Chenford: One Shot to the Heart

Just Evidence?

Concept: Why do you have THIS on your phone? OR Ashley finds the video mostly focused on Chen in the wedding boutique

She got too quiet. That was his only forewarning that things were about to plummet south.

"What's wrong?" he asked, concern being at the forefront of his question.

Her eyes remained glued to the screen of his phone. Apparently, she had found something that was disconcerting. He did a rapid once-over of the photo album in his mind. He didn't have much on his camera roll. Screengrabs of some game scores, shots of the sunsets over the beach, Kojo, a few pictures with his coworkers, and a couple of videos. Nothing incriminating or deal-breaking by any means. At least...he thought so.

"What is THIS?" she finally asked. She sounded...disconnected. Like she was still there with him but her mind was running away with itself. She passed his phone back to him. If he had known that showing her a funny video from work the other day involving a sleep-talking Angela and expired whipped cream from the break room was going to lead to her shutting down, he never would have placed the device in her hands in the first place.

But he had done it anyway. He felt that it was just another way he could let go and show that he trusted her. That he had nothing to hide. Even as he took in the frame on the screen, he didn't understand why it had sent her spiraling.

It had been his day off when Angela had had a breakdown and called him in to help her find a wedding dress. What had followed was a touching pep-talk that he threatened her to never repeat the specifics of, a little encouragement, a lot of sarcasm, two drunk brides-to-be, and the cops. Specifically, Lucy and Jackson.

Though he had stated that it was for evidence, secretly, the catfight was entertaining, mostly because he did not have to deal with it. His old boot did though, which only added to the amusement factor. He also got to call her out on tape for not intervening right away. In a sort of teasing manner, but still. The video hadn't ended up being necessary as the boutique actually had cameras in the reception room. He'd sent it to Angela who displayed it to just about everyone but hadn't watched it more than once or twice himself. Never bothering to delete it, he ended up forgetting about it. That was a decision that was apparently coming back to bite him.

He looked back at Ashley, sitting across from him at the cafe table. "This is actually a funny story. So, it was my day off-"

"Tim. I don't care about the circumstances. I want to know why you have a video of Lucy on your phone."

Taken aback, he struggled to not snap at her. "Ash, listen. First off, it's not a video of Lucy. I'm going to tell you what happened. I think if you understand, it will make more sense. As I was saying, it was my day off. Angela was in the middle of wedding preparations. She texted me an address and said it was an emergency. As it turned out, she had a bit of a meltdown when she was choosing a wedding dress so she kicked out her bridesmaids and called me in. She finally found the one she wanted and then we heard a commotion up front. We walked in to see the two women being restrained here in the video, drunkenly fighting over a wedding dress. We were told the cops were called and since I didn't know if they had security cams, I started recording for evidentiary purposes. The unit that pulled up ended up being Chen and West, Angela's boot."

She took time, taking it in. "Just evidence?" was the question she ended up posing, albeit skeptically. "Well yeah," was his straightforward response. "I mean, it turned out they did have cameras so the video wasn't needed. But it provided a few laughs around the office. I'd forgotten about it though."

She pondered this. What was she doing, he wondered. Why all this trouble over a video? Nothing was making sense. It was a video. He had pictures on the rolls with Lucy too... geez this woman was going to drive him nuts.