#and a little orzo never hurt no one okay!!!!

[virescent-v]

Accepting wife applications now.

[embeanwrites]

Finding Home Gavin Reed x Reader

Chapter 16

Materlist

After Tina dropped me off at my apartment, I passed out on my couch, between the two of us we had finished off a whole bottle of champagne. When I woke up it was maybe eight a.m, my head hurt, that dry dull ache that comes from alcohol. I rubbed a hand over my face and made my way to the kitchen for a glass of water and a couple ibuprofen. I sat down on the edge of the counter, opening my phone to see if I'd gotten any new notifications while I was out. A couple spam emails and a picture of Sumo sleeping from Connor but nothing major. When I was looking at the text I remembered the promise I made to Gavin about bringing him lunch.

"Shit." I muttered under my breath. I opened my fridge and assessed the ingredients I had biting my fingernails while thinking. I didn't want anything too elaborate, something simple but delicious, nothing too out there since I didn't know what Gavin liked. I figured he wasn't much of a health nut, maybe banking some good will with Nines for this little lunch date would be a good idea and making something mildly healthy for the grumpy detective.

I settled on a simple orzo salad, with sautéed cherry tomatoes, onion, garlic, and grilled zucchini, toasted almonds, a splash of balsamic vinegar to finish and garnished with chopped parsley and feta cheese. I made simple pita sandwiches on the side, turkey, tomato, onions, lettuce and tzatziki sauce.

I packed it all up in an old lunch box and suddenly felt nervous. Was this too much for an office lunch? What if he didn’t like what I brought? Should I bring a dessert? What about drinks? What would we talk about? Oh god, I still needed to tell him about Elijah trying to kiss me.

I shook my head, like it would help move those thoughts out of my brain and moved to my room where I quickly got dressed, deciding to go with acid washed mom jeans that I cuffed and a flowery tank top. I played with the hem of my shirt, thinking about what I was about to do. Eating lunch with a man my dad dislikes where they both work seemed like a horrible idea. I stood frozen for a few minutes, until my phone went off.

u still coming

As long as that’s still okay with you.

yea

I’ll be there in 10ish minutes!

I walked into the DPD and glanced over to where my dad’s desk was. He and Connor must have been out on a case. I felt guilty, but I was kind of glad they weren’t here. I still wasn’t sure how my dad felt about me seeing Gavin. I walked over to Gavin’s desk where he and Nines were looking at his computer.

“Hey guys, how are Detroit’s third and fourth best detectives doing?” I lifted myself up and sat on the edge of Gavin’s desk.

“You better be talking to someone else, pipsqueak.” Gavin glanced at me with a smirk.

“Oh, hush number four. Nines, how are you today?” Gavin faked a gasp and put a hand on his chest, as if he was deeply hurt.  

“We are getting close to locating a suspect who has been selling android parts on the black market. I apologize, but since you are technically a civilian, I cannot disclose any more information.” I laughed.

“Nines, I asked how you are, not how’s your case!” I said with a laugh. He gave me a short nod.

“Oh, I am fine. Annoyed that Detective Reed cannot seem to focus for more than a few minutes.”

“Whatever, Tin Can.” Gavin got up and put his arm around my shoulder. “We’re going to go eat, don’t bother us.” He steered me towards the break room.

“I made turkey sandwiches and an orzo salad, I hope that’s okay.” I started getting the food out.

“Wait, you made lunch?” He grabbed my hand and I was stunned.

“Uhh…yeah. Is that okay?” He looked uncomfortable. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I should’ve picked something up. I didn’t even ask if you liked any of this and- “

“No, fuck no, you’re fine.” I nodded and got the rest of the food out and sat across from him. Had I done something wrong already? He was just staring at the food.

“I can go pick something up if you want. It’s really not a big deal. I really should’ve asked be- “

“Louise, you’re fine. I’m just surprised. No one’s ever made me food for a date before.”

“Oh, so this is a date now?” I teased.

“Fuck yeah it’s a date.” He grabbed one of the sandwiches and took a huge bite. “This is really good.” He said through a mouthful of food. I laughed.

“Can you be any more gross?” I wrinkled my nose in disgust as I took a bite of the orzo.

“Yes.” He said while taking another bite and chewing with his mouth wide open.

“Gavin!” We both started laughing. I took a bite of the sandwich. “How’s your case going?” He shrugged.

“Like Nines said, we’re getting closer, but it’s still going to be a bit before we have enough evidence to bring anyone in.” I nodded.

“Do you think it’s androids or humans running the market?” I asked, he paused before answering.

