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Xoxo,
Nina
Disclaimer: I own nothing except my imagination.
"Who are you texting with that is giving you that goofy look on your face?" Erin's husky voice made me snap out of my Adam bubble and come right back to reality. I put my phone down and looked at Erin. We were going out, and did our best to keep it casual; jeans, blouse, hair down and some mascara, eyeliner and red lipstick. Simple, classy and sexy. We invited Vanessa and she joined us for the day spa, but already had dinner plans with a friend.
"That was just Ruze." For a second I tried playing dumb, but there was no use in hiding it anymore. I didn't want to, I was happy, more than I've been in a long while and I was proud of being his. So no, I didn't want to hide anymore. Was I scared this was all going to go to hell and that I could potentially lose this and suffer like a dog? Yes, of course. But was this worth the risk? Totally. I learned that with Adam, sometimes we have to face the fears, make amends with them, embrace our vulnerabilities and just feel, because that is what makes us real.
"And how are things with Ruzek?" Her playful smile and the funny look in her eyes caused me to chuckle. The bartender arrived with our drinks, giving Erin the perfect excuse to keep herself occupied and get me to do the talking.
"They are good." My answer was simple. Although I was determined to tell the truth, I still wanted to have fun with this if I could.
"Kim, please elaborate on that." She was beginning to sound frustrated and was now rolling her eyes at me, as she took another drink from her glass.
"Ok, so after the night at the boxing gym we've been hanging out more, especially since Atwater and Rojas are together…"
"You've always done that, though." She interrupted. "You're not giving me anything here."
"Well, you didn't give me a chance to finish." I chuckled at her impatience as I made circles in the air with my glass in an attempt to stir my drink. The truth is I was stalling, and it was kind of fun. "We're hanging out a lot more." I could see her eyes widening as if she was trying to put together the little pieces of information I was giving her. "Like, in each other's bedrooms more."
"Oh, wow."
"Ok, not only the bedrooms, showers and other places too." I felt as my cheeks were blushing and a smile appeared on my face at the thought of each one of those moments.
"I don't even want to know what places those are."
"Yeah…" I looked up to the ceiling and shook my head. "You probably don't."
"That's a little more information than I hoped for."
"You asked." We both smiled before we were sipping from our glasses again.
"And how has that been?"
"Wild." If I thought I was blushing before, now my face was on fire. I liked having Adam just to myself, but being able to share how happy I was with my friends was just as nice. "And very, very nice."
"You seem happy."
"I am. He's amazing, you know? I know I've known him for a long time and that he's been a hell of a partner, but I never really thought how good he could be to me as a woman."
"I'm getting the feeling that you're not only talking about the sex."
I shook my head. "Nope. I mean, the sex is amazing, very, very good stuff." I could see Erin scrunch her nose a bit, making me laugh. I looked down at my glass before taking another sip. "I'm sorry, too much information." She just laughed back. "I just feel that everything is amazing, every angle of whatever this thing we have going on is."
"So, this is a thing…" she said with a sneaky look on her face.
"I guess you could say that. We're sorting some things out." There it was again, the fear of losing it, of losing the nicest thing I've felt, the loveliest and healthiest relationship I've had. I must have done something to give that away, because Erin picked it up immediately.
"So what's wrong then? How do you really want things to be sorted out?"
I sighed deeply, my eyes meeting my glass one more time as if miraculously it would give me the words I needed. "I want exactly what we have. "It's perfect." I looked at my friend again. "I was so reluctant to tell anyone, but sharing it with you made me realize how much I actually enjoy that too. It's just… scary, you know? Am I being ridiculous?"
Erin chuckled at my question and put one of her hands over mine to make me feel at ease. "Kim, it is scary. Putting it out there makes it real. And for people like you and I with childhood trauma, when we have something so nice we are afraid to lose it." I nodded in agreement because I couldn't have used better words to express that even if I had tried. "I went through something like that when Jay and I started to go out, but in my experience coming out of the woods just made everything much better. The transparency of it all, it reduced all the chances of misinterpretation, we communicated better, it was so much easier." I was listening closely to everything she was saying. "Guys like Jay and Adam, good, honest guys, they're worth facing the fear."
