A/N: I'm so happy to bring this story back! Y'all have had such sweet things to say in the review and I appreciate it all! This is not the end (although, it does sorta feel like it's getting there, huh?). But know that this story is in the home stretch. :) Enjoy!


"How long do you think this song is?" Eddie's murmured question coasts along the smooth ridge of Jamie's jawline. "Three minutes? Four minutes?"

"Pefect," he answers, tugging her closer as his lips capture hers.

She barely edges away, responding in a rushed exhale, "You would not have sex with me in the coat room of a wedding." Then their lips land again, slanting and greedy and she presses into him until he fits against the wall, just inside the cramped, darkened room that's likely meant for keeping guests' jackets. But with a wedding in July, it's hardly occupied. It's conveniently tucked just off the downstairs lobby where Eddie and Jamie managed to covertly slip away early into the upstairs reception.

"Wanna bet?" The rasp of his breath just teases her lips, already tingling from two glasses of wine during cocktail hour after the ceremony.

All that escapes is a needy whimper just before her mouth falls on his once more. With impatient hands, she tugs at his suspenders, finding them irresistible not to play with and sinks into the heat of his kiss.

They want too much of each other to truly be hurried, and instead just exist, if only for a moment, in this languid, blissful stillness, a sensation they've craved so badly. The concept of where they actually are in this moment is soon lost on her. Hands in his hair, hands roaming her waist, up her back, are everything she feels.

The pull he has starts to tip her off her balance. She falls against him and they sort of topple over into a collection of suit jackets hanging beside them.

Fuck it, Eddie figures and lets herself start to sink there. But then the darkness that surrounds them abruptly floods with light and all the two of them can do is stumble further into that shroud of jackets until they catch themselves on the wall.

"Whoa-" A male voice utters.

"Shit!" Eddie hisses as she struggles to prop herself upright.

Steadying himself, Jamie reaches out and eases the jackets in their way along the rod that stretches the length of the closet.

"Sorry, I just uh-" The intruder gestures to one of the jackets. "Came for my cigarettes."

"Yep," Jamie attempts, as if he's just casually standing in a dark closet while Eddie glances away and doesn't even try to explain herself to him.

The man laughs and swiftly tugs his jacket from the hanger. "As you were," he jokes, with a courtesy flick of the light switch down on his way out.

Her gaze meets Jamie's for a quiet moment in the dark before the both of them barely contain a chuckle of disbelief, as if they were just busted at some middle school party. She steadies herself with a deep breath and reaches up to smooth her hair over her shoulder.

"Maybe we should confine ourselves to rooms with other people," she suggests. "And that way we won't be tempted to, you know-"

"Try to tear each other's clothes off in a closet with no door at a museum? Yeah that sounds smart."

She grins back at him. "Wanna go dance?"

She doesn't miss the way he rolls his eyes even though a pleased little curve slants his lips. He tips his head back and groans.

"Hey," she scolds, disappointed as she makes her way past him to leave the closet. "What happened to right place right time? We're at a wedding."

"I don't trust myself at weddings." Reluctantly, he follows as they head through the lobby.

"Well rest assured. There's no one from Long Island here to make fun of the NYPD and get you all riled up."

"Was that the excuse I used for why I punched that guy out?"

Pressing her lips together in amusement, she takes his hand as they begin their ascent up the steps. "Mm-hm. It was very convincing. And definitely had nothing to do with that guy following me around all night and grabbing me for a dance."

"I was looking out for my partner."

She narrows her gaze at him as her heels click the white staircase with every step. "You'll never admit it, will you?"

"Admit what?"

"Ugh!"

He chuckles softly, slipping his hands into the pockets of his dress pants as he walks beside her. He makes her crazy and he knows it and it's a quality that started out exasperating but grew into this sort of guilty turn-on for her. She could probably make a list of his traits that had just that effect.

Back inside the reception, the expansive room glows with a charming combination of string lights and votive candles. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city backdrop shines in violets and blues in subtle neon through the glass across the dance floor that thumps with heavy bass and a crowd that has certainly gotten more rambunctious than they were just before Jamie and Eddie slinked away.

"If a decent song plays," Jamie starts as they cross the room toward their designated table near the front. "Then maybe I'll dance."

"Are you saying Super Freak does not meet your decency standards?"

He shakes his head with a laugh as the thudding Rick James track serenades the guests on the dance floor. Returning to the beer he had left at his place setting he offers an amused grin. "Close but I'd need about thirty more of these," he muses before he tips the bottle to his lips and takes a seat.