“Nines thinks it’s a mix, I think it’s androids.” He took another bite. “What, you want to talk about android black-market deals in your class?”

“Oh god, no. I already have too much material to cover in 16 weeks.” I laughed. “Hey, were you being serious when you said you’d talk to my class?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Okay, I may take you up on that.” I paused and took another bite. Feeling guilty for not telling him the full truth about what happened at Elijah’s. “I have to tell you something about Saturday.”

“Okay.” He sounded nervous.

“So, when I was at Elijah’s house, he asked me if he could kiss me and I said no.”

“Is that it?”

“Yeah…are you okay?”

“Well, I thought you were gonna say coming to my place was a mistake. But knowing you turned down my half brother for me feels pretty good.” I laughed.

“Good, I wanted to tell you because I didn’t want to hide it and have it become a problem later in our relationship.” He smiled.

“Later in our relationship?” He asked, I felt my face grow hot. Did I misread the situation?

“I mean, I’d like to keep seeing you, but if you don’t want to go out with me that’s totally okay. I know that we- “

“I want to keep seeing you too, pipsqueak. Chill out. It’s fun to make you all flustered.” I smiled. Gavin finished his sandwich and I pushed my other half towards him. “You don’t want it?” I shook my head and he started eating the other half happily.

“Next time I’ll make you two sandwiches.” I laughed.

“Oh? Next time? You’re going to cook for me again?” He smirked and I rolled my eyes.

“Detective Reed. I’m sorry to interrupt, but Captain Fowler wants to talk to both of us immediately.” Nines looked at Gavin and Gavin groaned.

“I’ll text you later, pipsqueak.” He got up, but didn’t walk to Nines waiting by the door, instead he approached me and leaned in close, I felt my heart leap into my throat and my breath catch as he pressed a chaste kiss to my lips. “Thanks for lunch.” He winked. I felt all my blood reach my cheeks, my eyes had gone wide. I blinked and shook my head.

“Ah yeah, no problem.” I responded, not even having the mental capacity to return his quip. I scrambled to pack up the leftovers, and clean up our mess . the rest away. They both walked towards the captain’s office and I walked out of the break room and saw Connor sitting at his desk.

“Hey, Connor.” I walked over to him and sat on his desk. He turned to look at me.

“Louise, what are you doing here?” Connor asked.

“Gavin couldn’t leave for lunch, so I brought him food.” I patted the empty lunch box. “How’s your day going?”

“Lieutenant Anderson had to run Sumo to his yearly veterinarian appointment. I will be leaving shortly after I finish these case reports.”

“How much longer do you think you’ll be here?” He paused.

“An hour.”

“Would you like me to wait for you to finish and then we could go back to the house together?” He nodded. “I’m going to sit at his desk and chill on my phone. Let me know when you’re ready.” I got off Connor’s desk and sat in my dad’s chair. Leaning back, I took in the mess that was his desk. There were various stickers, dirty coffee mugs and crumbled papers. It was pretty gross, so I scrolled through my phone so I wouldn’t have to look at it.

Not even two minutes later, I heard yelling and a door slam. I looked towards the source of the noise and saw Gavin his face dark, storming through the office, pushing the doors open, and out of the precinct.

Nines didn't follow him, he must still be in the office. None of the other officers followed him either, as the double doors swung back closed with an echoing thud. I stood abruptly, my dad's rolly chair spinning back behind me. "I'm going to see what's wrong." I told Connor as I passed his desk, not stopping for him to respond.

My exit wasn't nearly as dramatic, but the precinct doors still closed louder than I would've liked.

It didn’t take me long to spot Gavin. He was pacing back and forth by the side of the building smoking a cigarette. I walked towards him slowly. I had never seen anyone this angry before.

“Gavin?” I said softly, approaching him as if he was a wild animal. I had no idea how he would react, some people didn’t like others touching them when they were angry. He didn’t look at me, he just kept pacing, he flicked the half-smoked cigarette onto the ground. “Gavin?” I tried again walking a bit closer. He punched the brick wall.

“FUCK!” He shouted. I closed the distances between us and grabbed his hand. His knuckles were already bleeding, and he was fuming. He tried to pull his hand back, but I kept my grip firm. “He thinks he knows FUCKING EVERYTHING! He hasn’t been in the field for YEARS! This is BULLSHIT!” I put my other hand on his shoulder, he was shaking. I sat down on the concrete, dragging him down next to me. He was breathing heavily.

