The sleek black car pulled up in front of Liv's office building and she pressed her face close to the window, trying to catch a glimpse of the thirty-second floor. The car service was completely unnecessary, but her parents had insisted. It had actually been one of the many conditions they had insisted on before they let her return to the city and her job.
After Ezra had left for the hospital, she had called them. Her ticket had been booked within ten minutes and she had been walking off the plane into her home town four hours later. Her father had been dressed in his cop blues, wrapping her into a fierce hug the moment she stepped from the plane.
The next ten days, they had doted on her until they drove her crazy. She had enjoyed the extra rest the first few days, but by a week, she was ready for life to get back to normal. Her parents weren't. They tried every form of argument to make her stay longer.
She didn't let them win, but they did get her to agree to a list of terms for her return to work, and the car had been one of them. Even that she had argued her dad down from a police escort to a car service. It felt silly when an Uber would have completed the same task for a quarter of the money, but she also knew the whole incident had scared her parents. If getting driven to work in a fancy car gave them a little peace of mind, she would suffer through it.
"Thanks," she told the driver as she opened her door and grabbed her bag.
It was the first time in a week and a half she had worn professional clothes, and she had actually been excited to put her heels on. She shut the door and squared her shoulders as she faced the building. She had received several updates from Burkstrom and Hale about the renovations on the office, and just yesterday they had happily announced the work complete.
Something began to flutter in her stomach as she looked up at the tall building and remembered exactly what she had gone through the last time she had been in it. But before the feeling could fully settle, someone called to her.
She looked around and found Ezra walking towards her.
The fluttering in her stomach changed it's tone as a smile spread across his face. She hadn't seen or talk to him since their parting kiss ten days earlier. Seeing him again, she felt a calm wash over her.
He looked different. Nothing extreme, but there was something about the slope of his shoulders and the gait of his walk that was more relaxed, and the smile on his face hadn't gone away.
"Good morning," he said, offering her a coffee cup.
"Good morning to you," she said, accepting the cup.
She took a hesitant sip, unsure what taste she would discover and found the coffee exactly to her liking.
He watched her, a pleased look on his face when she looked at him in amazement.
"I asked around about how you like your coffee?" he admitted.
She smiled. She didn't know what she found more entertaining: the fact that Ezra had taken the time to learn her coffee order or the rumors that must have created.
"It's perfect. Thanks," she said, raising her cup to him. "How long have you been back to work?"
"I came back to the office two days ago, but..."
"You never stopped working?" she guessed.
He gave her a knowing smile. She wasn't surprised. He had been in the middle of three cases when their eventful night had happened. Millionaires didn't want to hear you were postponing their billion-dollar litigation, even if you had been through a traumatic event.
Her research didn't have as demanding deadlines, but she had still worked remotely from her parent's house most of the days.
"How is it being back?" she asked as they both started slowly move towards the entrance.
"It's fine," he said. "With the construction done, the office looked exactly the same." He paused and when he spoke again, his voice was quieter. "It is weird too. I don't think our co-workers can pick out the spots in the hallway where your bullets hit, or know what it takes to drag a wounded Tommy from Clark's office to Burkstrom's."
She looked at him in surprise. "They don't!?!"
He laughed. "But if you can just suppress those thoughts, which I've heard is the best way to deal with trauma, it's like nothing ever happened."
"That's all it takes? A little suppression? Done," she laughed.
But the words were barely out of her mouth when they reached the glass doors leading into the lobby and she stopped. Her eyes went to the security desk. She knew Tommy wouldn't be there. She had checked in on him and he wouldn't be back for two more weeks.
Ezra reached up and opened the door. "Come on," he said, leading the way.
She followed and breathed a sigh of relief at the normalcy she felt walking across the lobby, scanning her security badge and pressing the elevator button. She followed Ezra onto the elevator and for the first time noticed he was carrying a large brown carton with a spigot.
"What's that?" she asked, nodding to the carton as the doors shut and the elevator began to rise.
He lifted it so she could get a better view.
"Coffee," he said. Sure enough, she could see the coffee shop's logo across the side.
She raised her eyes questioningly. "That's a lot of coffee. Is this how you are coping?"
He chuckled. "This much coffee would send me into cardiac arrest. It's for everyone." He said it like he was in the habit of bringing the whole office coffee.
She only nodded approvingly and wondered what types of rumors this would start among the secretaries.
When the elevator opened on their floor, Ezra let Liv step out first. It was like stepping into the twilight zone. Everything looked exactly as it had always looked, but she could still picture the disaster they had walked through the morning they had been rescued.
Ezra followed her out and placed his hand gently on her back, only long enough to get her moving. She followed his prompting and her feet took her on her normal path through the cubicles until she reached hers.
It looked as though she had simply clocked out at five the night before and was returning the next morning, ready to get back to work. While it felt odd to have everything so normal, her brain told her to accept it as a gift.
