"Hey Lupo." Jo's eyes closed as she sped up, trying to get away from the prying. She had gone to bed early the night before only to save herself from the chatter Zoe was going to want to have. "I know you heard me, you hear everything." His hand grasped her elbow half way across the rotunda and spun her to face him.
"What do you want?" She asked, opening her eyes only to be met with his suspicious baby blues.
"An explanation would be good. I never took Josephina Lupo for a thief, but I might have to report that you stole my grandmother's ring." She knew something like that would be coming. Some form of black mail or bribe for his silence; she had known so ever since he kissed her fifteen hours previous. "I don't want to, but what else am I supposed to do?"
"You might want to watch out, she can kill with nothing more than her hands." Zane's eyes rolled in annoyance and challenge as Jo froze. She peeked around Zane's bulk to see the gold eyes staring back at her with a hint of a smirk in them. Then, for the first time in ten years, Jo squealed like a girl.
"OH MY GOD!" Zane was forgotten was she tackled Andrea, the two friends falling to the floor laughing in a tangle of limbs. Jo was so relieved to see her best childhood friend that she didn't seem to care that she was acting like a stupid teenager in the middle of her workplace.
"Sup Jay?" Andrea asked removing Jo's death grip hug.
"Why are you here?" She asked. Andrea smiled and tilted her head to the side, that knowing smirk crossing her features again. "How did you get here?" Suddenly, Jo remembered all the red tape it took to get into the town, let alone to be able to surprise the Head of Security in the middle of Global.
"Daddy."
"Duh." Jo said.
"As to why I am here, I heard you got shot." Andrea smiled as Jo's eyes rolled.
If looked at from an outside source, the two would seem so completely opposite it would never occur to most that they were best friends. Jo was order and discipline and Andrea was the chaos that Jo always had to clean up.
"I'm fine." She said.
"I wanna see the scar." Andrea said like it was the most obvious thing to say to someone who had just been shot.
"There isn't one." Jo said, shifting to her feet and standing up, Andrea following.
"How did you get shot and not have a scar?"
"Eureka." Andrea nodded, her blonde curls bouncing into her eyes before she brushed them off with a familiar gesture.
"Right." She pursed her lips and looked around at all the scientists staring at them. "You look good Jay. Also, who is the Super-Man wannabe in the t-shirt?" Jo sighed as her life was once again brought back into a crossing path with Zane.
"Zane." She said under breath and glancing at her shoes. Andrea was going to practically launch herself at him. Zane was Andrea's type: male. And a sexy one at that.
"Donovan?" Jo's eyes snapped back up, annoyed slightly at the decibel her friend used, so she nodded in response. "That is Zane Donovan?"
"In the flesh sweetheart." Jo cringed; he just had to open his mouth. Jo looked up at her friend, ignoring Zane's looming bulk. Andrea's eyes darted down Zane's torso, landing briefly on his arms before she blinked back to look at Jo.
"Jo, what the hell are you complaining about?" Jo snorted, actually laughing for the first time since the time change at Andrea's tone. Obviously, Andrea couldn't understand complaining about someone that was physically attractive.
"She just likes to complain, she really loves me." Zane said, draping his arm causally across her shoulders. Andrea frowned.
"Oh yeah, that could get annoying."
"That's me. Annoying. And persistent. I want that explanation Lupo." The last sentence was whispered in her ear as she shrugged off his shoulder.
"And, there is the murder-you look again." Andrea, wedged herself between Jo and Zane, looping her arm through Jo's as she steered her away. "So what are we doing today?" Jo started to move toward her office, feeling Zane's eyes boring into her back.
"I was just going to ask you that myself."
"Well I am going to shadow you, until the slave driver lets you off to play." Andrea smiled, and Jo did too as they reached the stairs. "Hopefully with Zane, can I play with him please?" Andrea's attention was pulled back to the middle of the Rotunda. Jo glanced back, there had never been any doubt that Andrea had good taste, but Zane was still staring at them.
"Well, if I have to arrest him maybe you can." Even though she and Zane weren't together, and she knew that Andrea would never be serious about someone like Zane, it almost broke her shattered heart to say the words out loud.
"Oh, can I bring him to thanksgiving dinner? Daddy would hit the roof!" Jo laughed at the vision of Andrea's father sitting down to Thanksgiving with Zane the convicted Felon.
"You are horrible." She said as they turned into the hallway with her office.
"I know."
The day was pretty quiet. There were no town destructive experiments that got out of hand, no security threats that needed her full attention and Jo and Andrea walked into Café Diem at 6 pm sharp. Jo smiled as her best friends eyes widened and looked around.
"So?"
"It's… quaint." Andrea said, looking around and trying to force a smile to her face. Jo laughed out loud. "That's not so quaint." Jo followed Andrea's eye line to see Zoe and Zane in one of the booths along the wall. Jo murmured some response and turned toward that counter. "Who is that?"
