How long to wait after getting a woman's phone number was one of life's greatest challenges for a man. That was how it felt to Kevin Atwater anyway. Too soon and it looked desperate. Wait too long and it looked like disinterest. He hoped that four days was somewhere near the sweet spot because he was about to call Jess Sutton.

Jess had clearly been keen on him that night at Hunter's, but she had also been drunk at the time. How would she feel when she was sober? There was also the minor, or not so minor, problem of her being Jay Halstead's sister. If he got with Jess and things went sideways, it could have a knock on effect on personal and professional relationships that were very important to him. It was a risk he wanted to take though, because in addition to being likeable and funny, he considered Jess to be up there with the most beautiful women he had ever seen in person. If someone asked him what his type was, showing a picture of Jess would have been an ideal response. To say he was attracted to her would be a ludicrous understatement.

"Make the call," he told himself, sitting on his living room couch. Procrastinating was only going to make it harder, not easier.

He went for it and dialled Jess's number, suddenly considering the possibility that she might have been drunk enough to give him the number incorrectly.

"Hello?" as female voice answered.

"Jess?"

"That's me."

"This is Kevin Atwater. We met a few nights back at Hunter's."

The voice sounded brighter right away. "Oh, hi. I take it I didn't embarrass myself too badly then? I'm not much of a drinker so the gin got to me quickly that night."

Kevin was already preparing himself for the meat of the matter. He was calling with an invite, not to a date as such, but to something of a middle ground.

"No, you didn't embarrass yourself at all. I enjoyed talking to you. That's why I'm calling to invite you to my birthday party next week. No need to bring a gift if you'd like to come, all I'm asking people to do is come in fancy dress. Jay and Erin are coming."

"Ohh a fancy dress party? I've not been to one for a long time. Which night is it?"

"That might help, huh?" he said, cursing himself for messing up the invite. "It's next Friday night."

"Friday," Jess said thoughtfully. There was a momentary pause. "Yeah, I can make Friday. Is there any theme, or just fancy dress?"

"Great!" Kevin said enthusiastically. "Come as whatever you want, so long as it's fancy dress. I'll look forward to seeing you."

"I'll do the same. Thank you for the invite."

"Thank you for agreeing to come. I'll text you my address if that's okay?"

"I'll need that," Jess said with a little laugh.

Kevin laughed too. "Right. I'll send it now. Have a good night."

"You too," Jess said, and hung up.

Overall, Kevin thought that had gone pretty well. He hadn't sounded too nervous or unsure of himself and he hadn't said anything stupid. Most importantly, he had gotten his invite accepted.

The same night as that call took place, Erin was hosting Jay and Jess for dinner. She was making lasagna with added sweet sausage and basil leaves, Jay had just been told. He had also learned that it had become a speciality for her that she had perfected during her time in New York. He couldn't wait to try it.

"The table is set," he reported, returning to the kitchen after completing the assignment.

"Thank you. Hopefully Jess gets here soon. I think I started cooking a bit too early."

"I'm sure she will be," Jay said, looking at his watch. It was still ten minutes before the time he had arranged with Jess and he couldn't imagine someone as organised as she seemed to be showing up late.

"Feel a little bit under pressure," Erin said. "Hosting dinners isn't something I've done a lot of, so I hope you both enjoy the food. They're going to be pretty big portions for three of us too."

Jay laughed. "A big portion is what I need. With all the sex we're having, I need to keep my energy up."

She stood with a hand on her hip, pretending to be annoyed by that comment. "Is that a complaint, mister?"

"Not at all," he said, stepping up to her. He gave her a long, full kiss on the lips. He started unbuttoning her top, then the intercom phone near the apartment's front door rang.

"Your sister doesn't have good timing," Erin grumbled.

"You were just saying she needed to hurry up and arrive," Jay said with amusement. "I'll go and let her in."

He went through to the living area and picked up the phone. "Jess?"

"Jay! Can you let me in please?"

"Yes, come up."

He pressed the button to open the building's main entrance door, then opened Erin's apartment door and stepped into the hallway outside, keeping his foot in the doorway to stop it shutting him out.

It didn't take long for Jess to appear since Erin's apartment was only on the first floor. She came out of the stairwell, having not bothered with the elevator. She was dressed quite smartly again, in dark grey pants and a lighter grey blazer with a black blouse underneath.

