New York; 2012
When his mother asks Justin what he and Alex are fighting about, he can't answer her.
One big reason is that he's not even sure himself. All he knows is that the morning after he watched the Mets game with his dad, Alex started giving him the silent treatment. The change in demeanor is enough to give him whiplash it's such a one-eighty.
Once he's truly sick and tired of her cold shoulder (which is honestly worse than all the insults in the world) he decides to just get out.
A seedy bar in Soho isn't a place he'd normally go, but his actions lately have been seedier in the last few days than all the rest of his life put together so in a weird way it fits.
There's a man on the stool beside him that is just radiating gloom, but the place is packed so he doesn't have a choice.
He orders a beer, in a bottle. There's no way he's going to trust drinking from a glass in this place. The bartender eyes him like he can read Justin's type all over him; straight-laced, academic, the whole nine yards. He's never been much of a drinker, especially beer, but he can't stand the thought of going back to the loft and putting up with Alex's stony silence and accusing glances.
"You look like you have something on your mind, kid," the guy beside him says, not even bothering to look up from the tumbler in front of him.
While his instincts are telling Justin not to talk to this guy, cause yeah, he looks shady, but he doesn't exactly have a lot of options about who he can talk this thing over with. "You could say that."
"Girl trouble?"
Justin laughs, and even he can hear the bitterness that laces it. That is the understatement of the century.
The guy finally looks at him. "I'll take that as a yes." Draining the remnants of his glass, he slaps the top of the bar. As smart as Justin likes to think he is, that is one custom he's not sure of. But then the bartender refills the glass with a dark, smoky looking liquid and he mentally slaps himself. "She take off on you?"
"Not yet," Justin tells the guy. He finally looks at the guy and takes in the dark circles under his eyes and the thick stubble, the dirty and tattered looking clothes. Justin resists the urge to wrinkle his nose. "But I have a feeling its coming."
The guy snorts, downing his new drink in one gulp. "Yeah. Women are like that. Do one thing they don't like and bam!" He slams his glass down hard on the bar. "They're all the same." Looking Justin up and down slowly, he sniffs in disdain. "What was your crime?"
"I'm not really sure," he says, sipping his beer, slowly getting used to the taste. "Just that…I don't know if there's a chance for us to work it out."
That's when the man stands abruptly, pulling out his wallet to toss a few bills down onto the wooden surface of the bar. He then tosses a picture down beside it. Checking first, Justin picks it up and sees that it's the same guy. A little younger but definitely him, wrapped around a pretty blonde with big dark eyes. Both of them were smiling.
"I was never really sure what I did either," he tells Justin. "But I gave up. And I've regretted it every day since."
The words hit Justin square in the pit of his stomach, like a punch. There is something inherently sad about the picture in his hands, despite the smiles. Lost loves are the most common tale in the world. His grandmother had told him that once, his dad's mother, in her lilting Sicilian accent, part of a story about meeting a boy one summer in Capri, about losing him when the fall came and real life started back up again. Lost love and first love all rolled up in one.
When he thinks back, twenty years from now, on the events spinning around him-what is he going to remember?
He pays for his drink and runs out of the bar, gasping in the fresh air greedily. Maybe it will clear the smoke and alcohol from his brain. He needs to think, and think hard, about the jittery feeling in his stomach when he thinks about the impression he was giving off; lovesick, losing the girl. Is he those things? Or is he a brother in a messed up situation that he doesn't know how to get out of?
So he walks. He walks and thinks about everything. About Alex and talking cabs and guitars, about being invisible and hugs so tight they cut off his breath.
He turns the corner, heading uptown, and his thought turns as well; to watercolors and fireworks, arena rock and a blood red dress.
Justin thinks about Alex and all the conflicting, contradictory impressions he has of his sister. By the time he hits midtown, there isn't' a single thought in his head that doesn't have her in it. Hell, there's not a lot of his life that doesn't have her in it. It's always been about her, hasn't it? In some small way, in the big ones, always. From the minute she was born, Alex was the epicenter of the Russo family. Justin used to resent that, resent her.
He sees now that she's been that to him since the moment he first laid eyes on her. He just didn't see it until now.
…0…
Washington; 2018
Annaleigh calls Max when they're on their way back to Alex's place. Even Justin could tell that she'd been suspicious of their change in plan-and he just met her. So while Max stands on the front stoop of Alex's townhouse in Georgetown, Justin follows her inside and tries to stave off the awkwardness of it all.
