Muscles

I was new to the CSI crime lab in New York, new to the lab world I was not. I had been working for the crime lab in my home town before moving to New York.

I wasn't really close to anybody in the CSI yet, some of them I knew others I didn't.

My phone buzzed while I was working on some blood stains from this case we were working on.

I took it up and looked at it: New Facebook message from Lauren Roberts. It was an invitation to her son's 2ndyear birthday, this saturday. I used to work with Lauren at a nursing home.

I thought if I should go, I wanted to but still it didn't feel like an event I should attend since I wasn't that close to the kid. He was a shy little boy and had never been very interested in me.

The computer beeped as the results where in, I paged Mac and left the invitation hanging.

Mac arrived a few minutes later.

”It's a definite match” I said and handed the paper to Mac ”The blood on the dress matches the blood on the knife and the suspect's shirt”

”That's good news” Mac said and looked at the paper.

”Yes.” I paused ”However it doe's not match your victim”

”So he's killed someone else?” Mac asked.

”It might be” I answered ”I can't be sure since there's no body”

”Well, thank you for this” Mac said and left my office.

I took up my phone and saw that others had answered to the message Lauren had sent, I decided to go and answered the message. I also sent her a private one asking what he liked because I didn't have a clue what to get him, She told me he liked books and stuffed animals.

They didn't need anything more from me for the case at the time being so I got sent home. Mac said that if they needed me he'd page me.

When I got home my cat Lux was at the door greeting me, his enthusiasm told me that his food or water was all gone.

”Hey you” I said picking him up and walking to the kitchen.

As I suspected he was all out of water, I filled it up and put both cat and bowl down. Lux immediately started drinking.

I proceeded to the bathroom where I changed into a tank top and sweatpants.

After that it was watching tv that was on my to do list for the evening, I needed distraction from my work and life in general.

My life was like a circus, I had so many irons in the fire at the same time and I was a workaholic.

Back home people around me where worried that I was going to get a stroke or have a melt down any second, maybe they where right but at the time everything was just fine.

Lux jumped up and laid down in my lap, his purring was putting me to sleep.

My phone went off and scared me awake, I fell off the couch and hit the floor with a loud thud.

”Ouch!” I said to myself as I got up to check the phone, Mac wanted me back at the office. He had some new blood for me to do my magic on.

I looked at the clock, 4.30 a.m!

”Back to work with me then Lux” I said and got dressed.

An hour later I was in my lab swabbing away, the blood was later a confirmed match to the first victim.

”Good job” Mac said after I gave him the news, he was happy when he exited my lab.

He met up with Stella and the Detective, who happened to be none other then the most gorgeous looking man ever; Detective Don Flack.

Don was one of the few hot guys here, the others being Danny Messer and Adam Ross.

I had a hard time talking to Danny and Don, they where so secure and confident that they scared me. Adam on the other hand was such a sweet heart that I had no problem talking to him, he was the one I went to lunch with if we had time to.

I respected Stella and Mac, Mac being my boss and stella felt like the second boss. Lindsey and I actually hung out a few times after work, she was a nice person to be around making me feel welcome in the crime lab.

Sheldon was nice to me, he actually helped me with some installations and assembling when I moved from my last apartment to my new one.

My week was filled with work and I didn't have time to go look for a birthday present before friday, finally after searching through five bookstores I found the bedtime story collection that came with a few small stuffed animals. My mind wandered around Don a lot, I would catch him looking at me and it happened more then once. On my way home from shopping I passed a gym, I looked through the window for some reason and saw none other then Don Flack. I stopped and looked at him, he was wearing a white tank top. He was lifting weights, his he looked so good with sweat covering his muscles as he lifted the bar up and down.

'Wonder what it feels like being hugged by those arms, being held really close' I thought biting my lower lip not taking my eyes of Don.

It felt creepy looking at Don without him knowing, I didn't want to stop but I had to. I was scared that he'd see me so I left.

On saturday I got up, did my hair and make up. Walked to my closet and looked on what dress I should wear, I decided on the one with the one with a black tank top and had a really colorful bell skirt with flowers on it. I then resized that I had forgotten the card so I had to go to a supermarket there I didn't find a good card so I moved on to the next where I found a decent looking one.

Now I was half an hour late but Lauren was still very happy to see me, Peter was a bit scared of me since he didn't know me all that well so Lauren opened it for him.

There where a lot of people there: her two sisters Caitlin & Elana, her mother, three of her closest friends one of them I kinda knew her name was Kati and one of them had an eight month old baby.

Another of my old colleagues Kayla was there with her three year old boy Aidan and her six month old baby girl Amber.

A young woman and her husband where also there with their two children, a 2 month old baby and a 4 year old.

My heart stopped when I saw that none other than Don Flack was sitting on a stool next to a woman whom I recognized, her name was Ella.

”Hi Hailey” Don greeted me when he saw that I had arrived.

”Hello Don” I said back politely.

There was a four year old boy there to, his name was Elijah. At first I didn't know whose kid he was, first I though that he might be Don's because the boy was running around him mostly later I heard him call Ella 'mom' and Don by his name so I knew that Don was not his father.

I noticed Don looking at me a few times and he didn't look all that happy when Elijah ran around him or when Ella talked with him.

Caitlin had brought one of the elderly women from the nursing home along to the party since she had to work and she didn't want to miss Peter's birthday.

The woman's name was Maureen, she was very happy to see me and we shared a table.

I enjoyed looking at the children having fun, I thought of the conversation I had with one of my friends once. We talked about having children, she admitted that she did have a small case of Baby-fever and she could hear the biological clock ticking we laughed about it but in the end so did I.

