try try try to understand, i'm a magic man

detective rowan bryne 41 enigma

[det-rowanbyrne]

i never seen eyes so blue, you know i could not run away it seemed

[ cis female she/her] Welcome to Aurora Bay, [ROWAN BYRNE]! I couldn’t help but notice you look an awful lot like [JESSICA CHASTAIN]. You must be the [FORTY-ONE] year old [DETECTIVE]. Word is you’re [DRIVEN] but can also be a bit [SECRETIVE] and your favorite song is [MAGIC MAN BY HEART]. I also heard you’ll be staying in [AURORA BAY DRIVE]. I’m sure you’ll love it!

tw: miscarriage mention (mild, brief), stabbing. || @aurorabayaesthetic

Rowan Byrne was the much-wanted only daughter of a US Army General and a librarian. They had tried for years to have a family and finally fell pregnant with Rowan after several miscarriages. As the family were constantly moving, her mother became a full-time educator and the couple chose to home-school Rowan. It wasn't until college that Rowan finally had the chance to properly meet teens and young adults her own age. She always felt like an outsider, but found a decent amount of friends in her Criminology degree.

Once she graduated, Rowan began to look for jobs in the police service, not wanting to go into law or courtroom work. She joined the academy and was quickly one of the higher ranked cadets. Unfortunately the idea of joining the police service instead of the Army to follow in her father's footsteps created a rather large rift between father and daughter, but Rowan knew what she wanted to do. As much as she loved her father, she hated constantly having to move, not being able to have roots somewhere even if only semi-permanently.

Once graduating with honours from the academy, Rowan found her first job as a 'beat cop' in Pennsylvania (the same neighbourhood she lived in while attending college) and was rather quickly promoted and taken off the street to become a junior detective. It was her first promotion that spurred the first round of rumours about Rowan to swirl within the precinct. She was young, she was attractive (compared to the overweight and lumbering detectives in the rest of the team) and some had started to question why she had been promoted so soon. The rumours of Rowan's sex life and how she could possibly have used her body to be promoted so quickly got so bad that Rowan had to move.

Unfortunately the rumours followed and when Rowan was chosen as a new member of the undercover team, the proverbial shit really hit the fan. Whilst undercover, her identity was compromised by a senior member of her new precinct getting intoxicated and calling her 'Racy Rowan' (the stupid nickname people had given her when assuming she was sleeping her way to the top) instead of her undercover name. A fight soon broke out between the undercover police and the gang they were trying to infiltrate and Rowan ended up suffering a rather nasty stab wound to her thigh. That was the last straw and Rowan decided to go into 'private practice' and become a Private Investigator.

Her good looks helped immensely and most of her money in private practice came from women trying to catch their partner's cheating. Rowan would often be paid to try and hit on people's husbands, wives or partners and then provide her employer with the evidence of potential cheating. It wasn't necessarily ethical, but it paid the bills. She became quite a thorn in the side of the police and several prosecutors around the country when she was hired by high-profile criminals to investigate DAs, Jurors and Judges. She refused to give anything that could be used as bribery fodder, but that didn't stop more of the police who already assumed her to be someone who slept her way to the top thinking she was working underhandedly with the criminals she had tried to put away years ago.

When her father passed away (natural causes), Rowan opened a letter he'd written for her years ago explaining how sorry he was that he had pushed her away when she joined the police and how proud he was of the woman she had become. It made her feel horrible for how her life had changed since leaving the police and she made the move back to the service. She made contact with her former chief (now the police chief of Aurora Bay) and was welcomed back to the force as a detective, thankful she didn't need to work her way to the top again.

[diegomartinezz]

Seriously? what was this woman's problem? "Nope, I can't let you do that." He said shaking his head. He didn't mind for a woman to pay but after the way, he was behaving he just felt like that was the least her could do. "You're really going to make me say it, are you?" He said rolling her eyes as he let out a sigh "I am sorry, Detective Byrne. Sorry for being a dick to you."

