Good talk. See you tomorrow.

Jamie stood anchored in the center of his living room long after the slam of his front door gave way to silence. Eddie's farewell echoed in his head as he realized he'd been tonguing the last remnants of her taste off his lower lip.

Shit.

He'd thought about what it would be like to kiss Eddie again—many times, in fact, though he didn't like to admit it. Usually he focused on actually kissing her. Other times he replayed his own reaction to that first time outside her apartment, and he swore he'd do things differently if he ever got the chance.

Seriously—you should get inside? He still hated himself for that, even two and a half years later. He considered himself lucky that Eddie had only mentioned that night a couple times since. And she'd never given him shit about his less-than-stellar reaction to the whole thing. He figured it wasn't one of her proudest moments either, and they'd sort of silently agreed to squash that whole incident into the depths of their deepest, darkest memories.

Hadn't they?

God, she was a pain in the ass. He worked so hard to keep their partnership professional, their friendship platonic—and she just showed up tonight to admit her jealousy, lay out her feelings, tease him with that damn mouth of hers, and then leave?

He couldn't even find room in his brain to be a little smug that his jealousy quips had been right. The last five minutes left him with way too much else to process.

Their relationship was supposed to be simple. They were work partners. Full stop. And yet Jamie found himself craving her company off the job as much as on it. They rarely went a full day without seeing each other, even on their days off. For two years he'd chalked it up to the fact that they were best friends, and he thought he'd done a pretty good job of convincing himself that was all they were.

But Eddie's confession, and that kiss, had him questioning all that.

Letting out a loud sigh, Jamie made his way to the couch and plopped heavily onto the cushions. The world felt different now. I have feelings for you. Those five words shattered the safe little cocoon he'd built for himself. Years' worth of repressed feelings exploded their way to the surface, fighting past that mental wall that held them at bay, and he could feel the control slipping out of his reach.

He saw two options.

He could ignore everything that had just happened, accept Eddie's explanation for why she'd been so grumpy lately, and leave it alone. They would move on, business as usual. It might take him a day or two to rebuild that wall that Eddie had just torn down, but he'd make it happen. He'd file tonight right on top of their first kiss, another indiscretion that they'd laugh about down the road. They couldn't blame it on alcohol this time but he knew Eddie well enough to understand that jealousy lowered her inhibitions in a similar way. He'd graciously let her blame it on the shock of finding Tara at his apartment and then things could go back to normal.

But did he want things to go back to normal? He'd said so, sure, just like Eddie did. They didn't want to screw up their partnership. Done. Decision made. But that was before she strode across his apartment and pulled him in by the back of the neck to meet her kiss. That detail—everything she said, wordlessly, against his lips—made that decision feel like a lie.

That wasn't a kiss for a partner or a friend.

What it came down to was that Eddie's reaction to Tara kind of thrilled him. But still, he hesitated about the possibilities there. Could they ever move past partnership, friendship? Could they develop a new normal, one in which Jamie didn't have to torture himself suppressing his innermost thoughts about Eddie?

But that would be torture in itself, riding with a different partner. He really didn't think he could focus on his job if Eddie wasn't by his side. It wasn't just that tours would be dull and boring without the little blonde ball of enthusiasm to entertain him from the passenger seat—he had been fiercely protective of her since their very first tour. What started as a natural, nonspecific reaction to losing his last partner quickly grew into something particular to Eddie, something stronger that he couldn't quite identify. He knew she was a capable cop, but he wasn't ready to give up the important role he held in her professional life, even if it came with a tradeoff of the personal variety.

It was the worst catch-22 he could imagine. The solution hadn't gotten any clearer in all the time he'd wrestled with it. And tonight Eddie certainly hadn't helped.

Jamie's brain looped in fast, agonizing circles and he couldn't get a grip on himself long enough to really think. He wrenched himself off the couch, grabbed a beer, and turned on the TV in an attempt to drown out his own thoughts. Maybe later, when he couldn't still feel the ghost of Eddie's fingertips grazing along the hairline at the back of his neck, he'd be able to figure all this out. But until then, he'd drink.

"They're not mine, dude!"

"You hear that, partner?" Eddie smirked. "The drugs aren't his. Watch your head, dude." She caught Jamie's eye over the roof of the car as she reached up to the kid's head to tuck him into the backseat.

"Of course they're not his," Jamie said when Eddie joined him in the front seat. "They belong to his friend, weren't you listening?"

