It had been an interesting day. It certainly wasn’t everyday that you were offered a job working at the Inferno of all places. Even less so when you didn’t ask for the job, when you just have it offered to you. And to start that very night, at that.

But Lee had left the club a short time earlier, making her way through the streets back home. She hadn’t told Jason about the offer she had gotten the night before because at the time she didn’t know that it was real. The same thing with that morning, Lee hadn’t known anything else before she’d left Jason at home that morning since she hadn’t called Devon until after she’d left. But now that she’d met with the man, now that she knew the offer for legitimate, she needed to talk to him about it.

That was what you did in relationships, right?

Walking in the door to the apartment she now shared with Jason, Lee looked around with a smile. ”Honey, I’m home!” she called. It was looking to be quite a good day.

Jason sat at his desk, eyes peering over his laptop. Part of it was doing actual work, but the other part was research. Lee was gone when he woke up that morning, but he didn't really think anything of it at the time; sometimes people just had things to do, right? So, he'd gotten his coffee, did a little bit of cleaning around the apartment, and then just worked on some mundane tasks on his laptop; he didn't really have any important cases to work on, mostly just idle research.

The canine-shifter didn't know how long it'd been, but a smile spread across his face as the door opened and she walked in. His canine-leaning nose took in the usual scent of her before she even got the door closed. Perfume, coffee, and....wait...His smile dropped as his nose was assaulted by mens' cologne. He bit his lip as he looked at her, his demeanor obviously having shifted.

"I...hi..." he said, not getting up from his spot. "From the stench of cologne I'd say you had a pretty great day so far," he said sharply, a bit of pain laced into his cutting words.

Lee's smile faultured the moment that she heard Jason's voice. He always liked it when she greeted him like that, from that very first time she had done so jokingly before they had even mentioned moving in together. This was not his normal reaction.

Then he continued, and Lee stopped moving, just standing there and blinking at Jason. ”Wait, what?” Lee asked, not even sure where this was coming from, what he was talking about. ”What are you talking about, Jason?”

His emotions were running wild, cycling mainly between anger and sadness, but resting more consistently on the latter. He stayed sitting in his chair, arms folding across his chest as he looked at her through his glasses, his eyes already becoming quite misty. Jason took a shaky breath, biting his lip a little as he looked at her.

"My sense of smell is closer to that of a dog's than a human's..." he said shakily. "From the moment you walked in I smelled nothing but another man's cologne. While that would explain why you haven't been telling me where you were going...I didn't think it was actually true..." He sighed.

"Then again, I should have known...I mean I never really was your 'preferred type of guy,' was I?" A single tear ran down his cheek.

His sense of smell was more like a dog’s than a human’s...As Lee stood there and stared across the room at Jason, things suddenly started making more sense. Like how there were times he knew she’d entered the room, even though there was no way he could have heard her.

But that wasn’t the only thing he had to say, and the more that came out of his mouth, the angrier Lee got. ”If you know me at all, how could you even think I’d do that to you, Jason?” Lee asked, remaining right where she was just inside the door to the apartment. ”And if I was even considering doing something like that, why the hell would I agree to move in with you?

“And first of all, the way he was talking while I was serving him drinks at my job, he was there with a guy,” Lee went on. And that was what it had sounded like Devon had said the night before, even if he had called her hot, while luring the two neanderthals away from the bar. ”Secondly, I’m guessing he was still drunk when he got dressed and spilled half the bottle on himself. At least that’s what it smelled like. I wouldn’t know because I didn’t go anywhere near his penthouse. And thirdly, I only went to see him today to talk about a job offer. For a job bartending at the Inferno.”

He went on. It was about this again. About how she never went home with guys like him until the night that she had gone home with him. Lee closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. ”You’re right, Jason, you weren’t my ‘preferred type of guy’,” Lee said, her voice sounding a little harsh because she was upset. Of course she was, with Jason thinking that she’d actually cheat on him. And opening her eyes and seeing the tear didn’t ease the tone of her voice. ”They looked a certain way, but they wanted the same thing I did: sex with no strings attached. That’s all I wanted. Anything more would hurt more than being completely alone.

