Waiting for a cab outside the bar, Greg looked at his watch. 3.42 a.m. For someone who works the graveyard shift it wasn't really late. But what just happened with Julian was enough for one night, he just wanted to go home.
Finally a cab came along and Greg got in. When he wanted to close the door and tell the driver his address, the door opened again and Julian got into the cab. "Hey buddy."
"Julian..."
"Don't worry, the cab's on me." Julian smiled.
"Wait, stop the car." Greg instructed the driver and he stopped.
"What's wrong?" Julian asked confused.
"We're not going to share a cab! You're wasted, just go home." Greg opened the door and wanted to get out of the car, but Julian held him back.
"Wait. What are you doing?"
"Julian, you're drunk, I'm tired. Just let me go and we'll talk about this tomorrow." Greg turned to the cab driver. "Please bring him home," and named him Julian's address.
"Greg, just a second..." He waved to Greg with his hands to make him come closer.
"Good night, Julian," he said and just got out the cab, watching it drive off.
Not feeling like waiting for another cab, he decided to walk a while, trying to find one.
Monday night. The graveyard shift had to go to work again. Greg – again – was dreading to see Julian after that night in the bar. When he got home from the bar he found a few messages from Julian on his answering machine. They were mostly a drunk man's ramblings, but also declarations of love. After the fourth message he even cried on the phone. Greg just hoped Julian was drunk enough to have had a blackout and that he can't remember everything from that night. It would spare both him and Greg a very inconvenient talk that actually was long overdue.
Greg and Nick still had to prove that Mr. Smith, Mr. Thompson's brother-in-law, acted in self defense when he shot Mr. Thompson. Nick was running late today, so Greg had to go into the DNA lab on his own.
Greg walked into the lab. No one was there. He was relieved, he didn't have to face Julian just yet.
Fumbling through reports of processed DNA evidence, Greg found the ones for his case. Grabbing the files, he quickly turned around and wanted to get out the lab, in case Julian might be on his way. But it was already to late, he was standing in the doorway.
Greg got startled by seeing him. "I just needed these..." He held up the files for Julian to see and walked towards the door, but Julian didn't move an inch, he just stood there in the doorway, looking quite hungover.
"Hello Greg..." he said in a weird voice.
Greg gave him a rather embarrassed smile and tried to get out the door, but again, Julian didn't move. "Excuse me..." he said, trying to let him know he wants to get out, but Julian just looked at him.
"Can I do something for you?" Greg said rather annoyed. He didn't feel like addressing this subject now, he just wanted to get out of this lab and do his job.
"You never called back..."
"...Come again?"
"I called you like a hundred times two days ago, AND yesterday! Why didn't you return my calls?"
"Oh that's what your drunk ramblings were? Calls you wanted returned?" Greg asked sarcastically.
Julian gave him a cold look that kind of scared Greg, he never saw this look on him before. "Ramblings? I shared my feelings with you! And you didn't even call back!" Julian said quite loud. People outside the lab started to look at them. They didn't understand what they were saying, but it was quite obvious that Julian was angry.
"Can we please not talk about this here?" Greg said embarrassed. "And keep your voice down!"
"I'm sorry, okay? I'm just disappointed... I really thought you'd call back."
Greg rolled his eyes. He was getting really annoyed by this. It was as if Julian didn't WANT to get it. "I didn't want to call back because there was nothing to say to you. The way you acted in that bar was... not okay. I didn't want to talk to you after that."
"...What are you trying to say?" Julian said, acting really dumb. But he really wasn't sure what it all meant.
"What I'm trying to say is... It was really nice talking to you at the bar before you... You know. I really thought we could be friends. But now I see, it's not possible. Not until you realize that we won't ever be together..."
Julian just stood there and stared at Greg. Although obvious to everybody else, he just didn't see it coming.
"Now please step aside, I need to get back to work..." Greg went out the lab, leaving Julian both angry and sad.
Nick walked in as Greg was trying to work on the case in the layout room.
"Hey, sorry I'm late. There was an accident a few blocks away from the lab," he said with a smile on his face.
"A bad one?" Greg asked, looking up to him.
"Two fatalities... I think Ray's on it."
Greg nodded and concentrated on the DNA reports again.
"I just ran into Julian, he looked bad," Nick said, waiting for Greg to explain what happened, but he just shrugged.
"...You wouldn't happen to have anything to do with it?"
"I think he's hungover."
"We were at the bar two days ago. Did he go out yesterday, too?"
"I'm not his mom, Nick," Greg replied irritated, keeping his eyes on the files.
"You left the bar without saying good bye to anyone... Did something happen with Julian?"
"No... Now put some gloves on, we need to process Mr. Thompson's clothes." Greg stood up to get the clothes out of the evidence box.
"Greg, what did he do?"
He stood with his back turned to Nick at the evidence box and shook his head. "It's okay, he was just very drunk." He sat down again and was ready to process the clothes, but Nick took them out of his hands, making him look at him.
"If you want me to talk to him, just say it!"
He looked up to him with an obviously fake smile. "Thanks, but really, I already did, I think he got it this time."
"You're sure? Well, if not, I'll clarify it for him."
For the rest of the shift, Greg managed to stay away from Julian. Of course, he couldn't know it was actually Julian trying to avoid him. He was embarrassed, angry and sad about what Greg said. He really thought his crude way of hitting on Greg was actually working. He truly believed Greg just wasn't ready yet, he wasn't accepting who he really was. That wasn't the case, but Julian believed it. And he still did. He thought there was still a way to be with Greg, he just didn't figure out how he could do it. Yet, anyways.
Lost in his thoughts, he walked down the parking garage. How could he convince Greg that he's the one for him? And why wouldn't Greg accept it? He kept thinking about that as he opened his car.
"Hey, Julian!" Nick walked up to him.
"Hey," Julian said, wanting to get in the car.
"Wait, I wanted to talk to you."
" 'Bout what?" he asked without interest.
"You know, I stayed out of it long enough. And only because he asked me to, but I really need to talk about this."
"Who asked you what?" Julian didn't even listen to what Nick said.
"Greg, he doesn't know I'm talking to you."
As soon as he heard Greg's name, he listened. "What about him?"
"Okay, listen. I have no idea what happened between you two before he left the bar, but something did. Whatever it was, it better doesn't happen again. Greg said it more than once, he's not interested. You better start accepting this or you're going to have a problem with me, you understand?"
"A problem with YOU?" Julian asked rather amused.
Nick nodded. "Just stay the hell away from him."