Every Last Breath || Jay Halstead

TWO

Willa stepped through the door of Molly's with Will and Natalie and let the warmth wash over her. Chicago winters were as unforgiving as she remembered them.

As she searched the bar for familiar faces, she was pleased to see Dr. Choi and Dr. Reese at the bar and made a straight line for them. Third-wheeling with Will and Natalie was not a feeling she particularly enjoyed.

Reese's face lit up when she saw her. "Dr. Atticus."

"Willa's fine," she chastised, having told her to use her given name more than once. The younger woman gave her a resolute nod.

Ethan looked at her. "What are you having?"

She considered her options for a moment. "Just a beer, thank you."

He smiled. "You got it." He turned his attention to the bartender, who Willa recognized as a firefighter named Herrmann.

"I came here with the lovebirds," she told Reese as she hung her coat on the back of her chair. "I felt like the third wheel, almost like I was intruding on their private time."

"You probably were," Ethan chipped in, handing Willa her beer. She took a long sip of it, and as she lowered the bottle, a new but familiar face with a sharp jawline, a purple eye, and a stitched-up cut at his hairline walked through the door with a couple of other people. None other than Jay Halstead stood in the entrance, and if there was a God up there somewhere, Willa silently thanked them for listening.

"He is so attractive," Reese noted, effectively bringing Willa back to reality.

"Who? Halstead's brother?" Ethan was puzzled.

"Obviously," Reese said matter-of-factly. "Even with a black eye and a cut on his face." Willa kept quiet, afraid to say anything that would give her thoughts away. She didn't mean to, but she locked eyes with him, prompting him to excuse himself from his friends and make his way towards her and her colleagues at the bar.

Reese froze when she noticed him approaching. "Why is he coming over here?"

"I stitched him up," she explained while he was still out of earshot. Her heart was banging in her chest, and if the room had been quiet, she was sure everyone would have been able to hear it. So much for not being attracted to him.

"Hey," he greeted, keeping his eyes on hers. "Didn't expect to see you here."

"And why is that now, Detective?" She brought the beer bottle to her lips, not even trying to keep the wide grin off her face. She knew she was in trouble, and this was only the second conversation she'd had with him.

His smile faltered slightly. "I'm not going to answer that." He said hi to Ethan and Reese but kept most of his attention on Willa, even as he ordered a beer from Herrmann.

After a few minutes of mindless small talk, Sarah and Ethan got up to move seats while Reese mumbled something along the lines of Willa being the lovebird now.

"So," Halstead said and sat on the stool Sarah had once occupied. "You're originally from here?"

She nodded and took a swig of her beer, keeping her eyes on the bar disk. "Yes," she finally said. "Spent the first ten years of my life here."

His features were arranged in a way she imagined was similar to how he looked when trying to solve a tough case. "So, why did you leave?"

Her chest tightened. "My father needed a change of scenery, so we moved to New York." It was technically the truth, and besides, he didn't need to know her entire sad story, though she did wonder how he knew that she was originally from Chicago. She had only mentioned that she started a Med a month earlier, not that she'd relocated.