Page 31 of Due South

He drops one last nod before turning on his heel and heading down the hall.

*

Evans

She said yes.She didn’t even ask where we were going. She didn’t even ask if she’d get to sleep. I’m not going to make her regret it.

I shove a few things in a backpack, grab the thermos that’s been sitting on my desk for I don’t want to think about how long, and head to the kitchen where Lucy’s bent over, rummaging in the bottom drawers of the fridge.

When she hears me, she stands up, slides the drawers closed with a bare foot, and bumps the door closed with a hip. As if she needed to draw any more attention to her curves. If you’d have asked me ten minutes ago if I could get it up, I would’ve said no because of the earlier bathroom shenanigans and then more work and I’m beat, but Lucy…she just does something to me.

But she’s tired. I can see it in the dark circles under her eyes, the way she looks as if she only half-sees things, the woozy way she pushed herself up from her desk. An attempt at a flirty smile spreads across her face as she clutches fruit in both hands. “How about them apples?”

I laugh at her silliness and she giggles back. “I think your apples are pretty great.”

She flushes at my clumsy attempt at flirtatious flattery and ducks her head. I turn to the sink and occupy myself by scrubbing the hell out of the thermos with scalding hot water and probably more dish soap than is necessary because I can’t believe I said that.

When it’s sparkling clean, I dry it out and tip the pot of coffee inside. I don’t know exactly what Lucy does to coffee to make it taste so damn good, but at the moment I don’t care. It takes everything I have to twist the lid on instead of taking a swig of the brew.

We head silently out to the parking garage, and she doesn’t question me when I head to my car, just walks around to the passenger side and settles into the cheaply upholstered seat when I unlock the door. After she clicks in her seatbelt, she leans back and closes her eyes, and I pull out of the garage in silence, not wanting to interrupt whatever rest she can grab.

It takes about twenty minutes to get where I’m headed. At every stoplight, I glance over at her. Translucent lids resting over those big brown eyes. She hasn’t been bothering with much of her normal makeup for the past few days, but I can tell she can’t quite bring herself to wear none at all because her eyeliner and mascara is smudged around her lashes. She’s still pretty. And there’s something about her trusting me so much that she climbs into my car with no questions and closes her eyes because she believes I’m not going to hurt her or do something to make her uncomfortable.

Women take a lot of shit every day, some more than others, and I know for a fact Lucy gets more than her fair share of catcalls and guys saying things to her they probably think are flattering. It’s honestly a wonder to me women haven’t set up a commune where they only let penises in for procreation.

But here she is, eyes closed, mouth slack, curled up in my crappy car’s front seat. And she didn’t blink an eye at my piece-of-shit, sorry-excuse for a vehicle. Just climbed right in and made herself comfortable.

Her eyes open when I pull into a space and stop the car, and she rubs at them sleepily. She blinks a few times before the corner of her mouth turns up. “You brought me to the beach.”

“Yeah. I like it here.” Sometimes after a long day, I come here, take off my shoes, and stick my toes in the sand. Even if it’s only fifteen minutes, somehow the sound of the waves and the distinctly outside smell of the air make me feel alive, as though I’m not waiting for my life to start.

I take up my backpack and Lucy grabs the thermos. She walks out to the path that separates the concrete from the sand and takes off her shoes under a streetlight while I grab a blanket out of my trunk. When I catch up with her, she takes the blanket wordlessly so I can strip off my shoes and socks too. We walk out on the empty sand. It’s still dark, no indication morning’s only a few hours away.

No one else is at the beach at this time of night, because why would they be at four-thirty a.m. on a Thursday? No, wait, I guess it’s technically Friday by now. We walk out far enough that we’re well onto the beach but still far enough from the water line that we won’t get wet if the tide comes in over the next few hours.

Lucy spreads out the blanket on the sand and sets her shoes on a couple of corners so it won’t blow up in the gentle breeze and I do the same. I took my tie off at some point while I was working in the office in the wee hours, and I take the time now to unbutton my shirt and roll up my sleeves and my pants because, dammit, I’m not in the office and I want my skin to feel something other than business casual and canned office air.

Lucy’s sitting at the edge of the blanket, digging her toes into the sand. Some guys would probably be annoyed she wasn’t paying attention to them, but I like it. I made her happy and she’s enjoying it. I set an alarm on my phone in case we fall asleep and tuck it back in my pocket because that’s the last thought I’m going to have about work for the next couple of hours. My brain deserves that much of a break.

I take a chance and sit behind Lucy, my feet resting on either side of her hips. “You can move back if you want. Lean on me,” I offer because I can’t think of anything better than having Lucy lean back against my chest and being able to smell her hair. Have her heartbeat echo against me and feel her breathing. She’s very calming, Lucy is, and sometimes I like to talk myself into believing I deserve some serenity.

Her red hair shifts in what used to be a neat bun but is now a vague approximation of a cinnamon roll on the top of her head as she turns around. She’s going to say no. I asked too much, pushed too far and dammit, Evans, this is not a date. We’re not anything to each other except polite colleagues and a quick stress-relieving, mind-blowing fuck. That’s all. Cuddling not included. I brace myself for disappointment, ready myself to crawl to the other side of the blanket where I can keep my hands to my damn self, but she surprises me.

“Could you move up instead? So I can keep my toes in the sand?”

Her hopeful request makes my heart lighter, and I don’t even have to think about it before I’m scooting over the blanket to be closer to her. If we sit like this, I can dig my toes into the sand too. I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be. I could stay like this all day with Lucy’s butt snugged up between my legs and her leaning with no hesitation against me.

I brace a hand behind me to keep us upright, and she turns her head to rest her cheek against my chest.

“Thanks for bringing me here,” she says softly, and I smile.

“Thanks for the company.”

With Lucy leaning against me, my front’s not cold, but my back is chilly and I’ve got far more clothes on than Lucy. I drag another, smaller blanket out of my bag and offer it to her. She shakes it out and drapes it over herself, tucking it around her chin and wiggling against me.

Can’t deny the movement makes me conscious of her body against mine in a not-entirely-innocent way. But I’m not going to do jack about it because we’re at a beach in the middle of the night to take an honest-to-god breather, not for kinky sex hijinks.

We sit in silence for a few more minutes, and Lucy shifts against me again.

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