Fireworks

In her first memory of fireworks, Juliet is three. The memory has the hazy, cotton-candy feeling of a very young kind trying to make sense of what she’s seeing, strokes of vividness in the mist: her own fingers sticky with popsicle red, the redbud trees in the backyard strung with lights capped in red and blue and white, her mother's warmth as she holds her -- her beautiful cinema-star laughter rippling up Juliet’s spine where she sits pressed to Mom’s softness. People gathered in the blue of Florida nights, blankets strewn with empty plates and sweating beer bottles and piles of cupcakes Granma would put away in dainty tinfoil-swans for the guests to carry back home; Juliet’s scalp pulsing, the roots of one pigtail stinging where her brother pulled it savagely -- the twist of fierce satisfaction at the tangle of blond hair she ripped off his head, in retaliation; the sight of Ewan rubbing at his smarting scalp and munching on a lemon cake, glaring.

It was summer, concluded her three-year-old mind back then: a smudged eternity of hopscotch games and bike runs and dips in her new bright hot pink swimsuit stretching in front of her. It was the Fourth of July, knows the current Juliet, the adult Juliet.

(The adult Juliet currently feels neither adult, nor big; she feels small, and foolish, shrinking into her own skin, into her own strong, exercise-honed body, bones brittle in their sockets. It's summer here too, the gentler, golden summer of California, but she's still wearing the oversized SBPD sweatshirt her partner lent her on a stake-out early in their first year together and she has systematically forgotten to give him back, and still shivering. Said partner is the last person she's talked too before turning off her phone; the shutters drawn, heartbeat throbbing in her eyes even if she's stopped crying.

The horrible thought, a knife under the sternum: finally, finally she feels like the thing almost every person she's met in her career and her personal life expected her to be at first sight. A sun-kissed bimbo who’s got in way over head, a gullible sweet thing. In the end, she really was. She hates the man who proved them right, maybe more for this than for his lies. She wants to never see him again. She misses him like a burning hole in her chest.)

But no -- back to the firework memory. Back to a smaller Juliet, so sure of her place in the world. The Juliet in her frilly white dress knows nothing of charming boys with grins like switchblades, of the labels men with paternal smiles and roving eyes would slap on her because she has legs and loves pink pumps; she is ferocious, drowsy with sugar, happy. Suddenly, her parents’ guests -- aunts, uncles, a trickle of her mother’s Scottish clan and her father’s Irish one, armies of blue-eyed and strong-boned people whose ancestors trudged all the way from foggy Highlands to populate every corner of the States -- are getting up, chirping excitedly, pointing at the stains of open sky through the fuzzy edges of the maple trees. Her mother gets up, too: making a comfortable blanket out of her arms, draped tight around Jules, steadying her. Mom’s hair tingling against her cheek: smell of flowery perfume, red lipstick, ginger-scented hairspray. And then her father's arm, stretching wide in front of them aimed at the strip of sky, to the moon, his handsome face grinning her like they share a secret no one else would understand. Oh, how young he looks in this moment, in this Polaroid of past, with his lime green polo and his cowlick; how it stings the pride she used to feel at how much she looks like her father, two sides of the same fair golden coin.

Look, Jewel, he tells her, look real close, okay? You'll love it.

Of course, she obeys.

She pines her eyes on the night, waiting, solemnly watchful. (Cop written all over her bones already, though she didn't know it yet.) Then -- a whistle, flickers of light zipping through the sky. She has the animal impression of something out of the ordinary, of something high above her which is not usually there, unexpected, still unknown, and trembles in her mother's arms.

When the fireworks explode, blossoming in fierce fire, Juliet startles, sandals slipping against Mom’s cotton blouse -- and starts laughing. She leans in, eyes filled to the brim with color and bursts of flame, the laughter swelling harder and louder through her chest and out of her lips, the delight spiraling out of her, larger than her skin.

The night has turned into dandelions of light: glittering purple, and green, and yellow, silver and blue and red. Ewan and half a dozen of their cousins are lighting up sparklers, shrieking and holding them high as they run loops around the yard, but she has no time for that. The only thing that counts is the rumbling sound dislodging hot air every time they launch a new one, the explosions splangling the dark. The fireworks are glorious, exultant, ever-moving: they're just like Juliet sees herself, that little fluffball of ambition. They're everything she's ever wanted.

Just out of the corner of her eye, his father is staring at her, as taken with her as she is with the fireworks, one cheek and one hazel eye cast in purple-orange-white. The adults whoop and hug and drink, but he has no time for them, either.

She doesn't know for how long she stands there, in her mother’s hold, awed beyond words: childhood time is uncountable, epic. She just knows suddenly she's stretching out her arms, elbows still dimpled fingers still soft as kittens’ paws, closing around the expanding edges of the fireworks. She moves fast and sure, and still she comes up empty-handed. Dad chuckles, ruffling her hair.

You can't catch them, Jewel-lou.

But they're so pretty. I want them.

Want is too tame a word for what she's feeling, though. Crave is more like it. Even as she argues with her father, she can't tear eyes off the spectacle up there, a silver giant devouring lesser fires as it balloons over the red roofs and pastel walls of her neighborhood.

You can't have them, Jewel. They're too far up in the sky. They’re nothing but air, and a bit of fire.

Juliet blinks; lowers her arms, suddenly fettered again to her little child body, her sticky pink hands. Oh.

She doesn't make a scene out of it. Juliet is the child who dared to climb the Slash pine in the kindergarten garden higher than any of her classmates, and limped to the school's infirmary on her own when she fell and opened her forehead on a boulder, too proud to give in to tantrums. But her father's words stay with her, floating somewhere deep under the surface; the feeling which overwhelmed her that night still there, too, hard and hot and heavy.

Almost thirty years in the future, sheathed in silk and pinching heels at her best friend's wedding, a card burning in her hand, watching her boyfriend’s innocence falling to his feet like a shed shirt and ugly, complicated things moving underneath, the part of Juliet’s mind which isn't busy crumbling will go back to that night, and think of her reaching hands silhouetted against the fireworks, of things who look close when they're actually impossibly far, the whole weight of a sky between you and them.

(Curling herself into a tight ball on her couch, now, Santa Barbara warm and glorious and intolerable beyond her shuttered windows, Juliet knows how to call that feeling: she knows its name as exactly as the crime codes she would scribble on a report. A precocious love for exciting, ferocious things; ferocious things being often nothing but air, a bit of fire.)

