Chapter Text
The skyline looked gorgeous from the end of Navy Pier, the lights off the tall buildings and DuSable Harbor glittering and reflecting off the Lake. Sunset had painted the sky shades of purple, red, and orange and dinner cruises putted around Chicago Harbor. Violet sighed as she pushed off the railing and headed back towards the wedding.
She leaned on the bar, her chin firmly in her hand, and looked back towards the happy couple. They were together on the dance floor, quietly murmuring to each other as they swayed back and forth to their first dance as husband and wife.
Their wedding had been beautiful. Stella and Severide each wrote their own vows and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house when they were done. Violet sat on the bride’s side during the ceremony, for some reason sandwiched between Capp, who sobbed during vows, but also brought props to throw, like he was at a screening of Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Brett, whose pronounced baby bump made the timing of her long furlough suddenly make a lot more sense. Since the couple had decided not to have anyone stand up with them, Brett and Casey spent most of the ceremony making cow eyes across the aisle at each other.
Violet couldn’t help it - she was unequivocally jealous of them, the Severides and Brett and Casey. She wished so badly that she and Evan could be dancing together, wrapped in each other’s embrace, or even letting their gazes linger across the dance floor. It wasn’t that she didn’t understand the need to cool it for the sake of CFD brass. She did. This whole thing was a huge mess, partially of her own creation, and she could own up to that. But she wished they could forget, just for tonight.
Shit. Looking back across the patio, she realized that she lost sight of Evan. She’d been trying to stealthily keep tabs on him all night, even if she couldn’t be with him. He looked gorgeous tonight in his tux and she closed her eyes for a minute and tried to commit the picture in her head to memory.
But she shouldn’t have worried about where Evan went, because he clearly found her. She could feel his presence before she even opened her eyes. Evan slid easily into her bubble, resting a warm hand on her lower back as his front came nearly flush with her side. He stood nearly perpendicular to her, facing the bar instead of watching the first dance.
“Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight?” He whispered into her hair. He reached around her to set his whiskey tumbler on the bar and purposefully grazed his hand across her torso, brushing just under her breasts, before shoving his hand into his trouser pocket.
“Evan,” she half-whined, half-cautioned. Just the proximity to him did things to her insides, but if he started touching her this would go south fast.
“C’mon, let’s go dance.”
She froze at the suggestion. It was still near the beginning of the festivities - they hadn’t even been served dinner yet! - not at the end of the night when their actions could be misremembered or brushed off as drunken escapades. Everyone, including everyone who was anyone in the CFD, would see them.
“But, Evan, what about…” She could come up with any number of rebuttals. Boden and his wife were watching the dance floor with the knowing eye of a long married couple. Deputy Commissioner Hill had complimented Violet’s dress in the bathroom during the cocktail party. She swore she even saw Commissioner Grissom towards the back of Severide’s side during the ceremony.
He leaned even further towards her, his lips brushing up against the shell of her ear as he next spoke. ”I’m tired of giving a shit about what other people think, Vi. We’re here celebrating your friends getting married. I want to hold you in my arms.”
She pulled back to look him in the eye. He looked as serious as she’d ever seen him. Not as intense as that night at the gala, but earnest, like when he stood up to defend Brett and the paramedicine program. She wanted this, almost as much as she wanted her next breath.
“Okay,” she whispered.
He couldn’t help the look of joy that spread across his face. “Okay?”
“I’d love to dance with you,” she pivoted towards him, her chunky heels allowing her enough extra height that they lined up perfectly from hip to shoulder. She leaned forward towards his ear and felt the hand Evan had on her back wrap all the way around her waist. “But we should probably wait a minute, so we don’t steal Stella and Kelly’s thunder.”
She felt his chuckle run through her as she turned back to watch the dance. Evan’s hand stayed put, his body readjusting to watch from over her shoulder. After ignoring him the first half of the night, and generally any time she’d seen him in public for the last two months, standing together felt remarkably intimate.
As the dance wound down, he squeezed her hip to get her attention. She looked back over her shoulder at him, her eyes quickly glancing at his lips before arriving at his face. “What’s up?” she breathed nonchalantly.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.” They weren’t anywhere near there yet, she knew. But here, all dressed up at this beautiful wedding? In front of all her friends, who had basically become her family? Their words felt a little bit like a promise.