She was almost finished the chapter she was reading when her phone buzzed on the nightstand beside her. She didn't have to look across to know who would be calling so late, although he was definitely not someone she was expecting to call tonight.
"Well, well…Naomi from accounts not as thrilling as you thought?" she smiles, amused.
"Her name is Naomi? I was calling her Natalie all night," he groans back, words slurring a little. She can hear traffic behind him and his breath heaving, meaning he must have sent Ray away in favour of walking home.
She scoffs, "Maybe you should be choosier with who you go out with, maybe even steer away from people from work," she chastises, amusement in her voice, "You never know, they could end up being a murderer."
He pauses, she hadn't joked about Stephen before, in fact nobody had really even mentioned him since he had been arrested, and if they had, it had been with hushed tones and raised eyebrows. A silence passes where she can only hear the motors of cars driving past and the occasional honk of a horn.
"Why did you-"
"Well, I didn't iknow/i he was…"
"No, I mean, why did you break your rule for him?"
A sigh. He could almost see her fingers fidgeting the way they do when she's pedalling like crazy inside to not lose control, "I told you why Harvey. I have to live my-"
"Live your life I know…", he takes a breath, the thoughts that had been niggling at him for quite a while swimming to the surface with the help of the whiskey he had drank that evening, and before he knew it he heard his own voice ask hoarsely, "but why couldn't you break it for me?"
She thinks that maybe she misheard him - that the sound of her heart thumping in her chest covered his question but she knows it hadn't and that she'd heard him correctly.
"Harvey…," she whispers, her voice trailing off.
He stops walking then, and just stands on the street, rooted to the spot. He thinks for a second that maybe that she's hung up already but he can still hear her breathing on the other end, can still hear the whirring inside her head in overdrive.
It must have been almost five minutes since he spoke, each of them holding their phones like a lifeline when her voice floats down the phone, low but sure,
"You never asked me to."