Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jackie is fine. Sure, she’s inching into her late 20s and and her marketing job is fairly soulless and the only person she talks to on a regular basis is her roommate Nat — but she loves New York and making all her own decisions and how the barista at the coffee shop she is currently sitting in always draws the a in her name as a little star, so she is fine.

Staring at the little star on her cup, she tapped the cover of the worn book on the table in front of her, deciding that the characters in the book knew what real adversity was and, in comparison, Jackie is perfectly fine. A voice pulled her out of the depths of self reflection.

Jackie looked up to see a girl around her age talking to her. She managed to catch the end of a question, following the girl’s eyes to the cover of the book.

“It’s amazing,” Jackie said. “I’ve read it at least ten times.”

The girl raised her eyebrows. “Wow, that’s quite the endorsement.”

Jackie laughed, “To be fair, I’m not a huge reader so I don’t have much to compare to, but I’m a big fan of it.”

The girl gestured to the book. “May I?,” she asked.

Jackie hesitated, the book had become a pseudo-diary for her over the last few years. Prior to landing the job she had now, she had spent a lot of time wandering bookstores in between job interviews. She never knew exactly what it was she was looking for, but was pretty sure she had visited almost every bookstore in the city. It was at her 23rd store that she found the book in front of her — a paperback called Lost Causes written by an author Jackie had never heard of. She had started it on the subway home that day and found herself enthralled by the writing. It was during her second read through that she began annotating, and now the margins were filled with notes that spanned from her thoughts on dialogue to how a particular sentence made her question every she had ever known. Placing her heavily annotated copy into the hands of a stranger made her feel incredibly vulnerable.

The girl cleared her throat slightly and Jackie blinked. To Jackie’s embarrassment, her hand resting on the book had turned into a sort of claw, locking it under her grasp. She relaxed her hand and held the book out to the girl with the back cover facing up, hoping to deter her from flipping through it. Jackie held her breath as the girl accepted it and read the back. Her nose crinkled as her eyes moved over the words, “Sounds interesting, but it might be a little depressing for my taste.” She passed it back to Jackie.

Jackie tried not to show how desperate she was to have it back in her possession. She gave the girl a faint smile, tucking the book against her chest, “I’ve learned to like a little tragedy.”

The girl smiled at her, “I’m Alice, by the way,” she said. Adding, “I see you here a lot.”

Jackie was caught off guard at the comment. There had been a time when being noticed was seemingly all that she lived for. She used to ache to be the center of attention, until eventually, she realized that being noticed by most people meant nothing if you weren’t noticed by certain people and gave up on the concept as a whole.

“Jackie,” she said, she felt herself pointing to her own chest and quickly dropped her hand. Desperate to move on from the hand gesture she added, “You’re usually with a group of people, aren’t you?”

Alice pointed to the other side of the coffee shop where a table sat in the corner half hidden by the wall. “My friends and I usually sit over there but they’re all running late today.”

Jackie glanced at the empty table.

“Actually,” Alice said, “do you mind sitting with me over at that table until my friends get here? The owner gets mad if one person tries to hold a big table like that, but two is enough of a crowd that they should leave us alone. You’re more than welcome to stay once my friends come, if you want.”

Jackie felt flustered. At some point she had switched from being very easygoing in social situations to incredibly awkward. Nat had a theory that college had turned Jackie into a nerd, something about how focusing on school had unlocked a part of Jackie’s personality that she kept hidden away — as if the only way to succeed in school was to trade in your social skills. She would never admit it, but she was pretty sure Nat was on to something.

“Sure,” Jackie managed to say after a second, “let me just, uh, get my stuff and I’ll meet you over there?”

Alice smiled, “Cool, meet you over there.”

Jackie watched her walk away while shoving her things into her bag. As she gently tucked her book into her bag she felt herself smile. She was making a friend.

10 points to Taylor.

——

Jackie stood in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil. She imagined the water swirling around in the container, thinking of each little bubble as they climbed up the sides and ricocheted off each other. Behind her, Nat opened the door of her bedroom.

Jackie didn’t need to turn around to know her roommate’s actions. Natalie was a creature of habit and her morning routine always included a bowl of cereal eaten over the comic section of the newspaper. She would cross the kitchen to the fridge, pulling the milk out with one hand and opening the cabinet to the right with the other. She would close the fridge with her hip and place both the cereal and the milk on the counter. A bowl off the drying rack, a spoon from the drawer. At some point she would glance over her shoulder and see that Jackie’s back was still turned, letting her know she can pour her cereal in the normal way, cereal then milk, and not the backwards way, milk then cereal, that she only did when Jackie was watching and could be annoyed.

Jackie listened for the screech of the chair that told her Nat was sitting comfortably at the table before speaking.

“What would you do if you knew that something had been stolen and knew exactly who stole it,” Jackie asked, without turning around.

Nat yawned. “Uh, call the police, I guess?”

Jackie pulled the kettle from the stove right as it began to whistle. “What if you couldn’t call the police,” she asked, pouring water into a mug.

Nat shuffled the newspaper, looking for the comics. “Why couldn’t I call the police?,” she asked.

Jackie hesitated, “Because maybe you were sorta, kinda, a little involved in the robbery.”

“Why would I be — wait. What are you talking about?”

Jackie finally turned to face Nat, stirring her cup of tea. Nat studied her, a spoonful of cereal frozen between her mouth and the bowl. Slowly, Nat lowered her spoon, “What are you talking about?”

Jackie sighed, “I met these people.”

Nat groaned, abandoning her breakfast, “Jackie,” she said, drawing out the name into a whine, “what did you do?”

Jackie pulled out the chair opposite of Nat and slumped into it. “You know that coffee shop I like?”

Nat nodded, “The one you say you go to read but really just spend your time taking magazine quizzes at?”

“I read! Magazines have — whatever, yes, that one. There is this group of friends that is usually there when I am and a few weeks ago one of the girls, Alice, was there alone,” Jackie explained.

“Okay?”

“She started talking to me, it was just like, small talk or whatever, but she was nice and she asked me to sit with her to hold a table — because the guy that runs the place is a real jerk about people holding tables by themselves,” Jackie said, starting into a tangent.

Nat waved her spoon in Jackie’s face, “Focus, Taylor.”

Jackie shook her head, “Right, Alice was fun to talk to and when her friends got there they were cool too.” Jackie stopped, pointing at Nat, “You told me to make friends, so in a way, now that I think about it, this is all kind of your fault.”

Nat looked behind her, as if expecting to find someone else in the room. She looked back at Jackie, “Me?,” she asked, “How do I have anything to do with this? I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

Jackie shook her head, ignoring Nat’s questions, “Anyway, the last few weeks they've been inviting me to sit with them whenever we ran into each other and, sue me for being happy to have some new friends.”

Nat rolled her eyes. “As exciting as your social encounters are, get to the part about things getting stolen,” she said, returning to her cereal.

Jackie sighed, suddenly inconvenienced by the conversation she had started, “A few days ago one of the guys, Patrick, mentioned that he was moving apartments and was complaining about how expensive it is to rent a truck.”

Nat raised her eyebrows, but didn’t say anything.

Jackie crossed her arms defensively, “I was being nice! All that damn Jeep does is sit in that parking garage anyway, so I offered to help out. Patrick was super grateful and gave me an address to meet him at on Saturday.”

Nat frowned, “Wait you drove? In the city? Is that legal?”

Jackie balled up a napkin on the table and threw it at her. Nat caught it with ease and used it to wipe her face.

“I’m a good driver, I learned from the best,” Jackie said, sipping her tea.

“So it’s Saturday and I pull up right on time, ready to help and the two guys, Patrick and Colin, come running out of the apartment building. I thought it was weird because like, why run, I had a parking spot, but they were both holding bags and jumped into the car. I mean they literally jumped, feet left the ground.” Jackie set her mug down, trying to visual the exact details.

Nat was watching her with interest. “Then what?,” she asked.

“Patrick told me to drive as soon as they got in,” Jackie said. “I started to ask if they had more stuff, because two bags is not a lot to move a whole apartment, but they started yelling at me to drive so I drove.”

Nat set her spoon down and folded her hands on the table, looking oddly formal for someone in mismatched pajamas. Her tone was serious, “Jackie, please do not tell me that you were a getaway car driver.”

Jackie shot to her feet, knocking over her chair, “Not intentionally!”

Nat fell back into her own chair, surprised, “Oh, my god, I was kidding. You’re serious?”

Jackie started to pace the length of their small kitchen, talking with her hands, “I didn’t know what else to do! I just kept driving where they told me to.”

“Where did you take them?,” Nat asked.

Jackie stopped walking, biting her lip,“A building up town.”

Nat nodded, taking stock of the situation. “Okay, well did they tell you what they had in the bags?”

“No,” Jackie said, shaking her head, “but the situation definitely had a robbery feel to it.”

Nat gave her a look, “What does that mean?”

Jackie resumed her pacing, “I don’t know! It was just weird!”

“Maybe that’s all it was, just weird,” Nat said. “Some people are weird, maybe they were weird people who approached moving in a really weird way.”

“I thought the same thing, I mean they seemed normal whenever we hung out, but some people are freaks behind the scenes,” Jackie said, stopping to lean against the counter. “So I thought the same thing — until,” she started.

Nat leaned forward, “Until what?”

“Until I saw this.” Jackie crossed to the table, sorting through the newspaper Nat had been reading. She fumbled with the pages, unfolding one and laying it flat on the table to display the headline:

JEWEL THIEVES STRIKE UPPER EAST SIDE

Nat stared at the paper for a second before laughing.

“There is no way you were involved in a,” she flipped the paper for a better view of the article, “diamond robbery.”

Silently Jackie pulled her bag from the floor and placed it on the table. She dug around for a second and withdrew a piece of paper.

“This is the address Patrick gave me to pick him up at.”

She smoothed the paper in front of Nat, pointing to a line in the article.

“It’s the same address.”

Nat looked between the papers and back up at Jackie.

“Holy fuck, you’re serious.”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Jackie said, fixing her chair and sinking back into it.

“Oh my god.”

Jackie put her head on the table. “Again,” she mumbled, “feels worth mentioning that you told me to make friends.”

“I thought you might take an exercise class or volunteer at an animal shelter — not join a crime ring!” Nat exclaimed.

Jackie pulled her head up from the table, glaring at her roommate. “I am not in a crime ring! I am loosely associated with a single criminal offense!”

“Dude, I really don’t know what to do here,” Nat said, picking up the newspaper to read the article. “I think you should go to the police? I mean you obviously didn’t know.”

“I thought that too,” Jackie said. “But then I started to think about all the time I spent with them at the coffee shop and how they were always talking about some big event they were planning for.”

Nat looked up from the paper, confused, “You’re losing me again.”

Jackie hesitated, tearing off little pieces of the paper with the address and stacking them in a pile, “They were always going on about this event — they said it was a party where big things happen and how if everything went according to plan, they would have a lot of money. So I looked it up.”

“You know how to do that?,” Nat asked.

Jackie kicked her under the table. “You’re getting awfully bold for someone who hasn’t paid rent in two months.” Nat held up her hands in surrender, motioning Jackie to continue.

Jackie rearranged her paper scraps on the table, “From what I could find it’s some kind of party full of rich people, but like, shady rich people.”

“I don’t get how them going to a party fits into you being a getaway driver,” Nat said.

Jackie finished her creation, a small heart decorated the table. “I think they’re going to try and sell the diamonds there,” she said.

Nat looked at her.

Jackie shrugged, “I think we should steal them back.”

Nat looked around the room again, as if hoping to find anyone else for Jackie to be talking to. She settled her gaze back on Jackie, “Okay, I get that this is a lot, but let’s slow down.”

Jackie pushed back from the table, breaking her paper heart with the motion. “Think about it, Nat!” she yelled. “I can’t go to the police — they planned this thing right in front of me and no cop is going to believe I didn’t know what they were doing and I drove the fucking getaway car! But, if I can get the diamonds back and return them, it can all go away.”

Nat stood up, “There is no way you’re being serious. Do you hear yourself? This is not some movie, you are not James Bond. I’m not sure what this whole thing is, but it definitely seems like the kind of thing you take to the police. Not something you solve yourself.”

“Well of course I can’t do it by myself,” Jackie said, rising to her feet. She leaned forward, bracing herself on the table, “I need a partner.”

Nat started pacing on her side of the table, “Should I take you to a hospital? For real, are you having a psychotic break?” She stopped, looking up at the ceiling, “Or maybe I’m really, really high right now, because surely,” she looked back at Jackie, “Jackie fucking Taylor is not trying to rope me into a heist at 8 am on a Tuesday morning.”

Jackie stamped her foot like a little kid, “It is not a heist! It is a strategic retrieval of stolen goods!”

Nat leaned onto the table, mirroring Jackie. “You know what, just for fun, let’s say I say yes — which I am not saying — but let’s pretend, how would you even get into this mystery fancy party,” she asked.

At that, Jackie smiled, “Oh that’s the easiest part — from what I’ve learned anyone can get in if they’re rich enough.”

Nat laughed, “Okay, well last time I checked the two of us have about ten dollars each.”

“Well obviously neither of us has that kind of money,” Jackie said, raising her eyebrows, “but we know someone who does.”

For the first time since the conversation started, Nat looked genuinely uncomfortable. “Jackie, no,” she said, her voice dropping.

Jackie shrugged, “We both know she’d do it.”

“That’s not the point,” Nat said, “We don’t need to ask her, or anyone, because this is not a thing we are doing,” Nat stood up, turning away from Jackie and heading back towards her bedroom, talking as she went. “We are not putting together a plan. We are not pulling off a heist,” she stopped in the doorway of her bedroom and pointed at Jackie, “and we are most definitely not calling Lottie Matthews.”

At that she slammed the door, leaving Jackie alone with her broken paper heart.

—

Nat walked into the apartment to find Jackie sitting on the couch, scribbling in a notebook. Food containers and dishes covered the coffee table. A stack of DVDs sat neatly on one corner.

“Jackie?”

Jackie grunted a greeting without looking up. Nat glanced around the room, frowning. “Did you go to work today?”

Jackie finally looked up at her, her eyes rimmed with exhaustion.

“Nope, called in sick, too busy doing research.”

Nat gave her a look, “Research? For what?” She grabbed the DVD on the top of the pile, Ocean’s Eleven, and laughed, “Dude, you can’t be serious.”

Jackie stood, snatching the DVD case from Nat’s hand.

“From what I’ve seen it won’t actually be that hard, we just need a solid plan. You were right about one thing though,” Jackie said, flipping through her notebook. “We can’t do this with two people.”

Nat threw herself onto the couch, pulling a plate of French fries into her lap and picking at them. “What I said,” Nat mumbled, between bites, “is that we can’t do this at all because it is insane.”

Jackie waved her hand, knocking Nat’s comments out of the air between them. “The biggest thing I’ve learned is that to do this, we’ll need a team,” flashing Nat a triumphant grin, “and I have just the one in mind.”

Nat choked on a French fry.

“You’re so dramatic,” Jackie said, rolling her eyes.

Nat sat up straight, sending a few French fries to the floor. “Wait, let me get this right, you want to reassemble our high school soccer team to help you pull off an insane diamond heist scheme, and I’M the dramatic one?”

Jackie shrugged, “I already figured out everyone’s roles.”

Nat sank back onto the couch, covering her face with her hands. “I don’t want to know,” she mumbled into her hands, “please, don’t tell me.”

Jackie sat down next to her, ignoring her request, flipping her notebook open and holding it out for Nat to read. Nat pulled her hands away from her face and groaned.

“Oh my god, you’re insane.”

Jackie smacked her leg, “Stop saying that and just listen, okay?” Nat stayed silent, so Jackie continued.

“We’ve already discussed Lottie,” Jackie said, drawing a strangled noise from Nat. “Tai is obviously the next starting place, she’s got that cool, collected thing mixed with a ruthlessness that we’re going to need to pull this off. Plus, a law degree in case things go south.”

Nat held a pillow to her face, trying to block Jackie out.

“Tai and Van are a packaged deal, but I’m not upset about that at all, I’ve learned a lot watching these movies once,” Jackie said, gesturing to her pile of films. “Van is like a walking encyclopedia.”

Nat cursed into the pillow.

She snapped her notebook closed with a flourish, “Everyone has their talents and together, I really think we can pull this thing off.”

Jackie felt good about her team. This was nothing more than suggesting plays to Coach for games, just instead of planning a 3-3-4, Jackie was formulating a sneak-sneak-steal. Same players, new formation. Completely possible.

After a second Nat pulled her head from the pillow, studying Jackie.

“Wait, aren’t you forgetting someone.”

Jackie picked at her nails, “Hm? Nope, not that I can think of. Gang’s all here.”

Nat raised her eyebrows, “Oh come on, you’re going to go to,” she gestured to Jackie’s notebook, “these levels of crazy and not draft your best winger?”

Jackie shrugged, failing to make the gesture casual, “She’s in Europe, so it doesn’t matter anyway.” Jackie rose, starting to collect the dishes on the coffee table. Nat watched her, grinning.

Glancing over her shoulder Jackie snapped at Nat, “What?”

Nat laughed, shaking her head. “You’re acting like Shipman wouldn’t swim across the ocean to help you bandage a paper cut if you asked her too. Catching a flight to help you do something incredibly stupid wouldn’t even be a second thought to her.”

Nat stretched out on the couch, lacing her hands behind her head. “Come to think of it,” she said, closing her eyes, “maybe I’ll give Ship a call, if anyone can talk you out of this it’s her. While we’re on the topic, you never did say what happened between you two.”

Nat opened an eye to find Jackie’s upside down face leaning over hers.

“Maybe because it’s none of your business,” Jackie growled.

Despite herself, Nat flinched. She pushed Jackie up by her shoulders, away from her face, “Okay Danny Ocean, calm down.”

——

In the end, after finding and reattaching the phone cord Nat had shoved under the couch, Jackie did call Lottie Matthews. She also called Tai and Van and asked the three of them, much to Nat’s annoyance, to meet for dinner. She didn’t mention her predicament and instead opted to frame the dinner as a mini reunion.

Three days later, the group of them sat tucked into a restaurant booth watching a waiter distribute glasses of water.

“Your food should be out shortly.”

Jackie spoke for the group, flashing the man a winning smile. “Thank you so much,” she said. The rest of them mumbled in agreement as he left.

Nat rolled her eyes from her place across the table next to Tai and Van.

“Shortly? Look how crowded this place is, I bet it takes at least 45 minutes.” She glared at Jackie, “I can’t believe you roped me into waiting forever for mediocre Italian food.”

Jackie returned the glare. “Covert conversations are best held in crowded places,” she said, looking away from Nat to survey the crowded room.

Tai frowned, following Jackie’s gaze around the room. “Since when are we having a covert conversation? I thought we were just having dinner?” Jackie looked at Tai. “Who says we can’t do both?” She said, readjusting her cutlery on the table.

Nat traced a finger along the rim of her glass, “Regardless of conversation type, why are we doing this here of all places in the city?”

Van patted Nat on the back, “Haven’t you heard?,” they said. “When you’re here, you’re family and what are we if not one big, buzzing family.” They punctuated each of the last words with smacks to Nat’s back. Nat shrugged them off, flicking water in their direction.

Jackie clapped her hands, “You guys, this is serious.”

Beside her, Lottie sighed, “Jackie we’re sitting in an Olive Garden in the middle of Times Square, this feels anything but serious.”

“Olive Garden is a serious place,” Jackie said, crossing her arms.

“Didn’t Shauna’s parents take her to Olive Garden to tell her they were getting divorced?” Van asked.

“Can we please focus on the reason we are here,” Jackie said, blushing slightly.

Tai focused on Jackie, “What is the reason we are here?”

Jackie readjusted her posture and looked at them one by one. Her eyes finally settled on Nat, who let out a laugh.

“Take it away, Captain,” she said, sweeping her hands out in front of her.

Jackie took a deep breath, “I need your help.”

“With what?” Lottie asked, gesturing to Jackie to continue.

From her spot in the corner, Nat leaned forward, resting her hand on her chin with a lazy smile.

“She wants you to help her pull off a heist.”

Van broke into an excited grin. Lottie tilted her head in confusion. Tai frowned.

“Very funny, now for real, why are we here?,” Tai asked.

Jackie looked to Nat for help. Nat winked at her, staying silent. A terribly unhelpful co-conspirator. Jackie laced her fingers together on the table, “It’s not a joke. Recently, I was accidentally involved in an illegal accusation of something and I am trying—“

Nat interrupted her, “Jackie made some new friends who tricked her into being the getaway driver for them after they stole a fuck ton of diamonds from some rich dude. Now she wants to steal them back and return them to said rich dude so she doesn’t go to jail.”

Nat’s words hung in the air. Before any of them could respond the waiter appeared with their food. The table stayed awkwardly silent as he placed dishes in front of each of them. The waiter glanced between them all with a hesitant smile. “Let me know if there is anything you need,” he said.

Nat took pity on him, “We will, thank you.”

Tai waited for him to leave to speak. “What the actual fuck are you talking about,” she said.

Van smiled. “I’m in,” they said, taking a bite of pasta. They gestured between Nat and Jackie with their fork. “Whatever this is sounds bonkers and I am absolutely in.” Tai shot them a look. Lottie shrugged. “I’m in too,” she said, arranging the salad leaves on her plate with her fingers. Jackie beamed at her. Tai looked around the table, alarmed.

“Are you guys serious,” she asked. She looked at Jackie, “Is this some weird prank?”

Jackie looked offended, “No, it is not a prank.”

Van shook their head, “I love this, I missed you guys.”

Tai ignored her, “Jackie, this sounds ridiculous. Are you in trouble? Is that what this is? I can try and help you, but I need to know the truth.”

Jackie let out a breath, “Tai, that is the truth. Admittedly,” she said, glaring at Nat, “I planned on phrasing it better than Nat did, but she captured the overall gist.”

To Jackie’s left, Lottie was nodding along as Jackie spoke. “I think it makes sense, Jackie has always been destined to face an obstacle like this. She’ll prevail, but only if we all help her.”

Jackie and Tai exchanged a look, temporarily united in confusion over Lottie’s comments. Jackie hesitated, “Um, okay, thanks Lot — that’s nice to hear?” In the corner, Nat suppressed a laugh with her hand.

Tai turned her attention back to Jackie, “How about this, explain this from the top. All of it. And we go from there.”

So, with the occasional commentary from Nat, Jackie explained the situation. By the time she got to the end the waiter had returned to clear their plates. He approached the table cautiously. Before he could speak Lottie did. “I’ll take the check,” she said, “you can put it all on one.”

Everyone at the table started to object, but Lottie silenced them with a look. She returned her eyes to the waiter, who seemed to relax in her presence of her attention. “Just the one check, whenever you have it,” Lottie said, smiling. At his departure, Tai rubbed her face with her hands.

“So,” Jackie asked, drumming her fingers on the table, “questions?”

Tai crossed her arms, staring at Jackie across the table.

“I mean yeah, like 100,” Tai said, “but I guess my biggest right now is, what does Shauna think about all this?”

Whatever questions Jackie had imagined Tai asking, that was not one of them. Jackie folded her hand into a fist to stop her fingers from drumming. She looked at Tai, “I hardly see what that has to do with anything.”

Van let out a whistle, “Oh shit, Shipman doesn’t know?”

Jackie shifted her attention to Van, “Why would she? She’s been out of the country forever. I’m not required to run the things I do past Shauna Shipman.”

Jackie swallowed back the word anymore. She wondered if their friends struggled with the breaking of the unit as much as she did. They had always been Jackie and Shauna — are Jackie and Shauna coming to the party? Have Jackie and Shauna seen this movie? When Jackie had taken Shauna to the campus health center for a nasty flu senior year, the nurse had insisted on calling her emergency contact, only for Jackie’s cellphone to start ringing in the room with them.

Tai settled her hands on the table in a diplomatic way, “No, you don’t,” she said. She studied Jackie for a second before continuing, “it’s just that Shauna tends to,” Tai searched for the word, landing on, “rationalize things. I was just curious if you had run this by her.”

Nat laughed, “Shauna being your voice of reason confirms that you have terrible judgment. Didn’t she almost stab someone in college?”

