Meeting Me Halfway (HSMTMTS Fanfiction)

Chapter 28

Lachlan
"It's probably hard to..see this, but they think you did that to her." I explain.
  "Impossible. I-..I haven't seen her in 3 years. There's no way I could've done that!" He shouts, causing eyes to wonder.
  "You need to calm down." I adjust myself. The ground's more uncomfortable than I thought with these pants. "They don't know that. You need to understand that that's the fact."
  "Where did.." he looks and shuffles around in his chair. "Where is she right now?!"
  "She went and she said she had to d-"
  "You just let her go!?"
  I sigh and close my eyes in frustration. I calm myself.
  "Yes. I did. She's not a child Richar-..Ricky. I'm sure she can handle herself"
  "She can handle herself fine but can she protect herself?!" He waves the photo in my face.
  "Calm down!" I take the photo out of his hands. "Listen. Your going to be held here for about 3 days. In that time, I'll keep Nini safe and I'll find a way to get you out of here. Do you have any people that I can possibly contact while your here?"
  "Um. My mother, but she's in Chicago right now." He slouches once again.
  "And your dad?"
  "He's Uh. He's here? He's in jail because of assault.."
   I couldn't help but laugh.
  "Okay gee. Can you not? Can you not do that?"
  "I'm sorry but that." I point at him. "That just lines up all too well."
  He gives me an annoyed look.
"Why are you helping me?" He questions, eyes watery.
"What?"
"A guy like you wouldn't just..find someone and say that you believe them. See what if I was Ted Bundy?"
"Well are you Ted Bundy?"
"No?"
"Then your fine. And I'm doing this because from the way that Nini looked at you." I pause. "It was clear you were innocent."
  He nods his head and stare at me blankly.
"Also," I begin, "on her ID, it says her name is Nina?"
"It's a long story..."
  I stare at him before standing up.
"I'll check up with you occasionally. Just...don't fuck yourself up. Alright?"
  He nods and it was almost like a cue for me to go back to work.

7 Hours of patroling and paperwork later

  I click the mouse constantly as I read the info on Ricky. It just seems so normal. A good guy with a good background and nothing too serious. Just a guy in college.
  "Hey.." I hear as a someone taps on my shoulder. I turn my chair around and see Nini, in a hoodie.
  "Ah. You found out that you left your shirt here. You got a new one?" I spin my chair back around.
  "Borrowed."
  "Y'know," I check my watch. "Your 40 minutes early."
  "How long do you think I can just stay out? I already did what I needed to do and I'm not just gonna stand out there in the freezing cold."
She sits down on the couch that she laid on before.
"I'll just wait. It's not that big of a deal."
  "Uh huh?" I hum, staring at my screen. "What's your battery percentage?"
  In the corner of my eye, I could see her check it and her face told me everything.
  "Yeah. That's what I thought."
"Whatever. Where did they take him?"
"They're holding him here for 3 days. I've already contacted his mother and he already has his hands on a lawyer."
  It was quiet for an uncomfortable second.
"Your worried." I turn my chair back to her. "Aren't you?"
"Who wouldn't be?" Her voice was soft and desperate. I couldn't imagine anyone doing anything to her. She's too precious. "My best friend...in jail..for something he could never do? Yeah. I'm worried."
  She rolls her eyes before positioning herself comfortably on the couch.
"What are you doing?" I question.
"What else am I going to do while you work. Just wake me up when your done."
I open my mouth to say something but I stop before I could say a word. I just closed my mouth and went back to working.

Nini
  "C'mon," Lachlan says as he shakes me awake. "Time to go."
  I sit up and look at the empty building.
  "Where is everyone?" I ask, voice raspy.
  "They left. Now it's our turn, c'mon."
  "Wait what?!" I slide my legs off the couch. "You said your shift ends at 11."
  "It does. Well, I make it. I like staying here longer than most. Now c'mon. Let's go."
  I roll my eyes before getting up.