Still not comfortable enough to dress casually around us, Jay thought. They would get there in time though he was sure. Or maybe Jess never went out dressed casually? He didn't know, and he also had to admit he was probably going to dress smartly the first time he visited her place also. For some reason, it was the thing to do.

"Hey," Jess said warmly. "I'm a bit later than intended. Got stuck in traffic at an intersection where there had been a minor car accident. No one seemed to be hurt at least."

Jay was glad he didn't have to do that kind of tedious police work anymore. She reached him and they hugged each other. This one had more confidence and warmth behind it. They were starting to get there now.

"No worries, you're still in plenty of time," he said. "Well, I say that, Erin's a bit ahead with the cooking so she'll be plating up fairly soon. It's good to see you again."

"It's good to see you again too. I've been looking forward to it."

"Come in. Do you want me to take your blazer?"

"Sure," Jess said, taking it off for him once they were inside. She took her first look around the living area. "Nice place Erin's got here."

"It will be once I redecorate it," Erin called through from the kitchen.

Jay hung up the blazer near the door and motioned for Jess to go through to the kitchen.

"Hi. Thanks for coming," Erin said to their guest when they both walked in. Jay was pleased to see her top was buttoned up again.

"Thanks for inviting me," Jess said.

Jay watched them greeting each other with genuine smiles and warmth. That, more than anything that had been said, told him that they were going to get along well. Erin wasn't like that with a lot of people. She either vibed with people or she didn't, and she treated them accordingly.

"I'll be serving soon. Jay, why don't you show Jess to the dining table and fix some drinks?"

"Yeah," he said, happy to help. "What's everyone drinking?"

"I drove over, so just soda for me please," Jess said.

"There's Coke or orange Fanta in the fridge," Erin said. "I'm trying to lay of alcohol, so I'll have Coke.

"Fanta sounds good for me," Jess said.

Figuring a bit less alcohol intake wasn't a bad idea for him either, Jay decided to share the Coke with Erin. He got to work fixing the drinks, opting to do that before showing Jess to the dining table so that she wouldn't be left sitting alone.

"So you're looking to re-decorate?" Jess asked Erin. "Do you know what you're going to do? Have you chosen colours?"

Erin laughed. "Not yet. I'm pretty clueless with things like that. All I definitely know is I don't like how it is now."

"My mom was good at interior design, and my stepdad was a decent handyman. Between them they kept a nice house."

The stepdad had been referred to in past tense, Jay noticed. It was the first he had heard of a stepdad. Had he split with Jess's mom at some point or had he died? Things to find out in a future conversation, not to demand of her now when she had just arrived for an evening meal. He felt sure Erin was making the same calculation since nothing got past detectives. Sure enough, she kept the conversation on interior decorating.

"Maybe you could give me some advice then? The practical I think I'd be okay with, and no doubt Jay knows his way around a paint roller. What I need help with is the visualisation."

"I've got a computer program on my laptop that could help you with that, maybe with some input from me. We could go shopping too if you like? There's more to crafting a nice home than throwing paint on the walls."

"Very true. Yeah, a shopping trip would be nice. We could make a day of it if we can find a day that works for both of us."

Jay finished fixing the drinks, hiding how happy he felt at how the women were clicking with each other. If it took off, it would be a friendship that was beneficial to both of them.

"Oh, Kevin called me an hour ago," Jess said. "He invited me to his fancy dress party for his birthday. Said you guys are going too?"

"We are," Jay said, feeling a mixed reaction to hearing Kevin had called Jess. He knew he had to try not to get defensive about it, but it was easier said than done. "Do you know what you're going to go as?"

"I've not had long to think about it, but I have some ideas. How about you?"

"We had an idea that Jay was going to ask for your help with actually," Erin said. "We both love Breaking Bad, so we thought we might go as Walt and Jesse."

"I think Erin looks a bit like Walt," Jay said and they all laughed.

Erin said, "Yes Jay, insult the woman who's cooking your food. Genius idea." There was more laughter.

"When you think of Breaking Bad you picture Walt and Jesse in those yellow suits, with the respirator masks," Jay said to Jess. "You use that stuff for work, so I was going to ask if you could get hold of some for us to borrow. It's fine if not, we'll come up with a different idea."

"No, I can do that for you," Jess assured him. "I'll be able to get you suits, masks and gloves. The suits and gloves you can keep or get rid of, we order those all the time. The respirator masks I'll need back because they're expensive and I shouldn't really lend them to you."

