Friday Night Lights - "The Door in the Mountain Side", Tim/Julie, M
Title: The Door in the Mountain Side - Part III
Author: lindentree
Rating: M
Character(s): Tim/Julie
Word Count: 7,631
Summary: This is an AU which takes place four years after 4x13 "Thanksgiving." Tim is an ex-convict and Julie is a college graduate, and both of them now know that in this life, there are no guarantees.
Thanks to ishie for the beta! ♥
Just before the flood comes
Just before the night falls
Just before the blood runs
Into the valley
Just before my eyes go
Just before we can't go any further
Love throws a line to you and me.
Patty Griffin, “Love Throw a Line”
Julie lingered in the vestibule of the grocery store after picking up some groceries for her mom, her eyes restlessly scanning the bulletin board on which were tacked community notices of all kinds - advertisements for garage sales and used trucks, babysitting services and lost cats. She was on the prowl for apartment listings, but still wasn’t coming up with anything affordable.
"You in the market for a John Deere, Taylor?"
Julie turned to find Tim standing next to her, frowning down at the advertisement directly in front of her, which was for a very used, very rusty riding lawnmower. She laughed. "No, just apartments."
"Getting restless, huh?"
"Yeah," she sighed. "I guess I got spoiled by dorm life and living in sin. I love my parents, but now that I have a job, I think it's probably time. You know?"
Tim nodded, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning forward to look more closely at an ad. "I hear you. I can't stay with Billy and Mindy forever, but it's not like I've got tons of money."
"I know!" Julie moaned. "Look how expensive these places are! I don't get it. I'm not gonna be able to afford a place of my own until I get a couple of pretty serious raises. Even then, I don't know. I don’t want to live in a total dump, you know?"
“Same. I could afford this place, if I didn’t need food, or gas for my truck,” he said, tapping one ad in particular.
Julie sighed and looked more closely at one flyer. It advertised a complex in the centre of Dillon which had numerous vacancies. She looked down at the ad, and then over at Tim, who was silently reading an ad for a dirt bike. She looked at the apartment ad again and frowned, an idea forming.
"You know," she murmured, "they have two bedroom suites available."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. So... Do you want to be roommates?"
Tim turned to stare at her. "You're a girl."
"That's true," she replied drily. "I am a girl. A girl who can't afford a one bedroom suite but might be able to manage a two bedroom suite with a roommate. And you are a boy in a similar situation."
Tim frowned, contemplating this.
"Besides, technically we've been roommates before, if you think about it," Julie pointed out.
“I guess,” Tim replied hesitantly.
“It’s either this or I’ll have to place an ad for a roommate,” she said, shuddering as she recalled the roommate she had in Berkeley, before Schuyler - the girl liked to bring home strange guys at all hours, and had a pet snake to whom she fed live mice. After the third time Julie was late for class because a total stranger was taking a 30-minute shower, she had ended up sleeping at Nate’s more often than not. “I had to do that one year in college, and trust me, it wasn’t pretty.”
Tim nodded, reading the ad more closely and still looking unsure.
“Are you allowed to change addresses, with your parole and everything?” Julie asked softly.
“Oh, yeah,” he replied. “I just need to tell my P.O. if I move.”
“Okay, well, if you want to...” Julie said, trailing off as she began to feel foolish. Was she seriously trying to convince Tim Riggins to move in with her? There was something truly bizarre and a little bit pathetic about that. “Anyway, it’s just an idea. It’s probably dumb... I gotta go. See you around.” Julie turned on her heel and left the store, heading across the parking lot to her car. She already had her key in the door before she realised he had followed her.
“Jules, wait,” he said, coming to a stop at the hood of her car. She turned and looked at him somewhat warily, feeling embarrassed. “Are you serious? That offer was for real?”
Julie shrugged helplessly. “Yeah, I guess. I mean, who else am I gonna live with? Everyone I know except my family has moved somewhere else.” She swallowed. She wasn’t going to let herself think too much about that. Not right now.
Tim squinted at her in the harsh afternoon sunlight for a long moment. Finally, he cleared his throat and crossed his arms over his chest. “You had a look at this place yet?”
“No, not yet. I just saw the ad today.”
Tim nodded, scuffing at the pavement with his boot. “You wanna go see about it?”
Julie smiled, and decided to let her mother’s ice cream melt in the back seat of her car. She was glad she did, because less than three hours later, she and Tim were signing a lease agreement and trying to scrape together a security deposit.
***
Julie picked at the salad on her dinner plate as her parents discussed what to do about the washing machine, which had broken down the day before. She wasn’t listening. She was preoccupied with all the things she needed to do in the next three weeks, when she and Tim would be moving into their apartment.
She and Tim. She stifled a smirk. She was moving into an apartment with Tim Riggins, and she hadn’t quite wrapped her mind around it yet.
“Well, we’ll have to figure something out, ‘cause getting it fixed isn’t gonna be cheap, either,” Tami said to Eric, taking a sip of the glass of white wine which sat in front of her. She sent a glance Julie’s way. “You’re mighty quiet over there, Jules.”
“Yeah,” Julie agreed, lifting her head at the sound of her name. “I guess today was kind of a big day, actually,” she continued delicately, figuring that now was as good a moment as any to break the news to her parents.
“That so?” her mother asked, looking down to slice some chicken breast on her plate.
“Yeah. I bumped into Tim Riggins at the grocery store, and we were kind of talking about living at home and stuff, and there was an ad for that block of apartments they just renovated on Grant Avenue, right downtown? Anyway, we went to go check it out and it was pretty great, so, well... We put down a security deposit and we’re moving in on the first.”
The silence following her words was absolute. Even Gracie was quiet, her eyes migrating worriedly back and forth between her parents as Julie blithely ate another forkful of salad.
“Sorry - say that again. You and Tim Riggins are what?” her father asked, knife and fork paused midway between his mouth and the table.
“Tim and I decided to be roommates,” Julie repeated. It wasn’t terribly mature of her, she knew, but she took a small amount of pleasure in the identical looks of shock on her parents’ faces.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Eric said, setting his utensils on his plate and turning to stare Julie down.
“Honey, that is... Well, that is just plain outrageous! What on earth are you thinking?” Tami exclaimed, shaking her head.
“Well, mostly I was thinking that I have a job now, and I kinda got used to living away from home, and I’d like to move out,” Julie replied drily.
“And what the hell does that have to do with Tim Riggins?” her father replied, his elbows resting on the table. His hands formed a steeple in front of his face, and his knuckles were white with tension.
“I can’t afford a place on my own, and neither can Tim, but we figured out that we can both afford to live with a roommate.”
“Julie, do you really think that’s appropriate?” Tami asked.
“What, because he’s a guy? Mom, please. I’m not 16 anymore. I practically lived with Nate in junior year when I was sharing that apartment with crazy snake girl. I told you that. Besides, Tim and I would just be roommates. We’re barely even friends.”
“First of all, I don’t appreciate your tone, Julie,” her mother replied. “We are still your parents. Second, can you please at least try to look at this from our perspective? Out of nowhere, you’ve told us that you’re moving in with a boy you’re barely friends with, as you say, who also just got out of prison. I mean, sweetheart, stop and think about how that sounds.”
“Oh my god,” Julie groaned, pushing back from the table. “You’re acting like we’re living in sin or something. We’re going to be roommates. Two separate bedrooms! Anyway, this is Tim we’re talking about, not a stranger. Technically we’ve been roommates before. Remember, when you let him sleep on the couch? Remember the epic overreaction to that whole incident? Jeez.”
“That was a completely different set of circumstances, Julie, and you know it,” her father chimed in. “So don’t get all high-handed with your mother. You are still our daughter and you’re still living under our roof, and that means you had better show her some respect.”
Julie huffed and stood up, slowly counting to ten to control her temper. “It’s a done deal. We put a deposit down and we’re moving in on the first. It’s my decision.”
She turned to leave, and she was in her bedroom with the door closed behind her before she stopped long enough to realise that it had been years since she’d had an argument like that with her parents. It had been even longer since she’d stomped off to her room and slammed the door. Grudgingly, she acknowledged that she couldn’t blame them for treating her like a teenage girl when she behaved like one.
Maybe that was why people needed to grow up and move out of their childhood homes, she thought. She had returned to her old ways as surely as she’d returned to her too-small little girl’s bedroom. If she stayed, she would remain the same 18-year-old girl she had been the day she packed her bags and left for college.
If Tim Riggins was her way out of that, her way to feel like she was still living her life even if she was in Dillon, she wasn’t going to question it. It didn’t matter if no one else understood.
***
“I’m moving into a new place,” Tim said, handing his rental information over to Rob, who took it, adjusting his glasses. It was their weekly meeting, when Tim would use his lunch break to drive over and check in. “Billy and Mindy would never say anything, but that house is way too small for three adults and two little kids, especially with another baby on the way. Didn’t want to wear out my welcome or make things tough for them.”
Rob nodded, examining the paper. “Who’s Julie Taylor?” he asked.
“She’s a friend. Her dad was my football coach in high school, and they helped me get that job at East Dillon. We go pretty far back.”
“You think that’s a good idea, moving in with a woman so soon after getting released? Might be kinda unstable.”
“It’s not like that; I’m not moving in with a woman. I’m moving in with a friend.”
