In the Details

by H. Claire Taylor

  “Suicidal. I’m not. And even if I were, I’m pretty sure the Alpha O-meddler wouldn’t let it happen.”

  “I guess that’s good.”

  She considered it. “No, it’s really not.” Then she found herself laughing, and Jameson, appearing less sure of himself than she’d ever seen him, chuckled along.

  When she opened the door for him, he paused, and both stepped toward each other at the same time. He hugged her close to his chest and whispered, “We’ll talk about a break-up scenario later, okay? We don’t have to do anything yet, and Wendy will want to have her say.”

  She nodded, her ear and jaw rubbing against the soft fabric of his expensive T-shirt.

  “Good luck on the rest of the shoot,” she said as she waved goodbye and forced a smile. It wasn’t the most difficult smile she’d ever forced, so there was that.

  But as soon as she closed the door and the isolation of the condo set in, the crushing pressure returned, and she was back at the bottom of the ocean.

  She went straight for the fridge and grabbed a beer, reconsidered it, then grabbed another. She would definitely need more than one, and the less she had to get off the couch, the better. It was just efficient.

  Her eyes jumped to the baseball cap on the coffee table a moment before there was a knock on the door. She grabbed the cap and went to hand it back to Jameson.

  In her haze of depression, she neglected to check who it was before she turned the knob and swung open the door. She nearly dropped the cap when she saw him. It wasn’t Jameson.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Christopher Riley had a crutch under his right arm and soft brace around his right knee. “This is a bad time, isn’t it?”

  “No. I mean, in general, yes, this is a bad time. Maybe the worst time. But it’s not a bad time for you to show up.” In fact, it might have been the best time. “Come on inside.”

  She ogled his injury as he passed on his way to the couch, where he promptly took a load off. “You expecting someone else?” He nodded at the two beers.

  “No. Just been that kind of day. That kind of life.”

  He popped the cap off the unopened bottle and groaned as he leaned back. “Just passed Jameson on the way up. He said it was fine if I saw you one-on-one. For a movie star, he’s really not that bad.” Took the first sip and studied the bottle appraisingly before looking up at her quickly and adding, “If I’m interrupting anything—”

  “Not even a little. But why did you need Jameson to … Oh.” She sighed and grabbed the beer, resuming her position on the couch. “Chris, we’re not really dating.”

  “I mean, you can date whoever you want,” he said quickly, tipping his beer way back.

  “Why? Are you dating someone?” She tried to sound disinterested, but it just wasn’t happening tonight. Her well of bullshit was dry.

  “Not anymore. But let’s not talk about that. I heard what happened, what you found out …” His mouth remained open for more words, but none came as he shook his head.

  She couldn’t meet his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  “Huh? For what?”

  “For not believing you about her.”

  “Stop. I’m not here to tell you I told you so, even though, well, you know.” He took a swig from the bottle. “Goddamn this is good. I haven’t had a real beer in months. You get a little money and everyone expects you to drink craft beer. I can’t tell you how many shit beers I’ve had to endure.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said sardonically.

  His head shot up and he said, “Oh god, I’m sorry. I’m such a—” before he caught her eye and she snickered.

  He shut his mouth and glared playfully at her, and for a moment, behind the mask of a man, she could see little Christopher Riley. “I’m glad you came over,” she said.

  Nodding, he threw an arm across the back of the couch, his hand open. She took it.

  Then Chris nodded at the TV. “Why don’t you turn that crap off?”

  She took his suggestion, and as she threw the remote back onto the coffee table, she said, “Was it you?”

  And without asking what, he said, “Yeah. Rex called me after he heard about it.”

  “I can pay you back.”

  Chris chuckled. “No, you can’t.”

  She shut her eyes. “You’re right. I can’t.”

  “Just don’t run off anywhere.”

  “No plans to.”

  “If that changes, know that I’ll track you down. I’m a Philadelphian now. I don’t fuck around.”

