On a sigh, he slid into a chair at the breakfast bar. “Wanted to let you know that I picked up a bunch of new cases, two of which are surveillance. It’s going to cut into my schedule for the next stretch of days. Not sure how long just yet.”
“Oh, okay.” She poured herself some coffee. “Want some?”
“No, thanks,” he said, earning a pair of raised eyebrows from her. “Gonna try to grab a few more hours sleep before I head out since I’ll be pulling nights for a while again.”
“More sleep is good. Your last surveillance case kinda trashed you. I’m a little worried about how you’re going to juggle two.” She sipped at her coffee, then added more milk.
“I’m not sure either yet, which is why my wingman availability’s up in the air.” Wingman. He didn’t want to be her wingman. Or, at least, not only. Goddamnit, Parrish.
“I’ll see if Havana can come
with me. Right now I just have one tonight and another tomorrow night on my calendar.”
“That’s good. I really don’t love the idea of you going into strange apartments by yourself.”
Shayna smirked. “I suppose that makes sense. I mean, you never know when someone might pull a gun on you and scare you so bad that you drop your towel.”
He lovingly gave her the finger. “That is the perfect example of why you shouldn’t go off somewhere on your own, woman.”
“Yeah, but you turned out to be completely normal,” she said with a laugh.
“If I’m normal then your fucking meter needs recalibrated.” Billy grinned despite himself. “Okay, just wanted to touch base with you before my schedule goes haywire. Sorry I’m not available like I told you I would be.”
“I understand you have a life that, you know, doesn’t revolve around me twenty-four/seven. The nerve!” She winked at him.
Fucking winked at him. After making a joke about the extent to which their lives revolved around each other.
She could’ve just punched a hole through his sternum and squeezed his heart and it would’ve been less uncomfortable then the irony-laden taunt. “What can I say?” he managed. “Shoot me texts and keep me posted though, okay?”
“You got it,” she said.
“Have a good day at work.” Billy slid off his stool and made for bed for just a few more hours. “And let me know what your friend says about going with you.”
“Ten-four, good buddy.”
He smirked over his shoulder. “Now who’s the fucknugget?”
“Touché.” Her laughter lit up the room and the inside of his chest. Just like it always did. But that was something else he’d now be keeping to himself.
Shayna went to find Havana when she got to work on Thursday morning. She was bummed that Billy wouldn’t be able to go apartment hunting with her, because they always had so much fun together. On the other hand, maybe it was good to get a break from him, because she wanted him so damn bad that she could barely stand it.
Which made it especially impressive that she’d managed to deliver her let’s-be-friends speech.
His friendship and companionship had really come to mean a lot to her over the past few weeks, and she didn’t want to risk losing it. The certainty of that friendship was more important than the long-shot of a relationship with him, especially when nothing more had happened between them, he’d never said anything about being with her, and it had sucked so bad thinking that he’d been mad at her when he wasn’t. Shayna had therefore decided to make the call and put the whole were-they-or-weren’t-they question to rest once and for all.
And Billy had readily agreed.
Which made her even more glad that she’d done it, even though her head clearly had very little control over her heart. Or her traitorous body, for that matter…
On a sigh, she rounded the corner into Havana’s cubicle and found it empty. A lady at the next desk popped up and said, “She’s in a design meeting.”
“Oh, okay. Thanks.” Frowning, Shayna hustled back to her own desk. She’d handed in an assignment the afternoon before and expected to get something new first thing today. Sure enough, she had an email from her editorial team sitting in her inbox, so her butt had no more than hit the cushion of her chair before she was right back up again to meet Joe and Rose in the conference room with one of the reporters who Shayna didn’t yet know very well.
“Hi,” she said, coming into the room. “Hope I didn’t hold everyone up.”
“No, we all just got here,” her news editor, Joe, said. “Shayna, do you know Andy Katz yet?”
“No. Hi, Andy.” She extended her hand and they shook.