Night Out
"I could not live here." Thea scoffed, walking back towards the table where her two sisters were sitting. They'd gone out to a bar for some drinks and in Thea and Cassie's case, a desperate attempt to take their sister's mind off her cheating husband.
"Why not?" Jude asked, watching Thea sit herself back up on the high stool.
"I got cat called four times whilst I was standing outside. I was there for a minute." Thea shook her head, taking a drink of her orange juice.
"You don't get cat called in Chicago?" Cassie raised a brow, sitting next to her whilst Jude sat across from them.
"Why are you even smoking again anyway?" Jude rolled her eyes, "Nasty ass habit. Your lungs are probably black." She shook her head.
"Good. They'll match my heart." Thea smiled to Jude.
Jude had suggested one of the local bars on a busy strip in the city. It was fun and vibrant and deliberately somewhere she hadn't been with Sean in the past. It was busy, of course, as every weekend was in the city. They were glad they had secured their table.
"I couldn't leave Chicago." Cassie realised, "I mean it's the best place in the world." She nodded with heart and soul as Thea nodded in agreement.
"It is." Thea nodded.
"I didn't leave Chicago cause I had a personal vendetta against it. I just wanted a fresh start." Jude shrugged.
"Mirren and Leela are gonna have a thick New York accent, aren't they?" Cassie asked worriedly as Jude chuckled.
"I haven't really noticed yet, apart from when Mirren says dog. It's hilarious." Jude smiled to herself, thinking about her babies and how they were probably sleeping safe and sound right now.
"Maybe me and Theo should get a dog." Cassie said, "Dad suggested it. I think he was just trying to make me feel better but… we could." She thought to herself.
"When would you have time to take care of a dog?" Thea turned to her.
"I would make time." Cassie insisted.
"You could get a bearded dragon. They're good pets." Jude nodded seriously.
"Are you kidding? That thing just sits on his rock and stares at nothing all day." Cassie rolled her eyes, "You're probably right. I don't have time for a dog." She nodded, taking a sip of her drink.
"How's your job?" Jude asked, circling her finger around the rim of her glass. She wasn't up for partying or letting loose like she figured her sisters wanted her to do, but with every passing drink she certainly enjoyed the light-headedness and relaxed muscles it was bringing her.
"Yeah, it's all fine." Cassie nodded.
"She was arresting a guy for strangling his wife to death last week." Thea nodded in gossip fashion.
"Don't you get scared? Dealing with these people?" Jude asked.
"No, I'm… I'm kinda used to it now I guess." Thea said, "Some things still catch me off guard but I've kinda got a lot of experience under my belt now."
"So when is Theo going to be chief then?" Jude asked as Cassie looked at her funnily, "Oh, come on. It's gonna happen at some point. He's second in command right now, right?"
"Yeah." Cassie nodded.
"Then he's gonna be chief. Sooner rather than later." Jude said.
"Since when were you clued up on all things blue?" Thea raised a brow.
"Since my husband works for the NYPD." Jude said, "And I'm a good listener."
"He'd make a good chief." Cassie nodded to herself with a smile, "He's been there a long time."
"I always forget he's older than you." Thea admitted.
"What age were you when you met him?" Jude asked. With a big family sometimes it was hard to remember the small print for everyone.
"Well I met him in the academy when I was eighteen. He was there teaching a portion of the program. He was… twenty three then." She calculated.
"You whore, you slept with your teacher?" Thea gasped.
"No I did not." Cassie said, offended.
"Wasn't he your supervisor when you got together?" Jude questioned as Cassie took a sip of her drink.
"Yeah but that's not the same as a teacher." Cassie shook her head, "Plus I was older." She nodded, "Don't make it weird." She shoved Thea who chuckled.
"Did you have a big fat crush on him the first time you saw him?" Thea teased, "I can't even remember what eighteen year old you looked like."
"She was adorable." Jude remembered.
"I was." Cassie agreed, "And for your information, I hated Theo when I met him." She clarified.
"You hated everyone when you were twenty-one and became a cop." Thea scoffed.
