"Do I get to meet her?" Jay questioned, looking at the pulled out stool, then back at me. He was quite the lovable teddy bear once you broke the surface, but I could also see his reservation of being around kids. There was a reason that most of us weren't married, didn't have kids, or were barely skimming the dating scene.

"Yeah." I turned my gaze back to the hall, where I could hear movement in the bathroom. "Eva, can come you come in here a minute?" It took a few minutes as we listened to the water shut off and her footsteps trailed back down to the kitchen.

"I was washing the syrup off my hands and face." She paused as she spotted Jay standing there. Her expression was full of wonderment as she saw him for the first time. I remembered feeling the same way when I found out I had been paired with him. We clicked and that was rare we got along so well. I hoped this was the case since the team especially would be around her every so often. "Who's this?"

"Eva, I want you to meet my partner, Jay," I introduced him as Eva pulled out the stool at the end of the counter before scrambling up so she could get a better look at him. "Jay this is my daughter, Eva."

"It's nice to meet you, Eva." Jay nodded to her in greeting, while Eva said nothing. "How old are you?"

"Five, almost six." Sprawling her fingers out on the counter, she poked her finger in between her other fingers as If she were playing a game. "If you work with Hailey, that means you're a cop too, right?"

"I am."

"So you can keep her safe?" She questioned, pointing over to me without looking up. Jay offered me a look like that was equal to what is she getting at? I could only shrug, knowing it probably had something to do with losing her adoptive parents. Now wasn't the time to try and explain that to him, but he could put two and two together anyway.

"Believe it or not, I always do what I can to keep her safe. Your mom, however, is pretty good at taking care of herself, and often saves me." He said that last part by cupping his hand by his mouth as if he were telling some big secret.

"More like we save each other." Looking down at my watch, I noted the time. It was already close to nine o'clock and I still wanted to stop by the grocery store and maybe even check out a few schools after she picked out a night light. "Why don't you go play for a few more minutes? I need a few more minutes to talk to Jay."

"Okay. Bye, Jay." Scrambling down, she was off before her feet hit the floor. A few minutes later, she had closed the door to her bedroom and we were alone again.

"Well, that went better than I expected it to go." I gave a sigh of relief as I peered towards the hall. "I think she's adjusting okay, but I think there's a lot she's not talking about either."

"I can't imagine it's easy for her. She may not have witnessed her parents dying, but it's still affected her in ways unimaginable to either of us. She loses her parents and then finds out her biological mother is a cop?"

"Hence the reason she's been asking me not to get hurt too badly, or just a few minutes ago when she asked for you to keep me safe." It seemed a little peculiar when she asked me that after we met, mostly because I wasn't used to people asking me that question.

"She's afraid of losing you."

"Yeah, well I don't blame her for feeling that way. She's lost one set of parents, so what happens if she loses the only thing she has left?"

"Easy. We won't let it."

"You know as well as I do that you can't make promises you can't keep," I added in quickly, daring him not to make that promise. "Neither one of us knows what's going to happen in the future, so I can't make that promise to you, or to her."

"But you promised her anyway, didn't you?" It felt crazy knowing how well we knew each other, even in the year we had been partnered together. How we could read the other's body language, or decipher the looked that said everything we were thinking.

"I explained to her the risks of my job and told her I would try not to get too hurt. Big difference."

"At least you were being honest." Jay joked, trying to break some of the tension in the room.

"Shut up." I mused, finally cracking a smile as I changed the subject. "I've been meaning to ask you how the case was going from the other day?"

"Good. We ended up arresting the guy. Upwater ended up seriously tackling the guy to the ground. He should be on his way to lockup in the next hour." Jay looked down at his watch sitting on his wrist. "Anway, I should get going. I just wanted to make sure things were still going okay."

"Ah, well, in that case, I'll be back before you know it." Walking back to the door, I followed him down the stairs. "I'm also thinking I gave you more than what you bargained for when you came here."

"I'll be honest. I definitely wasn't expecting that one, but I've always believed you would make a good mom."

"Thanks, Jay." I appreciated his vote of confidence more than I could express into words right now.

"Hailey?"

"Yeah."

"You know I've got your back on this, right? You need anything, you just say the word and I'll be here." I nodded, knowing he was serious when he said it. Jay was one of the most loyal people I had the honor of working with.

"I know. Thanks." I said softly so only he could hear as he hopped into his truck with one last glance before driving off down the road.