"Zoe Carter." Jo said as Vincent nodded a hello at her as she ordered her coffee.
"Your Zoe Carter? Isn't she like fifteen?" Jo snorted into the coffee Vincent had just put down. "Pedophile much?" Andrea plopped down on the stool next to Jo and looked at the Chef Extraordinaire. Andrea said most things that came into her mind and she never bothered to keep her voice down. "And I'm sorry, but Zoe and Zane, that's too many Z's for a relationship to work."
"Excuse me." Jo looked over slowly to see a fuming Zoe with her arms crossed. Andrea turned, never one to be fazed and smiled.
"Sup mini Carter?" Jo was fighting really hard to hold back the smile that was threatening to bubble out. Then again, she caught Zane sauntering over and her urge to laugh disappeared.
"I am nineteen." Zoe stated.
"I am 27. What's the point?" Andrea asked. Zoe's green eyes narrowed and Jo looked back to her coffee to ignore everyone. The problem was, Andrea was too loud to drown out.
"Who are you?" Zoe asked
"Andrea. Jo's bestie. Sup Superman." Jo heard Zane snicker and then Andrea choked a little. Jo turned to see Zoe hugging Andrea.
"Jo talks about you all the time."
"Zane, here is your food… is Zoe ok?" Vincent asked, handed Zane a plate with a burger on it.
"She talks about you too." Andrea said as Jo was removing Zoe's arms from her best friends neck. Zane glanced around at the three women, then at Jo again before shaking his head and going back to the table he and Zoe were occupying earlier. Zoe started to follow him.
"Hey Zoe." The younger collegiate turned. "Careful with him." Jo sighed and turned toward the kitchen, attempting to ignore the conversation. Why was it that Zane always penetrated into her life, even when she was attempting to keep him at arms length.
"Zane's fine." Zoe responded, and Jo could tell by the tone of her voice that she had straightened her back in defense.
"Trust me. I've known my fair share of men like that, he should have pervert tattooed across his forehead. Just watch it. I don't want Jo to have to kill anyone." Vincent had come back, eyes widening at the last sentence uttered by her friend.
"Jo, we are having Karaoke tonight. Are you going to sing?" Vincent asked. Jo laughed, partially out of shock by the statement and partially by Vincent's attempt to make the situation not so volatile.
"Why would I sing?" The last time Vincent had thrown a karaoke night she hadn't been the person in the cockpit of her body and Julie had ended up kissing Fargo and getting in trouble with a lot of people, then almost dying.
"Because you have a slammin' voice." Andrea said. "Come on, it would be fun."
"Then you sing." Andrea smirked and Jo looked over at her, smiling. It was a challenge but Jo knew that it would be followed. The two of them never backed down from anything; ever. Not her brothers wrestling matches, not her brothers daring them to do stupid things, not Andrea's sisters telling them they were too chicken to streak through the neighborhood on Halloween.
Andrea was smirking larger as she spun around on her stool like a little child.
"Hey Vinny!" Vincent looked up and glanced around before realizing that he was being called. "What songs do you have?"
"We have every song, just like we have every food." He said. Jo smiled at the bear of a man and nodded her concurrence to Andrea. "Every song ever recorded is in that jukebox and I have all the karaoke tracks as well."
Andrea sat with her jaw practically on the floor, Jo laughing silently beside her as some weirdo named Larry hit notes only dogs could hear.
"Is this normal?" Andrea muttered. "I have never heard 'Carwash' murder so terribly." Jo choked out another laugh as Larry finished his rendition of the 70's classic and stepped off stage. Andrea looked over, that horrible wicked smile on her face as she dancing through the tables and up to the stage. Jo spun on her stool, watching Andrea don a red fedora hat and tilt it down her wicked smile still spread across her face.
You and I walk a fragile line,
I have known it all this time
But I never thought I'd see it break.
Jo had heard the song earlier in the car with Andrea, because she vaguely remembered the tune. But as the lyrics flashed on the screen it became hard to breath.
It's getting dark
And it's all to quiet
And I can't trust anything now
Her eyes involuntarily glanced at the physicist at the tables along the back wall. She wished she could tell what was going on in his brain, if that kiss was something other than a way to get a rise out of her, or just an experiment.
Oh, holding my breath
Won't lose you again
Something's made your eyes go cold
Her memory flashed to the blue eyes that looked up at her with so much hope in them, his heart in his hands as he knelt before. When she came back, those same beautiful eyes looked her at with hatred and suspicion, no longer wanting her to join him in life. She glanced down at the coffee in her hands.
