1. Copying

It had been a good idea. Shawn had seen Juliet studying the horoscope page. She appeared to believe he was psychic. She apparently did not believe in love at first sight. Someone like that would probably believe that speed dating personality profiles could accurately determine compatibility. Maybe. It was worth a shot.

The funny thing was, even though he had tried his hardest to copy off her, he had only seen part of her questionnaire. She had been hunched over that page as if she were protecting military secrets, and with the way her hair was falling—falling in a wavy curtain across her face and around her shoulders...hm... Anyway, he couldn't see the page at all. Even when he pretended his pen had run dry and asked her if she had an extra in her purse, she had splayed her left hand and arm across most of her answers while she checked.

He didn't know how the fact that she sewed her own pajamas was going to help him, although it struck him as just about the most girl-next-door thing she could ever have written under "Something most people don't know about me." He himself had just been about to write that he had been swimming with manta rays, but he put her answer down instead. That was one he'd get. He tapped his pen on his temple and looked over at the woman next to him.

"What?" she muttered from under that hair curtain.

"Hm? Oh, nothing."

"Eyes on your own form, Spencer."

"Yes, detective," he said with a miniature salute. Now what would Juliet's perfect man say for question number one... A little voice in his head whispered words he didn't care much about all that often: the truth. He sighed in agreement with the voice and began filling in his answers, all the while feeling more and more despondent, because who ever won somebody over with the truth?

It was this thought that made everything so much funnier later. And also kind of scarier.

2. Deal-breaker

Juliet O'Hara might only be a junior detective so far, but she was indeed a detective. Shawn Spencer had not been bowling on that lane. For one thing, his look of surprise was a little fake. For another thing, the scoring display on that lane hadn't been active as of about a minute and a half before his arrival. For another thing, she had noticed him and Gus coming in with some girl from the speed dating place about five minutes before that.

He was a horrible bowler. It was obvious to her, seasoned bowling veteran that she was, that he had never cared enough to try. Which was a shame, because he had potential.

Juliet was flattered by Shawn's jealousy over her date with Kyle, but not deluded enough to think it meant anything real. Still, she thought it was best to clear the air about that perfect match thing. She wasn't about to get involved with a guy who had his eye on a new girl practically every week. No matter how much he made her laugh.

She told him it was bad bowling that was a deal-breaker.

3. Friends and Fajitas

Every time Shawn called him for a case, Gus felt like he should go—not just because his friend needed him, but because he was never sure which case would be the last. After all, Shawn had never been known to stick with much of anything for long. So even though right now his best friend was all fired up about this detective work, Gus treated each case like the last.

He wasn't fooled by the way Shawn grinned while talking about deal-breakers, either. Shawn was nursing a mini-infatuation for Junior Detective O'Hara, all right, but he'd get over it quickly enough when he realized she wasn't going to be as easy of a catch as most of the girls he'd been with. Thankfully. Otherwise he'd just get tired of her as fast as he'd gotten tired of the others, and that would make working with the SBPD really awkward.

Patience wasn't a word Gus associated with Shawn. Never had been, any more than "long-term" or "follow-through" were terms that brought his friend to mind. Gus tried imagining a Shawn who stuck with things, to the end, without getting bored on a regular basis. Shawn as responsible.

Next to that, "Shawn as psychic" looked downright normal.

4. Flashforward

If they had been told that not all that long after date night Shawn would sneak half a kiss from a willing Juliet and be good with just that and ready to wait for anything else, Gus would have been shocked and Juliet would have assumed it was another trick to get her interested.

But Shawn would have seen it coming.