I had a bad case of baby fever and there was nothing I could do about it, I wanted kids!

Elijah and the other boy rode around on the plastic motorcycles Peter had gotten for his birthday, Peter was running around playing with balloons, Caitlin was sitting on the floor close to me and Maureen. She was holding Amber whilst Kayla drank coffee and ate some cake.

Amber sated fussing a little and to calm her down Caitlin brought her closer to me.

”Look Amber, who's there?” She asked holding the baby in front of me.

I didn't have much experience with babies so having one this close to me was a bit uncomfortable and the fact that it was Kayla's baby didn't help. See I don't know how she feels about me, we've had our ups and downs.

”It's Hailey isn't it.” Caitlin said

”Hey you, what'cha doin?” I asked as Amber came closer to me and grabbed my dress.

”She like's the colors” Caitlin said.

”Guess she likes my dress then” I said jokingly yet a bit awkward.

”You want to hold her?”Caitlin asked.

I was horrified by the thought, in the past whenever I had tried to hold a baby it started crying and I didn't have a clue how to soothe it so I simply said ”No”

Caitlin didn't listen to me and handed Amber over to me, I prepared myself for the worst as caitlin put her down in my lap. Nothing, she didn't start to cry or give any sign that she was not happy being in my lap so I wrapped my arms around her tiny body and held onto her, I was terrified of doing something wrong and hurting her.

While she was sitting there she tried to bounce up and down but since she was sitting it didn't go so well. I put my hands on her side with a steady grip I let her bounce up and down, I hoisted her up in the air then back down again. When she was tired she sat down in my lap again, I couldn't help but smile. This girl was so beautiful I couldn't take my eyes of her and I didn't want to let her go.

Kayla looked behind her and saw that I was holding Amber.

All she said was ”Oh, Who are you with are you with Hailey?”, it sounded like she didn't mind and that felt good.

I thought about how nice it would be if Amber was my own kid, she was such an adorable little one and my baby fever was way up high.

Amber continued to bounce, she took a break and sat in my lap before wanting to bounce again, it was really nice.

I got to hold Amber for a while longer before I gave her back to Kayla, I didn't want to but she wasn't mine to keep.

Few people cleared out and Aidan got into full gear, he ran around the room and the found a balloon. He started rubbing it on my head which made my hair electric. He thought it was really funny, I tried to show him that you could throw the balloon to another person but Aidan thought it was more fun when my hair stood up straight.

Later he did stop and we started throwing the balloon, he laughed so hard and it warmed my heart. He was having so much fun and it took so little effort from me.

Thirty minutes later Caitlin, Maureen, Kayla, Aidan and Amber left. Many others had cleared out to and I was sitting by Peters feeding chair looking at the book I had gotten him.

Don was sitting on the couch (close to where I had been sitting the whole evening) with Lauren's, Caitlin's and Elana's mom they where talking and by the look on Don's face he wasn't happy. He was looking at Ella and Elijah.

Peter came over and climbed up into his chair and we looked at his book together, seems like he was warming up to me.

For some reason I looked over to Don and saw him looking at me smiling slightly, I could feel the blush forming on my cheeks and hoped that he wouldn't notice.

I looked back to the book and Peter but my mind was still fixated on Don. I secretly hoped that he liked me to and that he'd break up with Ella and we'd start dating. I had imagination and hopes but they never became anything more.

One thing I had noticed during the party was that Elijah really liked Don and Don seemed to like Elijah, but a few times I had heard Ella nag and Don got really irritated.

”Don, we better get going before the weather gets worse” She said again, she had said it a few times before but Don seemed reluctant to go.

I could feel hie eyes on me, or so I thought.

Ella tried to get Elijah to go but he was too happy with riding Peter's new plastic motorcycle.

She looked annoyed at Don and said ”Well, you better get up and get dressed so that he knows we're serious”

”What if I don't want to go” Don snapped out of the blue getting up.

”Well, I want to go right now” Ella spat back getting up as well.

They where now standing face to face, she being shorter looked up at him. Don looked around on the people surrounding him. Everyone had stopped what they where doing and looked at the couple about to start an argument.

”Let's not do this here” Don whispered.

”Come with me then” Ella said and dragged Don outside the apartment.

Elijah looked at the door for a short while before going back to playing.

My curiosity got the best of me and I walked to the balcony and looked at Ella shouting at Don.

I couldn't hear what they were saying but I heard Ella shouting. I felt sorry for Don, Ella seamed to be very angry. They stood down there talking, shouting and trowing their hands around for fifteen minutes before Ella stormed back in. Lauren took Ella into her bedroom and closed the door, I could hear Ella sobbing and saying that it was over.

When I looked back out Don had started to walk away, I felt a pull and the courage rising in me.

It was now or never, I took my coat from the hanger as I ran by it and continued outside.

”Don wait” I shouted so that he would stop and he did.

He turned around I could see that he was crying, I stopped and just looked at him for a second.

I had to do something before I had the time to think and wuss out. I walked closer to him and wrapped my arms around his chest, I felt Don's arms wrap around me and his heart was beating really fast.

I didn't know what to say now, what if I ruined this amazing moment?

The snow was slowly falling down and a few cars passed us, I closed my eyes and took in his scent.

I had to speak but nothing would come out and knowing me I'd definitely ruin this moment. I lifted my head and looked at Don, he was looking back down at me.

I moved a hand to the back of his head and brought his lips to mine, it took Don a few seconds to react but he did kiss me back.

Even though it was cold outside I didn't freeze, it was warm and cozy in Don's arms and that's where I wanted to stay forever.