry said, always the gentleman. "I'm sorry. . . for whatever happened, if anything happened. For not remembering if anything happened."

"Don't worry about it," Jo replied, pulling her t-shirt over her head. "I'm sure you were wonderful."

"You too," Henry agreed, looking a little bemused by the whole thing, just as unsure as she was about what had happened between them.

Jo couldn't help but wonder if he had slept with Iona during his brief courtship with her and she wished that she could tell him that it they hadn't slept together if that was the case. But she didn't know the truth herself and she didn't have any energy to lie to him.

"I have to go," she told him instead. "I need to get home and get cleaned up before work today."

Henry hesitated and then smiled uneasily. "You do realize that it's Saturday. Right?"

Jo blushed. "Still. I need to go. . . before Abe catches me. . . catches us."

"I'm sure Abe won't mind," Henry told her even though she could tell that maybe he would prefer it if she just went home so they could both have some space to think.

"I'll see you on Monday," Jo said as she grabbed her leather jacket and released a deep breath, ready for a shower and a handful of Advil to annihilate the headache that was starting to plague her.

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She got to her apartment, locked herself in and immediately went to her bathroom. She opened the medicine cabinet and grabbed the bottle of Advil, it was still opened from the last time she had used it. She counted out four electric-blue colored pills and dry swallowed them. She closed the mirror and studied her reflection. Her eyes were rimmed in mascara and black eyeliner, her hair was tousled. It was all signs of her indiscretion.

She had spent the night with Henry and she couldn't take it back.

Jo barely made it to the toilet before she vomited up the Advil and whatever was left of last night's drinks. She flushed the toilet and started the shower, stepping down to nothing. She stuffed her clothes in the hamper and pulled her hair away from her face then brushed her teeth while she waited for the water to finish heating up.

Once in the shower, she closed her eyes and lifted her head to the spray, she didn't get out until the water had grown cold. And even then, she waited a little bit, scrubbing away Henry's cologne and the 12 hour old bar smell with her A Thousand Wishes body gel, she shut the water off and grabbed a towel, shivering slightly as the water droplets from her hair hit her shoulders.

Jo padded to her room and searched around her closet for her largest sweatshirt. She pulled it over her head and put a pair of sensible cotton underwear on before falling into bed, pulling the comforter up to her chin and curling up into a ball, she drifted off into a deep and uneasy sleep.

Thinking that maybe when she woke up, she would realize that every single bit of what had happened the night before was just a very bad dream.

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Stop being so old-fashioned! Henry told himself as he shaved the stubble away and tried to ward off a pulsing headache. People do that kind of thing all the time now. It's the 21st century; you can sleep with somebody who you aren't married to. You can be friends with benefits.

But this was a hard concept for him to accept, Henry was used to waiting, not giving into his sexual desires. He had been a virgin when he'd married Nora, he and Abigail had waited until they were married to consummate their marriage. Casual sex, sex out of marriage was a whole new concept and he was disgusted with himself for sleeping with Jo without any kind of commitment.

They weren't even dating!

Henry banged the shaving cream off his razor and rinsed it off. That's what made it all the worse in his opinion. He should have been a good friend to her, told her to stop drinking and sent her home in a taxi when she had kissed him. But he hadn't been thinking straight either; at that point he had matched her drink for drink. At that point, he had wanted to forget just as much as she had.

The rest of the night had passed in a blur, he couldn't remember if they'd hailed a taxi or kissed all the way back to his apartment. He couldn't remember removing a single article of clothing from her body or if he had said anything to her, if she had said anything to him. Assuring each other that everything was alright, that they would still be friends in the morning.

Maybe forgetting everything that had happened was for the best, Henry mused as he got into the shower. Maybe it would make it easier to look at each other when they were together again. Neither of them could answer the unanswered questions; fill in the gap to the terrible blank they were both probably drawing.

Henry decided he would just try to forget he had ever woken up in bed with Jo. He swore that he would never let it happen again, the next time he would be more careful. If he wanted to forget the bad things that had happened, he would go out and get drinks with Hanson or Lucas or come and talk to Abe.

He wouldn't allow himself to fall into temptation ever again.

Not when his friendship with Jo could be put at stake because of it.

TBC. . .

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Author's Note:

So, here's the extended version of the story like some people asked for. I hope you'll come on this journey with me and that you'll enjoy the ride. This is something different than what I usually do. I still won't write explicit sex scenes or anything like that but I am trying to stretch my wings by doing something slightly different than what I usually do. Reviews are love; please tell me what you think! The lyrics at the beginning are from the Ed Sheeran song Drunk.

Until Next Time!

Love,

Holly, 4/22/2015_