I want to be the one who makes you laugh out loud
I want to make you proud
And you always said you knew what I could be
So farewell to the old me
Farewell to the old me
Farewell to the old me
My life is working better now
But always changing anyhow...
-Dar Williams, "Farewell to the Old Me"
"You decent?"
She looks up, one hand testing the water. "Who, me?"
"Okay. Here." The bathroom door opens a crack, and Jamie's hand drops a clean shirt over the handle, and withdraws.
"Thanks!" she calls.
Damn, she sighs, and tugs the shower curtain closed. Oh, well.
The problem with having a work-week that ends on a Wednesday, she thinks, is that the pub ratio of typical working stiffs to dedicated barflies is all wrong. On a Friday or Saturday, she might have to look out for a spilled drink here and there out on the dance floor, but Wednesday night drinkers occasionally include large, unsteady fellows who fumble their beer right over her shoulder and down her back as they try to plot a course past her table.
Jamie was on his feet in an eyeblink, and their colleagues in blue swarmed up in seconds. Three of the boys appeared all in a row, ready to escort Joergen out the door in a hurry, but she and Jamie quickly settled everyone down.
Joergen, with a solemn, hangdog expression, had apologized eight times and offered to buy her and Jamie both another round, when Jamie swiftly cut in with a counter-offer of a shower and clothes back at his place. He unzipped his hoodie and tossed it to her, and she caught it with barely a pause, as she headed for the bathroom.
"Your boyfriend is a good man," Joergen told her, a little pompously, when she returned, her rinsed-out shirt in a bag their waitress had found. "He is not angry."
"No harm, no foul," Eddie said lightly, snuggling into Jamie's warm hoodie. "It's just an old top." She was deeply aware that it was the first time she hadn't automatically denied Jamie was her boyfriend, out of instinct. She was also aware that several of their off-duty buds had noticed it, too. Bemused at the whole farce, she took Jamie's arm, and hurried them out of the bar.
Which was how their real weekend began. Strolling back to his apartment hand in hand, just like any other couple on a late spring evening. She was still a little too damp and beery to wrap her arm around him, but after a week apart, she needed some part of him to touch, like a static buildup needing to be discharged.
Now she rolls her neck back and forth slowly under the hot spray, finding a lingering crick from Walsh jamming on the brakes in the PC yesterday, while her head was turned. What a week it's been. New partner, even if she and Walsh get on well. Usual insanity in downtown Manhattan to contend with, but no deaths on her watch, at least. Another letter from Dad, wanting to plan for his release next year. Another invite from Mom to come for dinner with her new husband and bring Jamie.
Cutting things short at the bar, she thinks, might have been a blessing in disguise.
Meeting up for drinks at the end of their first week together was supposed to be sort of a quiet but public coming-out among their colleagues, not as partners, but just Jamie n' Eddie. What they really need right now is to be back in each other's space. It's a simple thing to get a close read on each other from two feet away in the private bubble of their cruiser all day. But when you can communicate respect and amusement and attraction and total confidence on a dozen different levels while going toe-to-toe verbally over judgement calls made during hypothetical and actual cases, a few text messages between callouts do not come close.
They haven't had any time to hang out together since last week, the big anticlimactic split of '17, in which she and Kara Walsh joined forces as the badassiest-and-sassiest new partnership in the One-Two, and Jamie became T.O. for the new kid Theo Sipowicz.
That had been the easy part. Mollified by fresh baked pizelles and a silly memo asking for his blessing, along with a request for reassignment, Sergeant Renzulli had merely looked from one to the other, blown out a breath, and asked to be invited to the wedding. Rather than find them new postings across town from each other, as he'd threatened, he'd given her a rough hug and banged Jamie on the back with a finger-wagged warning to treat her right, which was pretty funny if you actually knew the pair of them.
The rest of the house shrugged, still convinced they had been an item for years. They're old news.
"Wait. Did Mister Family get you in the family way?" Walsh had demanded, eyeing her stomach sternly in the locker room. "That why you come clean all of a sudden?"
"Dude, no. I swear to you, we haven't even gone there yet."
"Uh huh," Walsh nodded slowly. "Well, we're gonna have plenty of time for me to get all the facts outta you."
In fact, they haven't had any chance to get pregnant even if they were trying to. Which they're not. At least, not yet. She's thirty-two and there is some muffled ticking going on, but they have a ways to go yet. Mostly on her side.
