“Hey. Did you get any sleep?”

It was the only thing Weston could think of to say to her, and in the end, it was probably the only thing he really needed to say to try and break the ice. For some reason, the idea of having her stay at his loft had seemed completely normal the night before, in those hours somewhere in between night and morning. In the much harsher light of morning, or the hours that substituted for morning for people who slept past noon however, things felt different. Whatever connection that had opened between the two of them last night in the bathroom while he’d been cleaning the dried blood off of her face seemed to be closed now, making this whole endeavor all the more difficult.

“Um, yeah, actually, I did. I’m sorry I slept so long.”

“Please, don’t be sorry. I’m glad you did. You needed it after last night.”

“But weren’t you supposed to go to work or something?”

“I was. I took a sick day.”

“See? That’s why I’m sorry! I ruined your day!”

Weston shook his head at her to try and reassure her that she had done no such thing, but he could feel the headache beginning to creep up the back of his neck and into his temples where it would take up residence for several hours minimum. He wanted to help this chick, his resolve on that hadn’t changed, but it made it a hell of a lot harder when she wouldn’t stop talking. And the apologizing! Jesus, somebody had done a number on this chick though, the way she seemed to take everything on like it was her fault. The worst part of it was that hearing her apologize over and over again this way only made him want to shout at her. It made him miserable, which made him want to lash out at her, like being mean was the way to handle a woman who was hurting. So maybe it was him somebody had done a number on, and not her. He didn’t know, really, didn’t know much of anything anymore. All he knew was that he was more tired now than he’d been in all of his life, and he just wanted to figure out how to help her and keep everything kosher with work as well. And all the while, there she was, standing there with that look of distress on her face, wanting him to make her feel better whether he had any right to do it or not.

“You didn’t ruin anything, Clara, alright? Please, don’t worry about it. We can’t get worked up right now anyway. We need to figure out what we’re going to do to help you. This shit can’t keep on happening, that’s for damn sure.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to get your friends on the phone. The ones you see the most. This is going to have to be more than just me looking after you, if it’s going to work. I need to talk to them and see where they’re at with everything.”

“But I don’t want to bother them. I’ve already done that at least as much as I’ve bothered you. I can’t keep doing it, or else—before I know it—I won’t have any friends left.”

“If they’re really your friends, they won’t bat an eyelash at meeting up with us. They’ll want to help you, no questions asked.”

He could see the hesitation on her face and gritted his teeth, waiting for the next argument she’d have for why she couldn’t do what he was telling her to do. This was something he saw a lot in victims and one of the things that bugged him the most. People wanted help, but they didn’t want to do the things required of them in order to really utilize it. There were always reasons for why they couldn’t do this, couldn’t do that, and what it amounted to was that they didn’t really want to have to do anything uncomfortable or different than what they were used to. If the next thing to come out of her mouth was something along those lines, he really would lose his shit, no questions asked.

“Okay.”

“What now? Come again?”

“I said okay. Why, were you hoping I would say no?”

“No, more that I was expecting it, really. You didn’t look too thrilled with the idea.”

“I’m not, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to do it. I told you I was grateful for your help, and I meant it. I’m not about to throw it all away by being even more difficult than I’ve already been. Besides, it’s not like I know better than you do about what needs to happen. I haven't exactly handled it perfectly on my own. I wouldn’t be here if that was the case. I’ll go call them and let you know what they say.”

