A sense of guilt had been in the back of Jay's mind ever since he and Erin had visited Jess's house for the first time. That night, his sister had very obviously been in a lot of emotional pain, grieving over the loss of her mother. He had given her a brief hug, which she had backed away from, and he had left it at that. He felt he should have done more to be there for her.

He wanted Jess to feel she could rely on him when she was struggling in any way, not just emotionally. That was the role of a big brother – a role he was determined to take seriously. It shouldn't only go one way though. He wanted to get to a point where he had the kind of sibling relationship he had never enjoyed with Will. Being able to totally trust and rely on Jess would be so important to him, if they could get to that point.

Earlier in the day, it had been Erin's suggestion for him to call Jess and find out what she was up to that evening. "Why don't you go spend some time with your sister," she had pretty much instructed him.

Suitably stirred into action and mindful of the ongoing guilty feeling in the back of his mind, he had pushed aside his tiredness from an early start and busy word day and had called Jess to ask what she was doing.

"Work stuff, but come over if you like. It would be nice to see you," had been Jess's response.

Before leaving home, Jay had been faced with the decision of whether to drive or not. He had come down on the side of ordering an Uber and stopping along the way to buy a few beers and a bottle of gin, which he already knew was Jess's favourite drink.

Now that he had been to the house before, there was no awkwardness on his mind when he pressed the button on her Ring doorbell. He was simply looking forward to seeing his sister and hoping she was doing okay.

"Jay! I'll be right down," Jess said through the doorbell's speaker. She sounded excited to see him.

It took her less than a minute to open the door. She looked in good spirits, although maybe a bit tired. Nonetheless, she greeted him with a warm smile. "Hey. It's good to see you."

"Hi. I've been looking forward to seeing you," he said as they embraced. Now over the initial awkwardness that had existed between them, this hug was tight and had feeling behind it.

"Mmm that's nice," Jess said.

Jay agreed. He had regular loving contact with Erin of course, but it was still nice to feel the positive energy that a good hug provided. "Yes very nice," he said quietly, and they parted. "I brought drinks."

"Ah, thank you! Come in. Have you eaten? I'll order us something in if you haven't. Really don't feel like cooking tonight."

After taking off his shoes, Jay followed her into the house and through to the kitchen, where she took the bag with the drinks in it and loaded all but one of the beers into her fridge.

"That's nice of you. I can go for some food. What kind of thing would you like to order?"

She opened the remaining beer bottle for him. "I don't mind. Chinese? Thai? Indian? Pizza? Do you want a glass for this?"

"No thanks. An not pizza. Hasn't been long since I had one. Other than that I'm fine with whatever you want to get."

They settled on Thai food and a few minutes later Jess had placed the order.

"It says it'll be delivered in an hour," she reported.

"Sounds good. So, how are you really doing?" he asked, looking her in the eyes to make sure she knew it was a serious question, not merely a prompt for her to say she was fine and move on.

Jess held his gaze and took a deep breath that sounded shaky when she let it back out. "Burying my head in work to be honest. Don't take this the wrong way, the two things probably aren't even related, but since I met you the grief about my mom has properly started to hit me. Every day I hope it's going to hurt less. It never does."

Jay's heart broke for her, and he hoped his expression conveyed that. "One day it will start to hurt less. It'll never stop completely though. If I can make a suggestion to try and help you, talk to people more. Talk to me if you want. I'd like it if you did. If not me, talk to someone. Getting some of what you're feeling off your chest would do you a lot of good."

"I'll try. My mom was always the person I talked to," she said miserably. "Opening up to someone else is a hurdle to get over."

"Let me give you another hug at least."

That offer was gratefully accepted, and they held each other for a minute or so. Jay hoped he could somehow absorb some of the pain.

"Thank you," Jess said once the hug ended. "I will open up to you, Jay, when I can. You've been so good to me since we've met, and I appreciate having you in my life more than I can say."

"That feeling is definitely mutual."

Jess clapped her hands together, moving on before she got emotional again. "Right, enough of that. Let's have a nice evening together. I was just finishing editing a video for my cleaning channel. Do you mind joining me upstairs for like five minutes? Then I can leave it to render."

"No problem. You can show me how video editing works. It's something I know nothing about."

"Okay, I can do that," Jess said, brightening up immediately now that she had some aspect of work to talk about. He admired how purposeful she was, but at the same time he found it somewhat sad that work was all her life seemed to consist of. She was socialising more since they had met though. That showed he was already helping with that just by being in her life.

They went upstairs and into the house's second biggest bedroom, which was actually a combination of office and recording studio. Jess had added soundproofing to the walls for better audio quality, and there was quite an impressive tech setup in there including an obviously expensive PC connected to two large monitors. There was a microphone on her desk that was used for recording voiceovers for her videos. Both of the monitors were currently taken up with the video editing process she had been working on when he arrived.

"What's today's project?" he asked, standing beside the gaming chair that she used at her desk.

"It's called '5 Tips for Hand Washing Dishes'. Tip videos are quite popular."

It still amazed Jay that such a thing could be necessary, let alone popular. Who went to YouTube to search for advice on washing dishes? But if Jess could make money from it, he figured good for her. She gave him a brief demonstration of how she went about editing one of her videos, in this case interspersing voiceover that was recorded in the room they were in now to the footage that had been shot downstairs in the kitchen.

"I have a question," he said, watching some on the footage.