“Almost is the most important word in that sentence,” Lottie said, pointing at Nat. “Also Shauna is in the city.”

Jackie turned to Lottie, “What city?”

“This city.”

“No she’s not, she’s in Paris for another four months,” Jackie said, somewhat forcefully.

Lottie shook her head, “She’s been back for a week. She didn’t tell you?”

Jackie felt like someone had poured cold water down her back. As much as she wished didn’t, Jackie knew exactly how fucked a relationship had to be for someone to re-enter the country without telling their best friend. She gave Lottie a strained smile.

“We keep missing each other, endless phone tag. I’m sure we’ll get caught up soon,” she looked around at the group. “After this is over,” she said firmly.

__

Lottie stood in front of a large white board propped against Jackie and Nat’s TV, looking like a professor preparing for a lesson. She absentmindedly popped the lid of a marker on and off. From her spot on the couch, Tai pointed to the white board, “Where did that come from?”

Lottie shrugged, “It was here when I got here.”

“It’s Jackie’s,” Nat said, draped across the armchair. “She uses it at work to visualize things or something like that. She made me help her drag it up the stairs yesterday.”

As if on cue, Jackie entered the living room from her bedroom. “I thought it would be helpful in forming our plan. I also got us these.” Jackie said, handing each of them a notepad and pen.

Van stared at Jackie from her spot next to Tai, “Where was this energy when we were lab partners?”

Jackie wrinkled her nose, “This doesn’t require cutting up dead animals.” She perched on the arm of the couch next to Van.

“I think this is great,” said Tai, getting up. She crossed the room to stand next to Lottie, “it will help make things really clear.” She plucked the marker from Lottie’s hand and turned to the board. Across the top she wrote - A REALLY BAD IDEA - in bold letters.

Nat and Van laughed. Jackie rolled her eyes.

“Can we get on with things?” Lottie asked, suppressing a smile. Tai handed her back the marker, “The floor is yours,” she said, returning to her seat on the couch.

Lottie clapped her hands. “Okay, I looked into this party that Jackie mentioned and she was right, it is a standard shady rich people party — which means it is actually two different parties.” Lottie turned to the board and started to write, “to make things easy we will call them the Upstairs Party,” she underlined the words, “and the Downstairs Party.”

“The Downstairs Party will be old people doing normal rich, old people things,” Lottie said.

“Screwing over the lower class and minorities?” Tai asked

Lottie nodded, “Pretty much. Now the Upstairs Party, that’s where the real fun will happen and where I would bet Jackie’s friends will do their business, that’s where the young people will be.”

“When you say young?” Jackie asked.

“Our age, maybe a bit younger — the Downstairs Party is being held by the Martinez family, which means the Upstairs Party will be run by their older son, Travis.”

Jackie looked over at Nat, “Didn’t you date a guy named Travis Martinez?”

Nat shook her head, “No.”

Jackie frowned. “Yes you did, he had boyband hair and a little brother. I can’t remember the brother’s name, he was a cute kid but would get on my nerves because he always hung around Sha— anyway,” she shifted on the couch arm, “you guys were on and off for a while when we first moved to the city.”

Nat gave Jackie a very aggressive look, “We might have seen each other a couple times, it wasn’t a big deal.”

Van snorted, earning a smack from Tai. Lottie gave Nat a strange look before asking, “Javi?”

Jackie nodded, “Javi — yes, that’s the brother! I didn’t know they were rich.”

“They didn’t used to be,” Lottie said, “their dad made some good investments and then sold the company he owned a few years ago.”

Tai leaned forward on the couch, “Wait, so if this guy knows Nat and Jackie, won’t it be weird if he sees them at the party?” Beside her, Van tapped their nose thoughtfully, “That’s a good point. Lottie belongs at a swanky rich people party, you two broke idiots do not.”

Jackie looked at Lottie, “Can you get us in?”

Lottie shook her head slightly, “I was getting to that, no — I can’t. Not in the front door at least.” They all looked at her, awaiting her explanation. Lottie sighed, “My parents happen to be two of the old, rich people who will be attending. I can get in with them but there is no way they would let me bring someone.”

Tai stood up from the couch and rejoined Lottie at the board. “Let’s recap,” she said, once again taking the marker from Lottie. “So far our biggest obstacles are,” she started a new list on the board, “Lottie’s parents, Nat’s ex-boyfriend, and this whole thing being a really fucking stupid idea.” She turned to face the group of them, “am I forgetting anything?”

“A positive attitude?” Jackie asked sarcastically.

Tai folded her arms, “Jackie come on, you have to admit that this whole thing is crazy.”

Jackie shot to her feet, “can everyone please stop saying that I’m crazy? Is this unconventional? Yes. Is it going to be hard? Sure. But is it impossible?”

All four of them responded at once, “Yes.”

Jackie stamped her foot, “No! We can do this! We’re the freakin’ Yellowjackets!” Jackie knew what she needed to do — there was no better time for a certified Taylor Pep Talk. She took a deep breath.

“Van,” Jackie said, “who stopped three penalty shots in a single shootout, sending us one step closer to a national title?”

“Uh, me?” Van answered, giving Jackie an amused look.

“Damn straight,” Jackie said, moving to stand closer to Nat.

“Nat.”

“No,” Nat said, swatting at Jackie. Jackie caught her hand and shook it.

“Who led the championship season in assists?”

Nat frowned, “Shauna did.”

Jackie stumbled slightly, “Okay, well who led the season in shots on goal?”

“Honestly I don’t remember.” Jackie gave her hand a dramatic shake before dropping it. She turned to Lottie.

“Lottie —”

Tai stepped in front of Lottie, blocking Jackie’s view. “We get it,” Tai said, “we were a decent high school soccer team ten years ago, that does not make us qualified to pull off a heist.”

Jackie smiled, “That’s fine, because this is not heist, it is a strategic retrieval of stolen goods. But what it is doesn’t matter, what matters is that we’re a team.” She looked around at them, “we’re a winning team.”

She paused for effect. Van started to clap and was quickly stopped by Tai.

Tai sighed, “Jackie, we don’t even know where to start with all of this. What if the people you met are dangerous? Do you really think they're just going to let you take something they went through the effort of stealing?”

“That’s why I have a private investigator looking into them right now.”

“Since when?” Nat asked.

“Since I hired him. He should have information for us later today. He said to meet him at 5 o’clock behind the deli by the park.”

Nat stared at her. "And no part of that sentence seemed shady to you?”

Jackie shrugged, “Being shady is his job.”

Lottie sat down on the coffee table, “What did you ask him to do?”

“Not much, just see if he could find you about Alice or Patrick or Colin — anything that may give us a better idea about what we’re going into.”

Tai cracked her knuckles. “At least that makes a little bit of sense.”

Jackie smiled, “This is going to work out, I have a really great feeling about this.”

__

The man took a step forward and Jackie closed her eyes, scrunching her body up to brace for a hit. She heard a thump and a groan but felt nothing. She counted to five in her head before opening her eyes to find the man on his back on the ground in front of her. Confused, Jackie looked to her left and was surprised to find —

“Hell of a hit, Shauna,” Nat said, bending down to examine the man.

Shauna Shipman stood to Jackie’s left, shaking out her hand. She looked from the man on the ground, to Nat, to Jackie. Before she could speak a voice called out from somewhere up the alley.

The man on the ground groaned in response. Nat sprang to her feet, grabbing both Jackie and Shauna by an arm and pushing them forward.

“We gotta go,” she said, forcing them into a run.

Jackie stumbled after Nat, still in shock as Shauna fell into stride beside her. They rounded the corner to find Lottie in the driver’s seat of Jackie’s car. Nat flung open the passenger door, leaving Jackie and Shauna to pile into the back. Lottie took off before Shauna was able to fully close the door.

The car fell into a temporary silence as Nat, Jackie and Shauna caught their breath. At a red light, Lottie looked at Shauna in the rearview mirror.

“You came!” Lottie said, beaming.

“You called her?” Nat asked, from the passenger seat.

Jackie glared at Lottie. Shauna glanced between them.

“Uh, Lot,” she said, “the light is green.”

As Lottie turned back to driving Shauna looked around the car, seemingly taking it in for the first time. She ran her finger along the back of the passenger seat and looked at Jackie.

“I’m surprised you still have this car.”

Jackie gave her a quick glance, “Oh, yeah, I do.” She caught Nat smiling at her in the rearview mirror and flicked her off.

___

Thirty minutes later they sat crammed around Nat and Jackie’s too small kitchen table eating what Nat deemed appropriate Italian food from the restaurant up the street.

“So,” Shauna said, taking a bite of her food, “who was that guy I punched?”

Across the table, Tai gasped. “You punched the PI?”

Nat waved her hand dismissively. “He was fine,” Nat said. “Shauna clocked him but he was getting up when we left.”

“You mean when we ran away,” Shauna said. She turned to Jackie, “Why did we run away?”

Jackie busied herself with her food, not meeting Shauna’s eyes. “Well, he was helping us acquire something and he didn’t hold up his end of the deal so things got a little…heated,” Jackie explained.

Tai frowned, “He didn’t have it?”

Nat shook her head, “Nope, he said that he needed more time. Captain Taylor got stressed and started yelling. The guy took a single step towards Jackie and next thing he knows he’s on his ass courtesy of Shipman.”

Shauna blushed, “I guess it looked worse than it was. I heard yelling and saw the guy moving and just kind of….swung.”

“Wait,” Tai said, “why were you there at all?”

Shauna looked confused. She pointed across the table, “Lottie called me.”

Everyone turned to look at Lottie. “Hold on,” Van said, “I thought we weren’t calling Shauna.”

“We weren’t,” Jackie said through gritted teeth, glaring at Lottie.

Lottie shrugged, “Shauna needed to be here. We can’t do this without her.”

Shauna let out a sigh, frowning. “Is anyone going to tell me what “this” is?”

Everyone turned to Jackie. Looking around the table, Shauna let out a small laugh, “You guys are acting like you committed a crime or something.”

“Not all of us,” Tai muttered.

“Just Jackie,” Nat added.

Shauna focused in on Jackie, “What? Are you okay? What happened?”

Jackie was getting tired of telling the story of how she was tricked into being a criminal. Luckily for her, Shauna was a good listener and waited until she was done to speak.

“Wow, that’s…that is…something,” Shauna said.

“You’re telling me,” Nat muttered, stealing a noodle off of Jackie’s plate.

“So that guy?” Shauna asked.

“He was a PI I hired to try and find out more information on the people I met,” Jackie explained.

Tai turned to Jackie, “So he found nothing?”

Jackie shook her head, “He said he needed more time and more money before he could make any legitimate determinations. I was telling him that there would be no more money without some information when Shauna showed up and—”

“Knocked him into next week,” Van said.

From her spot at the head of the table Shauna blushed again. “It looked like he was trying to mug you,” she said sheepishly.

“So what’s next?” Lottie asked.

Tai glared at her. “I think this is yet another sign that we should give up on this whole shenanigan.”

“We’re not giving up,” Jackie declared. “Plus, I already have another PI working on it.”

They all turned to her. “Who?” Tai asked.

Jackie set her shoulders, “Misty.”

“What?” Tai, Van and Lottie all said at once.

Nat smacked her hand to the table, “Here we go!”

Tai covered and uncovered her mouth with her fist several times before speaking, trying to keep herself calm. “Jackie,” she said, “you cannot call Misty fucking Quigley to help you with this.”

Jackie shrugged. “Too late.”

Tai looked at Nat for help. Nat shrugged. She tried Shauna as well, but Shauna still looked confused.

“Jackie,” Tai said, “Misty is not exactly trustworthy.”

“She’s a professional PI — she has a business and everything. Not only that, but she called me earlier today and said that she already found something. I’m meeting her tomorrow.”

“Good luck being alone with Misty. Ten bucks says she tries to harvest your organs,” Nat said.

“Be nice,” Jackie said, “and I’m not going alone, you’re coming too.”

“Since when?”

“Since I just said it.”

“I am not—”

“I’ll go.”

Jackie was surprised to hear Shauna speak. She gave Jackie a shy smile.

“If you don’t want to go alone. I can go with you.”

Nat scoffed. “I never said I wouldn’t go.”

“You literally just said that,” Van pointed out.

___

Jackie fidgeted with the business card in her hand, running her fingers over the embossed logo on the top. She traced the words MISTY’S MYSTERIES with her thumb.

“You sure you want to do this?” Shauna asked, from the driver’s seat.

Jackie gave her a quick glance and nodded, still having trouble accepting that she was in the car with her. In the city with her. In the country with her.

“Well I think this is a dumb idea,” Nat said, sprawled out across the back seat. Her boot collided with the center console as she hauled herself into a sitting position. She sat forward between the front seats and pulled the card from Jackie’s hand. “Involving Misty is like opening Pandora’s Box, anything good is going to come laced with everything batshit.”

“We’re out of options,” Jackie said with a sigh.

“Maybe if Shipman hadn’t punched the original PI we hired.”

Shauna twisted in her seat to look at Nat, “How was I supposed to know you hired that guy to help with your crime spree?”

“It is not a crime spree and we are meeting with Misty, and that is that!” Jackie exclaimed.

Nat and Shauna shared a look. “Okay,” Shauna said cautiously.

Nat pointed to the clock on the dashboard. “Didn’t you say three o’clock? Might as well get this over with.” Nat exited the car, slamming the door as she stepped onto the street.

In the car, Shauna gave Jackie a careful look. Jackie took a deep breath.

“I’m not crazy.”

“I know.”

“I know that this whole thing is crazy, but I’m not.

“I know.”

“I can’t explain it, but this feels like something I have to do.”

“Okay.”

Jackie glanced over at her, “Okay?”

Shauna gave her a small smile, “Just tell me what you need me to do.”

Jackie felt herself smile in return. Maybe she was crazy, but at least she wasn’t alone.

“Don’t let Nat kill Misty before she can help us.”

__

Five minutes later the three of them sat at a small table in the back of a cafe, staring at Misty Quigley.

“I still can’t believe we’re doing this,” Nat muttered. She turned to Jackie, “Hey, quick question, are you capable of making good decisions and chose not to or is it something you’re truly incapable of doing.”

“Nat,” Shauna said, giving Nat a hard look.

Misty beamed at the three of them, “It is so good to see you guys.” She rested her chin on her clasped hands, “Especially you two, together again after all these years,” she said, looking between Jackie and Shauna.

Jackie and Shauna shared a quick, awkward look. Nat frowned at Misty, “How did you know that they haven’t—”

Jackie cut her off, “It’s good to see you too, Misty. Thank you for coming.”

Misty shook her head, “Oh my gosh, no problem at all, I am so happy to help you guys. Who else is involved? I know Tai and Van live in the city and obviously Lottie is around. Are you all working together?”

Nat studied Misty around her coffee cup, “Do you like, keep tabs on all of us.”

“Yes,” Misty said without hesitation.

Misty turned her attention to Shauna. “Congratulations, by the way.”

Jackie adopted a quizzical look, “What? Congratulations about what?”

Shauna waved her hand, “Nothing.”

Misty playful smacked Shauna’s arm across the table, “Don’t be shy! Working with Ben Scott is a big deal.”

Jackie flexed her fingers, trying to sound casual, “Who is Ben Scott?”

Shauna opened her mouth but was beaten to an explanation by Misty. “He’s a literary agent, he’s the literary agent. Every author he works with becomes super successful.”

Jackie almost dropped the mug she was holding, “You’re writing a book?”

Shauna met her eyes for a second before dropping her gaze to the table. She rubbed her neck before responding. “Uh yeah, well wrote,” she glanced back up at Jackie. “I wrote a book, two actually. The first one I wrote under a fake name but the new one will be under my name.”

Jackie stared at her, trying to process the words she was hearing. Shauna wrote a book. No not a book, books — plural. Her best friend wrote two books and has an agent and Jackie was learning about it from Misty Quigley. The lack of knowledge felt like a missing limb, leaving her strangely unbalanced.

“Oh,” was all she could manage.

Shauna hesitated, “I was going to tell you now that I’m back, but with you know,” she swung her fist slightly, “all the punching and stuff — I haven’t found the time.”

Jackie wondered what the chances were of having a stress induced heart attack. She set her mug down on the table and casually rested her fingers on the inside of her wrist, checking her pulse. Her heart didn’t seem to be beating fast enough to kill her, but she wasn’t completely opposed to the idea of falling unconscious at this particular moment. Realizing Shauna was looking at her, she forced a smile.

“Oh my god, don’t even worry about it. That is so exciting, you have to get me a copy of your book. Your books!” Jackie suddenly felt very aware of how loud her voice had become.

Under the table, Nat patted her knee, a silent encouragement to relax. “So, Misty,” Nat said, giving Jackie’s knee a final, slightly harder get it together smack. “Any luck on what Jackie asked you to look into?”

Misty, seemingly oblivious to the emotional turmoil she had managed to cause, grinned. “Of course I did,” she said, pulling a folder out of her bag under the table, “I only do the best work. Now, the information Jackie provided was fairly limited, but like I said, I’m good at what I do, so I was able to track down your friends.”

“Friends is a very generous word,” Jackie said.

“They’re actually a pretty well known group of thieves for hire,” Misty explained.

Nat started a sarcastic slow clap, “Really good work, Taylor — some of your best.”

Jackie elbowed her, “How was I supposed to know! Also, your ex is the one hosting the upcoming evil people party so maybe check the judgment at the door.”

Shauna leaned forward to look at Nat across Jackie, “Heather the preschool teacher is involved in this?”

“Wrong ex,” Jackie said.

Shauna thought for a second, “The guy from college, what was his name, Paul?”

“Oh my god,” Jackie said, temporarily distracted, “I forgot about Paul, he was the worst! I hated that guy.”

Shauna nodded, “We all hated that guy. Wait, so how is he involved?”

“He’s not, wrong ex again,” Jackie said. “This is fun though, think post college.”

Jackie had forgotten how easy it was to fall into sync with Shauna.

“Oh okay,” Shauna said, tapping her lip in thought, “Post college, well there’s the obvious one, but I know you’re not talking about Lot-”

“TRAVIS.” Nat yelled, earning her a series of dirty looks from the other people in the cafe. She dropped her voice, “She is talking about Travis.”

Shauna frowned, “The guy with the little brother?” Jackie nodded, trying not to laugh at Nat’s outburst.

“Travis Martinez?” Misty asked. “You dated him on and off for a year, but he ended things for good after you disappeared for three weeks with no explanation. Although I’m sure he would have understood if you explained that you were helping a friend. Lottie really needed you.”

The three of them stared at her. Jackie opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again.

Misty smiled. “Good at what I do,” she said with a shrug.

Nat’s eye twitched. Shauna steered the conversation back on track. “So, these thieves,” she said, urging Misty to continue.

“These thieves,” Misty said, spreading documents out on the table in front of them, “usually take on much smaller jobs so this appears to be an escalation for them. Based on the conversations Jackie mentioned them having, my guess is that they’ve been looking to switch to a higher paying market for a while now.”

“What does that mean?” Jackie asked, looking down at a black and white security photo of the girl, Alice. She pressed her thumb onto the paper, crushing Alice’s head beneath it.

Misty continued, “From what I’ve found, they had been putting out feelers for a while hoping to get hired for a job with some real stakes. The bigger the robbery, the bigger the pay out.”

Jackie nodded, “That makes sense, they mentioned making “real money” a few times.” She blushed slightly, “I thought they were looking for new jobs.”

“Technically they were,” Misty offered.

“Yeah, at the Department of Stolen Jewels,” Nat said.

“That’s the other thing,” Misty said, shuffling the papers and placing one on top. “They didn’t steal diamonds, or any jewelry actually.”

Jackie looked at her, “But I read about it in the paper — diamonds were stolen from that apartment, it was the same address that Patrick gave me. I,” she dropped her voice, “drove the getaway car.”

“By accident,” Shauna added in a small voice.

Misty clarified, “Oh no, you did participate in a robbery that day.”

“Oh, well that’s good, glad we cleared that one up,” Nat said.

“You just didn’t help steal jewels.”

Jackie closed her eyes and rubbed her temples, wondering how many questions her mom would ask if she called and asked her to mail her some Xanax. She kept her eyes closed while counting to ten, at ten, she took a breath. She heard Misty start to speak and felt Shauna shift slightly next to her as if silencing her. When Jackie finally opened her eyes the three of them were looking at her.

“What,” Jackie said, “did I help steal?”

“Information.”

Beside her Shauna shook her head, “Nope, we’re not doing this vague shit Misty, get to the point.”

Misty held her hands up in defense, “I’m not totally sure, but from what I can find, it appears that the guy they robbed runs a private security firm that manages the security systems of a lot of high profile clients.”

“Like who?” Nat asked.

“Oh you know, a few major jewelry stores, a handful of museums, private collections, places like that.”

“I don’t get it, how do you steal information? And why did the news say it was diamonds that were stolen?” Jackie asked.

“That I actually get,” Shauna said, to Jackie’s surprise. Jackie looked at her, “Why?”

“Think about it, if you run security for a lot of very rich people, would you want them knowing that you got robbed of the information about how you keep their stuff safe.”

“But why publish it all?” Nat asked.

“For the robbers,” Shauna said.

Nat and Jackie looked at her. Misty nodded. “She’s right.”

Misty continued, “The owner of the firm had the article run because he wanted the thieves to know that he was on to them, but he lied about what was stolen so that his clients wouldn’t panic and think that they were at risk.”

Nat sighed, “Not to sound like Tai, but I think we may be in over our heads here.” She looked at Jackie, “If this guy knows he is lying about the robbery to save face maybe you can go to him, tell him what you know and move on. He seems rich and powerful enough to make the cops look the other way at your involvement.”

Shauna nudged Jackie with her shoulder. “That’s not a bad idea, Jax.”

Jackie considered the idea. Somewhere along the line this whole operation had become less about doing the right thing and more about repairing her pride. Finding out the people you thought were your new friends were actually using you to commit crimes did a real number on the psyche. She didn’t want smug, stupid Alice and her dumb friends to get away with making her look like an idiot — she also didn’t want to go to jail.

“It may be worth a shot,” Jackie said.

“Before you make any decisions,” Misty started.

“Oh here we fucking go,” Nat said, pulling a flask out of her pocket and tipping it into her coffee mug.

“I spoke to the guy,” Misty said.

“What guy?” Jackie asked.

“The guy you helped rob.”

“Accidentally,” Shauna said again, under her breath.

“The guy you accidentally helped rob,” Misty corrected.

Jackie gave her a confused look, “Why did you talk to him?”

“How do you think I know he lied about what was stolen? I told him I was looking into the situation for a client of mine”

“You told him that I hired you?!”

Misty reorganized her papers on the table, “No, not in those words. I simply mentioned that I had been asked to look into the people that stole from him. He, as you can imagine, is also very interested in who they are and what they plan to do with what they stole.”

“Do you think he would be willing to talk to Jackie?” Shauna asked.

“Oh, he is more than willing to,” Misty said, with a sly smile.

Shauna scowled. “What’s that supposed to mean.”

“I alluded to the idea that perhaps someone was looking into finding what was stolen, without the help of the police.”

Nat let out a strangled laugh, “You did not tell him about Jackie’s fucking heist plan.”

“It is no—”

“I know, I know it is not a heist — it is a strategic retrieval of stolen goods. Whatever you call it, I can’t believe Misty told Mr. Security about it.”

Misty settled her hands on the table, “Well I did, and he was very interested in the plan. Particularly in the “not involving police” aspect of the plan.”

“Oh so this guy is absolutely hiding something,” Nat said.

Jackie narrowed her eyes at Misty, “How interested?”

Misty met her eyes, “Willing to pay someone $10 million to pull it off interest.”

Chapter Text

Shauna leaned against the Jeep, watching Misty’s hair disappear around the corner. Nat stood several feet away smoking a cigarette.

“Is Jackie coming?” Nat asked, shielding her eyes from the sun to look at Shauna.

“Should be, she said she needed to use the bathroom but I think she just needed a minute alone.”

Nat kicked at the sidewalk, “Do you think she’s going to do it?”

“She was already planning on it,” Shauna said with a shrug. “Now there are 10 million more reasons to.”