"They do!" the kid wailed, clearly not picking up on the sarcasm. "I was holding them—"

"He was just holding them!" Eddie mocked. "No worries! We'll just tell the DA and you'll get all fixed up. No problem!"

"Really?" the kid squeaked hopefully.

"No, genius!" Eddie snapped. "We found felony weight cocaine in your pocket when we picked you up for credit card fraud—you're in big trouble."

"I told you! The coke isn't mine!"

"We found it in your pocket." Jamie shot Eddie a look of exasperated amusement before turning back to the front and merging into traffic.

"Come on, that's a mute point. It's not mine!"

Eddie twisted in her seat so she could see their passenger. "A mute point?"

The kid rolled his eyes and his skinny, acne-scarred face went slack in annoyance. "Yeah, you know, a mute point. Like, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because the drugs aren't mine!"

"Okay, first of all," Eddie groaned, "we found them on you. Doesn't matter whose they are if they were in your possession. And second—the phrase is moo point. Moo, as in a cow's opinion. Not mute."

Jamie's eyebrows knitted together as he glanced at her over the console. She quirked one corner of her mouth at him as the lanky kid started whining again.

"Moo point? That doesn't make any sense."

"It makes more sense than mute. A cow's opinion doesn't matter," Eddie continued. "So you say it's a moo point."

"Huh," the kid said, as if he was considering her argument. He arched an eyebrow at Jamie in the mirror. "You sure it's not mute?"

"I am sure it's not mute," Jamie offered.

"And you know, he went to Harvard," Eddie said.

Jamie saw the kid's eyes widen as he cursed. "You guys. You gotta let me go," he said. "I'm on the track team at Wagner. If they find out about this I'll lose my scholarship! My dad will kill me!"

Eddie let out a dark laugh. "Losing your scholarship is going to be the least of your problems. Shoulda thought of that before you stole your boss's credit card."

"She gave it to me! I didn't steal it!"

"She gave it to you to buy coffee for the office, not to spend five thousand dollars on electronics for your apartment," Jamie pointed out.

"She never asked for it back!"

"You know what that is, kid?" Eddie asked. "That is a moo point."

She turned around in her seat so she faced the front again, catching Jamie's eye meaningfully as she did. He could tell he was missing something but he couldn't get past Eddie's wrongness about the phrase moot point.

Before he could rib her for it, though, their passenger started griping again. He begged and complained the entire trip back to the 12th without giving Jamie and Eddie much chance to inform him that the more he blabbed, the worse he made things for himself. It wasn't until they finished processing the collar and headed back out to the RMP that he finally got the chance.

"You know," he said. "It's moot point. Not moo."

Eddie choked out a laugh and set her coffee on top of the car so she could open the door. "Tell me you're not serious."

"Uh…"

"Friends? Joey Tribbiani? Moo point? Come on, that doesn't ring a bell?"

"Friends?" Jamie repeated stupidly.

Eddie's jaw dropped and her lips formed a perfect surprised O. She climbed into the car, muttering over her shoulder, "You can't be serious."

Jamie ducked inside too. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Haven't you ever seen Friends? The show?"

"Oh, Friends!" Jamie exclaimed in recognition. "I've heard of it, yeah, but never watched it."

"Oh my God, Reagan, do you live under a rock? You've never seen Friends? Well then, no wonder you didn't get the joke."

"What joke?"

Eddie groaned dramatically. "You didn't think I actually thought it's moo point, did you? Come on, I'm not stupid."

"Is it, like, a reference to the show?" Jamie asked slowly.

"Yes, it's a reference to the show," she sighed, as if it was a huge burden to explain. "The cute but dumb soap opera star says it. He says something is a moo point—it's a cow's opinion so it doesn't matter."

Jamie arched his eyebrows at her decidedly unfunny explanation.

"Ugh, it's hilarious, okay?"

"I'll believe you," Jamie shrugged.

"And it'll be hilarious when that kid meets his lawyer and tries to tell him that it's a moo point that we found the drugs on him," Eddie continued.

"Unless the lawyer hasn't seen Friends either, and just thinks the kid's an idiot."

"The lawyer's probably seen Friends. You're the only adult in this city who hasn't."

"No," Jamie scoffed. "I can't be the only one."

