"Thank you so much, Hailey. I really appreciate your input on the whereabouts of our suspect." Said Detective Matthews offering his hand for Hailey to shake. She took it gladly, satisfied with the information she had provided the Homicide team.
"I'm glad I could offer you some assistance. It's nice to work on my profiling skills from time to time." Said Hailey.
"Well we can definitely use your help anytime, Hailey."
"Absolutely, shoot me an email when you do. See you later, Matthews." Hailey finished, getting up from her chair and heading out of the homicide bullpen.
As she made her way through the hallways, she emerged into the lobby area of the precinct and noticed that Sergeant Platt was at her desk.
Hailey had met Sergeant Platt when she was younger, after her family's restaurant had been robbed and her father was badly injured. Sergeant Platt had made Hailey fell safe and comforted, even though one of her safe spaces as a child had been so brutally invaded. She was the reason Hailey became a psychologist, so that she could replicate those feelings for other kids, when they feel as if their entire world is crumbling.
Platt noticed Hailey walking by and waved her over with a smile, the two reuniting like old friends after Hailey had met her again the first time she had offered to help the police department with a case.
"Hailey, it's been a while since I've seen you. Has the office been keeping you busy?" Said Platt, greeting the younger blonde.
"Yeah, I've got quite a few clients now and I've even moved to psychological rehabilitation for criminals, along with the therapy sessions for teenagers." Hailey replied.
"Wow, you must not have a lot of free time on your hands nowadays."
"No, but I make due. Hey, have you seen Vanessa today? She says she's always in early Monday mornings, because her boss works them hard."
"Sergeant Voight does go hard on most cases, but that's what helps his team get the best results. And Vanessa should be up there, but I wouldn't go in unannounced, Voight doesn't like surprises." Said Platt.
"I see, well maybe I'll text Vanessa and go get her a coffee while I wait for a response. She takes forever, always looking up weird stuff online."
"I don't suppose you would mind getting me a cup of coffee, would you?" Asked Platt.
"Absolutely not, you take a straight black coffee, right?"
"Yep, and thanks a lot, Hailey."
"It's no trouble, I'll be back in a bit." Hailey said, smiling to Platt and taking off for the front door, texting Vanessa about the coffee and asking if she could visit. Hailey had surprisingly never seen where Vanessa worked or even met her coworkers.
At that thought, Hailey decided that she would pick up some of her favorite Greek pastries as well, so that her surprise visit would be taken well. As she was waiting for her order, Hailey was reminded of her evening with Jay. It felt like they had really connected and it definitely seemed like they had an attraction towards one another, she just hoped that one of them would muster up the courage to make the first move.
Shortly after getting her order, Hailey received a text from Vanessa accepting her offer of coffee, and saying that she would come down to get her and bring her up, seeing as they had a password protected gate.
Hailey dropped off Platt's coffee with a smile and one of her Greek pastries.
"Oh, thank you Hailey, I was getting a little hungry." Said Platt.
"It's no problem, I figured Vanessa's team would be less bothered if I showed up with something for them to eat." Hailey replied.
"You're right on that one, Hailey. Oh, there's your escort." Said Platt, gesturing to the stairs that Vanessa was currently descending.
"Awesome, see ya later, Platt."
Hailey walked over to Vanessa and handed her, her regular coffee order.
"Thanks, Hales. Come on up, it's pretty slow, since we just finished a big bust, so all we have is paper work to finish. I'll show you my desk and you can meet the guys I work with!" Vanessa exclaimed, hooking her elbow with Hailey's has they made their way up the stairs and towards Vanessa's bullpen.
When they first walked in, no one noticed, so they made their way over to Vanessa's desk, where Hailey placed the box of Greek sweets.
"Wait hold up, do you guys smell that?" Said a dirty blond-haired man sitting across from Vanessa.
"Adam, my friend came to visit and she brought us food, if you looked, you'd see."
Jay noticed the entire team stirred once they heard Vanessa say her friend brought them food. He looked up and felt all the air leave his chest.
Standing a few feet away from him was Hailey, the girl her had met at his undercover gig and then had dinner with. And she still didn't know that he was a cop, because he procrastinated texting or calling her because his nerves got the best of him.
"Damn Vanessa, you do have some attractive friends, why haven't you brought her around before?" Asked Adam, giving Hailey his boyishly charming smile that made Jay want to roll his eyes.
Luckily, Jay was the farthest from the group where everyone was starting to crowd around Hailey, so she hadn't seen him yet. But Jay knew that it wouldn't be good when she did see him, so deciding to bite the bullet, he got up from his chair and walk over to the group.
"Hey Hailey." Jay said, looking into Hailey's eyes, trying to show there was no ill-intent from him.
"Hm, last time I checked, you worked at a bar, if I remember correctly." Said Hailey hinting at her frustration of finding out that he was lying about who he was.
"Hold up, is this the girl who gave you the lead on the janitor who was hiding the drugs?" Asked Nick, which didn't help Jay's situation with Hailey, who didn't seem too happy with him.
"Damn, this is the girl that had Jay Halstead distracted during a raid? I am impressed Hailey, that is quite the feat." Adam said with an underlying smirk.
"Hailey, can I talk you to you for a second?" Said Jay, and looking around the group followed up with:
"Preferably without an entourage."
Hailey looked around, noticing everyone staring at her. She thought for a moment and decided that Jay seemed genuine enough that she should at least hear him out.
"Sure. Is there some place with can talk?" Asked Hailey.
"Yes, there's a break room over here." Said Jay, pointing over his shoulder to the far end of the room.
"Okay then."
They parted from the group and made their way into the break room. Jay made sure to close the door, because even though they were all cops, they all enjoyed a fair amount of gossip and he didn't want Hailey to be their newest topic of conversation. Jay turned to Hailey and spoke honestly:
"Hailey. I understand that this doesn't look good from your point of view, you probably think that because I lied to you, I'm not worth your time and that you should just leave. But I'm thankful that you're hearing me out, I really appreciate it."
"Look, Jay. Obviously, you had a job to do and I wouldn't want to get in the way of that, I'm just a little frustrated that in the past three days you didn't think to call me up and tell me that you aren't actually a bartender." Said Hailey.
"I totally get that, Hailey. We had just cracked the case and then there were interrogations and a drug bust, I know that's not an excuse, I just didn't have a lot of time and I was worried you would think I was trying to play you or something." Said Jay.
"Okay, clearly you've had a busy weekend and I can see that you're sincere, so why don't we start over?"
"Really? That would be amazing."
"Hi, I'm Hailey and I work at a psychologist office." Said Hailey, offering her hand to shake, Jay took it happily and, smiling, said:
"I'm Jay and I'm a detective." Jay replied.
"Great, now I can do what I've been trying to get to all weekend."
"What's that?"
"Jay, would you like to go on a date with me this Friday?" Asked Hailey.
"I would love that, Hailey."
"Awesome, you can come over to my apartment and I'll cook you dinner."
"That sounds great, I will definitely be there." Jay replied.
The two looked into each other's eyes, smiling. Both were glad to have cleared up their misunderstanding and to start fresh after an interesting few days.
As Hailey watched Jay, she couldn't help but feel incredibly happy that she was going on a date with the man in front of her.
Jay was thinking something similar, ecstatic that Hailey understood and that she accepted his job, he could feel that this was going to be the start of something amazing.
A/N Sorry about the long gaps between chapters. I haven't had a lot of motivation because of quarantine and working on my own schoolwork, but there should be some more updates soon!