Psych fic: shall i stay, would it be a sin
Title: shall i stay, would it be a sin
Fandom(s): Psych
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3,858
Summary: Things go a bit differently after Shawn and Juliet’s fallout.
Author’s Notes: Response to this prompt.
shall i stay, would it be a sin
They sleep together, once (okay, maybe not just once…but for one night anyway), after she finds out he’s not psychic, because God help her she can’t resist that stupid grin and those stupid eyes alight with excitement and that stupid hair and the bit of extra he’s gotten from eating so much jerk chicken that gives her something to hold onto. Besides, they’re both consenting adults and breakup sex tends to be the best kind.
She even allows herself to stay over, to let him draw her close and sleep-whisper that Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman has nothing on her, and if she smiles, well, she pretends not to.
It takes no fewer than forty-five minutes to wake Shawn if it’s before noon (she hates how she knows that), so he stirs only slightly when she wriggles out of the bed at 7:13 and collects her clothing from various spots in the room. Just how her jeans got on top of Shawn’s He-Man bedazzled dresser is beyond her.
She calls her mom as she drives back to her apartment and confesses everything, from Shawn’s lies to her sleeping at his place. Her mother offers all the mom-sentiments that Juliet wants to hear, and some she doesn’t.
Honey, you’ve got to let him go. If he lied about something this huge, for seven years no less, what makes you think he won’t do it again? Trust me, some guy isn’t worth the risk of you feeling like this again somewhere down the line.
She begins to protest that Shawn’s not just “some guy,” that he’s been an irreplaceable part of her life since she arrived in Santa Barbara, but at the same time, she has to admit that her mother has a point. It’s not even just the lie that he’s a psychic. It’s all the little ones. How he claims he’s going bowling with Gus when really the two of them are sitting at the office watching an Animorphs marathon. Or how he’ll spill ice cream in her car and blame it on McNab’s cat. When they were together, she almost found it endearing, as though he were simply afraid she’d judge him, but now she’s got clarity. Now she knows it’s simply childish.
She’s thirty-one years old, she needs someone who’s going to be honest with her, who’s stable. Who won’t constantly have an inappropriate joke or eighties reference ready to go at a moment’s notice, even if that moment requires sincerity and not levity.
“You’re right,” she replies to her mother, who in turn hums in both appreciation and sympathy. Juliet vaguely remembers a story from long ago where her mom revealed she used to have good luck with men, that once she was engaged and blissfully happy before she, too, had had her heart broken. And that even after forty years and five children, she still keeps the ring in a safe deposit box because she can’t bear to part with it.
“I was just being stupid,” she continues.
No, sweetheart. No, this-this is all me.
Shawn’s voice echoes in her head. She wishes it wouldn’t.
Her apartment still feels too big without him in it, without all of his crap cluttering every available surface. She calls Lassiter before she can think better of it, and to her shock he actually shows up. In an impossibly fast five minutes, and she guarantees he used his siren, which is rather touching. She pours wine for both of them and although she holds back the whole not-psychic detail, she unloads everything else onto him, too. She cries-at which he flounders, then simply hugs her-and soon after falls asleep.
He’s not there when she wakes, but her hair is out of its bun, her favorite blanket covers her, and the wine glasses and bottle are neatly put away. The lingering smell of Windex informs her that even though she’s already a neat freak, he’d cleaned everything anyway.
There’s a note on the coffee table written on a spare Post-It. Lassiter’s careful, all-caps lettering is precise and simply reads, Fuck him. You deserve better. P.S. Don’t worry about coming into work today, I’ll cover for you.
She cries again.
She almost caves after Shawn’s mayoral run, after his flowery words and his willingness to divulge to the chief his secret. But regardless of how sorry he looks, she can’t get the feeling of utter betrayal out of her head, and rejects him again. She promises not to share the methods behind his detective work, because he was right, he does do good with it. Moreover, it would simply tempt fate, and the D.A., to call for mistrials for all the criminals he’d helped put away. After all, in their opinion, if he’d fibbed about the psychic thing then who was to say he hadn’t fabricated evidence?
They continue working together professionally to eradicate crime in the American Riviera, and eventually Shawn gets the hint. She almost caves again when Gus starts to give her the stink-eye, because he’s always been wonderful to her, except one glare from Lassiter puts her back on the right track. Some time after that, Shawn calls up Sophie Morris-Bridgewell the museum curator and Juliet purposefully congratulates them. He has the grace not to bring her around the police station, but every now and then Juliet will see them around town and do her best not to remember that his laugh was reserved for her once upon a time.
After the third time she finds them together, she gets in touch with Scott Seaver, who proves to be a more than adequate replacement.