“Will you help her?” Nat asked.

Shauna looked at her. “Will you?”

Nat dropped her cigarette, crushing it beneath her shoe. She took a step closer to Shauna.

“Of course I will. I don’t abandon people.”

Shauna stood up straight. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, just don’t tell her you’re going to stay if you plan to leave again.”

“I didn’t abandon her,” Shauna said, “I just did what she asked me to.”

At that, Nat frowned, “Wait, what?”

“She asked me to take the job in Paris, so I took it.”

“Why would she ask you to fuck off to Europe?”

Shauna studied Nat, trying to figure out her angle. “You know why,” she finally said, slightly uncomfortable.

Nat shook her head, “No, I don’t. I have no idea what happened between you two. I woke up one morning to Jackie at my door saying you accepted a job in Paris and asking if I’m still looking for a roommate.”

Shauna took a step towards Nat, squinting at her, “She never told you…anything?”

Nat lit another cigarette, “Nope.”

Shauna blinked hard, trying to process the information. Before she could ask Nat anything else, Jackie appeared in the door of the cafe. She walked up to them with an uneasy smile.

“So that was crazy.”

Nat and Shauna nodded.

“What are you going to do?” Nat asked, eyeing Jackie carefully.

“You know what I am going to do.”

“Okay,” Nat said, rubbing her hands together. “As much fun as it has been watching this become somehow even more insane, I have somewhere to be.”

Jackie gestured to the car, “Do you want a ride? We can drop you off somewhere.”

Nat glanced between Jackie and Shauna and shook her head, “I’m gonna walk.”

Shauna offered her a half hearted wave as she walked away. Jackie called after her, “We have to tell the others, so be home for dinner!”

Nat responded with a casual wave above her head. Jackie turned to Shauna.

“Back to the apartment?” she said, reaching for the passenger seat door.

“Oh.”

Jackie paused. She had slipped into autopilot. They were different now. Two halves a whole that no longer quite fit.

“Unless you have somewhere else to be.”

Shauna shook her head, “Nowhere else to be. The apartment is cool. I’ll,” she gestured to the other side of the car, “drive I guess.”

They got into the car. For a fleeting second they were 22 again, fresh out of college with no real plans other than conquering all of New York. Shauna placed the key in the ignition but stopped short of starting the car. She cleared her throat.

“Ten million dollars is an unreal amount of money.”

Jackie let out a long breath, “I know.”

“And you still want to do it?”

“Yes. Now even more than before. Screw those jerks over while making an exorbitant amount of money? Kind of an easy choice.”

“Can I help? I get it if you don’t want me too — everything considered,” Shauna twisted a ring on her finger, “but I’d like to help you, if you’ll have me.”

Jackie thought about it, something about having Shauna in front of her made it very hard to remember why she had been so adamant that she not be included in the first place. Nat had made a decent point, she would be stupid not to utilize her best player.

“So you’re staying in the city?” Jackie asked.

“Me? Yeah, I am. With the book thing — I’ll be around.”

Jackie considered her. “Once a Yellowjacket, always a Yellowjacket.”

Shauna nodded, looking relieved. She went to start the car but froze again, her hand on the key.

“Why didn’t you tell them what I did?”

Jackie gave her a curious look. Shauna sat back in the seat, playing with her ring.

“Sorry, I know – it’s just, I was talking to Nat and she said, well she implied — she didn’t know.” She risked a look at Jackie. “She didn’t know that you asked me to leave or why I did.”

Jackie pondered the question. Shauna had focused on the seat, abandoning her ring to twist a loose string around her finger. Jackie ran through a hundred responses in her head before deciding to go with the truth. She wielded it carefully, just enough to hurt but not bleed.

“I guess I didn’t have it in me to betray you like that.”

Shauna looked up at her, “What? But I — you have every right to tell people.”

Jackie sighed, leaning forward against the dashboard. Shauna watched her cautiously.

“I know I do,” Jackie said. She glanced at Shauna, “I thought about it, I can’t even tell you the amount of times I thought about just yelling it out in front of everyone.”

Jackie flashed back to being tipsy at bars, watching people sing bad karaoke and wondering what it would feel like to stand up in front of a crowd and tell them all — I can’t sing, but boy do I have a story for you. Raise of hands, who here has ever been betrayed?

“So why didn’t you?” Shauna asked, looping the string around her fingers.

The problem with the truth, Jackie thought, is that it can cut both ways.

“Remember that time in elementary school, when my parents forgot to sign my reading log so you signed it for me? You knew I had actually been reading because you picked out books you knew I’d like and we would sit in your backyard and read them.”

Shauna looked confused about the shift in conversation, but chuckled, “I still feel bad about Bridge to Terabithia, you were crying so hard I thought you were going to throw up.”

“It was worth it,” Jackie said with a faint smile. She focused her eyes out the windshield, away from Shauna. “Anyway, the teacher caught you signing my log and yelled at you about how forgery is a crime and made you change your behavior card from green to yellow. You were so embarrassed and all those little jerks in our class judged you for it. They said you were a bad kid, but you weren’t a bad kid, you were just trying to help me. The look on your face when you were changing your card — that is what I think of every time I consider telling people what you did.”

“You kept it a secret because I got laughed at in fourth grade?”

Jackie exhaled, “I kept it a secret because you signed my reading log. And proofread my essays at midnight. And taught me to drive when you barely knew how to yourself. And asked your mom to buy snacks you didn’t really like, but knew I did, and my mom wouldn’t buy. And always made sure our apartment had the tea I like but can never remember the name of.”

“It’s called Lemon Lavender Lane,” Shauna said quietly.

Jackie forced herself to look Shauna in the eyes. “I didn’t keep what you did a secret for the you that slept with my boyfriend.” Shauna flinched at the acknowledgment of her crime. No blood spilled, but hurt all the same.

“I kept it a secret for all the other versions of you that I have known since I was five. What you did hurt me Shauna, but that one hurt wasn’t big enough to cancel out all the ways you’ve helped me too.”

What Jackie didn’t say was that a large part of why she didn’t tell anyone was because she had yet to figure out why Shauna had done it. She had theories that spanned from Shauna being possessed by the ghost Jackie swore haunted their apartment to Jeff being the love of Shauna’s life to the one that always came to her in the middle of the night — that Shauna simply hated her.

Shauna held Jackie’s eyes until she couldn’t. “Jackie, that’s — I don’t even know what to say to that.”

Jackie shrugged, leaning back in her seat. “That’s the truth. People have opinions and I didn’t want them influencing how I felt.”

Or to know that I had no idea what was so wrong with me that my best friend felt the need to betray me on a massive scale, Jackie thought.

“Jax,” Shauna started.

“Shauna,” Jackie interrupted, feeling too overwhelmed to unpack three years of unspoken baggage. “I can respect wanting to have a conversation about certain things now that you’re back. I really do. But I’m kind of in the middle of something right now.”

Shauna nodded, “Right, another time.”

“Another time,” Jackie agreed. But because Shauna had hurt her and maturity had never been Jackie’s strongest trait she added, “And while we’re at it, we can talk about how you stayed two extra years in Paris and then you snuck back into New York without telling me.”

Shauna paled, finally starting the car.

__

Jackie and Shauna sat on the coffee table, watching Tai pace in front of the TV.

“That’s a lot of fucking money,” Tai said, for the fifth time in a row.

Jackie was trying to be patient. Lottie had barely blinked when Jackie had first explained their conversation with Misty, only offering a confirmation that she was still in before disappearing to the kitchen. Van had laughed, a deep almost unsettling laugh that lasted several minutes but had eventually stopped long enough to be looped into a game of Scrabble with Nat.

Tai, however, seemed to be stuck in some kind of processing loop.

Jackie laced her hands on top of her head, nodding, “Yes, it is.”

“That’s—” Tai began.

“Tai,” Shauna said firmly, but not unkindly, “we know.”

“Sorry, it’s just — woah. Is there a contract?”

Jackie frowned slightly, looking at Shauna for help, “A contract?”

Tai looked between the two of them. She blinked back the dreamy, vacant look she had adopted when hearing about money and shifted into focus. “You can’t assume this guy is just going to give you $10 million based on his word, there has to be some sort of legal obligation on his side.”

“We can’t exactly spell it out in a contract can we? A quick 10 mill in exchange for retrieving stolen goods, please sign here,” Van said from the kitchen.

“No,” Tai said, “we would have to make the contract about something else that happens to be worth $10 million.”

“Does anyone have any ten million dollar skills?” Van asked, looking up to survey the group. They all stayed quiet.

“What about public relations?” Shauna asked after a second. “Jackie works in marketing, Tai has a law degree, I can write things, Lottie is Lottie, Van and Nat,” she trailed off.

“Have incredible interpersonal skills to assist with the acquisition and maintenance of long term client relationships,” Jackie finished for her. Realizing they were all looking at her, Jackie dropped her shoulder into a half shrug, “I’ve written a lot of resumes.”

“I’m sure that could be plausible, if we had any actual connections to a PR firm,” Tai said.

Shauna gave her a look, “Tai we’ve been operating outside of the realm of reality for a bit now, making up a PR firm seems pretty tame in the grand scheme of things.”

Tai rolled her eyes, “Sure, hypothetically we could draft a contract stating that we will be handling PR for the security business. Any lawyer worth a damn would probably raise a flag at our so-called qualifications and the amount of money, but I doubt this guy is going to have background checks run — he’s clearly sketchy in his own right.”

“We could blackmail him,” Lottie said, dragging her pencil off the paper she was doodling on and onto the kitchen table. Nat absentmindedly reached over and pushed her hand back onto the paper.

“Blackmail is a crime,” Tai said wearily.

“So is whatever this plan is,” Nat said.

Van watched Nat play a word onto the board. “If you think about it,” she said, “would we even actually be committing a crime? Mr. Security wants us to get something back that was taken from him — we’d be returning stolen property.”

They all considered the statement.

“What are they going to do if they catch us? Report us to the police?” Van held up a hand to make a pretend phone call, “Hello, 911, someone stole something from me that I stole to help other people steal.”

Nat spoke before any of them could respond, “Hey Shauna, come here.”

“I don’t think they would call the police,” Lottie said, as Shauna crossed to the kitchen. “If anything they would probably just try to kill us.”

“Wow,” Shauna said, arriving at the table, “very positive thinking, Lot.” She looked at Nat, “What?” Nat gestured to her Scrabble tiles, “Can you make a word out of this?”

Van protested, “Hey! No fair! You cannot sub in Shauna, that’s cheating.”

“You never said no subs, you are free to sub in anyone here — other than Shauna because she’s on my team.” Nat looked over at Jackie and waved her hand. “Jack, come be on Van’s team.”

Jackie wandered to the kitchen. “That,” Van shot Jackie a glance, “and I mean no offense by this, Jackie, is not a fair trade off. Having Shauna on your team is like playing with a dictionary — she reads too much!”

Jackie kneeled down next to Van to look at the available tiles.

Nat grinned, “Jackie reads. Right, Jack? There are bound to be a few big words in that book you’re always toting around.”

Shauna gave her a surprised look, “What book?”

Jackie suddenly felt self conscious. For most of her life every book she had read had been given to her by Shauna. It wasn’t until she started haunting bookstores a few years ago, making small talk with the checkout people, that she realized she had never read a book she didn’t like. Shauna had never allowed it. At a store in Brooklyn she had stood in front of a community chalk board titled: Question of the Week, What is the Worst Book You’ve Ever Read?, rattling her brain for an answer and coming up short.

Now, looking at Shauna’s surprised face, a part of Jackie wanted to run to her room to get her book. She wanted to press it into Shauna’s hands and say: Look, I picked this one all on my own — is it good enough? Would you have picked out yourself? Have you already read it? Did it make you cry too?

Tai, and her commitment to pessimism, saved Jackie by unceremoniously flipping the Scrabble board onto the floor. “Can you guys focus?”

“Oh come on babe, I was going to win!” Van said, looking at the destroyed game.

Nat inspected the tile in her hand, “Tai have you ever looked into anger management? I hear it does wonders.” She placed a line of tiles on the table where the board had been. “Not that it matters, Van wasn’t going to win.”

Van turned her head to read the word upside, “Synergy? That sounds like a fake word.”

“Take it up with Shipman,” Nat said.

Shauna smiled, “It means to work together.”

Jackie met Shauna’s eyes and returned the smile — a sea of unease stood between them but she was still the best player on Jackie’s team.

Tai rolled her eyes, “I can’t believe you’re all just going along with this.”

Jackie turned to her, “Tai, you don’t have to help. You can leave and never hear another word about this, but this is something that I am going to do even if I have to do it myself.”

At the end of the table, Lottie sighed. “You’re not going to do it alone,” she looked up at Jackie. “Obviously we’re all going to help you, even Tai. Especially Tai. She already has the contract she mentioned written up in her head.”

All four of them looked at Tai. Jackie raised her eyebrows.

Tai tried to maintain a glare but failed. “It would essentially be a vendor contract agreement, they’re not particularly complicated to put together.”

Van put on an announcer voice, “Ladies and gentleman, please join me in officially welcoming Taissa Turner to the hei— strategic retrieval of stolen goods, that is a real mouthful, team!”

The rest of them cheered. Nat and Van high-fived over the table. Jackie moved to hug Tai but was stopped by Tai’s outstretched arm.

“Okay, calm down,” Tai said, failing to hide a smile. She held up her other arm to stop Jackie’s continued advances, “I’m not going to do it for free.”

Jackie gave up on the hug and settled for holding both of Tai’s outstretched hands. “Oh duh,” she said, “you’ll each get $1.5 million.”

The game tiles Van had been collecting scattered back onto the floor. Nat choked on the water she was drinking, Shauna smacked her on the back.

Jackie frowned at them, “What?”

“Jackie, I was kidding,” Tai said, pulling her hands free of Jackie’s.

“I’m not — we’re a team. That means we all get a fair cut.”

Nat nodded towards Lottie, “even Richie Rich?”

Lottie shrugged, “I’m fine either way.”

Jackie glared at Nat, “Nat, be nice. Of course Lottie gets her cut, her parents being rich doesn’t change that she’s helping.”

“If anything,” Shauna pointed out, “Lottie already being rich is kind of the only reason there is even a plan to begin with.” Lottie smiled at her.

Van held her clasped hands out to Lottie as if praying, “thank you for your service.”

Jackie took in her team with a smile. She turned her attention back to Tai, “so, this contract.”

___

Jackie pulled on the collar of her shirt, watching the floor lights blink off as the elevator rose. Behind her Tai adjusted the briefcase in her hand. It had only taken one call to Misty to have a meeting scheduled with Mr. Security.

Jackie looked over shoulder at Tai, “What is the guy’s real name again?”

Tai pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket, “Wilson. Roger Wilson. He’s the head of the company.”

Jackie nodded, turning back to watch the lights.

“We’ve got this,” Tai said from behind her. The elevator finally stopped and Jackie took a deep breath as the doors opened. The lobby was all white tile and golden fixtures. Jackie felt like she needed sunglasses to handle the glare off the polished floor. With a small nudge from Tai, she stepped out of the elevator and into the office.

The young receptionist at the desk didn’t look up as they approached. Jackie offered her a smile, “Hi, we’re here to see Mr. Wilson.”

The girl finally looked up and Jackie knew her. She didn’t actually know her, but she knew the type — clothes far too expensive for the job she was working, perfectly done nails, bad attitude. If Jackie had to guess, the girl’s father was most likely well connected in the city and had found her a comfortable job that required very little effort.

“And you are?” The girl asked, dismissively.

“We have an appointment with Mr. Wilson at 9 am,” Jackie said.

The girl took her time examining the calendar on her desk, running the end of a pen across each day. She tapped the pen on the date, “Jackie Taylor?”

Jackie wasn’t thrilled to have her actual name associated with any part of the whole ordeal, but Tai had concluded it would be the only way to validate the contract if need be.

“That’s me,” Jackie confirmed.

The girl pursed her lips, surveying Jackie. “You can go through that door,” she said, pointing her pen at a door to her right. Jackie and Tai turned to face the door.

“Wait,” the girl said. She nodded at Tai, noticing her for the first time, “Who is she?”

“My lawyer,” Jackie said coldly.

The girl frowned, “Okay, fine, whatever.”

Jackie didn’t like being a bitch, but it would be a lie to say she wasn’t good at it. It was a side effect of being raised by her mother that she had managed to hone into a reliable skill. She studied the girl for a second to identify her point of entry.

“Isn’t eyeliner just the worst? I used to mess up mine all the time too,” Jackie said, tilting her head,“back in middle school.”

The reaction was immediate, the girl’s hand coming half way to her face as if to touch her eye. Jackie turned on her heels and stalked towards the door with Tai following close behind. At the door, she glanced back to see the girl squinting into a small mirror.

Tai glanced over too, “Her eyeliner looked fine to me.”

Jackie looked at Tai, “Oh it’s perfect, way better than mine could ever be.”

Tai smirked at her. Jackie placed a hand on the door, “Shall we?”

Five minutes later, after speaking to the much older, much kinder personal secretary of Mr. Wilson, Jackie and Tai sat across a desk from the man himself. He reminded Jackie of every one of her dad’s coworkers she had ever met. A middle-aged guy in an expensive suit with a haircut he most likely overpaid for by at least $50.

“So you’re the person who is going to return my stolen property?” He asked, leaning back in his chair.

If Jackie’s mom taught her how to be a bitch, her dad taught her business. It was mostly through overhearing phone calls he had taken at the dinner table but she had learned enough to drop her voice into the bored tone her dad so often used.

“Perhaps.”

He frowned slightly, “Perhaps?”

Jackie gestured to Tai, “My lawyer has put together some documentation for you to review, to outline the specifics of our agreement.”

Tai pulled a stack of papers out of her briefcase, setting them on the desk in front of her.

The man looked between Jackie and Tai. “Before we get to all that, how do I know that you and your associates are capable of completing the task at hand?”

Jackie gave him a smile, “I can assure you that we’re a winning team.”

“Any references of prior work?”

Jackie sat up in her chair. “Mr. Wilson. Roger. Can I call you Rog?”

“No,” Roger said bluntly.

“Here’s the thing Rog, if I could give you an example of our prior engagements I wouldn’t be very good at my job. The fact that you’ve never heard of me, or the work I’ve done with my team, means we are very good at what we do.”

Roger considered this. Under the desk Tai knocked her foot into Jackie’s as a silent high-five. Jackie channeled her dad again.

“I think the real question Rog, is how do I know that you are capable of upholding your end of the deal?”

“Money is not an issue,” Roger said. Jackie nodded as if $10 million meant nothing to her either.

“Here’s another one for you Rog, if I may?” Roger twitched his upper lip but did not object. Jackie flashed her teeth again, “Wonderful, now what is it exactly you are hoping to receive at the end of this?”

Roger frowned, “Your associate,” he picked up a business card off his desk, Jackie recognized Misty’s logo as he did so, “made it seem as if you were aware of what I am looking for.”

Jackie felt a streak of panic run through her. Tai gave her another tap with her foot, this one gentle and encouraging. Jackie forced her shoulders to relax — a business bitch.

“If I’m honest, I have a lot of engagements, it can be a struggle to keep them all straight.” Jackie could hear her dad’s voice in her head: competition is the heart of business Jackie, they have to know you other people want you. “However I believe you and I have a common goal when it comes to the individuals who…obtained your property.”

“That goal being?” Roger asked.

Jackie set her face into a smile. “Let’s just say they took something from me as well. So what are we talking about on your end, hardware or software?”

Jackie wasn’t completely sure what that meant but her dad had said it once on a call and she thought it sounded very official. Roger seemed to think so too.

“Both I suppose. Physical documents were taken, but I am much more concerned about a flash drive.”

Holy shit it worked. Jackie nudged Tai’s foot in victory.

“Technology these days, those pesky things are such a help right up until they’re a hassle,” Jackie said sympathetically.

Roger nodded in agreement, “They’ve made sharing schematics within the company much easier. Until of course—“

Jackie’s confidence no longer felt like an act. “Someone stole one,” she finished.

A flash drive full of security systems details would sell for a pretty penny to the right buyer. Jackie figured it had to be worth at least the price Roger was willing to pay to get it back.

Roger gave her a curt nod. He was taking her seriously. Two business professionals having a conversation.

“Understood. So,” Jackie turned to Tai, “about that contract.”

Tai gave Jackie a quick smile before turning to Roger, “In order to keep things above board I’ve drafted a vendor agreement for the public relations services discussed today.”

Roger scratched his chin, “Public relations? Not bad.”

“Nothing complicated, just an outline of your employment of Wilderness PR to conceptualize a new plan for your company’s approach to expanding your clientele and public image — for a project payout of $10 million,” Tai said, holding the paper out.

Roger accepted the paper and looked it over. “I’ll have to have my lawyer look at this to ensure everything is as you said, above board.”

Taissa had the highest penalty kick success rate on every team she had ever played for. She had an unbelievable ability to disarm any goalie she went up against. She could step up to the spot, giving every indication that she was going to shoot low and left, only to send the ball high and right. Jackie had always considered the mix of mental and physical skill to be a form of art.

Tai kept her tone casual, but Jackie could see the calculations playing out behind her eyes, “It’s funny, I didn’t know Bonaccorsi was such a common last name.”

Lead them left and low.

“But it must be more common than I thought,” Tai said, “for both your lawyer and Anthony Bonaccorsi to have it. I’m sure you’re familiar with Anthony Bonaccorsi, he was the lead defense attorney for that case that was all over the news last year.”

Roger locked his jaw. Tai looked at Jackie, “What was it that case was for? Financial crimes related to the,” she dropped her voice into a whisper, “mafia?”

She shifted back to Roger with a smile. “But I can’t imagine an upstanding businessman like yourself having a use for a mob lawyer, so it must be a coincidence.”

Send it high and right.

Roger gritted his teeth. Tai and Jackie shared another foot-five. Roger pulled a pen from his desk and flipped to the last page of the contract. He looked up at Jackie.

“Get me my flash drive.”

He signed his name with an elegant flourish.

—-

Jackie and Tai managed to leave the building in a collected manner. Once in the car, they both exploded.

“Oh my god, that was amazing!” Jackie said.

“I can’t believe that worked.” Tai said at the same time.

Jackie grabbed Tai across the center console, “That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen — I’m sure an upstanding man like you has no need for a mob lawyer — how did you even come up with that?!”

Tai laughed, “I looked up some previous cases Wilson has been involved in to see who counsel was and saw the name, I had no idea if it was actually the same guy until I said it.”

Jackie shook her. “You’re incredible!”

Tai grabbed Jackie’s arms, “Me, what about you? That whole bit about having never heard of us because we’re so good at covert operations. Calling him Rog?”

They both laughed, releasing each other. Jackie rubbed her face. “That went so much better than I thought it was going to,” she said.

“You and me both.” Tai pulled the contract out of her bag and flipped to the signature. Jackie leaned over to look at it with her. They looked at each other again and laughed.

“I’ll give it to you, Taylor,” Tai said, carefully securing the contract back in her bag, “I think we might actually pull this off.”

Jackie beamed, clicking her seatbelt into place. She pulled the car onto the road. They hit a red light and Jackie began tapping on the wheel waiting for the light to change. Tai looked around the car and then at Jackie.

“It's still funny to me that this is your car, I always pictured you in a convertible or something.”

Jackie shrugged, continuing her tapping, “You can’t fit much into a convertible.”

“Your parents got you this senior year of high school, right? Were they surprised that this was the car you asked for?”

Jackie checked the light, still red, before looking at Tai, “I think they only offered to buy me a car because they assumed I’d never get my license. That surprised them more than anything. But yeah, my mom’s eyes almost popped out of her head when I asked for a Jeep Cherokee.”

Jackie put on a bad imitation of her mom’s voice, “Jackie, that car is an abomination. What about a nice BMW?”

Tai shook her head, “You might be the only person who has ever passed up a BMW for a box on wheels.”

Jackie smiled, “I made the right choice. Well, except when I accidentally used it in a crime, but that was more of a me issue than a car issue. Other than that it’s served me well.”

“It’s served us all well,” Tai said. “We practically lived in this car the summer after senior year — although I’ve only ever seen you drive it like three times, including now.”