"I'm just selective in who I give my time to. Nothing wrong with that." Cassie shrugged, finishing the last of her drink, "Ok, same again?" She slid off the stool, making her way over to the bar for another round of drinks.
"You ok?" Thea asked Jude who nodded, "If you just wanna go home and put your sweats on, we get it."
"No… no, this is ok. It's probably good for me to get out and be around people." She nodded, "I do appreciate you guys coming out. And I know it's an awkward situation, you probably don't know what to say to me half the time."
"We just want you to be ok." Thea said, "I'm just sorry you have to deal with this bullshit. It's not fair."
"Not fair." Jude repeated, "Story of my life, right? Pity parties all the damn time." She nodded to herself, starting to feel a little tipsy.
"It's not a pity party." Thea shook her head.
"This isn't even the first time I've been cheated on. I shouldn't be unfamiliar with how this feels." Jude rolled her eyes.
"Sean, your husband cheating on you is a little different than Kyle your high school boyfriend of one month cheating on you." Thea raised a brow.
"And what about Todd? From college? You remember him?" Jude asked.
"Vaguely." Thea nodded along, although she couldn't quite remember.
"He cheated on me too." Jude said, "I mean what the hell is it? Do I do something wrong?"
"Of course you don't." Thea said, "Look, those were all young, immature little boys. This is Sean. This is different."
"It's the worst." Jude said, "Why would he want me to feel like this? Like I'm not good enough?" She shook her head as Thea looked across at her, "I'm just… I'm trying so hard to understand where his head had to be to do this. Did I say something to him to set him off? No, I know I didn't. As ridiculous as it is… was our sex life not good enough? No, it was perfectly fine." She nodded confidently.
"Jude, this isn't anything you need to explain yourself with. This is on him. All of it." Thea assured her, "This is his mess to fix. He should be the one thinking about what he did wrong. Not you." She made clear as Jude sighed to herself.
"I gotta go to the bathroom." Jude shook her head, stumbling off the stool and making her way to the bathroom whilst Thea took a sip of her orange juice.
"Maybe we could adopt." Cassie pointed her straw at Jude. Hours had gone by in the bar, along with many more drinks. The place was so incredibly busy with every table filled, people getting progressively more drunk as Saturday spilled into Sunday.
"But then it's… it's not yours." Jude shook her head drunkenly. She'd made the mistake of mixing her drinks which she knew she couldn't handle. She knew she'd have much to regret in the morning, but right now it was nice to have her head in the clouds.
"It would be ours." Cassie said, slouching against Thea, struggling to sit up right, "It would feel like ours."
"You don't know that." Jude shook her head.
"Can you stop leaning on me?" Thea shook Cassie's dead weight from her, "It's like sitting here with two children." She scolded. The drunker her sisters got, the more she regretted their decision to go out.
"How's your orange juice?" Cassie asked, sipping on her drink as Thea turned to her.
"It's fine." Thea nodded, giving her sister a look of warning, "Maybe it's about time we get home anyway." She suggested.
"You're boring." Jude shook her head, "You… You used to be fun."
"I'm still fun." Thea shook her head, "But we're leaving. It's late." She said, getting off her stool.
"Ok, mom." Jude groaned, jumping down from the stool whilst Cassie almost fell off hers.
"If anyone cat calls me out here you know what they're gonna get?" Cassie asked, linking her arm through Thea's.
"What?" Thea turned to her.
"One of these." Cassie raised her fist as Thea chuckled to herself.
"Sober you would hate drunk you." Thea nodded, leaving the bar as Jude followed behind, bumping into a few people along the way until they finally made it outside.
"Ok, let's see if we can get a cab." Thea said whilst Cassie leaned on her to take her shoes off.
"It's so busy out here." Jude shook her head, coughing a little at the smoke in the air from all the people out smoking.
"Uh… let's just go this way." Thea encouraged suddenly as she noticed Sean a few feet away with another cop, appearing to be dealing with a situation involving some drunks.
"There's a rank this way." Jude insisted on the other way.
