“I haven’t been accepted yet,” she pointed out.
“You will be,” Emma said, the smile coming back. “And when I follow in your footsteps to the next stage of higher education, we will advance to studying as the sophisticated graduate students do.”
Julia grinned around another sip of coffee. “How exactly is that?”
“I have no idea,” Emma laughed. “But we’ll figure it out.”
“By being surrounded by all those sophisticated graduate students?” she asked.
Emma shrugged. “I was going to say you’ll be my guinea pig and scope it all out before I head into the graduate program. But just watching the students in their natural habitat should work, too.”
Even though they didn’t talk about the situation directly, Julia felt so much better. Like a major part of her confidence had been restored. She reminded herself that this was what she was supposed to be doing. It didn’t matter what others thought or how they wanted to control her life. In the end, it was still hers. There might be rules she had to play along with, but she could structure whatever she wanted around them.
They had veered off the topic of school and were just chatting over their lunches when Julia caught sight of somebody across the restaurant. Her breath caught in her throat and she felt as if she couldn’t move. As if the steely eyes were holding her in place.
It was so strange to think of those eyes as being steely now. They never were before. They were the color of spring grass. There was once a time when they were all she wanted to look at.
“Julia?” Emma asks. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Julia said, shaking out of the stare.” There’s just somebody here I haven’t seen in a long time.”
“Who?” Emma asked, sounding curious. “A boyfriend?”
“Something like that,” she muttered.
“I take it from your tone it didn’t end particularly well?” Emma asked.
“That’s a really hard question to answer,” Julia said.
Before she could elaborate anymore, Corey crossed the restaurant and walked up to the table. She could see the color of his eyes now. She remembered everything about them.
She waited for him to say something. For him to explain why he was there at the restaurant or why he came to the table. Instead, he just looked at her. He didn’t even make a move to speak. He just looked at Julia for a few seconds, then walked away.
Emma gave her a questioning lift of one eyebrow and Julia let out a long breath.
“It’s really hard to explain, and I’d rather not get into it, if it’s all the same to you,” she said.
“Of course,” Emma said, taking her friend’s hand in her own. “You’d let me know if anything was wrong, right? If something was bothering you or I could help you?”
Their eyes met.
“I would,” Julia said. “I always would.”
Chapter Thirty Now
Everything seems so quiet in the house now that Dean, Xavier, Eric, and Bellamy have gone home. It’s back to being just Sam and me. Not a bad consolation prize for missing the others. If there’s one thing in this world I can never really get enough of, it’s time with Sam. We spent the last few evenings curled up on the couch in the dark, just watching the lights on the tree dance.
I love my time with him, and especially when he’s at the station or on a call, the silence can overstay its welcome. After all the noise and energy of having the other four in the house with us for almost a week, being completely alone feels like a reset. It’s an odd change of pace when I know I’m just going back to my regular daily life, but it’s almost disorienting.
Today, I just don’t feel like dealing with it. I want to be out in the world, maybe do a little bit of Christmas shopping. A message from Creagan this morning makes me suspect I’ll be assigned to another case soon, so I want to soak up these blissfully empty hours as much as possible.
Taking my purse, my keys, and my gun, I lock the door to the house and head to my car. I glance across the street towards Janet and Paul’s house like I always do anytime I’m leaving my house or coming home. I go over there at least once every other day to take in their mail, water their plants, and just in general make it look as if the house is being occupied rather than just sitting empty.
I brought Xavier along while he was at our house. He took his responsibility of making it look as if somebody was home across the street very seriously. If anyone was paying attention while we were inside, they would think a large family was using the bathroom in rapid sequence and possibly communicating with others through light-based Morse code.
Afterwards, I explained to Xavier that the point wasn’t just to run up and down to all the bathrooms in the house to flush the toilets and flicker all the lights in all the rooms. The house needed to look as if somebody was staying in it to deter criminals.
He promptly informed me visits like mine were all but useless in terms of deterrence. Of course, I know that. My security briefings from the Bureau might not always be the most applicable and effective when brought into the real world, but I’ve got the basics down.
Including the fact that criminals tend to pay close attention when they want to. They can be extremely careless once a crime has started and after it’s done, running around the crime scene spreading DNA willy-nilly, then posting pictures of their stolen goods or showing off their suddenly acquired wealth with elaborate displays of consumerism. Their attention span is all but lost in many situations as
