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"And that's how I almost made DA" Jen finished her story, her body slacking in Matt's embrace. They sat in an armchair opposite Matt's couch that was occupied by Foggy and Marci.
Almost all of their double dates ended like that. All of them gathered in Matt's living room, coffee table littered with take-away boxes, lawyer-talk taking over any other conversation.
"You're brilliant" Matt whispered to her, kissing her temple lightly and squishing her body closer to his.
"Thanks, babe." she looked into his face, admiring the smile that stretched on his lips.
"If you stopped being so disgustingly sweet and focused for a second, you would learn that I also almost became DA" Foggy addressed cuddling couple.
"Leave them be, Foggy-bear" Marci interrupted him, before he had a chance to say more. "Matt was already there and you can tell Jen next time." She looked at her watch "We should get going."
"What time is it?" Jen asked her, reluctantly getting up from Matt's lap.
"10:30 P.M."
"Wanna split cab?" Jen asked them, grabbing her shoes and putting them on.
"Why would you want to split a cab with us, when you're already home?" Marci asked surprised.
"What do you mean?" Now Jen was surprised. Matt handed her jacket and helped putting it on.
"Don't you live here?" both couples were confused by this conversation.
"No, I have my own apartment?" Jen's answer sounded more like a question. "Why would you think I live hear?" Jen looked at Matt, searching for clues, but he only shrugged his shoulders when he felt her gaze on him.
"Because Matt is always going on 'we did this with Jen the other day' or something like that and with that much time you two spend together, we assumed you live together?" Matt got all red on the face at what Foggy said.
"No, I don't" he instantly denied, embarrassed.
"Yeah, you do. From all the stories I hear, even I gathered that both of you are shacking up." Marci had no mercy for Matt, his face getting more red with every second.
"Okaaay. It's getting weird." Jen murmured, still not convinced by what she was hearing. "So, do you want split cab or not?" she clapped her hands, as to clear the fog of confusion.
"Sure." the couple agreed and made their way to the exit.
"I'll see you tomorrow" Jen whispered to Matt, as he placed goodbye kiss on her lips.
"Hey Matt, could you give this to Jen?" he heard Karen from her office, as he made his way to his own, cup of hot coffee in hand.
"What is this?" he asked as he entered her space.
"These are some of the documents for her case. She asked me to dig something more on her client and the opposition. I tried my best to find something, but that is all I could find." she handed him manila folder.
"Yeah sure, but why give it to me, and not send it to her office?" this course of actions made little sense to him. Wouldn't it be faster to get it to her office?
"Why would I waste money on a courier, when you can give it to her at home?" Karen looked at Matt, surprise and confusion clear on his face.
"So, you want me to make a trip to her? I didn't plan to see her today, but I can make a detour." he shrugged his shoulders, careful to not spill his coffee. He was already busy changing his plans in his head to accommodate this, as he made his way to his office.
"Wait, what? What detour?" Karen's voice stopped him in his track. "Aren't you living together?"
"No?" Matt turned in her doorway, surprised at that.
"No? That's weird. I swear, one of you announced it some time ago." Karen shook her head. She was sure, that they did that. "Anyway, could you get it to her? It's important."
"Yeah" he left quickly, shaking his head at the bizarre conversation.
Harsh pounding to the the door woke Matt up.
Groggy, he made his way to the entrance, slight limp slowing him down. When he opened the door, he was greeted by winded Pug with "Where's Jen?"
"Good morning to you too, Pug. How can I help you?" replied Matt sarcastically. He wasn't in the best of moods, his body hurting after previous night on the Hell's Kitchen streets.
"Is Jen here? I need to talk to her urgently." Matt felt Pug leaning on his doorway, his breath coming in short bursts. "You have a lot of stairs here."
"Jen's not here." Matt answered. Maybe if she was here last night, she would have helped him with the aching muscle in his thigh, he thought to himself. "Have you tried her cell?"
