After Hours

The neat little boxes he’d sorted his life into had held up for a while, but eventually the edges of them had started to break down. One melting into another, thoughts escaping at the wrong time, dragging his attention away from where it had needed to be. His attention drifting at home even more than it had at work, Zoey’s voice eventually breaking through. Will knew he should’ve seen the signs of it before he finally had. The weight of all those boxes had put a strain on his marriage and he’d been too foolish to properly pack them away to stop what really mattered from breaking.

Over the last few months he’d tried, much to Lex’s exasperation. Clues to fresh investigations he once would’ve chased after set aside for nights like this. The few that he’d already been in the middle of slowing down. All of it moving towards a place where he could finally set the work aside. What was left could be anonymously forwarded to those doing this officially, with Lex’s help. Lex could sulk about it all he wanted. He wasn’t sitting at the kitchen table watching the woman he loved fill with grief for the father she was slowly losing. Or laying on the couch seeing that frown work its way back over her face again. Neither job had ever been as important as her and God, he hated that it had taken him too long to see it.

Will’s lips pressed together at Zoey’s mumbled response. It was anything but, the two words he’d used all too often during their marriage when he’d been brushing off her questions sticking in his conscience like thorns now. He knew that chasing after the conversation he’d drifted from would only make things less fine. Zoey had already shifted her head from his shoulder, opening up a space between them that he immediately wanted to close. Work absolutely wasn’t the way to do it, but Zoey deserve to hear what had been on his mind, especially when he could actually say the words aloud this time.

His gaze drifted over her face as she turned towards him again, seeking out some sign of the damage he’d done with his silence. This should’ve been dinner table talk instead, something to set aside before they settled down like this. There should’ve been a wide open space for Zoey to whisper her fears over her father’s deterioration to him. ”Both,” he said with a sigh, shifting slightly against the cushions as his frown cut deeper for a moment. ”Neither matched anything in the system. I’ve tried tracing the colour and model, but there’s over a thousand in the state.” He supposed he could’ve asked Lex to help narrow the search down, a quick buzz through the computer system probably would’ve had him throwing a name up in an instant, but this was official business. If there was something truly criminal here, he needed to keep the investigation clear.

There’d been no intention there to burden Zoey with the pressure of another case considering all she had going on. The tension that had been there in his chest since the moment he’d found the abandoned car eased faintly at her offer though. ”If you have the time, I’d appreciate it,” he told her after a moment. ”One of the Organized Crime Unit agents came out to the scene. I don’t know what her interest was.” Or if she’d found something. If she had then Camilla hadn’t come to him about it. Perhaps it was that silence that was really getting to him. This town was too small to have such blank spots in it.

Seeing the smile return to Zoey’s face eased more of the tension, the pangs of guilt he’d felt easing away. Her fingers curled around the hand he had settled on her hip, more reassurance. Will smiled back as he shifted, glad that she still wanted to head to bed with him. ”Sure,” he said lightly. ”It’s been a long day – a long week.” And it had to have felt twice as bad for her with all that was happening with her father. He eased off the couch, leaving the glasses and bottle on the coffee table to deal with in the morning, then drew Zoey into the bedroom.

The dance of their bedtime routine felt natural, despite the small seismic shift on the couch. Easing around one another in the bathroom, drawing down the covers and easing close under them. Drawing Zoey in against him again, as though just a few inches between them would somehow feel like some permanent fracture had opened between them again. ”I’m sorry I brought up work again,” he murmured, pressing his lips to Zoey’s shoulder in an extra silent apology. ”I’ve been trying not to bring it home, but this one has been eating at me. Months ago there was another case – the woman in the car managed to escape when it went off road, but if she hadn’t, we might’ve been looking at a similar situation. Do you have the time to look at them both? That’s a question for tomorrow,” he said, chiding himself. Enough. He let out a long breath and tried to settle down, slowly melting against Zoey, closing down all those tiny pockets of space between them until all he could feel was her fitting perfectly against him.

