by Laura Gibson
“Both.” Kelly shrugged, “Either or.”
“Do you wanna talk?” Juliet waved the metaphorical white flag between them and wondered if Kelly would remain so openly hostile to her.
Kelly looked back over Juliet’s shoulder, back into the coffee, back at the blonde girl who still didn’t know he existed.
“Who is that?” Juliet jerked her head back towards the girl, “The girl you keep staring at.”
Kelly finally managed a half smile and shook his head back and forth, “You wouldn’t understand.”
“I can help you, you know.” Juliet prodded, pushing the teenager for more than what he initially wanted to give.
Kelly sighed, “She’s no one.”
“The girl?” Juliet felt her eyes narrowing as she tried to figure Kelly out.
“Yeah, the girl.” Kelly nodded, “She’s just an idea.”
And then it clicked. He might be one of the big bads, but he was still just a child and that was a fact that carried more weight than anything else.
Alice may have been trying to save him, but Kelly was also trying to save himself.
“Let’s go for a drive.” Juliet unlocked her car doors, “I think we can help each other.”
Chapter Fifteen
Charleston, West Virginia
March 6th, 2007
Rhett
Rhett had been excited for and dreading his first day back for the rest of the week, knowing he had not only thrown up on Juliet Hilliard’s shoes, but had also, alienated her roommate, eaten her bacon and eggs, and passed out on her couch. Rhett prayed he hadn’t said anything embarrassing while he had been intoxicated, but he couldn’t be too sure. He knew he had talked about Jane and what that meant in the long game. He would have to explain. To extract his broken heart and display it for Juliet’s inspection, but maybe not. Maybe she would just leave it be and not say anything. That would be the merciful thing to do.
With a sigh he opened the door to his station and sauntered to his office, knowing he would see her on the way, feeling it like a promise.
Juliet
Juliet Hilliard was not a woman to be trifled with. She didn’t do with pity parties and people who cared little for the world around them. She had come to Charleston looking for a change of pace from her usual scene and what she had gotten was a whole load of drama in the first couple of weeks.
Bryan Larson wouldn’t stop calling her no matter how many times she told him she didn’t want him around, no matter how many times she told him she was done with their sham of a relationship.
Her office wasn’t really an office, but a utility closet that someone had thrown a desk into. She tried to spruce it up with a potted plant, but a lack of proper sunlight and maintenance had caused it to wither and die in the first couple of days and Juliet had yet to remove its pitiful corpse. Someone had commented on the dead plant and Juliet told them she was planning a funeral. Maybe an Irish wake if it, the plant, was lucky.
The co worker made a face and left, never to return.
Everyone in the department looked happy to see her, but no one really tried talking to her. Especially after that plant comment she had really been alienated. Maybe alienated wasn’t the right word. Maybe she meant avoided. Yes, she was being avoided. Nervous glances would be passed around as she walked down the corridor of desks as other people saw her coming, warning their colleagues with their eyes. With their eyes for goodness sakes! Like she was some sort of monster or something.
It was enough to make Juliet roll her eyes at any given point of the day. She wasn’t someone to be feared or avoided. She was just a woman. Granted, she was like thee woman or something, she still just was a DEA agent, just like their resident golden boy, Rhett Samuels.
Another eye roll, another heavy sigh. If only they knew their golden boy had thrown up on her nine hundred dollar shoes and then passed out on her couch talking about her gorgeous feet. That would be a story, wouldn’t it? Maybe it would get them to like her more.
Juliet shuffled some papers around on her desk and looked at the time, he was supposed to be arriving at any minute now. Then she would smile at him and wink. She had the whole thing planned out.
They would get lunch together and laugh off the fact he had cried about his dead girlfriend or something on her lap, and then everything would be normal between them. Because they were co-workers now and the last thing she wanted was more animosity. Lord only knew, she got enough strange looks as it was.
Deciding it was time grab more coffee from the communal kitchen, Juliet stood up and grabbed her coffee mug, the one that said, ‘How about a nice cup of shut the fuck up?’ It was supposed to be a joke but Juliet didn’t think anyone else got it yet. They were still reeling from what she perceived to be her outstanding record in the field.
Single-handedly taking down a wide spread drug cartel, no big right? Juliet smiled a little at the pride cropping up in her chest. That was a story for the papers. A fucking good story. But it did have its drawbacks, like how her partner was consistently left out of the loop and therefore wasn’t in the right spot at the final bust, compromising Juliet’s position with a well intentioned drop in, causing Juliet to have to engage in a twelve man shoot out that wounded her partner and left seven others dead.
Muerto.
Juliet shook out her shoulders at the memory and headed towards the kitchen. A flash of light on the glass from the large double doors caused Juliet to turn her head and have eye contact with the person entering.
He was taller when he was sober, and she couldn’t help but notice his muscles hadn’t been a part of her imagination. She almost wanted to whistle, low. Instead she slightly puckered her lips and exhaled, pretending she had.
He was wearing aviators that morning, covering up his beautiful blue eyes, but she knew they were there, looking at her, noticing her.