"Nobody wants to see that, so let's not try," Eddie teases before she eases out the chair and returns to her seat beside him.

As the song fades, the slower, rhythmic ting of high hat cymbal and gentle horns of Al Green's Let's Stay Together floats over the room. Eddie glances up as a passing member of the catering staff refills her white wine but then a voice at her table draws her attention over to Jamie.

"Alright Reagan, let's you and me go make some magic." The voice belongs to Spencer's grandmother who Eddie had already had the pleasure of conversing with several times over the course of the evening. Sylvia is an irresistible little spark of a woman who had shared with Eddie just before the ceremony that she had gin in her purse "just in case they cheap out on the liquor."

"Ohh no," Jamie manages one of his humble laughs. "I don't know-"

"Don't tell me you'd leave this old girl hanging."

"He would never!" Eddie interjects and bumps Jamie with her shoulder. "Would you, Jamie? He's a wonderful dancer."

"And he looks so handsome tonight," Sylvia raves. "Back in Cambridge when he lived with Spencer, he looked like a bum."

Jamie turns to glance at Eddie, setting one of his unimpressed looks on her which she returns with a glittering smile.

"Oh I would have liked to see that," Eddie muses. "He cleans up nice, huh Sylvia?"

"I'll say. Come on, Officer," she insists. "Come see what you're missing."

Resigning himself with a nod of acceptance, he looks again at Eddie who offers him an encouraging pat on the back. He shrugs and pushes his chair back. "I'd love to."

"Now I'll never understand why you gave up practicing law to become one of those policemen," Sylvia complains as he makes his way over to her. Jamie peers back at his girlfriend once more, his cheek scrunching adorably as if pleading for her to rescue him as Spencer's grandmother clutches his arm and continues. "You know I once called the police because there was this awful pigeon on my fire escape and nobody came, and I didn't appreciate it-"

She trails off as they make their way to the dance floor and Eddie has to laugh as she picks up her wine glass and settles back in her chair to watch.

Jamie and Sylvia join the crowd on the dance floor, the easy tempo of the song luring plenty of couples up there. Gently, he pulls her in, falling in step with her, a hand at her side while the other clasps her hand.

The way he turns with her gives Eddie the perfect view to meet his gaze when he glances over Sylvia's head. She can't help but tease him with a coy, arched eyebrow and he returns the look as he cuts her a slow shake of his head.

Before Eddie can distract him too much, Jamie glances down at his dance partner, offering a slight nod as Sylvia continues to chatter up to him. Then she reaches over and straightens Jamie's bowtie and Eddie giggles to herself at the face he makes, an attempt to downplay his discomfort.

When Jamie glances up again, Eddie sits swaying her shoulders to the lazy, crooning melody, her head bobbing in time with the beat. It isn't long before she's truly feeling the song. Her fingers flicking together as she snaps, then lifts her gaze with her solo performance as she mouths the lyrics: whether times are good, bad, happy or sad…

She sees Jamie's head drop as he tries not to laugh. But he does anyway, his genuine grin as his shoulders shake with his amusement beaming across the room.

Sylvia can't help but peer back at what has Jamie so entertained and then she looks up at him and seems to ask him something. He nods, returning his attention to his dance partner, and then a sweeter smile tugs at his cheek before the both of them turn to glance at Eddie once more.

She's not sure what they're saying but the look on Jamie's face makes something clench around her heart for a moment, that feeling when Eddie finds the unguarded warmth in the clarity of his eyes, in the earnest love he has for her that shows on his face.

Sylvia keeps talking and Jamie glances down once more to agree with her. She reaches up and pats the side of his face, offering some other sentiment that makes him laugh.

Eddie has to tell herself to find a deep breath because the more she watches Jamie, it's as if she just holds all of her air inside, feeling it inflate her lungs until it overwhelms her. She has these quiet moments of realization with him sometimes, where he's arguing with someone or pensively chewing his food, or some mundane habit that she finds herself absorbed with. And as she watches him share a dance with his friend's grandmother, that realization overcomes her until her pure adoration for him flares in her chest.

Pressing her lips together, a soft giggle jumps there once again. They've shared hundreds of unspoken looks in their time as friends, as confidantes, as sometimes adversaries, and always partners. As two people who tripped over all of those definitions to discover way more - something kind of undefined. Who they had become was built on all of that and could never be undone.

And as their eyes meet across the way, the look they share reminds her of everything they've found and promises that they'll never let it go.