Sophie’s job transfers her from California to Washington, D.C. where she’s upgraded to associate curator of the National Museum of Natural History, and Shawn follows her. (As for Gus, he tells her sometime after that he found a girl as well, who convinced him to stay in Santa Barbara instead of trailing Shawn across the country.) It’s just as well, considering how well Detective Brannigan is doing at the SBPD, causing Psych’s caseload to severely deplete. Juliet’s up to her neck in work in the Bay Area, barely pausing to read Henry’s short letter of explanation.
It doesn’t affect her radar much anyways. She loves being able to come home to Scott’s tantalizing meals-tonight, braised lamb and couscous-and discussions about world events. You know, grownup things, not Froot Loops and listening to Shawn and Gus argue the plausibility of Atlantis.
She comes home one night, exhausted after finally wrapping up a month-long case, wanting nothing more than to plop down on the couch and watch some trashy TV, maybe have Scott give her one of his massages that makes her hear color. She only gets part of it, managing to kick off her flats and lie down before Scott comes over and hands her an envelope.
“This came for you in the mail today,” he says, pecking her on the cheek. There’s no return info, just her name and address in curly font, and she opens it curiously.
TOGETHER WITH THEIR FAMILIES
RUBY NAHID SHAHI
and
SHAWN HENRY SPENCER
REQUEST THE PLEASURE OF YOUR COMPANY
AT THE CELEBRATION OF THEIR MARRIAGE ON
SATURDAY, THE TWENTY-THIRD OF MAY
TWO THOUSAND AND TWENTY
AT SIX O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING
THE BOTANIC GARDEN
SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA
Juliet doesn’t realize how long she’s been silent until Scott prompts her. “Shawn is getting married,” she relays. Uselessly, as Scott already has the invitation.
“Good for him,” Scott replies, handing her back the card with a smile. “I’m glad he's happy. I mean, if it weren’t for his psychic thing, I’d probably be long dead by now.”
“Yeah, good for him.”
“Want me to book plane tickets for you? I don’t know if you’ve noticed yet, but I am a wizard at finding the best rates. As long as you don’t mind riding in an old Russian biplane.”
Juliet misses his joke entirely. “Me? Can’t you come?”
They’d both moved on from their relationship, Shawn clearly most of all, but at the same time, Juliet’s not exactly sure she wants to attend the wedding of her ex-boyfriend all by herself. Not that she can’t, but (pettily, she knows) she’d like to have the taller, more distinguished man on her arm and casually-on-purpose extol his virtues to everyone congregating.
“I wish I could, Jules,” he says regretfully, “but that’s the weekend I’ve got to present the new wing of the gallery. I mean, I’ll ask Mr. Harvey just in case, but I think I’ll be stuck.”
“Yeah, no, of course. It’s okay.” Now that she thinks about it, it might be a tad awkward for him to not only find out she’d dated Shawn, but for her ex and her current boyfriend to exchange pleasantries. Scott she’s sure would be gracious as usual, but Shawn…even a married Shawn she doubts would refrain from the snark. So she continues, “Well if you can make it, great. But if not, I’ll steal a bottle of champagne for you.”
Although knowing Shawn, he’ll have a juice bar and nothing else.
“Sounds great. I’ll see you when you get back.”
She agrees with a quick kiss, takes her requisite week to carefully pack a suitcase as she does for every trip she takes. Lassiter and Marlowe had kindly offered her a place in their home while she was in town, but she’d declined. What she wants is alone time, not to be surrounded by a couple still caught up in newlywed bliss in spite of being married for six years, and a rambunctious Lily with a penchant for interrogating guests.
However, she does accept their offer to pay for a hotel, none of which of course had to do with Lassiter’s incessant insisting. Their whole conversation was filled with nostalgia, really, discussing something with her partner only to give in. She’s stubborn as a mule, her entire family is, but when Lassiter gets something in his head, you’d have a better chance getting a fish to climb a tree than dissuade him.
Before she knows it, she’s hugging Scott goodbye in the driveway as he expresses again his sincerest regrets for not being able to join her. (“I begged, on my knees and everything, but Mr. Harvey wouldn’t budge.”) Nevertheless, he promises to have his phone attached to him at all times, and that he doesn’t care if it’s three in the morning, he’d pick up. She waves as she reverses out onto the street, ruminating on just how lucky she is to have him in her life and decidedly not thinking of Shawn.
She takes seven hours for a five-hour drive, intentionally diverting through Fresno and past the Sequoia National Forest before swinging west to Santa Barbara. She stops by the waterfront, sitting at what used to be her favorite bench and looking out at the sparkling ocean. A few parasailors and surfers take advantage of the late-afternoon waves at the early-summer weather. From the boat tour she took years ago with Shawn she knows dolphins are frolicking just out of view on the horizon.