“A friend who’s a woman.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Tim shrugged.
“What does Julie do for a living?”
“She just graduated from college, so I guess she’s trying to figure out what she wants to do next. Right now she works at the clinic up on Washington Avenue.”
Rob nodded, copying down Tim’s new address into his file.
“Does Julie have a record, or any kind of criminal history that could pose a risk for you?”
Tim thought back to the Julie he knew in high school, who had regarded the drunken adolescent escapades of him and his teammates with a kind of haughty disdain that was blatantly obvious even to Tim. He smiled. “No, she’s totally straight up.”
“Mmm,” Rob nodded, comprehension suddenly dawning. “Coach Taylor’s daughter.”
“Yeah, she’s not exactly gonna be cooking meth in the bathroom,” Tim said. Given his history of criminally-inclined roommates, it was probably only somewhat funny. Rob seemed to let it slide.
“You’re gonna be totally responsible for yourself for the first time. Paying your own way, looking after things for yourself. Think you can do that and stay out of trouble?” Rob asked, leaning back in his chair to observe Tim shrewdly.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Tim replied. Rob didn’t reply immediately, instead continuing to stare at him. Tim tried not to show his discomfort at being examined so closely. Finally, Rob cleared his throat and turned back to his desk, briskly writing something down and closing Tim’s file.
“If you’re sure,” he said simply.
Tim wasn’t sure, but he didn’t need to say it out loud for both of them to know it was true.
***
The following weeks passed in a flurry of activity as Julie scoured every second-hand store and garage sale she could find in search of furniture and housewares. The Taylors offered up what they could, and Billy and Mindy were generous as well. Tim told Julie that he figured this was Mindy’s way of dumping their old junk so she could shop for a new living room suite. On the day they moved, Julie saw the Rigginses’ old TV - battered and barely held together with years-old duct tape - and understood where Mindy was coming from.
It was early morning when Julie began carrying box after box out of the garage and piling them in the driveway, things which had only recently made the trip from California to Texas. Some of her things were still packed in boxes in the garage, a product of her laziness for which she was now grateful.
She had packed her car full of her clothes and more precious items, and was nearly finished hauling all the boxes out in front of the garage when Tim roared up in his old Silverado, neatly turning around and backing the big truck into the driveway.
“Hey,” he greeted her, hopping out. He was wearing beat-up jeans and an old Dillon Panthers t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. He smiled at her, and Julie was caught off guard by the happiness in his face. He looked younger. She half expected him to tell her to hurry her ass up and get in the truck, because they were going to be late for first period and he still had to stop for gas, as though this day was taking place in a now distant past. Setting aside her musings, she rolled her sleeves up and turned to show off her handiwork.
“Not bad, huh? And I did this all this morning. Without help,” she gloated, for Gracie was inside watching cartoons with a bowl of cereal, and her mother was enjoying a rare extra few minutes of sleep.
Her father, meanwhile, had elected to be conspicuously scarce, leaving the house at the very break of dawn without even a cup of coffee to see him on his way. Julie knew a personal foul when she was hit with one, but she decided to simply get through the day and save her hurt feelings for later.
“What do you think we should do first - furniture, or boxes?” Julie asked, surveying the mountain of boxes and the small collection of furniture cluttered around her dad’s ping-pong table.
Tim shrugged. “Don’t think it really matters. My stuff’s all over there already. We might as well just pack the truck as full as we can and start making trips.”
“Your stuff’s over there already?” Julie complained. “You’ve been in the apartment and everything?”
“I can get up early when I have to,” Tim replied, unlatching the tailgate of his track and reaching for the nearest box.
“Morning, y’all,” came a voice from the garage doorway which led into the house. Tami was standing there in her bathrobe and pyjamas, looking less than completely rested but still her usual cheerful self.
“Morning, Mrs. Taylor,” Tim replied, in his most subdued and respectful I’m-talking-to-Coach’s-wife tone. Julie barely restrained the urge to roll her eyes at him, although she knew it was genuine, and truly, she appreciated it. Her mother had accepted Julie’s decision to move out, but only just, and she figured that Tim being on his best behaviour could only help.
Tami came out onto the driveway and observed for a moment as Julie took a brief break and Tim loaded boxes into the back of the truck. Eventually, Tami gave a little shrug and turned to go back inside. “Y’all seem to have everything under control, but let me know if you need a hand,” she said, disappearing back into the gloom of the garage. “I’m just making coffee right now, if you want some.”
“Where’s your dad?” Tim asked once Tami was inside, loading another box into the truck before standing up straight, flicking his long hair out of his eyes.
“At work,” Julie replied shortly.
“It’s Saturday.”
“I know.”
Tim stopped what he was doing. Julie could feel his eyes on her as she bent over, fixing the tape on a box which had come open. She stood and stretched a little, trying to avoid his stare to no avail.
“Your dad’s mad,” he said, no question in his voice. Julie nodded. “Is this a bad idea?”
“He’ll get over it,” Julie shrugged.
“I don’t wanna come between you and your family. Can’t afford to get any more on Coach’s bad side,” Tim mused, frowning contemplatively at his truck.
“Look - this is my life, and I think even they would admit that this is preferable to me moving in with some complete stranger,” Julie said decisively, lifting a box and sliding it onto the tailgate.
Tim stood silently watching her for a moment, then sighed and began loading boxes once again. Within a few short minutes, the truck was packed full, and Tim flipped the gate up.
“You wanna drive over with me, with this load, or stay here?” he asked.
Julie looked down at her watch. It was early yet, and they had already gotten quite a lot done. “I’ll come with you,” she said, turning and closing the heavy overhead garage door with a groan of exertion. She brushed her hands off on her jeans and, grabbing her bag from her car, hopped into the unlocked truck.
“Here,” Tim said, after he climbed into the driver’s seat. He held a ring containing three keys out to her. It was her set of apartment keys - one for their suite, one for the mail room, and one thin brass-coloured key for their mailbox.
“Thanks,” Julie replied, taking the keys from him and working them onto the key ring which already held her car keys. It was a little dorky, how excited she was, so she tried her best not to show it.
Tim pulled out of the driveway and headed east, in the direction of Grant Avenue.
“Listen,” Tim said as he took a turn onto the main drag which led out of the Taylors’ neighbourhood, “my friend Becky - I told you about her, right?”
“I think so,” Julie replied. “She’s the one who goes to Midland, you lived in her backyard... She went to East Dillon, right?”
“Yeah. Well, she’s pretty excited about this whole apartment thing, so she kinda elbowed her way into things. I said I didn’t need any help, but there’s no saying no to her, believe me. She’s over there, unpacking my stuff or cleaning or something, I don’t know. You don’t mind, do you?” he asked, taking his eyes off the road briefly to glance at her.
“No!” Julie said, shaking her head. “Of course not. She’s your friend. She’s welcome any time.” Julie looked out her window. How dense was she that she had not given any consideration to Tim having girlfriends over? He was Tim Riggins, for crying out loud.
They arrived at the apartment shortly thereafter, Tim parking at the bottom of a set of outdoor stairs and landings which led up to their suite on the third floor. With a sigh, Julie tightened her ponytail and hopped out. With all those stairs, today was going to be exhausting - there was no way around it.
Each grabbing a couple of boxes, they began climbing the stairs, Tim balancing his against a wall long enough to open the door, which was unlocked. As he gently kicked it open, the small brass B on the door came unfastened and swung down against the door with a rusty scrape.
The sound of a sweet, wavering voice singing along to the local top 40 station filled the apartment; its source the kitchen. The apartment was small - two tiny bedrooms, one bathroom, the living room, and a kitchen just large enough for two people to stand, as long as the refrigerator and oven doors were closed. It did, however, boast a narrow little balcony and a sliding glass door off the living room which let in streams of morning sunlight.
“Hey Becks,” Tim called, dropping the boxes in his arms onto the battered couch already plunked artlessly in the middle of the living room.
The music died abruptly and Becky came around the bar-style kitchen counter, dressed in an old tank-top and shorts, her curly brown hair piled high on the crown of her head. Her forearms were hidden by two bright yellow cleaning gloves, and she held a grungy rag in one hand.
“Jules, this is Becky,” Tim said, gesturing pointlessly as Julie put her boxes down on the floor. “Becks, this is Julie.”
“Hi,” Julie said, giving a little wave. Becky sized her up, one eyebrow arched. She looked over at Tim, then back at Julie.
“Your hair is really pretty,” she said finally, as though this was her ruling on Julie entirely. “How do you get it so shiny like that?”
Julie blinked. “Uh, I don’t know. I condition and try not to overdo it with the blow dryer?”
“Well, it’s beautiful. You’re so lucky to have such straight hair. I love your clothes, too. Your style is totally unique.”
“Thank you,” Julie replied, casting a glance at Tim, who was watching this exchange with a small smile.
“I’m cleaning the kitchen. The fridge was kinda gross. If you want, we can clean together, and then Tim and Billy can do all the heavy lifting,” Becky said, looking anxiously over at Tim. “Or, you know, I can go - I don’t want to be in the way.”
“No, it’s okay, I like that idea,” Julie reassured her, joining the younger girl in the kitchen doorway. “It’s really nice of you to even offer to help.”
