Crossing the Line

"We need to fix this. Let's go after her, man." Shayne turned his head back to Ian, who looked as bad as he felt. The latter glanced at his watch, prompting Shayne to look at his own. It was past five in the afternoon, which meant it was just about time to get off work.

Ian took his glasses off to rub at his eyes. He gestured to Shayne with his glasses as he spoke, "She's probably on the way home by now. Do you know if she has plans tonight? It's a Friday after all."

Shayne thought back for a moment to earlier in the day. Noah had to go see his parents. Keith was heading over to church to help them start preparing for some event over the weekend. Olivia had plans with Sam. Damien had a party he was reluctantly attending. Courtney had said she had a hot date with Netflix and some microwavable Mac n Cheese.

"No, she's staying home tonight."

"Fuck," Ian continued to rub at his eyes in frustration, "Look, I got a lot on my plate tonight and I can't leave the smoffice 'til late."

Shayne opened his mouth to protest but Ian raised a hand up to stop him.

"We messed up here. I was hoping she was kidding, and her snapping was like... a bit..."

Shayne nodded. At the time, she was pissed, but there's pissed for the cameras to put on a good show... and then there's actually pissed. In the moment, he was hoping it was the former, but her walk out proved otherwise. His restless hands tapped against the table before motioning for Ian to go on.

Ian continued, "Can you go to her? Like, tonight? Let's give her a peace offering."

Shayne was way ahead of him. As soon as the gravity of the situation began to sink in, he knew he needed to go after her and make it up to her. Courtney was far more important to him to allow this to just go.

"I'll bring over some pizza from her favorite pizza place," Shayne decided.

"Wait, bring some dessert too in case you get there late, and she's already eaten."

"Anything you got in mind?"

It was Ian's turn to stand up, phone in hand and dialing away.

"There's this really good cupcake place nearby. I'll place the order and you can go pick it up. I'll text you the address, it's barely ten minutes away."

"Okay. Okay, that sounds good," Shayne said before patting himself down to search for his car keys, only stopping when Ian handed him a few bills.

Ian raised the phone up to his ear and listened to it ringing away. He looked at Shayne seriously; far more seriously than he'd ever seen Ian. The last time Ian looked this serious was during the Defy crisis... and when he accidentally dropped that bomb on Pam.

"You give her my most sincere apologies, okay? You know I love that girl like a sister."

"Of course. You didn't – we didn't mean to hurt her." Shayne placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Ian gave a stiff nod.

"And tell her we don't need to air this if she doesn't want us to. We can scrap the whole thing if she wants, no problem at all."

"Alright. I'll let her know."

"I'll pay her a visit tomorrow after you've softened her up for me."

Shayne rolled his eyes but laughed just the same. He pushed off the table and began heading for the door.

"Wish me luck!"

"You got this frog legs!"