“Tell me about San Diego.”

Elizabeth stared down at her husband of three days, still out of breath and even a bit sweaty from another long afternoon spent in their honeymoon suite. “Now?” she managed.

“Well,” Jason replied, not sounding at all exhausted despite the marathon of fantastic sex—God, she loved that stamina. “I figure this is the best bet for you talk to me for more than five minutes.”

“We’ve talked,” she grumbled as she slid off him, dragging the cool sheets over her heated skin.

“More and faster aren’t what I hadn’t in mind,” was his only response. He dragged on a pair of black briefs, crossed to the mini fridge on the other side of the room and tossed her a bottle of water. She dragged herself up against the pillows and sighed as she twisted off the top. “We’re leaving for Port Charles tomorrow and we still don’t know anything about each other except where we’re from and our names.” He raised a brow at her. “I know you said we’d just…have fun for a while and that’s fine. But you’re coming to live at my house.”

And would be supporting her for a bit while she got back on her feet, but she was grateful that he had left that part out.

“There’s not much to tell,” she said after another minute, a bit disappointed he hadn’t rejoined her in bed but maybe that had been smart. She was getting really good at distracting them both. “I grew up in Colorado and went to college there. I have a degree in art history but there’s not really much I can do with that. I taught for a bit, but I got laid off. I thought…there was something for me in San Diego, but I was completely wrong.”

She hesitated then, not really sure how much she wanted him to know. He was a great guy and sexy as well, but there was some spots she didn’t want to poke too deeply. “Things went south there, and I had to get out. I had been saving for…” The future. A life. “But I was in such a bad place, I just kind of said screw it and booked a flight to somewhere that wasn’t San Diego. Cabo was the first available.”

“What about your things in San Diego? Do you need them shipped out?”

“I put anything that mattered in a storage locker and paid two months,” Elizabeth said. “I figured I could decide the next step from there.” She arched her own brows. “Tell me about Port Charles.”

“I guess you’re not really interested in the local sights and gossip.” He sipped his own water. “I was engaged to someone I’d dated for a long time. Someone who was with me before I made any money, so I thought that meant something. And then about a week ago, I came home from a road trip and I guess she’d lost track of time because she was screwing my brother in our bedroom.” He lifted a shoulder. “Kicked them both out, went to sleep, and decided to go on the honeymoon anyway.”

It didn’t look like he was much interested in discussing the ex or brother based on the way his eyes shifted away from hers, so she asked the next question. “Road trip? Money? What exactly do you do?”

He grinned then, a lightning quick one that lit up his entire face in a way that she hadn’t seen outside of bed. “You really don’t know.”

“No,” she muttered, feeling stupid. He wasn’t a movie star or anything or he wouldn’t be living in upstate New York. “Am I supposed to?”

“No.” Jason shook his head and took a long swig of water. “No, I guess I’ve just been living in a bubble. I play baseball with the Port Charles Rebels.” He grimaced. “God it’s a stupid fucking name, but all the good ones are taking.”

“Baseball,” Elizabeth repeated dubiously. “I know the Yankees. And the Padres, but that’s because I lived near the stadium. You…is it professional? I mean—” She pursed her lips. “You play sports.”

“Yeah. The Rebels are an expansion team—” He shook his head when she just blinked at him. “Never mind. I grew up in Port Charles so I thought it’d be good for all of us when I was claimed in the expansion draft. Close to both our families.” Jason snorted and finished the water. “Anyway. Yeah, people know me. Usually. I played in the All-Stars game last year.”

“Oh.” Elizabeth tilted her head. “Okay. So…that sounds like fun. Um…” What the hell should she say next? The only thing she knew about baseball was from the movies.

He laughed then and climbed back into bed with her. “You know what? I think we’ve talked enough for one night.”

“Oh, thank God.”

+3

At the time, it had seemed like the most genius plan either of them had ever considered.

Of course, twelve hours earlier, they had been drunk in a pricey resort bar in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico and had been lucky remember their own names—which had come in handy when the heavily accented officiant had asked for their names.

Somehow, when coming up with the grand plan of marrying a complete stranger, they had not even exchanged the most basic of courtesies.

They’d exchanged a great deal of other things to be sure after the ceremony had concluded, but now…as Elizabeth Webber groggily came to, she realized that while she remembered that she had exchanged vows with the gorgeous man next to her—

She couldn’t quite remember the name he’d said to the officiant.