***

Cut to two hours later and Weston found himself sitting at a table with Clara and her friends, Finnley and Elsie, the latter of which was accompanied by her boyfriend, the famous (or some might say infamous) Caleb Grant. The way the meeting had come about was probably the most natural thing in the world, but for his part, Weston still felt his head reeling a bit at how quickly it had all come into place. Clara’s friends were nothing if not organized, and for the first time, Weston began to feel a little bit of hope that he might have some allies in this whole thing. A few phone calls followed by a shower that caused a whole new layer of awkwardness and the two of them were off, making a quick stop by her apartment so she could quickly change her clothes. As brief as that detour was, Weston could feel how miserable being back there made her, and to be honest, he couldn’t blame her. There was something about it that felt suffocating, and with the constant threat of somebody breaking in to hurt her, it could only have made things worse. By the time they left, Weston was beyond relieved to be out of there, even if it meant sitting down to a meeting with a bunch of people he didn’t know at all. That wasn’t his favorite thing, being with strangers, never had been and undoubtedly never would be. To get through it, he had to keep reminding himself that he had asked for this and that asking for something and then being angry for getting it was a quality he couldn’t stand in other people. Fortunately for him, and although he wasn’t convinced other people would have considered this a plus, but for him it definitely was, the group of people around him seemed more than happy to do enough talking to make up for his lack of conversation.

“Jesus, Clara. I mean, Jesus. Look at you! I can’t believe you’re just now calling us. I mean, I can’t believe you didn’t call one of us last night when all of this shit went down!”

“Finnley?”

“No, seriously! This is a big deal! It’s like, a big fucking deal!”

“Finnley.”

“What?”

“You’re yelling, and people are looking at us.”

“I don’t care who looks at me! I’m dead serious.”

“Don’t worry about it, Finnley,” Caleb interjected easily, his arm slung casually around Elsie and an expression on his face that said he was used to being the center of attention. “I know the owners here. That, and I’ve spent a hell of a lot of money here over the years, so they can deal with a little bit of noise.”

“Caleb!” Elsie exclaimed, laughing, blushing, and punching him in the arm all at the same time. “Seriously?!”

“What?” he asked sheepishly, wearing the expression of a man that was more than used to getting into at least a little bit of trouble for the things he said. “What did I do?”

“Oh nothing, I was just wondering if anyone ever tried to teach you not to brag about your money.”

“Darling, you should know by now that they have. You should know that and also that I’m almost impossible to teach.”

“Oh, believe me, that’s something I’ve had the great misfortune of learning for myself.”

Caleb laughed, another easy sound that Weston couldn’t help but feel envious of, and he pulled Elsie in closer to him. He kissed her deeply, as if there weren’t any other people around him to look at what he was doing. When she tried to pull away, her face blushing even more intensely than it had been before, he only gripped her more tighter, actually laughing while he continued the kiss. Weston felt a burning in his own cheeks and cleared his throat, hoping to God that his lack of comfort wasn’t as apparent as it felt to him. There was something about the easy romance between Caleb and Elsie that made him feel hot under the collar. It made him jealous of something he didn’t even know he wanted. After losing Bri, he’d been sure that he would never be with another woman again, not even because he would feel like it was disloyal, but because he wouldn't want any other women. In seven years that had always been the case, but watching Elsie and Caleb while sitting beside Clara, part of him wasn’t so sure. There was a part of him that wanted Clara very badly, and the more time he spent around her, the truer he was finding it to be. It was distracting, and he wanted to smack himself for it, which only made things worse, harder for him to handle. All of his energy needed to be focused in on figuring out who was trying to hurt her and putting a stop to it, which meant there was less than zero time to devote to developing some kind of high school crush on the girl he was supposed to be essentially working for.

“Are you okay?”

“Hm? What?”

“Sorry,” Clara answered quietly, her face flushed as well, which for some reason made him feel a little bit better. “I was just asking if you were okay. My friends can be sort of a lot to take for some people, I think. They don’t mean any harm though, I hope you know that.”

“Never thought they did.”

“Okay, well that’s good. And with Caleb, the bragging is just kind of part of who he is. He’s honestly a great guy.”

“Clara, don’t worry about it. You don’t have to apologize for anything. You should honestly stop apologizing so much just in general. That’s the thing I would tell you if I was going to give you some unsolicited advice. It makes people think it’s okay to treat you like a doormat, and it shouldn’t be.”

“And what the hell are you two whispering about over there? And don’t say nothing because I can see on Clara’s face that it’s something.”

