"So I heard I missed a lot in Molly's on Friday?" Madison declared as she met Sarah at the door of the ED on Sunday evening. Sarah clutched her coffee mug, hoping for energy for the graveyard shift they were embarking on, the perks of being first year residents.
"You didn't miss anything." Sarah replied.
"Oh this coming from the person who texted me that she had a drink with Connor and that was all?" Madison asked as they made their way past the reception.
Sarah shrugged, "It was all."
"Maggie said yesterday that you two were all over each other." Madison said.
"We were not." Sarah argued back, "Connor just had my back."
"He seems like a great guy." Madison said. "So come on, is it fun dating the Connor Rhodes?"
"We aren't dating." Sarah pointed out, "We just had an agreement. It's probably over now anyway, Joey should have got the point and I went to that gallery opening." Sarah didn't know why her own words felt like they were shattered glass scraping at her heart.
"You know it's okay if you liked it, right?" Madison said, bumping her shoulder gently against Sarah's. "Connor seems lovely and who wouldn't like hanging out with someone like that after what you've been through?"
Sarah wondered how she had acquired a best friend who could read her mind. "It doesn't matter, he's been great, but we'll probably go back to what we were before."
"Yeah but what was that?" Madison asked.
"What do you mean?" Sarah asked as they let themselves into the doctors lounge.
"I mean me and Connor are colleagues. You and Connor were never just colleagues."
"We weren't close friends or anything." Sarah said as she opened her locker.
Madison shrugged, "I'm just saying when I first started, even I could see there was something more to you two than random people who work together."
Was it bad that the assessment made Sarah happy she wondered, because she and Connor had always orbited around each other in a way she could never explain.
Sarah felt him looking at her for practically all of her shift. In the ED, floating around at the peripheral of her view, in the break room when he thought she didn't notice.
Once he got within speaking distance, Sarah took her chance. "Connor, is everything okay?"
Connor sighed, "Am I that obvious?" He asked looking up from the tablet he had ducked his head to when she had caught him.
Sarah shrugged, "You just look like something's on your mind?" She told him as She found a nice sensation blossoming in her stomach that she could read him so well. they found a quiet spot beside a pillar in the middle of hectic ED all while Sarah ignored Madison who was now making heart shapes at her over Connor's shoulder.
"I have an event to go to on Thursday night. Clare has organised a charity gala and I want to go to support her…"
"But?" Sarah prompted sensing his hesitation and she found a spark of something like hope fizzling in her chest at the idea that maybe he wanted her company again.
"…They're trying to set me up with some woman of good pedigree and business connections and I'm really not in the mood."
Sarah racked her brain for the name, "Shannon is it?"
"No. Daphne, the eldest child of my Dad's golfing buddy." He explained with a roll of his eyes. "Anyway, I was wondering if you'd want to go? There is absolutely no obligation on you at all. But I enjoyed your company last time, you make these things bearable." Sarah would forever deny that her stomach flipped at his words.
"I'd like to go." She assured him. "Plus our fake relationship might as well benefit you too." Sarah informed him with a smile before they were called away.
Connor knew where she lived this time as she buzzed him into the building on Thursday evening. But he still brought her flowers.
"You didn't have to bring anything." She told him, but marveled at the gorgeous colours of the newest bouquet.
He shrugged as a dismissal, "I know. I hope you like them." This was a different side than the bravado he usually carried around him at work like armor, a more genuine and softer side. She liked it.
"I love them. Thank you." She told him.
Sarah couldn't deny that she was happy to see him, between their errant work schedules and some of the lectures that she and the other residents had to attend, she hadn't seen him since Sunday evening.
"I like this." He said, tugging lightly at an errant curl framing her face before pulling his hand away as if he had been burned. "So, how was your week?"
The change of pace felt like being on a train being thrown off it's tracks.
"Good thanks." She said, trying to make small talk and let out the breath she had held as his hand brushed close her her face so delicately. "Yours?"
He shrugged, "Good and bad shifts."
"Want to go?" She asked, unable to rack her head for small talk when he was in her space and looking at her so intently.
"Sure." He smiled softly, offering her his arm.
Even though she wasn't unsteady in her heels that evening, she found him wrapping her hand around his arm again. She smiled to herself, she wasn't about to object.
The drive was shorter this time and Connor had mentioned that he had worked with Madison during one of his shifts that week. Sarah listened as if she hadn't been informed about it, in detail from Madison who had approved of Sarah's fake boyfriend.