(An omen.)

***

The seaside villa Senator McConnell has chosen for his annual charity gala gleams a glowing cream in the dusk, the party inside brewing up slowly. The sky curls over it like a scoop of melon ice cream, reflecting off the floor-to-ceiling windows of the first floor, the white tiles of the terrace. Through the open crack of the passenger's side’s window, Juliet smells sea and citronella oil.

Crowds of sleek, fashionably slow-moving people slink out of the limousines and sport cars and Jags pulling up in front of the villa’s pathway, shimmering in silk gowns and evening suits polished to the gleam of knapped flint. Diamonds twinkle from bosoms and knuckles and shirt cuffs. No faces for this crowd: the guests wear masks, cobalt blue lace and masculine black leather, riots of Venetian gold and white lacquer, pearls and feathers shivering in the sunset.

The villa and the guests attending the masquerade are just what you would expect from a Republican darling and corrupted tycoon celebrating his latest sleigh-of-hand triumph: rich, excessive, overripe in its luxury. Juliet can feel it on the tip of her tongue -- the promise of violence thick in the air, like an aftertaste of iron. She knows without seeing them that the bulges in the folds of many a bodyguard’s tastefully-cut jacket were dangerous, bullet-firing things; and that given the right circumstances, a good chunk of the refined gentlemen tottering towards the light-filled doors would fish out an automatic without half a heartbeat of hesitation, or would at least conveniently get out of their goons’ line of fire.

A pair of cops going undercover to find Senator McConell’s slimy accountant and corner him into coming with them and rat his boss out certainly qualifies as right circumstances.

A pang, treacherous, just under her breastbone. Oh, how he would love this. Then she remembers their last meeting in Vick’s office, her eyes carefully avoiding Shawn’s handsome face -- coward, what a coward -- but still noticing the swathe of gauze around his knuckles, the Chief talking of ‘already too close a call’ and ‘you’re off the case’.

Thank God for small mercies.

Somewhere from her left, behind the steering wheel of the black Mercedes -- his faithful Ford deemed way too bourgeois for the evening -- comes a familiar growl. Juliet can almost feel his displeasure hit her in waves, throbbing outward from the white-hot core of her partner.

Carlton is annoyed with virtually everything currently surrounding them. The heat buzzing against the car windows, the subtropical wetness of it forever unwelcome to his Irish skin, the rows of glamorous and rotten socialites strolling proudly around them, the very idea of attending something which the thick-papered invitations call a fete en masque. The betrayal to his beloved car still stinging, probably. Not even the pleasure of finally being allowed to go undercover enough to lift his mood.

She can say all that just by the feeling of the man by her side, the feathering of muscles in his cheek from teeth clenched too tightly, and it makes her smile, this familiarity, this easy knowledge of his inner maps.

Glancing at the rear-view mirror, Carlton catches her grinning -- and she watches him stiffen as he whips his head towards her. Trying hard to play casual, while looking exactly like a kid approaching a stray kitten and trying not to scare it off.

“You ready, O’Hara?”

She takes her hand off the window. Stops one second before licking her lips, mindful of the black-cherry lipstick there, expensive and still frightfully smearable. “Yup. Ready as I will ever be.”

“Good.” He says, carefully. “Good.”

The softness in his tone tears at her like a hook, loosening the joints holding her together. It’s touched with awe. Has it really been so hard to make her laugh lately to warrant such a reaction? Probably yes.

Still, he asked her if she’s ready; not if she’s fine. Smart boy.

Sweat beads run between her shoulder blades, the feeling of her bare back unexpected. She's suddenly achingly aware of the lack of sleeves of her gown, the daring neckline, and feels too exposed, reckless with her lack of practicality. Barbie princesses smiling wanly in their plastic shrouds fill her mind. Just for the comfort of it, she lets her hand run down the black jeweled bodice, the sweep of the tulle gown blowing underneath, to the cleverly-concealed cut in the fabric; she feels the grooves of her Glock strapped to her thigh, the cold brush against her skin as familiar as her partner’s moods. It reminds her of how sharp and luscious she has looked in the mirror, with her tower of hair pulling savagely at her scalp but catching fire in the light, the cheekbones made more angular by the scattered meals of the last weeks. It reminder her of the badass, unstoppable cop she is underneath.

Music starts pulsing off the house -- fever-bright, layered as only live music can be. In the growing dark, Carlton’s eyes are touched with indigo, still pinned on her. He too has dressed for the part: black tuxedo, skillfully cinched at the waist, clean-smelling cologne, the high shirt collar and charcoal tie bringing out the inner Civil War gentleman she’s always known lurked just below the surface. He looks quite dashing, this partner of her. More supple around the muscles, shadows under his eyes less like bruises than in past years. Bittersweet gratitude for Marlowe’s discreet touch bubbles in Juliet’s chest.

“Marlowe?” she asks, pointing at the petroleum hue of the tie.

Carlton flashes a smile. “Yep. Found it on the bed last night. She says it brings out the Old Hollywood in me.”

Oh, that smile. But it’s not just that: it’s the thing surfacing from deep inside him whenever he talks of his wife, like a younger, softer Carlton peering out of his eyes, an alternative him from a kinder world. The summer sunset shines, briefly, with the light of it.

Carlton catches sight of himself in the mirror, frowns -- sinks back into the seat like a scolded schoolboy.

She knows the words that will leave his mouth before he says them. Takes deep breaths not to bite into her tongue in frustration.

“Sorry--“

“You don’t have to apologize for smiling, Carlton. And your wife is totally right, by the way.”

He grins again, a reflex. She can almost hear him repeat that word in his head, heart racing: wife.

Of all the things making the mending of Juliet O'Hara’s heart a long-term process, the awful overlapping of her misery and her best friend’s well-deserved chance at happiness is one of the worst.

Ever since his wedding -- which has been as complicated and ultimately triumphant as she has always expected it to be -- and Juliet’s less triumphant, just as complicated break-up, Shawn Spencer has become a personal taboo, a dot of blankness neither of them knows how to steer around. They haven’t exactly talked about him, or the reason Juliet couldn’t look her ex in the eyes anymore. Everything worth saying was pressed in the infinitesimal space between their bodies during the single long, shattering hug she allowed herself, two days after the party, or encapsulated in the hissed mantra of ‘I'll kill him, I'll kill him’ Carlton murmured into her hair, the vibration of it stronger even of her sobs. She cried hard, that night, smearing Carlton's best blue shirt in snot and twin rivers of mascara; he didn’t comment on it. He didn’t comment on the giant hole in her own story, either: the secret Shawn told her and that she just couldn't say out loud, no matter how much he would deserve it.