"Multiple times. That's way I'm here. Hoped I would catch her before she left." Pug strained up, his breathing back to normal.
"Tough luck, but she wasn't here last night" Matt really wished he could get back to his bed. His leg was hurting more and more with every second. Maybe some pain killers would help. But where were they?
"Then where is she?" the surprise was clear in Pug voice.
"At home?" Matt really had enough of this conversation.
"LA?" now Pug was shocked. Jen didn't say anything to him about making trip to the other side of the country.
"What? No!" Matt was bewildered. Did Pug hurt himself on the way here? "She's probably at her own apartment. The one she shares with Nikki?"
"She doesn't live here?" Pug pointed to the space behind Matt's back.
"No."
"Oh. Okay." For a second they both stood in awkward silence, trying to process what just happend. "Sorry, man. For disrupting your morning" Pug apologized and left, without saying goodbye.
Matt only slammed the door behind the man, limping to the bathroom for the damn pain killers.
"You're heavy"
"And you're lying"
"Whatever" Jessica muttered under her nose, hauling Murdock's ass through the rooftop entrance to his apartment. As they made their way inside, she dropped him on his couch and rummaged through his mirror cabinet in bathroom looking for first aid kit.
"Under the sink." she heard him, as if he could read her mind. She grabbed it and came back to help patch him up.
When they were sure he wouldn't bleed out from his side, she asked "Have anything to drink?"
He only waved his hand at her, giving her free reign to snoop in serach of alcohol, to focused on his aching body to care.
Jessica had no problem with finding buzz, the scotch that Jen recommended to her in her hand. She had to admit the other woman had a really great taste when it comes to alcohol.
Taking a sip from the glass, Jessica looked around Matt's apartment. It mostly looked the same, until she focused a little more on her surrounding, making rounds around the place. She spotted reading glasses on the coffee table that definitely didn't belong to Murdock, there was also a woman's handbag discarded next to several pairs of shoes at the entrance door and when she had a look into his bedroom, she could see woman's clothing peeking from the wardrobe.
"You're done?" Matt's irritated voice stopped her from discovering more clues about his home.
"Missus not home?"
"Not you too" he groaned. "Why is everybody assuming that we live together?"
"Maybe because all the evidence is pointing to this conclusion?" was he dumb or something? Maybe he got hit too hard in the head in the fight? "And trust me, I know something about that. I'm excellent P.I." she grinned at him. He only shook his head at her in exasperation. They sat in silence, Jessica sipping on another drink.
"Did you thought about making it official?" she inquired.
"What? Moving in together?" he asked exasperated by her suggestion. "And what are you, love guru now?" she had to step on his toes, because he got more prickly than usual.
Why was it so hard for him to imagine that? To live with a woman, who was already half-moved in and loved him wholeheartedly? Jessica knew from firsthand experience that Jen loved this moron and from her observations of him, she also knew he reciprocated the feeling. His love-sick puppy face was disgusting to her, but she hoped he would realize his feelings sooner, than later.
"Whatever, you asshole. Just think about it" Jessica got from her place opposite him and placed her glass on the coffee table.
"We're not serious like that. We're just dating." his voice was meek, like he didn't believe his answer himself.
"Sure, whatever you say. Just don't miss your chance." she rested her hand on his arm and squeezed. "I'll see you around, Murdock" she said as a goodbye and left him with his thoughts.
"Oh shit!" Nikki screamed at the sight of Jen at the kitchen island.
"What? Why are you screaming? I can't look that bad" Jen pouted at her friend.
"What are you doing here?" Nikki was not prepared to find Jen in front of her.
"What do you mean? I live here!" Jen was not happy at the turn of the events this morning.
"No, you don't" Nikki waved her hand with the spoon full of yogurt she was having for breakfast.
"Yes, I do. Don't you remember that we are sharing this apartment?"
"Do you?" Nikki redirected the question.
"What does that mean?" Jen didn't understand anything. Maybe she should have drank coffee, before this conversation started?