"Max will probably be on the phone for a while," he says, a blatant attempt at normalcy that falls short. "Annaleigh can talk."
Alex nods, taking off her jacket and hanging it on a peg by the front door. She's pushing her hair back out of her face when she faces him and her hand falls to the long chain around her neck. He's knows this move; it's her habit of trying to find an outlet for all the nervous energy flowing through her by finding something to occupy her hands.
Her nails are painted a dark red. A flash of memory hits him watching her wrap the chain around her fingers, only there's an inky black instead of red, and it's him wearing that necklace, not her.
She must see where his eyes are because she lets go and sticks her hands in the pockets of her jeans. "Well, I have a guest room down the hall, but it only has a twin bed. I guess one of you can take the couch."
Max popped through the door just then, saying he'd sleep on the couch. But Justin insists that Max sleep in the guest room. It feels…safer somehow, to have a little bit of distance.
He lays there on Alex's couch later that night, wide awake despite the lateness of the hour. Not that he was really expecting to sleep, not here, with her so close and the smell of her perfume invading his senses with every inhale. Feeling wired, he throws back the covers and wanders around Alex's living room realizing, with a pang, that through the years of isolation, he doesn't know his sister anymore. There are framed photographs on her mantle of people he's never seen before, never heard of. A small glass bowl on the coffee table holding receipts and ticket stubs that he knows nothing about. Paintings line the walls and he doesn't know which, if any, she painted.
There is one thing that he does recognize though. The sketch of a red dress, encased in an expensive looking mahogany frame, directly above her television.
He hasn't seen this since that night-the night everything changed, and everything pops up; fresh and crisp and flashback-ready and the images are so strong and so vivid he can almost taste the alcohol and cherry lip gloss again.
He hears a noise and turns, seeing Alex wander in from the hallway in her pajamas and her hair going every which way on her head. He gulps. So hard it hurts. "Hey."
Alex fidgets with the bottom of her tee shirt and looks at him like she doesn't quite know how to deal with him there in her living room. Maybe even in her life period. Her eyes land on the wall where her sketch hangs and he can see her posture stiffen. "Well," she says finally, "please refrain from feeding the elephant in the room."
Justin laughs, some of the tension leaving his body. "I couldn't sleep."
"Me neither," she tells him. "I was gonna grab some ice cream. You want to join me?"
"Sure."
He sits at the small table in her kitchen while she grabs the carton and two long spoons. She hands him one and sits down in the chair across from him, digging in.
They sit in silence, working their way through the gallon of double fudge chunk in front of them, avoiding eye contact. When he stretches his foot out underneath the table his toe brushes against her calf and Alex drops her spoon to the table with a clatter. She cruses under her breath and jumps up to grab a paper towel to wipe the ice cream off the table.
"Awkward," Justin mutters under his breath, watching Alex throw away the paper towel and stare at the chair she'd been sitting in like she thinks its going to bite her. He scrubs a hand over his face. This is getting old-and weird-not being able to even be in the same room with his own sister without someone else there to buffer.
Alex is looking at him strangely when he opens his eyes, head tilted to the side, bottom lip between her teeth. "Have I had way too much sugar again, or is there something on your arm?"
He looks down at the sleeve of his shirt, but sees nothing so he bends at the elbow, lifting his arm until he can see the back of his bicep. Or most of it. "Where?"
With a roll of her eyes, Alex walks over and lifts up the edge of the white cotton to expose the black script on his skin. "You have a tattoo," she breathes, almost sounding awed, and when her fingers ghost over the letters he feels goosebumps pop up all over his body. "Honi soit qui mal y pense." Alex tries the words out, and actually gets a lot of them right and Justin lets the squirmy feeling in his stomach run its course at hearing her speak Latin not involving a spell. She looks at his face like he's someone new and asks what it means.
"It's the motto of the Order of the Garter," he tells her. "I got it the night I finished my thesis. I was drunk and some friends talked me into it." He prepares himself for the quip about Latin tattoos while he was drunk and his general nerdhood.
"Not really great with the non-English." Now she sounds like the Alex he remembers, sans insult. "Care to translate?"
Justin takes a deep breath. "The shame be upon him who thinks evil where there is none."
It could mean any number of things. Justin's a PhD, a history buff, a Catholic. Really, the words could be referring to anything or nothing at all.
But they don't. They pertain to her and when her chocolate eyes lock onto his he knows that she understands that fact.
