Archive of Our Own

A Sweet Divulgence
Part Eight of the Mutually Assured… Series

Nick wanted to argue with Hank that it was less him being a softie and more about Hank being a hardass, because how anyone could look at those two homeless kids, Gracie and Hanson, and not feel sorry for them, not want to do something - anything - to help, was beyond him. And it wasn’t just Gracie and Hanson. Their latest case was showing Nick a side of Portland even he had been oblivious to… and he saw more than most. He wasn’t an idiot. He knew that runaway teens were a thing. But he’d always assumed they were only found in the bigger cities, in the places where people with big dreams went.

Of course, now he realized that of course homeless youth were everywhere. If they couldn’t afford a home, it was a likely conclusion that they also couldn’t afford the fare to get to those places like New York and Los Angeles. And it wasn’t like only those cities had kids with problems. Kids like that could be found in places big or small, near and far. Hell, if it wasn’t for his Aunt Marie, Nick himself would have been one of them. So, his lack of awareness about Portland’s runaways - the city he swore to serve, and the population that perhaps needed his protection the most - had simply been willful ignorance. But those blinders were off now.

However, in seeing Gracie, and Hanson, and other kids just like them clearer, Nick also realized that he was better off just keeping his mouth shut in regards to his partner’s attitude. Hank didn’t need to become emotionally invested in their witnesses to care about solving their latest murder case. Besides, if Nick questioned his lack of sympathy, Hank might push Nick harder on the abundance of his, and that just… wouldn’t be good for any of them. Because, if Hank got a whiff of what was really causing Nick to identify with the teenagers - and it wasn’t being orphaned at the age of twelve, he wouldn’t let up until Nick told him everything.

And Nick really didn’t want to tell him everything.

In fact, he couldn’t.

Well, at least, not without either putting his partner’s life in even more danger or making him think that Nick himself was certifiably insane. Or both, actually.

There were two people who Nick could talk to, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to admit what was going on to them. Plus, he had the excuse that the timing just wasn’t right, that the opportunity had passed and now things would just be revealed naturally without any unnecessary dramatics. On the evening of Monroe’s attack, he went to the Blutbad’s house with the intention of talking to his friend and… whatever Adalind was to him. But then Adalind wouldn’t let him get a word in edgewise… and for good reason, seeing as how Reapers had gone after Monroe, and then things had been weird - well, weirder - between him and the Hexenbiest, and Nick ended up swallowing his reluctant admission that the two of them had been right and that he had just broken things off with Juliette.

Now, two weeks later, he was living out of his Aunt’s trailer - actually, calling what Nick was doing living was far too generous; he was… managing, and no one in his life - not Hank, not Wu, not Monroe, and certainly not Adalind - knew about it. He was either coping better than he thought, or he really needed to find some better friends. Nick showered at work, and he washed his clothes at a laundromat, and he’d gotten pretty good at heating up canned soup on a hot plate, but none of that a home made. And he wasn’t just talking about having a stable roof over one’s head. For Gracie and Hanson, the trailer would be the epitome of luxury after living on the streets. No, what Nick was talking about was the emotional security of knowing where you belonged, of having someone to go home to. Maybe he had a safe place to sleep at night, and he had the means if not the time to find himself something more permanent than the Airstream, but Gracie and Hanson had something Nick didn’t as well: they had each other.

That didn’t mean that he regretted his decision to end his relationship with Juliette. In fact, with the benefit of hindsight, Nick could now see that he had allowed the farce to continue far longer than he should have. It hurt to think of what he had shared with Juliette in that way, but once he found out that he was a Grimm and that there was this whole other world out there right beneath the surface - a world she couldn’t see and shouldn’t, now wouldn’t, know about, dating her simply couldn’t be anything more than a sham, because Nick had been pretending: pretending that he hadn’t changed, pretending that things were okay when they weren’t, pretending that he was someone he was not. A relationship like that could not be sustained. Hell, it wasn’t really a relationship at all.

