Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter! Hope you guys enjoy Chapter 4!

ERIN

"Erin you're about to freak out," Kim tells me with wide eyes as she sits across our kitchen table, her laptop open in front of her. It's been two days since the almost date and after an initial freak out from the girls, things seemed to have cooled down. The questions have stopped, for the most part anyways and only occasionally do I get the excited outbursts, but I think I'll be dealing with those for quite awhile, something I seem to be strangely okay with.

"What's up?" I ask absentmindedly as I type away at a psych paper.

"Take a look?" She says flipping the screen towards me. My jaw drops as I see the picture on the screen. It's me. And it's Jay. We're not doing anything, just standing outside the restaurant facing each other, nothing happened yesterday, but it's me and it's him.

"Jay Halstead's new mystery woman?," Kim says, reading off the headline. "Did you know about this?"

"Of course not," I say as I look closer at the picture. You can't tell it's me, my face is so blurry and I have a pair of big aviators on. You wouldn't ever know that it was me, Hank and Camille wouldn't even be able to recognize me, but I know.

"You've got to be freaking kidding me," I say under my breath, storming out of the kitchen and locking myself in a bathroom and hitting Jay's contact. I tap my foot angrily, hot tears streaming down my face as the phone rings, being painfully aware of the possible consequences.

"Erin," He says, a step in his voice as answers. If he knows anything about me, he knows what my reaction would be to this, which means that he hasn't seen the photos yet. But it doesn't change anything.

"What the hell is this?" I demand.

"I'm sorry, you're going to have to fill me in," He responds. I can almost see him lying out on the beach, not a care in the world as my blood boils.

"I'm talking about my photo trending online!" I almost scream into the phone. I know, deep down, that it's not his fault, but I need someone to blame. Maybe it's me, but I can't scream at myself.

"What?" He says his tone changing.

"Google your name and click news," I snap. I hear him sigh on the other end of the buttons click under his fingers on his phone. "Oh God Erin, I'm so sorry, I had no idea,"

"This was the one thing I told you I was afraid of," I tell him. This sucks. I knew that we could never be anything, that us even being friends was a risk. But I like, I really like him and that's dangerous. "I'm so sorry, I thought that we avoided them," He tells me, sounding more than sincere.

"Jay you knew that I could not have this happen,"

"I know, I know, but they're everywhere." He says, "and I am who I am, I can't change that. Even if I wanted to,"

"And I can't change my past either," I say without thinking. Shoot! I want to kick myself.

"What?" He asks confused.

"No, nothing," I say, trying hard to easily brush it off.

"Okay," He says, still seeming unsure and definitely not satisfied with my answer.

"So what do we do?" I ask.

"Well I can make a few calls, see if I can get the picture down,"

"Dude we have free press, you can't just call your mommy and make magic happen," I say with a scoff.

"That's not what I meant," He says. "My family has been in this world a long time, I know people Erin,"

"So you really think you can get it down?"

"I can try," He tells me.

"Okay," I say, "But that's not what I meant,"

"What did you mean?"

"What are we going to do about this?" I say reluctantly. I can almost feel his heart drop of the other end of the line. I know that it's the last thing he wanted to hear, and as much as he didn't want me to hear it, I wanted to say it even less.

"I don't want to lose you, I barely know you. But I know I can't lose you," He say, all his walls and barriers falling down in that very instant.

"I know," I say, reluctantly letting him in just a little bit, "Just as friend even, I'd miss you. But uh, I don't know what to do, I've never done something like this before, it's never been an issue,"

"So we cool it, video chat and text. Maybe not see each other too much," He offers. "Not appear in public?"

"Okay," I agree, "That works and it's the only thing that really makes sense right now. But I'd still like to see you face to face one more time before you leave good old California,"

"You free tonight?" He asks.

"I mean yeah, but it's not like we can go out or anything," I say, leaning against the closed bathroom door. I really should be studying for a psych test, but I've gotten 100% on every test without trying, so I might be a little comfortable with winging it.

"Yeah, but you can come over to my hotel and we can hang out, there's a hockey game on tomorrow night. I'm staying at the Canary Hotel,"

"I assume you're routing for the Caps?" I ask, completely ignoring the last half of his statement.

"You'd assume right," He says, seemingly impressed by me actually knowing the schedule.

"Well, get ready for my Blackhawks to kick their asses,"

"Oh okay." He says with a laugh, "So you in?"

"Yeah," I say, almost nervously, "I'm in,"

"Great, I'll send a car over, pick you up at 6?"

"You know I live here right? I can make my way over to Carrillo Street,"

"I know you can, it's a security issue though," He tells me regretfully, "one of my Secret Service agents will pick you up and bring you back here,"

"You're sending the Secret Service to pick me up?" I whine before slapping my hand over my mouth. That really isn't something you complain about.

"His name is Toby, you'll like him," He assures me with a tight laugh.

"How do you know?" I tease, "Like you said, you barely know me,"

"Because my sister Nora likes him, and she doesn't like anybody," He tells me with a laugh.

"Alright," I concede, "Should I wait outside for him or something?"

"I'll call you when he gets there," He tells me.

