Eleven
Blaine never thought the day would come when he felt perfectly at ease in a lawyer's office, and for that feeling to have absolutely no correlation with the zombie district attorney down the hall. Though, he had to admit, it was nice having that little brain-eating mole around. It gave him another excuse to drop by. Of course Blaine made sure he had good information to pass along to Peyton, making it all seem purely business.
"I can't wait to slam Boss with this indictment," Peyton said, scribbling excitedly on her board. Blaine sensed that passion and drive in her from the moment they met. There was an air of desperation too, hoping someone would step forward and speak out against Stacey Boss. All those other cowards missed out on something great. Too bad for them.
"Glad I could help," he assured her, smiling. "Just a humble citizen doing my part to make this city a better place."
"I don't know about the 'humble' part," Peyton teased him, "but you're definitely helping the city. The mayor might even give you one of those huge keys to the city." Blaine couldn't help laughing at the image of the mayor handing the key to the city over to him, even if it was only symbolically. A knock at the door interrupted them. "I hope you don't mind," Peyton said as she moved to answer it, "but I went ahead and ordered food for us."
"It's your turn, anyway," Blaine conceded.
He couldn't help watching the delivery man as food and money made the exchange of hands. Since the incident with Jackie, he was a lot more careful with his delivery people, though he doubted they all went about things with as much enthusiasm as this guy. Or maybe they did; it was a smart way to make a tip.
His thoughts were quickly de-railed by the smell. "Is that Indian food?" Peyton answered by taking out the containers. Blaine shook his head ruefully. "Are you trying to get fired or just have your office burnt to the ground? Your co-workers are going to hate you."
"They won't," she assured him. "My boss orders from this place all the time." Lip curling in amusement, Blaine reached for his portion and dug in. He didn't remember Indian food being this spicy, but then again, he was a zombie the last time he ate it. Almost as if she could read his mind, Peyton asked, "Is it spicy enough?"
"It's fine. It's nice to have food with a little kick to it." She seemed pleased by this and they fell into relative silence, interrupted only when Blaine offered another bit of information to Peyton's board. There was sort of an unspoken rule that they would stick to business-only conversations while working on the Boss case. Flirting was still perfectly fine, of course.
Before he left, Blaine helpfully suggested Peyton keep her doors and windows open for the next few weeks. She just rolled her eyes and shoved him out. Blaine intended to do some other work but decided that as long as he was here, he might as well drop in on the D. A. after all. Floyd knew he was here but still seemed surprised when Blaine breezed through the door. Surprise that quickly shifted to the mixture of panic and expectancy that all of Blaine's zombie moles got when they saw him.
"Why are you in here? You know it's my A. D. A. doing all the work against Boss."
"Yes, but I was thinking how nice it would be if the public had the impression you were doing most of the work." Floyd didn't seem to follow, so Blaine explained it to him slowly. "Boss himself was in her office a few weeks ago. All he did was threaten but it might get worse next time, and let's face it: between the two of you, which one of you should be in that fight? The guy on Team Z, right?"
"You think it's going to come to a fight?"
"Well, wild animals getting cornered don't usually just let themselves be put in cages. Think of yourself as the tranquilizer gun." Blaine could tell Floyd did not like this idea, and added, "I'll give you more brains." That sealed the deal. It didn't matter who the person was before they were scratched; zombies were all the same when it came to their dependence on brains.
Blaine didn't want to turn into one of those overprotective boyfriends, especially since Peyton was more than capable of handling herself. Having his zombie D. A. as the focus was as much for his own reasons as for her protection: if Boss's people came calling, they would likely trigger a rage-out and meet a grisly end. It was a piece he would've used whether or not he had any personal interest in Peyton Charles.
Sadly, it looked like it would be one of those times when he couldn't spend the night with Peyton. They made up for it with talking all night over the phone. Peyton took particular pleasure in telling him how much she was enjoying her hot tub.
"By the way, I've been thinking of New Year's and you're right: we should do something just the two of us. I don't want to force you into that situation."
"I won't lie, I would prefer that." He was damn relieved, actually. This thing between the two of them sometimes felt like its own world, and bringing other people into it would be an invasion. It did seem a little strange that she would change her mind on it but he wasn't going to question on the chance she'd just change it back.
"Then it's a plan. I'll let you go now. Only one of us should look dead on their feet at work tomorrow." They exchanged their love before hanging up for the night.
Blaine felt an impulse to swing by Peyton's place that morning. He was confident his talk with the D. A. would throw Boss off her trail but he still felt better when he saw to matters personally. So far he hadn't seen any of Boss's guys hanging around her place and it looked like today was going to be the same. Except someone else was walking toward her building and it was too late to pretend they didn't see each other.
"What are you doing here?" He let out a long-suffering sigh.
"A guy can't even walk down the street without looking suspicious."
"Not when it's you." Liv usually toed the line between tolerance and suspicion with him, but today she jumped right into the latter. Blaine let his mind spin through all his dealings lately but couldn't find any that would make it on her radar. "Please tell me you don't have any zombies living in this building."
"Right. Because what I really want to do with a zombie killer on the loose is start giving out the names of my clients." He actually checked to make sure there were none when Peyton moved in. Liv pursed her lips and chose not to respond. Blaine stuck his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels. "A zombie killer who is still killing, by the way. Thoughts?"
"I kind of have a lot on my plate right now." Ah, there was the proper tolerance-suspicion ratio. "I have to worry about human murders, too, and we're still working on the cure. The police are doing their best to hunt down the Chaos Killer. That's the best I can give you now."
"Thanks for the update," he drolled out. "It fills me with determination." He took his leave of her, putting a reasonable distance between them before looking back over his shoulder. She was still standing where he left her, staring at Peyton's building.
Great. How was he going to spend New Year's with her now?