"Shoot."

"You're washing those dishes and speaking to the audience while you're doing it. But who's holding the camera?"

"Ah, that's my best friend Reggie. My only close friend if I'm honest. We've known each other since school. He's such a good guy. He does the camera work for all my cleaning videos, and he's so reluctant to take any money from me. Been meaning to tell you about him for a while. He'd like to meet you. I'd like you to meet each other."

"Why not?" Jay said openly. "We can get together for drinks one night or something. You've only ever been friends? Nothing more?"

Jess laughed at the thought. "God no. A) I could never look at him that way, and B) He's gay."

"Ah," Jay said, grinning at the way she had put that. "Well, I'll look forward to meeting him. Has he been supportive since your mom passed?"

"He's tried to be. I've been bottling it up though, as you already know. We're good friends, but not the kind of 'sit down and open up to me' friends. So, if I talk to anyone it'll probably be you." She looked up at him as she said that, and he put a hand on her shoulder. It was a genuine moment of sibling affection between them.

"Please do. I know that's me repeating myself at this point."

"Give me time."

"Of course. As much time as you need."

The video editing was soon finished and they could head back downstairs. The kitchen was the first stop, where Jess fixed herself a gin and tonic. They went through to the living area, where they settled together on the couch. The TV was on but no attention was paid to it as they talked for a while about how Jay was getting used to officially calling Erin's apartment home, and about how much he was looking forward to becoming a father. Getting pregnant was obviously the current stumbling block there.

When the time came to pick a new subject, Jay couldn't help returning to talk about work. It was hard not to with Jess when she devoted herself to it so thoroughly.

"How's the setup going for Bio-Clean Chicago? That is what you're calling it, right?"

"It is," she said, happy that he had remembered. "And it's going well. Very well actually. I've agreed to rent an industrial unit. Waiting on the paperwork to be finalised for that. I've got orders in for the PPE and equipment I'm going to need, and I'm pretty sure my first choice for my first employee is going to agree to come work for me. You have to work in pairs on crime scene clean-up. I'm very pleased to get her, assuming her final decision goes the way I think it will."

He nodded his admiration of her quick work. "That sounds like great progress to me. Is that pretty much everything you need to get started?"

"Pretty much, yeah. I've got the van in a shop having branding put on it right now. That's another thing crossed off the list."

He laughed. "You're like a worker bee. Relentless when you get going. You're hiring a woman for your partner? Thought you'd go for a guy. You know, for heavy lifting and stuff."

Jess laughed. "You've not met Raquel."

"What does that mean?"

"It means she's taller than you, and probably about as strong. Any heavy lifting, trust me she's got that covered."

"I see," he said with some amusement of his own.

Jess sighed, her mood seeming to change suddenly. "I'm sorry I'm such a bore, Jay. This is one of the things that worried me about getting to know you. All I do is work, and all I talk about is work."

"You're not boring," he said, meaning it. "Your multiple avenues of work is very interesting. And anyway it's easy to end up like that when all you do is work. Believe me, it happens to cops all the time. We go out for drinks and drink and talk shop all night."

Her expression showed she conceded that point, but didn't feel much better about it. "When my brother comes over I don't want to sit and spend the whole time talking about work. I'm going to sound like the most socially awkward person in the world, but what do you sit around and talk to your friends about?"

She knew the answers of course. She was asking because she was lacking self-confidence, so he wanted to help. "Anything. Just shoot the shit. Or we get together and watch sports. Or we might watch a TV series or a movie and just have a laugh. I think you're trying to live up to some imaginary high expectations or impress me somehow. You don't need to do that, Jess. Just be yourself and I'll enjoy your company. I already am enjoying it. This might sound weird, but for me another nice way to enjoy someone's company when you're close to them is to simply be together in silence. It'll happen with Erin and I sometimes when we're relaxing together and for those few minutes I just feel at peace. It's not easy to describe."

"That actually sounds really nice. Can we try that?"

"Yeah," Jay said, sensing emotion from her, likely because he had mentioned being at peace. He suspected her grief hadn't allowed her much peace lately.

Jess leaned forward to get the TV remote control from the coffee table and turned the TV off. With that done, she went to sit back as she had been before.

"Why don't you come and actually sit with me," Jay suggested offering to put an arm around her shoulders. His tone made it clear she could decline if she wanted to.

She accepted the offer without saying anything, moving closer and nestling against him. He said nothing either, and within a minute or two he could physically feel her relaxing. He stayed quiet, letting the silence and pleasant company wash over him. It truly was a special feeling when shared with another person.

He wasn't sure how long it had been when Jess decided to move away and look at him. Maybe ten minutes. Maybe fifteen.

"Thank you for that. I can't really explain how that made me feel. It was a feeling I badly needed, I can tell you that. Actually, you already had it right. At peace, that's how I felt."

"Good," he said with a smile. "Works like a charm, huh?"

"It does! Thank you, Jay. You're such a good brother to me already."

"Don't mention it." He picked his beer bottle up and took a hit. "Want to hear some funny army stories?"

"Definitely. And I can tell you some funny crime scene cleaning stories. Or gruesome ones, if you prefer."

"How about I do funny, you do gruesome?"

"Deal," Jess said, and they both laughed.


A/N: As Jess gets closer to Jay, she allowing the grief she is suffering to show a little more, and he is able to try to help her with it. Do you think they will be able to form the strong bond that Jay is hoping for?