The guilt Nick had felt after the Siegbarste broke into their home and attacked him morphed into frustration and even resentment when Juliette went after that license plate he called in by herself. Nick didn’t know if the people taking pictures of their house were Wesen or not. Given the woman’s reaction to Juliette, he suspected as much, but that wasn’t even the point. Nick was doing everything he possibly could… short of breaking up with her... to keep Juliette safe and isolated from his new reality, but then she went and inserted herself into what could have been a dangerous situation anyway. Yes, Nick had told her he would check out the address and hadn’t, but multiple homicides trumped paranoia and possible surveillance; and, true, he had been lying to her for months about who he was, and what he did, and where he went, so there was no way for Juliette to actually understand the consequences of her actions, but that just brought Nick back to the real root of their problems: he was a Grimm, and she was Kehrsiete, and as Monroe and Adalind had told him time and again, mixing the two together was not a very good idea.

On a loop, those thoughts had gone through his mind during his drive back to the house from the crime scene that night, so by the time Nick put his Land Cruiser into park outside of the place he shared with his long-term girlfriend, his decision had been made. Determined or not, that didn’t actually make breaking up with Juliette any easier. Not only did it hurt - after all, he wasn’t leaving her because of a lack of love; quite the opposite, in fact, but she also didn’t understand. Well, actually, at first Juliette had thought he was joking. It wasn’t particularly funny, and he should have at least waited for April Fool’s Day, she’d said, but a gag had been the only thing that made sense to her. It was only after Nick convinced her that he wasn’t fooling around - that he was serious, and they were splitting up, and he was moving out - that Juliette’s confusion set in.

Without actually being able to tell her the real reason why he was leaving her, Nick had been forced to use a lot of cliches and euphemisms… which never went over well. It’s not you; it’s me. We’ve grown apart. This just… isn’t working for me. Of course, I still love you, but I’m not in love with you anymore. In the end, Nick had been forced to sprinkle his explanation with half truths in order to make Juliette realize that he was serious, that he wasn’t just having a quarter life crisis - from her lips to the Wesen community’s ears!, that he wasn’t going to change his mind; and to force her into accepting his decision. That hadn’t been fair of him. It took two people to enter into a relationship, and it should have been up to both of them whether or not and when their relationship ended. But they were either together or they weren’t, and Nick had finally accepted the fact - better late than never, though, right? - that he and Juliette simply couldn’t be together.

So, he admitted that, after his Aunt Marie died, he’d been thinking a lot about his family - both in the past and what he wanted for it in the future, and in doing so, he’d learned things about himself that made his old life, his life with her, something he didn’t even recognize. There were things about him that he’d never told her, and he didn’t want to tell her, so how could they remain together? He confessed that, in exploring his heritage, Nick had made some new acquaintances, even a new friend or two - people who weren’t like her and whom she’d never understand. Even if she was willing to try, he wasn’t willing to share them with her.

At that point, Juliette had been crying. She still hadn’t fully accepted the fact that they were over, but even if Nick had given in, and changed his mind, and apologized to her, their relationship never would have recovered from the things he had said. But he had pushed Juliette further still. He didn’t change his mind, and he didn’t apologize. Instead, knowing what he would be implying to her and the ideas he was about to put… or maybe it was acknowledge?... in his own head, Nick uttered the four words he’d never be able to take back.

And there’s this woman….

As he had intended, that was the death knell of his relationship with Juliette.

But how could he tell Hank… any of that? He couldn’t. So, he didn’t. Because even if Nick gave Hank the same reasons for the split as he had Juliette, Hank’s reaction wouldn’t be one of hurt, and loss, and grief; he’d ask questions. He’d want to know what was so important about Nick’s very dead relatives that he’d break up with the woman he’d been planning on proposing to just three very short months ago. Hank would demand to know who Nick’s new friends were, and he’d probably declare them bad influences sight unseen if this, the breakup, was the result of Nick knowing them. And Hank would definitely insist upon Nick telling him everything about the woman who Nick led him to believe had turned his head away from Juliette.

Nick didn’t need to try it - Actually, you know her. Adalind Schade? We saw her outside of a coffee shop on the day I picked up Juliette’s ring. And then we protected her during the Dunbrook murder case. And then you had dinner with her, but I only know that because she told me, not you. - to know that any conversation between him and his partner about Adalind would be a disaster. Not only was Adalind too close to the truth, but for reasons better left unexplored, he didn’t particularly like thinking about her relationship, whatever it was at that point, with Hank - forced and fake, though it may be… at least on her side, and he couldn’t imagine Hank reacting well to the revelation that Nick had a relationship, whatever it was at this point, with Adalind as well. They were both adults and relatively mature, but when it came to two men - competitive men - and the same woman? Nobody was that evolved.