  “Psh. Please. You’ll never not be a Texan.”

  His squeezed her hand as he leaned forward, eyes wide. “They’re so weird up there, Jess. They never smile at strangers and some of the things they eat … They don’t even have proper queso.”

  “Shut up.”

  “I’m serious. Don’t take this too hard, but half the reason I flew down here today was so I could get some queso that wasn’t just Velveeta and Rotel.”

  She let go of his hand as he leaned back against the armrest again. “I’m glad it was you who paid my bail.”

  “You are?”

  “Yeah. I was worried it was Mrs. Thomas.”

  He adjusted to extend his injured leg across the couch. “Why would she help you out now?”

  “Why has she ever helped me out?”

  He fell silent, looking for an answer and frowning when he found none. “Yeah, that doesn’t make sense. Have you tried to talk to her about it? Asked her what the fuck?”

  “No!” she spat before pulling back. “No. Not that I haven’t thought about it. Hell, I’ve spent most nights in bed fantasizing about tearing her a new one. But what would I even say if I had her on the phone? I feel like I would just start shouting at her and never stop, and what’s the point in that? She’s the Devil! It wouldn’t change anything, and it’s probably best if I keep my distance from her anyway.” She sipped her beer, and when Chris remained silent, she added, “Even worse, I don’t know if I could yell at her over the phone because she’s Mrs. Thomas.”

  “Phew,” he said, shaking his head. “That’s … Yeah, I don’t envy you. For what it’s worth, you’re handling it way better than I would.”

  She laughed morosely. “Bullshit. It’s impossible to handle it worse than I am. I’m broke, out of a job, letting down everyone I—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Chris said, mercifully cutting her off. “I get the picture. Look, you got screwed by the Devil and you could use some help. Will you let me help you out?”

  She hugged her knees closer to her, burying her toes under the middle seat cushion. “I don’t know if I can now.”

  “I’m not going to do what she did.”

  “How do I know that, though?” She winced, feeling a new layer of guilt for suspecting him, but unable to keep from suspecting him.

  “It’s a fair point,” he conceded. “I’m not sure how to convince you. But I will say that I’m not the Devil, so at least you know that. And I’m not a demon—I’m pretty sure angels can’t be. But I guess the most compelling argument is this.” He tipped the lip of his bottle at his wrapped knee.

  “Your knee? What does that have to do with anything?”

  “I get injured the same week your world goes to shit? Suddenly I have a little free time away from training to come check on you?” He raised his eyebrows as though expecting her to follow along. When she wasn’t, he added, “If this doesn’t have His name written all over it, I don’t know what does.”

  She jerked her head back. “You think God gave you an injury so you would come bail me out of jail?”

  “Yeah,” he said firmly. “That’s what I think. If you don’t believe me, just ask Him.”

  ANGEL BOY IS GETTING SMARTER.

  Regardless of the fact that Chris was right on the money, she was reluctant to confirm it—she couldn’t imagine he’d be big on the idea of her Father bestowing upon him a career-threatening injury just so he could be available for when she finally
had to play her get-out-of-jail-free card. “He says it was Original Mistake, not him.”

  LIAR.

  “Liar,” repeated Chris without knowing it. “But I appreciate the idea all the same.”

  He understood.

  He almost always did.

  After a comfortable pause, he asked, “I’m not gonna sugarcoat it for you, Jess. Your life is shit right now. And it’s probably not going to get any better if you go to trial for murder. You got a raw deal here, and it’s not fair. And don’t hit me for saying this—yeah, your mom told me you decked the guy before you smote him, which we’ll circle back to later because it’s super hot—but you’re going to have one hell of a time digging yourself out of this without a whole lot of help. You’re out of money, no one’s going to hire you, and you look like you’ve lost twenty pounds since I last saw you, but I know exercise isn’t your thing, so I can only assume you can’t afford to feed yourself.”

  She nodded somberly and mumbled, “I accidentally went to fat camp.”