Tagged: ZOEY WASHINGTON * Word Count: 900

Slipping into bed with Zoey had always been like shutting the rest of the world out. The Egyptian cotton sheets a barricade to keep it all at bay. No jobs of any kind, Dalton and all the expectations on the two of them stuck outside of them. Perhaps it would all drift back in while they slept, but until then, everything felt right as he drew the sheets up around them. If he’d been able to keep his mouth shut – or his mind on what Zoey had been saying – the feeling would have remained. It was always down to him to wreck things between them though. Like Dalton had with every single woman who had ever come into his life.

If there had ever been a time he had idolised his father it had slipped from his memory since. Dalton had always been a fleeting presence in his life, only bulling his way in to make another decree or introduce a new step-mother. Opinionated, domineering, never satisfied, no matter how much he had tried to please him. A philanderer whose eye was never still for long. If he had ever felt love for another, it had faded rapidly. For so long he had fought against being anything like him, but he had questioned whether he was a thousand times since Zoey had asked for a divorce.

Will rested his lips against Zoey’s skin for a moment, turning what had happened out in the living room over and over in his mind. That sort of callous selfishness wasn’t him, no matter how he might have slipped in other ways. Relief slipped out in a soft breath, his fingers moving gently against her abdomen, a gesture of gratitude. She wasn’t walking out the door, although she could have done, going back to an empty apartment, her heart perhaps just as empty. ”Thanks,” he sighed softly. ”I’ll bring it by your office.” And if he could, he would set it aside until then. He didn’t want to sleep with this between the two of them.

Shifting as Zoey did, Will studied what he could see of her face, smiling finally as she did. A small groan slipped out, his grin still bright enough for it to be obvious he wasn’t serious. ”I guess I can’t argue about striking a bargain,” he said lightly. His hand slipped as she turned slightly towards him, curling down towards her hip. Oh, shit. He should’ve known what was coming before Zoey had even said the words aloud. ”Lex,” he said quietly, his throat suddenly dry. The other shoe had been bound to drop after their meeting, it hadn’t been a question of if, only of when. ”I can’t think of him as Alexander.” Lex was the brat who’d refused to take no for an answer, the irritating voice emerging from a speaker or controlling the cursor on the screen. Lex was the one who had saved Zoey’s life when the robberies had finally caught up to him.

”I’m still not sure how much he really worships me,” he murmured self-deprecatingly, heat spreading across his cheekbones. She had seemed so sure of it, but it was hard picturing Lex as anything other than a pain in his ass. The tension that always strung his lungs up tight when he thought of Zoey learning what he did when he left the apartment, when he left her. ”You think his opinion of me would really help?” Will’s brows furrowed, those knots tightening. If Lex really did idolise him then the opposite was hopefully more likely. Lex would cover for him, swearing he had seen nothing, giving some false description if Zoey managed to write part of the truth out of him. She’d always been talented that way, pulling tiny truths out of you before you were aware that she was even doing it. It was part of the reason he'd never been able to tell her a thing about where he was going. If she knew a part of it she wouldn’t stop until she knew the whole of it.

He hadn’t known Lex was awake in the house that night. It was supposed to have been an easy job, the recovery of a painting from a man who probably hadn’t even known what he had. Only Lex’s skills had left him more vulnerable than he’d ever been before. Lex had covered for him then, he would do the same now if he asked him to. ”There was never much in the file,” Will muttered, concern pulling at his features as though he were worried that Zoey was going on a wild goose chase. ”Do you honestly think he knew more than he let on then?” For a moment he looked down at her grin, feeling the knots in his chest loosen. He couldn’t say no now without making it seem as though he was somehow trying to keep her and Lex apart. ”I can ask,” he said lightly, his lips curving into a smile that he pressed to hers. ”See if I can put that hero worship to good use.” Lex would probably be ecstatic that he could pull together some subterfuge to cover his back, something more that he could remind him of every time he tried to disparage him.

Tagged: ZOEY WASHINGTON * Word Count: 882