Nearly two months later -- six weeks, three days, a handful of minutes, the time building on her skin like tallies -- and her partner is still swinging wildly between beaming with the joy of his married life and stifling it to commit to Juliet’s misery. It makes Juliet want to nick him on the head and wrap him in her arms at the same time. Usually in the span of the same hour.

The masks they’re supposed to wear at the masquerade still lie in his glove compartment, angrily shoved in back at the station. Even if they are unavoidable and even advantageous to their ends, Carlton has declared he would not wear the silly things till the last possible second.

“You'll do fine, O’Hara,” he blurts out suddenly. “Very good. Besides, you look… good, tonight. Remarkable.”

Juliet arches her eyebrows before she can stop herself. Deep pink creeps past the collar of Carlton’s shirt and all the way to the tip of his ears, hot and fierce. She’s merciful enough not to stress how otherworldly unusual a direct compliment from him is.

“You look not so bad yourself, partner. You'll blend in nicely.”

He shrugs, a noise somewhere between a growl and a snort humming out of him. He glares at a passing group of young bright things, college-aged, dripping with designer lace and privilege. “I doubt it. And definitely not if there is dancing.”

Juliet has long since suspected Carlton is way less of a dance floor-virgin than he wants the police world to believe -- especially after having inadvertently exhumed a stack of New Wave vinyls while helping set up his new apartment. Still, matter how many questions about a teenager Carlton Lassiter dancing the night away in a dry-ice-hazy, mirror-paneled underground club she may have, she doesn't press the matter.

Her hair coiffed, all of her sparkling, music to dance to: the question immediate, almost banal in its inevitability. What would he think seeing her now? Would he stare? Would he ask her to dance, a flourish as he bows, that smarmy smirk of his angled toward her?

Oh, God, of course he would.

Sometimes, Juliet finds herself thinking love -- no, not love: the memory of it, the ghost of hopes gone awry -- is not unlike a broken bone: things mending, but still leaving tender spots, forcing you to remember you're more fragile than you thought.

She feels blood leave her face, pool at the bottom of her stomach; she heard herself ask the question, hating herself for it.

“Is -- he’s not going to be here, right?” she says, voice brittle around the edges. “The Chief took him off the case, right. And the rest of the squad are sweeping the perimeter--”

“He's not going to be here, O’Hara,” Carlton says. His knuckles white, wheel cracking under his grip. “I promise.”

So final; the clipped monotone of their first months together, when he brushed her off like a dangerous cold he was afraid to catch. Now, she takes a fierce pleasure in it.

Shawn will not see her in this gown: he will not see her slip out of the car in a rustle of shimmering fabric, smile with purple lips, dance, glow. He will stay away, tucked in his post-atomic mess of an office, sulkily stuffing himself with Count Chocula and bitching about police fastidiousness with Gus, probably. Good for him; good for her. She sinks her lacquered nails into her palms until she believes it.

“He won't put a single smoothie-sticky kid-sneaker in this place if he doesn't want me to cut it off,” adds Carlton, the thread vividly heartfelt. It doesn't make her laugh, because laughing still consumes too much energy, but it does make it easier to breathe.

The truth is, Shawn would breeze in without half a second of hesitation if it was only for the promise of a snarling Lassiter pouncing on him, and all the people involved know it. The real reason there is a consistent chance he won't be here is that a bunch of McDonnel’s goons know his face. He's the only one who’s come near catching Duchamp, the senator's accountant -- though the stunt ended with Shawn sitting on the sidewalk as he waited for their Ford, muttering reassurances to the fretting Gus at his side, and nursing a bruise over his right eye which was the perfect shape and size of a iPhone. Duchamp’s very own, it turned out. The phone still lying by Shawn's foot, glass cracked by his steel-hard skull, spotted with blood.

They were able to track down the accountant’s movements down to this gala thank to the very phone which tried to split their psychic -- ha ha -- consultant’s head open, but the Chief still forbade any further involvement of the Psych. Too dangerous; too close. The risk of everything blowing up in their face too high.

(A flash of memory. Juliet opening the car door, Carlton already storming out in a blaze of flashing aviators and rabid curses; Shawn on the ground, blood on his face, so bright, so young. Slap to the heart; their eyes meeting across the blaze of summer mornings. She made herself move, asked politely how he felt, let others help him up.)

The Chief is right, but should know better: with Shawn, everything is going to blow up in your face. He thrives on it.)

Days later, in the car parked opposite a mansion built on the grief of men and women traded across the border in cattle trucks, she leans over to tug at her partner's ear, gently.

“Be nice,” she says. “And stop glaring like you would happily see them all swallowed up by an impromptu earthshake. It's showtime.”

Carlton grunts.

“We need to look good and frivolous. Not murderous. Frivolous.”

“I've never looked frivolous one day in my life,” Carlton's replies, automatically -- but he's already clicking the glove compartment open, pulling out their masks.

“I went shopping for your wedding suit with you, Carlton. You may want to reconsider your statement.”

He chucks her mask on her lap with more force than strictly necessary.

“Ah, crap on a cracker -- let's do this.” With his hand forced by circumstances, Carlton has selected the plainest mask available -- a black leather domino mask, very The Spirit. He shoves it up his nose so fast and so angrily Juliet flinches at the rasp of leather against skin. “For justice.”

Juliet examines the mask in her hands: the glory of dark jet, the cat-eye slits. She fixes the ribbons behind her head with trembling care. “For justice,” she whispers back.

She curls her fingers around the car handle to get out, sparkling tulle crunching uncomfortably around her, but Carlton beats her to it. Moving that long body of his faster than it should be possible, he slinks out of the driver's seat, circumnavigates the Mercedes, and pops her door open before she has time to realize what it's happening. Voices swells in, music fluttering like butterfly wings, the ripe-mango yellow of sunset. It would be too loud, too much, if he weren't shielding her from most of them, outlined in shadow.

He offers her his arm, bending to make it easier for her to handle hands and pumps and the curling waves of her gown spilling out. Juliet takes his elbow, easing herself out. She feels hazy for a moment, flushed with heat, the scandalous cut of the bodice making her skin burn with it. Carlton’s slender fingers guide her hand deeper in the crook of his arm, where she can feel the echoed thump of his heart, the comforting outline of his shoulder holster under the jacket’s lapel.

