A/N: Hi guys, I've been working like the Machine this month. But I'm here. Thanks for sticking around. Oh and #sexytime!

As always, enjoy x

Chapter 62: Myrtle

Saturday 25th February 2017, 1.14am, Soundview Park, Bronx, New York

It turned out that Shaw beat John to the punch, taking her less-than-rightful place as the head of the comforting committee. Instead of chocolates and tea, or even a shot of something she'd brewed under her bed, Carter's commiseration came in the form of a fully-loaded bazooka and an arts and craft project. Joss didn't ask questions with Shaw by her side; there was no point in asking where she got a military grade bazooka from at that time or what her plans were because a carefully-placed torch revealed a shooting test dummy with beer bottle caps where his member was supposed to be.

"You work fast." Carter remarked with approval, making Shaw tingle.

"Enough of the mushy stuff, Carter. 10 points for a limb, 20 for a head shot and 50 for the bullseye."

"Yes ma'am." She gave her a mock salute, sparing any more words of appreciation that Shaw wouldn't and couldn't accept. Even Shaw didn't have a snappy comeback for that.

8.11am, Galah Apartments, Washington Street, West Village, Manhattan

No matter how many times John tried to sneak into bed with subtlety or quiet, Joss woke up to his arrival without fail. Even though she was still tipsy from four swigs too many from Shaw's special bottle of hooch, the slight crunch of his feet on the carpet broke her slumber. "Morning, Trouble." She greeted, arching her back like a cat.

"Trouble? Me?" He asked, kicking off his boots with a smirk.

Joss wiped the sleep from her left eye to get a better view. "That's what your knuckles say." It was futile to ask how she noticed the swelling from across the room, and as he drew closer and took his shirt off her inspection amplified. "Hmmm, no visible bruises, and if remember right that scar's about a month old."

"Night nurse." Was all he said, quoting Gregory's favourite song in response.

She sat up on her elbows. "You were a doctor…for all of five minutes."

John refrained from bringing up the euthanasia because it wasn't the right time. If there ever was one. "I tried. They said my bedside manner needed work."

She raised one eyebrow higher than the other when she wasn't even trying to. "Is that what they said?"

His belt buckle made a thud when it hit the floor. "Among other things."

Joss pulled the old raggedy sorority t-shirt over her head dragging her hair along with the static, its royal blue wasn't so royal anymore. "Like what?" Her question was met with a blue-eyed comfortable silence. It was clear he didn't want to play verbal tennis with her, even if he loved the banter. Off went his dirty jeans. When he looked at her that way, she wasn't full of words either. They could've talked about the promotion she was robbed of, or the glass ceiling that was really made of concrete, or whose face got the four-knuckle treatment and why. But there was no need.

She peeled back the covers on her side of the custom 8-foot wide bed even though there was room enough for John, Shrek and Shaquille O'Neal on his side. He followed her lead, taking up the narrow space between her legs and taking in the smell of sweat laced with jasmine. Her nose and lips brushed against his with subtlety, calming her cluttered mind. It wasn't the time for John to tell her he'd met the man who was taking her Sergeant position with a right hook outside his apartment, or that the 50 dozen donuts coming to the Precinct on Monday morning were courtesy of Finch's hacking, or that he may or may not have hidden a half-empty vial of crack in Noguerra's car. Again, there was no need; the words she really needed to hear didn't need an explanation. "I love you. I'm with you. And that's just the way it is."

She smiled, "Whether I like it or not?"

"As I recall, you like it very much."

And she did; she liked it with hungry kisses from the depth of her growling stomach, with passionate giving, with effort and sweat and open pores, with her teeth trapping his bottom lip, with a slow grind, with her hair whipped back, with the feline scratch of a lioness, with a tight grip, with submission and surrendering, with all she could stand until the throbbing of a beaten bass drum swelled into eye-glistening orgasm that stuttered her speech until a cluster of onomatopoeic and swear words. His name was Trouble the day he walked into her life, long before she knew what kind.

"You hungry?" She asked, catching a breath.

John looked up at her face and read her mind. "Eggs."

1:08pm, Turner Hall, Emory University

"Tay, girls ain't nothing but trouble."

His father's words rang in Taylor's ears to the pounding beat of his hangover headache from the Sigma vs. Gamma party he crashed last night. Taylor didn't have a side, or any letters for that matter, but the more pressure he felt, the more he found himself letting off steam in unexpected ways. Like the pressure of Reggie cancelling on Spring Break because the Gamecocks lost to the Vanderbilt Commodores and the Kentucky Wildcats back-to-back; that made him look to Wilson as a stand-in.

"Can't. Filming that week; guerrilla-style. Ask Zahra." Wilson said quickly, before putting his headphones back on and editing a $50 music video.

Then there was the pressure of Zahra and the emotional weight someone had to carry; that made him pay attention when Isabella popped-up on social media. Her profile picture was new; she'd dyed her thick black kinky-curls caramel brown like Lion Babe and he wasn't sure he liked it but he couldn't look away. Isabella's knowing eyes called him out through the screen like a GIF attached to a trending clapback tweet. And before Taylor knew it, his fingers were typing something they (and he) shouldn't.

- Myrtle Beach?

… Isabella is typing

No shit, he thought, until the ellipsis turned to text.

- Chat?

With the privacy of Wilson being engrossed in his work, and no-one around to tell him he was playing with fire, Isabella looked better than ever in an 840x640 window.

"Hi." She smiled and her teeth flashed, just like he remembered from the time when all he could do was stare.

"Hi." Taylor was suddenly conscious of the drool at the corner of his mouth, his hair being it its 'whatever' phase in between shape-ups, and the sucked-in feeling of the grass being greener. "Your hair…"

"It's different, right?"

"It looks good." Her teeth flashed again. He cleared his drying throat. "About Myrtle-"

"I can't. My dad's convinced I'm gonna fall off a hotel balcony and end up alligator food like that one Cuban girl who went to Spring Break that one time. You know him."

"Yeah…I do." And with that, the disapproving glare, crushing handshake and those odd Cuban idioms he didn't understand but always had "muerte" in them came to mind.

"Then Pipo said he had a dream about a lake and it was a sign. When it was probably indigestion." She mimicked her grandfather's gruff, scratchy voice, "estás nadando en aguas peligrosas. So I'm going home to curfews and medianoches." Her knowing eyes went to work again. "Reggie bailed, huh?" She asked, failing to stifle a smile.

"Yeah, mandatory practice."

"College cattle." She said, referring to something she'd read about the NCAA being run as a plantation for her economics elective. Taylor shrugged his shoulders. "We're still friends, right?"

"Yeah…friends."