Flynn entered the restaurant with a lot of trepidation. He wondered how he always managed to get himself into these situations. Normally, a night out with Provenza, having a couple of dates to look forward to, would have been a good thing. Now, he was worried that this was going too far. Brenda had been far from happy when he'd left her after work. And by the way she'd been working her way through her candy drawer, she was going to make herself sick because of it.
He hadn't been the only one who'd been on the receiving end of her cold shoulder, however. Provenza had dug himself a pretty deep hole this time, and had to do most of the grunt work that he normally shoved onto Sanchez or Tao. Brenda made sure he did it, by taking Sanchez and Tao with her, where normally it would have been Flynn and Provenza. Neither man was happy. When he'd finally gone in to say goodbye for the night, she'd barely acknowledged him, keeping her head down in a file, while chewing on a KitKat bar. He'd gone home to change, worried that he would have no relationship with the woman. That scared him more than it should.
Flynn looked around the restaurant and seen Provenza sitting with two women. They'd obviously arrived a little ahead of time, as the three had drinks sitting in front of them. He figured he might as well get this over with, and approached the trio.
"Well, it's about time you got here, Flynn! Did you forget when we were suppose to meet?" Provenza said by way of greeting.
"No, I didn't forget, smart ass. I was late leaving work. If you hadn't fled as soon as you could to get away from the Chief, I wouldn't have had to do your share of the paperwork on this case." Flynn grumbled.
"Oh, that. Well, yes, thank you for that. Now these lovely young ladies here are Fiona Stone and Sarah Cook. Sarah is your date for this evening." Provenza said.
Sarah held her hand out to shake Andy's and smiled. Flynn smiled back at her, but felt bad that this was for nothing. "Hi Andy! Glad to meet you!" the woman said. She was small and blond, but at least she didn't have a southern accent. That would have been too much, Flynn thought to himself.
"Hi Sarah. What bad things has Provenza been telling you about me?" Flynn enquired, fearing the worst.
"Not too much. Just that the two of you work together for some hardass woman who makes his life difficult." Sarah smiled at him.
Flynn shot Provenza a glaring look, one that said he didn't appreciate the Chief being called a hardass. It was Provenza's own fault that he got on her bad side today, he knew he was screwing up her plans.
"She's not that bad. She's really nice once you get to know her. If you get on her bad side, however, she will make your life difficult. And Provenza managed to do a great job of getting on her bad side today." Flynn left it at that, but Sarah seen something in Flynn's face that showed her how he felt about the Chief. His face had softened considerably at mention of her, and she realized he was kind of hung up on whoever this "Chief" was.
"You'll have to tell me about her. You two have entirely different visions of her." Sarah took a sip of her drink then.
Flynn almost blushed, if that was possible. He felt uncomfortable about this whole situation, especially since Provenza was now glaring at him. Fortunately, they were interrupted by the waitress coming to bring menus and to get Flynn's drink order. He just picked a ginger ale and sat back to make the best out of this evening.
"So, since you know what Provenza and I do for a living, what do you all do?" Flynn asked, making conversation. Just because this wasn't going anywhere didn't mean he couldn't be polite.
Fiona spoke. "Well, I'm a kindergarten teacher and Sarah works in the office at the school."
Flynn was momentarily stunned. Where the hell had Provenza met a kindergarten teacher? He got his answer shortly.
"I met Louis here a couple of weeks ago, he came to the open house at the school. I teach his grandson. Such a wonderful little boy." All the time, Fiona just kept smiling.
Flynn chuckled, Provenza could pick up women anywhere, apparently. And he let this woman use his given name? After he'd basically threatened to castrate Flynn if he ever said it? Would wonders never cease.
"When he asked me out, and said he had a friend who needed a date, I thought of Sarah. She and I are best friends." Fiona giggled. If it weren't for the fact that she was in her forties, the way she acted would have made Flynn think she was a teenager.
"Yeah, cause I'm desperate and alone. At least that's what Fiona tells me all the time." Sarah said drily.
If it weren't for the fact he already had a girlfriend, Flynn would have liked this Sarah. He only hoped he could get out of this without hurting anyone.
"Provenza thinks that I need to get out more. He's taken it upon himself to make sure I do." Flynn grimaced.
"Am I really that bad to be around?" Sarah fake-pouted.
Flynn thought he'd offended her for a moment til she burst out into a smile and laughed. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I know the feeling. Fiona thinks I'm a lost cause too."
"Now, Sarah, you know that's not true! I just thought you should get out, that's all. It's been six months since your divorce. You need to get out more." Fiona was oblivious, much like Provenza. Trying to fix things that didn't need to be fixed.
