Jay Halstead keeps butting heads over cases with Riannes Torres, a DCFS social worker. She has been through her own rough personal trauma. When they find themselves drawn to each other despite their differences an interesting journey begins. Will th...
In hindsight there were several things concerning that night Jay was angry about, angry with himself. The main thing being: He had been distracted. Maybe even careless and unguarded.
The other thing was: He should have just given into his urge to spend the evening with his girl, hung out at Molly's while she worked and then gone home with her. Instead he had been sexting with her like a smitten college kid to the point where his brother had gotten so annoyed with him he actually took his phone away like the laughable father figure he sometimes impersonated.
Another thing: He shouldn't have agreed to letting those friends of Will's organize the whole evening or even just choose the location. The place was a dump! A nightclub with bad music and even shabbier interior, but it was relatively cheap for downtown Chicago, so that seemed to have been the crucial point. And there was the inevitable table-dance area of course.
Jay didn't give a shit about those kind of nights out. He'd partied way too much after he had come back home from his deployments, so maybe that had been enough to last him the rest of his life. And he knew from professional experience what else was going down in those clubs. He always felt wary in some way when surrounded by so many and foreign people in these establishments. He couldn't fully let himself go and tended to watch out for shady business going on around him. This time it turned out he hadn't paid enough attention.
At some point there were girls hanging around their group, keeping the guys entertained and happy. Will's friends had bought the 'groom to be' a lap dance to make this evening even more cliché. Jay kept nursing his beers and his friendly but determined distance when one of the two girls tried to flirt with him, missing Rianne even more. The blonde couldn't be much older than 22. This was ridiculous. Jay felt thankful that he hopefully had outgrown the 'random hook-up in clubs' phase for good. What he was having with Rianne now was something totally different. A million times more fulfilling and satisfying than waking up to a total stranger with a screaming headache and no idea how that had happened.
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When the gang was talking about moving on to another location around midnight, Jay passed, just wanting to go home. The fact that they were calling him out on his early bailing on 'all the fun' they were having not bothering him for a second. This just wasn't his scene and secretly Will had known that from the beginning. When he hugged his brother goodbye the older one slurred a "Give the missus my best!" in Jay's ear and patted him on the back good-humoredly.
Jay guessed he was forgiven, as he was also allowed to have his phone back. He let himself be talked into downing one last round of shots with everyone, before he got his jacket and left them to themselves. Taking a detour to the restrooms he was slightly swaying, feeling the effect of the alcohol catch up to his body.
Jay was about to text Rianne, tell her he'd take a cab to join her at Molly's, cause her shift surely wasn't over yet. But he was stopped on his way out by the young girl who had tried to get her flirt on with him earlier. She was just posing in front of him in the hallway that led to the men's rooms, chewing gum in a saucy way, wriggling her body closer to his. He sighed because he didn't really have the nerve to let her down easy and get her to leave him alone.
