Hello, Hows it goin, hope life is treating you ok. I had to put on pants this week, I know right, where did summer go, I'm just joking, I'm ready for fall, was ready for fall when October hit, it was weird having multiple days in the 90s in October, and the humidity, super freaky….anyways, someone has figured out a way to be ok with my annoyingly short chapters (she didn't use the word annoying, I am because I'm annoying), I'm paraphrasing here but she generally says, 'it's ok that I write short chapters as long as I write more chapters.' Well there ya go eh, problem solved, well…it wasn't really a problem, but you know what I mean. I hope you have a safe Devil's night and a nice Halloween, and I hope you like this next chapter.
Holly has two tickets to the Flat Earth Conference; she holds them up to Gail. Gail leans her head in to read the print, "why do you have tickets to the Flat Earth Conference?"
"It's in Toronto this year, and I want to check it out."
"Aren't you a scientist? You can't possibly believe in that stuff…" Gail trails off.
"Yes, but sometimes they have some interesting ideas and innovative theories," Holly sounds like a brochure.
"Sure, whatever you say, nerd," says Gail, who doesn't fully believe the brunette, but whatever. "Why do you have two tickets and why are you showing them to me? If you're bragging about your tickets to me, that's not exactly a brag..."
"Well," Holly gets all shy all of a sudden, "my friend expressed interest in going, but turns out she was being sarcastic," Gail laughs, "I was wondering if you would want to go with me?"
"What?!" Gail has complete confusion all over her face, "why me? Didn't you ask Trish, your fiancée?"
"She laughed and said no."
Gail turns the idea over in her head, a day with Holly could be fun, "hmmmm….I would get to work on my mockery skills."
"You might learn something…" offers Holly.
"Doubt it, fine I'll go."
"Really?" Holly asks hopefully, slightly skeptical.
"Yeah, plus you're picking up my tab for the week."
"Just the week?"
"The month?" Gail tries to get a better deal.
"Nope you already said week," smiles Holly.
Gail scowls, she almost had free drinks for a month, "And who knows? …maybe I'll learn something." Gail grabs one of the tickets from Holly's hand, "I'll meet you outside the convention center at 10am tomorrow."
"Sounds good, looking forward to it," Holly smiles at the blonde, both actually looking forward to their adventure tomorrow at the Flat Earth conference.
"Did you learn anything?" Holly asks Gail as they leave the center.
"They use photoshop as their answer for a lot of things, I wonder what they used before photoshop was invented."
"Well…the flat Earth society has been around for awhile now, and they like to point to Renaissance maps and findings."
"So, old science?" Gail tries to clarify, to help herself understand more. Even though Gail seems like she doesn't care about stuff, she actually does, she just prefers people not knowing, she doesn't want them to think she's relatable or anything, then people would come to her with their problems and yeah, no thanks, pass.
"They don't like to use the word science, but yeah, kind of."
"Interesting." Gail really enjoyed spending the day with Holly, she thought the conference was going to be very boring and a whole lot of hogwash, but it turned out okay.
"Where did you park?" asks Holly as they exit the conference center.
"I walked."
"Need a ride home?"
It's not that far of a walk, but Gail does want to spend more time with Holly, and they have been walking around the center for hours now, "sure, thanks."
Holly smiles, she was hoping the blonde would agree to a lift to extend their time together, Holly has been enjoying Gail's friendship. Gail walks beside Holly, following her to the car, Holly unlocks it and tosses her purse in the back seat, Gail jumps into the passenger seat, and Holly slides in behind the wheel. Holly starts the car and backs out of her parking spot, "thanks again for coming with me."
"No problem, I actually had a nice time."
"Whoa! A compliment to a nerdy thing?" Holly smiles.
Gail smiles out the window, "don't get too excited, this was probably a one of."
Holly laughs. She listens to Gail's directions and arrives at the blonde's house in less than five minutes, Holly's slightly disappointed the car ride didn't last long. "Nice house," says Holly.
"Thanks…did you want to come inside for a drink or something?" Gail doesn't know why she just asked that, Holly probably has to get home to her fiancée; they probably have plans or something.
Holly's tempted to say yes, "no, I should head home; I think Trish is cooking dinner tonight."
"Next time," says Gail.
"Next time," agrees Holly.