Jackie checked the light again, wondering if she had somehow managed to find the longest light in the entire city.

“Shauna liked to drive and I was fine with being the navigator.”

“We were late to every party because you were such a bad navigator.” Tai said, earning an eye roll from Jackie. Tai traced a flower sticker stuck to the dashboard in front of her with her finger, “God, Shauna really did love driving this car. I remember when you got it, she was so excited I thought she was going to pass out. A part of me always thought —”

“What?” Jackie said, still watching the endless red light.

“Nothing, I just, always kind of wondered if there was a reason you picked out this car.”

Jackie shot her a glance, “I liked the idea of having room and —“

Tai gave her a look, “Right, but a green Jeep Cherokee Sport? Jackie, we all played MASH on the bus to games. Someone always included this particular car on the list and it wasn’t you.”

The light turned green and Jackie gunned the accelerator. Tai flew back into her seat with a small scream.

“Sorry,” Jackie said innocently.

__

Van had taken to calling Jackie and Nat’s apartment Headquarters.

At first it had felt like a joke, but the more involved the situation got, the more their tiny two bedroom started to take shape as a proper control center. The white board Jackie had borrowed from her office had been mounted on the wall and the coffee table was covered in books and DVDs that Van and Shauna had each respectively provided for further research.

The newest addition was the signed contract, thumbtacked to the wall beside the white board. Someone, Jackie suspected Tai, had stuck a sticky note to the front that read: DO NOT ACCIDENTALLY THROW AWAY

Jackie couldn’t help but feel like the message was directed at her. You get your friends involved in a single complicated robbery scheme and all of a sudden you’re a liability.

Currently, the six of them sat around the kitchen table debating Misty Quigley.

“You cannot invite Misty here. We live here!” Nat said outraged, pointing at Jackie across the table.

Jackie reached forward and pushed Nat’s finger down. “Nat, you need to be nice. Seriously, what is your big issue with Misty?” Jackie asked.

Nat gave her an alarmed look, “My issue? How about the time she asked our assistant coach to homecoming and prom. Or the time she showed up to a party uninvited and tried to dose us all with shrooms? Or the time she told us not to call 911 when Allie’s bone was on full display because she thought she could handle it herself? Or the time you made us spend a Saturday at a team building camp, and Misty broke the walkie talkie they gave us to ask for help so we got lost in the woods. We could have died!”

“We were lost for like 20 minutes,” Jackie said dismissively.

“Lucky for you — you definitely would have been eaten first if it had come to that,” Nat said.

Jackie gave her a dirty look. Nat returned it. Tai smacked the table causing Jackie and Nat to both jump.

“Enough, no one is getting eaten,” Tai said from the head of the table. “Unfortunately, I think Jackie is right, we’re going to need Misty’s help again.”

Shauna looked over at Lottie, “Where did you say the Martinez thing is going to be?”

“The party is being held at The Capital House. Which is an old Vanderbilt family property out on Long Island,” Lottie said. She turned to Tai at the other end of the table. “Aren’t building plans usually public record?”

“Usually yes,” Tai said, “but this particular property has been through a few hands. At one point it was considered for historical status so the blueprints were pulled but never properly returned. It’s been privately owned for almost 20 years and I haven’t been able to find anything on it since that sale.”

“I’m willing to bet they have at least some level of security installed, if Travis’ parents are having an event there,” Lottie said.

“Hey,” Van said with a finger snap, “Maybe we can ask Mr. Security for help.”

Tai laughed, “I don’t think Jackie’s friend Rog would be very keen to help us.”

Jackie agreed, “No, he wouldn’t. That’s where Misty comes in. I think it’s safe to assume she could get information on the layout of the house and any security that may be in place.”

“What I’m not understanding,” Nat said, tipping her chair back onto two legs, “is why Misty needs to come here. Can’t we just meet her somewhere?”

“You want to meet Misty in public to discuss the plans for a heist?” Tai asked.

Jackie, Shauna and Nat all spoke, “It’s not a—”

Tai waved her hand, “Oh my god, whatever — do you really think it’s a good idea to have a conversation like that in public?”

Nat sank her chair back onto all fours in a huff. Jackie leaned onto the table, resting her chin on her hands. “I could ask if we can meet at Misty’s house?”

Nat gave her a shocked look. “Oh hell no, none of us would make it out of there. She would probably chain us to chairs and make us play Monopoly.”

From beside her, Van laughed, “You like Monopoly.”

Nat gave Van a look, “So? That doesn’t mean I want to play with Misty.”

“No one is playing Monopoly with Misty,” Tai said, rubbing her forehead.

“I would play Monopoly with Misty,” Lottie said.

Jackie shrugged, “Me too.”

Shauna put her hands on the table. “Moving on from Monopoly — for the sake of planning, let’s say that Misty is able to get us details on the venue. We still don’t have a good way to get the rest of us into the party.”

Lottie smiled, “I think I might have actually figured that one out. Do you guys remember Mari?”

“Same ugly yellow sweatshirt every day of the soccer season Mari?” Nat asked.

Jackie opened her mouth to speak. Nat beat her to it, “I know, be nice, but c’mon it was not a cute sweatshirt.”

“It was an unfortunate color,” Tai conceded.

“She was superstitious,” Lottie explained, “she thought it would help us win.”

Shauna once again put them back on track, “What about Mari?”

“Oh,” Lottie said, remembering her point, “she works for a catering company, not the one working this event, but I would bet she could get us in with the one that is.”

Nat clicked her tongue, “I don’t think Mari being a cater-waiter is going to be much help, Lot.”

“She’s not a waitress, she’s the head chef of the company she works for,” Lottie said.

“Mari?” Tai asked surprised.

“You know what, now that you mention it, I do remember hearing that she went to The CIA, good for her,” Jackie said.

Van’s jaw dropped, “Mari was in the CIA?!”

Tai’s eyes flicked between Lottie and Jackie. “That does not sound right, when did Mari join the CIA?”

Jackie looked confused and then laughed, “Not the CIA CIA, The CIA - The Culinary Institute of America.”

“That has got to be a copyright violation,” Van said.

“Lottie,” Shauna said, desperately trying to keep the conversation focused, “do you really think Mari can help?”

“I mean it’s Mari,” Lottie responded, “so it’s going to depend on her mood when we ask, but I’ve seen her at events before, she seems well connected in the industry.”

Nat let out a humorless laugh, “Well no question who should ask her.”

Lottie frowned, “Who?” They all looked at Lottie. “Who?” She asked again.

“Lottie,” Tai said with a grin, “she basically worshiped you in high school.”

“You were her messiah,” Nat added, “If you had started a cult she would have been your first member.”

Jackie shot Nat a teasing look, “I can think of someone else who would have joined.” Nat made a movement and Shauna cursed.

“Fuck, Nat, did you just kick me?”

“Oops, sorry Ship,” Nat said, trying not to laugh. Beside Shauna, Jackie was shaking with silent laughter. Eventually all of them, including Shauna, were laughing.

“Let’s recap,” Tai said, trying to rein them all back in. Jackie shot to her feet. “This seems like a white board moment,” she said, running to the board on the wall. She pulled the cap off the marker and shot a finger gun at Tai. “Okay, go!”

Tai let out a sigh. “Alright. Number one, we need to talk to Misty about obtaining floor plans and security information about The Capital House.”

Jackie wrote Call Misty About Capital House on the board.

“Number two,” Tai said, “we, meaning Lottie, need to talk to Mari about getting us into the party with the catering company.”

Jackie wrote Talk to Mari (Lottie) under the first point.

Shauna raised her hand, “Sorry if I missed this, but when exactly is this party that everything is supposed to go down at?”

Jackie glanced at the calendar hanging in the kitchen. “Exactly two weeks from today.” She turned back to the white board and wrote: T-minus 14 days in the top corner.

Shauna looked slightly concerned, “Oh okay, that’s soon.”

“Quick question about the catering situation,” Nat said, holding up a finger. “Who is gonna go undercover? Half a dozen new employees might raise some eyebrows.”

Jackie returned from the living room and stood behind her empty chair. “That’s a fair question,” she said, bracing her hands on the back of the chair.

“It will have to be Tai and Van,” Shauna said.

“Why us?” Van asked.

Shauna started counting off on her fingers, “Lottie will be a guest at the party, Nat dated the guy hosting the party, Jackie and I met Travis and his little brother multiple times when he and Nat were together — you two are the only ones that don’t run the risk of getting recognized.”

Van looked at Tai, “This is what we get for going to school in DC. We missed out on one of Nat’s failed relationships and now we’re the cater-waiters on the heist team.” Nat made a sound of protest at the insult.

“Not a heist. And technically,” Jackie said, “Nat dated Travis after college, when Tai had that internship in Boston before starting at Columbia and you went with her and ran that blog about clam chowder.”

“Don’t bring Chowder Chatter into this,” Van said, pretending to be offended.

“I loved Chowder Chatter,” Shauna said excitedly. “Actually, that guest post you let me do about Manhattan chowder might have been my first published piece.”

Van put a hand to their heart. “Honored to have jump started your career.”

Jackie groaned, “Oh my god, our apartment smelled like clams for like a month after that. You really didn’t need to eat it every day for a week to write one blog post.”

Shauna frowned, “I was doing diligent chowder research.”

Tai stood up. “Enough about the chowder. We are done talking about chowder.”

“Sounds like someone has had a bit too much chowder chatter,” Nat said.

Tai scowled at her. “We can talk about chowder all you guys want, after we break into a fancy party and steal a flash drive from a group of shady people so that an equally shady man will pay us $10 million dollars.”

Jackie clapped her hands, “I’ll call Misty!”

“Oh my god, I forgot we’re going to be rich” Van said, looking at Shauna, “we could launch a Chowder Chatter TV show!”

Chapter Text

Jackie walked out of her room to find Nat standing on the coffee table, waving a candle in the air. She watched for a second before speaking. Clearing her throat, she asked, “What are you doing?”

Nat glanced at her, and returned to her candle waving. “Cleansing the air before Misty gets here.”

“I think you’re supposed to do that after she leaves and use sage not,” Jackie walked to the table to get a better look at Nat’s candle, tilting her head to read the label, “bamboo sandalwood.”

“We don’t have any sage, so the power of bamboo must compel us,” Nat said, climbing down from the table and following Jackie into the kitchen. They split into their separate breakfast routines. Jackie put on the kettle, eating a bagel while it boiled, as Nat prepared her bowl of cereal.

“So,” Nat said, once settled at the table, “now that this thing is really moving, are we going to talk about the elephant in the room?”

“What elephant?” Jackie asked, pouring water into her mug.

“The flannel wearing, grumpy elephant that has reentered your life.”

“What about Shauna?” Jackie asked, sitting at the table.

“Jackie,” Nat said with an exasperated sigh, “you don’t have to tell me what happened between you two but I don’t need a Psych degree to know it was something. People don’t just go to Europe for three years and then waltz back in like nothing happened. You guys barely spoke the entire time she was gone and now she’s just back — are you sure that’s a good idea?”

Jackie grinned. “Oh my god, Nat, do you care about my emotional well-being?”

Nat pitched her voice up an octave, “Oh my god, Jackie, are you capable of having a mature, adult conversation?”

Jackie’s grin slipped. She scratched at the table with her thumbnail, avoiding Nat’s eyes. It dawned on Jackie that protecting Shauna in the eyes of their friends had meant keeping things from Nat. Nat, who had helped put Jackie back together without even knowing what it was that broke her. She owed Nat that level of loyalty too.

Jackie fixed her eyes on a spot above Nat’s head.

“Shauna slept with Jeff.”

Jackie didn’t see Nat drop her spoon but she heard it connect with the table.

“What the fuck are you talking about.”

Jackie frowned at a crack on the kitchen wall, making a mental note to call the landlord, before starting the painfully slow journey of looking Nat in the eyes. Jackie had seen Nat mad, but she had never seen her furious. Her jaw was set in a very specific way that accentuated the angles of her face. Jackie decided it was probably a bad time to suggest a modeling career.

Jackie tried to keep her tone light, “Three years ago. That’s why I broke up with Jeff and why I asked Shauna to take that job. I needed her to be very far away from me.”

Nat ran her tongue over her teeth, “I’m going to kill her.”

Jackie once again tried to keep things casual, “You really think you could take her?”

“Jackie, are you serious right now? Why the actual fuck are you letting her hang around? That makes her a terrible fucking person.”

Jackie narrowed her eyes, “You haven’t seemed to mind hanging out with her.”

Nat threw her hands into the air, “Because I didn’t know she fucked your boyfriend! I thought you guys got into one of your usual fights and then decided to have to time apart — I didn’t know she fucking emotionally bamboozled you! How are you even able to be in the same room with her?”

Jackie raised her eyebrows, “emotionally bamboozled?”

“Jackie, not the point.”

“It’s just a really weird choice of words. I have never heard you use the word bamboozled before.”

“Yeah well, you are making a really weird choice of decisions letting the girl who was supposed to be your best friend be on your heist team after sleeping with your boyfriend.”

Jackie opened her mouth. Nat held up a hand, “So help me God, if you correct my use of the word heist right now I am going to jump this table and tackle you.”

Jackie closed her mouth. She understood Nat’s perspective — she had thrown quite a few fits in the days following Shauna’s confession. She had even tried punching a wall and ended up fracturing her knuckle. She glanced at her hand now, flexing her knuckle slightly.

Nat took a breath, “Jack,” her voice was much calmer now, hovering around sympathetic, “did she even like, apologize?”

Jackie stood up, placing her mug on the counter and ignoring Nat’s questioning face. She left the kitchen for her bedroom, crossing to her closet and pulling out a cardboard box. She carried the box back to the kitchen. Jackie gestured for Nat to pick up her cereal bowl as she turned the box upside down and emptied it onto the table. A waterfall of letters fell out, all postmarked from France.

“The first one came a month after she left.”

Nat set her bowl to the side. She looked at the letters, picking one up and weighing in her hand.

“Damn.”

“She started buying fancy stationary somewhere around the second year.”

Jackie fished around the envelopes and withdrew a blue one. She slid the letter out just enough for Nat to see the floral pattern at the top. Nat looked at Jackie but said nothing. Jackie picked up another letter.

“The first few were all apologies — she never actually told me why she did it, but she used the phrase 'biggest regret of my life' about 100 times. One of them was just three pages of the words ‘I’m sorry’. I think she wrote a few of them while she was drunk. Eventually she switched over to updates about her life in France, places she had been, people she met. It was all superficial stuff, she failed to mention that she was writing and publishing two whole ass books, but I know which bakery sells the best croissants and about her unspoken feud with the checkout lady at the local grocery store. That’s how I knew when she was supposed to be coming back.”

Nat studied her, “You read them? All of them?”

Jackie nodded. It had become their strange form of communication. Shauna would write and Jackie would read — keeping in touch without speaking.

“Did you ever respond?”

Jackie held up four fingers, “Four times. She asked in one of them if I was even receiving the letters and so I responded with a note that just said ‘yes’. The other three were for her birthday.”

Nat frowned, “You sent her birthday cards?”

Jackie set down the letters in her hand and folded her arms against her chest. “The first one I bought out of habit without thinking about it. I had it on my desk for three weeks before finally sending it. I didn’t write in them. They were just plain cards that said Happy Birthday.”

Nat shifted through the envelopes. “How did she know our address?”

“Lottie.”

Nat rolled her eyes, “Classic Matthews.”

“I think that is why I am able to be around her now,” Jackie said, more to herself than to Nat. “It’s all very confusing and I haven’t forgiven her for what she did — but writing a couple hundred letters counts for something, even if I’m not totally sure what.”

“You know,” Nat said, turning over an envelope, “I’ve always known that Shipman is a little crazy but I did not know she was this crazy.”

Jackie looked at Nat, “I know it probably makes me pathetic but I want her help with this. Once this is all over I’ll re-evaluate everything but for now, we need her on the team.”

Nat sighed, “Your choice to make — but I’m not going to be nice to her now that I know she’s a homewrecker.” She got up from the table, taking her cereal with her. “Wait,” she said, looking at Jackie, “is this why you always insist on getting the mail?”

Jackie gave a slight nod.

“Oh, you are pathetic.”

____

The team sat gathered in the living room, watching Misty unpack a series of blueprints onto the coffee table. Tai pulled at the corner of the one closest to her. “How did you get these, Misty? All the offices I checked said that they were misplaced years ago.”

“Misplaced is such a funny little word,” Misty said, “if something is not in one place, it is bound to be in another.”

Tai started to speak again but Van covered her mouth with a hand. “Better to just let it go.”

Nat sat on the couch next to Jackie, examining a dated property log. “This place is super old right? We’ll have to be careful that we don’t wreck the home.” Nat said, looking up to glare at Shauna.

“I don’t think anyone lives there year round,” Misty said thoughtfully, “it’s more of a summer house that gets rented out for events. It is old though.”

“Still,” Nat said, not taking her eyes off Shauna, “we will want to be careful during the whole affair.” Shauna caught Nat’s eye and held it, locking the two of them into a silent standoff.

“Oh absolutely,” Misty said, “some of the people who are going to be there are bad news, best to not let them know you were there at all.”

“Good point, Misty,” Jackie said, pretending to stretch and throwing an elbow into Nat’s ribs. Lottie caught the movement out of the corner of her eye and followed Nat’s glare to Shauna, frowning. Jackie sat forward, digging her elbow into Nat’s ribs to do so. She looked at the blueprints Misty had laid out on the coffee table.

“So what’s our best way in?”

Misty pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, “Well, that’s where things get a little complicated.”

“Complicated how,” Nat said, temporarily abandoning her standoff with Shauna.

“This is the front door,” Misty said, placing a Scrabble tile Jackie had provided on the paper. “Obviously, this is where the guests will be entering. These,” she added two tiles, “are the kitchen doors. They’ll be used by the catering company to move things from their trucks into the house.” Misty placed a fourth tile down, “This is the back door, which opens to the garden and will be used all night by the guests during the party.”

Jackie studied the diagram. “Okay, so those are all entrances we can’t use?”

Misty nodded, “Correct. All of those will be heavily trafficked by guests or staff or security, making them a no-go. Now, there are three other entrances into the house. The first one likely won’t work either,” she said, placing a tile, “due to its proximity to the parking area. You would be too easily spotted by a valet or security guard.”

They all nodded along.

“The second one leads to an old food cellar under the kitchen, so even if you were able to get in, you would have to go through the kitchen to get to the second floor,” Misty said.

Lottie spoke from the armchair, “Whatever sort of trade that is being planned will definitely happen on the second floor. There will be too many legitimate business people at the Downstairs Party for anything shifty.”

“Right,” Misty said with a nod, “which leaves the last option.” She set her final Scrabble tile down on the paper.

Jackie squinted at it, “Um Misty, I know I’m new to reading blueprints, but it looks a lot like you put that one on the roof.”

Misty smiled. “That’s because I did.”

Van laughed, “I take back everything I said, I am a proud cater-waiter. I look forward to handing out tiny sandwiches from the safety of the ground.”

Beside them, Tai furrowed her brow. “How would anyone even get on the roof?”

Misty pulled a large piece of plastic out of the blueprint carrier. It reminded Jackie of the sheets teachers use with overhead projectors. As Misty laid it on top of the first blueprint, Jackie noticed markings that corresponded with the paper underneath.

“The house was built in 1917,” Misty explained, “before fire codes were as strict as they are now. There was a fire in the 80s that forced the owners to update the infrastructure. They added a fire escape here,” she said pointing.

“Oh,” Jackie said, “climbing a fire escape isn’t too bad.”

“No,” Misty agreed, “it’s not. However.”

“Always with the extra layer,” Nat said with a grimace.

“The house is old, and has undergone several sets of renovations — one set of owners cut a few corners to save some money.”

“Get to the point, Misty,” Nat said.

“Due to a botched renovation job. All of the windows on the side of the house with the fire escape are sealed shut.”

“Well that is a fire code violation.” Tai said.

Jackie pursed her lips, “why does that matter if the door is on the roof.”

“Because the door on the roof locks from the inside,” Misty said.

Jackie shook her head, “I’m not following.”

“I think I am,” Shauna said.

Nat remembered her mission and shot her a glare. “Got a way to cheat the system, Shipman?”

Shauna shifted uncomfortably in her chair. Across the room, realization crept onto Lottie’s face. She looked between Nat and Shauna and then at Jackie, who caught her eye. Lottie tilted her head slightly and Jackie knew she knew. Shauna must have told her.

“Misty is saying that someone is going to have to unlock the door on the roof from the inside,” Shauna said, not looking at Nat.

“Okay,” Tai said, “So either Van or I will sneak up and unlock the roof door.”

“Nope,” Misty said, failing to keep the thrill out of her voice.

“Why?” Tai asked in a flat voice.

Jackie felt a headache coming on.

Misty pulled out yet another blueprint, this one detailing the interior of the second floor of the house. “I called the management office pretending to be someone looking for a venue — the lady on the phone told me that, while the family who owns the house doesn’t actively live there, they do keep personal belongings on the third floor, which is closed off during events.”

“Meaning what?” Jackie asked.

Tai groaned, “Meaning nobody in the house can access the door on the roof to unlock it.” She turned to Misty, “Is this even going to be possible.”

Misty adjusted her glasses, “Yes.”

“Why do I feel like I am not going to like this?” Jackie asked.

Misty planted her finger on the interior blueprint, “this is the main suite. It is on the left side of the house, out of the way of the parking area and there are trees here,” she circled an area on the paper, “that block the view of it from the back of the house. The house only has cameras on the front and back doors, they’re really more for show than security.”

Shauna leaned forward, “It’s a blindspot.”

Misty nodded with a grin. “And it has a balcony.”

Shauna stood up, circling the table to stand next to Misty. She studied the papers on the table.

“So in theory, we could take the fire escape up to the roof and once on the roof we would need to,” she trailed off.

“Need to what?” Jackie asked.

Shauna hesitated. Misty did not. “Rappel from the roof to the balcony and go in through the balcony door.”

Jackie blinked. “Rappel as in?”

“I can’t imagine it being more than 15 feet, although houses like this usually have higher ceilings so maybe 20, but if you factor in the roof — it can’t be more than 25 feet at the absolute most,” Misty said with a casual wave of her hand, “the only problem would be anchoring the rope. I think the best option is to have one person rappel and the other two hold.”

“Unfortunately,” Van said, “Tai and I will be waiting and caiting and will be unable to assist with any rappelling that may need to occur.”

Lottie gave Jackie a half smile, “I would offer to help, but I don’t think I would be able to get away from the party.”

Jackie’s headache took full form as she realized what was being said. She was going to be climbing onto the roof, with Nat and Shauna, and one of them would be exiting the roof with nothing but a rope and a prayer.

“For what it’s worth,” Tai said, “Shauna seems to be the strongest, so it makes the most sense for her to help with the rope.”

That left either Nat or Jackie to rappel — a word Jackie had never used before in her life and had now heard far too many times for her liking.

“I have an idea!” Van shouted. “You guys should arm wrestle. Whoever wins is obviously stronger and holds the rope. Loser rappels.”

“I don’t know if that is a legitimate test of strength,” Shauna said.

Jackie looked at Nat, who gave her a small shrug.

Jackie tried. She honestly and truly tried with every fiber of her being to pin Nat’s boney little hand to the table. Nat had let her struggle for a few seconds before squaring her shoulders and sending Jackie’s hand to the wood.
____

After helping Misty pile her blueprints into the back of a cab, Jackie entered the building to find Shauna in the lobby. “Hey,” Jackie said, pushing open the door to the stairwell and starting up the stairs. Shauna followed her.

“So you told Nat,” Shauna said from the bottom of the stairs.

Jackie stopped and turned around, looking down at Shauna.

“Yeah, I did,” she said, “like you said, my secret to tell.”

“No, of course it is,” Shauna said, stepping up onto the staircase. “I think it’s good that you have someone to talk to. I’m glad that you — Nat is good.” Shauna made a face at her own words, “Nat is a good friend,” she clarified.

“Yes, she is.” Jackie said somewhat forcefully. They stared at each other in silence for a minute. Maybe it was knowing that she had agreed to dangle off the side of a building or maybe it was Shauna looking particularly small standing three steps below her, but something was making Jackie feel bold.

