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"Stupid Jeep," Hailey mutters to herself.
The SUV was new for her and bigger than she was used to. She'd been a detective for a while now and the promotion came with an increase to her salary that she never did anything with, so she splurged. Told herself she deserved something nicer than her old sedan, something that would be better equipped during the harsh Chicago winters, that she deserved to treat herself.
The only problem was parallel parking was still a bit of a challenge. Even more so when other people couldn't park either.
"If you would have just pulled up a few more inches with the space you have in front of you, I could fit, but no," Hailey drones on with herself from behind the wheel. "You had to leave less space for whoever was gonna park behind you, didn't you? Asshole!"
She pulls up alongside a grey truck parked on the curb and reverses, turning her steering wheel quickly as she glances between her rearview and right-side mirror. She inhales and slams on the brakes, groaning again as she nearly hits the rear bumper of the truck.
"Goddamn it!" Hailey huffs.
She shifts into drive, ready to pull forward and try again when a rap of knuckles knocks against her passenger side window.
She whips her head to the right, raising an eyebrow at a man on the other side of the door, leant over and peering at her through the glass. She presses a button on the panel of her door and lets the window drop down, and he leans in, bracing himself against the open doorsill of her passenger side with a cocky smile on his face.
Hailey gapes at him and his brazenness.
Who the fuck?
"Need some help?" he asks, staring at her across the front seat with the greenest eyes she's ever seen. Bright and beautiful and captivating.
Hailey takes in the rest of his face; the freckles splattering his skin, the neatly trimmed scruff along his jawline, and the perfectly cropped and combed over hair at the top of his head. She swallows, her annoyance thins, a warmth spreading through her now as she stares back at him longer than she should.
How can one person be so ridiculously attractive?
"It looked like you were having trouble parking," the handsome stranger goes on when she stays quiet.
Hailey shakes her head, pulling herself from her thoughts and inhales deeply. Her annoyance bubbles to the surface again.
"I don't need help," she scoffs, rolling her eyes. She lifts a hand over her steering wheel and gestures through the windshield. "What I need is for other people to not park like an asshole and take up a space and a half when they park on the street."
The guy turns his head to the right and follows her gaze to the front of the Jeep. He snorts, letting out a breath of amusement, and runs his tongue over his bottom lip in an attempt to hold back another chuckle. It doesn't work.
"Are you…are you fucking laughing at me?"
"I — " he snorts again, nodding as he looks back at her. "I am. I'm sorry. Um, I think I can help you out with that."
Hailey raises an eyebrow at him and watches as he pushes off her door and stands up straight. He looks tall. She likes it. She shakes her head again quickly, as if doing so will rid her of the inappropriate thoughts she can't stop having for the handsome stranger. She was past the point of annoyed a minute ago and now she's — turned on?
What the fuck?
She follows him with her eyes as he steps away and they widen when she realizes he's heading to the truck she'd just pointed at. Her cheeks flame with a deep shade of tomato red.
"Oh, no. Please God, no," Hailey mutters, dropping her head back against the headrest.
She watches on with dread as he pulls a set of keys from his pocket and the lights of the truck flash as he unlocks it. He jumps up into the driver's seat and the truck roars to life, moves forward a couple inches, and a moment later the owner jumps down from the cab. He walks to the rear of the truck and leans against it, crossing his arms as he stares at her through the windshield. He raises an eyebrow, smug and challenging, waiting for her to make her move.
She scowls at him, not sure if she should feel embarrassed for calling him an asshole to his face or bothered by the fact that she is still very much turned on by him and his stupidly handsome face and the sexy stature in which he stands. He doesn't seem bothered by her at all, her name-calling or attitude. He seems to be enjoying it rather, and it sends her into a tailspin.
Hailey sucks in a breath and huffs it out as she shifts into drive and pulls up next to the truck again for another attempt to park behind it. She shifts into reverse, flips her wheel to the left, the right, and backs up into the empty space with ease.
She blows out a sigh, cheeks still flaming as she rolls up her window and kills the engine. She climbs out of the Jeep, grabs a duffle bag from the backseat, and ignores the Cheshire Cat grin the stranger gives her when he joins her on the sidewalk.
"You're welcome," he boasts as if he's just done her the biggest service.
Hailey's head lolls to one side though she's not impressed, or maybe she is, and she just doesn't want to show it. She shrugs a shoulder, throwing a flippant smile his way.