Gail hesitates in Holly's car, the blonde knows now is the appropriate time to exit the car, but she feels this overwhelming urge to kiss the brunette goodbye, not on the lips like at the diner, but on the cheek like friends do. She knows Holly is off limits, but she kind of can't help herself, and what is just a kiss on the cheek among friends? Before she gives it too much thought Gail leans over and kisses Holly on the cheek, "thanks again, see you at work." Gail quickly gets out of the car and walks up the path to her front door.
Holly sits in the car, watching the blonde walk away; she places her hand to her cheek. She knows she shouldn't be blushing, but she totally is.
Life goes on, new cases pop up, and cases get closed. Holly continues to hang out with the cops at 15 division, she finally makes it to a trivia night, which the cops do twice a month, Gail's partner is still Rodney, they are going on a five week winning streak, Holly gets paired with Chris. Chris is happy to have Holly as his partner, normally he gets stuck with Andy, who claims to know a lot but never seems to win, Chris feels he and Holly will be able to take down Gail and Rodney. It's down to the last question, Chris and Holly are tied with Gail and Rodney, and once again the detective and the guy from the lab are victorious. Even though Holly lost, she's happy that her friend from the lab won, she truthfully never hung out with Rodney outside of work and it was fun to see his competitive side, also she likes the big smile Gail gave Rodney when he answered the last question right and their victorious high five celebration. Holly thinks maybe one of these times she'll bring Trish; she'll try to convince her fiancée to not work late on a trivia night. Maybe Gail's right, Holly thinks, maybe she should introduce Trish to her work friends.
A couple of days later, Trish is sitting in Holly's lab talking to Holly while Holly continues to prep her station for an autopsy. Gail and Traci have been assigned some potential overdose case, but on Holly's initial crime scene investigation, it looked staged to her. She lays out all the equipment, making sure she takes special care to center herself, not wanting to mess up her job, wanting to be able to answer the grieving family's questions, Holly looks up at Trish who is still talking about, she wants to say her friend Susan from work, Holly's met Susan, she's kind of bland, but Holly's not really paying attention, she's way too focused on her task at hand. Gail walks into the lab, "hey doc, have you started yet?"
Holly smiles at Gail, "not yet, five more minutes, just need to get everything ready."
"Good, I'll be back in a minute; I need to run to the washroom."
"Okay," Holly watches Gail exit.
Trish stands up and walks over to Holly, leaning on the table and into Holly's personal space, "you're lucky I trust you."
"Pardon?" says Holly, still more focused on laying out her supplies than her fiancée.
"That's Gail?" Holly nods her head, "the blonde detective you've mentioned several times," Holly nods her head again, "she's gorgeous. The way her pants hug her legs…If I didn't know you were truly in love with me, I don't know how I would feel you working with her so often." Trish pauses and whistles, "cause I mean, dang, that would be tough! I don't know how you do it," Holly scrunches up her face at her fiancée. "I don't know if I could resist…" Trish trails off dreamily. She clears her throat, "well, I got to go," she leans over to give Holly a kiss on the cheek, "I'm going out with Susan, so I'll see you at home later."
Holly is so fucking confused, what just happened? Trish would cheat on me if she had to work daily with Gail? WTF? She's absolutely stunned, she has no words, Holly doesn't know how to process this…
Just then Gail enters the room, "ready?" Holly looks at her confused, Gail looks back at Holy concerned, "you alright?" the blonde asks.
Holly forces a smile, "yes." She kind of shakes that conversation off, "let's get started." Holly knows she can't let what Trish just said affect her, if Holly thinks too hard about it she knows it will totally have an effect on her work and she doesn't want that to happen. She'll hopefully talk to Trish once she's home, once Trish gets home after being out with boring Susan.
Gail can see that something has altered Holly's mood. She also notices that the lady that was in the lab previously is no longer there, a lady she's never seen before. "We can do this another time….it's late, I'm sure this can wait until tomorrow…"
"No, I'm fine," Holly had never seen Trish jealous before, was that jealousy though? Confessing that she finds another woman attractive and potentially irresistible, Trish has never done that to Holly before. Sure when Holly and Trish watch movies or television, of course they talk about the beautiful people on their screen, but maybe because they were just on a screen it didn't feel the same as someone Holly works with practically on a daily basis. Holly turns on her recorder and begins the autopsy, Holly knows the best way to push her thoughts away is to drown herself in her work, out of her peripheral vision she notices that Gail takes a seat where Trish just was.