“Why did you write the letters?” She asked bluntly.

Shauna looked taken aback, “What?”

“The letters,” Jackie said, leaning on the railing, “you wrote me hundreds of letters, why?”

“I didn’t think you’d read them.”

Jackie frowned. “Then why write them?”

Shauna stepped back onto the floor. She started pacing at the foot of the stairs, as if wrestling with something in her mind. Whatever facade Shauna had been maintaining for the last few days crumbled.

“Because I couldn’t handle not talking to you. And I had no right,” her voice cracked, echoing in the stairwell, “I had no right to feel that way because I did this.” Her voice dropped. She gestured between herself and Jackie, “I ruined this. Us. I know that, believe me, I know that.”

Jackie could feel the guilt radiating off Shauna so strongly it was almost like a physical presence taking up space with them in the stairwell.

“I wrote the letters because I was lonely and didn’t know how to live without talking to you every day. I shouldn’t have sent them. I wasn’t going to. But then I was walking home one night kind of drunk and I had one, the first one, in my bag and I just dropped it in the mail. It was supposed to only be one. I swore to myself I would stop and give you the space that you asked for.”

Shauna cleared her throat.

“I almost did stop, but then you responded. It was only a word but I thought okay, she didn’t tell me to kill myself or anything so I guess this is fine. I was so scared of losing the little bit of you I had left, of disrupting whatever balance we had found, so I kept them simple, nothing serious. This coffee was good, the washing machine here sucks, I think I’m allergic to mimosa — the flower, not the drink. It eventually just became part of my routine to collect little pieces of my week to send off to you.”

Jackie could see the tears shining in Shauna’s eyes. She knew the exact loneliness Shauna was talking about. That same feeling was the reason she had given Shauna just enough of a response, just the right number of words spread out over years, to let her know that the door had not completely closed.

Shauna looked up at the ceiling. “A year into writing them we finally spoke. Not on purpose. I called Lottie’s phone and you answered. We only talked for a minute but you asked me,” she finally looked at Jackie, “if I had figured out my neighbor’s name yet. That was from a recent letter, which meant you were still reading them and it gave me hope. I didn’t deserve to have hope, but I did.”

Jackie remembered the call. Lottie had been in the bathroom when her phone rang, Jackie had picked it up and was surprised to hear Shauna on the other end.

“Why,” Jackie started, not brave enough for the real question yet, she side stepped into safer territory. “Why did you stay in Paris for so long? I thought the contract you were offered was only for a year.”

“It was. My first book did well and they gave me an advance for the second one so I stayed in Paris to work on it,” Shauna said.

“Why not come home to write it?” Jackie asked.

Shauna gave her a look, as if the answer was obvious. “Because you asked me to leave.”

Something in Jackie’s chest tightened.

“You love New York,” Shauna said, “you always have, I didn’t want to ruin that for you anymore than I already had.”

Jackie felt her eyes widen, “Shauna, it’s a pretty damn big city.”

Shauna gave a small shrug, “It’s yours. I only came back to meet with my agent. I was planning to go stay with my mom when Lottie called me.”

The headache from early encompassed her entire brain. Just then, the door to the stairwell opened and both Jackie and Shauna jumped. Jackie saw Shauna wipe the corner of her eye with her sleeve, passing the movement off as stifling a pretend yawn.

Van and Tai stood in the doorway. “There you guys are,” Tai said. She looked between Jackie and Shauna trying to get a read on the situation.

Jackie tried to smile. “Here we are.”

They all stood in an awkward silence.

“You know this is a gift, right?” Van said, leaning against the door frame, “Finding the time to have weirdly emotionally charged conversations while simultaneously planning a robbery. It’s an incredible display of multi-tasking — you should hold seminars.”

Tai stepped on Van’s foot.
—

The next morning Jackie and Lottie sat across from Mari, sipping cups of coffee. Mari had insisted that they meet at what she described as “the hippest coffee shop” in New York and despite the expensive pricing, the coffee tasted the same to Jackie as the ones she bought at the bodega near her apartment. As expected, Mari was ecstatic to see Lottie.

“How have you been, Lottie?” Mari asked, giving Lottie an eager look.

Lottie smiled, “I’ve been good. How about you? You seem to really be killing it in the catering world. You did that event a few months ago at The Met, didn’t you?”

Mari nodded enthusiastically, “that was me! If I’m honest, it was a real pain, but their budget was astronomical so I had fun pulling out all the stops. Is that what this is about? Are you looking for a caterer?”

“Not exactly,” Lottie said, glancing at Jackie. Mari looked at Jackie too, giving her a once over with her eyes. Jackie and Mari had never been particularly close, but they had spent enough time together between soccer and social events to maintain easy conversation. They had both had a particular fondness for gossiping that Jackie tapped into now.

“I’m sure you remember Natalie,” Jackie said.

Mari adopted a patronizingly kind tone, “Of course, is she still addicted to that blonde hair?” She shook her head softly, “I still keep her roots in my weekly prayer rotation.”

“Her roots are fine,” Lottie said in a slightly harsh tone. Mari gave her a curious look.

Jackie mentally moved $50k from her cut to Nat’s and hoped that was enough to buy forgiveness for the words about to leave her mouth, “Nat’s ex-boyfriend is hosting this party in a few days and we think he’s going to be there with his new girlfriend.”

Jackie briefly worried that Mari had matured out of gossiping about petty relationship drama.

Mari’s eyes lit up, “oh my god, and you guys want to scope her out? I love that.”

Crisis averted. Jackie leaned into it.

“He just did such a number on Nat,” Jackie said, trying to sound sad, “that we almost feel like we should warn the new girl. Solidarity and all of that.”

Mari nodded understandably, “I get that. What is it you’re trying to do?”

“I know it sounds a little wild,” Jackie said with a sly smile, “but we are kind of hoping to infiltrate the party.”

“Oooo,” Mari said, “like secret agents, how fun.”

Lottie and Jackie exchange a look — or criminals. Lottie gently placed her hand over Mari’s resting on the table, “I would really appreciate it if you help us.”

Mari’s face softened, gazing at Lottie. “Of course, who did you say is catering the event?”

“A company called Sunrise Catering.”

“Oh that makes things super easy,” Mari said, “I’m friends with the head chef there.”

Lottie beamed at her. “That’s fantastic!”

“I can tell her that I have waiters looking for extra work, we do it all the time,” Mari said, “and she owes me for helping her out with an event a few months ago so it shouldn’t be an issue.”

“We only need two spots,” Jackie said. Mari looked at her as if she had forgotten she was there.

Lottie tapped Mari’s hand, “Your kind energy is really shining through, Mari. I feel it.”

Mari breathed a sigh. “Wow, thank you.”

Jackie hid her laugh behind a fake cough. “The party is being held at a venue called The Capitol House,” Jackie said, leaning into Mari’s line of vision.

Mari didn’t look away from Lottie, “Okay, I’ll call Stacey this afternoon and then give you a call.”

“Great,” Lottie said, taking her hand off of Mari’s. Mari looked briefly disappointed at the loss of contact and then blinked, as if coming back to herself. “So what are you guys up to today? Do you want to get lunch?”

Jackie finished her coffee, “we have a few errands to run so we’re going to have to rain check on lunch. Actually,” she said, setting her cup down, “do you happen to know if there is a sporting goods store nearby?”

__

The checkout lady at the sporting goods store made the mistake of asking them about rock climbing, which led to Lottie giving her a ten minute lecture about her favorite kinds of rocks and the best places to find them. Jackie had had to pull Lottie away from the counter — a fairly hard task for someone of Jackie’s height.

Once free of the store, the two of them walked through Central Park. Lottie hummed to herself while Jackie flipped through the Beginners Guide to Rocking Climbing she had picked up at the store. She held the book sideways, trying to figure out a knot diagram.

“It’s so nice that we’re all together again,” Lottie said.

Jackie looked at her. “It’s just the two of us here.”

Lottie gave her an annoyed look, “I meant in general — working together on something. It’s good, especially with everyone being so…spread out recently.”

Jackie tucked the book into the side pocket of her backpack. “Well it’s not like you haven’t spoken to everyone.” While it was true that the group of them hadn’t all been together in years, Jackie knew that they all directly interacted with Lottie in one way or another — excluding Nat, who had made a point of avoiding Lottie after their undefined time as a bit more than friends but not quite a couple. Jackie liked to think of herself as their captain, but she knew deep down that Lottie was their leader. Even Shauna had stayed close to Lottie while in France.

Something nagged in Jackie’s mind. While Jackie and Lottie had hung out fairly regularly while Shauna had been gone, aside from the occasional passing comment, Lottie had never brought Shauna up, despite clearly knowing what happened.

“I know you know about the letters,” Jackie said, giving Lottie a side glance.

Lottie hummed a response.

“Don’t play dumb with me Matthews,” Jackie said trying to sound tough, “I know you were the one who gave Shauna mine and Nat’s address. She said it in the first letter she sent.”

Lottie stopped walking and looked at Jackie. “Okay,” she said, “Yes, I know about the letters.”

Jackie narrowed her eyes. “What else do you know?”

Lottie hummed again, “I know that Sherwood Forest is the largest concentration of ancient trees in Northern Europe,” her eyes widened with excitement, “imagine the power they hold.”

“No,” Jackie said, “what do you know about Shauna?”

“She’s really bad at checkers, which is weird because it is not a hard game.”

“Stop doing that,” Jackie groaned, “Lottie, please, I know you went to visit her in Paris a few times — she put that in the letters too.”

Lottie considered Jackie, “You really read all the letters?”

Jackie glared at her, “Yes, I did.” Jackie was annoyed by the idea of Lottie knowing things she didn’t, especially things that concerned her. “Now either you tell me everything you know right now or I will lay on the ground and start screaming.”

Lottie gave her a confused look.

Jackie continued. “I will lay down right here,” she pointed to the sidewalk, “and scream. It will be loud. Loud enough that other people in the park will start to wonder why someone is screaming. They’ll look over and they will see me on the ground and wonder, why is that small girl on ground screaming?”

Lottie tried to speak but Jackie kept going, “Then they will see you and they will think, why is that tall girl standing over her? Did the tall girl push the small girl to the ground? Tall girl, why would you hurt such a small girl? And the whole time — I’m screaming. Eventually, they’ll start to wander over here. They will want the tall girl to answer for her crimes against the small girl on the ground, screaming.”

Lottie looked bewildered. Jackie felt a thrill of pride at being able to confuse the most confusing person she knew.

“Jackie,” Lottie finally said, “it’s really not my story to tell you. You need to ask Sh—”

Jackie let out a dramatic breath, “Okay.” She made a move to sit on the ground. Before she could get far, Lottie grabbed her by the straps of her backpack. Jackie’s toes scraped the pavement as Lottie hauled her up. They stared at each other for a second before Lottie let go, settling Jackie back onto her feet. Lottie glanced at something over Jackie’s head and started walking towards whatever she saw. Jackie scrambled after her.

Lottie walked off the sidewalk into a cluster of trees. Jackie stopped next to her.

“They speak to me sometimes,” Lottie said, looking up into the branches.

Jackie looked up too. “Are they telling you to tell me what you know?” she whispered.

Lottie gave the trees one last look before sitting on the ground. Jackie took off her backpack and sat down next to her.

Lottie gave Jackie a level gaze. “I am going to tell you what I know, but I want to make a few things clear. Number one, you really should be hearing this from Shauna, but you’re my friend too and I do think you deserve some…context. Number two, you have to let me tell you the whole story — without interruptions or laying on the ground and screaming.”

Jackie nodded agreement, “I can do that.”

Lottie reached into her bag and pulled out a notepad, flipping to an empty page. Jackie was oddly touched to see it was the one she had given her.

“I’m going to write this out,” Lottie said, pulling a pen from her bag, “to help keep things in order.” Lottie started to draw a flowchart on the page.

“You met Jeff your junior year of college.”

“I am aware,” Jackie said. Lottie gave her a look. “Sorry, no more interruptions,” Jackie said, pretending to lock her mouth shut with an invisible key.

“You two dated on and off for two years. You graduated and Jeff stayed behind to do an extra semester.”

“He signed up for classes that he didn’t go to — honestly he was kind of an idiot.”

“Jackie, stop interrupting.”

“Right, sorry, continue.”

Lottie added to her chart. “You and Shauna moved here after graduation and lived in that apartment on East 3rd.”

Jackie nodded but stayed silent. Lottie continued, “Six months into living here, you went on a trip to Orlando with your parents.”

Jackie couldn’t help herself. “It was my grandma’s 96th birthday,” she said proudly.

“Right,” Lottie said, letting the interruption slide. “You were out of town. I was at your apartment hanging out with Shauna and the phone rang. Shauna answered it. It was some girl, asking if you were there. Shauna said no, but offered to take a message.”

“What girl?” Jackie asked. Lottie kicked her. “Can you just listen?” Jackie held her hands up in apology.

“They girl didn’t want to leave a message but Shauna is Shauna, so she pushed her and finally the girl asked if you were still dating Jeff. Shauna said yes and asked why.”

Jackie scrunched her eyebrows, “Why would—.” Lottie went to kick her again and Jackie flinched, “Sorry, sorry, go on.”

Lottie gave Jackie a gentle look. “The girl said that she needed to know because she had met Jeff at a party and,” Lottie tapped her pen on the notepad, “hooked up with him.” Jackie stiffened. She knew Jeff had cheated on her with Shauna, but had thought that was the only time.

“What?”

Lottie gave her a sympathetic look, “Yeah. Shauna went ballistic. She hung up the phone and started yelling about how she was going to kill Jeff.” Jackie could picture it, Shauna storming around their apartment in a murderous rage. Lottie abandoned her flowchart to fully focus on Jackie. “Next thing I know she’s leaving the apartment with your car keys yelling about how she was going to go and actually kill him.”

Jackie gasped. “She actually went?”

Lottie nodded, “I went with her, to make sure she didn’t go to jail. She drove so fast I thought we were going to crash and die before we could even make it there. When we did make it there she nearly kicked Jeff’s door down.”

Jackie could see that too. Jeff standing in the doorway of his shitty apartment with a wild eyed Shauna looking at him like prey. The image would be comical in a different context.

“He looked genuinely afraid, so I convinced Shauna to at least hear him out for a minute,” Lottie said. “She literally gave him sixty sentences during which he swore that he hadn’t cheated on you because he loved you so much that he was going to ask you to marry him.”

Jackie felt like the Earth tipped on its axis. It took her a second to confirm that she was not physically moving, it was just her brain trying so hard to process Lottie’s words.

“He said what now?”

Lottie grimaced, “Shauna didn’t believe him until he ran away to his room and came back with a ring.”

Jackie blinked.

“He showed her the ring and mumbled on about how much he loved you and how he would never do that to you and Shauna just stood there kind of dumbstruck,” Lottie said. “She listened to him for a few minutes and then turn around and left. We drove home in silence. I finally asked her, when we were back at your apartment, if she believed him and she said yes.”

Jackie thought walking through the city with a backpack full of rocking climbing gear was going to be the weirdest part of her day, but this definitely took the cake. Jeff had planned to propose to her? She wondered if she would have said yes and felt a sense of dread when she realized the answer. Lottie was watching her carefully.

“Then what happened?” Jackie asked weakly.

“Shauna let it go, she took Jeff’s word and never mentioned it to you. Honestly I think she wanted to forget about the whole thing and figured you were better off not knowing.”

Jackie tried to remember if Shauna had acted any differently around that time and came up short. The issue was trying to recall any additional moodiness on top of Shauna’s typical moodiness.

“A few months later,” Lottie started. Jackie took a deep breath to brace herself for the next act.

Lottie started again, “A few months later, you went out of town again. Some kind of trip with your mom I think?” Jackie knew what she was talking about. Her mom had forced her to go on a mother daughter weekend retreat thrown by her mom’s former sorority. It was 48 hours in Hell.

“Jeff came to visit Shauna while you were gone, to ask for her help planning the proposal. Now,” Lottie said in a strangely stern voice, “I need you to remember that Shauna’s emotional intelligence typically hovers around 4% on a good day and this could be categorized as a particularly bad day for her, so it is safe to assume she was operating in the negatives.”

Jackie felt like she had never heard the English language before in her life. None of Lottie’s words made any sense. Jeff asked Shauna to help plan a proposal for her? She stopped her brain from running down the imaginary road of what that would have looked like and focused on Lottie.

Lottie continued, “Even though she said she believed Jeff, she couldn’t shake the feeling that he might have been lying and that he had cheated on you.” Lottie had an almost pained look on her face, “Jackie, this next part — I need you to really think about who Shauna is a person. Who she is to you. Who you are to her. Just, keep that in mind.”

Jackie managed to nod. Lottie placed a hand on Jackie’s knee. This was it, she could feel it. Three years of wondering why was about to come to an end sitting on the ground in a fortress of trees with Lottie Matthews. A strange calm came over her. She was suddenly very happy that Lottie was the one telling her this, something about it felt oddly right.

Lottie kept her hand on Jackie’s knee, “Shauna decided to test him. She made a move and he, um, reciprocated.”

Jackie winced. She had never asked Shauna for the details.

“She was going to leave it at that,” Lottie said, “but she determined that while a kiss was wrong, it was ultimately forgivable.”

Jackie almost laughed, because Shauna had been right. She knew in her bones that she would have found a way to move past Shauna and Jeff kissing. It wasn’t a big enough offense. She would have found a way to play it off. Lottie tapped her fingers on Jackie’s knee in a soothing rhythm.

“From what she told me, Jeff didn’t seem to want to stop at the kiss.”

Jackie knew that was true too. Jeff was very determined when he wanted to be.

“Shauna thought that if he was this willing to do this kind of thing with your best friend than he had most definitely done it with a random girl at a party and probably wouldn’t let being married stop him.”

Lottie looked Jackie in the eye, “Again, remember who Shauna is.” Jackie felt herself nod.

Lottie continued, “She felt stupid for having believed him when he said he didn’t do anything. She said that if she tried to tell you it would come down to his word against hers and her word was based on an anonymous phone call with no actual proof.”

Jackie wondered how that conversation would have gone. Shauna and Jeff had kept their interactions fairly limited, which saved Jackie from ever having to really choose between the two. Would she have ignored Shauna’s warnings in favor of Jeff? Marrying Jeff would have been something her parents would have encouraged. It checked all of the boxes on a list she had been drafting since she was a teenager. A two year engagement while they lived in the city, an expensive wedding, trading in her job for a house in the suburbs. Check, check, check.

But Shauna was Shauna.

Lottie looked sad, “Shauna said she was scared of you going into a lifetime of lies if you married him. She thought that if she had undeniable proof of how shitty of a person he was you would have to listen to her —  she came to the conclusion that she could live with you hating her, if it meant you were free of him.”

Jackie studied Lottie’s eyes. They often joked about the effect Lottie had on people, but there truly was something about her eyes that felt enchanting. An intriguing mix of warmth and danger. It reminded Jackie of swimming in the ocean after learning about riptides — the joy slightly tainted by the lingering fear that at any moment you could be pulled under.

“She slept with my boyfriend…for…me?”

What a stupid fucking thing to do. Why would Shauna think that hurting her was the way to help her? In what world did any of it make any sense? Why would Shauna sacrifice their friendship just to keep Jackie from marrying Jeff? But even in her outrage, a part of her followed Shauna’s logic, because she knew that there was a chance she would have accused Shauna of lying. She knew it would have been easy enough to convince herself in some twisted way that Shauna was just jealous of her life moving forward and acting out because of it -- blaming Shauna's rash emotions had always been easier than facing her own.

In the midst of her confusion, relief swept through her as a realization came to her. It felt like a demon was exorcized out of her soul. Shauna didn’t sleep with Jeff because she loved him and she didn’t do it because she hated Jackie. She had done it as a fucked up, incredibly confusing, terribly executed act of love.

She found herself thinking of the night three years ago, when Shauna had stood next to her on the roof of their apartment building and told her that she had slept with Jeff. They hadn’t even properly gotten into a fight. Shauna had confessed to Jackie and Jackie had gone numb and fixated on a plane moving lazily across the sky as Shauna stumbled through an explanation. The word please played like a back beat to Shauna’s sentences — I’m sorry, please, it meant nothing, please, it was one night, please, I love you, please.

That phrase floated to the front of Jackie’s mind. I love you. Not him. You. Jackie.

Jackie recalled how in the moment it had not been Jeff’s infidelity that had hurt, but Shauna’s.

He had stopped existing to Jackie at that very moment, but she had gone on to suffocate Jackie from 3,000 miles away every second of the last three years. Even now, finding out that Jeff had slept with another girl, Jackie didn’t care. She didn’t care enough about her relationship with him to feel betrayed.

Shauna had freed her from a lifetime of that indifference.

Jackie knew that at the time, had Jeff asked, she would have said yes. She would have married him and moved to the suburbs and been a good mom and a fine wife and an utterly hollow person. Shauna had known that too. She knew Jackie well enough to prevent her from making possibly the biggest mistake of her life — and chose to do it in the absolutely stupidest way possible.

“Shauna Shipman,” Jackie said, throwing herself onto the grass, “is the single dumbest fucking person on the face of the earth.”

Lottie laid down beside her, “All that education and not a single intelligent thought.”

Jackie watched the sunlight flicker through the leaves above her. She felt incredibly conflicted, but something in her chest relaxed for the first time in years. She was still mad at Shauna for numerous reasons: failing to just talk to her about the whole situation, robbing Jackie of the opportunity to make the decision for herself, sleeping with her boyfriend, not telling her why she slept with her boyfriend — but all the same, Jackie’s breathing felt lighter.

Jackie turned her head to look at Lottie, “Does being open to the idea of forgiving her make me a bad person?”

Lottie met her gaze. “Do you really care if it does?” Jackie considered that.

Lottie turned her head back up to the branches above them. “Do you know why I like trees so much?”

“Because they tell you secrets?”

Lottie smiled, “Yes, but also because they’re resilient. Even when the tree takes a hit, a branch falls off, the season changes, an animal makes a home — the roots are safe in the ground.”

Jackie picked a leaf off the ground and held it in front of her face. “Some trees die.”

Lottie looked at her again, “Sure they do, but even when a tree dies it creates life. The act of decomposing creates nutrients that give other plants the things they need to grow.” Lottie reached over, placing a second leaf in Jackie’s hand. “But I don’t think this tree is dead.”

Jackie let go of the leaves, letting the breeze take them. They fluttered through the air for a second before settling on the ground between her and Lottie.

She met Lottie’s eyes, “You don’t?”

“Nah, it’ll weather the storm,” Lottie tapped a finger to Jackie’s heart, “the roots are safe.”

____

Jackie and Lottie returned to the apartment to find the rest of the team already there. Tai was watching Nat and Van play a game of Connect 4 in the kitchen while Shauna read on the couch.

Shauna looked up as Jackie entered.

Jackie was overcome with the urge to grab Shauna by the shoulders and scream in her face.  She wanted to shake her while yelling, “you fucking idiot! You should have just told me when you were suspicious of Jeff! Why didn’t you talk to me? Why are you the way that you are? Why are you so confusing?”

Instead, Jackie gave Shauna a smile and held up her backpack. “Climbing gear has been secured.”

Chapter Text

Jackie stood in front of the white board in the living room with her hands interlocked on head. She studied the list she had written out.

1. Enter House (J&N&S roof, V&T catering, L guest)
2. Locate Flash Drive
3. ????????
4. Don’t Get Caught or Killed or Arrested

She groaned, glancing up at the T-minus 5 days in the corner. Nat came up beside her and looked at the board, “looks good to me.”

Jackie scowled at her. “It’s a mess.” She stretched her arms over her head and let them fall to her sides, “Everyone is coming over later to “go over the plan” and there still isn’t a plan. This whole thing is just one big, confusing mess.”

Nat laid down on the couch. “Are we talking about the strategic retrieval of stolen goods or…”

Jackie spun around to look at her. “What else would we be talking about?”

“I don’t know,” Nat said, pretending to think, “you were awfully nice to Shipman after you and Lottie got back from talking to Mari the other day.”

Jackie rolled her eyes. Nat sat up on the couch with a grin, “Lottie must have told you something, she loves getting people alone to swap secrets.”

