Disclaimer: I don't own Psych and or the song. Jake Owen owns the song.
Slight AU. Marlowe doesn't exist. This is in the future after Season 7 and Season 8 unless Shawn and Juliet marry in Season 8. Hopefully not. Wanted to try my pen at song fics.
The One That Got Away
Detective Carlton Lassiter sat under the shaded canopy sipping his flask of bourbon. There wasn't any hard liquor at the cash bar hence the complaints of the groom's father. He figured the groom ignored the father's requests anything that cost money was pungent to the freeloading bridegroom. Rumor said that the ring was an heirloom stolen from his father. He could believe the slander; wedding rings were too pricey for the groom's best friend credit card.
He didn't know why he showed up. He didn't want to see his partner throw her life away on something as insignificant as marriage to a narcissistic. Dying in the call of duty protecting street scum was preferable to watching those vows. The groom had taken time to write his own vows (or as he cynically thought the groom copied them from some 80's movie). Even during a wedding, a partnership of two people coming together, the groom managed to make it his own show. As the radiant bride walked up the aisle, he stood preening like a peacock and fussing with his hair as if everyone wanted to watch him.
His best friend was the best man. The poor, abused friend pulled him aside trying to tell him that this was the bride's day too. Even the preacher shot the groom a dangerous look. The bride walked up the aisle and he swore she smiled at him or perhaps the first flask of bourbon fooled him. He wanted the former to be true but his instincts told him the latter. The couple said their vows and shared in his opinion blatant lies at least on the groom's part. The moment he dreaded the most arrived just as he foreshadowed; the groom hammed it up frantically flinging the veil back and flung his new wife off her feet with a showboating kiss. He took another sip.
He congratulated the couple. He was a gentleman. He ignored the groom's insults and focused on his partner. She smiled, hugged him, and thanked him for attending. He noticed the groom staring at him with jealous eyes as if he was afraid that his newlywed would be stolen by the detective. The detective was disgusted by the lack of trust and jealously. Was the groom that needy and insecure?
He took a seat away from people. It was better that way. Happy, go-lucky Buzz McNab and his wife came out to chat and he allowed it. McNab despite his belief in Spencer was a decent guy and a fine black and white. He didn't mean any harm. After they left, the groom father walked over. The father noticing his whiskey flask asked for drink. He obliged him and the father stalked off grumbling about the lack of alcohol at the reception. He was sitting in the same chair when the DJ mistakenly played a song with a theme that didn't belong at a wedding.
She rolled in
My little sandy town
He wasn't a fan of current country music. Johnny Cash was country music to him. His opinion of today's country music was that they sounded like wanna-be rock stars. But this song's melody gripped him. She did roll in right after his former partner was rolled by the groom. Santa Barbara was sandy. The sand he poured out of his dress shoes after a crime scene on the beach confirmed that theory.
She spent the summer there
A couple houses down
Well it was magic in the air
When she caught my eye
We shared three short months
And one long goodbye
Well, she spent more than a summer in Santa Barbara more like eight years and counting. It wasn't a couple houses down but a couple desks down. She did catch his eye from the start unlike the groom's obvious physical attraction he was struck by her personality of how she showed up with a cheerful let's-be-friends but treat-me-respect attitude. As soon as she dated the groom, she said through actions a long goodbye. She let her boyfriend run the show, she followed his every greedy whim, she patronized him, she allowed him to be a bully, she allowed him to treat her like a free ATM, she lost her respect and she lost his respect.
She was the one that got away
The one that wrecked my heart
I should've never let her go
I should've begged her to stay
She was the one that got away
Yeah, the one that got away
She never knew it but she wrecked his heart three ways. First, she wrecked it as a friend she left her boyfriend run rampage over him. She ignored the insults and the playground taunts and told him to be "the bigger man". Second, she wrecked their partnership on every high-profile case that her boyfriend wanted it on she left him in then on any case she left him in. When he told her about how it wasn't a partnership anymore but a foursome (according for the boyfriend's best friend) she snapped at him and replied that wasn't the first propriety to catch the criminals and forget about egos. Her boyfriend butted in and seconded the motion. He had to laugh at the irony.
Finally, he tried to warn her about how her freedom, her bank account, her self-worth was to disappear once she devoted herself to the boyfriend. She responded in tears about said that he didn't trust her judgment. He should have begged her to stay but his pride the same pride that made him look like a fool stopped him.
Well she kissed my lips
Down on Ocean Drive
She set my world on fire
On the fourth of July
We wrote our names in the sand
Under the star-soaked sky
But it washed away like she did
With the rising tide
She never kissed him not even at Christmas under the mistletoe. God knows he tried that maneuver but the groom slipped in before him. It was one of his biggest regrets outside the Clinton administration. He treasured the shirt she grabbed onto after he sacrificed his gun and his career to save her before a civilian from the clock tower. She had broken down in tears and clanged to him soaking his silk shirt in a virtual waterfall. He didn't mind but at the same time, he could tell she wanted the groom to be the one.
Santa Barbara had an Ocean Drive. During some lunch breaks, they would eat at a vendor and stroll along the beach slipping coffee in the heat and humidly. She would stop him from arresting jaywalkers with just one smile. On one Fourth of July four years ago, she came to one of his Civil War reenactment and cheered during the battle. She even mocked weep during his death scene. Of course, the groom showed up wearing a farbish uniform and a revolting Southern accent and she swooned like Scarlett O'Hara. Ah, the coincidence or was it irony?
When the police headquarters poured new cement for the sidewalk, she coaxed him into joining her in recording their names in the wet cement. She complimented him on his smooth handwriting. He blushed and remarked that he finished 1st at his school for the blind. Where hence the boyfriend popped up, made a crude comment about how it was acutally a school for big eared freaks, and promptly ruined his name with a big, oversized handprint. She said nothing. He thought he caught an eye roll of disapproval.
She was the one that got away
The one that wrecked my heart
I should've never let her go
I should've begged her to stay
She was the one that got away
He hated choruses.
Every summer that rolls around
I'm looking over my shoulder
Wishing I could see her face
Wishing I could hold her
He would have given his badge to have, see, and hold the old partner he worked with. The partner that he trusted his life with, the partner that smelled like peaches and not like microwave crap, the partner with her ideal that she was worth treating like woman. But like a high school summer fling that woman wasn't returning and his memories of those times were fading under the bourbon.
She was the one that got away
The one that wrecked my heart
I should've never let her go
I should've begged her to stay
She was the one that got away
Yeah, she was the one that got away
The one that wrecked my heart
I should've never let her go
I should've begged her to stay
She was the one that got away
She was the one that got away
Did he mention that he hated repeating choruses? He couldn't remember. The fourth flask was too much. He mortgaged his future pension to the liquor store. She mortgaged her future. The best friend mortgaged his bank account; the father mortgaged his last name raising that hellion.
She rolled in
My little sandy town
She spent the summer there
A couple houses down
He prayed they wouldn't move in next to him. He was already sending the liquor store attendant's son to college, he couldn't afford the daughter too.