Will, Natalie and Owen were already waiting for them at their agreed spot in Lincoln Park when Erin, Jay, Emilia and Crispin approached them in the afternoon, the whole city once again reveling in pure sunshine. Even against the sun and from the distance Jay could see the frown and questionmarks on his brother's face and the older Halstead didn't hold back with his question as soon as they were within earshot.
″What the hell is going on here?″ he asked laughingly, his eyes falling on the leash in Jay's hand and the black-and-white dog that walked beside him dutifully.
″Be patient and we'll tell you,″ Jay smirked before they all hugged each other and extended their picnic area in the shade of a giant tree with the blankets Jay and Erin had brought with them.
They all sat down, Crispin sitting next to them and scanning the surroundings attentively, and Jay told them the story about how the young dog's joined their family last night. However, he kept it rather short. There was no need that his brother and Natalie needed to hear about the cruel scenes he'd seen and he himself still tried to push those pictures as far away as possible. He just wanted to enjoy his weekend off, wanted to enjoy some family downtime and for once not think about work and all the brutal crimes he was confronted with on a daily basis.
Once the story was told, Will and Jay took Owen and Emilia to the playground for some entertainment, leaving the two women and Crispin alone.
″Sometimes it's so nice to just have a moment of silence,″ Natalie grinned as they watched the four of them disappearing in the distance.
″Hell yeah,″ Erin laughed, adjusting her sunglasses that a couple of minutes ago Emmy had tried to steal from her nose, and reached for one of the cooled sodas in the ice box. ″And Jay really needs to spend some time with his princess, so I won't complain at all.″
″Will and Owen can use moments like this to bond, so I won't complain either,″ Natalie agreed and grabbed a soda as well.
″How are things going with the three of you?″ Erin asked the woman who would one day possibly be family. They saw each other quite often thanks to the Zumba classes they were still attending but they never had time to talk about stuff like this, family stuff, when the other girls were with them as well.
″I wish we had more time for doing these kind of things,″ she sighed and gazed around the park. ″Everything's going well but Will and Owen still barely know each other because he either comes to my place in the evening when Owen's already sleeping or he has to work through the night. The only time we really get to spend time together as a family is in the mornings, in case he even spent the night at my place, or when we both have the same day off but that's it. So we're currently playing with the idea of moving in together,″ Natalie admitted, a sheepish smile rushing over her lips.
″Already?″ Erin asked and raised her eyebrows. But then she thought about it a little more and recognized that she was the last person to scrutinize someone else's reasonings of moving in so quickly. Natalie and Will have been together for four months now, she'd gotten pregnant six months into her relationship with Jay, so she was the last person to tell someone that they were possibly rushing things. Plus, rushing things wasn't always a bad thing. Her's and Jay's story was the perfect example for it.
″Yeah,″ she nodded. ″It would give us at least a little more time together. We already try to synchronize our schedules as much as possible, to take the same shifts as often as we can but his shifts still change between dayshifts and nightshifts while I only work dayshifts, so I can spend time with Owen in the evening, bring him to bed myself and make him ready in the morning and spend some more time with him before Helen comes and takes over. I mean, I see Will at work every day, that's not it, but I want us to be more of a...family.″
