No Strings

Chapter 3

Christmas night, you stood alone in your apartment kitchen, waiting for the timer on the toaster over to beep. It had been five months since you'd started sleeping with a certain fiery Cuban A.D.A. You'd been happily continuing the "relationship", having no problem considering it was rather hard to try and find a date considering your hours, job, and suspect of practically every man you came by. Christmas was always a stressful time of year, there was always a million extra things to do, a million extra cases to try, and there was no way you wanted to deal with anything on top of work, so you'd decided to take things easy this year. You'd opted to stay in New York, and were completely happy with your meal for one and bottle of wine as you tossed yourself down on the couch, a marathon of your favourite Christmas shows on tv in front of you. Around 10:30pm, your phone began to ring, you eyebrows creased, confused as you'd already talked to your family, you turned down the volume on the tv before picking up the phone, a spread of warmth coursed through your veins when you realized it was Rafael.

"Hey stranger." You smiled as you answered, "Thought you'd be busy tonight." You knew his Mami and Abuela lived in the city, and figured he'd be spending the night with them, happy to be given a sliver of his time.

"I just got home, thought I might check on my favourite detective."

"You playing favourites now? And I thought Carisi would've won that one." He laughed lightly, glad to hear that you were in good spirits.

"How are you?"

"Good. Honestly, this time of year is crazy, I didn't need to deal with taking the tiny amount of time off I had to drive 5 hours to be berated by family for 2 days." You rolled your eyes, to say your family was demanding was to say the least, it had been a huge relief to finally get to New York and not have to deal with them all the time. You'd never been super close with any of them, and weren't in contact very often anymore.

"So what, you spend Christmas alone?" Raf felt a twinge of guilt, wondering if maybe he should have swung by your apartment on his way home.

"Please, you know I've got a nice bottle of wine to keep me happy." You laughed, taking another sip, humming in content.

"Naturally." Rafael mused, taking a moment of pause, "Merry Christmas Cariño."

"Merry Christmas Rafa." You replied quietly, a smile splayed on your cheeks, "Thanks for the check in."

"Anytime."

"I'll see you next week?"

"Of course." He replied softly, glad to know that you were the one stuck on holiday duty.It was confirmed the conversation had ended, so when he hung up you weren't offended, turning back to your wine and movie marathon, curling deeper into the couch, more than content with your quiet holiday, and happy to know that you had someone in New York who truly cared.