"I think we're set to go," Jay reported, walking into the living room where Erin and Clementine were sitting on the couch. They had highlights of the previous night's Cubs game on. He was referring to himself and Kayla, who were heading over to the new house to embark on the cleaning mission.
"Okay," Erin said, slowly getting up. She gave him a hug. "Thank you for doing this. Although, Jay?"
"What's up?" he asked quietly, kissing her on the side of the neck.
"I'm going to help out on Saturday when we move. I'm so bored of sitting in the corner like some kind of baby making machine. I want to be involved in things."
"If you're sure," Jay said cautiously. "Just don't want you to push yourself too hard. That's why I've been taking everything on."
"I know, and I love you for it. But I'm not that far gone yet. I'm going to do stuff until I feel like I shouldn't, okay?"
"Okay," he conceded.
Erin gave him a kiss on the lips and sat back down.
"Oh! That could be a home run!" Clementine cried as a Cubs player hammered a ball high into right field. "It's going to be close. Oh no!" she yelled as a fielder jumped at the wall and plucked the ball out of the air.
Jay smiled broadly, enjoying her excitement. "Nice announcing, Clem. But where's my hug goodbye?"
"I thought that was going to be a homer," she grumbled as she got off the couch to hug him. "I'm guessing no story tonight then?"
"Not tonight, sweet pea," he said regretfully as they embraced each other. "Once we're in the new house things will be less chaotic and we'll get back to reading Lord of the Rings most nights like we used to."
"Promise?" she asked, looking up at him.
She was so sweet that it would have been impossible to say no even if he wanted to. "I promise, Clem. Now, keep an eye on your mom for me, okay? And go to bed when she tells you, without any fuss. Okay?"
"Yeah," Clementine said, obviously not relishing the prospect of bed time.
"I'm ready, Jay, if you are," Kayla said in the doorway behind them. She was carrying two big buckets, both of which were full of cleaning supplies. "There's another bag of stuff on the table in the kitchen if you can grab it."
"Right, let's do it," he said.
-----
Before long, Jay was pulling his car onto the driveway of his new home. He loved thinking of it that way, even though they were not living in it yet. He looked at his watch and saw that it was a couple of minutes after 7pm. That was bad, since no one else was there.
"We said 7pm, right?" he asked.
"Yeah. Don't worry, I'm sure everyone's coming," Kayla said confidently.
"What did you say your friend's name is again?"
"Kalinda. I messaged her earlier to confirm, and she said she hadn't forgotten. Your offer to order pizzas when we're done seemed to be well received. Oh, here she comes now. Let's go meet her."
Jay got out of the car. "Yes, I think it was the pizza that won Zelina, my colleague who is coming, over. That and some persuasion from Raquel."
A dark blue Jeep had parked up near the end of the driveway. An Indian woman in her mid-thirties wearing black pants and a red leather jacket got out. Her black hair was up in a bun. She was very pretty, Jay thought. If Kayla had anything more than friendship going on there she was a lucky woman, he thought. Not that he had any basis to suspect there was more than friendship between them.
"Hey, Kalinda. Thanks for coming," Kayla said, giving her friend a hug.
"Of course. You helped me clean my place when I moved, so fair is fair," Kalinda said. She had an English accent, which took Jay by surprise.
Next, Kayla made the introductions. "Kalinda Patel, meet Jay Halstead. Jay, Kalinda."
"Hey," Jay smiled. "Thanks for coming over to help us out. I really appreciate it."
Kalinda shook his hand. "You're welcome. It's nice to meet you. Kayla speaks very highly of you and Erin, and Clementine of course."
"Clem's the best," Kayla said with real fondness that made Jay feel warm inside.
The sound of a powerful car engine accelerating made them look towards the nearest intersection. Jay saw a familiar silver Mustang approaching. Everyone who had pledged to help had shown up, only a few minutes late.
Raquel parked up behind Kalinda's Jeep, and she and Zelina got out.
"Jay, the favour you owe me is so big a way to measure it doesn't exist yet," Zelina said right off the bat. Her sassy attitude had long been the thing that he liked most about her.
"Yes, Z, I'm well aware," he said with a grin. "Hey, Raquel, thanks for coming." He proceeded to make introductions all round. Standing at only five feet three, Kayla seemed a bit intimidated by Raquel, but then most people were at first.
"Right, I've got three lots of cleaning supplies," Kayla said, opening the trunk of Jay's car. She took out the buckets and the plastic bag, handing the buckets out to Jay and Raquel. "I got bleach, multi-surface cleaner, cloths, sponges, wire brushes, gloves, pretty much everything we'll need."
"Yeah, I've heard rubber gloves are Jay's thing," Zelina said, giving him a sassy 'got you' look.
Somehow he managed to stop his cheeks going red. "Actually, I heard you're getting your 'mami' into them."
"Didn't realise I was coming to an orgy. I'd have dressed differently," Kalinda said, and everyone laughed.
Jay caught Kayla looking like she didn't understand what had just been referenced, but maybe she was wondering why once or twice she had found her gloves missing when the time had come to wash dishes.
"Right, let's get this over with," Raquel said, brushing the moment aside. "Nice place, Jay," she said, leading the way up to front door.
"Thanks. We just got here, so I haven't unlocked the door yet," he said, hurrying to catch up to her. He unlocked it and led the group inside. The house smelled a bit stale, like it hadn't been lived in for a while. That would soon change with all the cleaning products they were about to use.
"Right, where do you want us?" Kalinda asked as she walked in. "Nice place by the way."
"Thanks," Jay said. "You know, Kayla, this is going to be your home too once we're in. You can have friends come over."
"Thank you," Kayla smiled. "I prefer to visit my friends instead of imposing, but I appreciate it. As for where we're cleaning, all I know is I'm taking the kitchen. That's going to be my area when we live here, so I might as well take charge of it now."
