DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the Chicago PD, Fire or Med characters, only my OCs!

Rianne could not put if off any longer, she had to give in to the texts and calls from Andrea's family and go see them for a Saturday brunch, which usually would turn into Saturday lunch and then Saturday dinner at least. It was a usually weekly tradition she had been trying to quit for some time now although it hurt to feel that way too. That little house in Berwyn was really something else on those family days. It was loud, it was messy, all of the family members usually hung around on the weekend, bringing their offspring and spouses and all their stories along. There were always tons of food, animated conversations alternating between native Italian tongue and English, the TV playing in the background through the whole day.

As the youngest Andrea had always been the center of attention from his sisters and his mama Paola, a woman who was a proud matriarch ready to do anything for her children. She had always been more of a mother to Rianne than her own had been these past years and she made the best caffé Rianne had ever tasted in whole of Chicago, maybe even the best of her life. One other reason why Rianne felt guilty as hell that she had tried to avoid contact these last weeks the best she could.

But how could she tell them there was another man in her life she was developing feelings for even if she didn't even want to? Wasn't she expected to lead a lonely widow's life and honor Andrea's memory for as long as she lived? Defend his honor and don't listen to the rumors and things she had found out? How could there be any other kind of love than the one she had known to be something really special? The only love she had really known until then. The feeling of being torn between two worlds and having to choose one was getting stronger.

The whole house in that neighborhood outside the center of Chicago was a jar of memories. There was the room where Andrea had told her he loved her, the back yard where they had pretended to study and made out instead, where they'd had their engagement party, a kitchen full of snippets of conversations, a living room filled with a life that no longer was hers. It was difficult to escape the past there.

She hadn't just been in love with Andrea, but in love with his whole family. A picture perfect world for someone like her, who had always wished for siblings, for a bigger family.

The diVareses never had had much money and where often trying to make ends meet for so many family members, but they showed up for one another, there was always room for someone else at the dinner table. Somehow they made it work. In Rianne's own family home growing up there was always way too much silence and strict routine. She was not allowed to bring a friend along unannounced, if she even managed to make friends in the often only short amounts of time they spent in one place. Her father had been in a high ranking position, the neighborhood's she lived in always gated, protected, secluded. Her abuela had really been the only other person unconventional enough to not make her feel so misplaced and lonely all the time.

To keep things a little lighter Rianne had asked Nate if he wanted to come with, as they hadn't had a chance to really spent time together since he got back from New York.

Nate didn't mind accompanying her. Usually these family Saturdays promised a lot of delicious food and watching sports with the men of the house, no chores, no conversations if one didn't want to. He'd practically been growing up in this vibrant household and since Andrea's had died he more than ever had a special place there as the additional son.

Of course he wouldn't tell his own mother that, who had always been a bit jealous of the amount of time he'd spent at the 'di Vareses' usually.

This time it was a bit difficult because of the newest revelations about Andrea's past his parents and siblings were oblivious to. To go back there and pretend that nothing changed, that Andrea had been what he had been, was challenging. But Nate guessed it was a lot tougher on Rianne. As the women in this house did all the talking, she had to avoid some triggers and trapdoors to not let something slip about what she'd come to know over the last week. After she had fully caught him up on the newest developments on their ride home from the airport on Monday none of them had breached the subject anymore, but he could tell it was working inside of her sweet head. In general there had been less in-house-communication going on as they somehow seemed on different work hours with Rianne sleeping into the mornings and returning late at night. He tried not to read too much into it.

Somehow they made it through that Saturday without any major incidents in the end. Rianne playing her role as the funny and witty daughter-in-law perfectly, he only noticed that her heart wasn't in it and her thought were elsewhere because he knew her so well. Nate was feeling a bit sorry for her and then again he noticed a little voice inside of him that hoped this day would make her see that this was where she belonged. They were still her family.

As Rianne had promised Stella to come take over from her later at Molly's, they had an excuse to leave at a somewhat reasonable hour after they'd spent a whole day with everyone. Leaving before the late dinner meant they still could walk in a straight line, having passed on even more food and all the wine and aperitifs it usually included.

