Relief and disappointment warred in her chest—relief that there would be no awkward morning conversation, no careful navigation of what this meant or didn't mean. But also disappointment that she'd missed watching Erin wake up, missed seeing those green eyes clear from sleep to alertness, missed the quiet intimacy of morning light on bare skin.
Lena pushed both feelings down. This was better, certainly cleaner.
In the kitchen, she found the note propped against the coffee maker, written on the back of a gas receipt in Erin'sprecise handwriting:Had to get back for early briefing. Coffee's already programmed. Thanks for last night. - E
It was careful with just enough warmth to acknowledge what had passed between them without making it more than it was. Typical Erin: thoughtful without being presumptuous, considerate without creating unnecessary complications.
Lena folded the note and slipped it into her pocket, telling herself she was being practical about managing the evidence of Erin’s presence in her home. Nothing more.
The coffee was perfect, of course. Erin had remembered how she took it from their brief encounter at the station weeks ago—strong, no sugar. The competence shouldn't have been attractive, but Lena found herself thinking about those capable hands programming her coffee maker in the dark and about Erin moving quietly through her space with the same careful attention she brought to everything else.
No, she needed to focus. There was work to do.
Case files covered her dining table like scattered pieces of a puzzle she couldn't quite solve. Lena spread the documents across the table, forcing herself to review timeline discrepancies and look for any clues in the crime scene photos instead of thinking about the way Erin had traced similar patterns on her skin. Professional compartmentalization, she was good at it. She'd built her career on the ability to separate emotion from her professional life.
But her living room and bedroom sheets still smelled faintly of Erin.
Stress relief. That's what last night had been. Adrenaline from the arts center fire, the tension of working together, and the inevitable result of weeks of professional friction finally found a different outlet. It happened sometimes, colleagues getting caught up in the intensity of dangerous work and seeking comfort and release with someone who understood the stakes.
Nothing more complicated than that.
Her phone buzzed against the table. A text from Erin:“Reviewed arts center preliminary report. Found something we missed. Can we compare all five scenes this afternoon? Station or your office?”
It was professional and direct with no reference to the night they’d spent together.
Lena typed back:“My office. 2 p.m. Bring everything.”
The response came quickly:“Will do. See you then.”
Neutral territory. That's what her office represented, a space where they could work together without the charged atmosphere that seemed to follow them everywhere else. Where she could focus on the case instead of remembering how Erin had looked pressed against her shower wall, how her breathing had changed when Lena's hands ran along her bare skin, how she'd whimpered “please.”
Lena drained her coffee and refilled the cup, using the routine to anchor herself back to the present. Her apartment felt different somehow—not emptier, exactly, but expectant, as if waiting for something, or someone, to return.
She shook her head. This was exactly the kind of thinking that got people in trouble. Emotional attachment, the dangerous belief that one night of physical intimacy meant something beyond what it was.
Lena had learned that lesson the hard way two years ago, with someone who'd eventually walked away because Lena chose the job over everything else. Because she couldn't let anyone close enough to matter; she couldn't risk the distraction of caring about someone whose safety she couldn't control.
This thing with Erin, whatever it was, couldn't become that. She wouldn’t let it.
But as she settled back at the table with the case files, surrounded by evidence of fires and destruction, Lena found herthoughts drifting to the conversation they'd have in a few hours. The anticipation built under her ribs like electricity waiting to arc across the distance between them.
She had five hours to convince herself this was just professional interest. Five hours to rebuild the walls that had crumbled so completely the night before.
Lena picked up the first crime scene photo and forced herself to study it with the detachment that had served her well for years. But her coffee still tasted like Erin's consideration, and the note in her pocket felt warm against her leg, and somewhere in the back of her mind, a voice whispered that some walls, once broken, couldn't be rebuilt the same way twice.
Focus, she told herself.The case comes first.
But outside her window, Phoenix Ridge was waking up to another day, and in five hours she would see Erin again, and that knowledge hummed through her like a current she couldn't quite turn off.
Five hours and three coffee breaks later, Lena found herself in her office getting cross-eyed from staring at case files, trying to make sense of patterns that felt just out of reach. She'd spent the morning reviewing Abigail's witness statement and the sketch artist's rendering until she could recite every detail from memory, but the face in the composite still felt frustratingly generic.
Erin would be here any minute, and Lena wasn't sure if she was more nervous about seeing her again or about trying to crack this case together. Every time her phone buzzed with a text or her office door opened, her pulse jumped from anticipation mixed with something that felt dangerously close to longing.
When Erin finally appeared in her doorway at exactly 2:00 p.m., her arms full of files and a laptop bag slung over her shoulder, Lena felt her carefully constructed professional composure shift. Erin had changed from her usual uniform into dark jeans and a button-down shirt that made her red hair look like copper in the filtered afternoon light.
"Detective." Erin's greeting was carefully professional, but there was a subtle warmth in her voice that hadn't been there in their earlier interactions.
"Fire Marshal." Lena gestured to the chair across from her desk, where she'd already cleared space among the precinct's controlled chaos. "I have Abigail's witness statement and the sketch artist's rendering ready."