Jay nodded. "Alright. The kitchen and the bathrooms need the most work. Raquel and Z, can you take the bathroom off the master bedroom? Kalinda are you okay to help me on the main bathroom?"
"Whatever you need," Kalinda said.
"Cleaning someone else's toilets," Zelina grumbled, giving Raquel a look. Jay realised she had done the favour more for Raquel than for him, which in turn told him that Raquel considered helping him out to be important. He felt grateful for that. She was showing that their partnership and maybe friendship were important to her.
"Come on, Z, we're helping Jay and Erin," Raquel said, trying to encourage her.
Zelina relented. "Yeah, I know. Come on then, let's get on with it."
Raquel took one of the buckets and headed for the stairs. "Show us where we're going, Jay."
He took the other bucket. "You okay without a bucket, Kayla?"
"There's one already in the kitchen. I brought it over the other day." Taking the plastic bag full of supplies, Kayla walked off.
Jay and Kalinda followed Raquel and Zelina up the stairs, then he showed them where the master bedroom and its attached bathroom were. With that done, he walked with Kalinda to the main bathroom and put the bucket on the floor.
"So, thanks again for coming over to help. Definitely above and beyond for a friend of Kayla's to come do this."
"Not a problem," Kalinda said. He imagined she didn't struggle to attract men with that well-spoken English accent, as well as being quite pretty. Assuming she was into men, of course. "Since we met, Kayla and I have gotten really close. We help each other with everything, pretty much."
"How did you meet each other?" he asked as he got some water running into the tub, figuring he would start by cleaning that.
Kalinda took a pair of rubber gloves out of the bucket and removed them from their packaging. Thanks to Zelina's comment outside, Jay couldn't help thinking about one of Erin's extra special hand jobs. In fact, the purple gloves that Kalinda put on looked the same as the ones Erin had in the bedroom.
"We met at a bar one night," she was saying. "I walked in there and bought a drink, and right away some drunk prick came over to me and started trying to hit on me. Kayla was there sitting at the bar, so I walked up to her and greeted her like we were friends. I motioned with my eyes, hoping that she would figure out what was going on with the creep and play along, and she did. After he walked off, we had a laugh about it, I bought her a drink to say thanks, and yeah, away we went from there."
"Nice," Jay smiled. "I like Kayla a lot. She's good people, and she's so great at her job."
"Yeah, I like her a lot too. Shall I start with the toilet?"
"Sure, if you don't mind," he said.
They both got to work, and as they worked they spent a few minutes talking about police work and what the life was like. Kalinda seemingly found it all interesting, and Jay took pleasure in telling her about the job he loved.
"Must be a bit awkward that your wife is your boss though?" she said with a chuckle.
"Fiancée, at the moment. And yeah, at first it was awkward. But we're both used to it now, and it just feels natural at this point. How about you? What do you do?"
"I'm a scuba instructor, and I work in a dive shop. Sounds weird in Chicago, right? But we're actually always busy."
Jay's attention was caught. "That's so interesting. Erin and I have been talking about getting Clem a junior certification. She has said she's interested in learning to dive. We were going to do it next time we went on vacation, but that's way down our list of financial priorities right now."
Kalinda stopped scrubbing the toilet for a moment and looked at him. "Now that you mention it, Kayla did say something about Clem a while ago. I forgot all about it, and she never brought it up again. Junior certification is something we offer. If you wanted to pursue it, you could bring Clem to the shop and I could meet her and talk to you both about it. Fair warning though, since you mentioned financial priorities. Scuba isn't a cheap hobby to get into. Before you can learn to dive, you have to have a full set of gear."
"Noted," he said. "Well, it's worth have a conversation with Erin about it at least. We're going to have a housewarming when we're settled here, and you're welcome to come. If you can make it, maybe we can talk more about it then?"
"Sounds good. And I'd be happy to come, assuming I'm free whenever it happens."
"Great. That's a plan then," Jay said with a smile. "Where do you even dive in Chicago anyway?"
"For training, in a pool. Then for the certification dives there's a former quarry that has been filled with water and made into a dive site."
"Ah, awesome," Jay said. "Well, maybe we'll have some business to put your way."
-----
A couple of hours later, the house had been blitzed. It looked so much cleaner, and smelled a lot fresher too. It was remarkable how much work five people could get done in a relatively short period of time, Jay thought. Raquel and Zelina had done plenty of giggling and fooling around with each other, which he had enjoyed seeing. In some ways they seemed like an unlikely couple on the face of it, but their relationship really worked.
With the cleaning finished, Jay ordered a few pizzas in as he had promised. While they waited for the delivery, all chatting away in the empty kitchen, he was able to pull Raquel aside for a quiet word.
"Thanks for helping me out tonight, seriously. I know it was a shitty job to do, but I'd have never got it all done by the weekend on my own, or even with me and Kayla on it."
"You're welcome," Raquel said. "We're partners, right? Until I joined Intelligence I had never worked with a partner before, but I like it. Someone to have your back is important. So yeah, I've got you as long as you've got me."
I've got you," he pledged. With her background and her style, he figured that might involve occasionally having to overlook some police work that bent the rules a bit. But that wasn't anything he hadn't done for years with Hank Voight.
"That's good. Then nothing can go wrong," Raquel said. For comedic effect she made it sound like she was deliberately foreshadowing something bad happening.
"Why would you say that?" he exclaimed, and they both laughed.
-----
A/N: What did you make of Kalinda? A friend of Kayla's, and in time possible of Jay and Erin's too. And she's a scuba instructor, which could be perfect for Clem if she wants to take up diving as a serious hobby. Do you think Jay and Erin should encourage her to do it?