…0…
New York; 2012
Justin is surprised that Alex actually answers the phone. He'd been hopeful, but a little pessimistic. That's his thing.
"I'm busy," is her greeting, all annoyed and harsh.
"Meet me at East Sixtieth," Justin replies, crossing the street to the subway, dashing around couples and the occasional bum to get down the stairs faster.
There's silence and for a second he thinks she's hung up on him. "Are you high? It's almost 9 o'clock and you want me to come all the way uptown? Do you have any idea how long that's going to take at this hour?"
His phone cuts out (underground and all) so he isn't forced to respond to her very valid point and he prays to whoever will listen (he seriously doubts God is happy about the two of them) that she doesn't think he hung up and that she'll be there.
He may not have the guts again.
When he finally sees her through a break in the crowd, Justin feels something he's never felt before; kind of a ker-thump, his heart hitting so hard inside his ribcage he honestly wouldn't be shocked if it were to just break free from his chest and land right there on the sidewalk.
As Alex nears, two things become obvious. One; she had clearly been in the middle of working on her collection when he called her if the tape measure around her neck and colored pencils in her ponytail are any indication. Two; she's pissed. Full on pursed lips, narrowed eyes, steam about to come out of her ears pissed.
That would explain her leaving the apartment looking like she just ran away from a sweatshop.
"I'm giving you exactly 10 seconds to tell me why you so desperately needed me here for," she spits out, whole body radiating animosity and irritation. She crosses her arms and cocks a hip, foot tapping while she waits for said explanation.
Instead, he hold a cup out to her. "I got you a frozen hot chocolate."
Alex's face softens. He grins. There's little else that can make Alex as happy as sugar.
"East Sixtieth. I should have known," she lowers her bag off her shoulder and sits down on the steps of a closed bridal shop, eyes straying over to Serendipity 3. "Remember when we used to make Dad bring us up here every Saturday and we'd race through peppermint sundaes?"
"Yeah." He chuckles and settles on the step below hers. "You best me every time."
"Well duh, you were too worried that brain freeze would cause permanent damage."
Outraged, he begins spouting off the statistics that support his theory but she cuts him off. Alex moves down one step so they're sitting side by side, shoulders and elbows touching. They both sip their drinks, quiet falling over them. The sun began setting a while ago, but a red haze is still coloring the sky, and the way Alex is backlit by the color seems to make her features softer, fuzzier. Alex, but not entirely the Alex he's used to.
"Alex, I'm sorry. I'm not entirely sure what I did, but I'm sorry." He holds up a hand to stop her retort, surprised that, for once, she obliges and lets him continue. "What I do know is that I like the way we've been lately. I like you enjoying my company. And I want that to continue." He lets his voice fade off, lets silence fall so she knows he's finished.
"So…" Alex sounds uncertain. Odd. "You like that we're getting along?" He nods, she goes on. "Do you like…" A heavy blush blooms on her face. "You know, the rest?"
Like it? The heady emotions that flood his body when she kisses him, that make him dizzy and smiley, would say yes. And that's what he tells her, feeling a smidge of manly pride when she turns even redder and ducks her head. Again, odd.
Justin places a finger under her chin, tips her face up to look her in the eye. This is The Moment.
"I'm not sure what we're doing here," he tells her, sad smile on his face, "or if I think it's right…but I don't think I want to give it up either."
The hot chocolate becomes forgotten, sitting, thawing, by Alex's foot. Her head ends up on his shoulder, hands clasped on her lap, a mirror of his. "We're really doing this then? Whatever this is?"
"I guess," he breathes out, distracted by her propping her chin on his shoulder when she begins to talk, her nose sliding innocently along the line of his jaw.
When she begins to needle him about that answer, he kisses her, really kisses her, with everything he has, like he's never kissed her before and there goes that ker-thump again. Alex starts, then yields under him and molds her hands to the back of his neck.
That's the moment the little rational voice in the back of his head reminds him that, hello, they're in public and, whoa, they're related and maybe this is best done in private. And he's about to tell her that, really he is, but then he feels her fingers slip under the open collar of his shirt, her hand hot against the rapid beating of his heart, and as he opens his mouth to her it was enough for him to forget all the supposed to's and should's running around in his head. He tells that little voice to just shut up for a while.
There really is no turning back now, Justin realizes when they finally pull apart to the scandalized throat clearing of two old ladies walking by and he curses under his breath, chuckling, and reluctantly relinquishes his hold on her waist.