Tim sent her a grateful look as Becky beamed at her. Just like that, Julie had earned herself a fan.
“All right,” Tim said, heading for the door. “I’m gonna get Billy up and start bringing furniture over. You girls gonna be all right?”
“We’ll be fine!” Becky chirped happily. With a roll of his eyes, Tim turned and left. Becky turned back to Julie, a big grin on her face. “If you want, I’ll clean the oven. What do you want to listen to? We can change it to whatever station you want! I bet you like the college station, right? I’ll find it. Then you can tell me all about California. Tim told me you went to school in San Francisco. Is that true? I bet it was so cool!”
As Becky skirted around her to change the radio station, Julie smiled. It seemed living with Tim wouldn’t result in as many awkward silences as Julie had thought. Not with Becky around, at least.
***
Tim wasn’t sure what time it was when they finally called it quits, only that he was so tired it was a struggle just to stand. He and Billy had spent the day moving everything from his place and Julie’s to the apartment, with periodic assistance from Julie and Becky, who looked after all the cleaning and as much of the arranging as they could.
Billy had left hours ago, before dinner, leaving the other three to have pizza and beer on the living room floor. Work slowed considerably after that, until eventually Becky fell asleep trying to put together an assembly-required TV stand, and Tim announced that it was time to give up and go to bed. Becky departed with a sleepy promise to return the next day, and Tim and Julie were left alone in their new apartment for the first time.
“I’m so exhausted, I think I’ve somehow gone past the point where sleep would be helpful. I’m in some new dimension of tiredness,” Julie remarked. They were both sprawled on opposite ends of the couch, watching the local news. Their cable had not been hooked up yet, but Tim was so beat he didn’t even care that he was missing Sports Center.
“Place looks great, though,” Tim offered. “You and Becks did a real good job. Hope she wasn’t too much of a handful.”
“She’s... intense,” Julie replied delicately. “She seems like she really wears her heart on her sleeve.”
“Yeah, Becky’s great. She wrote me a letter every week when I was away, since her mom wouldn’t let her visit.”
“Really?”
“Sure. She’s a real good friend.”
“So are you two...?” Tim glanced over to see Julie smiling mischievously, one eyebrow cocked.
“Together? Nah. I think she kinda had a thing for me when we first met, but she moved on pretty quick once she got to college. She’s like the little sister I never had, you know?”
“That’s good,” Julie nodded, a faint smile on her face as she turned her attention back to the TV. They fell quiet, and within a few minutes, Tim noticed that Julie’s head was nodding as she began to fall asleep. Reaching for the remote control, he turned the TV off. The sudden silence prompted Julie to stir.
“Did I fall asleep?” she asked hoarsely.
“Looks like,” Tim said. “I’m calling it a night. You?”
“If I can clear a spot on my bed big enough to sleep on, yes,” Julie replied sleepily, standing and stretching her arms over her head with a tired groan. The old Habitat for Humanity t-shirt she was wearing rode up as she did so, exposing her tanned midsection. Clearing his throat, Tim turned away and bid her goodnight, making his way to his bedroom.
“Night, Tim,” she called back from the other side of the door. Tim heard her bedroom door close behind her, followed by the faint sound of her shuffling about on the other side of the surprisingly thin wall.
In the darkness of his box-strewn bedroom, Tim paused. Maybe moving in with a cute girl wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d thought.
***
Monday morning came all too early, most of Sunday having been spent in a half-hearted effort at unpacking and moving the last few boxes and small appliances to the apartment. Tim left just as Julie got up, emerging from her room bedraggled and running late, and shooting him a disgruntled look as he passed. He was relieved to find that Julie hadn’t grown out of hating early mornings any more than he had.
The June morning had dawned bright and lovely, the air still crisp before the heat of the day. Tim had slept soundly all weekend, too tired each night to dream. He drove to the high school with his window unrolled, a cigarette grasped loosely in one hand, and felt a foreign sense of peace settle into him.
Classes were over and Smitty was on vacation, so few staff were at the school that day. Tim spent most of the morning tuning up his riding mower, which was older than dirt and required a lot of attention in order to run. He was nearly finished and considering a break for lunch when he heard a throat being cleared behind him.
Coach stood in the doorway to the small garage where Tim worked, his crossed arms silhouetted by the bright midday sunlight behind him.
“Morning, Coach,” Tim offered, standing slowly and wiping his greasy hands off on a nearby rag.
Coach didn’t reply, his gaze hopping restlessly around the garage for a moment before landing back on Tim. “How’d things go this weekend? Julie won’t talk to me.”
“Good,” Tim replied. “Got everything moved in. Now we just gotta unpack, I guess.”
Coach nodded. “The place is nice? The neighbourhood’s safe?”
“Yeah, the neighbourhood’s just fine. We haven’t really run into the neighbours yet, but the place is nice. Nothing fancy, but it’s nice,” Tim paused for a beat. “You should come on over and see it, you and Mrs. Taylor.”
Coach levelled him with a fierce, threatening sort of stare. “Riggins, I swear, if you so much as lay a hand on her, I’ll have you fired so fast your head will spin,” he said, taking a step closer. It came out of nowhere, but Tim knew he was dead serious, and nodded once before looking down at the floor.
“Can I ask you something, Coach?” Eric nodded tightly, and Tim continued. “Have I ever done anything to make you think I’d hurt Jules?”
His expression loosened abruptly and he sighed, running a hand through his hair. “No,” he said tersely.
“I screwed up,” Tim continued. “I never said I didn’t. But I wouldn’t have hurt her before, and that hasn’t changed. I’m sorry I lost your trust. Just... Don’t take it out on Jules, all right? She’s just trying to get by, is all.”
Coach stared at him a beat longer, then turned and walked straight out of the garage.
Tim watched him go, removing his hat and scratching his head. It was hard to say whether that had gone well or not, in the end.
***
They spent most of that first week slowly unpacking, arranging and rearranging every piece of furniture in the apartment until they (or Julie, really, as Tim’s only commentary on each different layout was a careless shrug) were satisfied. Every evening they came home from work and put away books and dishes and clothes and DVDs over cheap beer and pizza, so that by the time the weekend arrived, Julie was sure she would never crave Mediterranean veggie pizza with extra cheese ever again.
On Saturday, they both slept late. Julie got up first and attempted to eat a bowl of cereal, only to find that they had no soy milk and she had no idea where the spoons had ended up. She knew they were in a shoebox somewhere, but that was about all she knew. She was eating dry cereal on the couch when Tim emerged from his bedroom, shirtless and extremely dishevelled.
“Nice hair,” Julie remarked as she channel-surfed, her mood brightening when she landed on Mean Girls. Tim’s long, unruly hair was that much more unruly after a long sleep.
“Nice breakfast,” Tim replied gruffly, propping his feet up on the coffee table. Julie stared at them and considered telling him to put them where they belonged, on the floor, but all she could hear was her mother’s voice saying the same thing. She decided to overlook it.
“I think we need to go grocery shopping,” Julie said. “I can’t deal with any more pizza. Do you want to do that later?”
“Soon as I’m awake, yeah.”
Two hours later, Julie stood in the freezer aisle at the grocery store, silently wishing she had just gone on her own and left Tim to his own devices. She stared in probably very obvious judgment as he dumped a stack of frozen microwave pizzas into the cart.
“I don’t think that even really counts as food,” Julie opined as she pushed the cart in the direction of the produce section.
Tim shrugged. “You eat it, don’t you?”
“Maybe you do,” Julie sniffed, “but I don’t really plan on it.”
“You’re not gonna try to make me eat peas or something, are you?” Tim asked suspiciously.
“I try to pick my battles, and I think that’s one I’m going to skip,” Julie replied.
“Probably smart,” Tim said with a smile.
Later, once they’d returned to the apartment with their haul and managed to find room in the kitchen for everything, they turned to the last few boxes crowding up the living room. Julie opened an unmarked box of Tim’s and discovered his modest collection of books. She hauled them out, stacking them on the coffee table so she could have a look at them.
"The Portable Steinbeck?" Julie read aloud, grabbing the stout, thick text off the top of the pile.
"Yeah," Tim replied absently from the kitchen, where he was unpacking a box of dishes. When he didn’t elaborate, Julie continued.
“I didn’t think you were much of a reader,” she said, setting aside the anthology and examining the next, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
“Not a whole lot to do in prison,” Tim mused. Julie glanced over at him. He was placing the old coffee mugs her mother had given her - kitschy ones with things like Number One Dad, Longview Credit Union and If Football Were Easy, They’d Call It Soccer printed on them - in one of the cupboards.
Julie picked up the little stack of books and began placing them in the short bookcase she had found at a garage sale the week before, which now occupied the wall between their bedroom doors. She couldn’t help but arrange them in alphabetical order, by author, exactly how she had arranged her own books in her bedroom. She ran her index finger down the cracked spine of one paperback, tracing the letters of the title, Sackett. Curious, she pulled it out, her eyes skimming the blurb on the back cover.
“All he'd wanted was enough to buy a ranch, but he soon learned that gold had ways of its own with men,” she read aloud. “Louis L’Amour. You like westerns - why doesn’t that surprise me?”