  “So, what do you say? Will you let me help you out, no strings attached?”

  She groaned and leaned back to stare up at the ceiling. “It’s been a long couple of days. I’ll have to think about it. I just— My mind is so screwed up about money and trust and … I don’t know, it seems kind of weird to let some man provide for me like that. But then again, I let a woman take care of me, and here I am, out of a job and so much more.”

  “First of all, I’m not just some man. I’m me. I’m Chris. I hope that matters.”

  She propped herself up again to address him. “It does. Like I said, I’ll think about it.” They finished the rest of their drinks in silence, and when Chris tipped back the last of his, he set it on the table and said, “I really thought it would be Jimmy.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah. He just does so many bad things.”

  “That’s a little obvious, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose so. If it makes you feel any better, for as little as I always cared for Mrs. Thomas, I wouldn’t have guessed who she was, either. Bitch sure is subtle.”

  And all the more dangerous for it.

  “What are you going to do now?” he asked. “Any ideas?”

  She had a few, but nothing concrete. “Probably get drunk and go to bed.”

  He grabbed his crutch and pushed onto his feet. “I’ll get out of your hair, then.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “No, no. I already have a hotel room booked downtown. I just wanted to swing by and make sure you’re okay and not—”

  “Suicidal.” Same as Jameson, then. Great, had she found a new way to be a burden to everyone? Was someone going to schedule shifts for people to visit to make sure she didn’t kill herself?

  But Chris blew off that notion with a flick of his hand. “Psh. No. God would never let you kill yourself. I wanted to make sure you weren’t watching the news. And I accomplished that, so I’d better get going.”

  The idea of him leaving stirred an animalistic fear inside her. “I have more beer. You’re welcome to it.”

  He cringed and scratched his head. “Nah, I’d better not.”

  She swallowed down her impulse to turn from trickery to begging and kept her mouth shut as she walked him over to the front door.

  Just as he crossed the threshold, he paused and turned toward her. Did they hug here? She wasn’t sure.

  He said. “If you’re set on watching something, I heard there’s a good special on channel thirty-six tonight. Should be on now, actually.”

  He hobbled off on his crutch without a hug goodbye, and when she turned the TV to channel thirty-six and she saw the giraffe with her young, wobbly calf grazing from a tall tree, the tears finally crashed in on her.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  “That is some bullshit,” Quentin said, catching her under-thrown pass. All her passes were under thrown tonight. It was one of the lesser talked about side effects of depression, as it turned out.

  “Which part?” she asked, waiting for his pass and hoping it hit her right in the nose. It didn’t. It was a beautiful spiral directly to her chest, and putting her face in front of it would have required initiative beyond her capabilities for the last two miserable weeks.

  “‘Which part’?” he asked incredulously. “The part where you had to beg the police officers to arrest you while you were covered in blood and some dude’s spleen bits were painting the sidewalk!”

  “Oh, that. And yeah. It was. I couldn’t believe they wouldn’t just do it when I asked.” Her pass hardly made it halfway, and Quentin shook his head as he chased after the awkward bounce.

  “Uh, no. That’s not the bullshit part. The bullshit part is that you can commit murder, confess to it, and they’re still like, ‘I dunno, she doesn’t look like a killer.”

  “Welcome to being a woman where everyone thinks they know you better than yourself.”

  “Didn’t you say the officer was a woman?”

  She grunted. “Well, yes. But still.”

  “I dunno, Jess,” he said, jogging backward and tossing her the ball in a lofty, effortless arc, “I think I’d take that over the assumptions people have about me. And just for the record, I’m going to tell this story to all my black friends and they’re going to lose their shit.”

  She gripped the ball, extended her arm back to throw a pass but decided partway through the motion that she just didn’t have it in her. The ball dropped behind her shoulder, bounced, and hit her in the back of the knee, causing her leg to buckle. “Guhh!” She didn’t have the energy or desire to fight it, and she went down.