[det-rowanbyrne]

If Rowan had to sit there and teach Diego what an actual apology was, she wasn't going to be all that surprised in having to do so, but she was also more than ready to have to. She wasn't going to let him get away with the 'I should apologise' bullshit that a lot of people who didn't actually beleive they were in the wrong thought they could get away with. He was going to have to apologise directly to her.

"Yes, I am," she replied calmly, "Because saying you owe an apology and actually apologising are vastly different beasts, Detective." Rowan was mildly surprised by how quickly he actually did apologise, but she was thankful to hear it, "Thank you Martinez. Now, are you coming to sit or did you just stop by to apologise?"

[juliet-harkness]

Alice smile. "You certainly made my day, after the morning I had, I needed something like this." She pointed out that since her coffee was free and with the spirit of passing some positivity, she also looked at the barista and gave him some money. "Here, this is for the next few clients."

[det-rowanbyrne]

"Oh?" Rowan asked, looking at her watch and asking, "What's happened this early in the day to make the free coffee a good pick me up?" The last thing she wanted to hear was that the other woman's morning hadn't been going well, but Rowan was glad to know she had helped improve her mood.

[diegomartinezz]

The last time the two were seated in front of each other, the redhead left in a rush, a bit angry too. Diego was being a total asshole towards the woman and it wasn't fair. He nodded at he sat down in front of her "You left in such a hurry last time that you forgot your money on the table," He said as he put her money back so she would take it because after being such an asshole to her, he was sure as hell she wasn't paying for their lunch. "I think you deserve an apology for my awful behavior the other day." He said letting out a sigh as he scanned the woman's face. Was Diego actually admitting that he was wrong? That's a fucking character development right there.

[det-rowanbyrne]

Rowan rolled her eyes gently as Diego produced the money she had tried to pay for lunch with, "You couldn't even let me have that?" she asked, "You're even going to fight me on paying to lunch?" She didn't bother taking the money off the table, happy to leave it there for her server to collect once she was ready to leave. She was a little surprised to hear him acknowledge the fact that she deserved an apology, but she kept it off her features, careful not to let anything slip past her steely gaze, "Y'know saying someone deserves an apology isn't actually an apology?" Rowan crossed her arms over her chest, waiting for Diego to actually apologise to her.

[imogenarnold]

A tab. Imogen's eyes widen at the request, following the line of the woman's credit card as it was slid across to the bartender. Was it made of metal? It looked to be metal...she wondered what kind of limit came with a card like that, though she knew better than to ask, lest her newfound friend decided to kick her margarita over to a separate tab.

Their shared bowl of chips is scooted closer towards the redhead.

"What?" She asked around a mouthful. "I don't get paid until the book's done." And considering she had yet to start it, living frugally seemed to be in Imogen's foreseeable future.

"So, yes. You and the Bay. Help me with this, Rowan, and I promise you payback in as many tequila highballs as you could possibly drink." Payment that would not be seen for quite some time, though this information is kept to herself.

For all that it's worth, Rowan's hesitation doesn't keep her from producing a quality answer. Imogen could imagine it as she's speaking, head nodding along and unable to keep from smiling as she jots down notes for a lighthouse scene. "Absolute magic. The ideal finale...but tell me, how're you getting there? If that's how the night ends, where does it start?"

[det-rowanbyrne]

Rowan happily took a chip and dipped it, never one to say no to food. As fit as she had to be for work, Rowan had an appetite that would rival a lion in the Sahara so she was sure to grab the bar menu and look over it as well. She knew she was well off, a decade of owning her own fruitful PI business had set her up to go back on a detective wage when she moved to town, so she was more than happy to spread the love where she could.

"I get paid monthly," she replied with a soft chuckle, "So don't worry about it, okay. Tonight's on me... and when the book's done, you can take me to the day spa or something and we can get you some much well earnt stress relief."