There was a pause so long that Julie wondered if Tim had heard her. “Are you gonna help me put all this kitchen junk away or are just gonna sit there making fun of my books?” Tim asked finally, his tone so flat that Julie couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not. She replaced the book and stood, picking up another box of dishes and carrying it into the kitchen as she did so. Placing the box on the counter and removing the newspaper-wrapped dinner plates within, Julie looked over at Tim.
“I wasn’t making fun of your books,” she said, feeling guilty and somewhat defensive. “I’m just one of those people who likes to check out other people’s bookshelves, their DVD and music collections... You know? I’ve even been known to snoop in a few medicine cabinets,” she finished, hoping to get a laugh. She saw the corner of Tim’s mouth quirk slightly, and knew he wasn’t actually upset.
“Isn’t that just called being nosy?” Tim asked.
Julie scoffed. “My ex-boyfriend would agree with you. He said I liked to pick people apart so I could find something to criticize.”
“Is that true?”
“Pretty much,” Julie laughed. “I guess I like to know what’s going on. I thought that would make me a good journalist someday. Stupid, really.”
“Probably would make you a good journalist.”
“Thanks,” Julie said, freeing a glass from its newsprint wrappings. Neither of them spoke for several moments, working in silence side by side until all the dishes were finally put away. “Have you ever read anything by Larry McMurtry?” Julie asked as she closed the cupboard before her.
“Don’t think so.”
“I think you’d like some of his stuff. They’re Westerns. I think my dad has a copy of Lonesome Dove. I’ll find it for you next time I’m home, if you want.”
Tim said nothing. He merely nodded and smiled, almost to himself. Almost like Julie wasn’t even in the room.
***
It was a Wednesday afternoon when Julie arrived home from work to find Tim standing shirtless in their little kitchen, frowning down at a roasting pan with a rack of ribs sitting in it. He glanced at her over the breakfast bar. “Hey,” he said, reaching for a shaker of salt.
“What are you up to?” Julie asked, dumping the mail on the kitchen table.
“Barbecuing.”
“We have a barbecue?” Julie asked, puzzled.
“Yeah, Billy got it for me - go check it out.”
Julie went out onto their small balcony, and was surprised to find one end of it taken up by a small green barbecue, which was smoking away merrily. Julie lifted the lid to see a rack of ribs already on the grill, slathered in copious amounts of barbecue sauce, dripping down to flare up on the hot coals below.
“I’m no barbecue expert, but I think you’re doing it wrong,” Julie remarked, re-entering the apartment and closing the sliding door behind her. “Did you do a dry rub? This is Texas. Whatever happened to ‘low and slow’? People in Dillon have been executed for much less.”
“I’m hungry,” Tim grumbled. “Anyway, I’m mopping it. It’s not a real sauce.”
“Fair enough,” Julie smiled. She sat down at the table, leaning her chin tiredly on one hand. “You know, you could have just gone out to eat. I’ve heard Ray’s has pretty good barbecue.”
“He does,” Tim nodded. “But I wanted to cook for once. I feel bad ‘cause you keep cooking stuff and leaving leftovers in the fridge and I keep eating them.”
“I don’t mind,” Julie replied with a shrug. “That’s what they’re there for.”
“How do you like your ribs?” Tim asked. “Saucy or extra saucy?”
Julie smiled sheepishly. “I guess this is a bad time to tell you I’m a vegetarian.”
“Seriously?”
“You didn’t notice all the veggie pizza, huh?”
“Kinda, but... Damn.”
Julie grinned at the crestfallen look on Tim’s face. “It’s not a big deal. I have veggie burgers in the freezer.”
Tim said nothing, although his dubious expression spoke volumes. Julie stood up and went to change out of her work clothes, returning a minute later to find the living room empty. Tim was out on the balcony, babying his ribs and smoking a cigarette. Julie stood for a moment and watched him as he closed the barbecue lid and stretched, drawing her eyes to the lean muscles of his back. Flushed, Julie turned towards the kitchen to start making a salad, knowing she’d be the only one eating it.
Julie had her salad ready to eat and was pulling a veggie burger out of the freezer when Tim came back inside.
“I think I burned myself,” Tim grumbled, wandering back into the kitchen and putting the roasting pan in the sink.
“Wearing a shirt might help,” Julie replied.
“I’m all out.”
“Oh. Do you want to go to the Laundromat later? I have a load I need to do.”
“Sure,” Tim shrugged. They ate dinner in front of the TV, something Julie was just getting used to again. With her family, meals were always eaten together at the table. It was nice to be lazy and eat on the couch. It reminded her of living with Nate, of getting beer and Thai food and falling asleep together while watching old movies on TCM.
Julie sighed, picking listlessly at her food. She felt fine until these sorts of memories returned to her. Masochistically, she tried to imagine what Nate was doing right now. He’d spent the previous summer interning at a local independent newspaper, and he’d planned to do the same again this summer. She wondered if he’d gotten a new apartment. She wondered if he was seeing someone.
It wasn’t that she longed for Nate, exactly - the longer she was away from him, the less she found she felt for him. No, it was her life with Nate she missed. She longed for the quirky variety of the city, the feeling that she was truly living her life. In comparison, life in Dillon felt like one long, sleepy Sunday afternoon.
Tim turned the TV off and Julie felt his eyes on her. She looked up to find him observing her, an inscrutable, curious expression on his face.
“Come on,” he said. “You wanna stop and get something from the Alamo Freeze first?”
Julie regarded him silently for a moment, then giving herself a firm shake, smiled and followed him.
***
“How’s work going?” Julie asked from her perch atop the washer which was presently scrubbing a load of her dark clothes. With all the activity of the last several weeks, the subject of work had gone completely overlooked.
“Good,” Tim replied, leaning a hip against the washer she sat on and crossing his arms over his chest. “I like the work, and the people are good. Might be kind of a pain when school starts again, with kids all over the place, but whatever.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” Tim’s washer buzzed, and he leaned over to begin transferring his clean work clothes to a nearby dryer.
“Is it weird, looking after the field when you used to play on it?” Julie pulled her legs up onto the washer so she could sit cross-legged.
Tim shot her a look, like he found her wannabe-journalist questions amusing, but would indulge her anyway. “A little. It’s not like I played on that exact field. It’s just a football field. It’s so different from Hermann Field, I barely even notice, to be honest.”
Julie nodded, sensing he was going to continue. After a pause and a shrug, he did.
“It just sucks that there’s not more money in the budget, you know? The whole place could look tons better, but the program just doesn’t have the cash the Panthers do,” Tim said, closing the dryer door and turning the dial. The machine began to rumble crankily.
“It’s cool that you take pride in your work,” Julie said, after a contemplative pause of her own. She took a sip of her chocolate Swizzler and sighed. “My job’s good, but really it’s just answering phones, filing, dealing with the waiting room. That kind of thing. I wish I could feel like I was having an impact. You know?”
“I bet you are, even if you can’t really see how,” Tim responded. “I know if I was going to the doctor, I’d rather walk in there and see you behind the counter than basically anyone else.”
“Gee, thanks,” Julie smiled, whacking him on the arm with her free hand. “Next time you’re due for a pap smear, come on over.”
The bug-eyed grimace on Tim’s face doubled her over with laughter, and Julie stopped only when her washer stopped cycling with a rusty thump. She hopped off the machine and began piling her clothes into the nearest free dryer.
It didn’t last, however, for a moment later, as she closed the dryer and turned the dial, she glanced over to find Tim staring at her.
“Pap smear,” he repeated incredulously, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe she would inflict even the thought of such a thing on him.
Julie fell into hysterics once again, which continued until the manager of the Laundromat came over and told them that if they didn’t settle down, he would have to ask them both to leave.
All things considered, Julie figured the look on Tim’s face had been well worth it.
***
“So seriously, bro - how’s it going?”
“Not bad,” Tim shrugged. “Work’s good.”
The two Riggins brothers were sharing a couple of beers on the edge of the empty swimming pool in Billy’s back yard. Night was falling, and mosquitoes were emerging from the cool shade of the untended shrubs that bordered the yard, disturbed by Skeeter as he patrolled the underbrush. Mindy was inside, trying with limited success to wrangle Stevie and Kaitlyn into bed for the night.
Billy tipped his beer bottle up and took a swig. “Yeah, but how are things going with Julie?”
“Fine,” Tim replied. “She’s as good a roommate as you can ask for, really. Better than the others I’ve had.”
Billy rolled his eyes, not taking the bait. “Sure, but I mean, you know... You two done it yet?”
Tim turned sharply and glared at his brother. “It’s not like that.”
“Yeah, but you like her, though, right?”
“I like her fine. We’re friends.”
Billy shrugged. “Just wondering. I wasn’t sure if you’d gotten any since getting out.”
Tim looked down at the beer bottle held loosely in his hands. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to be getting into a relationship right now, Billy.”
“Shit, who said anything about a relationship? Head down to the bar, pick up a girl - what’s hard about that? Get back in the game, man.”
“Yeah,” Tim replied mildly, taking a swig of his beer. He couldn’t think of anything he wanted less than what Billy suggested. He changed the subject to major league baseball and the local football prospects, and Billy let it go.
Later, Tim drove home the long way, lulled by the painted street lines passing under his truck and the bright lights along the main drag, dimming one by one.
That night, he dreamed of hot sunshine and open roads, and of the way the corners of Julie’s eyes crinkled when she laughed.