  "Uhm. You..you have a nice place.." I say quietly as we enter his apartment. It was just a clean, beautifully designed and furnished apartment. Way better than the dorms at UCLA.
"Thanks." He takes out his keys and wallet and drops them on the table without much care. "I'll cook something up for us in a bit. I don't know if you ate or not but I'm going to make you food anyway."
  "I-" I shut up. He already took me in so I probably shouldn't complain. I just follow him.
  "Here follow me." He leads me to a second room. "You can stay here."
  "Does someone else live here?" I question, looking at the clean and neat room.
  "Uh no. The apartment just came with an extra room so I just cleaned it up since I started to get annoyed with it. Is this room fine with you?"
"Yeah no. It's great. Thanks."
He gives me a small smile and makes his way out.
  "If you need me, I'll just be in the kitchen."
  I sit down on the bed and take notice of the room.

Flashback
  "Hey. What's up." EJ says as he walks up to my locker.
  "Hey!" I knock down half of the books in my locker in a startled position.
"Sorry," he chuckles, "I thought you saw me coming."
  "It's fine. Uhm..do you need something?" I start picking everything up.
  "What? No. I just..wanted to talk? If I annoyed you last night with my ranting, I'm s-"
"No. No. Your fine. I stayed on the call with you for a reason." I close my locker. "Did you get much sleep after?"
"No, I just sort of. I don't know, hung there?"
  I knew I should've stayed on the call. "But it's cool. I got to think, which is something I clearly never did with you."
I give him a weird gaze as we continue walking slowly in the hallway.
"Okay..so I..yeah. I did hit you pretty hard with my..confession..this morning. Sorry if that sort of blew off what we have here. Y'know, a good friendship."
"Your fine. It was just a weird thing to hear at 4 in the morning. Your approach was..just like how it was at camp. Strong and straight forward. I liked it, but.."
"But?.."
"I tried so hard with Ricky. Both times and I feel like if I did a round 2 with you, I'd mess it up or do something extremely stupid."
"You? Nini please. I do it. I do everything wrong and you know that for a fact." We stop at my classroom. "I'm not going to rush you. I'm not going to bring it up until your ready."
  He gives me a grin before making his way off, and for a second, I want to follow him.

***
  "This tastes really good.." I say, trying to break the awkward silence as we're eating. "What's your secret?"
"No secret," he says with a smile. "Just got it from a mom who knows how to cook."
  It was silent again. The way he was, he just seemed so innocent. He's a good guy who knows how to cook, and who somehow trusts me enough to let me stay at his place.
  "I don't think we met properly uhm," he begins as he shuffles around in his seat, "I'm Lachlan Woodson and as you know, I'm an officer at the police station."
  I couldn't do anything except play along.
"Okay," I put down my fork. "My names Nini Salazar Roberts, which you probably already know, and I'm a college student at UCLA."
  "UCLA? That's a good place. Why there?"
  "It's been my dream since I was little and it just has such a good film industry and it's just full of talent." I explain. "I'm Uh..pretty lucky to go there."
  "That's good."
  "So..why did you want to become an officer?"
  God this is just too awkward.
"Well, I never did to be honest."
"What?"
"Yeah, I- Uh. I set out to be a scientist. Stuck in a lab doing what fascinates me, but in high school, it sort of went down hill." He soon places down his fork.
  "How so?"
"I was one of those guys," he explains, "those guys who would toy around and just slack off and go to party's and what not. I eventually somehow managed to graduate with a diploma, but it was clear no college was going to take me. So I fixed myself and went to the academy and I'm here now."
"And how old are you?"
"Twenty and 7 months, but who's counting?"
"Hm," I hum, nodding. "Your one of the younger police officers I've seen."
"Yeah?"
"Yup.."
"Y'know. When I first saw you, I thought you were at least 25 and for some dumbass reason, I was..sort of afraid? When I was approaching you."
  "25? Geez, I guess I age faster than I thought..."
"No I-" he chuckles, "then when I found out you were 19 I was star struck."
"A good star struck or a bad star struck?"
"A little bit of both."
"What!? Why?"
"No reason."

We talked the rest of the night, and may I say..I like this guy.

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