And that’s when Juliet realized she had been staring at him. Holding her snarky coffee mug in one hand and looking rather unabashedly at the pretty man that was walking towards her, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Hey.” She said, feeling the same smile play with her lips.
He let his small smile turn into a sly grin while they shared a secret between them, a secret no one else knew, “Hey yourself.”
“You owe me shoes.” She joked. There was something about him she was finding hard to resist. Like their secret tethered them together and they were now one unit revolving around each other, becoming one being.
“Your feet are too pretty without shoes, I did you a favor.” Rhett Samuels was grinning now, staring down at her, making her stomach feel jittery and out of place. Dear Lord, she wouldn’t be able to work with this man, he was far too handsome to be a DEA agent, it wasn’t fair.
Juliet thought back to Bryan Larson, maybe she could give him a call. She was never bothered by pretty men when she was in a relationship.
“What’s up with you and my feet?” Juliet raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms, bringing her coffee cup around and making it more noticeable.
“Darlin’, I just notice pretty things.” Rhett was still wearing his aviators, but Juliet was sure he just winked at her. What a flirt, it was ridiculous.
“As I live and breathe! It’s Rhett Samuels!” A loud, boisterous voice called out somewhere in the office and Rhett’s head snapped away from Juliet, looking for whoever called his name. Looking for someone he knew better. And then their connection was severed and Juliet was left floating on the breeze by herself again
She shook her head and finished her journey to the kitchen and the full pot of coffee she knew was waiting for her.
She and Rhett had had their moment and it looked like everything was going to be fine from that moment forward. Sure, he was pretty and sure, he was a flirt, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be friends. Or at the very least, work together in a professional environment. But still, she thought back to the way he had smiled at her and she couldn’t help but blush. Rhett S
amuels was something else.
May 20th, 2008
Charleston, West Virginia
Jefferson
Jefferson Williams had lived a very different life than the one people thought. He had learned to bury his heartbeat down below the surface, keeping it hidden and safe from prying eyes, keeping it tucked away, pretending he’d use it someday. He always told himself he was very good at hiding it. At hiding everything. Be quiet. Don’t let them see. Breath easy. No one has to know. No one has to be aware. Futile thoughts that kept him pressing onwards, moving forward. But he knew, sooner or later, someone would notice. Someone would see. He was dying.
Maybe not in the conventional sense. He had no disease, no illness, nothing that would make his lungs quit and his heart stop, nothing that would end his miserable existence. But all the same, he was dying.
He could feel it, little by little, day by day. He wasted away under the harsh gaze of his parents and their expectations of him. He felt the oxygen flowing to his lungs becoming less and less as he required less and less. He felt his blood coagulate in his veins and stop pushing just enough to turn off certain muscles, just enough to make him forget what it was to feel real emotions. The only two people in his life that could elicit actual feelings were people he barely understood and he knew he was losing them. Watching them slip away in one direction or another. Kelly with his poor choices and Anna with her misguided sense of pride.
Jefferson had been granted permission to make friends when he was little, but now that he was older there were more obligations on the table. More people he had to associate with to be successful later on in life. More things he had to do than what he felt he had time for. Friends were replaced with people that could be used as leverage later on in life. Social circles filled with faces he never cared for. Dinner parties were called and topics discussed he had no interest in. This was his life now.
There was a crushing weight upon his shoulders, the cause of which was his very namesake. To be a Williams meant so much more than just being alive. To be a Williams meant he had to do things. Impress people, make them believe he was like his father. Or at least, he was a version of his father. Maybe not identical, but enough so that he could pass on the legacy. He had just one job to do and it was everything he had been raised to do and the very fact of it was killing him.
Jefferson looked across the table at Caleb Bronen and wanted to die just a little bit quicker. But he had to be friends with Caleb. Had to. Dad said so.
It wasn’t that Caleb was too terrible of person. But he wasn’t that interesting either. And you couldn’t be terrible and uninteresting, it didn’t work. You needed to be interesting and terrible, otherwise, you were just a voice screaming into the void. Full of nothing and going nowhere.
Jefferson swallowed and adjusted his watch. He checked the time on the face against the time on the wall clock. They were two minutes apart. Two minutes of uncertainty Jefferson didn’t have patience for.
Jefferson slowly wound his watch back two minutes, not listening to a word coming out of Caleb’s mouth. It was something about Phillips or his classes being hard or some other amount of bullshit Jefferson didn’t care about.
That was the problem with Caleb. He was dull and dimwitted and he wasn’t worth Jefferson’s precious time. Before, he had merely ignored Caleb and pretended the younger brother of Connor Bronen wasn’t there. Pretended he would fade off into obscurity and just cease existence. Wouldn’t that be just wonderful? Jefferson cleared his throat and stopped himself. He couldn’t think that way anymore. He had a job to do. Dad said. And what Vincent Williams said was law. Such was the way of the world.
“So we have to be friends, huh?” Caleb turned the subject to the obvious and Jefferson felt his lip twitch with such blatant honesty. He hadn’t realized he was being so transparent, but now that he had been outed he wasn’t going to try and hide it. He may not care for Caleb, but he respected him to an extent.
“Guess so.” Jefferson shrugged and leaned back in his car, studying the blonde sitting across from him.