"Me and Madison are nearly as good friends as you and Will." She told him, not bothering to try and cover her grin. He sent her a withering look from the driver's side that made her laugh. "Come on, you and Will love each other really."
He laughed, "Halstead's good people. We just got off on the wrong foot."
"You can rolling in like some sort of hero and it hurt his ego." Sarah shrugged.
"You remember that?"
She nearly choked on thin air. Oh God, she cursed herself, why did she remember?
"Oh…yeah…" She fumbled for reasoning in her own mind, "It was the opening of the new ED day right?" She couldn't help the shake in her voice. Because that was not why she remembered his first day. But she couldn't explain it to herself, never mind to Connor.
"Right…it was." Did he sound disappointed?
Sarah's pondering was cut short as they arrived.
The event seemed bigger than the last. "Claire will be happy with the turn out." Connor commented as they checked their coats in. Even though Sarah was anticipating his touch when he offered to take her coat off her, her skin still shivered at the feeling of his hands brushing against her.
Connor spotted his sister pretty quickly and gave her a wave as she was in deep conversation as the host of the gala.
Claire gaze wandered to Sarah at Connor's side and her smile brightened.
Sarah was surprised when she recognised a few faces from the gallery opening, but supposed that no matter the place, the elite circles were always small.
Shannon, the redhead from the last time, walked by Connor and Sarah, with a look of disgust on her face.
"Daphne alert." Connor whispered fervently and Sarah squeezed his arm in support.
"Connor Rhodes." The woman with shimmering dark hair would suit Connor based on looks Sarah thought as she approached, like a cat stalking it's prey. "As I live and breath. Where have you been hiding lately hmm?"
"Daphne." He nodded, "I've been busy with work. Have you met Sar-" He was in the middle of introducing Sarah when the other woman cut across as if Sarah was invisible.
"We're all busy Connor, that's no excuse. You'll meet me for drinks this week, won't you?"
Connor clenched his jaw, "This is my girlfriend Sarah."
Daphne finally flickered her eyes towards Sarah, "Cornelius never mentioned her to Daddy."
"Well as everyone knows I'm not close with my Dad." Connor shot back.
With a few more minutes of stilted conversation, if it could be called that, the staff asked everyone to move towards the dining hall, giving the duo an escape.
"You really are sought after huh?" Sarah commented as they the crowd around them started to move.
"I'm not. My family name and money are."
They were the two things that Sarah never considered around him. He was just Connor. But even that was complicated.
There seemed to be a delay in moving so Connor offered to get them some drinks.
Sarah was making small talk with some politian's wife beside her when she heard the remark.
"Yeah but they're not really dating."
Sarah heard the remark from some women around her, as Connor made his way back to her with two glasses in his hands.
If people kept thinking that, then she wouldn't be convincing Joey and the women after Connor and his money.
Sarah didn't know what possessed her, a sense of loyalty to him or a maybe a sudden masochistic need to know how it felt.
She walked straight up to him as if she did it all the time. Shoulders back and head high like her mother had drilled into her, caught Connor's attention as she approached. She took a breath just after she reached up to place a hand at the back of his neck and then reached up and placed her a chaste kiss to his lips. "Thank you." She told him, taking her glass from his hand.
"You're welcome?" He replied, his tone lower than normal, his hand ghosting over her hip.
"We weren't being very believable." Sarah explained, biting her lip and hoping she hadn't gone too far. She nodded her head to the trio of women to his left. "Sorry."
He looked over at the women who now looked like they had just witnessed something revolting and turned away from him. "No, thank you." He replied. For helping him or for kissing him, Sarah didn't know and the latter thought lit a fire inside her.
"We had to up our game." She explained, trying to re-road their evening.
"Are you doubting my acting skills Reese?" He asked her in that same low tone, sending a jolt up from the bottom of her spine at the sound. He lazily push her hair behind her ear with his free hand.
"No?"
His lips twitched as he leaned down to whisper in her ear, "I was never a very good actor, we probably do need to be more convincing." The tickle of his breath against her ear was enough to turn her body into a puddle but then he went and repaid her chaste kiss on her pulse point just below her ear. Sarah felt fit to all but collapse into his arms.
Something that may have looked so innocent but it felt overly intimate for a public space.
"You helped me in Molly's, I owed you one."
"We're in this together, you don't owe me anything."
But all she desperately wanted was for him to owe her another kiss.
For acting purposes, of course.