She takes a bracing breath, two. Raises her chin enough to meet his eyes, eyebrows crawling over the rim of the mask to show her bewilderment.

“Carlton Lassiter, have you just offered me your arm?”

He scoffs. “I'm not completely without education, you know.”

He's taken her left arm, so he wouldn't be too much in the way of drawing a gun; she leans a bit too hard oh him, nails raking the fabric. She has the suspicion he has done it to the specific purpose of serving as a crutch. A tightness.

He's Marlowe’s, as he should be, she thinks, the words the first prayer Juliet has allowed herself in years, but I was the first to see how good a man he is.

Faces swivel imperceptibly towards them. They're beginning to be noticed, to be seen. The car doors lock with a chirp, and Carlton is pulling her along, to the magnolia-studded arch marking the pathway, the golden squares of the house’s windows, the wolves hidden under the polish.

Of course, it's two days to the Fourth of July.

***

One thing every self-respecting American is bound to have learned from their share of black-and-white movies and occasional historical drama: galas shine.

The rooms of the Senator’s villa sizzle with light -- amber and rich, pouring out of the Old Europe chandeliers hanging off the white stucco ceilings, skittering across walls of mirrors, veined marbles, the shimmering champagne flutes balanced on the silver trays juggled by the waiters treading through the crowd. Even they wear white jackets, and matched featureless masks cover their face -- glowing like snowflakes. A pyramid of glass flutes, piled one row atop the other like a house of cards, hovers over the party in a dazzle of concentrated light.

It’s enough to make Juliet, a native of lands soaked in sunlight all year round, cling to her glass just for the cool relief of it against her palm. It’s enough to make her dizzy. Her partner has kept his eyes reduced to angry blue slits since they walked through the glass doors of the foyer, she’s not sure if because of the glare or out of annoyance.

One thing no amount of movies or glossy gossip magazines would tell you: galas are also excruciatingly boring.

Juliet has found the only somewhat-private corner in the room they have been gently herded towards -- so huge and so polished she can’t think of it as anything but a ballroom. The corner of the ancient-looking marble console table at her back digs painfully in the small of her back.

It’s not quiet, oh no: the chandelier’s brightness still reaches her, relentless, along with the tide of conversation, clicking laughter, music. She reminds herself constantly that she’s in plain sight, that she may be observed; knowing how ghoulish her false smiles tend to get, she settles on a fashionable pout, and still feels it slipping.

McConnell himself isn’t here, of course; he’ll show up later in the night, preening at the attention of his guests. Juliet hopes it won’t take that long. They have been here less than twenty minutes -- the phone currently resting between her skin and her strapless bra has told her this depressing truth -- but Juliet is already more than ready to clamp cuffs around the wrists of the little rat of a man they are after and go home. No shining socialite future for her. She can live with that.

Of course, McConnell’s accountant isn’t going to make it easy. She and Carlton have split up shortly after getting here, to cover more ground and avoid stirring up more suspicion -- and her partner has been swiftly swallowed by the slow-dancing couples and the flurry of waiters. Neither of them has had any luck. They have a couple blurry snapshots of Michael Duchamp to go by, and so far, Juliet hasn’t spotted the beady brown eyes and sweaty balding head anywhere in the crowd.

Unease stirs at the base of her spine, little claws skittering all the way to her shoulder blades. Maybe the thug has ultimately decided to skip his boss’s self-celebratory party and hightail out of California before it’s too late. Maybe their tipoff was less of a trail than a diversion. Or a bait. Feeling the fluttering spread into her chest, Juliet runs her eyes over the wavering crowd, searching for Carlton’s slim figure, a gleam of salt-and-pepper hair. Unease, a spike of worry -- then, relief. Here he is, her partner, standing sullenly by one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, probably hoping for the breeze to clean the perfume-soaked aquarium air inside. A minute blond woman is stretching on the tip of her red pumps to come at eye level with him, valiantly trying to chat him up.

He looks uncomfortable and seething so hotly she can see his anger bend the air around him like heat waves, but unharmed. Juliet decides she can let him fend off the blonde’s advances on his own.

She presses the glass to her lips. Don’t fret, she rebukes herself, the voice of her conscience a peculiar mix of Lassiterian bark and her own best cop voice. Hold it together. You can do this.

Even without him.

Ah, don’t go there Juliet. Wheel it back, chin up, legs pumping, never turning. Don’t go there. Something like a headache starts unfurling behind her eyes, a pinching pulse. She firmly tells herself it doesn’t feel like coming tears at all.

The orchestra, a team of smiling tuxedo-sheathed men perched on a raised dais, finish their piece with a flourish of violins, and start a new one. It’s no Classical music she can recognize, but the threads of it are there -- a waltzer filtered through younger tunes, soaked up in Blues like peaches cooked in good whiskey. Juliet hears the notes rolling at her feet like spilled marbles.

She stares at guests drift towards the center of the room -- hands tentatively finding their way to women’ waists and men’ shoulders, hips and feet slowly beginning to slosh and swing in time with the music. They don’t have the ease their great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers probably had, fumbling the right steps, clucking excitedly at the strangeness of a dance so precise; but still, they try, it works, and suddenly the absurd marble ballroom sweating off glow and heat in the California night is filled with couples dancing a waltz.

Disloyal, Juliet’s heart cries out. Her nails clink against the glass as her hand shakes slightly around it. She remembers another ballroom, another party; a tune not too unlike this drawing loving couples to the dance floor just as she looks into her boyfriend’s hazel eyes and demand the truth so hard and so fiercely she plucked it out of him.

Back then, Carlton and Marlowe were a blur of red and white on the other side of the room: a mirage of happiness. Oh, how she wanted to just give up, stop asking questions, tell him to hold her and dance. Oh, how she trembled as she told herself that no, she wouldn’t stop this time, and trudged on towards heartbreak and pain.

And they came -- the shattering, the sharpness of betrayal. The disappointment, probably worse than anything else. Shawn’s faces flitting through a hundred different expressions, different Shawns, cold-eyed and fierce and lost and exhausted. The awful insight that he must have looked just like that when screamed at by a school teacher or by his father, more cross about having being caught than about the wrong he did. And then the truth, pouring out of him, at last, at last: so predictable. The opposite of surprising.