Especially not in regards to Adalind Schade.

So, Nick bought the puka shell necklace, and he allowed Hank to tease him without comment, and he went about his day like nothing had changed in his life and like Hank’s remark hadn’t bothered him. His reward for his discretion and tact was inviting himself over to Monroe’s for dinner instead of yet another can of soup. The meal hadn’t gone according to plan - but, then again, when did anything ever?, and the two of them ended the night with Monroe in a ridiculous cosplay of a PI, buying powdered, human gallbladder. He wasn’t sure if the stuff would actually prove to be… an aphrodisiac - nor did he care or need to find out, but it certainly was a competent appetite suppressant, and Nick would not be dining at Monroe’s again anytime soon.

That said, he was really tired of eating out of a can. But it wasn’t until he was standing outside of the free clinic and looking at still more homeless kids that he decided, not only was his hot plate going to remain unplugged that evening, but he also needed to do more than give Gracie and Hanson twenty bucks for a necklace he didn’t want or have a use for. Even if he was a cop, Nick couldn’t very well go up to two teenagers and ask them to have dinner with him. Alone.

Dialing one of the two most called numbers in his phone, Nick waited impatiently for the person to pick up. It wasn’t so much that he was looking forward to talking to them or that they were taking too long. He was just anxious. He had been second guessing himself and his idea all afternoon. When he finally worked up the nerve to call, Nick just wanted the whole thing to be over with as quickly, not to mention as painlessly, as possible.

On the fourth ring, she greeted him with a huffed, “what?” Even over their cells, he could hear the exasperation in her tone, and he suspected that she’d been rushing to search through the things in her bag in order to find the most recent burner phone he’d given her. Plus, if Nick didn’t know better… which he did, he would have said he also heard a note of eagerness as well. “No, let me guess. Did an Eisbiber chip a tooth?”

“Excuse me?”

Adalind ignored him. “Because you really seem to have a thing for Wesen rodents and vermin. There have already been Reinigen and Mauzhertz. I just figured it was only a matter of time before you wanted my help to deal with beavers as well.”

Mentally, Nick made a note to look up Eisbibers later that night when he returned to the trailer. In the meantime, however, he took pleasure in letting Adalind know that she was wrong. “Actually, I’m not calling about a case at all.”

“You’re not?”

“Well, I mean, there’s a case,” Nick admitted.

Adalind fired back at him, “ha!”

“And the reason I’m calling is technically related to the case, but it’s not about the case, and I’m not asking for your help with it.”

“Really?” She sounded both surprised and disappointed, the latter of which was odd and astonished Nick in return. “So, why did you ring my Grimm-phone?”

“I thought maybe you’d want to grab some dinner later?”

Incredulous, Adalind asked him, “ together?! ”

“No, you eat on your own, and I’ll eat on my own, and then I’ll call you back afterwards, and we can talk about it,” he snarked.

“Well, you have to admit that this is unprecedented, Nick.”

He shrugged even though she couldn’t see him. “We’ve had drinks together before.”

“At Monroe’s!” Realizing what she just said, Adalind wondered, “or is that what this is, too? Are we having some kind of team dinner?”

“No!,” he might have been too quick to answer her, because the silence on the line told him that Adalind was demanding further explanation of his rapid and rabid response. “It’s just, after the whole Gallenblase fiasco last night, Monroe and I will not be sharing a meal together again anytime soon.”

“Just to hear that story alone, yes, I’ll have dinner with you tonight.” She didn’t know exactly what she was laughing at, but Adalind was already amused by the teaser Nick had given her. “But it needs to be somewhere discreet, Nick.”

This time, it was his turn to roll his eyes. “You do realize that you’re starting to sound like a broken record?”

“And your car can’t be seen too often outside of my house, so you probably shouldn’t pick me up either.”

