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1. “I love you.” His voice is husky and the words are slurred and dripping with evidence of the alcohol that got him to this point. But they are there, nonetheless, out in the open. He hastily moves to add on to it, explain everything he’s never explained but it’s slurred and he’s babbling and by the end his voice is no longer husky but he’s nearly squeaking. Somewhere in his mind he wonders if his words are even decipherable, he wonders if he wants them to be. He drops one more hasty, high-pitched ‘I love you’ and hangs up.
A case surfaces the next day and he tries to hide his hangover behind Tylenol and Ray Bans. Gus yells in the Blueberry once he realizes and Carlton wastes no time making fun of his product-lacking hair. Juliet says nothing. He waits three days for her to bring up the voicemail, cringing every time she speaks in his direction. She never does. The embarrassment and worry subside.
2. He doesn't think. Honestly, how can he think about much at the rate the blood is leaving his brain for an organ that makes much better use of it? He can’t remember where her shirt went or how they got from the kitchen to the bedroom but he doesn't really care at this point. His lips are at her neck but he moves them up slowly to cover her mouth and the words slip out between their tongues. He doesn't stop and she doesn't reply. Instead she nips at his lower lip and begins to pull his shirt over his head. By the time they’re done, neither is interested in talking about anything.
3. He shows up at her door with roses in one hand and a box of chocolate in the other. He’s watched enough movies to know that this is how he should do it, this is how he should tell her. Juliet opens the door and he gapes at her dress, her curls, her general being. He ponders for a moment what the hell she’s doing with him but she smiles that smile at him – the one he wants to believe is reserved just for him – and the words almost come flying out right there. But he controls himself and they make it to the restaurant.
His hands are shaking under the table and he can see her tugging slightly at the hem of her dress next to him, wondering if she’s dressed appropriately for such a nice place. His shaking hands fly to his tie and he tries to straighten it, almost chokes himself, and decides to let it be loose and crooked. The evening is uncomfortable and she looks a little worried every time he moves. He realizes she thinks he’s going to propose and, even worse, he realizes that terrifies her. The words never see the light of day.
4. He counts the seconds between her breaths, ticks them off with his fingers against the edge of the bed. The hand trapped underneath her twirls one of her curls around his finger. He waits until he’s comfortable with the amount of time between breaths and whispers it softly against her hair. She shifts and begins to roll towards him and he feigns sleep, just in case, long enough that he actually drifts off. He never finds out if she was actually awake that night.
5. He wakes up to the smell of bacon and the sound of Bon Jovi. As he rounds the corner to the kitchen he finds himself happily stunned by what he finds there. Juliet is moving around to the music, flipping pancakes and beating eggs in a bowl here and there as she belts out the chorus. He laughs and joins her, wrapping his arms around her waist and moving to the music with her. Three songs later they've burnt three pancakes and dropped two eggs but they haven’t been inclined to stop dancing. At a break in the lyrics of Shot Through the Heart, he yells the words, stops short, and covers up with “your dancing!” He goes back to dancing and pretends not to feel her eyes on him the rest of the morning.
6. A letter. That was romantic, wasn't it? It was in a decent amount of movies. It had worked for Bradley Cooper in that new movie. At least, in a roundabout kind of way. Yes, he’d write her a letter. He’d detail everything, explain everything he wanted – no needed – her to know. Four drafts later he had conveniently left out not being a psychic and had somehow managed to anecdote about Carlton and Marlowe. He dropped it on her pillow, picked it back up, and placed it up right against the dresser mirror. He moved it three more times before giving up and dropping it in the trash, right side up, her name visible. Later that night, he noticed it had disappeared, waited for her to mention it, and wondered if he’d simply misplaced it when she didn't.
7. He didn't care about their fight, or Thane, or even winning the case. He was scared to the bone when he got the phone call about the car accident. He had to fight every urge to just go to her rather than going after the asshole who’d done this to her. He marveled over her fingers, reached to touch the cut on her temple, made jokes for the sake of company.
Later, after Carlton and Gus had gone and it was just the two of them and the bright orange elephant sitting between them, he brushed her hair back and she flinched as he touched the cut. A flip switched and he was fussing over her again, she batted his hands away and begged him to calm down. It was only a cut, she insisted. Words came tumbling out before he could analyze them, question them. He admitted to being terrified of losing her because he needed her, he didn't want to live without her, he loved her. He didn't give her time to respond but insisted on cleaning her cut instead. This time, she let him.
8. “I love you.” He says it deliberately this time. Grinning and bumping his shoulder against hers as they brush their teeth side by side. She stops and watches him in the mirror for a moment but he doesn't sigh or freeze or run. He doesn't hastily add more words to try and fix what he now realizes was never a bad situation. He only watches her in the mirror as she spits into the sink and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and prays to whoever cares to listen that she’ll say it back. Maybe not tonight, maybe not tomorrow, but he hopes she’ll say back. She turns, her curls bouncing as she does, and grins up at him as well.
“I love you too.”