J.M.J.

Author's note: Thank you so much for continuing to read! Thank you especially to MargarettA66 and max2013 for your reviews on the previous chapter! My apologies for this chapter being a little later than I intended. My laptop was not cooperating last night, so I didn't get to post it then. Anyway, it's here now! God bless!

Chapter IX

Being literally in his brother's shoes was turning out to be a much different experience than Frank had expected. To begin with, being packed into an apartment with three other guys was not the most pleasant thing, particularly when the apartment barely had room for two people. Frank wasn't sure whether being close friends with Phil and Tony was helping or hindering things, either. He'd gone camping and such with them enough times, but suddenly living in their home space was shaping up to be a different story, even after only one evening. Their diet of pizza and frozen meals and their disaster area of a living space—Tony claimed he and Joe had just cleaned it, which made Frank shudder to think what it must have looked like before—was enough to test anyone's patience, especially when Frank had always assumed that his friends were reasonably neat. Of course, Shaun could have been responsible for most of the mess, Frank thought. That might have been an unfair conclusion, considering Frank had mostly made it because Shaun was already on his nerves by constantly telling him that he didn't act very much like Joe and that he'd never fool anyone this way. Frank tried to explain that he wasn't actually trying to act like Joe at the moment, since there was no one around who might be fooled by the performance, and when he did try to imitate Joe, he knew his brother better than anyone, so no coaching was necessary from someone who had only known Joe a few months, but Shaun didn't let up.

It was a relief to finally go to bed, even though Joe's mattress left much to be desired. He had finally gotten himself comfortable and was just closing his eyes when Shaun started talking to him from his side of the room.

"Hey, Hank, you still awake?" Shaun asked.

"It's Frank…er, Joe. Whatever," Frank replied in annoyance. "What is it?"

"I just thought you might have some questions."

Frank clamped his teeth together and forced himself to count to ten before replying. "You know, believe it or not, I actually know Joe pretty well. I don't have any questions."

"Dude, you need to chill, already. I didn't mean questions about Joe. I meant about the setup here."

"The setup?"

"You know, how it works, us living here. How the rent gets paid and the electric bill and how groceries work and who cleans and when and how we haven't murdered each other yet, stuff like that. So if somebody, like, drops in or something, you won't totally give yourself away by not knowing anything."

It shouldn't have annoyed Frank but it did that Shaun, of all people, would think of something so obvious that Frank had forgotten about.

"Yeah, I do need to know about that," he admitted. "We can talk about it in the morning, though." He paused a few seconds, and then he said, "There is one thing I'd like to ask you about now. How did you wind up rooming with these guys?"

"Joe never told you?"

"He never mentioned it and I never thought to ask. To tell the truth, he hasn't said a whole lot about things here."

"And you were just bragging about how tight you are." Shaun chuckled. "Well, you know, Tony was the first one of those guys to come out here. He realized pretty quick that there's no way he could afford to pay rent on his wage, so he mentioned to some of the people at work that he wouldn't mind a roommate. My cousin was working there then—she quit since then—and she knew I was hard up for a place, so it all just kind of fell into place. Rent was still pretty steep until Joe and Phil moved in, but it's almost affordable now."

In spite of himself, Frank chuckled softly. "What about the fifth roomer here? Where did Axel come in and whose idea was it to bring a German shepherd into an already overcrowded apartment?"

"It wasn't overcrowded when Axel came," Shaun explained. "That was while it was still just Tony and me. There were a bunch of break-ins along this street and one guy even got clubbed over the head. Tony decided he wanted a guard dog to make sure the place was protected while we were both out, so he went down to the shelter and adopted the only German shepherd they had available."

"Hmm," Frank replied. "Interesting. How is he as a guard dog? I noticed he growled at me."

"He growls at everybody, until Tony tells him they're okay. Then he's fine with them. He's a real smart dog."

"That just might come in handy."