"Do you remember that you live here? Because last I checked, you didn't, because you spent almost a month living somewhere else." Nikki raised her eyebrow at Jen, daring her to contradict her. It was lost on her friend, because she was too busy making herself bowl of cereal.
"No I didn't." Jen replied, mouth full.
"Girl, the last time I saw you here, was right after the disaster that was Thanksgiving. And poof! You were gone like that, till now!" Nikki adored her friend dearly, but sometimes... she just couldn't deal with her antics. "Jen, I love you, but you need to figure out this situation."
"Whatever." Jen groaned into her cereal, not ready to think about her living situation.
"Hey, could you bring me my favorite sweater?" Jen requested from Matt's couch.
"The ugly one?" he replied, already rummaging through his wardrobe. His hands ran through the hangers, palms feeling all the materials and different types of clothing. His suits, her dresses, his hoodies, her t-shirts. He finally reached into the back and found the item he was looking for.
"Yeah, this one!" she rejoiced at the sight of her ugly christmas sweater in his hand. "And hey! How do you even know it's ugly?"
"I can feel it" he told her simply. He grabbed her legs and pulled, scooting her over and making place for himself to sit. Jen quickly put her sweater on, as Matt sat himself and cuddled to her.
"You can feel it?" she squinted her eyes at him, not believing him at all. "If that was true, you would have never wore that atrocious ketchup and mustard Daredevil costume." She knew the reasoning behind the color choice, but that didn't excussed how bad it looked. And she liked to tease him about it. "So who told you my sweater was ugly? Hmm?" she jabbed him with her finger.
"Okay, okay!" he grabbed her hand to stop her attack and left a kiss on her palm. "Foggy had my phone in his hand, when you sent me our christmas pictures." he relented.
"How bad the teasing was?"
"So bad" he made his puppy face at her, hoping she would have mercy on him for the teasing. She only kissed him on his nose and snuggled back into his arms.
They'd got back to NY yesterday and decided to spend New Years Eve with each other in comfortable space of his apartment. Their friends tried to get them to go out, but both of them had had enough of human interactions after Christmas with Jen's family. They needed a little breather. Some time just to themselves.
And Matt needed a little time to think things over. With the constant invasive questions asked by Jen's relatives, Matt remembered his conversation with Jessica that had place some time ago. It got him thinking. About his time with Jen, the state of his apartment and their friends reactions. How all of them though that he and Jen lived together long before they even said 'I love you's. Come to think of it, theirs friends assumed a lot about their relationship. Or did they saw everything before both of them realized? But if it was so obvious, why not make it a done deal and just live together?
Matt took his surrounding in, their mixed smells filling the air around them and their mixed belongings laying all over the apartment suggested to him that they kind of already lived together. They just had to make it official.
"Move in" words slipped out of his mouth, interrupting Jen's reading.
"What?"
"Move in with me"
She turned in his embrace, facing him "What brought it on?"
He shrugged his shoulders at her "I don't know. Maybe it's all the time we spend together, or our friends and family's suggestions, but I'm not opposed to the idea of having you here all the time" he smiled at her.
They sat in silence, only their hands touching, as Jen thought his proposition over. Rent would be cheaper, travelling expanses would be slashed by half. She looked around his living space and noticed how much impact she made on it. It already looked like they lived there together. And what Nikki said to her before their trip west coast reverberated in her head, helping her make the decision.
She turned to him and looked at his hopeful expression, joking "So what, new year, new living space? And here I hoped that I wouldn't have to move again"
His face dimmed a little at her joke, but if he could convince her of all the perks, maybe she would change her mind. "If you don't want, we don't have to. But it would be more convienient. For example, we..."
Jen stopped him, before he started ranting by placing her hands around his face and caressing it. "Hey, there's no need for the whole spiel, I'm already in"
"Yeah?" his face was beaming with happiness.
"Yeah" she kissed him softly, happy at her decision.