“You would know,” Jackie countered.

Nat slumped back on to the couch with a frown. Jackie crossed to the couch and sat down, putting Nat’s feet in her lap. “Sorry,” she said, poking Nat’s foot, “I’m stressed out and trying to make sense of Shauna is not helping.”

Nat took pity on her, “It’s going to work out. You’re all-star captain Jackie Taylor.” Nat sat up, crossing her feet under her. “You scored the goal that won us nationals, getting back a single little flash drive from some petty thieves is nothing.”

Nat gave Jackie a smile that Jackie desperately wanted to return. Instead, she started crying.

Nat moved her hands in a frantic pattern, trying to figure out what was happening. “Uh what the fuck,” she said, “was my pep talk that bad?”

Jackie leaned forward, burying her head between her knees. “It was an accident,” she choked out. Nat shifted from the couch to the coffee table to sit in front of Jackie. She placed a tentative hand on Jackie’s shoulder. Jackie looked up at her.

“What are you talking about?” Nat asked, looking genuinely terrified of the situation.

Jackie wiped her eyes. “It was supposed to be a cross.”

Nat’s face shifted from scared to confused. “Across from what,” she asked, glancing around the room.

Jackie sniffled. “Not across, a cross.”

Nat looked bewildered, raising her arms to make a T shape, “like Jesus?”

Jackie threw her hands down in frustration, “No, not like JESUS — like soccer.”

Nat put her hands on her head. “When did we start talking about soccer?!”

Jackie let out an exasperated sound, “The goal! The goal that won nationals! It was an accident!”

“What are you talking about?”

The goal was a beauty. Jackie had caught the entire back line off guard with a shot from outside the box in the last two minutes of stoppage time. A solid hit that soared clean past the closest defender right into the back of the net. Jackie Taylor and her golden goal. Her accidental golden goal.

Jackie took a very deep breath. “The game was almost over and we were tied 2-2.”

“I remember,” Nat said, still incredibly confused.

“There was a defender on the other team that had spent the entire game making really aggressive and reckless tackles.”

Nat made a disgusted noise, “I know who you’re talking about, we wore the same number. She almost broke Tai’s ankle in the first half.”

Jackie continued, “Right #7 — she sucked. Like I said, the game was almost over and we were running a play that we had practiced a million times. Shauna was in the box and I was setting up to cross the ball to her when I saw the girl move towards Shauna. I had been watching her the whole game, I knew what was going to happen, and then suddenly the ball was leaving my foot.”

Jackie hesitated. Nat looked at her. Jackie nodded slightly, “#7 had good reflexes, I’ll give her that.”

Nat started to laugh. “No way.”

Jackie bit her lip, “I was hoping to break her nose, but she ducked and—”

“You fucking scored.”

Jackie nodded.

Nat started laughing so hard that she fell back onto the table. “People talked about that goal for months!” She said in-between laughs. “They still have a picture of you framed at the school! I once wore my jersey to the gas station and the guy working there ask me if I knew that girl who scored the goal, as if I wasn’t also on the team.”

“I know,” Jackie said miserably.

Nat sat up, still chuckling. Jackie gave her a dejected look.

“Now do you see the problem? I’m a fraud! Everyone is trusting me to figure this out and I have no idea what I’m doing!”

“Jack,” Nat said, “you’re not a fraud. You still captained us through an entire season, a state tournament and a national tournament. The fact that you accidentally won us nationals doesn’t take away from that, if anything it’s more impressive. It’s also worth mentioning that that was almost ten years ago — you’ve done quite a few other impressive things in the last decade. No one is helping you with this because you were the captain of our high school soccer team.” She patted Jackie’s knee. “We’re helping you because you’re our friend. That, and because you would probably die if you tried to so this alone and no one wants that on their conscious.”

Jackie rubbed at her nose. “That was beautiful," she held her arms out, “we should hug.”

Nat stood up, putting a step between her and Jackie. She held up her hands. “We don’t need to do that.” Jackie stood as well, inching towards Nat. Nat dodged her, “Jackie, I’m serious. We don’t need to hug.” Nat ran away, putting the coffee table between herself and Jackie.

“Fine,” Jackie said, “if that’s what you want.”

Jackie turned as if going into the kitchen. As soon as Nat dropped her guard Jackie planted one foot on the coffee table and cleared it, landing next to Nat. Nat screamed as Jackie wrapped into an aggressive hug.

__

Later that day, Jackie sat at the kitchen table with Nat, Lottie and Van eating pizza.

“Is Tai coming?” Jackie asked Van, finishing off a piece of crust Lottie had abandoned.

“Yeah,” Van said, “she had to finish something for work. Shauna had a meeting near Tai’s office so they planned to meet up and head over together. They should be here soon.”

“Speaking of offices,” Nat said, looking at Jackie, “don’t you have a job? You haven’t gone to work in days.”

“My boss thinks I have pneumonia,” Jackie said simply, wiping crumbs off her hands. Nat started to object but decided to let it go.

“I still can’t believe Shauna is an author,” Van continued, “I mean I can believe it — it just makes me feel wildly unsuccessful.”

Nat rolled her eyes, “I’m sure it was so hard to find time to write in between drinking French wine and eating bread and looking at art or whatever it is people do in Paris.”

Lottie offered a second crust to Jackie, “Shauna worked all the time the first year she was there. It was much more fun to visit after she finished her contract with that company and had actual free time.”

“How often did you visit her?” Van asked, grabbing a second slice of pizza.

“A few times a year,” Lottie said casually.

Van studied Lottie. “Your life fascinates me.”

Lottie chuckled, “I made a point of scheduling time to see her just to make sure she was okay.”

“She was that busy?” Van asked around a bite.

Lottie shook her head, “It wasn’t the work, it was her. She was in a,” Lottie glanced at Jackie, “weird place. I think it helped her to know when I was coming and when I would be back. I even offered to let her hit me, to release some of the tension, but she wouldn't do it.”

“What do you mean hit you?” Jackie asked with a frown, setting her crust down on a plate.

“I thought it would be helpful for her to express her emotions physically.”

Jackie looked worried. “Did she?”

Lottie looked dejected, “No. She insisted that we go drinking instead. Although after her fifth unprompted rendition of that Phil Collins song "Something Happened on the Way to Heaven” I started to wish she had beat me unconscious.”

“Shauna listens to Phil Collins?” Nat asked.

Jackie looked annoyed, “Everyone listens to Phil Collins.”

“I don’t,” Nat said.

Van pointed to the CD tower next to the TV, “I can see the Tarzan soundtrack from here.”

“That’s different,” Nat said, glancing over.

Van laughed. “You’re not even going to pretend it’s Jackie’s?”

Nat shrugged in response. “I respect good music. I just don’t remember Shauna being a Genesis fan.”

“Her mom is,” Jackie said. She remembered being a kid and dancing in the Shipman’s kitchen while Shauna’s mom made them lunch. A knock at the door pulled her from the memory. Jackie got up from the table and opened the door to find Tai and Shauna on the other side.

Tai entered without hesitation. “Oh you have food, thank god,” she said, dumping her bag by the door and going to join Van at the others at the table.

Shauna lingered in the hallway looking unsure of her next move. Jackie nudged the door open wider. “Coming in?”

Shauna hesitated. Jackie glanced over shoulder at their friends and pulled the door closer to her, blocking her and Shauna from view. “Look,” Jackie said, not quite meeting Shauna’s eyes, “we’re okay.”

Shauna looked surprised. “We are?”

Jackie sighed, “We’re not fine, but we’re okay. For now.”

Shauna still looked hesitant. “Are you sure?”

A flare of annoyance shot through Jackie, “Would you prefer that we weren’t?”

“No,” Shauna said quickly, “I figured — you never, we never. You never yelled or anything.”

Jackie gave her a confused look. “What are you talking about?”

Shauna kicked at the floor with the toe of her shoe, “I’ve just kind of been waiting for you to, I don’t know, snap at me.”

“Do you want me to yell at you?”

“No,” Shauna said. “You can though,” she added, “if you want to.”

Jackie crossed her arms over her chest, “I don’t want to.”

Her anger had fizzled out a long time ago. Jackie noticed how tense Shauna’s body was and reached out a hand. She balanced the tips of her fingers on the side of Shauna’s arm.

“Shipman, relax.”

Jackie knew Shauna had been punishing herself for years. Jackie could see it in the way she was holding her body — constantly braced for the hit she felt she deserved. No one in the world, not even Jackie, could torture Shauna the way she tortured herself. She settled her hand on Shauna’s arm.

“I’m making an executive decision — you and I are a-okay.”

Shauna blinked at her. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Jackie said forcefully.

“Okay.” Shauna said in a much more confident voice.

“Great,” Jackie said, pushing the door open all the way, “then come in. We have planning to do.”

—

Once all of them had eaten, Jackie forced them all into the living room to help brainstorm a plan. Van, Tai, and Lottie took up the couch while Shauna occupied the arm chair. Nat had brought over a chair from the kitchen and somehow, much to Jackie’s surprise, ended up in the space between Lottie and Shauna. Jackie stood in front of the white board facing them all.

“Lottie,” Jackie said, pointing to her, “once you get into the party you’ll need to make your way to the second floor — we’re counting on you to get a lay of the land.”

“I’ll find Travis,” Lottie said, “and see that I can get out of him. It’ll be fun for the two of us to catch up.”

Jackie saw Nat crack her knuckles, trying to look uninterested in what Lottie was saying.

“Do you think Travis will know what it is they’re trying to sell?”

“No,” Lottie said, “I think it’s more about creating a place for people to meet. Then he takes a cut off all profits for providing the venue.”

“Rich people are so weird,” Van said.

Lottie shrugged, “Travis is new to the scene, he’s most likely trying to build a reputation in the city.”

“He also hates his dad,” Nat said, not looking at Lottie, “so doing something that puts his dad’s party at risk is probably a bonus.”

“He has daddy issues?” Van said to Nat, “your relationship is starting to make more sense.”

Nat flicked Van off.

“Okay,” Jackie said, “Tai and Van, you will be in charge of tracking Alice and her friends through the party.”

“How do we know what they look like?” Tai asked.

Jackie gestured to a folder on the coffee table. Tai picked it up and pulled out several pictures of Alice, Patrick, and Colin at various locations. “Where the hell did you get these?”

“Misty,” Jackie said.

Van leaned over to look at the pictures, “She kind of has a talent for this.”

Tai gave Van a look. “What?” Van asked, “the lighting on these is really good. If I was being stalked by a curly-haired psycho I would hope the pictures turned out well.”

“Misty isn’t stalking them,” Jackie said, “she’s surveilling them.”

“Is there a difference?” Tai asked, shifting through the pictures.

“Sure there is,” Jackie said, “Surveillance is about observing people who may or may not be committing a crime. Stalking—”

“Is what Misty does to all of us,” Nat finished.

Jackie tapped the whiteboard marker she was holding against her thigh, “Misty doesn’t stalk us.”

“I don’t know about that,” Shauna said, “last time I saw her she told me to remember to call my landlord in France about getting my security deposit back. That’s something I do need to do, but I have no idea how she knew.”

Nat held a hand out towards Shauna, “See, stalking.” Shauna smiled at Nat. Nat dropped her hand, giving Shauna a glare.

“Misty’s actions aside,” Jackie said, “she has provided us with the pictures we need for Van and Tai to keep tabs on Alice and her accomplices during the party. We need to know where they are and what they are doing to determine the best time to steal the drive.”

“Question,” Tai said, setting the photos down, “how are we supposed to tell you what they’re doing if we’re all in different places?”

“I have the answer to that,” Lottie said. She reached down to the bag and her feet and pulled a small box out of it. She placed it on the table. “We use these.”

They all looked at her. “What are these?” Jackie said, bending down to open the box. She pulled out a clear earphone connected to a wire and held it up.

“Earpieces,” Lottie said. She pointed to the other piece in Jackie’s hand, “and microphones.”

“Where did you get these?” Van asked, taking one out of the box.

“From my dad’s security team.”

“Your dad has a security team?” Tai asked, accepting the device Van was handing her.

Lottie rolled her eyes. “He got threatened by climate protestors one time and now acts like his life is in danger. I think it just makes him feel important.”

Shauna caught the earpiece Van tossed to her, “And they just gave you these?”

“They gave them, I took them — do the details really matter?” Lottie asked.

Shauna laughed, “I forgot you had a habit of taking things.”

Jackie, who was too focused on inspecting her earpiece to hear the full exchange, snapped her head up. “Taking things? Lottie, what are you taking? Drugs? You do drugs?”

Everyone turned to Jackie and burst out laughing. Jackie blushed.

“What? No — well sometimes, but not like hard ones — no,” Lottie said with a laugh, “I steal things.”

Jackie gasped. “That is not better!”

“Uh Jackie,” Shauna said, fighting her smile, “we’re kind of actively planning a robbery at the moment.”

Jackie sputtered, “Well, this is different, this is—”

“A strategic retrieval of stolen goods!” Van declared.

“Thank you, Van,” Jackie said. Van gave her a salute. Jackie rubbed her face, hoping her cheeks weren’t as red as they felt. “Anyway,” she said, “regardless of the way Lottie obtained these, they will be very helpful — so thank you, Lot.”

“Happy to help,” Lottie said.

“Now that we know how we're going to communicate, we can get back to the plan,” Jackie said. “With Lottie figuring out the where and Van and Tai tracking the who that leaves us,” Jackie looked and Shauna and Nat, “to do the retrieving.”

Shauna and Nat shared a quick, disgruntled look.

“Seeing as I’ve never scaled a building before, I think we need to do some kind of practice before the real thing,” Jackie said.

“We could push Shauna off the roof,” Nat suggested, “to test the ropes or whatever.”

“Wouldn’t the point of testing the ropes be to confirm she didn’t fall off the roof?” Van asked.

“We could forget the ropes,” Nat said with a shrug.

Jackie glanced at Shauna, who was staying surprisingly silent. “We’re not going to throw Shauna off the roof.”

Nat rolled her eyes. Shauna gave Jackie a small smile.

“My parent’s brownstone,” Lottie said, “has second story windows in the back, we could try it there. If you fell it wouldn’t be very far — just on to the deck.”

“Aren’t your parents going to notice Jackie swinging off the back of their house?” Tai asked.

Lottie sighed, “I could burn that house to the ground and my parents wouldn’t notice, but they’re going out of town until the day before the party so we can do it before they get back.”

“What about the neighbors?” Tai asked.

Lottie shrugged, “I doubt anyone will ask, but if they do I’ll just say Jackie is swinging around to wash the windows or something.”

Jackie looked alarmed, “I will not be swinging.” She gave Nat and Shauna a firm look. “There will be no swinging, it will be a controlled descent.”

Nat and Shauna shared a much less hostile look. Jackie wondered if she could annoy them into being a united front.

“No swinging,” Shauna said with a nod, “got it.”

“Okay so assuming Jackie doesn’t die during the test run,” Tai started.

“Jackie is not going to die,” Shauna interrupted very aggressively.

“Woah, okay,” Tai said, holding up her hands, “obviously I was kidding.”

“It’s not a funny joke.”

Jackie felt herself blush again and fixated on cleaning a spec of non-existent dust off her pants. She could feel Shauna’s eyes on her and doubled down on the dust.

“Okay,” Tai said, giving Shauna an amused look, “let’s skip ahead to when Team Roof makes it into the building with everyone unharmed and very much alive.”

Jackie looked up to see Shauna give Tai curt nod. She looked away before Shauna could make eye contact with her.

“Right,” Jackie said, “once we make it in we’ll wait for Lottie’s signal to know where to go.”

“Assuming Travis tells her,” Van said.

“He’ll tell me,” Lottie said confidently, “people love to tell me things.”

Nat made a noise. Lottie turned to look at her.

“Alrighty,” Jackie said, getting ahead of whatever Lottie and Nat were about to fall in to, “Lottie will tell us what room to aim for and then—”

“Sorry,” Tai interrupted, not seeming very sorry, “I’m still confused on what you’re actually going to do once you know where the flash drive is. Are you kicking down a door, are you pick-pocketing someone, are you waiting for the trade to go down and then jumping the person who bought it?”

“Perhaps we will be asking very nicely,” Jackie said.

Tai’s face fell. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

“Of course I’m kidding,” Jackie said, “look, if you want my honest answer, I don’t know. It’s kind of hard to plan for something when you don’t have all the facts. But what I do know is that—”

“We’ll figure it out,” Shauna said. Everyone turned to her. Shauna played with the earpiece in her hand. “We can talk about this for hours but none of it is going to matter until we’re actually in the moment. We know our end goal, we can figure the rest out as we go.”

“You know,” Van said, “in the movies things almost never go according to plan. It may be easier to not have a plan at all and see what happens.”

Jackie tapped the board behind her. “We do have a plan. It is a loose plan that still has some open variables, but it is a plan.”

Nat stood up from her chair and joined Jackie at the board.

“How about,” she said, taking the marker from Jackie, “we call this our official plan.” She erased the third point from Jackie’s plan and wrote in her own.

1. Enter House (J&N&S roof, V&T catering, L guest)
2. Locate Flash Drive
3. Kick Ass
4. Don’t Get Caught or Killed or Arrested

She circled the list with a flourish and turned back to the team.

“Easy enough to follow?”

Tai leaned back against the couch cushions and closed her eyes, “At least I’ll get courtroom practice defending you guys against breaking and entering charges.”

Van patted her thigh. “That’s the spirit! Now,” Van said, addressing the group, “we still have a very important conversation to have.”

Tai opened an eye to look at Van, “And what is that?”

Van grinned. “Code names.”

Jackie clapped her hands, “I hadn’t even thought of that!”

“Fear not,” Van said, pulling a piece of paper out of her pocket. “I have already figured them all out.”

Nat returned to her chair, “Oh this should be good.”

Van made a show of unfolding the paper, “Shauna, you’re The Butcher.”

Shauna gave her an offended look, “What, why? I’ve never killed anything.”

“Well,” Jackie said, rocking back and forth on her heels, “that’s not completely true.”

Shauna turned to Jackie, “Oh come on Jackie, you have to let that go.”

Jackie shrugged very dramatically, “I can’t just forget Kimberly, I loved her.”

The rest of the group traded incredibly confused looks. Nat raised her hand wearily, “I’ll bite, who the fuck is Kimberly.”

Shauna crossed her arms, “a hamster.”

Jackie scoffed, “She was more than a hamster! She was a part of my family and Shauna hated her because she bit her one time.”

“Shauna killed your hamster?” Van asked, giving Shauna a horrified look, “The butcher thing was a joke!”

Shauna threw arms up in exasperation. “I did not kill Kimberly! Jackie’s neighbor’s cat killed Kimberly!”

Van frowned, “How did a cat get to your hamster? Don’t hamsters live in cages?”

Shauna looked at Jackie, leaning forward to rest her chin on her fist, “Yeah Jax, how did your neighbor’s cat get to Kimberly? Surely it didn’t come into your house, open the cage and pull poor little Kimberly to her death?”

Jackie felt the sudden urge to organize the photos on the coffee table. She bent down and started pulling them into piles, “No, the cat didn’t come into my house.”

“Did, perhaps,” Shauna said, fighting back a grin, “someone leave the cage door open and let their hamster run freely in their bedroom?”

Tai made a face. “Ww Jackie, that’s gross, those things poop everywhere.”

“Well excuse me for wanting to offer her an exciting life,” Jackie said, slamming a stack of photos onto the table.

“Wait,” Van said, “You let your hamster run free in your house, it got out, your neighbor’s cat killed it. How does Shauna fit into it?”

Jackie returned to her feet and crossed her arms in a stubborn motion, “Like I said, Shauna hated Kimberly. I can’t rule out that she may have been the one to leave the cage door open.”

Shauna burst out laughing. “Everyone hated Kimberly! She bit me, she bit your mom, she bit your dad, she bit you like 50 times.”

Despite herself, Jackie started to chuckle, “God, she really was awful.”

“Jackie, that hamster hated you — to be fair to her though, you did try to shove her into a lot of Barbie clothes,” Shauna said, pretending to chastise her.

“Jackie, you have to be kind to animals,” Lottie said in a solemn voice.

“I am nice to animals!” Jackie said, “I let Kimberly run free!”

“Right into the jaws of a predator,” Van said, shaking their head.

“Oh my god Jackie, that poor thing probably died trying to get away from you. I bet it figured out how to open the cage itself,” Tai said.

Nat gave Jackie a stern look. “This is why I said no to the fish you wanted to buy.”

Van looked at her list, “Well damn, I had Jackie as The Captain, but maybe she should be The Butcher.”

“When did this become Everyone Lectures Jackie About Animal Treatment time?” Jackie asked.

Van looked at a pretend watch, “3 pm is always ELJAAT time.”

“I have it on my calendar,” Nat said with a knowing look.

Lottie leaned over to look at Van’s paper, “Do all your code names start with The?”

Van crumpled the paper to hide it, “doesn’t matter now, I need to re-evaluate. We can revisit this later.”

“Are code names really necessary?” Tai asked, finally sitting up.

“Uh yes, how else are we supposed to protect our identities?” Van asked, looking outraged at the question.

“From whom? Who is after our identities?” Tai responded, narrowing her eyes.

“The bad guys,” Van said.

“The bad guys? What are they going to do — intercept our radio frequencies?” Tai said, holding up the earpiece in her hand.

Van looked scandalized. “Do you pay attention to any of the movies we watch? That’s exactly what they’re going to do!”

Jackie intervened, “Okay, let’s all calm down. Code names are not a bad idea but we don’t have to pick them now. We have a few days.”

“Why don’t we just use our soccer numbers,” Shauna suggested. “This whole thing is a team reunion of sorts isn’t it?”

“Who needs bad food in a high school gym when you can commit a crime,” Nat said, leaning back in her chair.

“That works for me,” Van said, standing up and holding a hand out over the coffee table, “seeing as I’m always number one.” She wiggled her eyebrows at the rest of them. Jackie beamed.

“Guess that makes me Five,” Lottie said, standing and stacking her hand on top of Van’s.

Shauna got up too. “Six,” she said, covering Lottie’s hand with her own.

Nat looked at Jackie smiling and hauled herself up to stand next to Shauna with a groan. “Seven,” she said lazily, hovering her hand over Shauna’s without touching it.

Tai looked between all of them. Shauna gave her a play along look and a nod. Tai got up, “Oh my god fine, Eight.”

Jackie shot an arm out to complete the stack, slamming all of their hands together, “Nine!”

Jackie beamed at all of them, “Buz—”

“No!” Nat and Tai said at the same time, pulling their hands free.

___

Three days later, Jackie stood in the spare bedroom of Lottie’s parent’s house watching Shauna and Nat tie knots. The two of them had spent most of the last few days reading books about rock climbing and surprisingly not fighting.

At one point Shauna had left in a hurry, making Jackie think she had somehow missed the two of them getting into a fight — only for Shauna to return an hour later with a stack of dated firefighter and Army rappelling manuals from the library. The two of them had even gone out together and come back with additional supplies to add to the pile of things Jackie had bought with Lottie.

Now, Nat and Shauna were each wearing a harness of their own, and were using ropes to secure them to the one Jackie would wear. They had gone into detail about how they were going to stand and tie the ropes to use their bodies as anchors, but Jackie had gotten overwhelmed while listening and decided to just trust them.

“Okay,” Shauna said, looking up at Jackie, “ready?”

“No,” Jackie said, very aware for the first time of what she had agreed to do. She walked over to the window and looked down. Van, Lottie and Tai had dragged two mattresses onto the deck and stacked them on top of each other. Lottie waved up at Jackie.

“It’s not that high!” Lottie shouted.

She turned around to find Shauna standing behind her, holding out the harness. Jackie stepped into it using Shauna’s shoulder for balance. She watched Shauna pull on the straps to tighten it into place.

Nat stood up from where she was kneeling on the floor. “Looks good,” she said, tugging on the straps Shauna had adjusted. Nat pulled a pair of gloves out of her back pocket and handed them to Jackie, “put these on.”

Nat and Shauna shared a nod as Jackie pulled on the gloves.

“Please, please, don’t drop me,” Jackie said.