HBHBHBHBHB

Joe was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. It was early morning, but Fenton had already gotten up and left. Laura was in the next room, and Callie had gone out to see about some breakfast. When she came back and saw Joe's vacant stare at the ceiling, it concerned her a bit.

She set down the cartons of hot takeout breakfast food that she had gotten from the restaurant across the street. "Joe?"

He blinked and shifted his gaze to her. "Hey, Callie. Did you find anything to eat?"

"Right here." Callie took out one of the cartons. "English muffins with scrambled eggs and bacon, right?"

"Right. Thanks." Joe tried to be grateful as he took the carton from her. It was one of his favorite breakfasts and it was nice of Callie to have remembered that. Still, he didn't feel particularly grateful for anything.

Callie noted the lackluster way in which he set his fork against the food. "Is something bothering you?"

"You mean, besides the fact that there's an assassin working with a top secret terrorist organization that the best investigators in several countries haven't been able to break up out to kill me?"

"I guess it was a silly question," Callie admitted as she picked up her own breakfast.

Joe continued to merely scoot the scrambled eggs around the takeout carton. As concerning as the assassin was, there was something else on Joe's mind at the moment. He knew it was silly to ask, but he couldn't help it and the words came tumbling out. "Do you ever hear much from Iola anymore? I haven't heard from her in a long time. Or Chet, either, for that matter."

Callie froze, although she caught herself a moment later. She was glad she hadn't been in mid-bite, but she doubted that Joe had missed the response. "Yeah, I do hear from her quite a bit. She's got a lot going on."

"Is she still going to that physical therapist or whatever he is?"

"Sometimes. She's made a lot of improvement, so she doesn't have to go to him all that often. He can give her the exercises over the Internet. She can do without the wheelchair or even any other kind of support for short amounts of time

"That's great," Joe said genuinely. He frowned as he tried to decide how to phrase his next question. "Does she…Has she been going out with anyone? Not that it's any of my business anymore, I guess."

"There was one guy," Callie said, "but it didn't last long."

"Oh." Joe wished the weight that had just settled on his heart would go away. Now that it was too late, he didn't want Callie to see how much he still cared and feel sorry for him. The weight refused to budge, so he had to resort to disguising it. "I'm sorry to hear that. She deserves to find somebody." Joe wasn't so sure that it was Iola's break-up that he was really sorry about, yet he wanted it to be. If he could hold onto nothing else in his life, he at least wanted to be magnanimous enough to truly be glad for Iola's sake as she moved on. Yet all he could feel was a crushing, desolate loneliness.

"I'm sorry, Joe," Callie said, reading between the lines more easily than Joe had given her credit for.

Joe sat up a little straighter. "Sorry for what?"

"I had always hoped that you and Iola would make it work. Why did you really break up?" Callie asked, deciding to take the direct approach.

The only answer Joe gave was a shrug and a mumbled sentence or two about not wanting to be in Iola's way while she was doing her therapy and how their lives were going in different directions, so it just made sense.

Thankfully—in Joe's opinion—his mother picked that moment to enter the room through the connecting door. She asked Joe once again if he was sure he was all right and then thanked Callie for picking up the breakfast. From there, the conversation fell into an uneasy small talk, as everyone thought of little else besides Black Rose and Angelo Beretta and everything that was going on but no one wanted to talk about it.

HBHBHBHBHB

"Joe never sits at the table to eat breakfast," Shaun said as he breezed past Frank on his way to the refrigerator.

It was enough to make a man pray for patience, Frank reflected as he tried to continue concentrating on breakfast and ignoring Shaun. Then he decided that ignoring Shaun would likely only result in him repeating his unwanted instructions, so Frank said, "I'm still not trying to imitate Joe."

Shaun's eyes and forehead appeared over the fridge door. "You should. What if someone stops in and sees you eating at a table? They'll know you're not Joe."

"Anyone who knows Joe that well wouldn't mistake me for him anyway," Frank pointed out.