She hates the secret he has dumped on her, its weight now on her: Shawn shrugging off responsibilities, as usual. She hates even more the fact that when Shawn finally blurted out his story, telling her she wasn’t in the plan, that he didn’t mean for it to happen like this, Juliet has felt only the relief of having a confused awareness in the back of her skull finally put into words.

Never in her life, not when she watched from the porch of their home in the jungle of Miami suburbs as her father stuffed a couple duffel bags in the car truck and left for good, not when she sat in the toilet stall in the Academy restroom and cried because apparently she was just biologically unable to make friends, even among cops, has Juliet O’Hara denied herself the truth. Shawn Spencer has robbed her of that pride.

And he has robbed her of a good dance, too.

The music surges, crests, fills the room like sea water, and Juliet’s lungs tightens with it. Not even the glimpse of the little blond woman attempting to bodily haul Carlton on the dance floor and his terrified-cat face are enough to make her breathe.

She gulps down air. Leans back. Senses dark spots flutter at the edge of her vision.

She knows he’s there a moment before he speaks.

She’s not sure how it happens: it’s not a single sound that gives him away, or a smell, a reflection in one of the mirrors towering high over them. It’s more of an awareness: a shift in the world, subtle, telling her he’s standing behind her, that he’s coming closer, that he’s staring at the sweep of her neck -- skin thrumming under the pressure of his eyes. She’s still attuned enough to him to recognize him moving in space. It’s still enough to send goosebumps ripple down every inch of flesh exposed by her gown.

No, she growls in her head, ferociously. Yes.

“May I have this dance, miss?”

Slowly, Juliet lifts her chin, turning her head in his direction; pulled by invisible strings. The strings run all back to him, to the flashy white three-piece suit, the strong jaw fuzzy with stubble, the slant of the lips and the long straight nose that alone would be enough to recognize him. He’s wearing a mask -- of course; he’s always had a taste for dramatics -- a strange contraption of white feathers, hooding his eyes.

He’s bowing, the flurry of his arm too extravagant to be taken seriously, but when he talks, his voice shakes.

“Nothing would make this humble man happier.”

As always, reality warps around Shawn Spencer. He seems to suck in all the color in the room, all the gilt and the dazzle, till he’s an almost unbearable riot of light, leaving impressions on the back of your eyelids. Or at least, that’s what he does to Juliet. Despite everything. Because of everything.

She breathes deeply, frozen; not wanting to give anything away.

She fixes the full force of her eyes on him till his damned smile starts wavering around the edges. “You shouldn’t be here,” she says -- snaps. “You shouldn’t be anywhere near here.”

“True.” He gives a half-shrug. “Yet here I am. And you’re here, too, and currently busy being absolutely stunning and completely bored, and so I would really, really like for you to dance with me.”

Shawn’s hand is still extended towards her, fingers beckoning. Guests have noticed the ungodly time he’s been hanging there like this, snickering behind their sparkling flutes, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He doesn’t seem to care for anything, except for her.

She wants to punch him in the throat.

Juliet makes herself take a gulp of her champagne. It tastes like gasoline on her tongue. “Go away, Shawn. I don’t want to dance with you.”

True. Wrong.

The smirk stretching under his mask falters again. He moves closer, smoothly, suddenly, enough for her to realize he has dabbed his neck in cologne. She presses herself against the console table’s edge just to put distance between them.

“Please, Juliet.” No Jules. No teasing. “I need to talk -- for real. And we would attract less attention if we do it while waltzing or Charlestoning or whatever this is. And it’s just a dance. Nothing else. I promise.”

Juliet takes another sip, another breath, teeth biting down on the rim of glass. She can’t taste it. She shoves the flute aside, the glass clinking angrily as it skitters across the marble panel of the table.

She’s taking every care not to meet Shawn’s eyes, not yet. Over his shoulder -- looking broader in the suit, a man’s shoulder -- she can make out the moment Carlton see them, the flash of enraged blue behind his black mask. She can guess her partner’s train of thought from his body language alone: the stiffness of his spine, the color bleeding from his face in fury. If she gives the signal, he’d prowl across the room and bodily remove Shawn from her personal space without a second thought, gawking socialites be damned.

She doesn’t give the signal. There are dregs of truth in Shawn’s honeyed talk, as always. He really needs to talk.

She hates that, once again, she’s giving in to him.

But she won’t make him enjoy it. Juliet makes her head whip up, blond hair catching the light like a honed knife, smile razor-sharp. She’s glad she’s painted her lips the color of congealed blood.

“Okay, Shawn,” she says. She digs her nails into his bicep -- shoves her hips against his hard enough to hurt. “Let’s dance.”

Something nameless flutters across his face; the mask making it harder to read. Then it recedes, and he’s nothing but courteous blankness as takes her free hand and starts guiding her to the center of the room.

“Very well, milady.”

The dancing couples are already moving, swirling across the polished floors -- but they slide in easily, clicking into place. Shawn’s palm lingers against the curve of her back, the crisscrossing black ribbons lining her bodice. Then, they’re dancing.

It usually takes people by surprise, but Juliet knows her way around an honest, old-fashioned waltz. She cares very little for the Nineties-rom-com-princess element of it; and definitely didn’t learn it in the hope some reassuringly American-looking Northern-European prince with highlights in his hair would sweep in and choose her for a life of crowd-waving and breeding of heirs. But she loves the rigor of the steps, the careful precision it requires. Much like cheerleading, waltz is discipline disguised as grace.

“Spill it, Shawn,” she says, more to break the silence than anything else, to stop herself from enjoying it. “No more games. I can have Carlton haul you out of here in a heartbeat, and do it painfully.”

“Oh, I don’t mind Lassie’s little murderous heart set on me -- makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Besides, I think our Head Detective’s already got his hands full with his new conquest. The Zorro mask does bring out the baby blues, I guess.” Shawn tilts his head. “And what are you supposed to be, Jules? Black swan? Queen of the night?”

She stills as his warm thumb brushes a stray lock off her temple, ghosts over the glittering edge of her mask. She presses her lips in such a tight line she can feel the blood seep out of them.

“I’m no one. It’s just a mask, Shawn.”

“C’mon. It’s a masquerade. We have masks. We’re all supposed to be something different tonight.”

“I suppose that was no trouble for you, then.”

It’s a mean remark, and less original than she would have wanted; still, it makes the muscles under her fingertips bunch up. Shawn draws in a pained breath. What a twisted pleasure, to know she can cut him deep, too.