Alex giggles, foreheads still pressed to his almost painfully, and her breath ghosts over his face. "I didn't even know you knew words like that," she teases, and he can hear the smile in her voice.
"Oh, I'm just full of surprises."
…0…
Washington; 2018
Max tells him that he's going back to New York the next day. Alex is nowhere to be found so Justin offers to take a cab with him to the airport.
"You're staying, aren't you?" Max asks with all the seriousness of someone who already knows the answer and hopes that they're wrong.
Does Justin dare tell him about last night? About the feelings he got by just being around her and the unexplainable loneliness that crept in when she went back to her bedroom while he stared at that sketch until he finally fell asleep around dawn. Does he look his brother in the eye and tell him the gnawing fear that's lingered in the back of his mind all these years, the dread of what he felt that summer coming back, is uncoiling inside of him and making him question every move he's made since he left New York?
No. He just says that there are some things they need to talk about.
Max? He looks skeptical. Doubtful. A touch disappointed. And damn it, it hurts.
He leaves, going back to the airport by himself so he can head back to his life, leaves Justin with his problems and his guilt and his fear.
It's not hard to figure out where Alex hides her spare keys. Hollow books are easy enough to spot when you know who you're dealing with. As much as Alex has changed, there's no way she's actually read Descarte's Discourse on Method and Related Writings. No way.
He leaves her a note and heads out, needing to clear his thoughts, get some perspective.
Less than a block in and he falls in love with Alex's neighborhood. Spring is in full bloom, flowers budding out and the air is fragrant. There's a coffee shop around the corner, across the street from a sweet little park, and the call of caffeine beckons him inside.
The girl who takes his order is perky and sweet and asks him if he's new to the neighborhood.
"I'm just here for a few days."
"With your girlfriend?" She bats huge green eyes at him, smiling in that "Hi, I'm cute" way you can only have when you're under 21. She's flirting with him. It shocks the hell out of him. It shouldn't, but it does. He's just so not in that headspace and even if he were, this girl can't be older than 18 at most. She's just a kid.
"Steffi, stop hitting on the customers." Another girl, slightly older, comes up beside her and offers Justin an apologetic smile while Steffi retreats, sneaking looks at him from the corner of her eye.
"Sorry about that," she says. Her nametag reads 'Maggie' and Justin grins at her.
"Its no problem," he assures her. "She just threw me for a second. I'm not used to teenagers flirting with me."
Maggie shrugs, wiping down the counter. "She's harmless. Boy crazy, but harmless."
He's about to order a doughnut or something to go with his coffee when he sees a smile similar to Steffi's pop up on Maggie's pretty face. "Didn't I see you last night? You went home with my neighbor I think."
"Alex?"
She smiles bigger, but tighter. "Yeah. She's a sweetheart, isn't she?"
Justin's not quiet sure what to say to that sentiment, so he sips his coffee, leaves her to interpret his non-answer.
"So where is she this morning?"
Shrugging, Justin tosses his now empty cup into a trash bin at the end of the counter. "Don't know. She was gone when I got up this morning."
Maggie's lips curve up, all smug and the like. Justin smacks himself in his mind for succumbing to the allure of fresh dark roast and coming in here. He should have just stayed at Alex's townhouse and waited for her.
"But," he adds quickly, "her note did say she'd be back soon, so I better go. Nice to meet you." With that, he dashes out, purposefully ignoring whatever her parting words are.
He stuffs his hands into his pockets and keeps walking, just walking, hoping that he doesn't run into anyone else that knows his sister along the way.
The peal of church bells beak into his thoughts. Wow, he had totally forgotten that is was Sunday. What is up with his head?
He stands on the corner and watches at the people streaming out of the church across the street, all dressed in their Sunday best, looking well, respectable. What a novel concept that seems now. Funny. Justin used to think that if anything, he was a stand up, respectable guy. But things change.
When the minister walks out Justin stands a little straighter, tries to appear as inconspicuous as possible while standing on the street watching the congregation. And then the minister turns to talk to the woman on his left.
Its Alex. At church. Voluntarily.
Will miracles never cease?
From the distance, Justin thinks his sister looks like someone else in her dark blue dress, very conservative, and just the kind of girl any guy walking down the street would take notice of, beautiful and almost shining in the late morning sun.
She must sense someone staring at her, for she begins to scan the crowd of people milling about and then her eyes lock onto him on the corner, observing. He waves, at a loss of what else to do.
He has no idea what to do.
...0...