The suggestion of more than a few highballs caused Rowan to feel a little sick, knowing her limit with her favourite liquor was far less than as many as she could drink, but she humoured her friend regardless, "I'm trying my best," she assured the other woman, thinking a bit more before shaking her head, "I honestly don't know how we get there... I don't know enough about this place yet -- you must have some ideas, c'mon, help a girl out."

[harleyhua]

✿ ☀ ✿ ☀ ✿

"Pay it forward?" Harley repeated, mostly to make sure that he had heard her correctly. He remembered it blowing up in popularity for awhile when he was a teenager. As she asked if he had ever done it, he thought for a second. He had never actively decided 'I'm going to pay for this stranger's coffee' or anything like that, but he had given out free drinks at work, or bought a friend something to eat when they didn't have money with no expectation of them paying him back or returning the favor. "I mean, sure. I just wasn't expecting to be on the receiving end of it today."

[det-rowanbyrne]

"Yeah," Rowan hummed, tucking her hair behind her ear as she watched the barista prepare their drinks. She believed in helping in small ways where she could and when it came to buying someone a coffee, there was no way she couldn't afford it, so why not? She tilted her head to look back at the man next to her before smiling gently and nodding, "Then I guess my plan to surprise someone worked, didn't it?"

[pearlwestbrook]

"Guess so," Pearl shrugged. She'd never had enough money for it to have ever even occurred to her to pay for somebody else's coffee, and she wondered now whether it would have.

If so, she doesn't think she'd have done it.

"It's really nice of you, thanks," she said. "Kinda risky move though, what if you accidentally bought coffee for somebody who's, like, a total piece of shit? Guess you just gotta live in blissful ignorance."

[det-rowanbyrne]

"You're welcome," she hummed as the other woman thanked her for the drink. Hopefully it would help her with an extra pep in her step that caffeine couldn't quite achieve. Rowan loved being surprised, she'd worked out at quite a young age that one of her love languages was gifting. As materialistic as that seemed, Rowan simply felt loved when someone went out of their way to give her something well thought out or meaningful to her, regardless of its cost. A coffee on her was a way Rowan felt she could gift something to a stranger and make it not so weird.

"I guess that's the gamble I take," Rowan shrugged, "Though it's not like I'm gonna talk into the station and shout a coffee to someone in our holding cells, y'know?"

[juliet-harkness]

Alice didn't want to be a pain in the ass, especially with the woman that was being very nice to her. "A cappuccino would be lovely." She said that was a drink she normally ordered so she knew they had. "I'm Alice by the way, is very nice of you to offer to buy me coffee, any special reason?"

[det-rowanbyrne]

Rowan nodded as the woman behind her gave her her order, taking a step toward the counter so she could order both hers and Rowan's coffees. She threw in a couple of pastries, aiming to share them with the boys back at the station and paid the server, thanking them by tossing her change in the tip jar. With her attention free again, "I'm Rowan," she smiled gently, shrugging a little at the other's question, "Just trying to pass on some positivity for the morning, y'know?"

[diegomartinezz]

Where: The Reef Bar

Who: @det-rowanbyrne

Diego had a long day at work and after not getting anywhere with his latest case, the male decided to go to the reef bar and have a drink before heading home and letting the nanny go as well. He sat by the bar and ordered himself a whiskey. While sitting, he scanned the room and suddenly, a familiar redhead appeared. He smiled to himself. Of course, she would be there. He approached her "Is this seat taken?" He asked offering her a light smirk.

[det-rowanbyrne]

Rowan was looking forward to having a moment to herself after a rather large first week of official work. She had headed to a bar the captain had recommended for a stiff drink and some finger food after she'd been allowed a day off to catch up on personal errands. As much as Rowan was thankful for the time off, she had missed the routine of work. Reports, chasing up on leads and interviews... everything about the job she had come to hate all those years ago were the things she was missing right now.

