Riley
The paperwork takes three days.
Three days of reports, statements, evidence logs, and chain-of-custody documentation. Three days of meetings with the DA's office, coordinating with Detective Orozco, and fielding calls from insurance investigators who want to know if Blackwood Properties can file claims now that the arsonist has been caught.
Three days of Aiden showing up at my apartment with food, coffee, and a willingness to sit quietly while I work that I didn't know I needed until I had it.
"You're glaring at that form," he says from my couch, where he's been reading a book on incident command structures—my copy, borrowed without asking.
"This form is asking for the same information I already provided on forms 7A, 12B, and the supplemental incident report." I drop my pen and rub my eyes. "Bureaucracy is where investigations go to die."
"That's dramatic."
"But accurate."
He sets down the book and crosses to where I'm hunched over my desk, his hands finding my shoulders with an ease that still catches me off guard. Thumbs dig into the knots at the base of my neck, and I groan in a way that's probably embarrassing.
"When's the last time you slept more than four hours?"
"Define 'slept.'"
"Unconscious. In a bed. Not at your desk."
"Then... Tuesday, maybe?"
"It's Friday, Riley."
"Time is a construct."
His laugh rumbles through his hands into my shoulders. "You're impossible."
"And yet you keep showing up at my front door."
"Guess I'm a glutton for punishment." He leans down, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. "Finish that form. Then you're coming to my place, eating actual food, and sleeping in an actual bed."
"I have more forms?—"
"They'll still be here Monday. You won't be any good to anyone if you collapse from exhaustion."
I want to argue. The instinct is bone-deep—push through, finish the job, don't show weakness. But Aiden's hands are warm on my shoulders, and the prospect of his apartment, his cooking, actual sleep sounds better than any of the alternatives my stubborn brain can offer.
"Fine," I mutter. "But I'm bringing the case files."
"Fine. But they're staying in your bag. You're actually sleeping tonight."
His apartment feels different now. Not the space itself—same exposed brick, same bookshelves, same espresso machine gleaming on the counter—but my relationship to it. The first time I was here, I cataloged everything like evidence, looking for proof that Aiden Gentry was exactly who I thought he was.
Now I kick off my shoes by the door without thinking, drop my bag on the chair that's become mine, and make a beeline for the kitchen to steal a piece of whatever he's cooking.
"Hands off the garlic bread," he warns without turning around.
"You can't prove I was going for the garlic bread."
"You always go for the garlic bread. It's like a law of physics at this point."
"Laws of physics can be broken."
"No, they really can't. That's the whole point of—you know what, never mind." He swats my hand away from the bread basket with a wooden spoon. "Five minutes. You can wait five minutes."
