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“It was… fine,” I say, not sure how to answer the question.

It was work. I can’t really say it was good, because nothing about my job is good, unless we’re catching murderers and solving cases. But even then, it’s a double-edged sword, because that means someone was murdered.

“That’s good,” she says. “We’re watching The Conjuring. It just started if you want to join us.”

“Really?” I say, looking at Forge. “Already trying to scare her?”

“They’re not that scary,” she says.

“Then why do I have a mark on my arm from you holding on so tightly?” Forge holds up his forearm, showing off a faint red mark, and then they both laugh.

It has me smiling too.

“First, tell me what that wonderful smell is,” I say.

“Oh, that’s dinner!” she says excitedly, throwing the blanket off her and scrambling off the couch. She hurries into the kitchen, pulling the lid off the crock pot. Steam billows up and she leans in to smell it.

“Where did you find that?” I ask Forge.

He gets up from the couch. “Garage. We also fixed the light which turned out to be a chewed up wire.”

“Wow,” I say.

“Yeah, so it’s a good thing I checked it… finally.”

“Yeah… finally.”

He rolls his eyes and we head into the kitchen. Raewyn is stirring the food. The smell is amazing.

“I think it’s done,” she says, looking over at us.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Beef stew,” Forge answers.

I put my things down by the desk and when I get back to the kitchen, there are three bowls set out at the table. Raewyn is grabbing silverware while Forge gets drinks. He pours a glass of red wine for him and I, while Raewyn has orange juice.

“She loves it,” he says with a shrug, putting the glass down by the seat at the head of the table.

Forge has always sat at the right of that seat, while I sit at the left. This puts us across from one another and makes it easy to talk and work while we eat. The latter is something we won’t be doing tonight.

The food is too hot to eat right away, so we chat about their day. It’s habit to want to talk to Forge about work, since it’s what we talk about most, but there are a few reasons I can’t do that now.

One, I don’t want Raewyn hearing details about the case because I don’t want to upset her. And also, technically, she isn’t supposed to hear any of this stuff anyway. It’s not that I don’t trust her, it’s just one of those things ingrained in me as a detective. You don’t talk about important details in front of anyone but your partner or your superiors.

When it comes to this case, the only person I trust to talk to about it is Forge. There is something going on, and I’m even more certain about it after today. I found something this afternoon that I need to tell Forge about, but it’ll have to be later. When we go to bed.

Forge and I eat two full bowls of the beef stew. It’s delicious. Much better than the food we usually order. There’s nothing like a home-cooked meal, and we tell Raewyn how good it is so many times that she tells us we don’t have to keep saying it.

She insists on cleaning, but neither one of us will let her. We tell her to go relax on the couch while we clean up. The leftovers go into a Tupperware container and we get the dishwasher loaded and running. It’s hardly full, but I don’t want to leave dirty dishes to sit overnight, and I’d rather go watch a movie with the two of them then spend time washing dishes.

Forge goes back to his spot, and Raewyn cuddles up against him like they’ve been doing it for years. Everything in me wants to curl up on the other side of her, but she hasn’t invited me to, and I don’t want to overstep.

They spent the day together, got to know one another and grow more comfortable. There is a small part of me that’s jealous over that, but not in a bad way. Just in the way that I want to get to know her too. Which I will, because thankfully we have the weekend ahead of us.

Forge puts the movie on. It’s roughly ten minutes in, so I didn’t miss much. Though, I’ve seen this movie, and the others in the series, multiple times because Forge loves horror movies. As if we don’t deal with it enough in real life. Not that we’ve ever dealt with ghosts in our cases, but these aren’t his go-to movies.

We’re halfway through the movie, the house is dark, the rain still coming down heavy outside, tapping on the skylight, when Raewyn reaches over to take my hand.