A glance at her watch informs her that it’s an hour until the ceremony starts, so she quickly returns to her hotel room and changes into the dress she’d bought for the occasion. It’s an off-the-shoulder sage number, hugging her waist before loosening to just above the knee and accompanied by a pale yellow pashmina. For the first time, she’d lied to Scott when she went to Nordstrom to purchase them, claiming she wanted to head to Fisherman’s Wharf to search for a wedding gift.
(Granted, it hadn’t all been a lie, as she did pick up a blue glass centerpiece from Wyland’s at Pier 39 for the happy couple. Nevertheless, guilt still plagues her.)
Arriving at the botanic garden, she presents her invitation to the greeter and is directed towards a cordoned off section of the parking lot. It’s not far to the ceremony site, for which she’s grateful because she’d made the decision to wear some glittery heels that make her legs look amazing, but that also pinch her feet uncomfortably.
The first thing she notices is that it’s arranged to be a fairly small gathering. Just Shawn’s, Ruby’s, and Gus’s families, it appears, plus some stragglers such as herself. She wonders if Lassiter will be there; hopes he will be. She can’t imagine why he wouldn’t, though, on second thought: they’d all been through too much in eight years to not be linked, particularly for something like a wedding.
For a brief moment she wonders if she’d be welcome, considering she could count on one hand how many trips down to Santa Barbara she’d taken since moving to San Francisco. Gus and Lassiter had visited occasionally, but especially with the former it’d been undercut with some degree of tension, and with Lassiter so busy as Chief-not to mention the arrival of Lily’s little brother-there hadn’t been a lot of mutual free days.
She discovers she needn’t have worried a few seconds later when she hears her name being called. She turns around to see a slightly older-looking Henry Spencer. She smiles both out of greeting and relief, and readily accepts his hug.
“How are you?” she asks. “Steelhead still biting?”
“Oh yeah, got my fridge stocked to the nines,” he replies. “Haven’t heard from you in a while, detective.”
She flushes. “I know, I’m sorry about that. Work has been a nightmare. You wouldn’t believe the underground crime lurking in San Francisco.”
It’s a flimsy excuse, and they both know it. “Well, it’s good to see you,” Henry says, choosing the easy route for the both of them and glossing over the elephant on the beach. “In town just for the wedding?”
“Mostly. A couple extra days to visit everyone, but then I have to get back, unfortunately.”
“Come over for dinner before you leave,” Henry says. “I insist.”
“I couldn’t possibly refuse,” Juliet chuckles. “You do make the best steak this side of the Mississippi. How’s Monday?”
Henry affirms, and in short order they’re set for two nights from now at seven p.m. sharp. Not that she’s not looking forward to it, of course. Outside of his excellent cooking, Henry never runs out of interesting stories to tell, and he’d be a nice sounding board for some of the frustrations she’s encountered at the SFPD.
“You know,” Henry continues, and there’s a tone in his voice that tells her smalltalk isn’t about to follow. “Shawn misses you. I mean, we all do, but…well, he’s never really gotten over your relationship. He’d move the world for you.”
Juliet stares at him, dumbfounded. Was Henry insane, declaring all of this on the day Shawn would say his vows to another woman? “Excuse me?”
“Just saying.”
He leaves without any further explanation, and all of a sudden the temperature outside feels frigid.
“Fifteen minutes, folks!” Gus’s dad announces from the archway.
Shawn misses you. He’d move the world for you.
Caught off-guard by Henry’s statement, Juliet meanders from the outdoors and into the adjacent building where both the changing rooms for the wedding party are located as well as the area for the reception. It’s nice, all decked out in gold and white and already laid out with tables and place settings. The name placards are in fancy script accompanied by detailed china, and she glides her fingers over one of the napkins-silver silk-which are contained by an embossed ring. Everything’s very elegant, and she imagines the food, cake, and music will be equally refined.
She wanders some more, searching out an empty room where she can sit by herself in silence and just think. She doesn’t have long until the ceremony starts, but hopefully it’d be enough. After some wrong options, she opens a door to find no one there, only a few mirrors, chairs, and a privacy screen. Perfect.
She grabs a seat and exhales deeply. She can do this, she can. She and Shawn are a thing of the past, and she has Scott besides. At the exact moment she stands and tells herself everything will be fine, ready to go back outside, she hears a shuffle from behind the screen and the precise person she didn’t want to see emerges.
He’s got a few faint lines around his eyes but apart from that, Shawn Spencer is exactly as she remembers. Same carefully maintained stubble, same expertly styled hair, same incredible filling out of a suit.
He glances up at the same time she does, gaping. “Juliet?” he asks, halting in the middle of straightening his tie. (It’s one of the many things she’d liked about him, that he could do his own tie. Scott can’t, though why she recalls that bit of information right now she couldn’t tell you.)
“Shawn,” she says dumbly. “What are you doing here?”
She realizes the idiocy of the question as soon as it leaves her mouth. “Uh, getting ready,” he replies anyway. “And late.”
“Oh, right.”