Jamie's already spent nearly a year being engaged, and she's pretty sure he was looking forward to fatherhood as soon as it happened. She wants to talk to him more about that, and if recasting himself as a beat cop after chasing a high-flying legal career has changed him in ways he never expected, too. So many things she'd wanted to know, but shied away from asking. They were already hip-deep in pair-bonding when they'd pulled back last year, and it would only have been more painful, at the time, to look down paths they had decided not to travel together.
There's a short tap on the door that brings her back to herself. "Throwing your shirt in the wash with my stuff," he calls. "Take your time."
"Thanks again."
It's one thing to finally admit, in words and in wordless embraces, the deeply-rooted love that's kept them in each other's close orbit for years, and to know they've finally made the decision to prioritize each other over the job. It's another to find the time and energy for each other, and to figure out what this new phase of their relationship is supposed to look like.
Tonight it's finally just them. And she's naked and wet in Jamie's shower, and he, being Jamie, is doing the laundry and giving her some space, because they could both use a little downtime before what will certainly be an intense couple of days. She'd changed into a newly-acquired set of pale blue lacy underthings after work with high hopes, but she hadn't pictured hand-washing her bra and hanging it over his shower rail to air.
Hey, he might as well get used to it. Cop home life. It's weirdly non-suffocating.
She's always been a bit of a chameleon, an easy thing for a young, cute rich girl to be while studying to go into business with her equally chameleon-like, charismatic dad. She used to shy away from too many serious dates or getting in to too deep with any of her social circles. She had a different wardrobe for each cluster of friends, each set of hangouts. Dating a diverse swathe of guys meant that she could keep reinventing herself, keep moving, zig-zagging when she felt like it, with little risk of running into the same set.
Reintegrating her entire identity within the NYPD was so much more than a career move, or even a chance to redeem her family in some measure. The job and the life are tough enough to get her back up against and fight with every ounce of her strength, and re-make herself over. And if scrappy, trust-shaken, angry Eddie still pops her head up on occasion, there's generally an identifiable trigger these days, even if she goes off like a timed detonator charge at times. She thought she'd feel trapped if she was made to stay in one place. But between the forged-tight bonds of the NYPD and Jamie's constant presence in her life, she feels more at home than she has since before the family crash.
She's definitely not rich now, and she's not terribly young anymore, either. After four years on the job, the cute, blue-eyed effervescent kid has evolved into something far more satisfying: a springy spine and powerful limbs wrapped in mature curves, and a deeper-etched beauty, like her mother's, that needs nobody's approval anymore. It took her quite some time to make the shift from pride in her new physical presence to a state of frustrated, helpless fury that she apparently out-manned all the men she was interested in, to finally turning around and hearing what Jamie had been implicitly and explicitly telling her every day.
"You don't need to make apologies for who you are, or what you do for a living."
…yes, and he doesn't need to apologize for the look on his face when she plants the heels of her 5.11 boots and hauls up her command voice, she thinks to herself, grinning. It's true. He likes her strong and he likes her soft and silly. And everything in between.
She could, she thinks, keep NYPD-brand Eddie around for good. And apparently Jamie thinks he might, too. Their snakes-and-ladders relationship has been the longest of her life to date, and he's seen so many of her characters that she might as well just hang them up now.
Except, of course, the ones he likes. She knows the ones he likes. Boy Scouts do grow up.
She shuts off the shower. Stepping out, she wraps herself in a towel, and collects the shirt he's left. It's from his Harvard student days, flannel with a small green and blue plaid print, a little smaller than he usually wears now since bulking up on the job. She dries off and slips into it, rolling up the sleeves four times each. It's long enough to cover her to the thigh, and man alive, she's tempted to sashay out like that, but she has no idea where they're at tonight. The ridiculously slow burn that wants to take them over could end up burning them, or lighting the way forward, and it all remains to be seen. What she does know is that Jamie is her best friend, whatever else they're moving towards. So it's back on with her jeans and underwear, which luckily escaped the beery deluge.
She wanders out of the bathroom with the towel around her shoulders, to find him sprawled on his old leather couch with a college basketball game on mute. He's not really paying attention to it, but it's keeping him anchored in the present instead of lost in his head, which she appreciates, because nobody can disappear behind a blank fortress wall between one moment and the next like Jamie.
But not tonight. He looks up and flicks a warm gaze at her, clean and rosy in his shirt. He clicks off the TV and holds out a hand to her, letting one leg drop to the floor so she can sit with her back against his chest. She weaves her fingers through his, feeling that zing! of contact, and sort of slides into him on the couch. For once, it's all unrushed and wordless and just good.