Part IV
Author: lindentree
Rating: M
Character(s): Tim/Julie
Word Count: 7,631
Summary: This is an AU which takes place four years after 4x13 "Thanksgiving." Tim is an ex-convict and Julie is a college graduate, and both of them now know that in this life, there are no guarantees.
Thanks to ishie for the beta! ♥
Just before the flood comes
Just before the night falls
Just before the blood runs
Into the valley
Just before my eyes go
Just before we can't go any further
Love throws a line to you and me.
Patty Griffin, “Love Throw a Line”
Julie lingered in the vestibule of the grocery store after picking up some groceries for her mom, her eyes restlessly scanning the bulletin board on which were tacked community notices of all kinds - advertisements for garage sales and used trucks, babysitting services and lost cats. She was on the prowl for apartment listings, but still wasn’t coming up with anything affordable.
"You in the market for a John Deere, Taylor?"
Julie turned to find Tim standing next to her, frowning down at the advertisement directly in front of her, which was for a very used, very rusty riding lawnmower. She laughed. "No, just apartments."
"Getting restless, huh?"
"Yeah," she sighed. "I guess I got spoiled by dorm life and living in sin. I love my parents, but now that I have a job, I think it's probably time. You know?"
Tim nodded, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning forward to look more closely at an ad. "I hear you. I can't stay with Billy and Mindy forever, but it's not like I've got tons of money."
"I know!" Julie moaned. "Look how expensive these places are! I don't get it. I'm not gonna be able to afford a place of my own until I get a couple of pretty serious raises. Even then, I don't know. I don’t want to live in a total dump, you know?"
“Same. I could afford this place, if I didn’t need food, or gas for my truck,” he said, tapping one ad in particular.
Julie sighed and looked more closely at one flyer. It advertised a complex in the centre of Dillon which had numerous vacancies. She looked down at the ad, and then over at Tim, who was silently reading an ad for a dirt bike. She looked at the apartment ad again and frowned, an idea forming.
"You know," she murmured, "they have two bedroom suites available."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. So... Do you want to be roommates?"
Tim turned to stare at her. "You're a girl."
"That's true," she replied drily. "I am a girl. A girl who can't afford a one bedroom suite but might be able to manage a two bedroom suite with a roommate. And you are a boy in a similar situation."
Tim frowned, contemplating this.
"Besides, technically we've been roommates before, if you think about it," Julie pointed out.
“I guess,” Tim replied hesitantly.
“It’s either this or I’ll have to place an ad for a roommate,” she said, shuddering as she recalled the roommate she had in Berkeley, before Schuyler - the girl liked to bring home strange guys at all hours, and had a pet snake to whom she fed live mice. After the third time Julie was late for class because a total stranger was taking a 30-minute shower, she had ended up sleeping at Nate’s more often than not. “I had to do that one year in college, and trust me, it wasn’t pretty.”
Tim nodded, reading the ad more closely and still looking unsure.
“Are you allowed to change addresses, with your parole and everything?” Julie asked softly.
“Oh, yeah,” he replied. “I just need to tell my P.O. if I move.”
“Okay, well, if you want to...” Julie said, trailing off as she began to feel foolish. Was she seriously trying to convince Tim Riggins to move in with her? There was something truly bizarre and a little bit pathetic about that. “Anyway, it’s just an idea. It’s probably dumb... I gotta go. See you around.” Julie turned on her heel and left the store, heading across the parking lot to her car. She already had her key in the door before she realised he had followed her.
“Jules, wait,” he said, coming to a stop at the hood of her car. She turned and looked at him somewhat warily, feeling embarrassed. “Are you serious? That offer was for real?”
Julie shrugged helplessly. “Yeah, I guess. I mean, who else am I gonna live with? Everyone I know except my family has moved somewhere else.” She swallowed. She wasn’t going to let herself think too much about that. Not right now.
Tim squinted at her in the harsh afternoon sunlight for a long moment. Finally, he cleared his throat and crossed his arms over his chest. “You had a look at this place yet?”
“No, not yet. I just saw the ad today.”
Tim nodded, scuffing at the pavement with his boot. “You wanna go see about it?”
Julie smiled, and decided to let her mother’s ice cream melt in the back seat of her car. She was glad she did, because less than three hours later, she and Tim were signing a lease agreement and trying to scrape together a security deposit.
***
Julie picked at the salad on her dinner plate as her parents discussed what to do about the washing machine, which had broken down the day before. She wasn’t listening. She was preoccupied with all the things she needed to do in the next three weeks, when she and Tim would be moving into their apartment.
She and Tim. She stifled a smirk. She was moving into an apartment with Tim Riggins, and she hadn’t quite wrapped her mind around it yet.
“Well, we’ll have to figure something out, ‘cause getting it fixed isn’t gonna be cheap, either,” Tami said to Eric, taking a sip of the glass of white wine which sat in front of her. She sent a glance Julie’s way. “You’re mighty quiet over there, Jules.”
“Yeah,” Julie agreed, lifting her head at the sound of her name. “I guess today was kind of a big day, actually,” she continued delicately, figuring that now was as good a moment as any to break the news to her parents.
“That so?” her mother asked, looking down to slice some chicken breast on her plate.
“Yeah. I bumped into Tim Riggins at the grocery store, and we were kind of talking about living at home and stuff, and there was an ad for that block of apartments they just renovated on Grant Avenue, right downtown? Anyway, we went to go check it out and it was pretty great, so, well... We put down a security deposit and we’re moving in on the first.”
The silence following her words was absolute. Even Gracie was quiet, her eyes migrating worriedly back and forth between her parents as Julie blithely ate another forkful of salad.
“Sorry - say that again. You and Tim Riggins are what?” her father asked, knife and fork paused midway between his mouth and the table.
“Tim and I decided to be roommates,” Julie repeated. It wasn’t terribly mature of her, she knew, but she took a small amount of pleasure in the identical looks of shock on her parents’ faces.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Eric said, setting his utensils on his plate and turning to stare Julie down.
“Honey, that is... Well, that is just plain outrageous! What on earth are you thinking?” Tami exclaimed, shaking her head.
“Well, mostly I was thinking that I have a job now, and I kinda got used to living away from home, and I’d like to move out,” Julie replied drily.
“And what the hell does that have to do with Tim Riggins?” her father replied, his elbows resting on the table. His hands formed a steeple in front of his face, and his knuckles were white with tension.
“I can’t afford a place on my own, and neither can Tim, but we figured out that we can both afford to live with a roommate.”
“Julie, do you really think that’s appropriate?” Tami asked.
“What, because he’s a guy? Mom, please. I’m not 16 anymore. I practically lived with Nate in junior year when I was sharing that apartment with crazy snake girl. I told you that. Besides, Tim and I would just be roommates. We’re barely even friends.”
“First of all, I don’t appreciate your tone, Julie,” her mother replied. “We are still your parents. Second, can you please at least try to look at this from our perspective? Out of nowhere, you’ve told us that you’re moving in with a boy you’re barely friends with, as you say, who also just got out of prison. I mean, sweetheart, stop and think about how that sounds.”
“Oh my god,” Julie groaned, pushing back from the table. “You’re acting like we’re living in sin or something. We’re going to be roommates. Two separate bedrooms! Anyway, this is Tim we’re talking about, not a stranger. Technically we’ve been roommates before. Remember, when you let him sleep on the couch? Remember the epic overreaction to that whole incident? Jeez.”
“That was a completely different set of circumstances, Julie, and you know it,” her father chimed in. “So don’t get all high-handed with your mother. You are still our daughter and you’re still living under our roof, and that means you had better show her some respect.”
Julie huffed and stood up, slowly counting to ten to control her temper. “It’s a done deal. We put a deposit down and we’re moving in on the first. It’s my decision.”
She turned to leave, and she was in her bedroom with the door closed behind her before she stopped long enough to realise that it had been years since she’d had an argument like that with her parents. It had been even longer since she’d stomped off to her room and slammed the door. Grudgingly, she acknowledged that she couldn’t blame them for treating her like a teenage girl when she behaved like one.
Maybe that was why people needed to grow up and move out of their childhood homes, she thought. She had returned to her old ways as surely as she’d returned to her too-small little girl’s bedroom. If she stayed, she would remain the same 18-year-old girl she had been the day she packed her bags and left for college.
If Tim Riggins was her way out of that, her way to feel like she was still living her life even if she was in Dillon, she wasn’t going to question it. It didn’t matter if no one else understood.
***
“I’m moving into a new place,” Tim said, handing his rental information over to Rob, who took it, adjusting his glasses. It was their weekly meeting, when Tim would use his lunch break to drive over and check in. “Billy and Mindy would never say anything, but that house is way too small for three adults and two little kids, especially with another baby on the way. Didn’t want to wear out my welcome or make things tough for them.”
Rob nodded, examining the paper. “Who’s Julie Taylor?” he asked.
“She’s a friend. Her dad was my football coach in high school, and they helped me get that job at East Dillon. We go pretty far back.”
“You think that’s a good idea, moving in with a woman so soon after getting released? Might be kinda unstable.”
“It’s not like that; I’m not moving in with a woman. I’m moving in with a friend.”
“A friend who’s a woman.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Tim shrugged.