For a minute, Weston had almost forgotten that there was anyone there aside from him and Clara. He’d been too caught up in what he was saying and too caught up in whether or not she was actually hearing him to pay much attention to the people around them. There must have been something on his face though, or something in the tone of his voice, that made Finnley take notice because when he looked at her, he could see by the expression on her face that she was more than just casually interested in the conversation he and Clara had been having. Looking at her, he couldn’t tell if she was entertained by what she could hear of their conversation, or whether she was about to open her mouth and let him have it. Either way, the way she was looking at him made him more than a little bit uncomfortable. It made him want to get up and walk away, only doing that would be flat-out ridiculous. After all, he’d been the one to insist on this meeting in the first place. Getting up and bailing would only make Clara’s friends sure that he wasn’t the one to help take care of her, and for some reason that really, really mattered to him. For some reason, all of the little details of all of this mattered to him, and they mattered to him a whole hell of a lot.

“Should I not be asking questions?” Finnley cut in, clearly having no intention of stopping her questions whatsoever. “I’ve heard that from time to time although it never seems to make any kind of a difference.”

“Actually,” Clara answered hotly, her voice curt enough to get the attention of both Elsie and Caleb despite how completely enamored with each other they were, “I think maybe cooling it on the questions wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.”

“No,” Weston cut in, keeping his voice level in the way he’d both learned and come close to perfecting during his time on the force, “there’s nothing wrong with your questions, Finnley. In fact, yours are exactly the kind of questions I would expect a good friend to ask. I was only telling her that she needs to stop apologizing for everything, especially for things that aren’t her fault. I freely admit that I may have overstepped my boundaries, and you should know I’ve got no problem with you letting me know if that’s the case. I appreciate being told the truth, even when it’s not a truth I particularly care for.”

“Ha! Seriously? Did you really tell her to stop apologizing?”

“I did,” he answered calmly, making a point of mentally squaring his shoulder for whatever critique was about to come. “Like I said, I sometimes overstep my boundaries. Consider it an occupational hazard.”

“No!” Finnley laughed, actually clapping her hands in what looked suspiciously like delight. “No, that’s the thing. I tell her that all of the time. Like, literally, all of the time. She just doesn’t listen to me, or to anyone else for that matter, as far as I can tell.”

“It’s a hard lesson to learn, particularly for people who are sweet by nature.”

Finnley glanced at Elsie then, and Weston had to stop and ask himself if he’d gone too far. He was navigating this meeting by instinct and feel alone, and he was not so cocky as to believe that was a failure-proof plan. He watched the exchange of looks closely, waiting to see which way the tide of this thing was going to turn. Elsie nodded at Finnley, nodded at her as if the two of them had just had some kind of a silent conversation, and then Finnley turned back to look at him. He half-expected to see a look of anger there, anger or at the very least disdain, but what he found was something infinitely better. What he found was a smile and a look of approval, one so obvious it was enough to make even the now very-on-edge Clara Banks relax a little.

“Look, from what I heard, your partner was pretty much an asshole.”

“I’m not surprised. I love him, but I’d also say that’s a pretty fair assessment.”

“Awesome. So then I think you should know that it pretty much meant I was expecting you to be a gigantic jackass as well.”

“Again, not surprised. You would by no means be the first woman to make that assumption based on Vick. If I had a dollar for every time a woman decided I was an asshole based on something Vick did, I’d be a millionaire by now.”

Everyone at the table laughed, including Caleb, whom Weston had pegged as possibly being his most difficult sell. It was such a good reaction that nobody noticed the glance he got from Clara at that particular comment. Weston gave an internal groan and made a mental note not to mention money like that again. Chances were, though, she wasn’t likely to forget to ask him about his loft now, assuming that she had ever been inclined to do so. Just another piece of himself he was going to have to open up about, just another one to add to the list. From what he could tell, helping Clara was going to involve a hell of a lot more divulging of himself than he had planned on. It would definitely be more than he was comfortable with, seeing as what he was comfortable divulging about himself was less than zero. Still, Clara’s friends seemed to be more comfortable with him at this point than they had been at any other time in the afternoon, which was exactly where he wanted them to be. No, it was more than that. It was exactly where he needed them to be, if he was going to get what he wanted out of this meeting, that was.