She starts rubbing her hair dry, and is surprised when he takes over. She leans into him and purrs. Nobody has done that for her since she was tiny. She's come to realize how often she and Jamie used to touch each other, or move around deep within in each other's space during shifts, since she and Walsh don't tend to. More to the point, she's the one who touches Jamie all the time, and apparently he's figured out that it's because she needs to touch and be touched. It's something he can do for her, despite his own natural reserve, and she loves him and wants him all the more for it.
He slows down, and she starts combing out her damp hair with her fingers. Jamie notices her tense up when she comes close to the sore spot in her neck. She shows him, rolling her head to the side and pointing out the muscle. And then his hand slides over it and rests there, warming her, getting her used to the feel of him there before he starts to work at it, slowly and in time with her breathing. She feels her eyelids growing heavy, but it's too good to miss. He's focussed entirely on her now, both of his strong hands reaching into muscles she didn't even know were sore, and she groans in painful delight.
Long minutes later, she seems to come back to herself, flopped against him limply. He's really just stroking the skin of her neck and over her shoulders now, as far under the collar of his shirt as he can reach. Almost without thought she slides a lazy hand up and plucks another button open, and if the next one happens to come undone by itself, well, it hardly matters. Jamie sighs against her ear. One arm comes around her waist. For a little while he holds her, the pads of his fingers stroking the soft skin of her chest, just under the open front of his shirt, silence and slow breaths in a hypnotic rhythm.
Oh, God, that's good. She moves to roll over and kiss him, but he gives a low chuckle and wraps a leg over hers. It isn't an invitation to wrestle. He's enjoying this unhurried exploration as much as she is, apparently, and has some ideas in mind. Which is fine with her. She's highly curious to see where he goes with this. She feels him wriggle around and he lets go of her for a moment, before he drops his t-shirt to the floor and wraps her in his arms again. Oh. Yes. That's even better. He's worked up some heat, massaging her shoulders, and he's warm and solid behind her.
The thought of shirtless Jamie so near is doing things to her head. They both watch as with slow fingertips he traces down over the sensitive curve of the top of her breast, dipping across, and over the other. She drags in a breath as a deep pulse of hunger radiates low down, and her spine rises up in a slow wave, guiding his fingers to slip down into the valley between. His quiet hum vibrates in her ear as he reads her skin, and strokes the path of her cleavage up to her collar bone.
"Jesus, Eddie," he breathes, all gravelly. "How long you been wanting me to touch you there?"
She shakes her head slowly. It's been so long she can't even remember. His touch is soothing an ache that had been surging under her skin for years, and setting off thready little sparks in its wake.
Well. It's no wonder that one or the other of them would quickly move to fill every silence with words and banter, if this is what happens when they finally shut up and slow down.
She considers his question again as her mind re-engages, and smiles. "Yeah, I do know. I caught you not-looking, a few months right after we partnered up." His forehead drops against her neck and he huffs ruefully, and she goes on: "So unprofessional, Reagan, not-checking-out your partner like that."
"Well, I didn't think you'd want me to look. Much."
She decides she'll give him a bonus point for that. She likes showing off her assets, but she isn't averse to using the old girls as a test of male respect, either. His strenuous efforts at maintaining his eye-line above her shoulders were as charming as the few times she'd caught him sliding a glance past her bust when it wasn't strapped down under a duty blouse and vest. Just, you know, on the way to looking at something else. She can admit she's filed away his fleeting appreciation to hold to her ego-bruises on a lousy day, now and then, though she's never actively sought to distract him.
Well, except for the strappy little black main-course she'd worn to his friend's wedding, even if they were determined to keep their hands off each other at the time…and the sparkly vintage number with the sharp plunge that she'd found to wear to the jazz club. That dress actually had him gazing speechlessly for a good five seconds.
"Maybe I sort of wanted you to look."
The feel of him chuckling against her back is like coming home.
"Okay, I totally wanted you to look."
"Well," he tells her, his breath tickling against her earlobe and making her squirm slowly in pleasure, "I'm definitely looking now."
"Find anything good?"
"So much good," he murmurs, in a voice she's never heard him use. He nuzzles into her shoulder, and strokes the soft skin above and between her breasts, up and down. He seems to be coasting somewhere between arousal and reverence. She's a bit high on the combination herself, her eyes drifting shut again, until she feels his breath catch and he hums interestedly. She opens her eyes and glances down. Under his shirt, her nipples are peaking. It's a nice enough view for her; she imagines how it must be for him.
