TITLE: Temporary Girlfriend (20/20)
PAIRING: Lindsay/Cindy
DISCLAIMER: Women’s Murder Club does not belong to me. The characters do not belong to me. They are the property of James Patterson, 20th Century Fox Television and ABC. I have no problems with that as long as I can borrow them for short bursts and use them in pursuit of my own enjoyment. I am not trying to infringe. Though, I don’t know why anyone has a problem with fan fic. After all, it really is a compliment. If anyone wants to write fan fiction about my book, feel free.

(Cindy’s POV)

The banging on her door was demanding enough that it was almost surely a second, maybe even a third, round of knocking. All things considered, it was highly likely that they missed the first knock when it came by.

“No one buzzed up,” Lindsay said in confusion, her head rising from Cindy’s hip where it had come to rest.

“It’s probably the super with a package or something.”

“No, no, no,” Lindsay was adamant in her opposition. “Unless you are expecting a delivery of freshly brewed coffee, strawberries and chocolate syrup, there is nothing on earth worth getting out of this bed for.”

“Oh no? Prove it big talker,” Cindy challenged Lindsay for about the tenth time since they’d woken. She couldn’t help herself. The rewards every time she did were too good for her to stop.

Lindsay smiled and swooped up to her, capturing her lips in a kiss that made Cindy’s insides positively erupt. As if that wasn’t enough, Lindsay’s hands slid up her stomach to cup her breasts gently and Lindsay’s thigh insinuated itself firmly between her own.

Lindsay was right. It was official. They were never getting out of this bed.

“Cindy, are you still asleep?”

Lindsay immediately pulled back, a look of such confusion on her face, it was hard not to laugh.

“Jill?” she mouthed.

“I gave her a key,” Cindy whispered. Something she had completely forgotten about until she heard the inquisitive voice calling.

“Uh… why?”

“In case of emergency.”

“Cindy?” Jill called again, but Lindsay didn’t seem to hear her this time.

“You didn’t give it to me?” she asked, a little frown coming to her lips.

Cindy felt an errant jolt of pleasure.

“Are you jealous?” she murmured.

“No,” Lindsay responded to the clearly spot on allegation. “But, of the two of us, I’m more responsible.”

While that point was certainly arguable, Cindy decided to skip the debate and take the available easy way out.

“If responsibility were the deciding factor, I would have given it to Claire. Jill lives closest to me, and I figured she’d be the most okay with me calling in the middle of the night if I lost my key.”

“Why would you be out in the middle of the night?”

The quizzing tone was louder than the nearly inaudible exchanges they’d been engaging in, reaching an almost normal decibel level.

“Cindy?” Jill’s voice sounded exceptionally curious, and dangerously close to the open door.

“Jesus,” Lindsay hissed. “Answer her before she walks in here.”

“I’ll be right out,” Cindy called toward the door before dropping her eyes back down to Lindsay with a small, frustrated smile. “I guess I’d better get right out.”

Lindsay didn’t seem terribly partial to the idea either, but they both knew that Jill would return if a body didn’t appear within a reasonable amount of time. If that happened, Jill was going to end up seeing a lot more body than she was expecting. Cindy found her t-shirt on the floor, and pulled it on as she climbed out of the bed.

“You’re putting on more than that, right?”

The idea of walking out the door dressed exactly as she was solely for Lindsay’s reaction was tempting, but Cindy found her PJ pants and pulled them on, trailing her hand down Lindsay’s leg on her way to the door. The combination of Lindsay’s soft skin and Lindsay’s soft sigh nearly pulled her back into the bed.

As she stepped out into the living room, she pulled the door firmly closed behind her.

Jill wasn’t alone. Claire was standing next to her, waiting with a patient smile.

“Hey,” Cindy greeted them.

“Hey,” Claire said back.

“Did you get naked in your living room last night?” Jill skipped the salutatory stage.

“What?” Cindy asked sharply. “No.”

“Those aren’t your clothes?”

