Alex took a look out the peephole to make sure it was her friend before she opened the door.  Satisfied, she opened the door to see her grinning best friend holding a bottle of her favorite wine.  “Hi,” she greeted Olivia with a kiss on the cheek and a smile of her own.  She took the bottle of wine and made her way back into the apartment, knowing Olivia would follow.

Olivia did follow.  As she was taking off her leather jacket, she took a deep breath to still her quickly beating heart.  She both hated and loved when Alex greeted her like that.  She was always tempted to make the kiss far more intimate, but knew it was probably as close to a physical relationship she would get with the blonde attorney.  She had admitted a long time ago that she was in love with Alex.  Even before Alex had been shot.  At first it had started out as a strong case of lust, enhanced by the fact that Alex was extremely sexy when she was angry.  Olivia would never admit it, but she would pick fights with the young ADA just to see her angry.

The lust was replaced by respect and an attraction on an emotional level when she realized that Alex could hold her own in the unit.  No matter how badly a case got to her, Alex always came back the next day and was ready for the next one.  Olivia never asked how she had worked through it, but when they became friends they started to talk about their issues with the cases together.

  Alex new Olivia was gay and was fine with it, but as far as Olivia new Alex’s tastes didn’t swing her way.  Something that mildly annoyed her.  Olivia hated perpetuating lesbian stereotypes but she had managed to fall into one of the most known.  She was the lesbian with the straight best friend and fallen for straight best friend, thus ruining what once was a very good friendship.  But Olivia refused to let that happen to her and Alex, so she refused to let Alex know how deeply she actually cared.

Hanging up her jacket, Olivia made her way into the main room at the same time Alex returned with two glasses of wine.  “I already had this chilling,” Alex explained.  “We can have the other with dinner.”

“That’s fine,” Olivia said as she sat on the sofa and accepted the glass from Alex.  “Where are we ordering from?” she asked as she leafed through a magazine she found on the coffee table.

Even though Olivia couldn’t see her, Alex put on a face of offense.  “What makes you think that I am not cooking dinner for my best friend?”

Not looking up from the magazine, Olivia didn’t miss a beat.  “Because the smoke alarm hasn’t gone off yet.”

Even though she knew it was coming, Olivia allowed Alex to hit her with the pillow.  Alex knew that Olivia had let the hit happen, but she still got a little satisfaction out of it.  They both knew that Alex couldn’t cook, but Olivia took great joys in bringing it up every now and again.  “Fine,” Alex huffed.  “You caught me.  Now do you want Chinese or Italian?” she asked as she produced two take out menus, holding one in each hand for Olivia to pick one.

“Well, I had Chinese for lunch, so Italian if that’s alright with you,” Olivia replied.

“That’s fine.  The wine you brought will go perfectly with that,” Alex said.  She turned to go place their orders as they always got the same thing, but turned back around when a sudden thought came to her.  “But you already knew that, didn’t you detective?” she asked in her prosecutor voice.

“Guilty as charged, Ms. Cabot,” Olivia smiled sweetly.

“Because I am in the mood for their chicken cacciatore, you’re forgiven this time, Detective Benson.  But you are taking me out for dessert afterwards.”

“You have yourself a deal, Ms. Cabot,” Olivia laughed.

Alex smiled in response and continued on to the kitchen to place the orders.  Both women were hoping that the easy, comfortable atmosphere continued after they told the other the news they had to share.