Come on come on
Don't leave me like this
I thought I had you figured out
Something's gone terribly wrong
You're all I wanted
She breathed in, breath hitching around the ache in her chest. It felt like every bone in her body was in pain as her heart shattered again. She really needed to stop thinking about the past and how wonderful it was, and how much Zane completed her and loved her and it wasn't until she had a life threatening situation that she knew that Zane really was all she ever wanted in a partner.
Come on come on
Don't leave me like this
I thought I had you figured out
Can't breathe whenever you're gone
Can't turn back now I'm haunted
And haunted she was. By the eyes that looked at her every day with coldness instead of the warmth and love she was used to. Haunted by the eyes that should have been in their place, closed in passion as he kissed her senseless and smiling when they opened.
Stood there and watched you walk away
From everything we had
But I still mean every word I said to you
He had. Walked away to play doctor with some PhD that Jo would never have. She blinked over briefly before focusing on her coffee. Something made her still want him, still love him, still crave for him to be the better man she knew was in there somewhere.
He will try to take away my pain
And he just might make me smile
But the whole time I'm wishing he was you instead
Well duh.
Oh, Holding my breath
Won't see you again
Something keeps me holding on to nothing
Her hand strayed to the necklace around her neck, only to realize it was gone. She had thrown it back at him two days ago leading up to that kiss in the Sheriff's office. She glanced back over at the couple as the chorus rang through her ears again. The blue eyes locked with hers; he had been watching her. They were slightly narrowed but not in anger. It was confusion; her being the current puzzle he needed to solve.
But the eyes she suddenly saw were different. Smiling at her, loving her, teasing her.
I know
I know
I just know
You aren't gone
You can't be gone no
He couldn't be could he? Was Carter right, that people were who they are no matter what? That the man she fell in love with and wanted to spend the rest of her life with was sitting there just in a hard candy coating?
Come on come on don't leave me like this
I thought I had you figured out
Something's gone terribly wrong
Won't finish what you started
She knew she was starring, but she wasn't seeing what was in front of her. She was seeing the man on his knees. The one to whom she had brought food when he was electrocuting himself. Who made a joke at her expense to ease the attitude he had been giving her when he was freezing. She blinked the tears away. That stupid ice problem had been just before he proposed.
Come on Come on don't leave me like this
I thought I had you figured out
Can't breathe whenever you're gone
I can't turn back
I'm haunted.
The eyes starred back at her and she could see both sets. The ones of her lover, her future husband the man who wanted to spend eternity with her. As well as the ones that were actually here. The ones that needed to figure out why that kiss felt the way it did, and how she got his ring without actually stealing it from him.
You and I walk a fragile line
Never thought I'd see it break
Never thought I'd see it.*
She looked back down at her lap, breathing in through her nose as she vaguely heard the microphone drop to the ground. She missed her boyfriend. Her partner. She needed those eyes to look back at her from the physical being that was sitting across the café.
She was pulled out of her thoughts but Andrea's hand under her elbow.
"Come on Jo." She looked up, in a daze to see Andrea's face no longer smiling but looking at her with an intensity that said something was wrong. Jo stood, surprised to find her knees were weak. Andrea had her though, lifting her up and walking her out of the café. "It's ok, come on."
"Jo?" She choked at the sound of Zoe's voice. The person who she was supposed to love like a sister and yet couldn't help but hating a little every time she said Zane's name. Suddenly she was buried into Andrea's shoulder, fighting back the sobs so they would at least be quite.
"Come on baby in the car." Jo cringed. She hated when Andrea called her baby. It meant that she was acting like one, even though she knew that Andrea's mother called her baby when Andrea was upset so it was only natural and was meant to be comforting. Jo got in without question. "Put the keys on the driver's seat." Jo reached into her pocket and did as she was told before looking up through the windshield.
Andrea had Zoe by the shoulders and was attempting to get the younger women to go back inside. Andrea said something and Zoe nodded, turning at she did to go back to her date. Jo thought it odd that Zoe paused, turned back and then motioned with her arms somewhere down the street. Andre nodded and moved to get in the car. As she opened the door, that other voice kicked in.
"Is Jo ok?" Andrea paused, glancing in the car at Jo's audible gasp that she couldn't fight back anymore tonight.
"She'll be fine. Thanks Super man."
"Can I talk to her gate keeper?" Andrea smiled briefly and turned to Zane.
"She doesn't want to talk to you." Jo wasn't sure how Andrea knew that, but they had been best friend since they were five. Maybe she was easier to read to Andrea.
"How could you know that?" Zane asked, crossing his arms over his chest and smirking.
"Because I know Jo. Have fun on your pervert date." Without giving him a chance to respond she scooped the keys off the seat and settled herself behind the wheel. Jo didn't question when Andrea learned how to drive a stick but the second they pulled out of the parking spot, her best friend hit the gas, shifting within seconds and taking them out of town.
*This song is not mine. It is the brain child of the talented Taylor Swift, "Haunted".
Please let me know what you think.