And Nick couldn’t depend upon Adalind meeting him at the diner he had in mind - a place downtown and close enough for Gracie and Hanson to walk to and be comfortable in while still serving delicious food, because as soon as he gave her the address, she’d cancel on him. “Why don’t we meet somewhere neutral and go from there? That way, we’ll have a chance to talk freely without needing to worry that someone will overhear us.”

“Hmm,” Adalind considered. “Powell’s Books?”

Between the normal traffic in that part of the city plus all of the extra tourist bodies, Powell’s was perfect. If Nick didn’t have some very exciting reading up on Eisbibers ahead of him, he’d be tempted to go a few minutes early and pick up a few new books, because with no television out at the trailer… or power for that matter, his evenings when he didn’t have a case were pretty damn quiet. “Let’s say 5:30?” That way, Powell’s would still be open, and there’d still be some light for Gracie and Hanson to find the restaurant.

“I’ll be there. With bells on,” Adalind added, teasing him.

“Just as long as you’re wearing more than bells, that’ll be fine.” The flirtation reminded Nick of something important, however. “Oh, and Adalind? This is not a date.”

“Obviously,” she dismissed. “If I had thought it was a date, then I would have suggested we skip dinner and just indulge in dessert.”

Right. Yeah, Nick wasn’t touching that one. “Also, where we’re going isn’t one of your… usual haunts.” Nick wasn’t going to tell her about their dinner guests - he owed her that and so much more, but he wanted to irritate Adalind, not insult Gracie and Hanson. If Adalind went into the meal expecting fine dining, then that would be awkward for all of them but especially the runaway teens.

“You don’t know what my usual anything is, Nick.”

“I know you had dinner at Clarklewis,” he reminded her, unwilling to let his point go.

“Ah, but that’s one of Hank’s haunts, not mine.” That reminder - of the particular semantics of her meal at Clarklewis - he could have done without. “And we already agreed that we’ll be discreet.”

“Not just discreet, Adalind. Casual, too,” Nick insisted.

“Coming from you, I find that mildly terrifying.”

“Why,” he chuckled. “Because I’m a Grimm?”

“No. Because you dine out on a cop’s salary.”

“A detective’s,” he tried to correct. But it was already too late, because Adalind had ended their call.

----------

Nick didn’t get out of the car, and he didn’t open Adalind’s door for her, and he even honked the horn to alert her of his arrival. Because, as they had agreed on the phone, their dinner that night was not a date. But, if he checked her out when she climbed into the passenger seat of the Land Cruiser, he felt like looking was acceptable. Just a few short months ago, she would have been more likely to make a meal out of a Grimm than she would have been to split an appetizer with him. Plus, it was Adalind. She begged to be checked out.

“ That’s what you consider casual?”

Adalind looked down at her ensemble with a frown of confusion. “What? I’m wearing jeans.”

“Yeah. And more leather than a sectional sofa,” Nick needled her.

Adalind gasped in outrage, and he laughed, pulling them out into traffic. “My boots are Alaia. Do you even know what that means?” He shrugged, grinned, but didn’t actually reply, allowing Adalind to have her little fit. “And this,” she protectively hugged her motorcycle jacket. It was shorter in the front than the back. Nick was pretty sure it was called a peplum, but it just made him think of a mullet, an opinion he decided it wise to keep to himself. “... and my clutch are both Alexander McQueen!”

“The skulls seem a little on the nose,” he nodded towards the knuckle duster on her purse.

“They’re not just made for Hexenbiests, you know,” she snapped. Out of the corner of his eyes, he watched as her glare turned into a frown. “Unfortunately,” she mumbled more to herself than actually to him. In Adalind’s defense, Nick had to admit that she at least wasn’t wearing any diamonds or watches that cost more than his car. He was going to let the topic drop when Adalind justified, “besides, you should just be happy they’re made of cows and not Fuilcré.”

“Is that actually a thing,” Nick wanted to know.

Without answering him, Adalind continued to defend her sartorial choice. “And I’m not about to take fashion advice or criticism from a man who drives around with a puka shell necklace dangling from his rearview mirror!”

“That’s new, actually,” he told her brightly. “It cost me twenty bucks.”

She snorted. “Somebody saw you coming!”

