Hold Me
John came home to find Alex sitting on the couch of the living room, listening to Frank Sinatra and drinking Scotch…straight from the bottle. She'd left her shoes and bag at the door and was wearing a skirt and her blouse, which was partially unbuttoned; she was staring off into space. John noted that she seemed a little upset.
"Kitten, what's wrong?" he asked.
"Southerlyn." She said, flatly.
John groaned. Alex seemed to be constantly at odds with one of her colleagues, Serena Southerlyn. They were almost always fighting… over everything. And Serena was always lording over Alex and Alex resented that. And so, Alex was always complaining to John about it.
"What now?"
"She came to me this afternoon and tells me that me getting locked up in contempt makes the whole office look bad and then goes on to tell me that she'll see to it that I'm disbarred if I pull such a stunt ever again. I wonder where she was when during my little incident with an illegal search warrant." She made an impatient noise and took another drink of Scotch. "Stupid bitch."
"Put down the bottle of Scotch, darling." He said. "I think you're drunk."
"No, really?" Alex was edging on sarcasm.
"Kitten, please. Put down the bottle."
Sighing, Alex put the scotch down. "I hate that woman. She thinks that I'm out to ruin the office."
"Well, are you?"
"John…if I was, I would have done it a long time ago." Then she looked at him. "Hold me."
He didn't give her request a second thought. He just went over to the couch, sat down next to her, and put his arms around her, allowing her head to rest on his shoulder and he held her close to him as she suddenly began to cry.