Disclaimer: I don't own Psych or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

Rating: T

Spoilers: Through season six finale

Chapter Ten: Not Completely a Cock-Up

The waiter came with their appetizer and they ate shrimp cocktail and talked over their champagne. Juliet had always thought that champagne had to be overrated - what was the big deal about bubbles? She could drink a Seven-Up and get the same effect - but she had to admit that the sparkle and buzz of the drink definitely added to the flavor of romance. Carlton wasn't doing a bad job of that himself. He was, she knew, quite awkward on first dates, but perhaps because he knew she was already aware of his flaws he seemed quite free and easy on this one. Conversation flowed, and slowly warmed. It was a surprise when Carlton, smiling, leaned in, brushed her hair aside, and kissed her just below her dangling pearl earring, but it was a pleasant surprise indeed.

"Pearls look good on you," he said as his arm slipped around her shoulders. "And I like this dress. Angora?"

"I think so," she said, and leaned into him. He kissed her again just above her eyebrow and she shivered. "Keep that up and I won't want to waste time waiting around for our entrees."

"That would be a shame, wouldn't it?" Carlton said, half-laughing. "We could always ask for a doggie bag."

"Tempting."

She held his gaze for a moment, until a commotion at the front of the restaurant caught their attention. "What the hell?" Carlton said.

They heard the maitre d' expostulating, and a lunatic voice repeating the word "duck." As the voices approached, they both recognized the lunatic. "Oh no," Juliet said. "Oh please, no."

Shawn Spencer bounced into view, peering into a nearby booth whose doubtless dumbfounded diners were hidden from their view. "Duck…" He turned and spotted them. "Goose!"

"Go. Away. Spencer," Lassiter growled through his teeth.

"Hey, Lassie, Jules. Fancy meeting you here, eh? You know, Jules, meeting Lassie at a bar hurts, but taking him out to a fancy-pants restaurant - in a make-out booth! With champagne! - is just adding insult to injury. I know you're trying to get back at me for…something…but don't you think you're taking it a little too far? You're wearing the petty-petty dress, even!" He made grabbing motions in the air with both hands.

"Sir, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave," the maitre d' said.

Lassiter slid out of the booth. "And I'm afraid I'm going to have to make you."

"Do you need me to call the police, Sir?" the maitre d' asked.

"The lady and I are the police," Lassiter answered. "Come on, Spencer. Time to go."

Shawn evaded his grasp. "I want to talk to Jules."

"Maybe she doesn't want to talk to you, have you ever thought about that?"

"Jules," Shawn said plaintively, throwing himself across the table at her, "come home, baby. We'll talk it out, whatever you need me to change I'll change. You've just got to give me a chance."

"I gave you a chance, Shawn," Juliet said. "I gave you way more chances than I ever should have. It is over, Shawn, and I don't want to have to tell you again. Now, if you need yet another visual aid to how my feelings have changed, you're more than welcome to wait ten minutes or so for my dinner to arrive so that I can shove a plate full of chicken marsala in your face. I'm not here with Carlton because I'm trying to get back at you, I'm here because he's a good man, I love him, and I think we could really have something together. Now go away and stop trying to ruin my life."

"But Jules - "

She half-rose from the table. "Shawn. Lassiter is going to kill you, and I am going to help him hide the body."

He stood up, squared his shoulders, and straightened his grungy old denim jacket. "So this is really what you want, then. This guy - " he gestured toward Lassiter " - and not me?"

Juliet nodded. "Yes, Shawn. That guy, and not you."

"Well, then. I guess there's nothing left to say, is there?"

"No, but I'm sure you'll say it anyway."

"That was totally unnecessary, Jules, but I suppose I deserved it. Goodbye. My apologies for the brouhaha." With a final, hateful glare at Lassiter which was calmly returned, Shawn left.

Lassiter watched him go, then apologized to the maitre d'. When he returned to the table he asked, "Do you want to leave?"

Juliet flicked the tail of an ex-jumbo shrimp, then rolled it in sauce and popped it in her mouth. "This started as a lovely dinner," she said once she'd swallowed. "I'd like to make an attempt to recapture that."

He slid back into the booth. "As you wish, milady." She stared at him. "What?"

"I'm pretty sure nobody has ever called me 'milady' before, at least not when it didn't sound sarcastic."

"I'm sorry. I know it's not politically correct, it's just…it's hard to break the way you were raised…"

"Woah woah woah woah," she said. "I didn't say I didn't like it. You don't make it sound like a belittlement, you make it sound…chivalrous. Chivalry is a nice change from…pretty much every guy I've ever been out with, and I don't think chivalry and feminism are mutually exclusive to each other."

