For a Smile They Can Share the Night

A Henry & Jo Story

By Brown Eyes Parker

Rated: T for mentions of adult situations and song lyrics.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, aside from five versions of Don't Stop Believin' and some of them are Glee Cast versions.

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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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The second time it happened, she remembered every single detail vividly. There is no doubt in her mind that they have done it. Their joining was fueled by anxiety and needing to know that they were still alive, not liquor. She brought him to her house for it; there weren't any questioning roommates there.

Henry would be the one who needed to creep home before it got too light because she couldn't face him over coffee and breakfast. He seemed to get that she needed her space because he wasn't there when she woke up. But he was waiting for her at the crime scene, unshaven and with her favorite latte in a Styrofoam cup that was embossed with the name of a coffee shop that was far too expensive.

It was like he was trying to apologize for his indiscretion in sleeping with her again. She downed her coffee, ignoring the way it burned her taste buds and didn't even try to form an apology for doing the same thing to him even though she does care that it could ruin their friendship down the road.

Even though they were both sorry it happened a second time, it doesn't stop them from going to bed together a third time. It was the night of Hanson's tenth wedding anniversary and Jo was heady from too much chocolate cake and too much merlot, she threw herself at Henry shamelessly and he reciprocated her kisses, a little high on sugar and white wine himself.

As he unzipped her dress, Jo told herself that this would be the last time that she would sleep with him; she didn't think she was lying to herself.

Until it happened the next time.

They fell into a pattern. Twice a week, she found herself shedding her clothes for Henry, sober or not. She told herself that they were strictly friends with benefits; there was no way either of them could get the wrong idea from their interludes.

One night, after they shared a particularly passionate encounter, Jo was drifting in and out of a sleep when she heard Henry whisper something into her ear while he affectionately brushed her hair out of her face.

For one horrible second, she wondered if it is all part of the dream world she was constructing, a figment of her imagination, it took her another second to realize that it wasn't in her head. She wanted to bolt right then and there but then she would have to confront those three little words and she just couldn't.

It isn't until they are both fully clothed and a few weeks later that she feels strong enough to broach the subject. They were eating Chinese takeout on the floor of her apartment when she tentatively asked him if he meant it.

Henry frowned. "I thought you were asleep. I would have never said it aloud if I knew you were awake," he said.

"Why?"

"Because this isn't about love to you," Henry told her. "It's just sex, isn't it? A way to burn off drinks or anxiety or whatever the problem of the week is. Love would complicate things for the both of us, it would ruin or nifty little arrangement and maybe our friendship right on the top of it. Right?"

Jo hesitated for a second before answering but she didn't need to think about it for a long time. She knew he was right, anything more than sex would probably ruin everything and she doesn't want that. Not with him.

But now that the 'L' word was out in the open, a phrase she hadn't heard in such a long time, something she knew that Henry hadn't said in quite a long time, she didn't know what to do. She hoped that maybe that the I love you was mistaken for something else, like lust. But she knew just by looking at him, it isn't the case.

He had fallen in love with her.

Jo wondered what she had done to deserve it.

She wondered if she loved him too.

She hadn't thought about it in so long, she didn't even know what it looked like. So, she sent him away in the middle of the coconut shrimp and teriyaki chicken and before she got one of her two fixes for the week.

When he left, she tossed the remaining takeout into the garbage and went to take a long shower. She closed her eyes and stayed under the spray until it turned cold. She still didn't know anything about what she was feeling; she figured it would probably take her a while to figure it all out.

What she did know was that it wouldn't be fair to keep him coming back for more when she didn't know her own heart, so she canceled their twice a week bedroom dates and started to take a long look at what she really wanted.

And he was still there, wooing her with coffee and flowers and indie movie dates in Chinatown. At the end of the day, he would call her and they talked for hours while he still gave her plenty of space to figure things out, not talking to her of love even though there was love and adoration in his eyes, pure and unadulterated by the lust that had usually marked their other meetings.

It was like they were getting a do over.

He didn't even try to kiss her until their third date and it was wonderful and chaste and made her feel things that weren't lust or a need to fill the empty spaces inside of her.

On the sixth date, she invited him upstairs for decaf coffee. She put her vintage Billie Holiday on the record player even though she knew that he preferred classical. He stayed until the record ended and then gave her a kiss goodnight, leaving before anything else could happen.

But it did on their tenth date. It was raining out and they spent a few minutes, kissing feverishly on her porch step before she led him upstairs with the knowledge they were both going to get very lucky.

This time it was different than all of the other times combined. This time there wasn't fear or booze or franticness to it, this time there was tenderness and care and passion. . . and yes, there was love combined with it. Even though Jo still hadn't said it to him aloud yet, she had been saying it in her head since their seventh date, after sushi and while they had been holding each other up to an Earth, Wind and Fire song, trying not to run into the eighth-graders celebrating a thirteenth birthday.

She still couldn't say it aloud; she didn't want him to misinterpret it for something that it wasn't, especially during their coupling. She knew he could mistake it for something like passion if she didn't wait for the right moment, so she says it over and over silently until the next morning when he is still there when she woke up and serving her breakfast in bed before crawling back into bed and pulling her down beside him, celebrating the freedom of the words with the confirmation of the feelings she knew that he already had for her.

Jo laughed as she parroted the words back to him again and again, not getting tired of the sentiment once.

_The End_

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Author's Note:

This is a condensed story of a longer story that's been plaguing me for a while. It isn't my usual fare, sex out of marriage is something I hardly touch upon. . . and even still, I kept it shadowed, the way I typically do when I even write about intimate topics. I hope you liked it and that you will tell me your thoughts in a review! I'm looking forward to hearing from you.

Until next time!

Love,

Holly, 3/11/2015_