Conversation died again once the waitress came to take their orders. They made it through the meal without much incident, and once it was over they paid and made their exit. Provenza and Fiona wanted to go dancing, and so they ended up at an oldies club Provenza knew. Flynn wondered what fresh hell he was in. Sarah was nice enough, but Provenza was fast getting on Flynn's nerves. He just wanted to go home.
Once inside, Flynn and Sarah took seats at a table, while the other two took to the dance floor.
"You know, Andy, you don't seem like such a bad guy. But I do have to ask you, who's this girl you seem hung up on?" Sarah was blunt.
"What? I'm not hung up on anyone!" Flynn declared.
"You're kidding yourself. I could see it in your eyes when you were talking about your Chief. Is she the one? It's okay if you are, I realize this isn't going to go anywhere." Sarah gave a little smile.
Flynn shifted uncomfortably. How did someone he just met be able to read him better than someone he'd known for years?
"Yeah, I guess you could say that. Provenza doesn't think this is a good thing. He thought I should get out, get away from her. We were suppose to go out to dinner tonight. It's a regular thing between us. Provenza scheduled this date so we couldn't." Flynn looked dejected. "And now, the Chief is upset. And not just with Provenza."
"Well, that wasn't very nice of him. Is he always like this?"
"He means well, but he can't help himself. He thinks he's fixing things."
"Why do you call him Provenza? I thought his name was Louis."
"He's forbid me to use his given name. Under threat of castration. So, it's Provenza."
Sarah burst out laughing at that. "Well, he sounds like a high maintenance friend. But then so is Fiona. She doesn't know it yet, I have started dating. Only trouble, I have the same problem as you. It's with a guy that I'm not ready to let her know about. He's the gym teacher at the school, and she used to have a crush on him. I'm just not ready to tell her yet. I love her like a sister, and don't want to hurt her."
"So, we make a fine pair. Both of us are controlled by our friends expectations."
Sarah looked thoughtful for a minute. "You know, I have an idea that may help us both out and get both of them off our backs."
Flynn eyed her, sceptical. " How much trouble are you aiming to get me into?"
"Well, hopefully it will get both of them off our backs. What do you say we pretend we've really hit it off? I mean, we've hit it off, but I think we both know it's not going anywhere. But we pretend that it's something more, and these two get off our cases. You go back to your Chief, I go to my Steven. Simple, right?"
Flynn thought it sounded deceptively simple. Lord knows things always went wrong for him. "I suppose it could work. Can we make it believable?"
"Only one way to know. Let's dance, shall we?" Sarah tugged at his hand, leading him to the dance floor. Provenza noticed right away and gave Flynn the thumbs up. Flynn just rolled his eyes.
Sarah did a convincing job of pretending to be nuts about him. Flynn almost believed it himself. Provenza was buying it, at least. Flynn almost sighed with relief. He danced with Sarah, not too closely, he tried to stay away from her. There really was only one woman he wanted in his arms.
They danced for awhile, and Flynn realized he just wanted to go home. Now that Provenza was seemingly off his back, he excused himself and offered Sarah a lift home, just to keep up the charade. She accepted, and they left two satisfied friends in their wake.
At the car, Sarah chuckled, glad it had worked out. "Well, that didn't take too much to convince them. I didn't even have to kiss you."
"Yeah, it's probably for the better you didn't. But you did an admirable job of throwing yourself at me, so I think we're good."
She gave him directions to her place, and Flynn dropped her off shortly. She shook his hand, saying goodbye. Before she headed in, he thanked her for helping him out. With a final wave, he headed home.
Fifteen minutes later, he was pulling into his driveway. In the dark, he was surprised by the small blonde woman waiting on his steps, her head being held in her hands.
"What took you so long?" was all Brenda could say. She didn't move from where she was sitting. She'd been there a long time, the cold seeping into her.
"Provenza decided we should go dancing afterwards." Flynn admitted.
"Did you like your "date"? I suppose this woman was all over you." she said bitterly.
"It wasn't a real date. Really. I promise you, nothing happened between me and this woman. Sarah knows it wouldn't have gone anywhere. Apparently, I'm an open book and hung up on another girl. Not that I would know who that was. " he tried to joke with her. She wasn't ready for it.
"Sarah? Is that this woman's name? Do you know I've been worrying all night? That you might like this blind date better than me, decide you don't want to be with me anymore. That I was just one of those things that happen. That we were just one of those things that happen."
Flynn sat down on the steps beside Brenda. "You will never be "just one of those things". I've waited too long to be with you to screw it up with one of Provenza's plans. I told you, I would do whatever it takes to be with you."
Brenda was still upset, bothered more than she understood about Flynn having gone on a pretend date. It bothered her more that she was bothered about it.
"It's getting cold out here. How about we go in? I'll put some coffee on." Andy hoped she hadn't been out there too long, but when he took her hand, hoping to convince her to go in, it was ice cold.