“Fair enough,” he says, softly. “Still, I tried to blend in best I could. I don’t pretend to be as dashing as Lassie the Masked Vigilante there, but I did put some effort in getting all dolled up for our friend the senator. Thoughts?”

Two months ago, she would have grinned at him, run her hands down the lapels of his white jacket to let him know exactly how much she appreciated his dolling-up, luxuriating in the possessiveness she alone was allowed. The urge is still there, humming in her palms. Instead, she gives a sigh.

“Shawn, why in the world are you here?”

“To help out my favorite detectives. That’s the main reason.”

“Is there another reason, then?”

She meets his eyes, through the slits of her jewel mask and the holes of his feathery one, bracing herself for the impact, daring him to say it.

Gently, Shawn squeezes her hand. He’s trembling.

“There’s always that other reason, Jules.”

Oh, does he really sound so breathless?

They swirl, the music moving with them, fast enough her gown swells around her like a dandelion’s head. She lets him splay his fingers against her spine, pulling her closer, but underneath she stays as hard as if made of metal wires. The tingling scent of his favorite shampoo -- pineapple and ginger -- touches her like a caress. She hopes her perfume is choking him just as bad.

“This is serious, Shawn,” she hisses. “It’s dangerous. It’s important. They know your face. They can recognize you. You can get me and Carlton killed.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Sudden, a blaze of anger. There are rawer things underneath; it takes him a moment to swallow them back under the surface. She still has time to glimpse hurt, real fear. Need. “I’m not messing around, Jules: I wouldn’t have fought my way into this trap of a suit and put you and Lassiepants in danger just for the lulz. But I had to, because I’m the only one who can find Duchamp.”

He makes her whirl round again, faster this time. Waltz is a story of sweeping passion, which requires moving with surgical precision. Shawn matches her every step. “Oh, you’re the only one who can save the day. Of course. And I guess it’s because of your privileged channel with the Other Side, right?”

Shawn shakes his head. He leans in, whispering his words into Juliet’s ears, so no one would look twice, no one would know.

“No. It’s because I met the guy, and I know it’s not the man in your photos.”

There; something important. The warmth of Shawn’s breath on her neck is distressing, distracting. Juliet bites on her lip, forcing herself to focus. “What?”

“You heard it right. The beady-eyed fellow in the photos is a phony -- a hired actor. Duchamp expected you to be hot on his trail, and set a trap. As soon as Mr. Lawrence Olivier comes in and you jump on him, the nice boys with the interesting bumps in their jackets who patrol the door will be on you.”

Juliet swallows, hard. Forcing herself to keep the movement careless, she casts a look over his shoulder -- towards her partner, still busy burning holes in Shawn’s back with his eyes.

“We need to find the real Duchamp before that happens.”

“Exactly.” Shawn straightens, tapping lightly at her wrist. “You got the cavalry all ready to ride in?”

Juliet nods. “Yes. They’ve set up a perimeter around the house. Got snipers on the opposite buildings. The Chief didn’t want to take chances.”

“Smart woman.”

“What about Carlton?” she asks, tongue suddenly caked in ash. She thinks of the tie his wife bought him, the odds of a bullet cutting through a bulletproof vest. “We need to tell him.”

Shawn gives another shrug. He offers a somewhat good explanation a second before Juliet decides to crush his hand into bone powder. “Gus is already on it -- he’s here too, skulking towards our Head Detective, I guess. Or stuffing his face with the cucumber sandwiches of the buffet. Or both.” She’s glaring, wound up tight in his arms. It doesn’t stop him from bending towards her once more. “Just like our dear boss, I won’t take chances. I care, Jules. I really do.”

A word, unspoken between them. Still. I still care.

She knows he means it. She’s not sure it matters anymore.

The music reaches its peak, unwinds in a ribbon of gilded notes. A different melody picks up where the other died -- a waltz again, but faster, threaded with something like tango. Some of the couples drift back to the edges of the ballroom, giggling and catching their breaths, but neither of them does.

“And what are we supposed to do in the meantime?” Juliet immediately wants to bite her tongue. We. There should be no we.

Shawn cranes his head to look over her shoulder. “We keep watch,” he says, “and waits for the real Slim Duchamp to show up. I’m ninety percent sure he’ll be here, and that he’ll be one of the waiters. No better place to hide than in plain sight, I suppose.”

“Ninety percent sure?” Shawn makes her twirl. Juliet is distantly aware of her gown swatting at her stockinged legs in the momentum, her feet leaving the ground for the briefest moment in Shawn’s strong hold, but there’s a sudden anger burning in her chest and it’s eating at everything else. “Does it mean you don’t know how he looks like?”

“No, I -- I do. Sort of.”

Juliet’s feet hit the floor. She takes care to land a discreet kick at his shin.

“Ow -- relax, Jules. I may not have seen him during our short but intense time together, but I’ve gathered enough info to find him. Trust me. If he’s here, I’ll know it. And point it to you and the rest of the gang before he can try anything funny.”

“So I should trust your mighty powers, Shawn Spencer?” she hisses.

Green eyes flick back to her. In the shadow cast by his mask, they look wet with tears. “Not my powers,” he replies, softly, achingly so. “Trust me, Jules. At least in this.”

Juliet finds her words crumble on her tongue, her anger sizzling away. She thinks of all the times she’s trusted Shawn’s instincts and fanciful mind and been rewarded for it; all the times she’s looked back to the good they have done, the honest people they have saved, the horrible ones they have put away where they would not be able to do any more harm, and decided that even if not everything lined up, if there were scary blank spots in Shawn’s stories, it didn’t really matter, because they were all alive and well and together.

She wasn’t stupid: she has always seen the cracks in the facade, never believed he was in communion with spirits and well-intentioned dead. But there is a third space between truth and untruth, a gray expanse of suspended judgment, and unfortunately, most humans tend to drift there.

She is no exception. And God, against her pride, against herself, she trust Shawn in this. She trust him to find their man, and secure him, and help them do the right thing.

She lets her gaze wander over the waiting staff, the strings of identical white jackets and matched masks. She strains to feel the cold kiss of her gun under the dress, too, to remind herself of her power, her duty.

“All right, Shawn,” she finally says. “Do it. Don’t blotch this.”

The music spikes, guiding them over the din of the crowd. He’s close enough she can hear him breathe in her hair.

“I won’t.”