“Gavin, look at me.” He didn’t move. I let go of his hand and put both my hands on his cheeks and gently moved his head, so he was looking at me. “Copy my breathing.” I started taking deep breaths in and out. His eyes kept darting back and forth. “In and out, Gav.” I tried a little more forcefully, which got him to pay attention. After a few minutes of breathing deeply his breathing became more even and less erratic. “What happened?” I asked softly. He shook his head and looked down. I gently moved his face back up. “Gav, talk to me.”

“You’ll get upset.” If I hadn’t been staring at him, I would’ve missed him saying anything at all.

“I won’t. I promise. Please, trust me.”

“No.”

“Gav, we talked about this. I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on.” I kept my hands on his cheeks. He took a shaky breath.

“Fowler is kicking me off the black-market case because I’ve been too ‘reckless’ lately apparently. The only way he would've known that is if Nines told him. He suspended me for three days and Chris is taking over the case.” His voice was hoarse.

“Oh, Gav. I’m so sorry.” I rubbed my thumb across his cheek.

“I’m trying to become Lieutenant, and this is just another reason for Fowler to not give it to me. God this just another fucking reason why you shouldn’t be with me. I’m a fucking mess. I can’t do anything right.” I cut him off by kissing him softly. It took him a moment to react, but once he snapped out of his confusion, he kissed me back roughly. I wrapped my arms around his neck, and he grabbed my waist, pulling me into his lap. I yelped into his mouth and he used the opportunity to slip his tongue into my mouth. I pulled him tighter against me, one hand roaming to fist in his scruffy hair, the other still wrapped around his neck. He channeled all that fury into this kiss, with bruising force he belligerently pushed his tongue against mine and all over my mouth. He tasted like tobacco, sweet and earthy and heady, and it made me feel lightheaded. Our noses bumped and I broke the kiss and smiled at him, laughing under my breath. “That was a good distraction.” He whispered. I smiled and kissed him again, a soft chaste press of our lips that lingered for a moment, before I pulled apart again.  

“Come hang out with me in my office?” I asked, looking up at him through my lashes “I have to submit a rough draft of my preliminary plan for my research by tomorrow at midnight, but there's enough time for a break or two.” I winked as I clambered out of his lap, holding a hand out to help him up. He smirked and nodded

“Sounds like a plan pipsqueak.”

I grabbed my phone and quickly sent Connor a text.

I’m going to get Gavin away from the precinct and calm him down. I’ll see you later tonight?

That should work.

“You only want me to come so I’ll drive you.” He joked and I grabbed his injured hand and interlocked our fingers.

“Yup, only reason.” I laughed.

[karenemilne]

I’m baaaack!!

Happy Easter everyone! Thank you all for being understanding and supportive last week when I decided to not weigh myself or post a blog. My Facebook post got quite a lot of ‘likes’ and I’m thinking that could potentially be because people were like ‘thank fuck she’s not posting another long essay this week’ (I get it) but I’m hoping it’s more because you guys got where I was coming from! I had the best time away with Ross but I found myself getting dead anxious on the train home at the thought of having to weigh myself and then embarrassingly write a blog about how I gained 5 pounds (rough estimation). The big worry for me that if I had gained 4/5 pounds then that would be nearly half of what I had lost already and to be honest I don’t think mentally I would have dealt with that very well. It would have felt like an impossible task to lose it and although you would think that that would push you to go to the gym more, I think it would have made me dread the gym. The other reason I didn’t want to weigh myself was because I didn’t care what I ate and drank in London. I thoroughly enjoyed myself going out for meals, eating things I wouldn’t normally when I’m at home and having prosecco/cider/beer/gin (had them all) without feeling guilty. I knew as soon as I weighed myself and saw the damage I would start thinking ���I shouldn’t have had that extra bag of sweets’ or ‘I should have stuck to gin and slim line only’ and I just didn’t want that to happen. I didn’t want to turn something so enjoyable into something I felt guilty about. So instead I stuck my head in the sand and worked extra hard the past week. If I’m honest I weighed myself on Monday morning (a few days after I had been back to clean eating and the gym so I thought it wouldn’t be too horrific) and I was up to 74kg and thought right okay, I’ll just need to accept a weight gain this week (I was 72.7 in my last blog). But by some miracle, I have managed to get down to 72 on the button!! I mean I say some miracle but I’ve worked out almost every day and been really good diet wise. You may have already seen me gloat about this on Friday but 72 is the lightest I have been in around 4 years! Over the moon! Still a long way to go but as of this week I am down 5.25kg (11 ½ lbs). Only 2 more kilos to go until I reach my first target of 70kg and I cannot explain how excited I am to stand on the scales and see a number below 72 (hopefully this week)! I am so happy that I had a weight loss this week because it taught me something so important. Yes for someone who’s writing a blog on weight loss I probably did take it too far over my two weeks off but that’s okay!! It’s okay to enjoy yourself as long as you’re willing to get back to it once the holiday it over!