She sat up, the silky cerulean sheets falling her to waist, her hair tumbling around her shoulders in a tangle that likely resembled a rat’s next and looked at him again. This time, he was looking back, his eyes the same deep blue as the Gulf of Mexico that lay beyond the window of their hotel suite.

“So,” Elizabeth said with a half smile. “That happened.”

He grinned and put a hand under his head. “Yeah. That happened.” He raised his eyebrows. “Jason Morgan.”

“Hmm?”

“You were looking at me like you didn’t know me.” His eyes slid down her torso, and she flushed, reaching for the sheet.

“I remembered you…just not your name so much.” She tilted her head. “That didn’t seem nearly as important last night as…other things.”

“Hmmm…” He sat up, the sheets pooling at his waist. “Is this where we decide it was a giant mistake and go our separate ways?” The words came easy and effortlessly—even carelessly, but there was something in his eyes that said just the opposite.

“We probably should,” Elizabeth said slowly, “but you know…” She sighed and laid back, looking at whitewashed ceiling. “It doesn’t feel like that’s the right idea.”

“You don’t—” He turned on his side to look at her. “I can still help you get a new passport and a ticket home.”

She should say yes. Chalk this entire trip up to a learning experience on why you shouldn’t trust anyone with your love or your passport. She didn’t know this man outside of the bedroom, but for some reason, despite everything she had ever known, she thought he might be the rare unicorn—a man who meant what he said. She could ask him for a divorce or some sort of annulment and he would probably still make phone calls to the embassy for her.

But go home to what?

And let him go home alone?

“What about what you said last night?” Elizabeth asked after a moment. “Didn’t you want to stick it your ex and your brother? Show them you didn’t need them at all?”

Jason laid back on his own pillow. “It seems colder now than it did then,” he admitted. “I liked the idea of going home with you, showing that I had already forgotten her. But would it be fair to use you like that?” He shook his head. “You deserve better than that.”

“Well, you deserve better than finding your fiance in bed with your brother the week before the wedding.” Elizabeth sat back up and pressed her lips together. “Look, I’m not looking for a fairy tale or forever after, you know? I just…I don’t have anything much to go home in San Diego. There’s no job. I’ve always been crap and making and keeping friends. You made a good case last night. I could get a chance to take a breather, figure out the next step. You could piss off your ex. And well,…” She trailed her fingers down the lean muscles of his torso, slipping her fingers under the sheet resting low at his waist. “We could have fun for a while.”

He studied her for a moment. “Just fun?”

“What else is there?” she returned with an easy smile.

“Friends,” Jason replied, catching her fingers in his grasp and rubbing his fingers over the cheap, gold band on her finger. “You’re right about not guaranteeing fairy tales or forever, but I think I’d like to be friends with my wife.”

Friends. The word felt foreign on her lips but she managed to keep the smile on her face. “I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try anything once.”

He tugged her down to him. “Of course, there’s still four days left before we have to check out.”

“Whatever will we do with all that time?” Elizabeth grinned as he rolled her to her back and leaned to kiss her.

+3

Prompt: Your heroine captures something on film that makes people want to kill her.

This is unedited, so excuse the typos.

Elizabeth Webber wrinkled her nose and looked at her film editor. “Can you replay that last fifteen seconds?” The beleaguered Dillon Quartermaine clicked a few buttons and the footage of the park the previous day began to roll again. When it had ended, he looked at her. “Wanna go another six times or can we go to print?”

“I guess.” Elizabeth sat back in her chair and touched her pen to her lip. “I just feel like I’m missing something—”

“You’re doing a minute thirty bit on the annual police barbecue.” Dillon played with a few more buttons, adding titles and shaving an extra half second off the back end. “It’s not really Pulitzer Prize material.”

“You don’t win Pulitzers for television.”

“Okay, well, whatever you win for TV.” Dillon slid the tape out and handed it to her. “I’m sorry to break it to you, but you know this might even get relegated to the D-block.”