Nate was glad he had convinced Rianne to take the car and not go by train. This way even with evening traffic they were back in the center and at the bar in less than half an hour instead of spending over an hour on the Red Line.

"What's on your mind?"
He asked her when they had left Cermak Road and turned onto the South Austin Boulevard without going through the highlights of a normal diVarese day like they usually would. For example: what had been the best and most delicious dish on the menu today, what gossip the most hilarious or which comment of Mama Paola had scared them and how her husband Massimo would probably nap off in his armchair in front of the tv at exactly 11 p.m. like he always did. And they would laugh a lot and be glad to have them, but also glad to going home again. Sometimes it was like time stood still in that house, nothing ever really changed. It was sort of comforting he found.

Tonight though Rianne just kept staring ahead, navigating them through the traffic and seeming lost in thought. She kind of had been a little distracted and tense all day, but he hadn't found the nerve to address this until now.

"I don't know how long I can keep doing this!"
She exclaimed now and honked at some douchebag overtaking her at high risk speed, swearing at him in Spanish for good measure, too.

"Do what exactly? Keep your new man a secret?"
It was out before he could stop himself.

They hadn't really talked about that sore point again since he was back from his New York trip. But Nate had a feeling that there definitely was more going on between Jay and Rianne than when he'd left. He was none the wiser after today as the only incident had been when Guilia had asked Rianne who the guy was she'd been hanging around with at Nate's party. His roommate had played it cool, saying he was "just a friend" and working with Adam in Intelligence and that's how she knew him.

"Are you kidding me? You wanna add fuel to my guilt trip?"

Nate didn't answer that. He couldn't clearly answer that question with a definite yes or no. She didn't wait for him to do that though:

"I mean I can't keep sitting there and listen to all this talk about Andrea being some sort of family hero, dios mio, when in reality he might have done some crazy violent, shitty, illegal things."
And even if it turned out he didn't Nate and Rianne knew that the picture Andrea had liked to paint for his family hadn't been the real one of him.

Nate noticed that Rianne didn't try to argue with him about his comment on Jay being her new man, so it had to be kind of true: His best friend was creating a life he was not included in. It still didn't sit right with him.

"So, what do you wanna do about it? Tell them and then what?"

"I don't know yet. I don't know…" and then she kept staring ahead again.

While Rianne entered Molly's through the back to change into something more suited for working behind the bar than her flowing long summer dress, Nate went for the front, searching the crowd once he was inside.
He caught sight of Matt and Sylvie at the bar, engrossed in a conversation with Hermann. Kelly and Mouch and Cruz were discussing something that seemed to be tremendously funny and playing a game of darts and Stella looked exhausted, but smiled and waved at him, when she saw him enter. All in all, a good amount of his favorite people were present.

Everyone besides Voight from Intelligence and Will Halstead had taken over a larger table at the back of the bar. Seeing everyone from the team present Nate was aware of his mixed feelings about that.

He was looking forward to catching up with his cousin and maybe getting more information about what his take on the "Andrea case" was, but he felt he could have gone without witnessing Rianne interacting with Jay tonight, which he was sure was bound to happen at some point.

Nevertheless Nate decided to face this head on and after getting himself something to drink, he approached his cousin and the team to join them instead of going for the safer companions first.
Everybody said their hellos, Adam hugging him affectionately and making room at their table. Obviously they had been sitting here for a while, because everyone was talking animatedly and letting loose already. Even Halstead didn't look quite so serious tonight, but still supercilious and cool enough to make Nate's blood-pressure spike up. Who did this guy think he was? Just when Nate was about to breach the subject of his interest to everyone, Jay announced:

"Think I am going to get another round! Anyone else?" Some hands went up immediately.

"Jay, I must say I like your generosity tonight. Has this anything to do with shift change?"

Halstead just stood and stuck his middle-finger up to his brother who was teasing him obviously about the fact that Rianne had just taken over from Stella and relieved her of her duties behind the bar.

Nate swallowed his comment on that and tried to ignore the churning feeling inside his stomach as he watched Jay prowl towards the bar. Instead he started up a conversation with Adam and Kev.