So, usual drill! Here was this week’s gym/eating schedule-

Sunday- I had every intention of going to the gym but Ross was a hungover mess who just wanted a lazy day and I couldn’t possibly have gone to the gym and left him in alone…

Monday- Back to work so back to clean eating during the day! I usually just buy lettuce/tomatoes/cucumbers and some form of meat and make salads up in work. I also drink a lot of water when I’m in work but during the two weeks off I hardly drank any! Went straight to the gym from work- I have just discovered ‘Red Zone Running’ on Instagram. I really enjoy their workouts (although even the beginner level is too fast for my little legs) so I did one of their sprinting sessions for 20 mins and the worst thing happened. I fell on the bloody treadmill!!! Thankfully didn’t come flying off but you know that way when you watch someone running down a hill and they can’t stop and they start to fall and it’s really funny? That was me! I didn’t think my face could get any redder but oh it did!! Anyway, a few people have mentioned that I should try to incorporate more weights into my workouts so I’ve been trying that this week. Again I’m useless and don’t have a clue what they’re all called but I did some weights, 12 reps x3.

Tuesday- Gym again- cross trainer for 10 mins, 8 sprints on the curved treadmill, 10 mins constant fast pace on the stair master, deadlifts (I am so weak so only manage like 20kg haha), barbell extension and I achieved a new PB of 80kg on the leg press! I’m still not very confident doing free weights by myself so tend to only do deadlifts etc when Ross is with me.  

Wednesday- Gym AGAIN for a wee cardio session. Managed 20 mins intervals on the stair master (1 fast, 1 slow), 10 mins walking fast uphill, 10 mins running and 10 mins random hill setting on the bike.

Thursday- I am going to go as far as saying Thursday was my biggest diet achievement EVER! I bought my fourth years dominos as it was my last lesson with them (and I am the best teacher ever). I sat with 4 large dominos pizzas in front of me and did I eat them? Not even a slice!! Even when there were leftovers I stuck to my shitty boring salad! So proud of myself for this but I had in my head that Saturday was my cheat day and I was sticking to that! I had a busy night so didn’t fit in a workout. I met Baby Toal (congrats again Karen, she’s beautiful!) and then went to Ross’ gig and I was the designated driver so no added alcohol intake there!

Friday- Off work again (teachers and their holidays eh?!) so forced Ross to come on a big run with me. Managed to run 8.7 miles and for once my leg didn’t hurt!! I mean it hurt in a way that it would if you had just ran 8.7 miles but no worrying aches! I found this run really really hard to be honest. It was 21 degrees so I felt like I was going to die and I had a really big mental battle throughout the full run, fighting with myself about whether I could finish it or not. Poor Ross had to deal with many full-blown strops (threw my hands down like a 4 year old and I would have stomped if I wasn’t mid-run). But hey, we got there! I am the slowest runner and if you don’t believe me maybe this will put it into perspective. I am so slow that Ross went out and did a 6.5 mile run BEFORE our run because he knew he could basically walk alongside me and wouldn’t break out in a sweat- fit bitch. I also threw up in the car after this run too, mainly because I was very dehydrated and instead of having sugar or protein after the run, I had a babybell – idiot!

Saturday- I could hardly walk never mind run so I took a well deserved day off and went out for a wee date day with Ross (had a lot of wine and prosecco- earned it!!)

 Meals this week are-

Sunday- having a BBQ at the maws

Monday- PON Cajun dirty rice

Tuesday- L15 Tex mex corn and sweet potato salad

Wednesday- PON Mediterranean chicken orzo

Thursday- L15 Satay sweet potato and kale curry

Friday- PON Honey chilli chicken.

 You all NEED to go and buy the Pinch of Nom cookbook. It is so good! Last week I made 4 meals from it and all of them were so tasty, quick and easy!

 So yeah! A good week with a lot of hard work put in! Var said something to me this week when I told her that I had got down to my lowest weight. She said, ‘look what a little bit of fear can do for you!’ and it is so true. I was so worried about gaining loads of weight that I pushed myself extra hard and it’s all been worth it! Long may it continue! Let’s hope I see 71 on those scales next week! Thanks as always for reading! X