“The money also bought me some information for the case I’m working on right now.”

“Like I said, you were had.” Before he could respond, Adalind added, “you’re a Grimm. When are you going to realize that, if you need information, you can just beat it out of people?”

“The teenage girl who made that necklace wasn’t Wesen, and even if she was,” he talked over her when she went to interrupt, “I can’t just go around assaulting every witness I encounter.”

“But you’d at least like to, right,” she inquired hopefully.

Instead of responding to what he really wanted to believe was a rhetorical, insincere question, Nick said, “we’re actually having dinner tonight with the… designer… behind that piece. And her… business partner , so you’re going to need to play nice. If that’s something you’re even capable of.”

“You’d know for yourself just how nice I can be, Nick, if you’d actually play with me.”

He nearly choked. “Jesus, Adalind. They’re just kids!”

Although she was silent for a few moments, he could feel her penetrating gaze drilling into the side of his face. After several beats, she finally said, “we’re meeting a couple of homeless runaways from your case, aren’t we?”

Nick whipped his head to the right to stare at her. “How did…? Did Hank tell you?”

“What, no,” she immediately denied, appearing both confused and aggravated. Believing her, it was only then that Nick looked back at the road. “Of course not! I haven’t seen or talked to Hank in almost two months. It was one meal, Nick. And it wasn’t even my idea.”

“Yeah, one meal until you’re told to ask him out again. And what will it be next time: just another dinner… or more?” He didn’t like the bitterness leaking from his voice and words, but he also couldn’t do anything about it either. It was how he felt. In fact, it barely scratched the surface on how he felt about the whole Adalind and Hank situation.

“Even if there is a… suggestion for another dinner, that doesn’t mean that I’ll agree to it.”

“Yes, because you’ll go through with an order to kill my Aunt Marie, but you draw the line at a second date.”

“Oh my god, she was already dying, Nick, and I didn’t go on a date with Hank!” Groaning in exasperation, Adalind asked, “how many times are we going to fight about this?”

“As many times as I need to move past it!”

“And that’s fair where your Aunt is concerned, “ she allowed, astonishing him. “But not Hank, especially not when you have a Kehrsiete girlfriend at home, yet I’m the one going out to dinner with you and two teenagers.”

The reminder of Juliette - both that she actually wasn’t his girlfriend anymore and that Nick still hadn’t told anyone about their breakup - was like a bucket of icy cold water to his simmering rage. Luckily, they pulled up outside of the diner just when it would have made sense for him to casually mention, well, actually, I moved out, and Juliette and I are over, giving Nick an out from the conversation he was dreading but also realizing more and more needed to be had.

Putting the old Toyota into park, he switched off the engine before twisting in his seat to face Adalind. “Just… don’t make them feel any worse about themselves than they already do, okay?”

Rolling her eyes but not dismissing his request, Adalind asked, “does this jewelry designer and her business associate have names?”

“They’re actually siblings. And their names are Hanson and Gracie.”

Adalind started to laugh, barely managing to say between giggles, “are you serious?”

“Yeah, why?” It wasn’t the first time Nick was confused by the Hexenbiest, and he knew it wouldn’t be the last, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed her amusement at his expense or towards his obliviousness anymore now than he had in the past or would in the future. “What’s wrong with their names?”

But she just shook her head before opening the door and climbing out of the car. “Nevermind,” Adalind announced over her shoulder. Before Nick could respond, she slammed the door closed and walked off towards the diner without him.

Suddenly, Monroe and the Gallenblase were looking more and more appealing - words that should never be thought of together but were nevertheless true in that moment.

----------

Dinner went well.

Perhaps even more shockingly, the kids actually liked Adalind, especially Hanson - Hanson who only put up with Nick because his little sister practically demanded his civility, but he laughed with Adalind; he smiled at her. And it wasn’t just because Nick was a cop and the other three at the table weren’t. Seemingly without even trying, Adalind had found a way to connect with the teenagers.