“Um, what are you doing in here?” he asks.
“Just…needed to think. About stuff.”
Shawn gazes at her, taking in her entire form. She can feel her face reddening beneath the heat of his stare. It’s like he’s never seen anything like her, like she’s every fantasy he’s ever had come to life. It makes her want to cover up and unzip her dress all at the same time.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispers. “San Francisco has been good to you.”
“Yeah,” she says, for lack of a better reply. “And you? D.C.’s okay?”
Shawn frowns. “Moved back here a few years ago,” he answers, walking determinedly into her space. “I should’ve mentioned it.”
“Doesn’t matter, does it?” Juliet asks.
He’s been in the same state for this long, and I had no idea…
She attempts to quiet that ridiculous voice inside her head, except it doesn’t work very well.
“No, I guess not,” Shawn concedes. If she’s not mistaken, there’s notes of legitimate sadness in his voice. “I’m sorry. You know, about…everything.”
Almost in a trance, he reaches down and brushes his hand over her bare shoulder, leaving goose bumps in its wake. Against her skin his palm is fire, and it reaches far past her arm. He’s respectful like he ever was, keeping his eyes north of her cleavage, and for some reason that makes her burn all the more.
He blinks, snapping himself into coherence. “I should go. This is the one thing I’d never be forgiven for if I’m late. Well, this and…and not telling you the truth when I should’ve of course.”
The pain from all those years back comes flooding over the dam she’d built inside of her as though the barricade were made of tissue paper and not fortified concrete like she’d intended. The memory of abject horror on Shawn’s face when she’d asked him if it was all a lie sears her brain.
“That was a long time ago,” she says unconvincingly. She can’t help but glance down to his mouth, which only serves to worsen everything as she recalls exactly how it had felt once against her own and elsewhere. She tries to call the image of Scott to her mind yet it’s elusive, only vague features surrounded by fog.
“Yeah. It was.”
He steps even closer, the tips of his black dress shoes touching those of her heels, and sweeps a tendril of hair from her face that had traitorously escaped its bobby pin.
“I’m still in love with you,” she blurts before she can stop herself. It’s as if a stranger has commandeered her faculties, every ounce of her better judgment suppressed. And despite that knowledge, despite the wrongness, she can’t seem to stop the disaster. “I tried to forget you, for so long, I tried to forget everything. I got back together with Scott. And none of it’s helped, not really. No matter what I do…I’ll always love you, Shawn.”
For quite possibly the first time in his life, Shawn is struck speechless. His hazel eyes bore into hers in a mixture of perplexity and barely-bridled passion.
“And I know this is awful of me, I don’t even know why I’m saying all this, it’s pointless and will just make everything worse,” she rambles, “and I have a boyfriend and especially on your wedding day-I’m so sorry, this was a bad idea for me to come in the first place, I shouldn’t have-”
Shawn puts his fingers over her lips, an effective silencer. “Jules, what the hell are you talking about? This isn’t my wedding, it’s Gus’s. Didn’t you read the invitation?”
“Of course I did! Did you?” Juliet counters. She immediately turns away to rummage in her clutch, emerging with the offending item and thrusting it in Shawn’s face.
She watches as fear dawns on it, and he groans. “Oh, no. He’s gonna kill me…”
“How could you possibly mess something like that up? And how did Gus let you handle anything?!”
“I just-I thought it was for billing information!” Shawn wails. “Rubes wanted Gus to do some of the planning, except he was too terrified.”
Juliet slaps him upside the head. “You’re such a moron. The one time you actually pay for something and you majorly screw it up. You’re lucky you and Gus share ninety percent of the same friends.”
“Well, you know me, screwing up is what I do.”
And just like that, the mood sours again between them. Juliet becomes hyperaware of the speech she’d given moments ago and is fairly sure she’s about to pass out. What had she done? The utter hurt on Scott’s face is so easy to picture, now.
“I am such a horrible person,” she moans. “Scott deserves so much better. God, I’m terrible.”
Of all things, Shawn chuckles. “Then we both are. Sophie broke it off four years ago because I wasn’t able to move on,” he says. “You’re it for me.”
She opens her mouth to reply, though with what she has no clue, when the loudspeaker beeps. “All guests for the union of Ruby Shahi and Burton Guster, please make your way to the seating area. The ceremony will begin momentarily.”
Any remaining doubts she may have had regarding the wedding’s bride and groom is quashed with the announcement. “You should get out there,” Juliet says.
Shawn nods. “Listen, Jules…I uh…”
“Yeah, me too.”
He goes to leave and is halfway out the door when she finds herself speaking again. “I’ll-I’ll be in town until Wednesday. Maybe we can get coffee sometime.”
She’s got so much to work out within herself, and one hell of a painful conversation to have with Scott involving much apology and self-recrimination-but Shawn’s smile is so full of adoration for her and only her that she thinks maybe everything will be okay after all.