Shauna put a hand on Jackie’s shoulder, “Jax, we’re not going to drop you. I’m not going to drop you, okay? You’re safe.”

Jackie relaxed, letting out a small breath. She looked between Nat and Shauna and clapped her hands in an official manner, the sound muffled by her new gloves, “Okay let’s do this.”

Nat walked past Jackie carrying a rope, looking over the edge of the window she shouted, “Move!” before throwing it down.

Shauna took Jackie’s hands and wrapped them around the front of her harness, “keep your dominant hand here and your other hand here,” Shauna said, positioning Jackie’s hands. “The rope is going to do all the work, you just have to keep it steady.”

Jackie nodded. Shauna squeezed her hands, “And remember to lean back. It’s going to feel weird, but it’s important.”

“You’re saying this like you’ve done it,” Jackie said, searching Shauna’s face for the source of her confidence.

Shauna grinned, “Yeah well, Nat and I made a pact not to drop you and there’s no version of this where I let you get hurt, so I’ve been pretty focused.”

Behind them, Nat coughed. “Are we doing this?”

Shauna gave Jackie’s hands one final squeeze before backing up. Jackie walked up to the window and turned back to Nat and Shauna. They were standing a few feet apart with their knees bent, both holding the rope in front of them. Between the two of them and Jackie, the ropes made a triangle.

Nat smiled at Jackie. “The holding is a second defense,” she nodded down at the harness around her waist, “the rope is locked to us here too. We got you.”

Jackie gave them both one last look before climbing up on the edge of the window. She glanced down and saw Lottie, Van and Tai waving.

“You got this!” Tai said.

Jackie took a breath, bracing her hands on the rope, she closed her eyes and leaned back. She counted to five in her head and then opened her eyes, pleased to find that she was not falling to her death. She took a tentative step backwards and was relieved when the rope held.

“Take it slow,” she heard Shauna say from inside.

Slowly Jackie walked herself down the side of the building, focusing on the rhythm of her steps. As she went, Nat and Shauna’s voices grew quieter and Tai, Lottie, and Van’s grew louder.

“You’re almost there,” Lottie said, no longer needing to shout for Jackie to hear. Jackie risked a look over her shoulder and saw that she was level with Lottie’s eyes. Lottie turned her head sideways.

“I think you can stand up now,” she said with a smile.

Cautiously, Jackie pulled her feet from the wall and let herself hang. Her feet landed on the mattresses and she stood up, the rope pulling against her. She looked up at the window and let out a laugh.

“Wowza.”

Van, Lottie, and Tai were all smiling at her. Van clapped her on the back.

“That was awesome!”

Jackie gave the rope in front of her three hard tugs to let Nat and Shauna know she was down. She felt it go completely slack against her and knew they got the message. A second later, they were both leaning out the window looking down at her.

“Are you okay?” Jackie called up to them.

“Yep, you?” Shauna answered.

Jackie gave them a thumbs up. Nat and Shauna high-fived.

They ran it four more times. By the third time, Jackie was pushing off the building like she had seen characters do in movies. They only stopped when it started to get dark and both Nat and Shauna were complaining of back pain from anchoring the rope.

__

Later that night, Jackie stood on the deck looking up at the stars. Van and Tai had left after helping Lottie return the mattresses to their rightful places and Nat had gone with Lottie to pick up food for dinner, a decision Jackie intended to interrogate her about later.

She heard the door open behind her.

“Hey,” Jackie said, not taking her eyes off the sky.

Shauna joined her at the railing and looked up, “hey.”

They stood like that for a few minutes, both looking up at the stars.

“You know,” Jackie said at last, “last time we stood outside to look at the stars like this…”

Shauna gave her a side glance, “I think it’s your turn to drop an Earth shattering secret.”

Jackie turned to face her. The adrenaline from the day's activities was still moving through her.

“I know why you did it.”

Shauna looked at her, her eyes wide, “you do?”

Jackie nodded, “I know about the proposal. That he was going to, so you — I know.”

Shauna leaned on the railing, rubbing her eyes, “Lottie?”

“Yep,” Jackie said, leaning forward on her elbows. She balanced up on her toes and settled her feet back down. They both started to speak at the same time.

“I’m sor—” Shauna said.

“Why didn’t y—” Jackie said.

“You go,” Shauna said.

Jackie bit at her thumb nail. “Why didn’t you just tell me the whole story?”

Shauna looked back up at the sky. “Does the story matter? I did what I did, the reason why doesn’t change that.”

“That’s so unfair,” Jackie said annoyed, “you don’t just get to decide that.”

Shauna gave her a confused look. “What do you mean?”

“You just decided that I would hate you for it and never gave me the chance to actually choose if I wanted to. And then you left. I know I asked you to go, but you didn’t even fight me on it, you just accepted the job and were gone a week later.”

“You wanted space,” Shauna said.

“I know,” Jackie looked at Shauna, “I guess I just expected you to fight harder for,” she hesitated, “our friendship. By not telling me the whole truth, I don’t know, I thought you hated me or something. That was my first thought when you agreed to leave — she must really hate me.”

Jackie could see Shauna’s jaw flexing and knew she was biting the inside of her cheek. A habit she had picked up as a little kid and never outgrown.

“I didn’t ha—” Shauna started, but Jackie kept going.

“I did a lot of reflecting to try and pinpoint exactly when it would have been that you started to hate me but it couldn’t have been a single moment, it had to have been a slow burn years in the making.”

Jackie pushed off the railing and took a few steps back, “I realized that I had spent a lot of time trying to be this version of myself that I thought I was supposed to want. I got so wrapped up in this whirlpool of trying to be that person that I never stopped to realize that I was drowning you in it. I treated you like a sidekick. I told you how to dress and who to talk to and where to go —.”

She looked at Shauna. “But you stayed. You stayed because you’re better than me. You’re a better friend and a better person, so you stayed. The more I thought about it the more I convinced myself that I was right, that I had been too self centered to realize that you had been looking for a way out.” Jackie let out a humorless laugh, “I started to think — no wonder you fucked my boyfriend, I fucked up your whole life.”

Jackie pulled a flower off a potted plant and started tearing it apart, letting the petals fall around her feet. “But then you started sending me letters and I was so confused — because why would someone who hates me send me letters saying they were sorry and why did I care so much about hearing from someone I was supposed to hate for what they did. Talking to Lottie the other day made me realize that you didn’t hate me. The same way I couldn’t hate you,” Jackie rubbed a petal between her fingers, staining the tips red, “but knowing how I used to treat you, maybe you should have.”

Shauna looked down at the petals on the deck. “That’s not true.”

“Shauna.” Jackie said.

“Okay,” Shauna said, rubbing her neck, “pieces of that are true. We’ve always been so intertwined that sometimes I don't even know where you end and I begin and whenever it felt like I needed you more than you needed me — I would get so scared, because who the fuck would I be on my own? I had spent so much time letting you tell me who to be, even when I resented you for it, that I didn’t know who I was without you.”

Shauna hugged her arms to her chest. “Then everything with Jeff happened. He showed up asking me to plan his proposal and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t help him take you away. I was so afraid of what that would mean for us, for me, so I…did what I did. A big part of me did it for you, to prove what kind of person he was but if I’m brutally honest with you, and with myself — in that moment,” Shauna met Jackie’s eyes, “there was also a part of me that wanted to take something from you. To balance the scales and prove that I could be someone on my own.”

Jackie felt a raindrop land on her hand and looked up to see a cloudless sky. Confused, she touched a hand to her face and realized it was a tear. She wiped it off her cheek.

Shauna continued, her voice thick, “I did what I did because I wanted you to know how awful of a person Jeff was and I wanted you to be free of him, but I also did it for me. Jackie I’m not better than you, not by a long shot. I did a horrible thing but I didn’t do it because I hated you. I never have and I never will.”

Shauna look a step forward, reaching out towards Jackie. “How could I hate the only person I’ve ever—”

The backdoor flew open. “Food is here!” Nat said, sticking her head out onto the deck.

Shauna dropped her hand, flexing her fingers into a fist. Jackie blinked hard, trying to regain her emotional balance.

Nat looked at Jackie and frowned. “Hey, what happened to your face?”

Jackie turned to look at her reflection in the window and saw the coloring from the flower on her fingers had mixed with the tears on her face, creating red streaks across her cheek. She wiped at it with the back of her hand. “Nothing, it’s from the flowers,” she said, holding up her hands to show Nat.

Nat stepped out onto the deck. “Are you crying?” She turned to Shauna. “What the fuck did you do?”

Jackie stepped forward towards Nat, “I’m not crying, it’s allergies” She gestured towards the flowers on the ground, “I was messing around with the flowers and then rubbed my eyes — it must have made them water.”

Nat took in the scene, still glaring at Shauna. “If you say so.”

Jackie wiped her hands on her pants. “You said the food is here?”

“Yeah,” Nat said, giving Jackie a suspicious look, “it’s in the kitchen.”

“Then let’s eat it,” Jackie said, mimicking Nat’s tone. She pointed to the ruined flowers at her feet, “I’m going to clean this up and then we’ll be right there.”

Nat didn’t move. Jackie gave her a hard look. “We’ll be right there, Nat.”

“Fine,” Nat said, throwing Shauna a dirty look. She disappeared into the house, leaving the door open.

“Hm,” Shauna said, watching Nat leave, “our truce might be over.”

“Shauna,” Jackie said, “this might be kinda fucked up but—”

Shauna gave her a nervous look.

“I think we’re still okay. We might actually be fine.”

“What?"

Jackie laughed, catching herself off guard. “We’ve known each other for over twenty years and this may be the first time we ever had a completely honest conversation.”

The realization of that struck Jackie — the two of them had spent years having the same petty arguments while always managing to avoid one big enough to break them, but maybe the break was what they had needed all along. Jackie's grandma had once told her that in order to grow, plants need room to breath. Jackie and Shauna had grown so intertwined that they began to choke each other in slow motion, locked in a constant competition neither of them would ever win. Being apart had given them both space to learn who they were without each other and to grow independently.

Jackie shrugged, “What if we just keep doing that? Let’s just be honest even if it’s messy. I’d rather clean up a mess than be stuck in the dark.”

Shauna considered that. “I can do that," she said, "but do you really want the truth all of the time?”

Jackie’s heart dropped, not expecting Shauna to have something to reveal so soon. She swallowed and nodded.

“I really like mushrooms.”

“No you don’t,” Jackie said immediately.

Shauna gave a weak laugh. “No, you don’t, I do. I always have. You made such a fuss about them that I just let it go — but I actually love them.”

“Shauna, that’s disgusting,” Jackie said, “mushrooms are disgusting. They’re fungus, you know that right? You’re literally eating dirty fungus.”

“I’m not pulling them out of the ground,” Shauna said, “I’m talking about clean, normal mushrooms from the store. Sautéed in butter? They’re good.”

“I take it back,” Jackie said, “no more honesty.”

“I also tried snails in Paris, didn’t hate them,” Shauna said.

“Oh my, god!” Jackie said, moving towards the door, “you let everyone tear me apart over Kimberly knowing you had eaten defenseless snails?”

She turned back to look at Shauna and found Shauna watching her. Their eyes met and Jackie remembered that Shauna had been saying something when Nat showed up.

“What were you going to say before Nat came out?” Jackie asked.

Shauna shook her head. “Nothing.”

Jackie frowned. “Two seconds into this deal and you’re already lying, Shipman.”

Shauna studied her. Jackie tapped her foot impatiently. “You said, how could I ever hate the only person. Only person what?”

Shauna gave her a look that Jackie couldn’t quite decode.

“The only person I’ve ever cared about the way I care about you,” Shauna said. She gave Jackie a crooked smile, “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had — you know that right?”

Jackie had a feeling that Shauna was holding something back, but this was still new and she could see that Shauna was trying. They were moving forward.

“Same to you, Ship.”

Chapter Text

The morning of the robbery Jackie woke up two hours before her alarm. Quietly, careful not to wake Nat, she went about cleaning the entire apartment. Once that was done she changed into a pair of running shorts and her favorite shirt, one from a college intramural soccer tournament so faded that the name Shipman written on the back could just barely be made out, and went for a five mile run.

After showering and eating breakfast, Jackie decided to reorganize her closet. Thirty minutes into her project she heard Nat emerge from her room. The usual sounds of Nat’s morning routine were disrupted by music. Jackie stopped what she was going and listened. A familiar beat was reverberating through the apartment. She opened her bedroom door and leaned out to see Nat standing in the living room swaying slightly to the music.

“Is this what I think it is?” Jackie asked.

Nat turned and gave her a reluctant smile. She held up a decorated CD case. “Figured if there was ever a time for Jackie’s Ultimate Pump Up Jams, this was it.”

Jackie sprinted into the living room, arriving next to Nat just in time for “Whoomp! There It Is” to start.

“Jackie,” Nat said, looking horrified, “is this the Mickey Mouse version?!”

Jackie jumped onto the coffee table. “You bet your ass it is.”

Nat watched Jackie hit every word with a mystified look on her face. Jackie’s rendition of the shaka laka shaka laka part in her best Goofy voice sent Nat to the ground in a fit of laughter.

“You’re such a massive loser,” Nat said, pulling herself to a sitting position, “just an unbelievably dorky individual.”

Jackie jumped from the table to the couch with a grin, “And proud of it.”
__

By the time the rest of the team, excluding Lottie, had shown up they had made it through the entire CD. Shauna happened to arrive midway through Jackie’s second performance of Mickey and Friend’s cover of Whoomp! and was delighted to jump in with a Donald impersonation that left Nat speechless.

Van gave them a round of applause when they were done. Tai shook her head, “I still don’t get how you two know that song so well.”

Shauna laughed, “Jackie babysat a kid who loved it. She would sing it all the time so we both started to slip it into mixtapes as a joke.”

“The rule was you couldn’t skip it when it came on and Shauna thought it would be funny to make a tape that had it as every other song,” Jackie said with a smile.

“It was funny!” Shauna protested, “until the cassette got stuck in the tape deck for two months.”

“I finally had to pay a guy in my math class fifty bucks to get it out but by that time the damage was done,” Jackie said, “we knew it by heart.”

Lottie arrived at last, carrying two large tote bags. She kicked the door closed behind her and placed the bags on the coffee table.

“Whatcha got, Lot?” Van asked in a singsong voice.

“Clothes,” Lottie announced, “we’re going to do it in style.”

She pulled two outfits out of one bag and held them out, “Van and Tai these are for you. I know you said you had clothes that would work, but I checked with Mari and these are the actual uniforms the waiters will be wearing.”

Van unfolded a dress shirt and pants. “How did you know our sizes?”

Lottie frowned. “What do you mean, I just looked at you.”

“And you instantly knew what size we are?” Tai asked, holding up a pair of pants to her waist.

“Are the sizes wrong?” Lottie asked.

Tai checked the tag on the pants she was holding. “No,” she said with a small frown, “they’re right.”

“Okay,” Lottie said with a smile. She turned to Nat, Shauna, and Jackie. “Now for you three.”

She laid out three matching sets of black cargo pants and t-shirts. From the second bag she pulled out black sneakers and baseball hats.

Nat picked up one of the hats. “Did you steal this stuff?”

“No,” Lottie said, “I used my T.J. Maxx bucks.”

“Which you earn from?” Nat asked.

“Returning the clothes I did steal,” Lottie said casually.

“There it is,” Nat said, putting the hat on.

Jackie held the t-shirt to her chest and looked down at it. Shauna bumped her with her hip, “You good?”

“Yeah,” Jackie said, putting the shirt down, “it just feels really real all of a sudden.”

“I would hope so,” Tai said while buttoning up her new shirt, “because in a couple hours it is going to be very real.”

Jackie and Nat and Shauna split off to change. Jackie finished changing first and stepped out of her bedroom into the hall. As she started towards the living room Shauna opened the bathroom door at the same time Nat opened her bedroom one, stepping out on either side of her.

“Don’t move!” Lottie shouted, “you guys look like Charlie’s Angels.”

Jackie glanced between Shauna and Nat and made her hands into a gun. They both hesitated before doing the same.

“Good morning, Angels!” Van said.

“Good morning, Charlie!” They all three responded with a laugh.

Jackie dropped her finger gun and crossed into the kitchen. “Lottie, what are you wearing?” Jackie asked, fixing the ponytail under her hat in the mirror.

“Not sure yet, probably a black dress — to fit the robbery theme,” Lottie said.

Shauna sat down on the couch. “You should wear the Saint Laurent one.”

Jackie spun around to look at Lottie. “You have a Saint Laurent dress?” She shifted her eyes to Shauna, “You know a Saint Laurent dress?”

Shauna looked embarrassed. “Oh, yeah, in Paris — Lottie liked to go shopping. And you’ve always talked about fashion a lot, so I would sometimes read the copies of Vogue you had in the apartment to try and keep up. I don’t like know fashion, not like you do — but I can recognize a few things I guess.”

Jackie knew she had a habit for going off on tangents about the things she was into, but she had always kind of assumed that Shauna tuned her out. She never would have thought that Shauna was doing active research to keep up with the topics. Something about that knowledge made her feel warm inside. She turned back to the mirror and pulled the brim of her hat over her eyes in hopes of covering how red her cheeks were.

Behind her, Nat held up the sneakers Lottie had bought. “I can get behind the outfits, but I’m not wearing these.”

Tai rolled her eyes, “Don’t tell me you’re going to clomp around in those heavy ass boots. This is supposed to be a covert operation.”

Nat put a foot on the coffee table, displaying her boot. “I can do anything in these shoes.”

Jackie turned around. “Nat, shoes off the table.”

Nat rolled her eyes but put her foot back on the ground. Jackie joined the rest of them in the living room. She looked at her watch and then back up at her team.

“Alright,” she said, “in a few hours we are going to be in the belly of the beast pulling this whole thing off. Before we go, I just want to say thank you to all of you for doing this with me. I know that this whole thing is insane and has turned into something so much bigger than I ever thought it would be, but I can’t imagine doing it without you guys.” She shifted her eyes to Shauna for a second, “all of you. I mean that.”

Shauna gave her a faint smile.

“If this thing goes south there are no hard feelings — everyone do what they need to do to protect themselves. If there is any fall to take I’ll take. This is my mess and I don’t intend to have any of you suffer on my behalf.”

“Jackie,” Tai said, standing up and putting a hand on Jackie’s shoulder, “we’re in this together. If something goes wrong, we’ll all go down together.”

Van stood next to Tai. “I bet they would let us all go to the same prison. It’s a win-win.”

Lottie draped her arm across Jackie’s other shoulder. “Once we do this and you’re rich, I’ll take you shopping at all my favorite stores,” she held out a pinky, “we’ll even pay for everything, promise.” Jackie linked her pinky with Lottie’s and blinked back a tear.

“Oh my god, don’t cry,” Nat said, kicking Jackie gently in the shin, “and stop acting surprised that we all like you.”

Shauna stood up. “We’ve got this.”

Van held a hand out, “Strategic retrieval of stolen goods on three?”

They all piled their hands in, with Jackie’s on top.

“Ah, screw that,” she said, tugging her hat down with a smirk, “let’s pull off a fucking heist.”
___

Lottie left the apartment first to get ready for the party and meet her parents. Shortly after, the rest of them piled into Jackie’s Jeep and drove out of the city and on to Long Island. They stopped a few miles away from the venue for Nat, Shauna, and Jackie to lay down in the trunk.

“Remind me again why we’re doing this?” Nat said, pulling a loose shoe out from under her and throwing it towards the front of the car.

“Because,” Jackie said, “This is the best way for us to get on the property without having to walk ten miles. Tai and Van will show the guy at the gate their pass from the catering company and drive us through.”

“Won’t they see us getting out of the car?” Nat asked.

Jackie sat up and looked down at Nat. “Did you listen to anything I said last night when I was going over things?”

Nat tilted her head from side to side. “I listened to most of it.”

“Whatever,” Jackie said, laying back down, “the driveway is two miles long — Tai is going to stop the car halfway down the drive and we’ll get out and sneak around to where we need to be.”

“So we do have to run through the woods?” Nat asked.

“Ask me one more question you should already know the answer to and you will be getting chased through the woods,” Jackie said.

“Okay, time for bed!” Van said, throwing a blanket over the three of them.

“Can you see us?” Jackie asked.

“If they were searching the car we would be fucked but I doubt that is going to happen, so we should be fine,” Tai said. “Except for this, what is this?”

Next to Jackie, Shauna twitched. “That was my knee cap that you just punched,” Shauna said.

“Oops, sorry,” Tai said, “straighten your leg.”

They drove in silence for the rest of the way. Jackie tensed when they reached the gate to the property, but as Tai predicted, the guy simply checked Tai’s pass and waved them through. They drove for a few more minutes and stopped. Jackie sat up, pulling the blanket with her.

Van opened the trunk. “Rise and shine.”

Jackie, Shauna, and Nat climbed out of the trunk.

“Okay,” Shauna said, pulling on her backpack, “what’s next.”

Jackie looked up and down the road to make sure the coast was clear. “Next,” she said, pulling the earpiece out of her pocket, “is making sure these things work.”

Van, Nat, and Jackie had technically already tested the equipment earlier in the day by playing hide and seek in Nat and Jackie’s apartment building — a game that ended with Jackie having to free Nat and Van after they accidentally locked themselves on the roof.

Standing in the driveway they all clipped their microphones to their shirt collars, Van and Tai tucking theirs under the ties they were wearing, and settled the earpieces in their ears.

“Testing,” Jackie said, tapping the microphone on her shirt.

“Roger, Roger — you are loud and clear,” Van responded.

“Alrighty,” Jackie said, nodding at Nat and Shauna, “let’s go.”

__

The three of them watched Van and Tai drive away before heading into the woods. Misty had given Jackie a map of the grounds which she currently held out in front of her as they walked.

“We’re going to come up on the left side of the house,” she explained, “the kitchen is on the right side, meaning the catering company should be out of our way.” She checked her watch. “There is still time before guests show up and it’s getting dark now, by the time we make it to the house we should be able to get onto the fire escape before the valets start working.”

“Then what?” Nat asked, ducking under a branch, “We just hangout on the roof until the party starts.”

“Pretty much,” Jackie said with a shrug, “we need the party to be in full swing before we do anything to cover any noise and reduce the risk of getting caught.”

Static filled Jackie’s ear, followed by Tai’s voice. “Hello?”

“Hi, Tai!” Jackie said, “did you guys make it?”

“Yeah we did. Van is oddly excited to be cutting up cucumbers at the moment — where are you guys?”

“In the woods,” Nat said unhelpfully.

“We should be coming up on the house soon,” Jackie said.

“Speaking of the house,” Tai responded, “this place is crazy. I’ve never seen a house like this before. I knew it was big from the floor plans but actually seeing it, crazy.”

“It can’t be — woah,” Nat said, stopping in her tracks. Jackie and Shauna caught up to her. A break in the trees gave them a view of the house and Jackie’s eyes traced the entire building from the ground up to the roof.

Shauna whistled. “Woah.”

Knowing she would soon be hanging off the side of the building made Jackie nauseous. She focused her attention on the ground level.

“Looks like the valets aren’t here yet,” she said, pointing to the empty section of driveway closest to them where the fire escape could be seen behind a row of hedges.

“That’s good,” Shauna said, “gives us time to make it up the fire escape.”

They reached the edge of the tree line and Jackie threw her arms out to stop Nat and Shauna.

“Are your shoes tied?”

They both looked down at their feet. Shauna looked at Jackie, “Why?”

“Because we’re going to run,” Jackie said, stretching her legs, “it’ll be faster to sprint while it’s empty than to try and sneak around — so, are your shoes tied.”

“Yes,” Shauna said.

“Double knotted,” Nat confirmed.

Jackie looked around. “Okay, let’s go.”

She took off running. Nat and Shauna chased after her.

As Jackie crossed the driveway she realized that the hedges were much larger than originally anticipated they were. She leaned forward to pick up more speed and the second her feet hit the grass, she jumped, flying clean over the hedges and crashing into the dirt on the other side. Nat and Shauna landed next to her, all three of them breathing hard.

Jackie looked between them. “Good?”