“What does Julie do for a living?”
“She just graduated from college, so I guess she’s trying to figure out what she wants to do next. Right now she works at the clinic up on Washington Avenue.”
Rob nodded, copying down Tim’s new address into his file.
“Does Julie have a record, or any kind of criminal history that could pose a risk for you?”
Tim thought back to the Julie he knew in high school, who had regarded the drunken adolescent escapades of him and his teammates with a kind of haughty disdain that was blatantly obvious even to Tim. He smiled. “No, she’s totally straight up.”
“Mmm,” Rob nodded, comprehension suddenly dawning. “Coach Taylor’s daughter.”
“Yeah, she’s not exactly gonna be cooking meth in the bathroom,” Tim said. Given his history of criminally-inclined roommates, it was probably only somewhat funny. Rob seemed to let it slide.
“You’re gonna be totally responsible for yourself for the first time. Paying your own way, looking after things for yourself. Think you can do that and stay out of trouble?” Rob asked, leaning back in his chair to observe Tim shrewdly.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Tim replied. Rob didn’t reply immediately, instead continuing to stare at him. Tim tried not to show his discomfort at being examined so closely. Finally, Rob cleared his throat and turned back to his desk, briskly writing something down and closing Tim’s file.
“If you’re sure,” he said simply.
Tim wasn’t sure, but he didn’t need to say it out loud for both of them to know it was true.
***
The following weeks passed in a flurry of activity as Julie scoured every second-hand store and garage sale she could find in search of furniture and housewares. The Taylors offered up what they could, and Billy and Mindy were generous as well. Tim told Julie that he figured this was Mindy’s way of dumping their old junk so she could shop for a new living room suite. On the day they moved, Julie saw the Rigginses’ old TV - battered and barely held together with years-old duct tape - and understood where Mindy was coming from.
It was early morning when Julie began carrying box after box out of the garage and piling them in the driveway, things which had only recently made the trip from California to Texas. Some of her things were still packed in boxes in the garage, a product of her laziness for which she was now grateful.
She had packed her car full of her clothes and more precious items, and was nearly finished hauling all the boxes out in front of the garage when Tim roared up in his old Silverado, neatly turning around and backing the big truck into the driveway.
“Hey,” he greeted her, hopping out. He was wearing beat-up jeans and an old Dillon Panthers t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. He smiled at her, and Julie was caught off guard by the happiness in his face. He looked younger. She half expected him to tell her to hurry her ass up and get in the truck, because they were going to be late for first period and he still had to stop for gas, as though this day was taking place in a now distant past. Setting aside her musings, she rolled her sleeves up and turned to show off her handiwork.
“Not bad, huh? And I did this all this morning. Without help,” she gloated, for Gracie was inside watching cartoons with a bowl of cereal, and her mother was enjoying a rare extra few minutes of sleep.
Her father, meanwhile, had elected to be conspicuously scarce, leaving the house at the very break of dawn without even a cup of coffee to see him on his way. Julie knew a personal foul when she was hit with one, but she decided to simply get through the day and save her hurt feelings for later.
“What do you think we should do first - furniture, or boxes?” Julie asked, surveying the mountain of boxes and the small collection of furniture cluttered around her dad’s ping-pong table.
Tim shrugged. “Don’t think it really matters. My stuff’s all over there already. We might as well just pack the truck as full as we can and start making trips.”
“Your stuff’s over there already?” Julie complained. “You’ve been in the apartment and everything?”
“I can get up early when I have to,” Tim replied, unlatching the tailgate of his track and reaching for the nearest box.
“Morning, y’all,” came a voice from the garage doorway which led into the house. Tami was standing there in her bathrobe and pyjamas, looking less than completely rested but still her usual cheerful self.
“Morning, Mrs. Taylor,” Tim replied, in his most subdued and respectful I’m-talking-to-Coach’s-wife tone. Julie barely restrained the urge to roll her eyes at him, although she knew it was genuine, and truly, she appreciated it. Her mother had accepted Julie’s decision to move out, but only just, and she figured that Tim being on his best behaviour could only help.
Tami came out onto the driveway and observed for a moment as Julie took a brief break and Tim loaded boxes into the back of the truck. Eventually, Tami gave a little shrug and turned to go back inside. “Y’all seem to have everything under control, but let me know if you need a hand,” she said, disappearing back into the gloom of the garage. “I’m just making coffee right now, if you want some.”
“Where’s your dad?” Tim asked once Tami was inside, loading another box into the truck before standing up straight, flicking his long hair out of his eyes.
“At work,” Julie replied shortly.
“It’s Saturday.”
“I know.”
Tim stopped what he was doing. Julie could feel his eyes on her as she bent over, fixing the tape on a box which had come open. She stood and stretched a little, trying to avoid his stare to no avail.
“Your dad’s mad,” he said, no question in his voice. Julie nodded. “Is this a bad idea?”
“He’ll get over it,” Julie shrugged.
“I don’t wanna come between you and your family. Can’t afford to get any more on Coach’s bad side,” Tim mused, frowning contemplatively at his truck.
“Look - this is my life, and I think even they would admit that this is preferable to me moving in with some complete stranger,” Julie said decisively, lifting a box and sliding it onto the tailgate.
Tim stood silently watching her for a moment, then sighed and began loading boxes once again. Within a few short minutes, the truck was packed full, and Tim flipped the gate up.
“You wanna drive over with me, with this load, or stay here?” he asked.
Julie looked down at her watch. It was early yet, and they had already gotten quite a lot done. “I’ll come with you,” she said, turning and closing the heavy overhead garage door with a groan of exertion. She brushed her hands off on her jeans and, grabbing her bag from her car, hopped into the unlocked truck.
“Here,” Tim said, after he climbed into the driver’s seat. He held a ring containing three keys out to her. It was her set of apartment keys - one for their suite, one for the mail room, and one thin brass-coloured key for their mailbox.
“Thanks,” Julie replied, taking the keys from him and working them onto the key ring which already held her car keys. It was a little dorky, how excited she was, so she tried her best not to show it.
Tim pulled out of the driveway and headed east, in the direction of Grant Avenue.
“Listen,” Tim said as he took a turn onto the main drag which led out of the Taylors’ neighbourhood, “my friend Becky - I told you about her, right?”
“I think so,” Julie replied. “She’s the one who goes to Midland, you lived in her backyard... She went to East Dillon, right?”
“Yeah. Well, she’s pretty excited about this whole apartment thing, so she kinda elbowed her way into things. I said I didn’t need any help, but there’s no saying no to her, believe me. She’s over there, unpacking my stuff or cleaning or something, I don’t know. You don’t mind, do you?” he asked, taking his eyes off the road briefly to glance at her.
“No!” Julie said, shaking her head. “Of course not. She’s your friend. She’s welcome any time.” Julie looked out her window. How dense was she that she had not given any consideration to Tim having girlfriends over? He was Tim Riggins, for crying out loud.
They arrived at the apartment shortly thereafter, Tim parking at the bottom of a set of outdoor stairs and landings which led up to their suite on the third floor. With a sigh, Julie tightened her ponytail and hopped out. With all those stairs, today was going to be exhausting - there was no way around it.
Each grabbing a couple of boxes, they began climbing the stairs, Tim balancing his against a wall long enough to open the door, which was unlocked. As he gently kicked it open, the small brass B on the door came unfastened and swung down against the door with a rusty scrape.
The sound of a sweet, wavering voice singing along to the local top 40 station filled the apartment; its source the kitchen. The apartment was small - two tiny bedrooms, one bathroom, the living room, and a kitchen just large enough for two people to stand, as long as the refrigerator and oven doors were closed. It did, however, boast a narrow little balcony and a sliding glass door off the living room which let in streams of morning sunlight.
“Hey Becks,” Tim called, dropping the boxes in his arms onto the battered couch already plunked artlessly in the middle of the living room.
The music died abruptly and Becky came around the bar-style kitchen counter, dressed in an old tank-top and shorts, her curly brown hair piled high on the crown of her head. Her forearms were hidden by two bright yellow cleaning gloves, and she held a grungy rag in one hand.
“Jules, this is Becky,” Tim said, gesturing pointlessly as Julie put her boxes down on the floor. “Becks, this is Julie.”
“Hi,” Julie said, giving a little wave. Becky sized her up, one eyebrow arched. She looked over at Tim, then back at Julie.
“Your hair is really pretty,” she said finally, as though this was her ruling on Julie entirely. “How do you get it so shiny like that?”
Julie blinked. “Uh, I don’t know. I condition and try not to overdo it with the blow dryer?”
“Well, it’s beautiful. You’re so lucky to have such straight hair. I love your clothes, too. Your style is totally unique.”
“Thank you,” Julie replied, casting a glance at Tim, who was watching this exchange with a small smile.
“I’m cleaning the kitchen. The fridge was kinda gross. If you want, we can clean together, and then Tim and Billy can do all the heavy lifting,” Becky said, looking anxiously over at Tim. “Or, you know, I can go - I don’t want to be in the way.”
“No, it’s okay, I like that idea,” Julie reassured her, joining the younger girl in the kitchen doorway. “It’s really nice of you to even offer to help.”
Tim sent her a grateful look as Becky beamed at her. Just like that, Julie had earned herself a fan.