Fandom(s): Psych
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3,858
Summary: Things go a bit differently after Shawn and Juliet’s fallout.
Author’s Notes: Response to this prompt.
shall i stay, would it be a sin
They sleep together, once (okay, maybe not just once…but for one night anyway), after she finds out he’s not psychic, because God help her she can’t resist that stupid grin and those stupid eyes alight with excitement and that stupid hair and the bit of extra he’s gotten from eating so much jerk chicken that gives her something to hold onto. Besides, they’re both consenting adults and breakup sex tends to be the best kind.
She even allows herself to stay over, to let him draw her close and sleep-whisper that Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman has nothing on her, and if she smiles, well, she pretends not to.
It takes no fewer than forty-five minutes to wake Shawn if it’s before noon (she hates how she knows that), so he stirs only slightly when she wriggles out of the bed at 7:13 and collects her clothing from various spots in the room. Just how her jeans got on top of Shawn’s He-Man bedazzled dresser is beyond her.
She calls her mom as she drives back to her apartment and confesses everything, from Shawn’s lies to her sleeping at his place. Her mother offers all the mom-sentiments that Juliet wants to hear, and some she doesn’t.
Honey, you’ve got to let him go. If he lied about something this huge, for seven years no less, what makes you think he won’t do it again? Trust me, some guy isn’t worth the risk of you feeling like this again somewhere down the line.
She begins to protest that Shawn’s not just “some guy,” that he’s been an irreplaceable part of her life since she arrived in Santa Barbara, but at the same time, she has to admit that her mother has a point. It’s not even just the lie that he’s a psychic. It’s all the little ones. How he claims he’s going bowling with Gus when really the two of them are sitting at the office watching an Animorphs marathon. Or how he’ll spill ice cream in her car and blame it on McNab’s cat. When they were together, she almost found it endearing, as though he were simply afraid she’d judge him, but now she’s got clarity. Now she knows it’s simply childish.
She’s thirty-one years old, she needs someone who’s going to be honest with her, who’s stable. Who won’t constantly have an inappropriate joke or eighties reference ready to go at a moment’s notice, even if that moment requires sincerity and not levity.
“You’re right,” she replies to her mother, who in turn hums in both appreciation and sympathy. Juliet vaguely remembers a story from long ago where her mom revealed she used to have good luck with men, that once she was engaged and blissfully happy before she, too, had had her heart broken. And that even after forty years and five children, she still keeps the ring in a safe deposit box because she can’t bear to part with it.
“I was just being stupid,” she continues.
No, sweetheart. No, this-this is all me.
Shawn’s voice echoes in her head. She wishes it wouldn’t.
Her apartment still feels too big without him in it, without all of his crap cluttering every available surface. She calls Lassiter before she can think better of it, and to her shock he actually shows up. In an impossibly fast five minutes, and she guarantees he used his siren, which is rather touching. She pours wine for both of them and although she holds back the whole not-psychic detail, she unloads everything else onto him, too. She cries-at which he flounders, then simply hugs her-and soon after falls asleep.
He’s not there when she wakes, but her hair is out of its bun, her favorite blanket covers her, and the wine glasses and bottle are neatly put away. The lingering smell of Windex informs her that even though she’s already a neat freak, he’d cleaned everything anyway.
There’s a note on the coffee table written on a spare Post-It. Lassiter’s careful, all-caps lettering is precise and simply reads, Fuck him. You deserve better. P.S. Don’t worry about coming into work today, I’ll cover for you.
She cries again.
She almost caves after Shawn’s mayoral run, after his flowery words and his willingness to divulge to the chief his secret. But regardless of how sorry he looks, she can’t get the feeling of utter betrayal out of her head, and rejects him again. She promises not to share the methods behind his detective work, because he was right, he does do good with it. Moreover, it would simply tempt fate, and the D.A., to call for mistrials for all the criminals he’d helped put away. After all, in their opinion, if he’d fibbed about the psychic thing then who was to say he hadn’t fabricated evidence?
They continue working together professionally to eradicate crime in the American Riviera, and eventually Shawn gets the hint. She almost caves again when Gus starts to give her the stink-eye, because he’s always been wonderful to her, except one glare from Lassiter puts her back on the right track. Some time after that, Shawn calls up Sophie Morris-Bridgewell the museum curator and Juliet purposefully congratulates them. He has the grace not to bring her around the police station, but every now and then Juliet will see them around town and do her best not to remember that his laugh was reserved for her once upon a time.
After the third time she finds them together, she gets in touch with Scott Seaver, who proves to be a more than adequate replacement.
