Okay... I was SOOOO NOT planning on this to be published, but it turned out kind of good...so here it is. Its a little more "adultish" than my other stories and I think I actually like it best, but I don't know what you will think though.

Anyway, as usual everything belongs to its rightful owner and I just mean to amuse and entertain :)

This was not fair. James looked at Bella, in her high-waisted short-shorts and tank top, her eyes widely suggestive as she stared at him. He could smile and he'd be in bed with her in half an hour.

Fuck foreplay. He thought as she asked him a question.

He nodded, hoping a yes or no answer would be sufficient. He was too busy seizing her up. He thinks a little more, but his brain was never good at differing between things when his balls were largely concerned.

It was a do it and get out of there quickly situation.

No love, no commitment and no foreplay. Straight to the point; why he would even look at a manicured dummy like Bella in the first place. She'd probably never read a single book in her life, so no; he was not looking for conversation.

If he wanted conversation, he'd go and see Juliet at the motor pool.

Yes, Juliet, the only obstacle between James and Bella's bed. He had known the woman for a couple of months after all she had put him through in the first place. He was at a loss at how strange he felt around her.

So what did Juliet have to do with him getting laid? She wouldn't even have to know, but even if she did, it wouldn't matter. They were friends. Friends encouraged friends to get laid…unless they weren't just friends.

Shut up. Okay. What now?

He opened his mouth for a moment, still unsure what he was going to tell her. He closed it and opened it again, 'Ya got any Barry White records?'

He smiled a lopsided grin so that one of his dimples was more obvious then the other.

Friends. Just friends.

Juliet was tired and she was not in the mood for the games James sometimes played. She did not want to pay "I never" or Monopoly, or anything else from his wide array of selections. He was like a five year on a sugar rush sometimes.

She shook off her boots and sighed; who was she kidding though? She was looking forward to his shit eating grin and his silly little trinkets and stories that made her forget she was stuck in the seventies. Made her forget she would never see Rachel again and that half the people she knew were dead...a quarter of them at her own hands.

'Hello?' she called out as she flicked on the lights, squinting in the sudden flood of florescence works illuminating of the light bulb. 'James?'

No answer came and she wondered why, he was always home, on the couch, in the kitchen or just wondering around, looking a little lost and more than a little cute.

But not that evening.

She shrugged to herself. He probably had a longer shift, but it made no difference to her. It wasn't as if they were together. They hadn't even chosen to be roommates. Damn romantic hippies had just assumed like cows, but were in the process of getting them separate houses.

More shower time for her, Juliet decided, choosing not to think about him and succeeding until she reached the shower, but she found her mind sneaking back to him.

His smile and eyes and lips and arms and…fuck. There she went, irrational that a man, a boy, who looked like him would take any interest in the scattered pieces of her. Even if he did, she wouldn't let him.

She had enough of "boys" for a lifetime. Boys liked their toys new and shiny and expensive, they like their mansions big and their cars fast. A little blood never hurt either. That was a boy; very few men were around.

Edmund Burke; exhibit A.

Benjamin Linus; exhibit B.

James "Sawyer" Ford; exhibit C?

So why was she staying after his begging her if she knew this?

Yeah, she'd felt something. Something she couldn't categorize as anything. Pieces of stuff bobbing around in her head always in and out of consciousness. She sighed and turned on the tap at full blast and closed her eyes as the hot water wetted her.

She washed up; she dried her hair, and stepped out of the shower. So where was James anyway? Deciding she was too tired to make anything, she simply chose not to eat.

It was his damn turn to cook anyway.

"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do…" ten…eleven…twelve. Juliet wasn't sure how many times she could read the same paragraph from To Kill a Mocking Bird. Her eyes shot to the door every other minute, she was looking for a man whom she knew had that sort of up standing, but she hadn't found him.

Maybe she was hoping James would come waltzing through the door, automatically a replica of Atticus.

Suddenly however the door swung inward, directly below the clock reading eight. He was late.

'You're a little late,' Juliet told him, pretending to be indifferent.

He grunted something unrecognizable and lit the cigarette loosely sitting between his lips, cupping his hands around the flame from the light and inhaling immediately.

He blew the smoke into the air before him and they both watched as it dissolved to nothing, then James shut the door and Juliet raked him with her eyes.

She hated smoking, and she wouldn't hesitate to nag him about it, but his appearance was more interesting; he wore his shirt undone and his belt five loops too loose. He looked husked and his hair was in tangles. She knew the way he looked could not be mistaken for any other.

Juliet abruptly got to her feel. 'Good night.'

'What? Where ya going?' he called after her as she shut her bedroom door behind her. 'Blondie?'

She leaned back against the door listening to him. Her heart was beating a thousand miles per hour, how could she have believed he wouldn't go and get laid every other day after work. Why was she even so moved by this?

They were just friends.

But she was crying; tears running down her cheeks without her own consent.

What the hell was wrong with her? She barely knew him. He had her back and she had his, that was all just mutual. Nothing more, nothing less.

He could get laid if he wanted to, but…

'UGGHHH!' She half screamed and hurled the book across the room. She was fucked. Stuck in the seventies for his word and then he comes home like this? She had somehow conjured a different picture when she agreed to stay.

Was it the childish illusion that she could change someone as messed up as him? Or that they would live a dandy life together and never look back?

Yeah, she was totally fucked.

Outside James stared at the door imagining her on the other side and her expression, but he could not. She was a blank for him. He hadn't figured any of her out yet. He didn't even know anything real about her past.

Now, Bella didn't seem worth it. He would rather be talking to Juliet than staring at her door feeling like shit after having done what his impulse told him to. He slumped where he stood and closed his eyes, the inhaled again and exhaled the smoke.

He hadn't meant to fuck it up.

Back in the room Juliet lay on the bed, spread-eagle and listening to the taps working their magic, getting water to the shower. She opened her book again, her mind racing with all sorts of thoughts. It was the beginning of her third week in Dharma after post-poning her submarine trip for another month after James assuring her that they would go zooming back to the right time any moment…NOW!

But that, she felt, wouldn't happen for a while.

She had never wanted to leave so much as now. Why should she have his back if he didn't have her's. Yes, she would leave on the next submarine and no matter what James said or did, she would not listen.

He could do as he pleased and it didn't have to worry her one bit. They didn't even have to be friends anymore. He was an asshole either way.

Fuck him, she thought bluntly as she threw her book to the ground and turned, curling up into a ball to maintain her warmth.

Hope you enjoyed...

Review, Rant & Respond.

P.s I know I should be doing justice for my other stories, but no lost fan fiction writer can help being sucked into those three years :P

R.F.A