“All right,” Tim said, heading for the door. “I’m gonna get Billy up and start bringing furniture over. You girls gonna be all right?”
“We’ll be fine!” Becky chirped happily. With a roll of his eyes, Tim turned and left. Becky turned back to Julie, a big grin on her face. “If you want, I’ll clean the oven. What do you want to listen to? We can change it to whatever station you want! I bet you like the college station, right? I’ll find it. Then you can tell me all about California. Tim told me you went to school in San Francisco. Is that true? I bet it was so cool!”
As Becky skirted around her to change the radio station, Julie smiled. It seemed living with Tim wouldn’t result in as many awkward silences as Julie had thought. Not with Becky around, at least.
***
Tim wasn’t sure what time it was when they finally called it quits, only that he was so tired it was a struggle just to stand. He and Billy had spent the day moving everything from his place and Julie’s to the apartment, with periodic assistance from Julie and Becky, who looked after all the cleaning and as much of the arranging as they could.
Billy had left hours ago, before dinner, leaving the other three to have pizza and beer on the living room floor. Work slowed considerably after that, until eventually Becky fell asleep trying to put together an assembly-required TV stand, and Tim announced that it was time to give up and go to bed. Becky departed with a sleepy promise to return the next day, and Tim and Julie were left alone in their new apartment for the first time.
“I’m so exhausted, I think I’ve somehow gone past the point where sleep would be helpful. I’m in some new dimension of tiredness,” Julie remarked. They were both sprawled on opposite ends of the couch, watching the local news. Their cable had not been hooked up yet, but Tim was so beat he didn’t even care that he was missing Sports Center.
“Place looks great, though,” Tim offered. “You and Becks did a real good job. Hope she wasn’t too much of a handful.”
“She’s... intense,” Julie replied delicately. “She seems like she really wears her heart on her sleeve.”
“Yeah, Becky’s great. She wrote me a letter every week when I was away, since her mom wouldn’t let her visit.”
“Really?”
“Sure. She’s a real good friend.”
“So are you two...?” Tim glanced over to see Julie smiling mischievously, one eyebrow cocked.
“Together? Nah. I think she kinda had a thing for me when we first met, but she moved on pretty quick once she got to college. She’s like the little sister I never had, you know?”
“That’s good,” Julie nodded, a faint smile on her face as she turned her attention back to the TV. They fell quiet, and within a few minutes, Tim noticed that Julie’s head was nodding as she began to fall asleep. Reaching for the remote control, he turned the TV off. The sudden silence prompted Julie to stir.
“Did I fall asleep?” she asked hoarsely.
“Looks like,” Tim said. “I’m calling it a night. You?”
“If I can clear a spot on my bed big enough to sleep on, yes,” Julie replied sleepily, standing and stretching her arms over her head with a tired groan. The old Habitat for Humanity t-shirt she was wearing rode up as she did so, exposing her tanned midsection. Clearing his throat, Tim turned away and bid her goodnight, making his way to his bedroom.
“Night, Tim,” she called back from the other side of the door. Tim heard her bedroom door close behind her, followed by the faint sound of her shuffling about on the other side of the surprisingly thin wall.
In the darkness of his box-strewn bedroom, Tim paused. Maybe moving in with a cute girl wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d thought.
***
Monday morning came all too early, most of Sunday having been spent in a half-hearted effort at unpacking and moving the last few boxes and small appliances to the apartment. Tim left just as Julie got up, emerging from her room bedraggled and running late, and shooting him a disgruntled look as he passed. He was relieved to find that Julie hadn’t grown out of hating early mornings any more than he had.
The June morning had dawned bright and lovely, the air still crisp before the heat of the day. Tim had slept soundly all weekend, too tired each night to dream. He drove to the high school with his window unrolled, a cigarette grasped loosely in one hand, and felt a foreign sense of peace settle into him.
Classes were over and Smitty was on vacation, so few staff were at the school that day. Tim spent most of the morning tuning up his riding mower, which was older than dirt and required a lot of attention in order to run. He was nearly finished and considering a break for lunch when he heard a throat being cleared behind him.
Coach stood in the doorway to the small garage where Tim worked, his crossed arms silhouetted by the bright midday sunlight behind him.
“Morning, Coach,” Tim offered, standing slowly and wiping his greasy hands off on a nearby rag.
Coach didn’t reply, his gaze hopping restlessly around the garage for a moment before landing back on Tim. “How’d things go this weekend? Julie won’t talk to me.”
“Good,” Tim replied. “Got everything moved in. Now we just gotta unpack, I guess.”
Coach nodded. “The place is nice? The neighbourhood’s safe?”
“Yeah, the neighbourhood’s just fine. We haven’t really run into the neighbours yet, but the place is nice. Nothing fancy, but it’s nice,” Tim paused for a beat. “You should come on over and see it, you and Mrs. Taylor.”
Coach levelled him with a fierce, threatening sort of stare. “Riggins, I swear, if you so much as lay a hand on her, I’ll have you fired so fast your head will spin,” he said, taking a step closer. It came out of nowhere, but Tim knew he was dead serious, and nodded once before looking down at the floor.
“Can I ask you something, Coach?” Eric nodded tightly, and Tim continued. “Have I ever done anything to make you think I’d hurt Jules?”
His expression loosened abruptly and he sighed, running a hand through his hair. “No,” he said tersely.
“I screwed up,” Tim continued. “I never said I didn’t. But I wouldn’t have hurt her before, and that hasn’t changed. I’m sorry I lost your trust. Just... Don’t take it out on Jules, all right? She’s just trying to get by, is all.”
Coach stared at him a beat longer, then turned and walked straight out of the garage.
Tim watched him go, removing his hat and scratching his head. It was hard to say whether that had gone well or not, in the end.
***
They spent most of that first week slowly unpacking, arranging and rearranging every piece of furniture in the apartment until they (or Julie, really, as Tim’s only commentary on each different layout was a careless shrug) were satisfied. Every evening they came home from work and put away books and dishes and clothes and DVDs over cheap beer and pizza, so that by the time the weekend arrived, Julie was sure she would never crave Mediterranean veggie pizza with extra cheese ever again.
On Saturday, they both slept late. Julie got up first and attempted to eat a bowl of cereal, only to find that they had no soy milk and she had no idea where the spoons had ended up. She knew they were in a shoebox somewhere, but that was about all she knew. She was eating dry cereal on the couch when Tim emerged from his bedroom, shirtless and extremely dishevelled.
“Nice hair,” Julie remarked as she channel-surfed, her mood brightening when she landed on Mean Girls. Tim’s long, unruly hair was that much more unruly after a long sleep.
“Nice breakfast,” Tim replied gruffly, propping his feet up on the coffee table. Julie stared at them and considered telling him to put them where they belonged, on the floor, but all she could hear was her mother’s voice saying the same thing. She decided to overlook it.
“I think we need to go grocery shopping,” Julie said. “I can’t deal with any more pizza. Do you want to do that later?”
“Soon as I’m awake, yeah.”
Two hours later, Julie stood in the freezer aisle at the grocery store, silently wishing she had just gone on her own and left Tim to his own devices. She stared in probably very obvious judgment as he dumped a stack of frozen microwave pizzas into the cart.
“I don’t think that even really counts as food,” Julie opined as she pushed the cart in the direction of the produce section.
Tim shrugged. “You eat it, don’t you?”
“Maybe you do,” Julie sniffed, “but I don’t really plan on it.”
“You’re not gonna try to make me eat peas or something, are you?” Tim asked suspiciously.
“I try to pick my battles, and I think that’s one I’m going to skip,” Julie replied.
“Probably smart,” Tim said with a smile.
Later, once they’d returned to the apartment with their haul and managed to find room in the kitchen for everything, they turned to the last few boxes crowding up the living room. Julie opened an unmarked box of Tim’s and discovered his modest collection of books. She hauled them out, stacking them on the coffee table so she could have a look at them.
"The Portable Steinbeck?" Julie read aloud, grabbing the stout, thick text off the top of the pile.
"Yeah," Tim replied absently from the kitchen, where he was unpacking a box of dishes. When he didn’t elaborate, Julie continued.
“I didn’t think you were much of a reader,” she said, setting aside the anthology and examining the next, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
“Not a whole lot to do in prison,” Tim mused. Julie glanced over at him. He was placing the old coffee mugs her mother had given her - kitschy ones with things like Number One Dad, Longview Credit Union and If Football Were Easy, They’d Call It Soccer printed on them - in one of the cupboards.
Julie picked up the little stack of books and began placing them in the short bookcase she had found at a garage sale the week before, which now occupied the wall between their bedroom doors. She couldn’t help but arrange them in alphabetical order, by author, exactly how she had arranged her own books in her bedroom. She ran her index finger down the cracked spine of one paperback, tracing the letters of the title, Sackett. Curious, she pulled it out, her eyes skimming the blurb on the back cover.
“All he'd wanted was enough to buy a ranch, but he soon learned that gold had ways of its own with men,” she read aloud. “Louis L’Amour. You like westerns - why doesn’t that surprise me?”