“But even that first night with you, things were different,” Lee continued, looking at Jason, still sitting behind his desk. ”I never stayed long enough to have breakfast with any of them. I wasn’t still thinking about any of them a week later. I didn’t fall in love with any-”

As Lee realized what she said, her mouth snapped closed and she stood there in shock. But a few seconds later, a smile started to slowly grow on her face.

"I don't know, but the evidence is pretty damning," he grumbled as his eyes locked on her. "And that's the thing; my female clients get odd looks, but you go out and flirt and show skin every time you work; the hypocrisy is strong, here..." he said not getting up from his seat.

"Oh, a penthouse. That's ****ing perfect. Now you'll be flashing your breasts for the financially affluent..." Jason said sharply, and then she agreed that he wasn't his type of guy, and he looked as though he'd just gotten punched in the stomach. But she continued, and he bit his lip, resisting the urge to just storm off. After all, she did seem like she had a point to make, right?

But when she finally got to her point, she stopped short, and it left him flabbergasted when she said that one word. Another stray tear rolled down his face as the word sunk in. She really--

She actually said--

So it was true that--

"You...you did?" he asked, blinking as his eyes locked on hers, taking in her smile and her body language. "R--R--Re...Really?"

When Jason said that he wasn’t sure that she’d never cheat on him, it actually felt like a knife was twisting in her gut. And he thought that she gave his female clients odd looks? The only one that she had was Gladys, and what the hell was she supposed to think when the woman had shown up at his apartment in the middle of the night?

But they had gotten through that, at least Lee had thought they had. If she was actually worried about his female clients, Lee wouldn’t just give him a kiss and leave him to work day after day. ”Oh, I’m a hypocrite, am I?” she asked, her eyebrows raising. ”Why? You know that’s how I dress. And you want me to stop flirting at work? Fine! Get ready for my tips to drop. There’s a damn good reason I do what I do at work, and it’s not because I like doing it.”

The look on Jason’s face when she agreed with him about her ‘type’ felt like another knife. But why would he be that upset about it? He was the one that kept bringing that point up. What did he expect, her to deny it even though they both knew that would be a lie?

And then the words were out, and all Lee could do was stand there and look across the room at Jason. Who looked to be just as shocked by the confession as she was. She hadn’t realized it before the words were out of her mouth, but to be honest if what she felt for Jason wasn’t love, Lee had no idea what love was, or would feel like.

After what felt like forever with silence sitting between them, Jason spoke, stammering, and Lee nodded, her smile even wider. ”Yes,” she said, still nodding slightly. ”I can’t even imagine wanting to be with someone else now…”

"Well, you did walk out without listening to reason after I explained how overbearing Gladys was, yet you can go out and flirt and come home steeped in another man's cologne, after not even telling me where you were going, but that's okay...And you must like it enough seeing as how you're apparently getting invited to penthouses based on it..." He bit his lip as he looked away, down at his desk.

But then that word had come out, and he looked up at her, and she was smiling now...

His smile grew as well, those words starting to sink in. "I...I love you too, Lee..." he murmured, more tears welling up in his eyes, but this time they weren't angry or sad. He just couldn't believe...

Sure, he'd said he loved her a while back, but it was never reciprocated, but now...she was saying it, and he could tell she meant it.

“Overbearing?” Lee repeated. ”And I accepted the phone calls and her showing up at dinner. But who shows up in the middle of the night like that when they’re not looking for sex? What the hell was I supposed to think?”

As Jason went on, Lee just shook her head. Just because she was good at flirting with the drunk idiots at work didn’t mean that she liked it. Didn’t he know that? ”If he had actually invited me, I would have said no,” Lee replied even though Jason was no longer looking at her. ”Damn it, Jason, you make it easier for me to get through work. The thought of coming home to you makes it easier to plaster a smile on my face in front of those assholes.” How could he not understand that? But if he couldn’t get it now…

But that was almost wiped from her mind completely as she heard Jason’s next, slightly stammered words, saw the tears welling in his eyes. Lee took a few slow steps forward, the first she had made since Jason’s ‘greeting’ when she got home. ”I love you, Jason,” she said again, actually saying the words for the first time, her smile growing even wider even if her voice was slightly shaky as she spoke.