  “Oh, come on now, Jess.” Quentin jogged over and knelt down next to her. “You don’t want them to see you like this, do you?” He nodded over to the waiting paparazzi on the bleachers.

  “I didn’t want them to see me at all, Quentin.” She spoke his name like an insult. “But you dragged me out here. I told you I would be no fun. I told you—”

  “Yeah, yeah. Your life is over, nothing matters, nobody deserves to be subjected to you. I heard you the first time. Why don’t we just stretch for a while? I assume you’ve been spending a lot of time in the fetal position—your hip flexors could probably use a little attention.”

  “Shows what you know.” She said it bitingly, though his suggestion did show quite a depth of knowledge about how she’d been living her life lately.

  She rolled onto her back and hugged one of her knees to her, which served up her fetal position fix for the hour.

  The setting sun caused the wispy clouds overhead to glow red and orange.

  Like Hell. Like where Dolores comes from.

  Quentin tucked an ankle toward him and stretched forward to grab his toes. “Callie dumped me.”

  “Huh?” Jessica rolled her head toward him. “Quentin, I’m sorry. I had no idea.” No idea they were still dating, mostly. Because she never asked about his life. Because she was the worst friend.

  This is why Miranda left and never came back.

  “Nah, it’s fine. She didn’t dump me so much as get back together with her ex. That’s not quite the same. Like, they had history and, you know …”

  “History isn’t everything,” she said, trying not to sound too bitter as her thoughts traveled to Chris and the last time she’d seen him. “You’re not upset about it?”

  “I am a little, but don’t, you know, tell anyone that.”

  “Why are you telling me?”

  He shrugged and switched legs. “I don’t really know. Maybe I thought you’d like to hear other people were going through it, too.”

  “Because you think I’m being self-absorbed?” she snapped.

  He rolled his eyes. “No, because I want to make you feel better. Damn, why do I even try with you?”

  “I don’t know. I think I was pretty clear back at my place that you shouldn’t.” His surprise visit hadn’t been met with the warmest reception, and she was pretty sure an assault took place duri
ng the struggle to get her out, but she wasn’t sure who assaulted who. She could already see bruising on her forearms from where he’d grabbed her, and she was pretty sure he’d taken an elbow to the sternum. But he had much more fight in him than she did—that had become clear almost immediately.

  “Would it make you feel better to smite something?” he asked.

  She bolted upright. “No!” How could he even suggest it? “Especially not in front of them! Before, that kind of thing would just be used against me online, but now it could be used against me in the court of law. Are you crazy?”

  “Easy, easy,” he said. “I’m glad to see you aren’t a complete blob. You still got a little fire in you.”

  “Eh, what do you know?” She flopped onto her back again, arms and legs extended like a starfish. She wasn’t even pretending to stretch now.

  “Want to get a burger?”

  “Why not? It’s not my money, and clearly I love burning through everyone else’s.”

  “You’re really pushing it, Jess, but I’m gonna let this one slide because I can tell it’s about Chris, and you still haven’t brought him up.”

  “What is there to say?”

  “Did you two get back together?”

  “No,” she moaned. “He left town, transferred money to me the next day.”

  “At the risk of you chewing me out, I have to ask: Why don’t y’all get back together? It seems perfect. You broke up because you never got to see each other, but now you don’t have a job anymore, so you could move up there, right?”

  “No, Quentin. It’s not perfect, and I worry deeply about you if you think this”—she motioned to the full length of her body—“could play any part in something that was perfect.” She tried to sigh, but it felt like an unnecessary effort for her lungs. “It wouldn’t work.”

  “Why not, though?”

  “Because I’m too depressed, all right?” she snapped. “Because … why would he want to be with me? He doesn’t deserve that sort of punishment. It’s bad enough he has to pay to keep me fed. I think I’m enough of a financial burden without being an emotional one, too. I really am the fucking moochsiah!”