Her thoughts on the job seemed to come to life in front of her as the one part of work that had not been missed that day appeared, "Detective," she spoke gently, clearly not all that impressed to see him. Rowan nodded a little, shifting in her seat to so Diego had room to sit next to her if he really wanted to, "Free as a bird," she hummed gently, waiting for him to start on her for not being at work that day.

[diegomartinezz]

Diego didn't mean to act like this. He never had many friends and female friends in particular. The only consistent female in his life was his daughter Isabella and of course, Catalina, his late wife was too. It was hard for Diego to open up and he could see that he was letting down some people. "Rowan...this has nothing to do with you, I am trying, believe me." He said as he finished up his plate, still not removing his eyes from the red "That's true...are you a parent?"

[det-rowanbyrne]

"Detective Martinez. I'm not gonna force you to talk to me -- so there's really no point in continuing to try, isn't it? You've made it clear you don't want a partner and I'll respect that. At the very least, I can be civil... professional. So let's both stop trying, okay?" She finished her second plate of food before waving her hand to their server to ask for the bill. She sighed a little and shook her head, "Nope, just me and my cat."

When the bill was delivered to their table, Rowan popped some cash down to cover both of their meals before standing, "I might go on a quick personal errand," she hummed, "I'll meet you back at the station when I'm done."

[diegomartinezz]

Diego rolled his eyes too and let out a softer sigh "Sorry, I am just not used to people asking me questions...I am being a dick again." He admitted it as it was true, he was a loner for so long and he literally had two friends. The truth was that Rowan didn't do anything wrong, she was trying to be nice and all Diego was doing is...well nothing to help. "Okay, I always think about what I am going to do after I am done with being a detective...everything I did since moving to the US was for my daughter. I think about her future rather than on my own."

[det-rowanbyrne]

"Yeah," Rowan hummed, finishing off her first plate of food and grabbing one of the tostadas from the second to munch on, "I'm glad you're the one recognising it." Was that meant to be growth from him? Honestly, Rowan had stopped caring. He could talk if he wanted to talk, but she was going to make far less effort moving forward in asking questions of him. It was clear to her the line he had seemingly drawn in the sand and Rowan was happy to stay as far away from toeing it as she could. As much as she wanted to ask him about his daughter, she wasn't stupid enough to pry any further, instead simply nodding as she ate and humming, "I guess you do what you gotta do as a parent."

[diegomartinezz]

Diego kept working on his plate as the woman did on hers. Diego kept looking at Rowan not really understanding why she was asking these types of questions. Did they suddenly become best friends and he needs to tell her his life story? "What are you talking about? I will be a detective until the day I die." He said sarcastically "I didn't think about it actually. You?"

[det-rowanbyrne]

Rowan rolled her eyes, gently. Fine. He didn't want to chat or get to know each other, they could sit there in silence and eat their lunch. She shook her head a little, "Forget I asked," she hummed, dismissing his reiteration of her question with a shake of the hand holding her fork, "Just enjoy your lunch." She was trying her best, she really was, but it didn't seem like Diego cared all that much to even pretend to meet her halfway.

She'd spent an entire career trying to be the 'good girl' at the precinct in getting to know her co-workers and subordinates and look how far it had gotten her. The rumour mill had followed her where ever she went -- hell, even having lunch with a colleague would have started rumours of an affair back when she was younger. Still, old habits died hard and Rowan couldn't help but want at least a working friendship with the man who was forced to partner up with her.

[pearlwestbrook]

Maybe it was that Pearl had learned to expect the worst from most people, or maybe it was just a subconscious projection of her own constant inner turmoil that made her not trust anyone — whatever the case, she was vaguely suspicious of the stranger's offer, quelled only a little by what appeared to be genuine confusion on the woman's face.

"Um...iced coffee with almond milk," she said nevertheless, locking her phone and shoving it into her jeans pocket. "Thanks, I guess. You do this a lot or did I just get lucky today?"