She realized it would be far more unsettling if she had returned to the destroyed office. She plopped her bag by her desk and sat. Her muscle memory took over from there, reaching for her laptop in her bag and connecting it to the monitor on her desk. She began to pull her water bottle and headphones from her bag when she realized Ezra was still there.
She looked at him and something settled on his face. As if he had been assessing how she would handle coming back in the office. He must have been reassured by what he had seen because he took a step back. "I have a conference call I need to prepare for, and I better get this," he held up the coffee, "to the break room."
"Sounds good," she nodded.
He hesitated a moment longer, as if he was unsure how to leave, then with a nod he walked away. Liv watched him as he headed for the break room and noticed she was not the only one.
He had barely disappeared into his office before a small group of secretaries gathered at one of the cubicles. She watched them whisper for a moment before they all looked at her and she realized undoubtedly, that she had been pulled into the Ezra Lexington rumor mill.
Over the next couple of weeks, Liv did her best to stay focused on her work and leave the gossip to the secretaries, but she couldn't avoid it completely. Her cubicle became a popular place for people to stop. They came under the guise of concern for her, but the conversation always landed back on questions about Ezra. Whenever she left her cubicle, eyes followed her, and the break room fell silent when she entered.
She was grateful that Ezra respected her request to take a month before he did anything based on his feelings and by the end of the second week, she noticed her part in the gossip began to die down.
Ezra hadn't been by her cubicle since the first morning. He had continued to bring in coffee and treats for the break room and the secretaries loved talking about the sudden change that had come over him. They loved to speculate over the cause and Liv didn't miss their attempts to catch his attention.
But they didn't know that every morning he was waiting for her outside. He always had some excuse about why he was waiting around, and she was happy to believe him if it gave them the chance to ride the elevator together.
After she returned to work, she was reassigned cases to work on and wasn't surprised to find that they were all Ezra's cases. She thought about calling him out on not following their agreement about a month apart, but she found working on his cases didn't mean they interacted more. The only thing that changed was that they emailed more but he always kept it strictly professional.
By the time a month had passed, work was completely back to normal. All Liv thought about when she entered the building now was the mountain of work waiting for her.
It didn't take long for her workdays to grow longer so she wasn't surprised when she looked up from her desk one night and found the office was almost empty. She stretched and checked the time. It was almost nine. She pulled her headphones out and slowly began to stack files. She had done enough work for the day.
She pushed her chair back and scooped up a pile of files. She started her trips back and forth to the filing drawers, her feet silently padding along the carpet, her heels discarded by her desk. She was making her last trip when Ezra rounded the corner of the hallway.
"Hi," she smiled. "Working late?"
"You could say that," he said, smiling back mischievously. "You?"
"Just finishing up the research on the Sidman landholdings."
He nodded. "Are you done?"
"Yeah," she said. She started to head back towards her desk, but he grabbed her hand and stopped her.
"Good. Come with me." She eyed him suspiciously, but let him lead her down the hall towards his office. Before they reached his office, he stopped and turned towards her. "Do you know what today is?"
She didn't answer right away. She knew it was Wednesday and the ninth of the month, but the way he asked the question made her think he wasn't asking for the date. She thought a minute longer, but when she couldn't come up with any other answers, she simply gave him the day's date. But the moment it left her mouth, she realized the info he had been fishing for. It had been exactly one month since the building had been broken into.
He smiled playfully. "I got a question for you."
"Let's hear it," she chuckled.
She knew exactly what was coming and in the split second she had before he asked the question, her brain jumped into hyper-gear throwing out pros and cons to her two choices of answers. But when she let her eyes focus on him, a wave of happiness and eager excitement wash over her, and she knew her answer.
"Liv," he started, "will you have dinner with me?"
She studied him for a moment, letting him squirm as the question hung in the air until she finally smiled. "Yes."
If she hadn't already been sure of her answer, the smile that spread across his face would have sealed the deal.
"I'm glad," he said, his grin reaching from ear to ear. He opened the door to his office to reveal a dinner laid out on his desk. "Or else all this food would have been a waste."
She laughed as she stepped inside.
"Of course I was going to say yes," she said. "I've been dying to see your minibar."
**********************************************************************
*Dances around the room* Oh Happy Day! Gosh! I never thought they were going to get together! What a relief! 🙈
You're welcome.
*tackles you with a hug*
Get off me. Or I'm going to take back that happy ending, maybe Ezra should die.
*jumps back* Jeez! You really are the worst!
Excuse me! I just wrote you a book!
Oh right! *tackles you with another hug*
Alright let's wrap this up before it gets too mushy. I'm going to end with a quote from John McLane (Die Hard): 'Welcome to the party, pal'.
That makes no sense, it's the end of the book, we're leaving.
*slowly backs out of the room*
Annnnnddd she's gone. Okay then I'll close us out. I hope you guys enjoyed the book! It was a wild ride and I'm happy you decided to go on it with us!
Leave your final thoughts!
Vote, comment, follow because that is the only way to end this adventure!
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