They dance on, faster, smoother. She strains to hold her focus on the rest of the world; she truly does. She counts waiters buzzing around them, notices Carlton leaning towards a shaved brown head which is undoubtedly Gus’s. She keeps her muscles ready as she draws a mental map of doors and windows she should stay away from to avoid putting her and Shawn in the snipers’ line of fire, and yet -- yet it’s not working. Her vision is narrowing around Shawn, around the two of them: lights concentrating on the exposed skin of her arms, on the shining lapels of his jacket. It should look ridiculous on him, that suit -- shining so bright it looks silver, suited for a Las Vegas drunken wedding minister in a half-hearted Elvis costume. It doesn’t. She wonders what people think watching them from the outside, him a stroke of whiteness, her all in shimmering black, all kinds of silly symbolism coming to mind.

They match. They don’t.

She’s never mastered the fine art of making her face a blank slate: things show through, and there is not a blasted thing she can do about it. And there must be something more like pain than like annoyance there, because Shawn is frowning, suddenly soft, wrapping himself around her in concern.

“Easy, Jules,” he whispers. His smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “This doesn’t change anything. It’s just for tonight. Tomorrow you can go back unleashing rabid Lassies on me or doing yourself the job. I promise.”

Oh, if only it were so simple. “And tonight?” Juliet asks.

“As I said, tonight we’re not ourselves. We’re something different. Tonight, I can tell you you’re so beautiful I can barely remember how to breathe.” His fingertip lingers there, on the steady throb of her pulse, the strength underneath. “Tonight, I can tell you I haven’t been able to think about anything but kissing you since you walked in through that door.”

Juliet’s feet falter. Shawn’s eyes are snagged on some spot over her shoulder, scanning the room, but it doesn’t dull the blow. The words sound too raw to be counterfeit; she feels them ring true, like a hum in their joined hands.

She tilts her chin. A mistake. Their lips are close now, the angle exactly right for his to fall on hers. “Don’t say these things, Shawn,” she whispers. “Please, don’t do this to me. To you.”

“Why not, Jules?” he says. His voice shakes, too, as if she’s making him bleed again, yet this time it doesn’t bring one bit of pleasure. “I’m just a boy in a fancy tuxedo. You’re a girl in puffy tulle. I need to say these things while I can.”

They swirl with the music, the room fuzzy around them. To their left, the wall of piled champagne glasses reflects multiplies the chandelier lights. They dance across Shawn’s face, too, and Juliet is abruptly brought back to her first Fourth of July, the smell of high summer, her hands reaching for the fireworks lighting up the night.

You can’t catch them, Jewel-lou.

Juliet’s fingers dig into Shawn’s shoulder, desperately.

They’re nothing but air, and a bit of fire.

“Shawn--“

She’s licked her lips. Moved closer. Come up with something like a reply.

Then, without warning -- there never is a warning -- times speeds up and slows down to molasses-like thickness at the same time. Juliet’s eyes register only blurs of colors. She sees Shawn’s head snap up, nearly colliding with her nose; she sees his eyes widen, his mouth opening in alarm. She feels the increment in the pressure of his palm on her waist, pulling her back, and still manages to swivel her head enough to follow his gaze. A flash of a white jacket, a white silk mask, the unassuming man’s face underneath; the barrel of a gun, peeking from under the waiter’s silver tray, in sharp focus against the haze.

Her brain supplies her with the most likely target, the clean line between the gun and the space between her shoulder blades. A shock. Adrenaline in her veins. Her hand suddenly released from Shawn’s grip, sliding in the slices of her dress, too late, too late.

Then, it’s glass exploding over her head. People screaming. The echo of a shot rippling up the walls, in her teeth.

And Shawn’s arms clasped around her, shoving her out of the line of fire.

They hit the ground, hard. Juliet feels her spine collide with the marble, the shock of cold thrumming up her elbow where it hit the stone. In the dazzle of light, she sees rains of shards crash down on them, but Shawn’s body is still covering hers, shielding her from the sharp edges. The noise is deafening.

The wall of glasses is collapsing, shot through by a bullet meant for her.

Juliet represses a scream. She’s shaking. She’s unharmed. For a moment she feels one step from shattering, thoughts spiraling away, and it’s only Shawn’s warmth pressing down on her that keeps her together, his smell everywhere the speeding beat of his heart against her chest.

The room has erupted in a cacophony of voices, but his mouth is close enough to her ear his voice vibrates in her skin.

“You all right, Jules?”

Finally, finally, training kicks in.

“Yes,” she says -- and reaches again in her secret pocket, straps loosening, her gun sliding easily into her hand.

By the time Shawn is rolling off her and she’s rising to her knees -- legs spread for maximum balance, both hands clasped solidly around the gun, one eye closed for better aim -- more shoots are ricocheting off the stucco-ed, gilded ceiling of the ballroom. Duchamp, still in his ridiculous waiter getup, has taken shelter behind one of the senator’s goons, practically disappearing behind the man’s seven feet of tuxedo-stretching muscle. Fashionable floor-to-ceiling windows are caving in -- cops in blue gears swarming in from the garden’s green shadows, the lantern-strung darkness of the terrace. Unarmed guests huddle in the corners, faces a miscellaneous array of scorn and panic and the scandalized grimness of people not used to be on the dirty side of their businesses.

She checks the faces lining the walls, heart stumbling. There. The overturned buffet table in the opposite corner, a woman’s tousled blond head and Gus’s wild eyes peeking from the side, her partner’s arm extended over their makeshift barricade, steady fingers curled around his own Glock.

Good. He’ll take care of them. He’ll take care of himself.

Without thinking, every bone in her body screaming with the urge of it, she pushes Shawn behind herself -- sheltering him, putting herself between him and any harm. She catches sight of Duchamp stepping back from his human shield, gun in hand. The barrel swings towards Carlton and his table.

Juliet lets her lips peel off her teeth in a snarl. She takes aim, shoots, and nicks the slimy little man in the knee.

Duchamp collapses in a white heap on the floor, wailing, gun skittering across the marble, and she’s already moving to the thug next to him -- but there is no need. The shootout is fizzling out already: the police force overwhelming, still pouring through the broken windows, the double doors of the room. Abandoned weapons clatter to the ground; men and women kneel and lace their hands behind their heads, with an ease born of years of practice. Handcuffs flash. Rights are rattled off like volleys of machine gun fire.

