Justin
It was almost midnight when I heard my window open. I had taken a nap earlier on a hunch she would show up late. I was right. It was funny how I was getting so used to having her there at night. I never really liked having people in my room. Denise used to complain that I had to have something hidden in there. At first she joked about dead bodies. Later she accused me of cheating, and the evidence was in my room, and that's why she couldn't go in there. We had a bad fight about it, and I ended up having to get my bedroom door fixed after she tried to claw it down.
Jhondie was different. Maybe it was because she knew about my work. Maybe it was because my secrets were nothing compared to hers. Whatever the reason, I didn't mind her in there. She knew we had to be quiet so that Dad wouldn't hear, but as long as she had about half a second, she could move fast enough to hide. There wasn't any way I could explain away why she was in my room at midnight. Even if I told the truth…hell, if it was my son, I wouldn't believe that kind of story anyways.
"Hey," I said, glancing over my shoulder. She looked different. Then it hit me. Her hair was in a ponytail. I'd only seen it up once before.
"Hey," she said with a smile. I guess my saying yes had put her in a good mood. Nah. It was being able to put her hair up.
"Turn around," I ordered. Don't ask why, I just wanted to see her neck. From the amused / annoyed look she gave me, she knew my intentions.
"Just don't touch," she said, and turned around, dropping to one knee so that I could see her neck. "It's still sore." Her neck was pink, like she had a light sunburn, but other than that it was smooth. She was wearing a loose shirt that was down a little on he shoulders and I could see the smooth lines of her neck gracefully twisting into her shoulders. Describing the view, her hair up, giving me a show of her neck, and part of her shoulders and back…I just can't describe it without using the word erotic. Jhondie really was a beautiful young woman.
"They did a good job," I said tightly. She got up, and I turned back to the computer quickly. I was glad she'd told me not to touch. If I had touched her neck I would have kissed it, and I had no idea why I had that urge. I mean, she was a friend. If it were one of my male friends, I wouldn't have wanted to touch them. Maybe it had just been a while. Yeah, that made sense.
"So what have you found?" she asked, pulling up my other chair.
"Not a thing," I replied, feeling like an idiot. After two weeks, we should have something on this guy. But it was like he didn't exist. I was vexed to say the least.
"I was thinking," Jhondie said.
"I thought I smelled smoke," I interrupted. She punched me lightly on the arm.
"I was thinking," she began again, more forcefully, "that maybe we have it a little wrong. A till is another name for a cash register, right? Maybe it's not Tillman but Till Man, as in the guy in charge of the money."
That was ridiculous. It was also the only option that we had left. I shrugged. "It's worth a shot," I said.
"Scoot over," she ordered, and took control of my computer. Within a few minutes she was running through some police files. How did she learn to do that? I asked her.
"Oh, Dink gave me a few ideas on cracking security," she replied. She did a search under aliases and it came up empty. Thought it would.
"When did you talk to Dink?" I asked. She was always with me when we went to Dink's place, and I couldn't remember her talking to him about security. I was still having a hard time believing that he would tell any of his secrets to anyone.
"I went to Fiesta's with him a few nights ago," she said absently. She was trying to get into another system to do a search.
"You and him had a date?" I asked, unable to keep the horror out of my voice.
She looked at me. I suddenly felt like an idiot. "No," she replied in a tone that let me know I was acting like an idiot. "We talk. I make him look good and he tells me neat hacking tricks." Her look added the words "you idiot" to the end of her sentence. "Are you jealous?" she asked.
"No," I immediately denied. I was. Why? Who the hell knew? I needed sleep.
She looked at me weird for a second longer and then went back to the computer. "What are you doing now?" I asked, trying to change the subject.
"Looking through registries," she replied. "Maybe Till Man is a thing." She shrugged. "It's worth a shot at least." She let the search run.
I was thinking we were going to have to give up on this one. I hated to say it, but this case was one dead end after another. The computer beeped. It had stopped on a record. The Till Man. It was a ship. I'll be damned.
Jhondie
I acted all smug when we got the hit, but to tell the truth, I was as shocked as Justin. I was just thinking that we were going to have to give up on the case, which was really starting to piss me off, but then the computer beeped. It hit on a ship registry. I had been right! This was just too cool. I was getting a little sick of Justin being right all the time with leads and just smirking and saying it was journalistic instinct. Maybe this was a little Manticore instinct.
Whatever. It worked. Maybe Lake went to The Till Man to make his payoff. He had a lousy memory. He had to write down the name of the ship of course. That made total sense now. So now we just had to figure out what was on the ship and where it was being taken. Maybe it was a drug pickup or something like that.
"Ships have to have their routes cleared, right?" I asked.
Justin nodded. "Yeah, the cops won't allow anyone near a dock unless authorized. Can you tap into Coastal Law Enforcement and find out where they're claiming to be going?"
