Chapter 4

The fourth time you're at Holly's you stumble through the door, clutching your stomach that's hurting from laughing too much. You'd been walking from The Penny back to her place, and Holly was so caught up in an explanation of something sciency (that you've already forgotten the name of) that she walked straight into a streetlight due to looking at you instead of the sidewalk ahead. It had been very abrupt, one second she was rambling and gesturing enthusiastically, her brown eyes glittering in the yellow light as she tried to explain some kind of chemical reaction. The next second she hit the lamp post with a groan as you walked past it unharmed. Luckily she didn't get hurt, but her confused pout combined with the way her glasses sat all askew had you laughing for the remaining three blocks to her house.

"Gail, seriously, stop laughing."

"You.. should.. have seen your face," you squeak in-between giggles as you kick off your boots.

"Nah, I'm good," she grumbles. "Do you want coffee?"

"Yeah," you nod as you walk past her and plop down on one of the bar stools by her kitchen island. "Please," you add as an afterthought.
You watch her as she handles her spaceship-like coffee maker without hesitance. You refuse to go near the thing but you know from the other times you've been here that the coffee it makes is a gazillion times better than the stuff you have at work, or at home. Too bad it sounds like a Transformer throwing a rage-fit when it's grinding the beans.

It's nice, watching Holly in the kitchen. There's something very homey and safe about the way she moves, which is unsurprising since she lives here. What's surprising is how relaxed you feel while watching her, you rarely feel comfortable in other peoples homes.

Minutes later she brushes past you with two steaming mugs of coffee, heading for the couch.

Holly zaps through the channels until she finds an old rerun of Friends, and turns the volume down a little. She has pulled her legs up under her and thrown a blanket over her shoulders. You declined when she offered you one, stating that it was against your aversion towards fleece, completely ignoring the fact that both blankets in question are made of knitted wool, not fleece.

You take a sip of your coffee, feeling the warmth spread through your body, chasing away the vague tipsiness that remains from the drinks you had at The Penny. Holly isn't a regular customer there, but had told you she wanted to drop by and see what it was all about, so tonight she had.

Annoyingly enough, the only two persons from your ragtag group of friends that had been at the Penny tonight was Traci and Andy, and since you had no intentions of voluntarily spending time with McNally anytime in the near future, you and Holly had gotten a table of your own after a brief conversation.

Two officers you didn't know very well had asked you if you wanted to play pool and being a creature of habit more than really opposed to it, you refused, resorting to cheering on Holly and offering your very own brand of commentary when she beat them both with ease. One of the guys had been pretty good but it didn't help much since his friend was too busy checking out Holly to pay any real attention to the game.

You didn't feel like telling him he was completely out of luck regarding Holly, so you didn't. Instead you chose to watch amusedly as the poor guy made a chivalrous mess out of himself.

"You don't feel like switching teams do you?" you ask Holly.

"What?" she says, turning her head away from "The One With the Giant Poking Device".

"Switching teams? You must have noticed how that guy we played pool with tried to get your attention earlier,"

"No, nope, definitely not. Men are really not my thing. I've tried it, tried to like it, didn't work."

"Just checking," you say slowly, and before you know it you've asked another question.

"Soooo, speaking of, met any nice girls lately?"

You're not sure why you're asking – despite the fact that you and Holly have been hanging out quite a lot over the last month or so, and that one of your first conversations ever was about you cheating on Nick (even though you didn't say the words outright) you've never had any typical girl talks, or spoken much of relationships at all. Just short mentions of family and friends here and there.

Holly takes a sip of her coffee before answering, and you can't pinpoint it but the mood has quickly changed a little.

"No, not really no," she says, eyes darting between the tv, you and her coffee mug.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable," you say.

"Don't be sorry."

There's something about the way she acts that makes you curious, and you have to force yourself to not pry anymore. So what if she's met someone, that's a good thing, right? You just feel weird because between work and hanging out with you and working out, when would Holly have the time to meet someone? And why hasn't she told you? Maybe it's someone at her gym.

"How about you? Any new medieval archers lurking in the garden?" she mocks right before the silence gets long enough to qualify as awkward.

"Uuugh, no!" you exclaim. "I don't care if Superintendent Mom thinks I will end up a lonely spinster, I'm never gonna go on any of her blind dates again," you say firmly.

"And Nick..?"

"Hell no, McNally can have him for all I care! That thing was a complete waste of time, it was doomed from the restart."

Your conversation soon drifts off to other topics but the changed mood stays put. It makes you uneasy, like something's itching under your skin and when you take the bus home you curse yourself for ever bringing up the topic.

You don't see much of Holly during the following week. You text a bit – that's been a habit pretty much since you first met – but there are no shared lunch breaks and none of the cases you get to work with requires you to interact with the forensics. Something got weird, and you suspect it's your fault. Problem is you don't really know how to fix it. Maybe she is seeing someone.

Several times you catch yourself writing random texts to her, that you delete instead of sending, doing nothing to quiet the weird, longing feeling inside that you desperately try to ignore.

You miss her. You don't want to, but you do.

The next time you meet her is at The Penny. And your suspicions were true – she's there with someone.

The itchy feeling under your skin gets so much worse.