"They are, aren't they?"
"Uh - hmm. I'm so glad this is happening to both of you, by the way. I knew you would end up together." I smiled at that comment, there was something about thinking of me and Adam together that made me feel warm inside.
The quiet and calm day that we had as soon as we got back to the district after New Year's was a present from above, my wishful thinking about the goodness of the holiday season was punched in the face with the next case that we got. It wasn't nice.
We've been at it for days, not because we didn't have enough leads, but because of the complexity of it all. One wrong move and everything could go sideways super fast.
This caused us to practically camp at the bullpen. We barely left to grab a shower, a fresh change of clothes and some quality sleep. This meant that the interaction between Ruzek and I was reduced to the minimum, a couple of hugs and kisses here and there and that one time that we actually managed to snuggle for five minutes on the couch we had in the break room when Voight and Atwater had left to check on some CI.
All in all, things were going well between us, we found strength and support in each other during complicated cases, and that was truly wonderful.
I just never imagined how little this was going to last for us.
I walked into the bullpen from the back door. I really needed to stop by my place to sleep a few hours in my bed, take a bath and get a decent cup of coffee.
The loud voices made me stop in my tracks. I wasn't one to eavesdrop, but the conversation was so intense I didn't feel very comfortable stepping in and interrupting, so I just waited in the narrow hallway.
"No way!" That voice was very familiar to me. It was Adam and he was pissed. "There's no way in hell we are doing that."
"Ruzek, just listen."
"I did listen, and I think that idea is crap. There has to be another way around this."
I couldn't see the faces, but from the tension I was picking up it was obvious that the whole situation wasn't something pretty to look at.
"I think it's not clear enough to you, that I am your sergeant and I get to decide what the best move is when the situation is crucial. This is a crucial situation Ruzek." Voight's voice came out as a roar. You could always count on him to have your back, but he was also very confident of the calls he made when trying to solve a case and he wasn't very fond of anyone unauthorizing him like that. Adam was obviously stepping over some line that I wasn't aware of yet.
"And I think you don't remember what this guy is capable of. Sarge, we're talking about torture, rape, trafficking and murder. I'm not exposing her to that. Send someone else."
Her? Was this quarrel about me?
"She's perfect for this. She's what he's looking for."
Yeah, it was about me. I've seen the pictures of the victims and I guess you could say that we all shared a few characteristics.
"Exactly! Send one of us."
"Unless you or Halstead are secretly women, this time I need you somewhere else." Voight sounded reasonable but firm.
"She's not going!"
"Ruze, come on. You know it's the only option right now. We'll be right there." Jay was trying to appease him, but it wasn't working.
"Seriously? She can't go in there."
Wait. What? What did he mean? That I wasn't capable of doing this.
"Listen Ruzek, I get it. She's your partner and you want to have her back. But I hand picked her to be here, just like I did with all of you. She's perfectly trained to do whatever it is we need to get done, and while I do appreciate your concern; this is something that I need to discuss with Burgess, not with you."
So what was going on? Was he trying to protect me or was he undermining my ability to do my job? When Voight stopped talking, I took that as a cue to step out of the hallway and faced the three men I heard speaking, much to my surprise Kevin and Erin were there too, but neither of them pronounced a word.
Adam looked agitated, Voight had his classic poker face on and Jay was being ranger Jay, just waiting for the orders.
"I'm here sarge, I'm sorry I overheard some of the conversation. What do you need me to do?"
"We got some information about where Sloan is going to be today and we have reason to believe he will make his next hit there. We need you as bait." Adam took a step forward, I knew he wanted to put his hand on my shoulder but he stopped himself from doing that. I'm not sure if it was because we still hadn't said anything to Voight or if it was due to the killer look I was giving him.
"You're not doing that." The look on Adam's face was new to me. It was his typical barvado stare, it was very different from the way he always looks at me and I couldn't decipher it.
"Why not? This is not your choice to make."
"Kim, come on! We've been working on this case for days now, you know what this guy does."
"And you think I can't hold my own in there."
"No!" He shook his head. "It's not that."