"You know this is crazy right?" I say with a smile.

"What's crazy?" He asks.

"That your mom is the President and right now we're discussing the Secret Service agent that's picking me up and bringing me to your hotel," I say, everything crashing down on me. "That's insane,"

"That's just life my dear," He says.

"Yeah," I say quietly on the other end as we lead each other into kind of an awkward silence.

"So are we good on the picture?" He asks after maybe fifteen seconds of us just listening to the sound of each other's breathing.

"Do what you can. You can't even tell it's me, I think I freaked out a little bit,"

"You did," He says with a laugh, "But there was no way in hell that I was going to tell you that,"

"Smart man," I say with a giggle. "I'll see you tomorrow okay?"

"See you tomorrow Er," He says as he hangs up the phone. I take a deep breath and slide to the floor against the cool wood of the bathroom door, the cool red tiles delivering a much needed shock to my body.

I think I've given up on this whole keeping my distance thing. It's obviously not working and it doesn't seem like it's a bad thing anymore. I just have to make sure that I can control it. This can't get back to Chicago. It can't get back to everything that I've worked so hard for the last six years to outrun. It would ruin everything. It would ruin me and it would ruin him.

JAY

Still riding on the somewhat confusing high from my conversation with Erin, I sigh as I look down at my phone to see a phone call from Abby. I know that it's going to have to do something with the photos, my sister is awesome, but she's also very busy. If she just wants to talk to me, not for any particular reason, it's scheduled. Anything not, means she needs something.

"What's up Abs?" I ask halfheartedly, knowing exactly what's coming. I can almost hear her heels clicking down the halls of the East Wing. Since our mom was the first elected female President, the White House and our family alike wasn't really sure where that left the position of First Lady. My dad of course, hold the formal position of First Gentleman, but a lot of the ceremonial duties, are carried out by my older sister and she loves it. It allows her to still be there for her daughter, while being more than involved in the Halstead Administration.

"Who's the girl?" She asks, almost coldly. Another thing about my oldest sister, she's uh, a little rough around the edges. I love her to death, she's been there for me my whole life and I know that she's always got my best interest at heart, but her ways are showing it are not often how I would do it.

"Her name is Erin, she's just a friend,"

"So the headlines on every gossip magazine I've seen are just gossip?" She asks me again.

"Yes," I tell her, "There is nothing going on between me and her,"

"The press have been asking Avery about it, what do you want me to tell her?"

"No comment, to all of it,"

"You sure?" She asks.

"Positive, she didn't ask to be put into this world. No comment,"

"Okay," She responds. "Don't fall too hard JJ, be careful,"

"What?" I ask.

"I know how you are, just be careful okay?"

"I will?" I answer, not really sure what she's referring too, but not really wanting to go off on a tangent either.

"I gotta go, I'll talk to you later okay?"

"Give Emmy a kiss for me," I say.

"Will do," She assures me before hanging up the phone. As I hang up the phone, I reluctantly go back to all the briefings that my mom's office faxed over to me last night, which somehow need to all be memorized before my meeting tomorrow. I really need to find an actual job.

ERIN

"What'd he say?" Hailey asks as I return to the table, her presence a new surprise.

"Kim fill you in?" I ask as I sit back down to my paper. Even though there's eight of us that live in the house, I'd definitely say that I'm closest to Kim and Hailey out of all of them.

"Yeah," She says, looking over at me over a cup of coffee. "You okay babe?"

"We worked it out,"

"Are you worried about-?" Kim starts to asks.

"I don't think so," I respond, as she refers to my years pre Hank and Camille. It's been hard for me to open up to anyone about my past, but after three years of friendship and a strange sense of vulnerability around a bonfire one night, I spilled my guts to the two of them. "You can't tell it's me in the photos and he doesn't know that I'm in California,"

"Did you tell him why you were freaking out?" Kim asks.

"Oh God no," I almost say with a scoff, "I actually like this guy, no way in hell he's knowing that yet. I don't want him running for the hills,"

"You like him?" Hailey says with an audible gasp.

"No," I say, quickly trying to backtrack, "No, no that's not what I said,"

"No that's exactly what you said," Kim retorts. "I thought you said you just wanted to be friends,"

"No I said that's what we could be," I tell her, "I never said that's what I wanted,"

"Why are you holding yourself back babe?" Hailey asks, "He likes you, a lot apprently and you seem to like him,"

"Because he's him and I'm me, we don't come from the same world. I wouldn't fit into his any more than he would fit into mine,"

"Do you think maybe you're judging him a little too fast?"

"No," I say, "I know who he is. I know because I wanted him to suck. I wanted him to be horrible so that I could ditch him, not feel bad about it, and then not worry about him for the rest of my life."

"But he doesn't suck," Hailey fills in.

"No, he's amazing. I don't doubt that I could take him home and he would fit right in. I'm the issue and that's not fair to him. So we're friend, just friends."

I know this chapter was a little on the shorter side, but if you guys enjoyed it, please let me know in the reviews or drop me a PM! Also, what did you guys think of the premiere? Let me know!

Thanks for reading!

xoxo,

Addie