Nick had been worried, especially when, after stepping inside of the restaurant, Adalind unzipped her coat to reveal a cropped cashmere sweater, and he had assumed the runaways would take one look at the Hexenbiest and just… check out of the entire evening. But his worry had been for nothing. In part, Adalind’s easy rapport with Gracie and Hanson was based upon respect. She didn’t talk down to them, and she didn’t pity them while still acknowledging their situation. She spoke of their hardships with a frankness the kids seemed to appreciate even if she couldn’t personally relate. And she made no excuses or apologies for her obvious wealth, yet she somehow was able to relate to them anyway.

Adalind, apparently, understood parents who suck… or, at least in her case, a parent that sucked. While Gracie and Hanson elected to run away from home, Adalind threw herself into her education. Without lecturing, she encouraged the siblings to find a way to get their GED, reminding them of Portland’s public libraries and that colleges loved a homeless to undergrad feel-good story. And all of that bonding happened before she brought up boys and dating.

Sure, there were a few not so thinly veiled digs at his own romantic situation… or what Adalind still believed to be his romantic situation… and far too many come-ons to count, but she still was able to get the brother and sister to really talk, too. They told her about Steven, who was Nick’s vic, and Kevin, Steven’s friend and Gracie’s friend who also disappeared around the same time and in the same way. They told her about the work van, and the shelter they sometimes stayed at, and about how they didn’t just take Steven to the free clinic on 15th but went there themselves when they were sick. And because Nick was sitting beside Adalind during the entire meal, he heard everything they said, too.

After the kids split, Nick and Adalind lingered in the diner. While picking at what remained of their meals, he quietly told her about Monroe going undercover to buy some Gallenblase from The Spice Shop. The intention had been to tell her on their drive to dinner, but they had been… distracted. Wanting to linger in the comfortable companionship as long as possible, Nick also filled her in on his case and how it related to their Blutbad friend’s sudden splurge on pharmaceuticals. In the process, they were both calm enough for Adalind to finally share that she had known about the murdered homeless boy because of the news, not Hank. Out of self-interest, she’d always kept an ear tuned in to the Wesen community, but since starting to work with Nick, she’d also been paying attention to the rest of Portland as well, especially the reports of robbery and homicide… should they just so happen to relate back to him and then, in connection, her.

Adalind even advised him to take a second look at the clinic Gracie and Hanson had talked about, pointing out that, in order to harvest human organs, a person would need to have a working knowledge of anatomy and medical expertise. Who better to know who was the most vulnerable to the Geiers’ racket than the doctors who treated them? Plus, free clinics were free for a reason. They couldn’t exactly offer the highest of salaries. Right there, Adalind had proudly informed him, was his means, motive, and opportunity.

“So, I had this idea. You’ll probably think I’m crazy, and I admit that it’s going to sound kind of sudden, but part of it is something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about now since the Siegbarste case. All I ask is that you hear me out completely ,” Adalind stressed, “before you say no.”

They were slowly making their way towards his car, so Nick could drive her back to her own. “I’m all ears.”

“Actually, for a Grimm at least, your face is quite pleasingly proportional.” Nick didn’t lose a step as he turned his face to the side and scowled at her. Adalind laughed at him. “I think you should let Gracie and Hanson stay in your Aunt’s trailer.”

Feigning a need for clarification, he asked, “you mean the trailer with all of the weapons, poisons, and monster books?” It was starting to look like he had been an idiot to think he could somehow spend hours with Adalind and not be forced to admit his now single and practically homeless status.

“And that’s the part I’ve been thinking about for a while now. I get what you’re trying to do by hiding the Airstream in plain sight down at that storage yard, but the information and equipment inside of it is far too valuable to leave so unprotected. You should move it all into Monroe’s house.”

“I think Monroe might have something to say about that.”

“Oh please,” Adalind dismissed, waving off Nick’s objection. “He obviously loves clutter, and what could be safer than a literal guard wolf ?”

They were standing beside the Land Cruiser but neither of them made a move to climb inside. “So, you’re saying that a Blutbad is more formidable than a Hexenbiest?”

For his efforts, he earned himself an indulgent tilt of her head. “My decor doesn’t exactly scream Grimm kitsch.”

He grinned. “And Monroe’s does?”

“It screams something,” Adalind grumbled. “I thought it was repression, but retro Grimm works, too.”