“Okay,” Finnley laughed, clearly enjoying herself now and appearing far more at ease than she had when they had all gotten to this swanky bar thirty minutes before, “so then we’re all in agreement that your partner is kind of an ass. Is that safe to say?”

“No doubt,” Weston laughed, trying to ignore the little twinge of guilt he felt on Vick’s behalf. “That’s something we can all get on board with.”

“But you’re not quite like him, are you?”

“No,” Clara said softly, not looking anywhere close to in Weston’s direction as she spoke, but forging ahead with a look of clear determination in her eyes all the same, “he’s not. From my limited experience, he’s nothing like him at all.”

“Good,” Finnley nodded her head with Elsie nodding right along from where she sat beside the most outspoken of the three girls. “So then, you being here to help Clara, that’s not bullshit, is it?”

“Bullshit?”

“Yes,” Finnley answered dryly, one eyebrow artfully arched. “Bullshit. I believe you’re familiar with the word?”

“Well sure, of course. I guess I just don’t fully catch your meaning.”

“Finnley,” Clara spoke softly but with a surprising amount of force, enough to make sure that everyone stopped and listened to her and only her, “that’s enough.”

“I just want—”

“I know, but really. It’s enough. This whole idea of getting together, it was his, okay? He’s not even supposed to be helping me in the first place. His boss doesn’t believe there’s anything to bother with. He’s doing this even though it could get him in trouble, so let’s try not to give him the whole Spanish Inquisition treatment, alright?”

“Alright, alright. So then why don’t you guys tell us why we’re all here?”

Clara looked at Weston, her face so full of trust it was enough to break a man’s heart. When she looked at him, everyone else around the table followed suit so that it felt like everyone in the entire building was staring at him and waiting for him to say or do something worthwhile. He took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders back. This was what he’d been waiting for, and as easy as it would have been to just sit back and pretend the whole thing was only a social call, it was best to go ahead and get down to business. Weston knew better than anyone that time wasn’t something that existed in abundance in times such as these. The longer the person or persons after Clara were allowed to continue their operation without any kind of interference, the more brazen they would become. That was certainly never a good thing, but with Clara, it was more than that. The things that had been happening to Clara were already over the top and seemingly without regard to any kind of legal repercussion. If they were to escalate further, and Weston had no reason to expect that they wouldn’t, Clara was going to be in real, potentially fatal danger. What he wanted was to somehow convey that to her friends while simultaneously keeping from causing Clara to outright panic. How he was supposed to do that he had no idea, which only made it something to add to the ever-growing list of things he was pretty sure he wasn’t doing as well as he probably should have.

“Alright, fine. Let’s get down to it then, shall we? I gather that Clara filled you all in on what happened to her last night. Am I correct in that assumption?”

The three of them nodded while Clara seemed to sort of fold into herself, as if shrinking would make what had happened less awful somehow. He could see her fear returning to her in full force, which made him feel shitty—whether he liked it or not—but it also seemed to have driven home the seriousness of everything to her friends, and that made it just about worth it. Because now they looked scared too, and that was exactly where he wanted them. They needed to be scared. They needed to be scared so that they could make themselves even halfway as vigilant as he needed them to be in order to be able to maybe, just maybe, help protect the one they were all there for in the end.

“Good. I can see by the looks on your faces that you’ve been filled in. So what I want to tell you is that whatever it is she told you, it was worse.”

“Oh, hey,” Clara said quickly, that frenetic tone having crept back into her voice, “that’s not true. I told them the truth, Weston.”