“Because your dad said so.” Caleb didn’t sound upset by this fact, merely bored, as if he was done with the original facade of Jefferson being there, motivated by true friendship.
“Yep.” Jefferson stared at Caleb, daring him to say something to the contrary, daring him to give Jefferson a reason to leave. To tell his father to shove it and leave his personal life the hell alone.
Caleb sighed and cracked his neck, “So, what does Jefferson Williams do for fun?”
Jefferson let a sarcastic laugh escape his lips, “I don’t do fun.”
Caleb blinked once and then a thought lit his face, “Alright, well, let’s call Ryan then, he’s always down for a good time.”
Jefferson shrugged, if Ryan was around, he wouldn’t have to try so hard to be a person. He could sit back and do his job: watch Caleb.
Chapter Sixteen
Charleston, West Virginia
April 2nd, 2007
Rhett
Rhett leaned his six-foot-five frame against the door frame, one arm over his head, the other hanging down at his side. “Come on, Jules, just come out with me.” Rhett was smirking, his devilish blue eyes hidden behind his dark aviators.
Over the last month they had known each other, Rhett and Juliet had become quite the friends. Best friends even, Rhett would admit if ever asked. She was easy to talk to and easy to get along with. They shared all the same taste in music, movies, and literature, and a night at Juliet’s met one more night he didn’t have to spend alone. Being her friend was like breathing. It was everything he felt like he needed to move on from Jane, or at least just stop thinking about her. Being with Juliet was simple and fun. It was easy.
“No.” Juliet was firm in her original stance, “Not until you go to grief counseling.”
Rhett rolled his eyes and his shoulders slumped dramatically, “I’ve been to grief counseling.”
“One time several months ago doesn’t count.” Juliet moved folders around on her desk, pretending that she had more important things to do. Pretending like she didn’t want to go out with him and have a great time.
“Come on, maybe Beaty will even come and we can watch her be mean and sarcastic to other people that aren’t me.” Rhett was trying to hide his grin, really, he was. Lately Juliet had grown wise to his avoidance issues and she had fixated on the one point they disagreed on. Grief counseling and whether or not Rhett should partake.
Juliet rolled her eyes and shook her head no, this time not even looking up at him. She was firm in her stance, but it wouldn’t last forever. He knew he would wear her down eventually.
“Jules, Jules, please.” Rhett was still faux pouting, “It’s a Saturday night, it’s normal to go out on Saturday nights.”
“I have work to do.” Juliet refused to look at him, continuing to pretend like her paperwork was much more important than anything he had to say.
Rhett groaned and slumped forward, defeated. Juliet Hillard was his absolute best friend in the entire universe and there wasn’t anything he wanted to do without her. He figured this was because he grew up with two sisters and absolutely no brothers. He was okay with a feminine counterpart because that’s what he had always been used to.
In the short time they had known each other, plenty of people got the idea that Rhett and Juliet were dating, but that couldn’t be any farther from the truth. Rhett knew Juliet looked at him like he was a screwball and he knew the consistency of her poop on a regular basis. There was no room for romance in their relationship. And even if there was, he wasn’t gonna do anything about it. Romance was for the people who had time to giggle and mess around and genuinely put their heart in harm’s way. He didn’t have any of those luxuries, nor did he have any desire to acquire them. He just wanted someone to hang out with. Someone to be there when he didn’t want to be alone.
He did have to admit though, she looked good standing next to him, with her toned body and almost a
lmond colored skin. She was the picture perfect version of an exotic lady while he, described as being a tall mountain sort of man, with rippling pectorals for ages by the postal woman who brought him his supplements once a month, could hold his own against her beauty. They were matched pretty much the same and if they ever did get together, it would be a power couple to end all power couples. But neither one of them wanted that. They just wanted to be friends. Being friends made them happy. Being happy made them pleasant to work with.
Juliet sighed, “If it really means that much to you, I heard Darcy was gay balls for you. I bet you guys could get a drink together.”
Rhett blinked behind his sunglasses, he was half convinced Juliet was only friends with him because no one else understood her when she talked, which made sense in this instance. She had phrases that he had never even dreamed of hearing, not to mention the fact that her language was questionable at best and downright offensive at first. He wasn’t even sure he had ever heard the phrase, ‘gay balls.’ Did that mean something? Was that okay to say in public?
“I don’t want Darcy to get a drink with me. I want my best friend to get a drink with me.” Rhett argued.
Finally, Juliet looked at him, her dark eyes not amused by his childish antics, “Rhett Samuels, you need to get your life together. I can’t go out drinking with you every night, I have a future to plan for.”
Rhett rolled his eyes but said nothing, knowing he had pushed her into lecture mode.
Juliet Hillard was of the school of thought that if you went out to a bar once a month you were an alcoholic, if you did it once a week, you were a whore. She wanted to be seen as neither of these things so she always declined fun. It was a wonder they had met in the first place, seeing as it was at a bar. Later, Rhett would come to learn that it had been Beaty’s birthday and she had used her one free card to take Juliet out drinking, which probably explained why the ol’ vegetable hated him so much.