"Oh, you are," Eddie assured him. "And you really need to take care of that. You still have my Netflix account, right? It's your homework, Harvard boy—go home and watch the first six episodes after tour."

"Six episodes? I need to sleep, gear up for another day of putting up with you."

"It's a sitcom, Reagan," Eddie teased. "The episodes are like twenty minutes long. Get over yourself."

"Hey, that's two hours I could be—" Jamie started, but his phone buzzed loudly in the console. "Who is it?"

Eddie grabbed his phone and read the screen. "Erin. You want me to open it?"

"Go for it."

Eddie typed in Jamie's passcode and read aloud. "'Looks like my trial will drag on longer than expected. I don't think I'll be able to make the wedding.' Okay, what's this about?"

"She's the one trying that Wall Street banker shooting," Jamie explained. "Closing arguments were supposed to be Friday but sometimes that gets pushed back."

"No, no, no. What wedding?"

"Oh—my friend Paul Rokowski from the academy, he's getting married next week. It's why I requested Wednesday and Thursday off. Didn't I tell you?"

"You requested Wednesday and Thursday off? So it's your fault we're working all weekend?"

Jamie braked at a red light and turned to shrug apologetically. "My bad."

"Who gets married on a Thursday?" Eddie frowned. "And who takes their sister as their plus one to, like, a non-family wedding?"

"Not me, apparently," Jamie said.

"Why not a real date?"

"I don't know," Jamie stammered. "Paul's fiancée used to work for a judge and Erin knows her and—and who else was I supposed to bring?"

"Could've asked Tara," Eddie suggested, a dangerous flash in her eyes.

Jamie rolled his eyes and let his head fall back against the headrest. "Come on, Eddie."

"You have another chance now," she pointed out. "Want me to text her? I'm sure you saved her number…"

"I was helping her out. Nothing happened."

"So what, you're going to show up stag to this wedding, then?"

The light changed and Jamie pretended to focus on driving so he didn't have to answer right away. After last night's conversation he didn't like where this one was heading. "Guess so," he finally said. That seemed like a safe response.

He kept his eyes on the road but he could feel Eddie's gaze boring into him as she let out a long sigh. "Well, what do you want me to say back to your sister?"

"Just tell her it's fine."

A tense silence fell over them as Eddie handled his phone. Until now their tour had gone on as normal, with neither one so much as alluding to what happened last night. Jamie planned to leave it up to Eddie to bring up; she was the one who'd put herself out there and if she didn't want to talk about it anymore, he wouldn't force her. But he couldn't read her today like he normally could, and the weight of it all tugged at him mercilessly.

"Erin wants to know who you're going to find as a stand-in," Eddie murmured a moment later. "She says you need one since you RSVP'd a plus one."

"Right, because I have so many options, and everyone is free to take two days off work with a week's notice," Jamie grumbled.

"I'm not working," Eddie said casually.

Jamie shot her a cautious glance but she focused on his phone without looking up. "I don't know if that's a good idea," he admitted.

She finally met his eyes, a hint of a scowl on her face. "Why not? I'd make a good stand-in."

"That's not what I mean."

"What do you mean, Jamie?"

"I mean—if we're going to stay friends, then we have to just be friends."

"Who says we can't go to a wedding as friends?"

He had an answer—three months ago, when he first got Rokowski's wedding invitation, he'd actually considered asking Eddie to join him. But he'd talked himself out of it. Even then, even before last night, he knew how tough it would be to spend the better part of two days with Eddie without…slipping up. And the idea of slipping up in front of a bunch of cops nauseated him. So he'd opted to avoid that situation altogether.

"It's…" Jamie started, but words escaped him.

"It's what? If it's about what I said, Jamie—I meant it, but we agreed we aren't going to go that way, so… We're adults. I think we can handle going to a wedding as friends."

"It won't be weird?" Jamie managed. "Being around all the romantic wedding stuff?"

"It'll only be weird if you make it weird."

"Why would I make it weird? I won't make it weird."

"You're being weird right now."

"Am not."

"You are!" she accused through a giggle. "Look, Erin's right. It'd be rude to show up without a date. So do you want me to go or not?"

"Um, if you want."

"Wow, it's hard to turn down that invitation," Eddie goaded.

"I just—I don't want you to feel like you have to."

"I don't! And it's not going to be weird," she promised. "It'll be a good time, Reagan. I'm fun at weddings."

But that was exactly what Jamie was afraid of.