“I’m sure you did, but I’m also sure you sugarcoated it. You’re just too concerned about making sure that the people around you are comfortable for that not to be true, and that’s where I come in. Guys, you need to know that she could have been killed last night. Not in a vague, all of us are going to die someday kind of a way, but really killed. I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that none of us think the things that have been happening to her as of late are coincidental.” He paused to see if there were any objections and then nodded in satisfaction when nothing of the sort occurred. “Good. So then here’s what I propose, and if anyone has any objections please, don’t hesitate to interrupt me. We don’t have time to play polite at this point. Everyone in agreement?”

“Hell yes,” Finnley spoke out, the expression on her face matching the intensity he felt in his heart, “and I have no doubt that I speak for my buddies here when I say that.”

“Good. So what I want is for Clara to stay with me. Not just for the night, but for the foreseeable future. I want her staying with me until we catch the bastard trying fuck up her world.”

“But why?” Clara asked quickly, her face blazing hot with embarrassment. “You never told me that. And it’s really not necessary, either. I can stay in my apartment.”

“No, actually, you can’t. It’s been broken into twice now, so we know that changing the locks isn’t doing any good. We also know that there’s no evidence of how the breaking in is happening, which means these guys are good.”

“Sure, but I could stay at a hotel or something.”

“Or with us,” Caleb chimed in, his arm slung more protective than ever around Elsie’s shoulders now that the conversation had gotten serious. “Believe me, Clara, Elsie would love to have somebody around the house other than me. I know it sounds hard to believe, but she doesn’t alway enjoy my wonderful sense of humor and boyish charm.”

“See? I could stay with them, at least for a little while. You really don’t have to have me stay with you.”

“Except that I do. No offense, Caleb, and no offense to either of you lovely young ladies either, but I don’t trust her being with anyone other than a cop, and since I’m the only cop that seems to believe that something is actually wrong here, I think it should be me.”

“No way!” Clara almost shouted, the panic in her voice beginning to sound like a very real thing now. “I can’t do it. I’ve already been in your way so much more than I should have been, and I’m not an idiot. I know I’ve got to be causing you all kinds of trouble. No way am I going to make it even worse by staying with you.”

“You need to do it.”

Elsie spoke softly, softly enough that it might have been easy for a different group of people to miss her comment entirely with the bar’s steadily growing crowd. Weston was pleased to see, however, that when she spoke up, everyone at their table turned to listen. He’d had a feeling from the moment they’d all sat down that she might just be the one to be the deciding factor in what they chose to do or not to do. Hearing her now filled him with a profound sense of relief, as if part of him had been waiting this whole time for her to tell him to go shove it up his ass before leading a coup where they all walked out and left him sitting there feeling like a total fool. Now he could see that his fear had been completely unfounded. Not only was Elsie not going to do that, but she was going to be the weight that helped swing everything in his direction. She might just turn out to be his strongest accomplice in this thing, and he felt another twinge of guilt over how little credit he’d given her at the beginning. Clara, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be nearly so excited to hear her friend’s opinion. Her face had begun to go white, as she listened to Elsie speak, and it looked a little like she wanted to just get up and bolt out of the bar, leaving them all behind and to hell with it.

“Elsie, come on,” she started, fully prepared to make a full argument as to why Weston’s suggestion was the most terrible one ever uttered. She didn’t get very far, though, because Elsie held up one hand, silencing her before she ever got a chance to get going.

“Clara, he’s right. He’s right, and you know it.”

“But I don’t!”

“You do. You just don’t want to admit it, not to yourself and not to any of the rest of us. I get that, but I also get that you can deny it all you want, and at the end of the day, it won’t mean shit. He’s trying to help you, and you know it. I know it, too. You need to stay with him, and you need to get on board with it quick because something tells me we’ve got a whole lot more to talk about today aside from this, and the more time you spend arguing, the less time we have to get down to business.”

Weston didn’t really expect her words to work, at least not immediately, but to his immense surprise, work was exactly what they did. Elsie had spoken—and that, as they say, was that.