"Well, you didn't trust me then, yet you expected me to trust you when you come home reeking of another man..." he said, his eyes narrowing into a scowl as he looked at her.

Wait...he made it easier? He did? Really? She thought of him when she was at work? Okay, so that did make it easier for him to swallow, and something told him she meant it. But then, the conversation sweetened, and she was taking the first steps she'd taken since she got home, and his demeanor relaxed considerably.

"I love you too, Lee[/i]" he murmured, still not getting up from his desk, but he closed his laptop. Work could wait; his girlfriend was more important.

“I did trust you. When she interrupted our dinner, I didn’t like that she was there, but I trusted you. Then later…” Lee frowned, her eyes dropping as she tried to find the words. It hadn’t exactly been that she didn’t trust him, but…

Lee took a deep breath before looking back up at Jason. ”I was upset. And was still having a lot of trouble believing that you’d actually want to stay around, considering my powers.”

Lee couldn’t help it, she smiled wider when Jason again said that he loved her. It was amazing to hear. She took another couple steps toward him before something else he said really sank in, and she stopped, her smile faltering. ”Do I really smell that much?”

"Well, like I'd told you, there was nothing. She's really not my type, anyway," he said with a slight shrug. "I knew for awhile that I'd wanted something like...this. But I didn't think it would happen; I'd thought you'd have turned me away from the beginning. And," he paused, before pointing out matter-of-factly, "You kinda almost did."

Then she asked if she really smelled that much, and his face went red. "I...you don't stink, but...the cologne and man-smell kind of overrides your usual scent, yeah..." he murmured, breaking eye contact for a little bit as his face flushed red and he idly adjusted his glasses.

Lee had almost turned Jason away that first night. There was no denying that fact, she had almost turned him away. She had seen him approaching her sitting at the bar that night and she had turned to her beer, not even really looking at him as he asked to buy her a drink. She had been planning on turning him down, been ready to say no. And then she had heard his accent. She had wanted something different to break up the monotony of her life, and Jason’s accent had been that at the time. But Lee hadn’t realized how true that thought about him was.

”I wouldn’t have even known how much I missed out on if I had said no,” Lee told him softly. Then a soft smile curled her lips. ”It’s not every day that you get to live a dream because you say yes to a drink.”

She didn’t stink, he said. But his face turned a bright red as he said it. And he said that it was overpowering her normal scent. ”I’ll go have a quick shower. That should help.” That said, Lee turned to make her way to the bathroom.

"Meanwhile, I had a pretty good idea. Though you're so much better than what I thought you'd be like, which is saying something," he said softly, a smile spreading across his face. Then....she said she was living a dream, and his smile grew. "You think..." he chuckled, walking over to wrap his arms around her. "I never thought you'd have said yes to the one night, and yet....here we are a few months and an apartment later."

He released her as she spoke again, and he bit his lip. Maybe he used the wrong words, but he didn't think he hurt her feelings. Though that cologne did stink....he wasn't about to tell her that though. Without a word, as she turned for the bathroom, he walked behind her.

He’d had an idea of what she would be like, and she had turned out to be even better? Lee couldn’t stop the slight blush from crossing her cheeks at that. And then Jason was getting up, moving closer and wrapping his arms around her as he continued to speak. She nodded slightly as she let her head rest against his shoulder, her own arms wrapping loosely around Jason. Even with what had just happened, there was no denying the fact that what she had here with Jason was a dream come true. She’d never really thought that she would have something like this, at least not a serious thought outside a daydream or a fantasy.

”Exactly,” Lee said softly, her head still resting against his shoulder. ”It doesn’t really matter what could have happened, when what we have is so much better than we imagined.”

That said, Lee took the opportunity of Jason being close to stretch up and give him a quick kiss before turning to the bathroom. Yet, as she walked, she didn’t feel his energy getting further away from her. That was...odd. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that Jason was following her. ”What are you doing?” she asked, one side of her mouth teasing up into a smile.