𝐍𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐎𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐬↠The Rookie

𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓹𝓽𝓮𝓻 𝓼𝓮𝓿𝓮𝓷

They were sat at a table outside at a bar in West Hollywood, it was a fairly busy venue at this time of night but the noise from the people around them was not all that distracting.

Tim had a glass of beer in front of him, it was his second one.

Florentina was drinking a glass of wine, she seemed content and a little more relaxed now that they were out of the woods and her bruises and cuts had begun to heal.

"So how are you feeling now?" Tim asked her, he had been wanting to ask her this question for a few days now but he had also been afraid of the answer.

"Fine, working on a big case, Mikey's been-"

"I don't mean the case, how are you feeling?" He wanted to make it very clear that this was about her and not anything else.

There was a brief pause before he added, "And don't mention Mikey, just tell me how you are feeling, okay?"

"It's hard, okay?" Florentina admitted, "I just don't feel safe anymore in my own house."

He took a sip of his beer as she spoke, hearing her say that she didn't feel safe in her own home was enough to make him ask.

"Is there anything I can do?" He asked her, feeling somewhat useless at the moment.

"I've got an Ikea shelf I'll need you to put up," Florentina says nonchalantly as she stares off in front of her into nothingness.

Now that's the response he could work with, he had been hoping that she would just let him be helpful in some way. Now at least he's got something concrete to go off.

"That's easy enough," he reassured her, the pat on her shoulder as he finished off his beer, "When do you want me to come over?"

"Don't know, it's not really urgent," She shrugged, making eye contact with a man who'd been staring at her all night from across the bar.

He glanced up toward the man, he was looking at Florentina with a very obvious smirk on his face, which was just enough for Tim's eyes to harden into a glare before he spoke again.

"He staring at you?" He asked her, his voice becoming much deeper as he saw the other man eyeing up his friend.

"I know him from court, he's an ass, always refuses a deal, even if it's in the best interest of his client," Florentina's eyes narrowed as she took a sip of wine.

"Then why is he looking at you like that?" He asked her, his voice still deep but now also laced with a thick layer of annoyance for the way this man was looking at her.

"Hell should I know."

"Well, can I go and ask him?" He asked her, the stare down between himself and the man across the bar was turning into what had the potential to be something much more than just an exchange of words if he didn't handle this correctly.

"What are you gonna do, ask for his number?" She said, "Don't worry about it, honestly."

"No, I was going to tell him to stop staring at you like that," he wasn't about to let some man in a bar ogle over his best friend like that, they weren't even dating and he felt as if it was already a slight to him just by him staring at her like that.