The Coffee Date

Chapter 22 - Meet Co-Workers

"Did you sleep okay last night?"

Immediately she knew her face was painted in pink. Regardless of whether or not he saw, he didn't comment. He didn't even allow his face to switch from his endearing gaze locked against her quickly-brushed hair.

Hazel had slept flawlessly that night. Far better than she had for the past month. Even better than she had when the two of them had un-officially moved in together. But admitting that aloud may have implied other things.

Her fears. Her terrors. His safety.

Throughout their sleep, anytime Hazel stirred or even so much as adjusted herself she was tugged in closer. His eyes would sleepily open, his arms would bring her closer into his chest, his lips would press to the top of her scalp, and he would hum and hush sweet nothings into her anxious ears.

"Shh, you're okay, go back to sleep."

She could remember his words well.

But of course, the heat pressing against her cheeks didn't help her composure. Instead, hoping to downplay the situation as much as possible, she nodded and hummed softly content.

He sighed gleefully. "Good! I was worried you didn't get enough rest."

He was worried.

It wasn't until his hand had removed itself from her waist - where it had lingered over that same wound the night before - did she snap out of the trance of the scent of his cologne against his neck. The feeling of his lips against her hair. The sparks of his hands on her back.

His hand, instead, had reached to push open their office door, gesturing for her to wander inside. To which, she did. Slowly, cautiously, but fast enough that he only saw a blur of pink rather than the flurry of red against her neck and cheeks.

As she scurried in, however, she fumbled to a spot at her desk and sat down. Originally she had wanted to catch her breath, her quickest-possible-scurry still being a little much for her in her medicated state.

"Take it easy. Don't worry, this shouldn't take long."

Hazel nodded, rubbing her hands together. "Just a report to send in to your father, right?"

"Right." His voice was stern and cold. Emotionless. He got that way whenever his father came up in conversation. Even back in the police station when he and David were talking off to the side as Hazel finished a glass of water with the kind officer helping her, she could hear David leave with a call from their father. Nathan left and bitterly spoke whenever David returned for brief flashes of time.

Their relationship was beyond damaged. It was severed.

"I'll sort through the ones on my desk, you sort through the ones on yours. Deal?"

The change in tone, while rapid, was understandable to the brunette. She had been around him long enough that she knew and understood why he got the way he did. Why he changed the way he did.

"Yeah, sounds good. Keep anything pressing and key?"

Nathan smiled at her, but she was too busy bustling through the files to spot him. To blush under his gaze. To give her usual shy and joyful smile back.

"You got it. Sure you haven't done this before?"

He could see her smile down at her paperwork, scanning through folders and placing them into separate piles on either side of her desk.

Everything was working rather swiftly between the two. Their eyes were locked intently onto their own folders and mountains of work to sort. They were so dedicated in fact, Nathan didn't notice when Hazel stopped, lifting a file to her eyes to read more intently.