There was a pause so long that Julie wondered if Tim had heard her. “Are you gonna help me put all this kitchen junk away or are just gonna sit there making fun of my books?” Tim asked finally, his tone so flat that Julie couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not. She replaced the book and stood, picking up another box of dishes and carrying it into the kitchen as she did so. Placing the box on the counter and removing the newspaper-wrapped dinner plates within, Julie looked over at Tim.
“I wasn’t making fun of your books,” she said, feeling guilty and somewhat defensive. “I’m just one of those people who likes to check out other people’s bookshelves, their DVD and music collections... You know? I’ve even been known to snoop in a few medicine cabinets,” she finished, hoping to get a laugh. She saw the corner of Tim’s mouth quirk slightly, and knew he wasn’t actually upset.
“Isn’t that just called being nosy?” Tim asked.
Julie scoffed. “My ex-boyfriend would agree with you. He said I liked to pick people apart so I could find something to criticize.”
“Is that true?”
“Pretty much,” Julie laughed. “I guess I like to know what’s going on. I thought that would make me a good journalist someday. Stupid, really.”
“Probably would make you a good journalist.”
“Thanks,” Julie said, freeing a glass from its newsprint wrappings. Neither of them spoke for several moments, working in silence side by side until all the dishes were finally put away. “Have you ever read anything by Larry McMurtry?” Julie asked as she closed the cupboard before her.
“Don’t think so.”
“I think you’d like some of his stuff. They’re Westerns. I think my dad has a copy of Lonesome Dove. I’ll find it for you next time I’m home, if you want.”
Tim said nothing. He merely nodded and smiled, almost to himself. Almost like Julie wasn’t even in the room.
***
It was a Wednesday afternoon when Julie arrived home from work to find Tim standing shirtless in their little kitchen, frowning down at a roasting pan with a rack of ribs sitting in it. He glanced at her over the breakfast bar. “Hey,” he said, reaching for a shaker of salt.
“What are you up to?” Julie asked, dumping the mail on the kitchen table.
“Barbecuing.”
“We have a barbecue?” Julie asked, puzzled.
“Yeah, Billy got it for me - go check it out.”
Julie went out onto their small balcony, and was surprised to find one end of it taken up by a small green barbecue, which was smoking away merrily. Julie lifted the lid to see a rack of ribs already on the grill, slathered in copious amounts of barbecue sauce, dripping down to flare up on the hot coals below.
“I’m no barbecue expert, but I think you’re doing it wrong,” Julie remarked, re-entering the apartment and closing the sliding door behind her. “Did you do a dry rub? This is Texas. Whatever happened to ‘low and slow’? People in Dillon have been executed for much less.”
“I’m hungry,” Tim grumbled. “Anyway, I’m mopping it. It’s not a real sauce.”
“Fair enough,” Julie smiled. She sat down at the table, leaning her chin tiredly on one hand. “You know, you could have just gone out to eat. I’ve heard Ray’s has pretty good barbecue.”
“He does,” Tim nodded. “But I wanted to cook for once. I feel bad ‘cause you keep cooking stuff and leaving leftovers in the fridge and I keep eating them.”
“I don’t mind,” Julie replied with a shrug. “That’s what they’re there for.”
“How do you like your ribs?” Tim asked. “Saucy or extra saucy?”
Julie smiled sheepishly. “I guess this is a bad time to tell you I’m a vegetarian.”
“Seriously?”
“You didn’t notice all the veggie pizza, huh?”
“Kinda, but... Damn.”
Julie grinned at the crestfallen look on Tim’s face. “It’s not a big deal. I have veggie burgers in the freezer.”
Tim said nothing, although his dubious expression spoke volumes. Julie stood up and went to change out of her work clothes, returning a minute later to find the living room empty. Tim was out on the balcony, babying his ribs and smoking a cigarette. Julie stood for a moment and watched him as he closed the barbecue lid and stretched, drawing her eyes to the lean muscles of his back. Flushed, Julie turned towards the kitchen to start making a salad, knowing she’d be the only one eating it.
Julie had her salad ready to eat and was pulling a veggie burger out of the freezer when Tim came back inside.
“I think I burned myself,” Tim grumbled, wandering back into the kitchen and putting the roasting pan in the sink.
“Wearing a shirt might help,” Julie replied.
“I’m all out.”
“Oh. Do you want to go to the Laundromat later? I have a load I need to do.”
“Sure,” Tim shrugged. They ate dinner in front of the TV, something Julie was just getting used to again. With her family, meals were always eaten together at the table. It was nice to be lazy and eat on the couch. It reminded her of living with Nate, of getting beer and Thai food and falling asleep together while watching old movies on TCM.
Julie sighed, picking listlessly at her food. She felt fine until these sorts of memories returned to her. Masochistically, she tried to imagine what Nate was doing right now. He’d spent the previous summer interning at a local independent newspaper, and he’d planned to do the same again this summer. She wondered if he’d gotten a new apartment. She wondered if he was seeing someone.
It wasn’t that she longed for Nate, exactly - the longer she was away from him, the less she found she felt for him. No, it was her life with Nate she missed. She longed for the quirky variety of the city, the feeling that she was truly living her life. In comparison, life in Dillon felt like one long, sleepy Sunday afternoon.
Tim turned the TV off and Julie felt his eyes on her. She looked up to find him observing her, an inscrutable, curious expression on his face.
“Come on,” he said. “You wanna stop and get something from the Alamo Freeze first?”
Julie regarded him silently for a moment, then giving herself a firm shake, smiled and followed him.
***
“How’s work going?” Julie asked from her perch atop the washer which was presently scrubbing a load of her dark clothes. With all the activity of the last several weeks, the subject of work had gone completely overlooked.
“Good,” Tim replied, leaning a hip against the washer she sat on and crossing his arms over his chest. “I like the work, and the people are good. Might be kind of a pain when school starts again, with kids all over the place, but whatever.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” Tim’s washer buzzed, and he leaned over to begin transferring his clean work clothes to a nearby dryer.
“Is it weird, looking after the field when you used to play on it?” Julie pulled her legs up onto the washer so she could sit cross-legged.
Tim shot her a look, like he found her wannabe-journalist questions amusing, but would indulge her anyway. “A little. It’s not like I played on that exact field. It’s just a football field. It’s so different from Hermann Field, I barely even notice, to be honest.”
Julie nodded, sensing he was going to continue. After a pause and a shrug, he did.
“It just sucks that there’s not more money in the budget, you know? The whole place could look tons better, but the program just doesn’t have the cash the Panthers do,” Tim said, closing the dryer door and turning the dial. The machine began to rumble crankily.
“It’s cool that you take pride in your work,” Julie said, after a contemplative pause of her own. She took a sip of her chocolate Swizzler and sighed. “My job’s good, but really it’s just answering phones, filing, dealing with the waiting room. That kind of thing. I wish I could feel like I was having an impact. You know?”
“I bet you are, even if you can’t really see how,” Tim responded. “I know if I was going to the doctor, I’d rather walk in there and see you behind the counter than basically anyone else.”
“Gee, thanks,” Julie smiled, whacking him on the arm with her free hand. “Next time you’re due for a pap smear, come on over.”
The bug-eyed grimace on Tim’s face doubled her over with laughter, and Julie stopped only when her washer stopped cycling with a rusty thump. She hopped off the machine and began piling her clothes into the nearest free dryer.
It didn’t last, however, for a moment later, as she closed the dryer and turned the dial, she glanced over to find Tim staring at her.
“Pap smear,” he repeated incredulously, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe she would inflict even the thought of such a thing on him.
Julie fell into hysterics once again, which continued until the manager of the Laundromat came over and told them that if they didn’t settle down, he would have to ask them both to leave.
All things considered, Julie figured the look on Tim’s face had been well worth it.
***
“So seriously, bro - how’s it going?”
“Not bad,” Tim shrugged. “Work’s good.”
The two Riggins brothers were sharing a couple of beers on the edge of the empty swimming pool in Billy’s back yard. Night was falling, and mosquitoes were emerging from the cool shade of the untended shrubs that bordered the yard, disturbed by Skeeter as he patrolled the underbrush. Mindy was inside, trying with limited success to wrangle Stevie and Kaitlyn into bed for the night.
Billy tipped his beer bottle up and took a swig. “Yeah, but how are things going with Julie?”
“Fine,” Tim replied. “She’s as good a roommate as you can ask for, really. Better than the others I’ve had.”
Billy rolled his eyes, not taking the bait. “Sure, but I mean, you know... You two done it yet?”
Tim turned sharply and glared at his brother. “It’s not like that.”
“Yeah, but you like her, though, right?”
“I like her fine. We’re friends.”
Billy shrugged. “Just wondering. I wasn’t sure if you’d gotten any since getting out.”
Tim looked down at the beer bottle held loosely in his hands. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to be getting into a relationship right now, Billy.”
“Shit, who said anything about a relationship? Head down to the bar, pick up a girl - what’s hard about that? Get back in the game, man.”
“Yeah,” Tim replied mildly, taking a swig of his beer. He couldn’t think of anything he wanted less than what Billy suggested. He changed the subject to major league baseball and the local football prospects, and Billy let it go.
Later, Tim drove home the long way, lulled by the painted street lines passing under his truck and the bright lights along the main drag, dimming one by one.
That night, he dreamed of hot sunshine and open roads, and of the way the corners of Julie’s eyes crinkled when she laughed.
Part IV