November 18, 2016
Eddie's place

"What d'you think?" she asked, smoothing down the front of her dress.

She knew she looked damn fine, and she knew Jamie would more than appreciate the hug of her dress against her ass. But his friends? Was a cut-out, silvery number too night-clubby for the upwardly mobile corporate Harvard set? Were her biceps too muscle-y, too ready to tackle someone to the pavement, next to the willowy spa-pampered types at a wedding like this? Was she trying too hard at being a girl? And why should she care? It wasn't like she was going to be inviting them to her wedding any time soon, right?

There was no reason she should have a flock of butterflies taking up residence in the pit of her stomach, but there they were. And to her chagrin, under Jamie's quiet scrutiny, they were quickly turning into little tremors of hunger. The gleam in his eyes, the bob of his Adam's apple as he swallowed despite himself, and the really, really well-cut suit that hung perfectly on his trim frame. In his uniform, he could sometimes look absurdly young, next to the older male cops with the Jimmy Stewart shoulders and jowly chins. Jamie was so typically Irish, strong and wiry, ageless. But in a suit like that, projecting his usual understated confidence…

Her turn to swallow.

"I think, if I was the bride, I'd be calling in sick," he told her seriously. "Because you are going to steal the show."

She let a grin spread across her face, stepped towards him, and somehow avoided running her fingers down his neatly pressed shirtfront, or even kissing him senseless.

"You don't look so bad yourself, Mister Reagan."

She made sure he got an eyeful to remember her by, as he followed her out the door.

It was probably madness to have come even this far, but they were committed now. Jamie had invited her to be his plus-one almost by instinct. Who else would he want to go with, he'd said. They were best friends. Why should it be weird?

Men, she rolled her eyes mentally. Do they even realize what weddings do to people? The romance, the music and dancing, everyone looking and acting their very best? And they were planning to use this as an opportunity to prove to each other that they really could just concentrate on being friends, and not let other feelings interfere. With hotel rooms across the hall from each other.

She found herself agreeing anyway. It wasn't as if she had anything else going on, and the thought of sitting in her apartment alone while he was out dancing with dressed-up Harvard women geniuses, was too much to bear.

If she hadn't been a cop, with a cop's hypervigilance and security sense, she knew she'd find a way to get a spare door card for her hotel room. Let him know it was his choice, if he wanted to walk on the wild side with her for a couple of stolen days that didn't have to matter. She could least admit the temptation, and be grudgingly grateful that she'd never have sex anywhere that might have cameras, illicit or otherwise, or insecure doors.

Down at the street, Jamie held open the door of the cab for her. She rewarded him with a candid once-over, and began compiling a stack of mental images of him, in his hotel bed a few hours later, thinking of her too, just a few feet away.

Because, dammit, he did matter.

November 20, 2016
Bix' Basement Jazz and Supper Club

He couldn't blame her for not showing. It was hardly their usual sort of place, and between them, they had more baggage now than they'd had packed for the hotel. But he'd wanted to apologize, in a more substantive way than words would convey. Make up for the last dance they'd missed, of being an ordinary non-cop pair of friends all dressed up and on best behaviour. And, he told himself, to do so without acting like a selfish, sulky, overprotective idiot in public and getting them both arrested for disturbing the peace. At least the JP had released them, as soon as morning came around and they'd had a chance to explain.

"I see you two are partners at Twelve House in the city," she said finally, reading from a note.

"Yes, Your Honor." Chanted in perfect schoolroom unison.

"Nothing more?"

"No, ma'am."

"Absolutely not, ma'am."

Her Honor had eyed the two of them in their post-melée wedding gear. "Uh-huh. Go home. Behave. Dismissed with no charges."

He'd wanted to dance with her. Of course he had. He knew she was hurt that he'd left her to her own devices and gone out of his way to not act like her date. But he hadn't expected there to be any other cops nearby, who might enjoy carrying a tidbit of hot gossip back to his precinct where it could fester and cause trouble. And he really didn't know if he could be too near Eddie cranked to eleven, at her most gorgeous, unguarded, absolutely fucking amazing-smelling, without caving in completely. He didn't have Eddie's facility for casual conversation with new people, or her ability to touch people as a sort of friendly punctuation. Dancing with Eddie the way he just knew they would dance together, in front of another cop, would be a statement of intent, not a social dance.

So he'd ended up channeling his inner Joe, and watched over her instead. Just to make sure she got back to the hotel in good shape and only with the company she chose, he told himself. Sure, Eddie could handle herself, but she shouldn't have to be on her guard all the time, right? Not if he had her back like a good partner. He even convinced himself she'd be sort of grateful that he'd stayed out of her hair and kept the knuckleheads away from her.

He checked his watch and sighed. Forty minutes was no longer "running late", and it wasn't as though she could have been called on duty. In fact, they had been relegated to daytime desk duty until their black eyes had reduced to "a somewhat more professional appearance on our streets", as the Lieutenant had rumbled at them.

He paid up at the bar, feeling morose, and was turning to leave when he caught that same perfume on the air. He felt his heart stutter even before he saw her, and when he did, he couldn't even pretend not to stare. If he'd known she had all those perfectly flattering little outfits in her closet like the ones she'd been wearing these past few days, he'd have been in even more trouble.

"Sorry I'm late," she said, with an oddly shy smile. He knew the slight fuzziness of her focus when she'd been drinking, and he hoped that meant she wasn't on any painkillers for the lingering shiner over her cheek. So she wasn't so much mad at him as conflicted, he thought, with a lightening sensation.

"Just glad you made it," he assured her. He was aware that their eyes were carrying on some other whole conversation, begging to be understood, and he really didn't care.

She turned into his arms and moved with his steps as if they'd been rehearsing, which made sense, considering how many partner scenarios and marching drills they'd performed over the years. But dancing with Eddie was something else altogether. He was deeply aware of how graceful she was in his arms, how she leaned into him in a way that left him feeling sort of wrecked and protective and in total awe of her powerful self, all at once.

There was only one thing they needed to talk about, after all, and Eddie, bravely, took the first line.

"You ever think about what we might be missing out on?" She wasn't asking him to reconsider, he knew. Just to make sure that what they'd decided was mutual and for the best, and whatever other horrible rationalizations applied.

Only every day, he wanted to say. If it was just working off a sexual buzz, they'd have been at it ages ago, and probably over it by now. Feelings, as they'd both admitted, were different things altogether. And what he was missing, precisely, was Eddie Janko firmly in his life as his best friend and lover and whatever else they might come to be to each other. Making a life together, built around that relationship.

Not much of a problem, for nearly any other professional working couple. But for them it would mean rarely seeing each other, never tapping into that private radio connection that made them such a great duo at work, never raising the bar for each other and feeling excited about every shift. And who could say if it would even work out, or end up wrecking a truly great partnership?

"You have a type," Erin had levelled at him, quite correctly, if he was honest with himself.

"You are not even close to my type," Eddie had insisted, before pouncing on him.

No, no complications there.

"Yup." He knew she'd extrapolate his meaning. "You ever think about what we'd be giving up?" he asked in turn, which might have come across with a little more impact if he hadn't been playing with her fingertips and feeling her breath hitch.

She nodded, a little broken. "Yup."

Hiding in plain sight in a busy jazz club was a temporary alternate universe to step into, and he knew it would end very soon. But just for now, with her hand resting over his heart and his head dropped down to drown in the softness of her hair and the waver of her breath against his skin, he knew that no force on earth was going to make him let go until they'd had their dance.