He grimaced slightly. "Victoria always complained when I…how did she put it? 'Let my penis do the walking?' She didn't think it was possible for a man to respect a woman's strength and ability and still hold doors and walk on the traffic side…and all that stuff. I grew up surrounded by tough women - my mom, my grandma, even Lulu who, let me tell you, can throw a fast ball better than a lot of minor league pitchers - and I, the lone lowly male, was still expected to be protective and treat them as a superior species. I don't think Victoria ever really understood where I was coming from, but then, I'm pretty sure her father and brothers were the major driving force in her family."

"I grew up surrounded by boys," Juliet said. "Big, rambunctious boys. But my mom held the power of veto, all right."

Their dinners arrived, and conversation was held up until the waiter left. Lassiter appeared content to put the topic aside, but Juliet had never heard him volunteer so much information about his childhood and wanted to know more.

"Must have been tough, being the boy in a house full of girls. Your dad wasn't around?"

"Not much."

"So you were the man of the house."

He snorted a laugh that didn't have much humor in it. "My mom, as you may have heard, is a lesbian. She was all the man the house required. But, as I said, I was still expected to behave as if women were delicate flowers who, if they only wanted, could beat the living snot out of me."

"But never did, I hope," Juliet said in alarm.

"My grandmother gave me a good solid whack upside the head every now and then when I had it coming, but no, they never did."

She slowly chewed a bite of chicken. "It sounds like…you grew up at least a little bit terrorized." Though she tried to make it sound like a joke she knew that it wasn't.

He shrugged one shoulder. "They loved me. The way they treated me made that hard to see, sometimes, but it was true. Grandma was, in her own words, a 'tough old broad,' and the product of another age. Mom, I think, was always secretly just a little bit afraid of men. She didn't want me to grow up to be the kind of man she hated."

The kind of man a woman couldn't dominate? Juliet wondered. Out loud she said, "What did your dad have to say about it?"

"Not much."

"Lauren is quite a bit younger than you," Juliet pointed out, "so I know he had to have been a part of your life for most of your childhood, at least. You really don't have anything more to say about him?"

"Nope."

"But he was there, wasn't he?"

"Intermittently."

"You don't like him."

He put down his fork. "I don't feel much for him one way or the other, O'Hara."

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to prod at a sore spot."He sighed. "I'm sorry if it seems like I snapped at you. It's just that I spend most of my life not thinking about my father and I don't see a whole lot of point in doing otherwise. If you really want to know, yes, my parents didn't get divorced until I was nearly out of high school, but they were never really a couple, either, and dad didn't spend a whole lot of time with us. When he was home, he never seemed to do anything except argue with my mother and yell for beer. For most of my childhood I pretended that Clint Eastwood was my dad, if you have to know the truth."

She put a hand on his arm. "I know how it feels to have a deadbeat dad."

"Yeah…" He stared at his plate for a moment. "I don't mean to be whiny or anything. It sucks to be a kid and have to deal with a parent who just doesn't seem to care, but I haven't been a kid for a long time. I'm over it."

"You're not whining."

He stirred his linguine with his fork, clearly not terribly interested in eating it. "I'm sorry. This was supposed to be a nice dinner, and I'm bringing the whole thing down."

"Shawn brought it down, not you, and I shouldn't have kept asking you about what I knew was probably a painful subject. Lets have another glass of champagne and a change of subject. Let's talk…turn-ons. What's your biggest one? Legs? Boobs? Long walks on the beach? Weapons proficiency?"

He chuckled and sipped at his drink. "Okay, those sound pretty good to me. I'm not sure I've ever attempted to categorize my turn-ons in terms of effectiveness before, but if I'm going to be honest with you, and myself, then I suppose I would have to admit that what does it for me quicker than anything is hair."

Juliet laughed. "Hair?"

"I know, I know, it's shallow as a teaspoon. I can't help it, there's something about ladies' hair. I like the way it looks, the way it shines, the way it smells, and the way it feels."

"What's your favorite color, then?"

He cast a glance at her honey-gold hair and gave a little sidelong grin. "Well, that really depends on the lady the hair is on, and whether or not there's an obvious dye or peroxide job happening. But I can cop to a slight preference for blondes."

She reached out and toyed with his hair. "I've always had a thing for salt-and-pepper, myself."

"Ha! The salt is rapidly crowding out the pepper," he said, blushing. "Dad had shock-white hair by age thirty, and mom wasn't far behind him, so I guess I'm ahead of the curve. So. What's your big turn-on?"

"Judging from the one time it's happened, being called 'milady' by an old-school gentleman."

He laughed. "Well, if you're really crazy enough to hang out with me like this, it'll probably happen again. Then you'll know for sure."

They chatted over their meals and slowly fell into that warm, romantic groove they'd been jolted out of by Shawn's interruption. By the time the waiter came around with the dessert cart they had developed an easy intimacy that boded well for the rest of the evening.

"Would you like something sweet?" Lassiter asked Juliet.

She gripped his knee under the table. "I've already got something sweet."

He blushed again. "I mean…would you like a piece of cheesecake or something?"

"I think I'd rather go back to your place for dessert."

"I think we'll take our check, now, please," Lassiter told the waiter.