Sophie’s job transfers her from California to Washington, D.C. where she’s upgraded to associate curator of the National Museum of Natural History, and Shawn follows her. (As for Gus, he tells her sometime after that he found a girl as well, who convinced him to stay in Santa Barbara instead of trailing Shawn across the country.) It’s just as well, considering how well Detective Brannigan is doing at the SBPD, causing Psych’s caseload to severely deplete. Juliet’s up to her neck in work in the Bay Area, barely pausing to read Henry’s short letter of explanation.
It doesn’t affect her radar much anyways. She loves being able to come home to Scott’s tantalizing meals-tonight, braised lamb and couscous-and discussions about world events. You know, grownup things, not Froot Loops and listening to Shawn and Gus argue the plausibility of Atlantis.
She comes home one night, exhausted after finally wrapping up a month-long case, wanting nothing more than to plop down on the couch and watch some trashy TV, maybe have Scott give her one of his massages that makes her hear color. She only gets part of it, managing to kick off her flats and lie down before Scott comes over and hands her an envelope.
“This came for you in the mail today,” he says, pecking her on the cheek. There’s no return info, just her name and address in curly font, and she opens it curiously.
TOGETHER WITH THEIR FAMILIES
RUBY NAHID SHAHI
and
SHAWN HENRY SPENCER
REQUEST THE PLEASURE OF YOUR COMPANY
AT THE CELEBRATION OF THEIR MARRIAGE ON
SATURDAY, THE TWENTY-THIRD OF MAY
TWO THOUSAND AND TWENTY
AT SIX O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING
THE BOTANIC GARDEN
SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA
Juliet doesn’t realize how long she’s been silent until Scott prompts her. “Shawn is getting married,” she relays. Uselessly, as Scott already has the invitation.
“Good for him,” Scott replies, handing her back the card with a smile. “I’m glad he's happy. I mean, if it weren’t for his psychic thing, I’d probably be long dead by now.”
“Yeah, good for him.”
“Want me to book plane tickets for you? I don’t know if you’ve noticed yet, but I am a wizard at finding the best rates. As long as you don’t mind riding in an old Russian biplane.”
Juliet misses his joke entirely. “Me? Can’t you come?”
They’d both moved on from their relationship, Shawn clearly most of all, but at the same time, Juliet’s not exactly sure she wants to attend the wedding of her ex-boyfriend all by herself. Not that she can’t, but (pettily, she knows) she’d like to have the taller, more distinguished man on her arm and casually-on-purpose extol his virtues to everyone congregating.
“I wish I could, Jules,” he says regretfully, “but that’s the weekend I’ve got to present the new wing of the gallery. I mean, I’ll ask Mr. Harvey just in case, but I think I’ll be stuck.”
“Yeah, no, of course. It’s okay.” Now that she thinks about it, it might be a tad awkward for him to not only find out she’d dated Shawn, but for her ex and her current boyfriend to exchange pleasantries. Scott she’s sure would be gracious as usual, but Shawn…even a married Shawn she doubts would refrain from the snark. So she continues, “Well if you can make it, great. But if not, I’ll steal a bottle of champagne for you.”
Although knowing Shawn, he’ll have a juice bar and nothing else.
“Sounds great. I’ll see you when you get back.”
She agrees with a quick kiss, takes her requisite week to carefully pack a suitcase as she does for every trip she takes. Lassiter and Marlowe had kindly offered her a place in their home while she was in town, but she’d declined. What she wants is alone time, not to be surrounded by a couple still caught up in newlywed bliss in spite of being married for six years, and a rambunctious Lily with a penchant for interrogating guests.
However, she does accept their offer to pay for a hotel, none of which of course had to do with Lassiter’s incessant insisting. Their whole conversation was filled with nostalgia, really, discussing something with her partner only to give in. She’s stubborn as a mule, her entire family is, but when Lassiter gets something in his head, you’d have a better chance getting a fish to climb a tree than dissuade him.
Before she knows it, she’s hugging Scott goodbye in the driveway as he expresses again his sincerest regrets for not being able to join her. (“I begged, on my knees and everything, but Mr. Harvey wouldn’t budge.”) Nevertheless, he promises to have his phone attached to him at all times, and that he doesn’t care if it’s three in the morning, he’d pick up. She waves as she reverses out onto the street, ruminating on just how lucky she is to have him in her life and decidedly not thinking of Shawn.
She takes seven hours for a five-hour drive, intentionally diverting through Fresno and past the Sequoia National Forest before swinging west to Santa Barbara. She stops by the waterfront, sitting at what used to be her favorite bench and looking out at the sparkling ocean. A few parasailors and surfers take advantage of the late-afternoon waves at the early-summer weather. From the boat tour she took years ago with Shawn she knows dolphins are frolicking just out of view on the horizon.
A glance at her watch informs her that it’s an hour until the ceremony starts, so she quickly returns to her hotel room and changes into the dress she’d bought for the occasion. It’s an off-the-shoulder sage number, hugging her waist before loosening to just above the knee and accompanied by a pale yellow pashmina. For the first time, she’d lied to Scott when she went to Nordstrom to purchase them, claiming she wanted to head to Fisherman’s Wharf to search for a wedding gift.
