#fantasyandthereal

It had been a good game and Charles was still on an adrenaline high. So he wasn't exactly feeling the swelling on the right side of his face when he went to see the team's sport's medicine staff's assistant. He'd known Olivia for years now, so he'd learned to notice when she was upset with him, and she definitely was now.

The other person seems rather weary. And so Gabby wants to try to brighten their day.

"I hope that you get everything you could ask for, the cold side of your pillow, a real break for once."

Opening the door only the slightest amount to begin with, she looked him up, the down, then up. Next she fixed on the most charming and bright smile as the crack of the door was widened. "Mr Blackwood, how very lovely of you to get here so fast. I'm already assured this will be a mutually satisfactory arrangement. Please do come through......". Kit spoke politely, with perfect intonation and diction, and not as if her vintage Chanel suit in the most formerly pristine winter-white, wasn't now splattered with red.

Jonathan and Gracie had just got back from one of his parents’ galas. And hors d'oeuvres and wine only did so much. He’d only gone because it was a fundraiser for children’s medicine, one of the few things they could always get him to make an appearance at to remind people that they had an heir to the family fortune. And now his stomach was protesting loud enough that she'd picked it up from the other room.

Giselle actually being away from her books and outside was a rarity. But here the Court Mage was… Caught staring just a little too long at Emperor Draven sparring with his guardsmen in the courtyard below instead of reading the book in her hands. And just now realizing she had company… One of the visiting royals from a far off realm.

Martin Voss had always been careful to keep work separate from his personal life. And that included his dating life. Before Allison, the most the enforcer had ever done was short, contractual relations. Quick, dirty, and just enough to scratch an itch. Allie? He'd gotten careless and gotten attached to someone who was everything he wasn't. Someone who should've never gotten even an ounce of exposure to the life he'd been wrapped up in since his teens. And definitely not the daughter of a police chief. And secrets like his, they didn't stay buried easily...

He'd gotten injured recently and had been promised some time to heal, his cover that he'd had a fall at work off some scaffolding at the construction site (that was a front and money laundering operation in itself) and had broken a few ribs. Not the brutal turf dispute between the people he worked for and a local gang that was getting just a bit too big and bold to be ignored where he'd taken a bat to the chest. But apparently not everybody had gotten the memo that he wasn't currently active...

Martin’s froze as he stepped out of the bathroom and saw Allison standing in the living room, his phone buzzing incessantly in her hand. He didn’t need to guess—she’d seen the messages. Nico’s urgent texts kept pouring in as they stood there, and now the damning words were right in front of her: the docks, the job gone south, the mention of blood.

Esme was delighted that Oliver was back in town. She'd practically jumped him at the terminal. Busy as their jobs kept them, she definitely took any moment she could to be with him when they both were free from work. But her playful and loving demeanor went cold as they pulled into the driveway. Though even if her demeanor was serious, her eyes clearly tipped him off that it was playful, not something to worry about.