“Yeah.” She sighed. “It’s not really what I wanted to do. I wanted to investigate, break stories that matter—”

“You wanted to be Woodward or Bernstein or those guys from the Globe who broke the priest story. You want to do something that people are gonna make Oscar movies about.” Dillon shrugged. “Welcome to the club. No money in that kind of journalism any more. Believe me.” He sighed, wistfully. “I wanted to make documentaries, but it’s like impossible to get funding—”

“This just isn’t how I pictured my life is all,” Elizabeth grumbled. She took out her phone and flipped through the missed notifications and checked her text messages. “My friend at the council’s office said they’re going to try to hold that vote tonight.”

“Yeah? They’re really gonna try to impeach the mayor?” Dillon whistled. “There’s a story. You got a connection to that, maybe—”

“I tell Ned and he’ll just give the story to Carly. Again.” She pursed her lips and eyed him. “You still handy with a camera?”

“What, you wanna show up at the mayor’s office to see his reaction?” He considered it. “It’s not the worst idea in the world—”

“No, I want to go to City Hall and be on scene when the vote goes down. If we’re already there with a camera—”

“More likely Ned will let us at least get the first on camera. He’ll remember you’re alive.” Dillon rose to his feet. “What the hell. I’m not doing anything else interesting tonight.”

The street was quiet as Elizabeth pulled her battered Ford into an empty parking space in the City Hall lot. There were only a few other cars—and it didn’t look like any one was holding a top secret super important vote.

“Maybe Em was wrong,” she murmured as she got out of her car.

“Maybe we’re just super early. “ Dillon hoisted the station camera over his shoulder. “You want to shoot an intro just to have it ready?”

“No, but maybe get some background footage—we can play up how secret and hush hush the vote is. Or we can just film in the dark,” she muttered, pulling her denim more tightly around her.

Obediently, Dillon started to pan the parking lot for about thirty seconds. He frowned. “Hey—what’s that over there?”

Elizabeth came around the side of the car to follow his gaze. On the far side of the parking lot, a man had stepped out of his car, followed by another man. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but they were furiously arguing. “Film it,” she ordered. “Maybe it’s a council member—”

Later, she would try to describe the sound she heard later—firecrackers. A sharp crack.

But she would never be able to really put into the words the sound the gun made as it flashed. One of the men crumpled to the ground.

“Oh, shit!” Dillon cried out, frantically zooming in. “Oh, shit, that’s—”

“Get in the car, get in the car—” Elizabeth yanked the passenger side door open and shoved him towards it. Dillon’s exclamation had carried—and the shooter had turned towards them.

Had started to run towards them.

Elizabeth stumbled and nearly dropped her keys as she threw herself in her car.

“We have to go,” Dillon said, voice shaking. “Go. Please go. Go.”

“I’m going, I’m going—” She threw the car into drive and squealed out of the parking lot.

“Holy shit, holy shit,” Dillon whimpered. “We just—did you see who that was?”

“It was too dark and they were far away—but you zoomed in, Dillon—” She glanced at him as she turned a corner. She headed for the highway—not thinking about a destination, just wanting to put as much distance between herself and the lunatic with the gun.

“The mayor—” Dillon swallowed. “Julian Jerome just shot Justus Ward.”

Her stomach dropped. “Well, shooting the Speaker of the City Council is one way to avoid impeachment.” Elizabeth swallowed “Do you—do you think he knows who we are—” She looked at the camera in his lap—with the station’s logo—WKPC—emblazoned across it. The light had been shining.

“Well, it was dark,” Dillon managed. “But um…” He looked at her. “I know Julian. I mean, he knows me. I mean, it’s—I dated his niece for a while. A-and the light was kind of—” He waved his hand. “All over us both.”

“Shit. Shit.” Her options were limited. They could go to the police but—ha—

“There’s no way this doesn’t go bad for us,” Dillon said. “The department is in Julian’s pocket. This tape will disappear and you know they’re saying he’s got connections, and he sure as hell doesn’t mind killing people—”

“And if we take it to Ned, we put him in danger.” Elizabeth winced. “Shit. I know who I have to call.”

Dillon frowned. “Who?”

“My ex-husband,” she muttered. “Damn it.” She’d sworn the day she walked out she’d never say another word to him. Damn it.

“How he’s going to help?”

“He works for the FBI,” Elizabeth sighed. “Damn it,” she swore again as she fished in her pocket for her phone. “Siri,” she said, her teeth clenched. “Call Jason Morgan.”

“Calling Jason Morgan…”

+2