Brenda looked at his hand holding hers and consented to being pulled up by him. He grabbed her purse off the steps and held on to her hand, walking towards the door. As he unlocked it to let themselves in, she pulled her hand away from his. She put her hand out to stop him from walking in.
"Tell me you won't go out with her again. I can't stand the thought of you being out with someone else. I don't care if it was a fake date or not." She looked up at him, not understanding the way she felt.
"I won't go out with anyone else. I promise. Even a fake date. But you're going to have to help me get Provenza off our backs." Flynn grabbed her hand and pulled her into his living room, closing the door behind them.
Andy put her purse down on the chair and then turned and pulled her into his arms.
"What's happening to us, Andy? Everything is happening so fast between us. It scares me." Brenda muttered into his chest, hiding her face.
"I don't know. Whatever it is, I want to see it through, that much I know. It scares me too. I haven't been close to a woman in a long time." She fit into his arms like she'd always had been meant to be there. He knew now, more than ever, that she was the one he wanted in his arms, no other.
"I have very strong feelings for you. Very strong. It scares me. I never thought I'd ever feel this way about anyone else. And it's too soon, way too soon." Brenda went on.
"You worry too much. Way too much. It doesn't matter if it's been a week or months. We've known each other for years, that's bound to count for something. It's not like we just met on a blind date." Andy attempted to reassure her, and himself.
For the first time since telling her what Provenza had planned for him, Brenda looked up at him and smiled. "You're not just saying that?"
"I'm not just saying that. Look, I know I'm a bit of a screw up with things. But I would never do anything to screw this up."
Brenda finally relaxed, although she still worried, she decided to take Andy at his word.
"How about that coffee? Do you still want some?" Andy asked her.
Brenda gave a huge yawn though, her tiredness betraying her. "No, I think I just want to go home to bed. It's been a very long day."
"You could stay here tonight. I can behave myself, you know. Just sleep." Andy just held on to her.
"I don't have a change of clothes."
"So, leave early in the morning. You can wear one of my t-shirts to bed."
Brenda found the idea appealing. "If I say yes, will we only sleep tonight?" As much as she'd admitted to having strong feeling for Andy, she wasn't in the mood to do anything other than sleep.
"Scout's honour. I will leave you alone." Andy promised.
"Get me a t-shirt then." Brenda replied.
"Yes, ma'am." He turned from her, heading to his bedroom to find her something to wear.
Brenda looked around the living room again, shrugging off her coat. The last time she'd been there was the night she'd come to finish what she'd started. She wandered over to some pictures that Andy had on the wall, seeing a few of him and an older woman. It showed him when he was much younger, black hair, but still the same Flynn. The woman in the photos bore a strong resemblance to him, and she surmised that that was his mother. He never talked about his family, and she wondered about them.
"I have an LAPD one. It should be long enough to keep you covered in the right places." Andy smiled as he walked back into the room.
Brenda took the shirt that he proffered, and asked him where his washroom was. She hadn't exactly investigated the interior last time. It was down the hall, to the right. She excused herself and left him standing there. In the washroom, she changed quickly into the shirt. She took the time to look at herself in the mirror, seeing the strain that had worried her all day. She realized she'd been jealous of this woman that Flynn had gone out with. That scared her, that she had been jealous over Flynn. It meant she thought of him as something more serious than just a fling. Realizing she had no toothbrush, she used her finger. It wasn't a great solution, but it was better than nothing. As serious as she felt about Flynn, they hadn't even reached the stage where they kept stuff at each others place. Her emotions were far ahead of what had evolved in their relationship so far. Sighing, she opened the door and shut off the light.
Brenda walked down the hall, remembering where his bedroom was. While she'd been gone, he'd changed into a t-shirt and bottoms. When she came into his bedroom, she smiled shyly. She wondered why she was so nervous, he'd seen her in far less than the t-shirt she currently wore. He looked at her legs and gave a wolf whistle. God, he loved those legs.
He came up to her and hugged her again. "I'll be right back. I just have to brush my teeth."
Brenda slipped into the bed, trying to get comfortable. She hadn't stayed overnight, the whole night, in a different bed other than her own, in a long time. She felt out of her comfort zone. Andy wasn't very long and he slipped into bed beside her, pulling her to him. Brenda felt herself relaxing into his arms, slipping into a sleep relatively fast. Andy, however, wasn't as fortunate. He hugged Brenda closer, scared that this moment wasn't going to last, that he was going to lose what he'd waited so long for. It occurred to him that he wasn't the same Andy Flynn as a few years ago, one who would use any woman to get what he wanted. He'd found what he wanted and he was scared that it was going to vanish. And worse, he had a bad feeling that tonight would come back to haunt him.