She followed Jill’s pointing finger to the shirt on the couch and pile of clothes on the floor, and tried to think fast.

“I was cleaning with them.”

“With that shirt?” Claire chimed in.

Cindy really wished she wouldn’t.

“Yes?”

She really meant for that to come out as a statement.

“Isn’t that the shirt you just bought like two weeks ago?” Claire questioned.

“So, what are you guys doing here?” Cindy changed the subject, rather than digging the hole of bad lies even deeper.

“We thought you might want to have brunch.”

“You had to stop by unannounced for that?”

Wow, that sounded bitchy.

“We’ve been trying to call all morning. It rang once. Then it kept going to voice mail.”

“Weird,” Cindy said, because she couldn’t say that when her phone had sounded at a time way too early in comparison to her late night, she’d turned it off without even looking to see who it was, crawled out of bed, and gone out into her kitchen to eat Rocky Road at 7:45 in the a.m.

“We actually once held out hope for breakfast,” Jill said.

“We were starting to get a little worried about you,” Claire added.

Now she felt guilty.

“You do realize we should actually be at work right now,” Jill worked hard on adding to the guilt. “We tried Lindsay too. No answer on her home phone and her cell’s been going to voice mail all morning.”

Yeah, and had been incredibly annoying ever since it was turned on, Cindy silently threw in, suddenly realizing that Lindsay must have turned her phone off before she even came upstairs. She couldn’t stop the enormously satisfied smile that came to her face in response to that knowledge. Lindsay might have played like she shouldn’t sleep over, but clearly she was hoping to get lucky.

“I’m going to try her again.”

The words reached Cindy’s distracted brain five seconds too late.

“No. She’s probably just…”

But Claire had already hit send and Lindsay’s phone was already ringing behind her. Jill cocked her head, listening, and Claire pulled her cell away from her ear, mimicking Jill’s curious prairie dog pose, until the sound of Lindsay’s phone abruptly ceased mid-ring.

“What was that?” Jill asked in that damn humored tone of hers.

“I didn’t hear anything,” Cindy lied.

“That was Lindsay’s phone wasn’t it?”

“Was it?” Cindy swallowed. “You know what? It must have gotten mixed up with my stuff.”

“Lindsay’s phone?”

Cindy nodded. It did seem a perfectly reasonable excuse.

“And she didn’t miss her phone?”

“Bombs, Jill. It was a whole traumatic thing. She was totally sidetracked.”

“I’ll bet,” Jill smirked. “Why don’t you meet us at the diner in about an hour? Sound good?”

“Sounds fine,” Cindy grudgingly assented.

Never had she been so grateful to see Jill and Claire’s retreating forms as they jointly headed for the door.

“Oh,” Jill paused suddenly on their way out, turning back with a snap of her fingers as if she’d just remembered something. “You should tell Linds that she’s got a couple of parking tickets. I know she won’t have to pay them, but she might want to move her car before it gets towed. See you at the diner.”

The term ‘cackling gleefully’ was invented to describe what Jill and Claire were doing as they shut the door after themselves.

Wondering exactly how much of that conversation Lindsay had heard, Cindy turned and opened the door to the bedroom. She found Lindsay lying on her back, surprisingly relaxed, one hand under the pillow behind her head, the other holding her phone to her ear. Her eyes locked on Cindy the second she walked in.

“Listen up, smart ass,” Lindsay started into the phone before Cindy had a chance to ask who she was calling. “Why don’t you and Claire indulge in a couple of mimosas and share a basket of bread, and let’s just call it lunch. Two hours works better for us.”

She hung up without a goodbye, turned off her phone again, tossing it back onto the floor. Then she motioned Cindy over with a crook of her finger.

Though she didn’t want to give the impression of a kid at Christmas, Cindy couldn’t fight the urge to dash to the bed and jump on Lindsay, her lips finding the Inspector’s with perfect precision. Lindsay’s hands were already tugging her shirt back off.

Fleetingly, and blissfully, Cindy wondered what chance, if any, they stood of actually making the two-hour deadline.