I started trying the hack, but I wasn't familiar with their security. You have to be real careful not to catch a tracer, and I couldn't find a path that I could be sure was real. I needed some help from a higher authority. I grabbed the phone.
"Who are you calling?" Justin asked.
"Dink," I replied, dialing. Justin looked irked. What was the deal with him? What was the deal with me liking him a little jealous? There wasn't anything for him to be jealous over anyways. Dink liked having me around in public. I'd seen some of his friend's girlfriends, and I don't mean to be vain, but I was da bomb compared to them. Of course I was engineered to be perfect, but they didn't know that.
He picked up on the first ring. "Hey there," I said. Justin rolled his eyes. He was so cute.
"Jhondie," Dink said. "Glad to hear from you!" I'll bet he was.
"I'm having a little problem," I told him. "I can't get into Coastal files."
"Well," he said. "You can bring your stuff to me and I'll see what I can do with it."
"Let me guess," I said flirtatiously. Justin was green! "Friday night. Fiesta's. I'll buy, and we can talk it over."
"You drive a hard bargain," he said with a grin in his voice, "but I think I can handle that." We said our goodbyes and hung up. Justin really looked irritated.
"So?" he snapped. Okay, now it was losing its cuteness.
"So, I'm taking him the stuff Friday and we're going to sort it out," I replied, letting my annoyance show. I couldn't help it from showing really. He was acting like such a jerk all of a sudden.
Before he could reply, and I knew from his expression his reply was going to be the start of an argument, I heard something in the hall. I help up my hand for silence. Someone was coming down the hall. I was under the bed before another heartbeat of time could pass. There was a knock on the door a second later.
"Come in," Justin said. He was sitting back at the computer with a document suddenly open like he was working on a report or something for school.
Mr. Carter poked his head in. "Thought I heard you talking," he said to Justin.
"I was," Justin replied, and gestured to the phone. "Had to talk to Dink about some stuff."
"Oh," his Dad replied. "You alright son? Not like you to be up this late when you have to take the twins to school."
Justin shrugged. "Just have some work to do and stuff."
"And stuff?" Mr. Carter sounded a little skeptical. "You're not worried about taking Jhondie to her Prom are you?"
"No, Dad," Justin said, sounding a little annoyed. "We're going to have a good time. We're friends," he said pointedly. "We always have a good time together."
"Uh, huh. But Prom IS supposed to be special, especially for a young woman."
Justin sighed. "That's the line you used to get me to take Denise."
"True," Mr. Carter said. "But you didn't have to be talked into this. You really like this girl don't you?"
Anyone else wouldn't have been able to tell in the dim light, but I could see the back of Justin's neck flush. "Of course I do," he replied. "I wouldn't be a friend with someone I didn't like."
"You know what I mean."
"Dad!" This was obviously not a subject he wanted discussed knowing I could hear every word. Umm…was his dad hitting a nerve there? I knew Denise was his insane ex. Justin's dad made him take her to their Senior Prom? All I had to do was ask, and he agreed on his own. I knew he liked me, but did he like me like me? Wow.
"Goodnight son," Mr. Carter said, and left. I heard him going back down the hall, and waited until he was in his room before I came out from under the bed. Justin looked embarrassed.
"Parents," he said as a way to explain. I smiled.
"Yeah, my mom bugs me the same way about you." I shrugged. "Parents. You try to explain, but…"
"Yeah," he agreed.
"Well, I should get going," I said. I was feeling a little awkward. I couldn't stop wondering if his dad was more right than Justin was admitting. And why didn't I know which way I would prefer it to be?
I went to the window. "Jhondie," Justin called out. I paused. He grabbed some papers off of the desk and brought them to me. "You may want to take these to Dink." I blushed. That would have been dumb to leave everything here.
I put the papers in my backpack. Justin was still standing there. "I'm sorry I got all weird on you earlier about Dink," he suddenly said. "Chalk it up to a lack of sleep?" He sounded cute again.
"You're forgiven as long as you promise to get some sleep so you won't be a jerk Saturday," I replied. He gave me an embarrassed little half smile. I had never noticed before how his smile touched his dark blue eyes, making them seem so much brighter. Maybe I needed some sleep too.
"I'll be the perfect pretend boyfriend Saturday," he said. "100% jerk free, guaranteed."
I'm not sure why, but I hugged him. "I really appreciate you going with me," I said, and then kissed him on the cheek. I went to pull back, and realized that his arms were around my back. There was an intensity I'd never seen in him before. My heart started to pound.
"Anything for you," he said softly. I couldn't breathe. Was he about to kiss me? Why did I want him to so much all of a sudden?
We both stepped away from each other suddenly. That was just too much. "I'll see you Saturday," I said quickly, and crawled out the window. Home was good. Home was safe. Saturday was just four days away. I figured a four-day separation would be the opposite of a bad thing at that moment.