"I wouldn't have had a problem if you parked like that to begin with," she says.
"Wow," he drawls out, blinking quickly. "You're just a ray of sunshine, aren't you?"
She can tell he's hardly insulted as his smirk widens and it aggravates her. Is he — oh, he really is enjoying this. She thinks she got it right the first time.
Asshole. An arrogant, very attractive asshole.
"I'm the nicest person you'll ever meet," Hailey throws at him.
He shakes his head, letting out another laugh, and she shuffles her weight to her other foot, setting a hand on her hip as she stares up at him. His eyes shine brighter with where they stand on the sidewalk, the morning sun shining down over them.
Why is he so tall? I love tall. And those eyes? How are they so green? Jesus, Hailey! Get it together!
"If this is you being nice, I'd hate to see you on a bad day," he goes on.
He keeps his eyes locked on hers, the pair having a stare-down on the sidewalk until Hailey sighs in defeat and drops her hand to her side.
She relaxes her shoulders and softens her hard gaze, not sure why she'd been so defensive in the first place. It's not like she could park either. She twists her mouth, fighting the urge to smile at him. She loses that battle when he grins at her again with that same stupid look on his face.
"I'm sorry. First day, new job jitters. Thank you for moving," she says, adjusting her duffle over her shoulder. She points to the star clipped to his hip with her other hand, tipping her chin toward him. "You uh, you're a cop, huh?"
"I am," he says. He throws a glance over her shoulder to the building behind her, then sets his eyes back on hers. "Here at the twenty-first. Take it you are too."
"Yeah," she says, holding out her hand. "Detective Hailey Upton. I just transferred over from Robbery-Homicide."
He nods, his grin stretching further across his face as if he knows something she doesn't. It's another thing that bothers her. He shakes her hand and the warmth of his palm in hers bothers her too. It makes her flinch and makes her dizzy.
What the hell is wrong with me? Oh, yeah. I am so painfully single. That is what's wrong with me.
"Detective Jay Halstead," he introduces himself, pulling his hand back. "Welcome to twenty-one. I'm sure I'll see ya around, Hailey."
He replaces the smirk on his face with a softer smile, sweeter than the grins he has already flashed at her since they met, and steps around her. He leaves her on the sidewalk, completely oblivious — or maybe he's fully aware — of the fact that he's leaving her with too many thoughts buzzing about in her head.
He goes up the stairs and slips through the front doors of the district and Hailey stares after him, taken back by everything about this man she only just met not ten minutes ago. His cocky attitude, his smile, his stupidly handsome face, the swagger in his walk, the bright green of his eyes. Oh, those eyes. Dazzling and charming and emerald green and quickly becoming her new favorite color.
She waits a few minutes, takes a deep breath, and then shakes her head quickly. She should not be having such thoughts about someone she'll be working with, or at least someone she'll be working in the same building with. Co-workers are a no-no. That is her one rule. She tried that before and well, that didn't quite work out all that great for her.
Hailey rights herself and takes another deep breath as she heads up the same set of stairs and inside her new workplace. She is greeted by a sulky grey-haired woman at the front desk when she steps through the doors, a woman that oozes authority. The stripes on her shoulders make Hailey stand a little taller as the desk sergeant eyes her over the rim of her glasses sitting low on her nose.
"You must be the newbie," the woman says, unimpressed and with a sigh. She stands behind the desk and stretches her arms out, bracing her hands over the edge. "Welcome to twenty-one. I'm Sergeant Trudy Platt. You have paperwork for me?"
"Yes ma'am," Hailey says, pulling a file folder from the outside pocket of her duffle. She hands it over, shooting the woman a dimpled smile.
Trudy snatches the file from her and looks over the forms inside, the sulkiness lifting as she does.
"Robbery-Homicide, huh? Not too shabby. And I see you did a stint with Rafferty. Good police, that one," she says, more to herself than the woman on the other side of her desk.
"You know Jeff?" Hailey asks.
"Him and I go way back. Beat days."
"That was what, a year ago for you?"
The cheap shot at schmoozing gets a grunt of approval and the smallest flicker of a smile out of Trudy. She closes up the file and sets it down in front of her.
"Fast learner. That kind of flattery will get you everywhere with me," Trudy says, holding out a slip of paper toward Hailey, no bigger than an index card. "Use the scanner at the gate at the top of the stairs. You're already in the system. Good luck, Goldilocks."