Jay had been nursing his second beer in peace with his co-workers and his brother by his side. He'd been checking his phone every now and then, what gained him a curious frown from Hailey, but he didn't comment on it.

It had been way too long since he'd seen Rianne. There just hadn't been time this week with both their crazy work-schedules and he'd begun to miss being near her. They had exchanged several texts back and forth during the week to keep a loose contact. The content had been light and flirtatious, sometimes teasing and sexy, building up his desire to meet up with her again.

So yesterday he'd asked her if she planned on coming to Molly's tonight and her answer had been:

"Yes, have to work there actually.
But maybe we could sneak a minute into the back room again ;-)
Won't be there until eightish though, spending time with Nate before that."

The last part he didn't like so much, but he was excited to finally get to see her.
Even though they had both admitted to being extremely attracted to one another, neither of them had really defined what that meant. Were they dating, were they just having sex? Were they even continuing to have sex on a regular basis? Had they agreed to wanting to get to know each other better? It was all a bit blurry in his mind, it was unnerving and on the other hand kind of exciting. For once Jay had been really grateful that his job always kept him pretty busy and on most nights too wiped out to dwell on these things for too long.
He knew he had the tendency to overthink things and then freeze, doing nothing about his feelings. And he had to admit that Rianne was a regular visitor in his head by now.

As soon as Nate Ruzek had joined their table he'd been alerted that she had to be there too now. Promptly his phone buzzed in his hand again:

I'm walking in now!

Nothing could keep him at their table longer. Under the pretense of getting everyone another round, he excused himself.
Jay turned around just in time to witness Stella kiss Rianne on both cheeks and say her goodbye, before she left the bar with Kelly and Rianne got right to serving thirsty customers. Scolding himself slightly because he could have at least pretended to be cool about this and wait another few minutes, he decided that he was old enough to not care if he came across eager. He was! Especially when he took in the sight of her in a white crochet neck-holder top, her nicely bronzed skin contrasting the color beautifully. Her bottoms were plain black with wide legs, but tight around the hips and her ass.
When she leaned up to get some liquor off the top shelve her top rode up slightly and showed a lot of naked skin on her back.
Jay had to remind himself to keep breathing in and out and felt his face getting hotter than usual.

Because it was somehow busy at the bar, she didn't get to him right away, but when her gaze fell on him a warm smile spread over her face and she came to join him at the end of the bar where he was leaning over it lazily.

"Good evening Sir, what can I get you?"
She leaned over the bar as well, close enough that her breath was whispering across his face when she spoke, but still with enough distance to look unsuspicious.

"I just got it!"
He found himself saying. She looked at him skeptically and waited for him to elaborate. Jay sniggered into his empty glass, scolding himself for starting this up, but he couldn't help himself in her presence. There were all these silly lines coming to his mind.

"I've been wanting to see that beautiful face of yours for days now, so I already got what I wanted!"
He winked at her extra offensively and smiled widely gauging her reaction.

"Ew Jay! Get outta here!" Rianne hid her face in her hands, laughing hard.

"Isn't that how customers are supposed to talk to their pretty bartenders?"

"I usually don't do well with come-on lines…"
But she was still smiling at him, so it couldn't have put her off completely.
Jay placed his real order then and just watched her work, getting bottles out of the fridge, pouring shots and getting beer off the tap. His eyes were fixated on her bottom, moving around energetically and the part of her skin where her top ended and didn't quite meet her pants. That woman really must have put a sex spell on him.

When she was done assembling his order she came over again and he took the chance to make sure they were still on the same page concerning their arrangement or whatsoever.

"Are you done with me yet?"

"Done with you? How do you mean? I have just done your order, yes!"
He guessed if he could play smartass she could just as well.

"Done with that physical exploration project you were telling me about…"

"Oh this project… I don't know, haven't seen much of my study object this week. So right now I am kind of indecisive …"
Rianne made it look like she was torn about her decision, but her eyes went dark as she looked at him longer than was necessary.

When she handed him the beers he'd ordered he shortly caught her hand between his, squeezed it and let go again. They exchanged a conspiratorial smirk.