Back in her office, when she finally resolved to let her and Carlton play dress-up at the masquerade, Chief Vick declared in no uncertain terms that she would be damned before taking chances and choosing economy over the safety of her detectives. Once again, she has proved herself a woman of her word.

Slowly, Juliet climbs to her feet -- adrenaline still buzzing in her veins, things glowing sharp and bright. She surveys the room, scanning it for unaccounted threats, her Glock lowered but ready. Carlton is extracting himself from his crouch behind the table, and steadying a wobbly Gus on his feet. From the greenish tint of their friend’s face, she’s concerned for Carlton’s dress shoes.

A flurry of golden fluff and red cloth slams into her partner’s midriff, engulfing him in her arms. Juliet recognizes Carlton’s petite admirer. She’s shaking, muttering trembling thanks in his chest, but her hold looks surprisingly steely. The woman has her priorities set straight, Juliet has to give her that much.

Juliet meets eyes with her partner as he frantically signals for one of the men in blue to come pry the enterprising girl off him. He may or may not be mouthing the world ‘help’.

Glass shards crunch under her heels. She thrusts back one arm, blindly, reaching for Shawn, for his hand, for his presence. They are all alive; they did it. Somehow, despite what he did to her, what she still wants to do to him, they are together, too.

Her fingers meet only air. Other clues drift to her, now that her head is clearing: a lack of warmth at her back, the absence of his cologne in the air. Juliet’s stomach drops. For a moment, she’s teetering on the edge of a large chasm -- fights to stifle the instinct to look down, to make sure she’s not falling.

Again, she knows without turning.

(The downside of trying to catch fireworks, beside the obvious: they burn against your eyelids for minutes afterwards. You can’t see anything else even when they’re gone.)

Shawn is nowhere she can see. He has always had the uncanny ability to slip in unnoticed, mingling in as if there were no place or company he doesn’t belong in -- and to slip out just as easily. Their night at the masquerade is over. Red-and-blue lights are coming up the road, flashing off polished mirrors and glittering chandeliers, off the sparkles threaded in her tulle gown, and with every sweep of them Masked Juliet bleeds away a bit more, Detective O’Hara swelling up behind her. There is no more space for their truce. There is no more time for their dance. He left before it could bite too hard into them.

Oh, the Chief will hear of this: of his presence here, of his stunt. She’ll ask for explanations and call Henry for a proper dressing-down, interrogate Carlton and Juliet on their involvement with the Psych. She already knows Carlton will turn into a lanky fist of growling and spiteful muttering, but won’t be able to lie and say Shawn wasn’t useful. She already knows she won’t betray him, either.

A voice calls her name -- a cop’s voice, half face shaded by the helmet, waiting for orders. Duchamp kneels at his feet, cuffs glinting at his wrists, that stupid mask dangling from his neck from loosened straps. Theirs, at last.

Juliet straightens, setting her shoulders in a hard, straight line, welcoming her Detective self back. Hello, girl. Missed you. She tears off her mask, and shoves it into her hidden pocket, beside her gun.

She has work to do.

***

Later, much later than Juliet’s sore muscles would have hoped for, after Duchamp got coerced into spilling the beans and the armed goons were brought in and the flocks of hungry-eyed hacks at the station’s doors snarled at enough by both her and her partner to give up, she is sitting in a corner booth of their favorite late-night-early-morning diner. She has a Jumbo coffee in her hand, a pile of strawberry pancakes waiting at the center of the table. Carlton has stepped outside, phone pressed against his ear, reassuring Marlowe everything is fine and he will, eventually, come home. She can see his silhouette flash against the windows’ shutters as he paces back and forth, bursts of something she would mentally -- but of course only mentally -- call giggles dotting the conversation.

She did it; she managed to deliver him back to her wife in one piece, with no bullet holes and his new tie intact. Juliet is not one to consider a success too small to be cherished.

She yawns. At the ripe age of thirty, she feels too old for this kind of nights. The elbow she slammed into the floor is throbbing, tendrils of electric pain sizzling up her arm every time she moves it; her pumps are pinching; she probably looks like a mascara-smeared ghoul, and frankly, she doesn’t care enough to drag herself to the restroom.

She has hastily swapped her gown for the spare shirt-and-pantsuit combo she keeps in her locker, but five in the morning is a chilly hour no matter the season or the latitude, and Carlton’s jacket on her shoulders has been a welcome addition.

It brings back memories, of course: a ticket in the pocket of a man’s jacket, Shawn’s stories unraveling before her. Still, strangely enough, the thought hurts less than it did yesterday.

When she has been in Shawn’s arms, when he told her he wanted to kiss her with his lips so close she can feel their shape hovering against hers, she was afraid she was going to shatter. Hatch, like an egg -- her heart pouring out like golden yolk. But she didn’t. She survived a murder attempt, kept her head cold enough to get a clean shot, and then directed the arrest of ten men and ran three interrogations, and now she’s tired, yes, exhausted, but so very alive, too. Nothing broken. Not beyond hope, at least.

Juliet grabs her fork and digs it into the glazed wall of pancakes, carving out a big chunk of buttery softness. She munches on it, letting the syrup swim deliciously on the tip of her tongue.

She has proved herself she can withstand Shawn Spencer: the good and the bad. She can weather him, and stay on her feet. That’s a success to cherish, too.

She wonders what she could do now: finish her breakfast -- or late, late dinner -- get a lift from Carlton back to the station, take herself and her green Beetle home. Sleep. And if on her way she parks the car opposite the Psych office, just to see the sea wake up behind it, the berry-pink of dawn filling the windows, the white-clad silhouette she knows is currently lying on the couch in the bow-window nook -- well, then, what’s wrong with it. If she sits in her car a moment more, the mask’s faceted jewels digging in the back pocket of her pants, watching as the man on the couch rises his head and turns to the sun, not getting out, not knocking on the door -- oh no, not yet -- what’s so strange about that.

She will not break because of it. She will not wither because of him. If she wants this pain, this longing, then she deserves to have it. For now, that’s enough. That’s more that what she has thought would survive, after that night, after the bloodbath of her breaking heart. And then, then --

Carlton’s muffled laughter floats in through the door. Daybreak is seeping through the shutters -- revealing sparse regulars, the bedraggled face of the night-shift waitresses.

With a shiver, Juliet realizes she’s devoured half the pile, and that she’s still hungry.

(You can’t catch fireworks, and yet, Shawn’s heat is still tingling on the tip of her fingers.)