[det-rowanbyrne]

As a woman wandering around in the world alone for the most part, she understood why some people may be hesitant to let her help them by buying a coffee or breakfast for them, but she was really just trying to spread a little positivity to start her day -- and hopefully rub off on whoever she managed to shout the drink to. She nodded as the other woman gave her order, reiterating it to the barista along with her own coffee. Rowan paid for the two drinks, adding two chocolate croissants to her order as a last minute decision before paying in cash and shoving the change into the tip jar.

"Just trying to put a little pep in someone's step," she replied, moving toward the pick up area and out of the line, "Y'know that pay it forward thing that people talk about? No day like today to try it, right?

[sntrose-deactivated20230703]

@jessicachastain — This weekend, grab your popcorn and buckle in. The Good Nurse, based on a true story, is now on @netflix

[juliet-harkness]

"I'm not driving, I walked here, but I'm going to Uber back." Alice hated driving, she much rather call a uber, her sister, well mom, or just have a driver, so she could do whatever she wanted, she not be very responsible, but even she knew to not drink and drive.

[det-rowanbyrne]

Rowan nodded, glad to hear the young woman wasn't going to be putting herself in danger if she was drinking something more than coffee, "Well I guess now all we need to know is if this place will make you an Irish coffee, don't we?" She looked around, raising a gentle brow, "I'm not sure they have their liquor license... so if they don't, is there something else I can get you?"

[diegomartinezz]

Diego had an understanding that not everyone would see what he sees or agree with him as Rowan proved more than once. He didn't quite want to open up to her just yet but who knows. Diego didn't move his attention from Rowan as she spoke. "Okay, I am counting on you, Bryne." He said as he took a bite from his enchiladas. He loved Mexican food, and in fact, he loved a lot of ethnic foods, always willing to try new stuff. He listened to the redhead talk about her past "Hmm, sounds interesting. But, working with a badge does give you more options." He finally could agree on something with her.

[det-rowanbyrne]

Rowan wasn't going to waste time in letting the food go cold, so she began to eat as soon as their meals were placed in front of them. She was looking forward to the food, having been on the edge of dramatising her hunger and claiming she was 'starving'. She raised her brows when he spoke of counting on her to do things discreetly, deciding not to comment on how it felt to be not trusted to do her job and then being told he was counting on her to do something. Rowan simply let the conversation die, sipping from her mocktail and licking the salt off the rim to enhance the sourness of the lime beverage.

"You ever thought of what you'd do if you weren't a detective?" she asked, "After you give this up, I mean."

[diegomartinezz]

Diego had many thoughts filling his mind about this case and many others. The male went through quite a lot in his lifetime. He served the Cuban army for nearly eight years and then became a detective. He loved and lost and all he wanted to do is make the world a better place for him and his daughter. Diego and Rowan were completely different people. He knew that being a woman in their profession was hard enough as it was but, he felt like she was trying so hard to prove herself and she truly didn't need to. Even if he didn't agree with some of her ideas, they were solid. "Okay, that's fair, I will give you the benefit of the doubt with this one and you are free to look into the gossip you're looking for but, do it very cautiously, please." He said nodding his head as time went by and they got their food. "So...you were a PI, huh? That's why I've never heard of you."

[det-rowanbyrne]

Sitting there and waiting for lunch with Diego was giving Rowan whiplash. He'd been so adamant in hating everything she was saying or anything she had to offer, so to have him actually give her a second glance and want to talk to her felt like it came from far left field. Rowan nodded as Martinez spoke, again holding her hands up in surrender, "I know subtlety, I promise... but I'll make sure to get what I can from some people." She wasn't going to push her luck with her partner more than she already had.

Rowan busied herself with the chips and dip, making sure to offer them to Diego as well so she wasn't the only one eating as they waited for their food. Eventually their meals came and she felt herself salivating as she smelt the spices in the air. She nodded a little, "I was, yeah. I had my own firm for a while there, we did really well and helped a lot of people... but I kinda missed this--" Rowan gestured between them, "The investigating with a badge thing, not the authentic Mexican food."