(Granted, it hadn’t all been a lie, as she did pick up a blue glass centerpiece from Wyland’s at Pier 39 for the happy couple. Nevertheless, guilt still plagues her.)
Arriving at the botanic garden, she presents her invitation to the greeter and is directed towards a cordoned off section of the parking lot. It’s not far to the ceremony site, for which she’s grateful because she’d made the decision to wear some glittery heels that make her legs look amazing, but that also pinch her feet uncomfortably.
The first thing she notices is that it’s arranged to be a fairly small gathering. Just Shawn’s, Ruby’s, and Gus’s families, it appears, plus some stragglers such as herself. She wonders if Lassiter will be there; hopes he will be. She can’t imagine why he wouldn’t, though, on second thought: they’d all been through too much in eight years to not be linked, particularly for something like a wedding.
For a brief moment she wonders if she’d be welcome, considering she could count on one hand how many trips down to Santa Barbara she’d taken since moving to San Francisco. Gus and Lassiter had visited occasionally, but especially with the former it’d been undercut with some degree of tension, and with Lassiter so busy as Chief-not to mention the arrival of Lily’s little brother-there hadn’t been a lot of mutual free days.
She discovers she needn’t have worried a few seconds later when she hears her name being called. She turns around to see a slightly older-looking Henry Spencer. She smiles both out of greeting and relief, and readily accepts his hug.
“How are you?” she asks. “Steelhead still biting?”
“Oh yeah, got my fridge stocked to the nines,” he replies. “Haven’t heard from you in a while, detective.”
She flushes. “I know, I’m sorry about that. Work has been a nightmare. You wouldn’t believe the underground crime lurking in San Francisco.”
It’s a flimsy excuse, and they both know it. “Well, it’s good to see you,” Henry says, choosing the easy route for the both of them and glossing over the elephant on the beach. “In town just for the wedding?”
“Mostly. A couple extra days to visit everyone, but then I have to get back, unfortunately.”
“Come over for dinner before you leave,” Henry says. “I insist.”
“I couldn’t possibly refuse,” Juliet chuckles. “You do make the best steak this side of the Mississippi. How’s Monday?”
Henry affirms, and in short order they’re set for two nights from now at seven p.m. sharp. Not that she’s not looking forward to it, of course. Outside of his excellent cooking, Henry never runs out of interesting stories to tell, and he’d be a nice sounding board for some of the frustrations she’s encountered at the SFPD.
“You know,” Henry continues, and there’s a tone in his voice that tells her smalltalk isn’t about to follow. “Shawn misses you. I mean, we all do, but…well, he’s never really gotten over your relationship. He’d move the world for you.”
Juliet stares at him, dumbfounded. Was Henry insane, declaring all of this on the day Shawn would say his vows to another woman? “Excuse me?”
“Just saying.”
He leaves without any further explanation, and all of a sudden the temperature outside feels frigid.
“Fifteen minutes, folks!” Gus’s dad announces from the archway.
Shawn misses you. He’d move the world for you.
Caught off-guard by Henry’s statement, Juliet meanders from the outdoors and into the adjacent building where both the changing rooms for the wedding party are located as well as the area for the reception. It’s nice, all decked out in gold and white and already laid out with tables and place settings. The name placards are in fancy script accompanied by detailed china, and she glides her fingers over one of the napkins-silver silk-which are contained by an embossed ring. Everything’s very elegant, and she imagines the food, cake, and music will be equally refined.
She wanders some more, searching out an empty room where she can sit by herself in silence and just think. She doesn’t have long until the ceremony starts, but hopefully it’d be enough. After some wrong options, she opens a door to find no one there, only a few mirrors, chairs, and a privacy screen. Perfect.
She grabs a seat and exhales deeply. She can do this, she can. She and Shawn are a thing of the past, and she has Scott besides. At the exact moment she stands and tells herself everything will be fine, ready to go back outside, she hears a shuffle from behind the screen and the precise person she didn’t want to see emerges.
He’s got a few faint lines around his eyes but apart from that, Shawn Spencer is exactly as she remembers. Same carefully maintained stubble, same expertly styled hair, same incredible filling out of a suit.
He glances up at the same time she does, gaping. “Juliet?” he asks, halting in the middle of straightening his tie. (It’s one of the many things she’d liked about him, that he could do his own tie. Scott can’t, though why she recalls that bit of information right now she couldn’t tell you.)
“Shawn,” she says dumbly. “What are you doing here?”
She realizes the idiocy of the question as soon as it leaves her mouth. “Uh, getting ready,” he replies anyway. “And late.”
“Oh, right.”
“Um, what are you doing in here?” he asks.