“A more secure location for my Grimm things isn’t a bad idea,” Nick acknowledged. “But even if Monroe would want to house it for me, Gracie and Hanson still couldn’t live in the trailer, because it’s otherwise occupied at the moment.” At her confused frown, he finally confessed, “I’m currently staying there.”

“What, did you and the Kehrsiete get into a fight?”

Shoving his hands into the front pocket of his jeans, Nick looked to the ground - he really didn’t want to see Adalind’s next facial expression - and scuffed his boots against the pavement. “I guess you could say that. We broke up. I broke up with her. Two weeks ago.”

He expected the reveal to shock her into solemnity, but he also thought she’d gloat, not sound genuinely supportive and compassionate. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I was going to. In fact, I started to tell you that night at Monroe’s, but…,”

“Oh,” Adalind murmured, realization dawning. “I won’t apologize for being mad at you. I don’t care what else was going on, Monroe should have been your priority. And I won’t insult either of us by even pretending to be sorry that you broke up the Kehrsiete, but ,” it was at this point that Nick hazarded a glance up at Adalind. Her blue eyes were wide and earnest, her face open but not cunning or triumphant. “ But I am sorry if you’re hurting.”

“I’m okay,” he told her. And he was being honest. Okay might have been an oversimplification of his response to ending things with Juliette, but the transition from being in a committed relationship with her to being single had been much easier than he ever would have guessed. Being so busy with work helped, but so, too, did the fact that, even if they had technically still been together, their relationship had really been over for months. It had just taken him that long to realize and admit it. “My back is a little sore, though. That old sofa in the trailer isn’t exactly tempurpedic.”

For his efforts to make light of the recent changes in his life, Adalind offered him a small, indulgent smile. “Monroe being injured and me jumping all over you… and not in the fun way… explains why you didn’t say anything about the breakup two weeks ago, but why haven’t you tried again since then?”

“Well, for one, I was already newly single. I didn’t particularly relish hearing ‘I told you so’ on top of that.”

“Hey,” she held up her hands in self-defense. “Have you heard those words leave my lips?” Then she snickered, totally ruining any innocence she might have been feigning. “Although, I totally told you so.”

For two weeks, he’d been putting off that very moment. Now that it was here, and now that it had happened, Nick had to admit that it really wasn’t that bad. “I think I just needed some time to process the breakup on my own, you know?”

“I mean, not really,” Adalind shrugged. “Obviously, I’ve dated, but I don’t actually date . I’ve never been broken up with nor have I broken up with anyone. So, when you tell me that you needed fourteen days to process what I’ve always known and what you’ve recently acknowledged to be the inevitable, all I hear is that you wasted a fortnight we could have been sleeping together.”

This - Adalind outright propositioning him instead of just alluding to the two of them being together - might have been another reason why he’d kept the end of his relationship with Juliette a secret. “I didn’t break up with Juliette to be with you, Adalind.”

“And I’m not asking you to go steady, Nick,” she mocked him. “And I have plenty of my own coats; I don’t need your letterman jacket. What I’m suggesting is that, instead of sleeping on a small, lumpy couch in the trailer, you can come over and not sleep on my very big, very expensive, and very comfortable bed with me.”

“Just because I’m single doesn't mean that I’m going to have sex with you now.”

“Well, that’s your loss,” Adalind sniffed. Though the remark was said casually enough, Nick could still sense her bafflement towards his refusal to sleep with her. Obviously, it was a new experience for Adalind. Maybe she didn’t date , but it wasn’t because of a lack of interest from the opposite sex. He had a feeling he was getting yet another glimpse at the woman underneath the Hexenbiest and the result of the less than pleasant home life she had hinted towards during dinner with Gracie and Hanson. There was also a small part of him that wondered if her other partner had somehow also played a role in shaping Adalind’s unhealthy and unfavorable views on relationships.

Reaching around her, Nick opened the door and gestured for Adalind to get in. “How about I make it up to you by buying you an ice cream cone?”

“I prefer when my ice cream is served in more… creative ways, but I suppose a cone will suffice. For now.”

In response, Nick gently shut her door. As he made his way towards the driver’s side, rounding the front of the Land Cruiser, Nick couldn’t help but wonder for how much longer he’d be able to put Adalind off and deny her advances… or for how much longer he would even want to.