Exculpatory

Chapter eleven

"What the hell are you doing here!?" Kate hissed when she finally found her voice again and she focused her narrowed eyes on his.

She was shocked and confused and hurt. How dare he come to her precinct?! The writer just stood there, still beside her, with the flowers held out to her. She was just about to tell him to leave when someone whistled and looking for the source she saw none other than her two brothers eyeing them with big mocking grins pulling up their lips. Nu-uh she was not giving them a show. Standing up she suddenly realized how close he had been, their bodies touching and she immediately took a step back in order to create some space. She clenched her teeth and took a deep breath through her nose in order to calm herself down, collect her thoughts. Without a word she glanced with her eyes to her side as she started walking towards one of the interrogation rooms, bodily telling him to follow. The second he was inside she closed the door behind him and leaned her forehead against it, trying her hardest not to let her feelings get the better of her.

"What are you doing here?" she asked in the most neutral tone she could muster, but cringed when even she could hear the small hurt and exhaustion imbedded in her voice. She heard him shuffle around a bit behind her before he cleared his throat and answered.

"I came to apologize, I was a jerk," he said and she bit her lower lip to keep it from wavering.

Don't listen to him, she kept telling herself. He already hurt you once.

"I tried... I've already sent you the best apologies I could come up with... but I-ah, you didn't respond and so I..."

"Came to bother me at work when I so clearly want nothing more to do with you? You got your research. Now go," she cut him off with the strongest voice she could find.

"That's not... I don't..." he took another breath to assemble himself. "I don't only meet up with you for research Kate, I want us to be friends," he defended himself.

Kate spun around with a glare in her eyes. "Then you should've thought of that before. I've nev... just go," she just managed to stop herself from revealing another thing about her.

What was wrong with her?! Why did it feel so easy to tell him things she shouldn't?!

"At least take these, please? I did buy them for you and even though you won't accept the apology I can't leave before you take the flowers."

He was practically begging her and when she eyed the flowers he held out for her once more she felt a weird stab in her chest. "Who told you?" she demanded in her harsh detective's voice.

"Told me w..."

"Purple lilies. Not common knowledge so. Who. Told. You?" she repeated with a sharpness in every word.

She could visibly see the thick swallow he did before he looked down at the floor as if in shame. Threateningly she took one step closer to him and he crumbled under her stare.

"She texted me, don't know how she got my number but she did and I told her it was a bad idea to text me without you knowing but she insisted I should come here and..." he was rambling and so she told his name once in that sharp tone and he glanced up with shame clear in his eyes. "Liz."

It felt as though her breath was taken away from her, as if there all of a sudden was no air left for her to absorb. Her daughter had texted him?! When?! How?! Being speechless she just stared at him with her mouth slightly agape, her mind circling around with questions. Like, had they texted before? How much had he told her? How much had she told him?