Short update, sorry!

"So you're really okay?" I ask Emily, who is still standing in front of me looking shocked. "You're not hurt? That fall looked painful."

"No, I'm good," she tells me, "Think I have a bloody knee, though. Annoying little fuckers."

I glance at her legs, purely in the interest of safety and concern, and notice the tear in her leggings and slight blood stain. "That looks pretty nasty. I have a first aid kit in my car, if you want to clean it up."

She ponders my question, "Are you a secret agent?"

"What?"

"Well you took out two huge thugs in like 20 seconds...so there are only a few logical options of why you have such good fighting prowess. Secret agent first, super-hero second, and ninja last. Because a real ninja wouldn't have let on that they were a ninja..they would just kick ass and be totally incognito. Masters of stealth and obscurity. Whereas you are like a kung fu elephant. Not discreet at all." Emily says dreamily, finger on her lips like she's thinking hard. "But you could be like James Bond...0069, right? Nah, you're not charming or suave enough...Sorry, I mean you're nice and all, just not cut out for 'd be a terrible secret agent!" She then starts laughing, which I would find cuter or more amusing had she not just insulted me in a most grievous manner.

My undercover skills are under fire, my suaveness and charmingness, and my apparent similarity to an elephant are all making me slightly enraged...just slightly. But I suppose that Emily's reluctance to believe in my skill as an undercover agent is, in fact, the biggest compliment she could give me. I'm so good, I appear bad. I've almost managed to convince myself of that when Emily interrupts my self-aggrandizing train of thought.

"Oooh, your neck's gone all throbby...the veins, that is," Emily slurs as she attempts to poke my neck, almost toppling over.

"Are you drunk?" I ask, catching her before she hits the pavement again.

"Maybe a bit," she admits, swaying slightly. "Probably shouldn't have taken that last drink. Or the one before that. Or gotten in that drinking contest with the hobo."

"There wasn't a drinking contest with a hobo," I remind her.

"You went to the bathroom at the wrong time. I totally beat his bitch ass."

"Fucking hell, Emily, you're wasted." How unprofessional. That would never happen with the police commissioner, or even the precinct head. If I were running a company, I wouldn't go and get trashed in front of my subordinate on the very first day.

I drape her arm around my shoulder and drag my very intoxicated boss to my car. "You are not driving," I tell her firmly.

"Sorry," Emily mumbles.

"It's fine," I say, trying not to sound too terse. I still need to check in with Freddy and now I've got to drop Emily wherever she lives. It could be a fucking hour away.

"I don't normally do this," she tells me, sounding slightly more sober, "Getting shit-faced, in front of you especially."

"I hope not. You're a horrible drunk."

"I haven't puked anywhere," she retorts angrily. "Aaand, I haven't groped you...right?"

"No. I don't think that the absence of a sexual harassment report means that you're well-behaved. And you did liken me to an elephant. That wasn't very kind."

"I said I was sorry."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm used to dealing with inebriated idiots. Where do you live?"

"Uhh...can you just take me back to the studio?"

"The studio? You wanna go back to work? Just tell me where you live.. I'm not gonna become some weirdo stalker."

"I don't wanna go home," she whines. Did I really find her attractive just hours ago? "Please? I have a cot there."

Normally I wouldn't agree, but I've got too much on my plate to look after her. The ride back to the studio is largely silent, and I know my second day of work is going to be horribly awkward. Great.

"Where the fuck were you?" Freddy sounds angry and disappointed (highly typical for him), and is trying to use the puppy-dog look that is ridiculous on a grown man.

"Save it," I mutter, pushing him away from my desk.

It's 6 AM, and I'm at the station doing what I should have done last night instead of going on a dreadful work-date with my alcoholic boss..No, that's not quite right, I suppose. She said that she normally wasn't much of a drinker, and I'm going to hope that she was telling the truth. It will be all the more difficult to complete this assignment if she's passed out or hungover. The initial paperwork on the undercover operation needs to be completed before I go in to work today.

"Naomi, you have to follow the rules," Freddy says, continuing to pester me when he should be fetching me a coffee or jumping out of a window. "You can't just ignore a scheduled check-in."

"Freddy, I got nothing during work. Nada. Not a single trail to anything. So I made a decision, in the moment, to pursue an opportunity. An opportunity outside of the constraints that come with the office environment."

"You could have been dead, Naomi," Freddy insists. He became such an uptight little bitch with his promotion. Practically a lap dog to the upper echelons of power. And I've become a whiny uptight bitch as well, it seems.

"Really? We're investigating a prostitution front, Freddy. What are they going to do, literally fuck me to death? Oh no, I'm being sexed to death! Help me!"

"I don't care, just don't skip out again. You need to be on time, so you better get going." His face softens a bit, turning in the Freddy I knew before he became my superior. "I'll finish up this paperwork."

"Thanks," I answer honestly, "I'll try to be better."

Thank you all so, so much for the wonderful reviews!

I will have another update up soon, it's partially written already...my sentences were started to get confused.

Tell me what you think :)