Chapter Text
“He’s fucking married?” the younger of the two brunettes squeaked before the other one clapped a hand over her friend’s mouth.
“Noah’s asleep.”
She scowled when the hand left her face. “You go to AshleyMadison for that, not Match.com.”
“I know, Jess,” Olivia Benson sympathized, putting a hand on her friend’s shoulder.
Blowing a raspberry, she grabbed her wine glass and took a large swig. “Why is it so hard to meet a guy who isn’t a piece of shit in a city with this many people in it? I suck at math, but I think it should be statistically possible.”
Cocking an eyebrow, Liv glared at her drinking companion.
“Sorry.” Jessica Bell set her glass back on the coffee table and pulled another bottle of wine from her large bag. “For the background check.”
“You don’t have to…”
“I do. I knew there was something fishy about him at dinner last week. You just found it for me.” She rubbed her temples and covered her face with her hand.
Their conversation fell into a lull. Olivia pressed a finger against the handle of the coffee cup in front of her and pushed it so the cup rotated in a full circle on the saucer. “So how’s Natalie?”
“Over,” Barba replied. “It shouldn’t be this hard to find a woman that isn’t crazy in this city.”
A light turned on in her head. “You’re coming to my place Wednesday afternoon for drinks for the adoption right?”
“I’ve cleared my calendar. Why?”
She grinned. “You’re the second person to complain to me about the inability to find a sane other half this week.”
“Liv…” he protested, hooking his finger into the handle of the cup.
“She’s an English teacher, and that’s all you get for now. I don’t want you running her name through any databases before you meet her.”
“So there’s something there.”
“I wouldn’t let her babysit Noah from time to time if there was,” she reassured him. “You’ll love her, I promise.”
“Blind dates never work out for me.”
“Let’s make it interesting. A hundred dollars and a bottle of champagne?”
“If I see her again?” He inhaled sharply. “That’s a bit steep.”
“If you ask her to marry you.”
He coughed in an attempt to clear the coffee that’d gone down his windpipe. “The champagne I like is over a hundred dollars a bottle,” the assistant district attorney warned.
“Me too.”