He was, obviously, seated at the table and making the best of the scanty provisions available by making a couple of slices of toast with jam. Tony was sitting in one of the armchairs in the living room with his back against one arm and his legs slung over the other while he scrolled on his phone and Axel was lying on the floor next to him. Meanwhile, Phil was washing the dishes that had been left in the sink the night before.

"I've got a more important question," Phil spoke up. "You said we should watch out for this assassin because he might make us targets. Does that mean we're under house arrest, as it were, or can I go to work?"

Frank thought this over for a minute or two. "I guess that's mostly up to you. It would probably be safer to stay here, but if you want to try it, I can't stop you."

"I'll try it," Phil said. "Someone around here needs to be earning a paycheck, or we're going to have trouble paying the rent and utilities." He hung the dish cloth over the faucet. "Hey, Shaun, you know, it's your turn to do some dishes."

"It's been his turn for weeks," Tony called from the living room area.

"Hilarious, guys," Shaun grumbled. He looked at Frank. "If Phil can go to work, can I go to the beach?"

Frank raised an eyebrow incredulously. "Are you serious? You're willing to risk your life just to sit around a beach?"

"No way, dude, but I'm willing to risk it to surf. I've already risked my life dozens of times surfing."

Frank shook his head. "Uh, well, I can't tell you no, either, I guess, but I wouldn't recommend it."

If Shaun had any ideas about pleading his case any further, he promptly forgot them when the doorbell rang. Any excuse to get out of dishes was a good excuse, so Shaun bounded to the door to answer it.

"Wowee," he commented when he saw the young lady who was standing on the other side of the door.

She blushed and had to look down at the floor for a second. "Is this where Tony Prito lives?" she asked finally.

Tony scrambled up out of the chair and came to the door. "Jenna, it's good to see you. What are you doing here?"

"I just wanted to stop in and see if Joe was all right."

Despite Shaun's hand still being on the knob, Tony pushed the door open farther and motioned for Jenna to come in. "Welcome to our humble home. How did you find it?"

"You gave us your address when you registered with the young adult group, silly," Jenna replied as she stepped inside. She noticed Frank sitting at the table and a wave of relief washed over her face. "Oh, good, Joe, you're all right. I was so worried."

Frank feigned a smile, but at the same time, his mind was frantically working to figure out who this girl was. No one had mentioned any Jenna that he could remember. He didn't want to say anything that would give it away that he wasn't really Joe.

"Thanks," he said. "It really wasn't that bad. I just need to lay low for a little."

"You're lucky," Jenna replied. "Do the police have any leads on the mugger?"

"Possibly," Frank said. "There's not much I can say about that."

"I hope they catch him soon." Jenna shuddered slightly.

Phil had nearly been to the door of his room to get ready for work, but once Jenna had come inside, he had stopped to look at her with admiration. Now he cleared his throat. "Um, Tony, who's your friend?"

"Oh, right." Tony gestured to each as he said his name. "This is Phil Cohen, an old friend of Joe's and mine. And this is Shaun Stane. He's another roommate. Of course, you met Joe last night. Quite the way to meet, right? With him getting stabbed about ten minutes after. Guys, this is Jenna Ridgeley. I know her from church. She does a lot of the organizing for the young adult group meetings, and she's been getting me to help a lot lately, too."

The others acknowledged the introduction perhaps a bit too enthusiastically. While they and Jenna were distracted, Frank gave a small nod of thanks to Tony for finding a way to give him a few details about how Joe knew Jenna without arousing her suspicion.

Jenna stayed to chat for a few minutes, but then she excused herself. It wasn't long after that when Phil left for work. Since he had sense enough not to go to the beach after all, Shaun holed himself up in his room to play some video games.
"That went well," Tony commented. "She didn't see through your disguise."

"But she doesn't know Joe all that well," Frank reminded him. "I just hope I don't run into someone who does know him and spots me for a phony."