"Thanks, Sarge," Hailey says, shooting her another dimpled grin and a quick salute before she steps away.
She climbs the stairs, those first day jitters returning and sending her stomach into a fit of somersaults. But then her mind switches gears and her stomach flips for another reason altogether and all she can think about are green eyes and a freckled face.
She can't help wondering when she'll see him again, if she'll even see him again at all, but she pushes those thoughts away as quickly as they came. She has a job to do. A new team to meet. A new boss to impress. She can’t be thinking about having a workplace romance — or at least, a romp in the sack — with someone in her district.
She comes off the last step, walks a few feet into the bullpen that will be her new stomping grounds, and then she halts in her tracks. Turns out she doesn't have to wait long at all to see the handsome stranger from outside.
He stands in front of a white board at the far end of the room across the aisle, a file folder in one hand and a marker in the other. He turns halfway, meets her eyes, and Hailey's heart nearly stops beating.
Emerald green. Cocky smile. Ridiculously attractive.
"You," Hailey breathes out.
Jay nods back at her with his shit-eating grin, trailing his eyes slowly up and down her body before looking back down at the file in his hand.
"Me," he says, glancing between the file and the board as he scribbles case details across it.
Hailey closes the space between them with hurried steps, mouth gaping, ready to fire off when a door to an office opens at the end of the aisle.
Her new boss steps out and walks toward them and his stoic face is a good reminder of why she's there in the first place. Sergeant Voight. She'd heard plenty about him in her old unit, and she had been warned even more of what it would be like working under him when everyone found out where she was going. She liked a challenge though.
"Upton! Welcome to Intelligence," Voight says with a gruff voice as he throws out a hand to her.
The two share a quick shake and Hailey gives him a tight smile, nodding toward him.
"Thanks Sarge. Happy to be here," she says.
"You can take this desk," he says, pointing to an empty desk to her left, and then he glances between her and Jay. "I see you've already met Halstead."
She throws a glance to the guy at her right and nods, her eyes catching his as she says, "Yeah, we've met."
"Well, get acquainted. You two are gonna be partnered up together," Voight says. He leaves them without another word and returns to his office as quickly as he came, closing the door behind him.
Hailey makes her way to her new desk and drops her duffle down to the floor beside it. She spins around, her ponytail whipping behind her. She sets her hands on her hips and her eyes on her new partner. He's already looking at her.
"You knew?"
Jay nods. "I did."
"Why didn't you say anything outside?"
He shrugs, giving her another smirk that annoys the hell out of her and turns her on all at once and all over again. It bothers her more than it should, especially when she has no business thinking about him that way, and certainly not now.
"You were so cute all flustered and annoyed. Maybe I was hoping I'd get to see you blush some more," Jay says with ease and another flash of arrogance in his smile.
Their shoulders brush as he steps past her, giving her a whiff of his cologne that makes her head fuzzy. He drops down into a chair at the desk across from hers and sets those bright green eyes on her again.
"Welcome to the team…partner."
Hailey nods back at him with a forced, tight-lipped smile and takes a seat at her desk. She had arrived early for her first day wanting to get familiar with things and up to speed, but all she can seem to focus on now is the guy sitting across from her, the thoughts rattling her mind, and the glances he throws her way every few moments.
She can't help wondering if he felt it too. That instant buzz, the charge of something, the nagging of what-if for a complete stranger after the short conversation shared between them. If she could even call it a conversation.
He catches her looking at him and stares right back at her, their eyes locking on one another for much longer than two people should who only just met. Even more so for two people who will be working so closely together. He leans back in his chair, clasping his hands together over his stomach, and the move makes his t-shirt ride up just enough to give her a peek at a sliver of his torso. More freckles. Tight lines.
Fuck me. No, literally. Please fuck me.
Hailey swallows as she drags her eyes up to meet his and he gives her another grin, one that tells her he most definitely felt it too, that he knows exactly what he's doing, his eyes holding a silent challenge in them the same way they had outside.
Fuck.
The look he gives her is overwhelming and she feels dizzy all over again, something warm and painstakingly wonderful hitting her in the chest while simultaneously shooting straight down between her legs.
Well, shit.
This might be a problem, or it might just end up being the best thing to ever happen to her.