"You can have them back at the end of the party," Jay promised.

"Okay. I'll drop them off to you the day of the party and have them back in the van the next day. They'll never be missed."

"Great! Thanks, Jess," Erin said. "Can't wait to see what you come as."

"I'll keep that as a surprise until the night," she decided.

Conversation over dinner had ended up consisting mostly of talk about detective work. Especially when working for Intelligence, people were always interesting in talking about it. Jay kept his enthusiasm up for the sake of his sister. It was only natural for her to be more interested than most considering they had a common interest in crime.

Erin had servings of expensive ice cream for dessert, something that Jay very much approved of. As the three of them dug in, he took the opportunity to change the subject.

"So, Jess, how do you get a YouTube channel over two million subscribers?"

"Two million?" Erin exclaimed with her mouth full. "You told me you had a channel. You didn't say it was a big one."

Jess shrugged, playing down her achievement. "I've been working on it for fifteen years. I was nineteen when I made my first cleaning video. Over time, I learned what helps videos get viewed and what doesn't. I also got better at editing, so now I think my videos are pretty good quality. Having a channel with nearly a thousand monetised videos on it, a few of them with millions of views, brings in a nice monthly income."

Jay hid a grin behind eating his ice cream. Erin was tech savvy in the areas required for her job, but with things like YouTube she didn't have much of a clue. Seeing her so interested was endearing as well as amusing.

"Millions of views on one video?" Erin asked, eyebrows raised, leaning forward slightly.

"Yeah. For example if you put 'clean a toilet' in, my videos are the top three results. The top one has over five million views alone."

"Jesus Christ!" Erin cried. "You must make thousands from that?"

Jess grinned. "YouTube doesn't pay that well, but it does pay. My next project will be to start a new channel when I launch my new company. I've settled on a name by the way," she added, looking at Jay because they had talked about the company before.

"Oh?" he asked with interest.

"Bio-Clean Chicago. I'd call the channel the same thing. Obviously my hope is that crime scene cleaning videos will be popular."

An idea flashed into Jay's mind. To him, it seemed like it might make sense so he decided to offer it up for comment. "What about a series of videos where a crime scene cleaner shows a detective how crime scenes are cleaned?"

Jess's eyes lit up. "That's a brilliant idea! I love it. To be clear, you are saying you'd make videos like that with me, right?"

"Hell yeah. I'm up for a bit of internet fame," he said. Everyone laughed.

"How about you, Erin? Would you do an episode or two if I created that series? Obviously I'd make sure you guys get some money out of it if the videos perform."

"Sure, I'd do it," Erin said excitedly.

"But we wouldn't be in it for money," Jay added.

Jess shook her head. "No. If we're going to do business together everyone's going to get some money out of it. It's only fair, and I won't have it any other way."

"Okay, sounds good to me then," he said. "And if there's anything else I can do to help you with the business when you come to launch it, let me know."

"There might be, actually. I need to buy a used van before I can launch. Can't afford a new one, and I don't know enough about vehicles to know what to be aware of when buying used."

Jay felt happy that he could help out his sister. That was the perfect kind of thing to start building a bond between them. "I can help you with that. We can get together and do some research online, then go check out some options in person and do some test drives."

There was a big smile on Jess's face. "I knew having a big brother would be awesome."

After Jess had left and Jay had insisted on doing the dishes, he joined Erin on the couch in the living area.

"All done," he said contentedly as he sat down.

"Thank you," Erin said tiredly. Many recent late nights, long work days and a good feed had all taken a toll.

"No, thank you. You were an amazing host tonight. I had a great night, and so did Jess. Seeing you guys getting along so well really made me happy. When I came back to Chicago I was alone, restless, unhappy. Not long later, I feel settled, I've got you, got a sister, and we're trying for a baby. The pendulum has really swung for me."

"You deserve it," she said, giving him a kiss. "Can we continue the baby trying tomorrow though? I'm totally exhausted and I just want you to hold me."

"Then let's go upstairs and do that." Jay looked into her tired eyes, still as beautiful and captivating as ever. "I love you so much, you know?"

"I love you too, honey. More than I could possibly tell you."

A/N: Kevin got Jess to agree to come to his fancy dress party. Might sparks fly between them on the night?

And the bonding process continued to gain momentum. Might Jess have found a good friend as well as a brother?