Then she feels his soft lips against her neck, and his fingers slide open another button, and another, and the last, and he tugs the sides of the shirt apart to see. She feels very exposed under this close focus of his, and her body starts to shift again of its own accord under his touch, sharp darts of pleasure running down and down, as his ring finger follows the line her shadowy areola makes, fascinated. His fingers move to trace the outer curve of one breast, slide underneath over her ribs, and then he's cradling it in in his hand, a contented sigh in his throat. His thumb strokes briefly over her tight pink nipple, once, twice, and her harsh exhale escapes into to the quiet air as she shivers in his arms, but he doesn't take her any farther that that, because he's Jamie, and he has more finding out to do. He's busy mapping the shape and soft fall of her breasts, how she sighs and how her body isn't sure whether to twist away or seek out the intensity of it when he strokes her sides and brushes kisses over her shoulders.
Huh. Maybe this is what is meant by people who are turned on by learning. If that's true, sign her up.
This time he lets her up when she rolls over and sits on her heels. Looking him straight in the eyes, she slips his shirt down her arms, reaches up and drapes it over the back of the couch, and settles herself back down against him, skin to skin, finally. His eyes have gone a spectacular shade of dark and soft, and the feel of his heatbeat skittering like mad under her palms gives her a sweet, sharp pang that's almost like crying.
She stretches up and murmurs, "I really do love you, Jamie." before she nudges his lips with hers. Her sensitized breasts brush against him as she does, and she lets out an actual gasp as his hand shoots up to burrow into her hair. In his rough exhale and hard, intense kiss she tastes how long he's needed her, what it's cost him to have her so close by. His restless fingers over her skin, his mouth moving down along her neck, are sending shockwaves of pleasure through her, and the craving becomes a storm of hunger about to break. He whispers, low and hot, "I love you. I love you." and blindly seeks her mouth again, his tongue sweeping inside right there like that and ohh, she's never going to get used to that, the feel of Jamie Reagan letting go.
She strokes the muscles and planes of his chest, getting swept away in the feeling of his body moving with hers, responding to her every touch. He's more vocal than she thought, and his breathless quiet sounds are driving her out of her mind. He pulls back a fraction of an inch to get a breath of air and the dryer buzzes in the next room, and they both nearly jump out of their skin. With a shaky laugh she props herself up with one hand on his chest, and looks down at him, both of them rumpled and panting.
"Guess the laundry's done," he says, with a quick huff of laughter. "Remind me to disable that thing."
She raises an amused eyebrow from behind the curtain of her messy hair and draws in a mind-clearing inhale. He presses his hand over hers, his kiss-swollen lips wet and smirky, his eyes feasting on her. She can't help but admire his chest some more and drop an airy drift of kisses along his pectoral ridge. He lets out a sigh at the swish of her hair over his skin. Then she sits up properly, picks up his shirt and covers herself more or less, and peers over at him. "I am not complaining in the least," she tells him, palming a line down to the scritch of hair over his navel. "I love this. I love you. And I want more. But real talk, Reagan: I'd kinda like to stretch out, you know, and we got totally sidetracked from dinner. You're gonna need to feed me. Oh! Doesn't Sal have two-for-one souvlaki tonight?"
He rolls his eyes and palms his forehead, sending a laugh up to the ceiling that she feels start way down in his belly, and just like that, they've locked onto their old rhythm again.
How silly she was to think they wouldn't be partners anymore. They've never been more firmly partnered. It matters little what they choose to call each other or their relationship. They may have been placed together by the hand of Fate or the whim of their supervisors, but what took root there needed to be transplanted out in the world so it could deepen and grow. Now they have that space, now that the choices are all up to them, she knows with a bone-deep certainty: neither of them wants to be anywhere else. Whatever else they may be – and she's pretty sure it's just a matter of sorting out timing and priorities – they are partners first and foremost.
"Not gonna christen the couch tonight?" he grins up at her. Oh, he's done some solitary thinking here, she thinks, on those nights when that mind of his won't shut off. Not that wild can't-wait couch sex in Jamie Reagan's lap hadn't featured in some of her more intense fantasies, but the couch will still be there tomorrow and her neck deserves a pillow.
"Reagan," she prods his chest, and somehow her hand ends up smoothing over his shoulder again as she leans down for another kiss. "Ugh. Food. You're such a distraction." She spells it out for him: "We are not leaving this apartment for two days. We're going to require sustenance."
His eyes brighten and the elusive dimple makes an appearance. Ah. Now he gets it.
He takes her hand and slides his fingers through hers. It seems to be their favourite new alternative to randomly body-checking each other.
"Meal break, partner," he says.
Notes:
A/N 1: Am I mean? Gosh.
A/N 2: Yes, that Theo Sipowicz.