"What is it then? Do you think that with all the information we have, with all we know I will be stupid enough to mess this up?" He opened his mouth to speak but I beat him to it. "It's nice to know the faith you really have in me. And maybe it's best for you to ask Voight to change your partner since you clearly don't trust me enough to be able to back you up."
His face killed me, he was furious but he was also devastated. Here I was facing the one man I actually thought believed in me and watching him question my skills and my ability to keep myself safe and to bring Sloan behind bars once and for all. But if he was determined and stubborn, so was I. Was I overreacting?
"I'll do it boss. Walk me through it."
"Whatever, Kim." He didn't even look at me when he said that and threw the file he was holding on to slamming it against his desk. I knew he wanted to storm out, but he wasn't going to do that.
Voight ignored him, I guess he knew that Adam would get his head around it at some point. Instead of worrying about the little rant, our boss walked over to the whiteboard and pointed out some details.
"Sloan is going to be at the Viper Room in a few hours. The body that we found this morning confirms that he's one girl down, and according to our guy at the docks the shipment leaves tonight, so he's in desperate need of someone and you fit his profile." I nodded. "The first part is easy, just go there and be approachable, do whatever you consider necessary." I could see Adam's disapproval from the corner of my eyes. "The second part is trickier. We can't risk Sloan finding out, so no cameras, you'll be wired to the minimum and of course, no guns."
"This is bullshit." Adam said under his breath, although I'm pretty sure all of us heard him, but Voight continued to brief me.
"You need to get him to say something that will implicate him so we can put all the pieces together. We'll all be there covering you, if you say the safe word we will get you out."
"That won't be necessary. I'll make sure we get this done." Now, not only was I driven to solve this because of the case itself, but I also had a damn point to prove. I needed to show Adam that I could do it.
"There will be two surveillance vans, Halstead and Lindsay you'll be in one of them, Ruzek and Atwater you'll be in the other one." He instructed as he looked at each pair. "Platt and I will be there too. All of us will hear you, but only one team will have access first if you need anything. Who do you want to back you up?" He was totally doing this on purpose and I was sufficiently pissed and hurt to fall for it.
"Halstead and Lindsay." Yeah, I know. Low blow.
"Ok, then. Let's get ready everybody." He disappeared into his office and we all went to gear up.
Apparently the roll up was an all girl zone today since only Erin and I were there.
"Put this one on. It looks good on you." She said as handed a red lipstick to me.
"Thanks. How do I look?"
"Hot."
"Yeah? That's ironic since I'm freezing my ass off. I mean, is this really a skirt or is it a belt?" Erin laughed at the comment.
"Here, let me double check that all the wiring is where it should be." I stepped in closer and allowed her to do her job. "So… what was that all about?"
"Apparently it was about me not being a good enough cop to be able to pull this off."
"Are you sure that's what he meant?"
"Oh, I think it was pretty clear."
"Obviously it wasn't if that's what you got out of it." I heard his voice coming from behind me and I swear I felt my legs quivering to the familiar sound.
"Um, I'm gonna help Jay get some stuff ready." Erin walked past beside me nodding to Adam as she was leaving.
"What do you want?"
"What I really want is for you not to do this crazy ass op."
"Why?" He sighed in frustration.
"You wouldn't understand."
"So I'm not smart enough to get Sloan nor to understand what you say. What the hell Adam?"
"Whoa, stop. I never said any of that."
"Adam, if you don't trust me enough to get this done, if you don't think I'm good enough to actually do this, then I don't know what you're doing here."
"I'm here because I want to talk to you."
"I don't."
"Come on, you're being so unreasonable right now." The tone he was using totally sold him on how much of his cool he was losing.
"Just leave me alone. And don't worry, I'll do everything in my power so you don't have to leave that van of yours to save my weak and unable ass." As soon as those words left my mouth, as soon as I saw that unfamiliar look on Adam's eyes for the second time today, that was when I realized that it wasn't really me speaking. I realized that my bagful of issues had just returned to haunt me, to challenge me, to test me. And I was failing miserably.
I walked away from Adam and left him alone in the roll up.