"Well let's just wait." Thea nodded.
"Look it's the cheater!" Cassie yelled, holding her heels in her hand as she stumbled forward a little, shouting loud enough for Sean to hear and turn around.
"Stop." Thea tugged on Cassie's hand like an infant whilst Jude turned around.
"Why is he here?" Jude looked over with screwed up eyes, "He's supposed to be with the girls." She worried, dropping her purse and making her way towards Sean.
"Jude, don't." Thea advised.
"No, let her." Cassie nodded.
"I'm so close to slapping you tonight." Thea warned Cassie who smiled.
"What the hell are you doing here? Huh?" Jude charged at Sean who suddenly realised how drunk she was.
"Jude, you need to get home." Sean nodded.
"Where are the girls? W-What… why are you working?" Jude shook her head with confusion, "Where are the girls?"
"I dropped them with Jeanie. I got called out to cover." Sean explained, "How much have you had to drink?" He worried a little.
"Oh, stop. Stop acting like you even care." Jude shook her head, placing her hand on the cop car to steady herself, "If you're supposed to be spending time with the girls then why are you covering for someone else? You don't get to just… to just drop them off-"
"I really think you need to get home." Sean nodded, looking over to Thea and Cassie who were standing a few feet away, pretending they weren't looking over, "Look I know you and your sisters. I know you're talking shit about me and they're getting you all fired up but you don't wanna do this with me right now. Not in the state you're in." He said.
"The state?" Jude laughed, "I'm perfectly fine." She spat, "You're the one who's in a state."
"Let me just take you back over to Thea and Cassie, and they can get you home, alright?" Sean nodded.
"You're a bastard." Jude shook her head, not moving from where she stood, "For doing this to me. For making me think there's something wrong with me when… when you know I always think that about myself anyway but you… you never make me feel like this." She shook her head.
"Maybe I should go over and get her." Thea said to Cassie who had hit a drunk wall and was suddenly quiet, wanting only to sleep now that the fresh air had hit her.
"Come on, let's just go." Sean took her arm as she pulled it away and stumbled back a little.
"Don't touch me." Jude laughed a little, "Maybe I won't go home with my sisters. Maybe… Maybe I'll go home with someone else." She nodded, looking directly at him and then turning around, looking at all the people passing by out of the bar, some standing smoking, "I mean I… I got my pick of the litter here." She nodded, making her way over to a group of guys standing outside the bar.
"Jude." Sean said with concern, looking over at Thea for desperate help.
Jude reached up and kissed a man standing by the entrance to the bar, barely seeing clearly never mind thinking.
"Yeah ok she needs to go home." Cassie nodded as Thea ran over, pulling Jude away.
"Ok, you're done for the night." Thea nodded to Jude, looking over to Sean who had angrily shut the car door of the cop car, "Just keep walking." Thea encouraged, holding her sister up.
"My purse." Jude nodded, "I need my purse." She said as Thea turned around, realising she had dropped her purse.
"Ok, go get Cassie." Thea nodded, making her way back over to the group of men standing at the door, snatching Jude's purse from the man she had thrown herself on.
"She not coming back?" The man chuckled with his friends, "I liked her."
"No, she's not." Thea spat.
"And what about you?" He nodded.
"I think I'm a little too old for you." She frowned sympathetically.
"Come on, old is the new experienced." He took Thea's arm.
"Let go of her." Sean spat, standing behind Thea. She was pretty sure her brother-in-law could take all of the men standing in front of them considering they were built like teenagers, "I said let go of her!" Sean spat angrily, grabbing the man by the throat and pushing him against the wall whilst Thea moved back out of the way, "I want you to take you and your friends out of my sight. You got five seconds." Sean warned.
It took three for the men to clear off, wanting no more trouble. Sean then turned to Thea, "Get Jude home. Please." Sean nodded to her.
"She's just had too much to drink." Thea said, "You know that's not how she is-"
"Just get her home, Thea." Sean said, making his way back to the cop car as Thea sighed, making her way back to Jude and Cassie to hopefully get them home after a long night.