Meanwhile Nate had noticed that Hailey was looking at Rianne and Jay over at the bar kind of strangely.

"What's up with you giving them the evil eye?"
He whispered to her, when nobody else was paying attention to them and motioned to their respective "partners" a few feet away, flirting and smiling at each other a lot.

"Just a concerned partner looking out for her partner…What's your interest in this?"
Hailey answered him nonchalantly.

"Just a concerned friend looking out for a friend…" he mused and went back to sipping his beer in brooding silence.

When he looked over at the bar again he saw that Rianne was still standing real close to Jay even though she was behind the bar. When she threw her head back in real laughter and touched his arm, a sour realization hit him: they'd had had sex in the meantime!

He could read his friend like no one else he thought, especially when it came to her behavior around men. In the past there had been only one for her, but Nate could always have told how they stood to each other sexually when interacting.
This was definitely her "I know what gets your blood boiling" laughter and the purposefully pushing her hair out of her eyes gesture while looking cute and pretend innocence. Goddamn it!

Jay hadn't gone back to his team's table after bringing them their drinks, because Matt Casey and Sylvie Brett had roped him into a conversation about some old case they'd been working on together a while ago and they wanted to catch up on.

He was just concentrating enough that they didn't notice him being distracted, but his gaze wandered to Rianne behind the bar time and time again. When she caught him looking her over for the third time she shook her head at him:
"Stop it!" she mouthed into his direction, filling up glasses of beer from the tap.
When Jay acted as if he didn't get it and mouthed: "What?" back she rolled her eyes at him.
She then went to serve some more customers and he had to focus on his conversation again. When he looked for her after some minutes had passed she was nowhere to be seen. Before he could think of where she might have gone to, his phone went off in his front pocket again. Making excuses to Matt and Sylvie he got up from his chair at the bar and read the message:

"Meet me out back!"

Jay wouldn't let himself be told twice and went outside through the front.

She was waiting for him at the back-entrance, arms crossed over her chest, acting as if she was annoyed with him:
"Would you stop looking at me like that all the time?" were her first words, when he caught up with her, followed by an exasperated sigh.

"How do I look at you then?"

"Like you're undressing me with your eyes. It's unnerving!" He guessed that was exactly what he'd been doing.

"Would you stop looking like you do, then I could arrange that probably! I mean: what the hell are you wearing?"

"You've seen my closet haven't you? There's probably surprises for a whole year stored in there."
This had gotten him a smile at least and he took the chance to pull her into a hug and press his lips to hers.

"Hi!" Jay breathed against her mouth and she laughed a respective "Hi!" into his.

He felt her melting against his body and whimpering ever so softly when he pressed her tighter to him, grabbing her neck and waist, deepening the kiss.

"I'm glad we're still doing this," he found himself almost growling, kissing her temple when he let her go slowly.

"Why wouldn't we?" Rianne snaked her arms around his neck and leaned back against the bar-door so that she could look up to him.

"A lot can change in five days so… who knows?"

"Haven't found a self-help group yet to deal with my addiction to doing this…" While softly rubbing his ears with her thumbs and forefingers she nipped at his bottom-lip with her teeth. He could feel her smile as she was doing this.

"Ew, that was a bad line…" Jay commented referring to their bar-talk before.

"Took a page out of your cheesiness book…" Rianne growled near his ear and bit his earlobe which she knew drove him wild and made him sigh deeply.

"Come home with me tonight!" He hadn't wanted it to come out that needy, but he couldn't help it. Every bone and muscle inside his body yelled at him to throw her over his shoulder like prey, carry her back to his truck and have his wicked way with her.

"But I have to stay until closing, no matter how long that will be."

"I don't care - I'll wait for you!" She nodded an "Okay then" at him.

"I have to get back inside - Hermann's gonna kill me if I leave him alone for too long."

"Right, go - I'll be back there in 10…" Jay knew he needed some time to compose himself. She must have guessed why he didn't follow right behind and looked kind of satisfied with herself, pressing her lips to his hard one last time before she closed the door behind her.

AN: So, a little more of flirtation, background and fun before we'll get to more dramatic contents in the next chapters... thanks for reading and have a nice weekend!