“Just…needed to think. About stuff.”
Shawn gazes at her, taking in her entire form. She can feel her face reddening beneath the heat of his stare. It’s like he’s never seen anything like her, like she’s every fantasy he’s ever had come to life. It makes her want to cover up and unzip her dress all at the same time.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispers. “San Francisco has been good to you.”
“Yeah,” she says, for lack of a better reply. “And you? D.C.’s okay?”
Shawn frowns. “Moved back here a few years ago,” he answers, walking determinedly into her space. “I should’ve mentioned it.”
“Doesn’t matter, does it?” Juliet asks.
He’s been in the same state for this long, and I had no idea…
She attempts to quiet that ridiculous voice inside her head, except it doesn’t work very well.
“No, I guess not,” Shawn concedes. If she’s not mistaken, there’s notes of legitimate sadness in his voice. “I’m sorry. You know, about…everything.”
Almost in a trance, he reaches down and brushes his hand over her bare shoulder, leaving goose bumps in its wake. Against her skin his palm is fire, and it reaches far past her arm. He’s respectful like he ever was, keeping his eyes north of her cleavage, and for some reason that makes her burn all the more.
He blinks, snapping himself into coherence. “I should go. This is the one thing I’d never be forgiven for if I’m late. Well, this and…and not telling you the truth when I should’ve of course.”
The pain from all those years back comes flooding over the dam she’d built inside of her as though the barricade were made of tissue paper and not fortified concrete like she’d intended. The memory of abject horror on Shawn’s face when she’d asked him if it was all a lie sears her brain.
“That was a long time ago,” she says unconvincingly. She can’t help but glance down to his mouth, which only serves to worsen everything as she recalls exactly how it had felt once against her own and elsewhere. She tries to call the image of Scott to her mind yet it’s elusive, only vague features surrounded by fog.
“Yeah. It was.”
He steps even closer, the tips of his black dress shoes touching those of her heels, and sweeps a tendril of hair from her face that had traitorously escaped its bobby pin.
“I’m still in love with you,” she blurts before she can stop herself. It’s as if a stranger has commandeered her faculties, every ounce of her better judgment suppressed. And despite that knowledge, despite the wrongness, she can’t seem to stop the disaster. “I tried to forget you, for so long, I tried to forget everything. I got back together with Scott. And none of it’s helped, not really. No matter what I do…I’ll always love you, Shawn.”
For quite possibly the first time in his life, Shawn is struck speechless. His hazel eyes bore into hers in a mixture of perplexity and barely-bridled passion.
“And I know this is awful of me, I don’t even know why I’m saying all this, it’s pointless and will just make everything worse,” she rambles, “and I have a boyfriend and especially on your wedding day-I’m so sorry, this was a bad idea for me to come in the first place, I shouldn’t have-”
Shawn puts his fingers over her lips, an effective silencer. “Jules, what the hell are you talking about? This isn’t my wedding, it’s Gus’s. Didn’t you read the invitation?”
“Of course I did! Did you?” Juliet counters. She immediately turns away to rummage in her clutch, emerging with the offending item and thrusting it in Shawn’s face.
She watches as fear dawns on it, and he groans. “Oh, no. He’s gonna kill me…”
“How could you possibly mess something like that up? And how did Gus let you handle anything?!”
“I just-I thought it was for billing information!” Shawn wails. “Rubes wanted Gus to do some of the planning, except he was too terrified.”
Juliet slaps him upside the head. “You’re such a moron. The one time you actually pay for something and you majorly screw it up. You’re lucky you and Gus share ninety percent of the same friends.”
“Well, you know me, screwing up is what I do.”
And just like that, the mood sours again between them. Juliet becomes hyperaware of the speech she’d given moments ago and is fairly sure she’s about to pass out. What had she done? The utter hurt on Scott’s face is so easy to picture, now.
“I am such a horrible person,” she moans. “Scott deserves so much better. God, I’m terrible.”
Of all things, Shawn chuckles. “Then we both are. Sophie broke it off four years ago because I wasn’t able to move on,” he says. “You’re it for me.”
She opens her mouth to reply, though with what she has no clue, when the loudspeaker beeps. “All guests for the union of Ruby Shahi and Burton Guster, please make your way to the seating area. The ceremony will begin momentarily.”
Any remaining doubts she may have had regarding the wedding’s bride and groom is quashed with the announcement. “You should get out there,” Juliet says.
Shawn nods. “Listen, Jules…I uh…”
“Yeah, me too.”
He goes to leave and is halfway out the door when she finds herself speaking again. “I’ll-I’ll be in town until Wednesday. Maybe we can get coffee sometime.”
She’s got so much to work out within herself, and one hell of a painful conversation to have with Scott involving much apology and self-recrimination-but Shawn’s smile is so full of adoration for her and only her that she thinks maybe everything will be okay after all.