Nat held up a thumbs up, Shauna nodded — both too out of breath to speak. Around them, lights started to click on. Jackie panicked for a second before noticing the lights along the driveway also flicking on. Shauna had finally caught her breath. “Self timer,” she said, waving a finger to indicate the lights. Jackie nodded.

She headed over to where the fire escape ladder hung down, looking up at it.

“It’s going to be loud,” Nat said, coming up next to her, “when we pull it down.”

“I know,” Jackie said.

Shauna joined them, “I say we do it. Pull the ladder, wait a minute to see if anyone is coming, and then go from there. We need to get up there one way or another.”

“She’s right,” Nat said.

“You guys boost me up,” Jackie said, “and I’ll pull it down. As soon as I let go, hit the deck.”

“Like lay on the ground?” Nat asked.

“Yeah, that way if anyone looks over they won’t see us.”

Nat shrugged. “Sure, why not.”

Shauna held her hands out towards Nat with her fingers interlocked. Nat did the same, the two of them creating a step for Jackie. Jackie braced a hand on each of their shoulders and hauled herself up. She reached her hands up and just barely scraped the edge of the ladder.

“Can you get me higher?”

They both pushed up, giving Jackie just enough space to wrap her hand around the bottom rung of the ladder. She pulled herself up and then stepped forward off of Nat and Shauna’s hands, using her full weight to pull the ladder down. The ladder made a screeching noise as it fell. Jackie dangled for a second before dropping to the ground with Nat and Shauna.

Tai’s voice filled Jackie’s head. “Please tell me that noise was not you.”

“That noise was not us?” Jackie said weakly, her face in the dirt.

Jackie heard Tai sigh. She brought her head off the ground to look at Nat and Shauna.

“Anything?”

Shauna pushed herself up to her knees to look over the hedges. “Not that I can see.”

“Tai,” Shauna said, ducking back down, “any reaction on your end?”

“A few people looked up from what they were doing, but I think everyone just assumed it was someone else’s problem,” Tai said.

Jackie waited another minute to be sure no one was coming and stood up. The sun had finally gone all the way down, leaving them hidden in shadows between the garden lights. Jackie pulled on the ladder to make sure it was locked in place.

“Up we go,” she said, stepping onto the first rung.

Ten minutes later the three of them stood on the roof of the building. Jackie jiggled the doorknob on the door to the house, hoping luck was on her side. The handle didn’t budge.

“Plan A it is,” Nat said, passing the door to investigate where Jackie would be descending onto the balcony. Shauna was already at the edge of the roof looking down.

“It’ll be just like we practiced,” Shauna said, giving Jackie a reassuring smile.

Jackie peeked over the edge herself and tried to stay calm. Below them, the sounds of guests arriving started to float up through the air. Jackie looked at her watch,”I guess we should start getting ready,” she said, taking off her backpack. Shauna pulled off her bag as well and started taking out ropes.

Jackie pulled her harness on and spent the next twenty minutes watching Nat and Shauna prep the rest of the gear. She was watching Nat check a knot for a third time when a new voice popped into her ear.

“Hello, hello — number Five has arrived.”

Jackie smiled, “Hi, Lot.”

“Glad to hear someone respecting the code names,” Van’s voice chimed in.

Tai’s voice followed Van’s. “How are things going up there?”

“Almost done on our end,” Shauna said. She stood up and walked over to Jackie, waving the carabiner in her hand. “You mind?” She asked, gesturing to Jackie’s harness. Jackie held her hands up to give Shauna the room she needed. Shauna secured the carabiner to Jackie’s harness and rechecked all the other straps.

“Nat,” she said, “triple checks?”

Nat got up and joined them. She examined Shauna’s work, pulling on some of the straps before giving Shauna a thumbs up, “Ready to fly.”

They both looked at Jackie. She forced a smile, “Ready to fly.”

The minute Jackie stepped over the edge of the building she began to panic. The drop looked much further than the test run at Lottie’s house and the whole situation was infinitely scarier in the dark without her friends and their stack of mattresses below. She felt herself starting to shake and reached out for a lifeline.

“Shauna, tell me about a book,” Jackie said, desperate for anything else to focus on.

“What book?” Shauna asked.

“Any book, Shauna!” Jackie said. She risked another look down. The balcony was closer than she thought it would be, but still much further than she would have liked. Shauna was still fumbling for something to say. In her earpiece Jackie heard Nat.

“Jesus Shipman, pick a fucking book!”

“Let’s not forget our code names,” Van chimed in.

“The one you wrote,” Jackie said, trying to keep her voice calm. “Tell me about the book you wrote.” Jackie flexed her hands on the rope and took another slow step down.

Shauna’s voice crackled in her ear, “Oh okay, um my book, well — it’s about a soccer team that makes it to Nationals but their plane crashes on the way there. The main characters are two best friends who — ”

Jackie focused on the sound of Shauna’s voice rather than her words. She leaned into the familiarity as she fell into a steady rhythm of steps down the building. Finally feeling somewhat comfortable, she tuned into what Shauna was saying.

“And then they have to, you know, live in the woods and it really does a number on them psychologically. The two friends get into a fight because they have a lot of issues and, okay well now I’m just kind of spoiling the whole thing, but anyway they get into a fight and one of them sleeps outside and it starts to snow—”

Jackie froze a few feet above the balcony.

“Wait.”

“Jackie?!” Shauna’s voice was frantic, “Are you okay?”

“What, yes I’m fine — what did you just say? About your book.”

Jackie heard Shauna let out a relieved breath. “Uh, that the main characters get into a fight and one of them—”

“Freezes to death in the snow,” Jackie said.

“Yeah,” Shauna said.

“And then they eat her,” Jackie said.

Jackie’s earpiece stayed quiet. Jackie looked up half expecting to see Shauna looking over the edge of the roof. Shauna spoke in her ear instead.

“Wait, how’d you know that?”

Jackie opened her mouth to respond but was interrupted by Nat’s voice.

“ShitshitshitshitshitShaunaaaa catch it!”

Jackie lurched, dropping a few feet before stopping. She swung there with her feet tapping against the glass of the balcony door.

In her ear, she heard Tai. “Did you just fucking drop her?”

“No,” Shauna said with a strained voice.

“Seems like a lie,” Van’s voice said.

“I’m okay,” Jackie said, looking down. “It’s not too far.” She looked at her harness, “Shauna if I unclip this blue one will it let me go?”

“Don’t unclip things!” Tai said.

“Tai, calm down,” Jackie snapped. “Shauna, blue one lets me go, right?”

“Yes,” Shauna said, her voice more level, “but are you sure—”

Jackie didn’t wait for her to finish before undoing the carabiner. She bent her knees and jumped onto the balcony. She landed on her feet and patted her body to check for injuries, “It’s okay, I’m fine.”

“Jackie are you okay? Holy shit, I’m so sorry,” Nat said in her ear. Jackie took a deep breath to settle her nerves and undid the straps of her harness, sliding it down her legs. She pulled her backpack off and shoved the harness into it.

“Can you guys pull the rope up?” She asked. The rope started to move and she looked up to see Nat and Shauna’s head over the side of the roof.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Shauna asked.

“Yep,” Jackie said. She flashed Nat and Shauna a thumbs up and stepped forward to try the handle on the door. To her relief, it opened.

“Alright,” she said, entering the house, “we’re in.”

Jackie gently closed the door behind her and took in the room. Even in the low light she could tell it was luxurious. The ceilings were high and impressive molding traced the edges. The furniture looked like it belonged more in a museum than a house, but framed family photos on the wall brought a homey feel to the room. Jackie crossed to a large window and tucked herself into the curtain to stay out of sight. She looked down at the garden and smiled.

“I see you, Lottie.”

“Code names!” Van snapped.

“Uh, I see you, Five.” Jackie rephrased.

Lottie took a sip of her drink before casually looking up to the house. “Oh, this is fun, it’s nice to know who the voices in my head belong to for once. Where are you?” Lottie said through the earpiece, sweeping her eyes across the back of the house.

Tai was in her ear again, “Focus, Five and Nine.”

Jackie went to step away from the window and stopped, “Lo—Five, that girl behind you by the fountain — dark hair, red dress — that’s her. That’s Alice.”

Jackie watched Lottie turn slightly, as if admiring the scenery around her. “Her?” Lottie asked, gently tipping her glass in Alice’s direction. Jackie nodded and then realized Lottie couldn’t see her.

“Yeah, her,” Jackie said. She had half a mind to tell Lottie to go kick her in the shins.

Tai’s voice broke in. “That’s good, we know she’s here.”

“Uh Nine,” Nat’s voice said, “kind of stuck on a roof.”

“Right, right,” Jackie said, moving away from the window. She pulled a blueprint Misty had copied out of her backpack. “Based on what Misty gave me,” she said, settling her backpack back on and walking to the bedroom door, “the door to the roof should be down the hall and to the right.”

Jackie opened the bedroom door cautiously and was met with a long, dark hallway. She could hear the muffled music from the party as she tiptoed down the hall. She passed what she knew to be several bedrooms and a full library before turning right into a short hallway with the door to the roof at the end. Jackie twisted the knob and was once again relieved to feel it give way at her touch. She took the stairs carefully, each one creaking under her feet. Once reaching to top she flipped the deadbolt, pushing the door open. Nat and Shauna were waiting by the door.

Nat took a step towards her, “Are you okay? I lost my footing and the rope just kind of flew away, taking me with it. Shauna managed to catch it —”

Jackie waved a hand, “I’m fine, I was practically at the bottom.” She looked at Shauna, who was watching her with a strange look on her face. Nat quickly stepped between them, giving Jackie a really not the time look. Nat gestured to the stairs. “Shall we?”

Jackie reached out, just barely touching Shauna’s hand, “I’m fine - telling the truth, I promise.”

Shauna crinkled her brow. “How did you know about the bo—”

Lottie’s voice cut through their conversation, “I see Travis. He’s going upstairs. I’m going to follow him.”

Tai was there too, “Alice is in the dining room, she’s talking to one of the guys from the pictures.”

Jackie frowned, putting her hand to her ear. “Blond or brunette?”

“Blond,” Tai said.

“That’s Patrick,” Jackie confirmed.

“Oh I’ve got the other one,” Van said, “he’s talking to some girl in this room with all the paintings. It’s not going well, this guy has no game.”

Nat waved her hand in front of Jackie’s face to get her attention and mimed going down the stairs. Jackie nodded. “You guys have everything?”

Shauna held up her backpack. “Yep, all packed up.”

The three of them took the stairs down to the third floor. Jackie led them into a bedroom and closed the door.

Nat looked around the room, “Oh this place is ridiculous.”

Shauna nodded. “It was built during the Gilded Age when people had insane amounts of money and didn’t really know what to do with it. The Vanderbilt family had like 40 of these houses throughout the country.”

“40?!” Nat said, running her finger along the mantle of an elegant fireplace.

“Well yeah, they were the richest family in the country at the time,” Shauna said.

Nat bent down to look at the fireplace. “How did they make all their money?”

“Railroads mostly."

Nat leaned closer to the fireplace. “Hey, how come I can see through to the room next door?”

Shauna bent down to look with her. “It’s called a dual fireplace, it heats two rooms at once.”

Nat looked at Shauna. “How do you know all this?”

Shauna blushed slightly, standing up, “When I found out about this house — I did some research on the history.”

Jackie was so distracted by the two of them getting along again that she forgot where she was. Lottie’s voice in her ear made her jump, “I’m on the second floor. Travis just went into a room off the stairs.”

“Okay,” Jackie said, trying to refocus. Through the earpiece she heard a door open and close.

“Hello, Travis,” Lottie said.

Travis’ voice was muffled, suggesting that Lottie was keeping her distance, “Lottie Matthews, I haven’t seen you since you stole my girlfriend.”

Nat slowly rose to her feet, looking tense.

“Can’t really steal someone who is willing to leave, can you?” Lottie asked. Lottie’s voice was airy, but Jackie knew her well enough to know that her eyes were cold — she wasn’t going to let Travis get the upper hand. Nat sank into a chair looking vaguely ill.

“Unfortunately for you, I’m single at the moment so there is nothing here for you to steal.” Travis said, his voice becoming more clear as he seemingly got closer to Lottie.

“Oh,” Lottie said, “I wouldn’t be too sure of that.”

Jackie heard Van gasp softly.

“Damn,” Shauna said, “that was smooth as hell.” She glanced at Nat, “I get it.”

Jackie could see Nat’s cheeks turning red as she shot Shauna a halfhearted glare. “Shut up.”

Jackie waved her hand at them. “Be quiet.”

A rustling sound suggested that Lottie was moving. Jackie heard what sounded like a liquid being poured into a cup, “I may have heard a rumor that certain things could be acquired at this little party of yours.” Lottie took a sip of whatever drink she now had.

“Depends what you’re looking for.” Travis had to be standing very close to Lottie for his voice to be so clear.

“Me?” Lottie said, “I’m not in the market for anything in particular — just curious. These parties are so boring. I like when they have extra circulars.”

A silence settled on the conversation. For a second Jackie wondered if something was wrong with Lottie’s microphone, then Lottie spoke.

“How about this,” she said, sounding bored, “you answer a question for me and I’ll answer one for you.”

Travis didn’t hesitate, “is Natalie dating anyone?”

Jackie and Shauna both turned to look at Nat, who looked mortified.

Lottie’s voice had an edge to it. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh don’t tell me you’re still together,” Travis said.

There was another silence, this time broken by Nat. “Lottie,” she said, her voice calm, “be cool.”

Jackie and Shauna shared a look and both turned their heads to hide their smiles.

Lottie made a sound with her mouth that suggested she wanted to argue. Instead she took a small breath, “Nat is free as a bird.” She took another sip of her drink, “you should call her.”

Jackie knew the last bit was to annoy Nat, and based on Nat’s face, it worked.

“Cool,” Travis said, trying to hide the excitement in his voice, “maybe I will.”

A thud suggested that Lottie had set her glass down fairly aggressively. “Great. Now, my question.”

“Sure,” Travis said, “shoot.”

Jackie held her breath, hoping Lottie was able to get them exactly what they needed in a single question.

“If you are playing host to a certain kind of clientele, I don’t think they would want their business under observation. You’d have to be able to guarantee them some kind of privacy, and seeing as I was able to wander up here without being stopped — that has to have been predetermined so, which room is it?”

Shauna, Jackie and Nat all traded looks.

“Damn,” Travis said, “you’re good.”

Jackie let out her breath. Lottie fucking Matthews.

Travis continued. “There is a room three doors down that has a ‘Private’ plaque on the door. It is the office of the person who oversees the property and is locked when the house is rented — but there’s a key in the dresser in the hall outside this room. Anyone who may need it knows where to find it.”

Jackie felt like she could do a backflip. She smiled at Nat and Shauna. Shauna returned the smile, Nat still looked pale but gave Jackie a nod.

“No way that just worked,” Tai said in Jackie’s ear.

“Another disciple of the cult of Lottie Matthews,” Van said.

“So what,” Lottie said, “people have signed up for their preferred time slot?”

Travis laughed, “No, I guess they can have a face to face meeting if they want, but I think it is more common for one party to leave something and the other to pick it up and leave the payment in return.”

“Interesting, so,” Lottie said, changing the subject, “how is the life of luxury treating you?”

While Travis answered Lottie, Shauna spoke to Jackie and Nat.

“Like a dead drop.” Shauna said.

Jackie raised her eyebrows. “The dance move?”

Shauna laughed, “No, that’s a death drop. A dead drop is something spies do to pass information. It was popular during World War II.”

Jackie raised her eyebrows.

Shauna shrugged. “I read a lot about the French Resistance in Paris.”

Nat stood up. “So what does that mean for us?”

“Well,” Shauna said, “based on what Travis said, the only time to take the drive will be after Alice drops it off but before the buyers pick it up.”

“So if we can get into the room, we can take it,” Jackie said.

Shauna nodded. “But we have to wait until it is in the room to take.”

“Lottie,” Nat said suddenly, “get Travis downstairs.”

Without missing a beat Jackie heard Lottie say, “I’ve been meaning to look at the art downstairs, join me?”

As Travis agreed, Jackie turned to Nat.

“Why do we need Travis downstairs?”

“So we can go downstairs,” Nat said. “Not down, downstairs — but to the second level.”

Shauna snapped her fingers. “That way we can watch the room for Alice, good idea.”

“Speaking of Alice,” Tai’s voice said, “her and both her buddies are in the garden, so if you’re going to move I would do it now.”

“Lottie?” Jackie said, “where are you?”

Lottie didn’t respond directly. “These stairs are incredible,” she said to Travis, letting them know where she was, “did you know that the Vanderbilts had almost 40 houses like this.”

“Hey,” Shauna said with a small pout, “that’s my fact.”

Jackie bumped her with her hip, “I’m sure you’ve got plenty more.”

Nat walked between them, pushing them apart, “Jackie, how do we get to the second level?”

“We obviously can’t take the main staircase, both because it is probably blocked off at the bottom and because it’s out in the open. But there should be a set of stairs down the hall and to the right,” Jackie said, pulling on her backpack straps.

Jackie crossed to the door and pulled it open, checking the hall before stepping out. “Make sure you leave the door open, the way it was when we got here,” she said to Shauna over her shoulder.

She led them down the hall to a door, pulling out her notes from Misty to confirm it was the right one. “This is it,” she said, folding the paper and slipping it in her pocket.

Nat opened the door to reveal an ornate wooden staircase.

“Damn,” Shauna said, “even their staff stairs are fancy.”

“Staff stairs?” Nat asked, starting down them. Shauna and Jackie followed.

“Yeah,” Shauna whispered, “back in the early 1900s they wouldn’t have let the staff of the house use the main stairs, so they would ones like these.”

“That’s so fucked up,” Nat said, “who cares what set of stairs is used — they’re stairs.”

They reached a landing with a door. Jackie put a finger to her lips and reached out to slowly twist the lock. She placed a hand on the handle and pushed down gently, pulling the door open an inch. The three of them went quiet and listened, hearing nothing but the music from the first floor.

Jackie opened the door further, sticking her head into the hall. “It’s clear,” she said, pulling the open enough to step through. Nat and Shauna followed her into the hall and Jackie shut the door softly. They each looked in a different direction.

“Okay,” Jackie said in a low voice, “Lottie said that she followed Travis into a room off the stairs and he said that the meeting room is three doors down from that room.” She pulled out her notes and held them out. “The main staircase is here, which means it has to be either this one,” she pointed to the paper, “or this one.”

“Should we split up?” Nat asked.

Jackie hesitated, but then nodded. “I guess that makes sense. I’ll go left. Nat you go right. Shauna, you follow Nat and then watch the main stairs in case anyone comes up.”

They both nodded. Jackie took a breath. “Okay, let’s go.”

Jackie followed the hallway until it turned, stopping at the corner to check that it was clear before proceeding. The top of the main staircase sat in the middle of the hall. Jackie noted the door to the immediate left and counted off the next three doors that followed, ending on one a few feet in front of her. She got closer to the door and saw the ‘Private’ plaque hanging on it.

“I got it,” she said. She tested the handle. “It’s locked.”

She looked down the hall and saw Nat and Shauna standing at the far end. She gave them a wave and pointed to the door in front of her.

“The key should be in that dresser,” Shauna said, pointing to a dresser close to the stairs.

As Jackie started towards it Van’s voice tore through her ear.

“Fuck, I don’t know where you guys are but Alice is on the stairs.”

“You were supposed to be watching her!” Nat said.

“Sorry — I had to do my pretend job!” Van shot back.

Jackie motioned for Nat and Shauna to go back down the hall, turning around to head back the way she came. As she was passing the locked door she heard Alice’s voice coming up the stairs. Panicked, she hurried to the next door and pushed on it. Thankful that it was unlocked, Jackie slipped into the room and closed the door. She dropped her knees and pressed her ear to the keyhole to listen.

In the hall, she heard Alice.

“The key was in the dresser, just like they said it would be,” Alice said.

Another voice spoke. “This is so much work, whatever happened to just handing things over. Why all the secrecy?” Jackie recognized Patrick’s voice.

She heard them stop in front of the door to the meeting room.

“I kind of like it,” Alice said, unlocking the door, “makes it more fun.”

Jackie heard the door open and close. She expected their voices to disappear and was confused to hear them grow louder. Jackie stood up as Alice’s voice drifted through the room she was in. Her eyes danced around the room and landed on the large fireplace. Keeping her distance, Jackie bent down and confirmed her suspicions — it was the same kind of dual fireplace Shauna had told Nat about upstairs. She flatted herself against the wall to keep her feet out of sight and listened.

“What do we do now?” Patrick asked.

“We leave this here and when we come back in 30 minutes it will be gone and a very large amount of money will be waiting for us,” Alice said.

“That’s it?” Patrick asked.

“I told you,” Alice said, “these jobs are easy.”

Patrick made a disgruntled noise, “Sure for you, you didn’t have to actually steal anything.”

“You right, I just located the things to steal, planned the entire robbery, found a buyer, and made sure you had a getaway driver so you and Colin didn’t get caught,” Alice said.

Jackie dug her nails into the palm of her hand. She heard the door open and Alice leave.

Through the fireplace she heard Patrick talking to himself, “I’m Alice — I’m in charge because I know how to plan things. Whatever.”

Jackie waited a minute and heard the door close again, indicating that Patrick had left too. She counted to 100 before moving. Determining that the coast was clear, she spoke.

“Shauna, Nat — are you guys okay?”

Shauna’s voice was immediate, “Are you?”

Nat cut in. “We went back to the stairs, but couldn’t find you. Where are you?”

Jackie crossed to the door and pulled it open a crack to check the hall. “I’m coming,” she said, hurrying down the empty hallway. She was almost to the staff stairs when a hand shot out and pulled her into a room. Before she could scream another hand flew over her mouth. She twisted and in the low light found herself face to face with Shauna, who grinned.

“Sorry,” she said, pulling her hand off Jackie’s mouth, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Why would you do that,” Jackie said, smacking Shauna in the arm.

“Okay, ow,” Shauna said, rubbing where Jackie hit her, “be quiet, we don’t know who is in the hall.”

Nat threw her arm between the two of them, forcing them apart. She grabbed Jackie’s shoulders and spun her around.

“What happened?” Nat said in an urgent whisper.

“Can everyone stop manhandling me?” Jackie whispered back, pushing Nat’s hands off. She bumped into the wall and finally took in where they were standing.

Jackie tried to keep her voice low. “Why are we in a storage closet and why can I barely see?”

Nat and Shauna shared a sheepish look. “We didn’t know where you were so we hid close by,” Shauna whispered.

“Here,” Nat said, “I can fix the light thing.” She rummaged in her backpack. Jackie heard a click and was immediately blinded.

“Oh my god,” Jackie said at full volume. Both Nat and Shauna shushed her. Jackie dropped her voice, “Fuck, that was eyes! Turn it off! Or point it down! Or something!” she said, trying to blink the white spots out of her eyes.

“Oh shit, oops, sorry,” Nat said, pointing the flashlight at the ground.

Jackie stretched her arms out, bracing a hand on each wall.

“Why did you hide in the smallest room in this gigantic fucking place?”

“Well there wasn’t exactly time to play Goldilocks with our hiding spots,” Nat bit back.

“Let’s all calm down,” Shauna said, trying to raise her hands up and hitting both Jackie and Nat in the process.

Nat pushed Shauna’s hand away, sending it into Jackie’s face. In an attempt to dodge it, Jackie turned, sending her backpack into Shauna’s side. The motion sent Shauna sideways on to one foot. While trying to regain her balance she landed on Nat’s foot, forcing Nat to bend forward and collide with Jackie’s knee as she was trying to move out of Shauna’s way. The flashlight fell from Nat’s hand, blinding them all as it bounced off the ground.

“ENOUGH,” Nat said in a whisper yell.

All three of them froze and slowly pulled their limbs back to their own bodies.

“Are you guys okay?” Lottie’s voice asked.

Jackie rested her chin on her interlocked hands. “We’re fine.”

“Did you find the room?” Tai’s voice was faint. Jackie readjusted her earpiece.

“Yes, I found it and I know Alice left the drive.”

“Wait, you do?” Shauna asked.

“Why didn’t you say that?” Nat added.

Jackie glared at them both, “Because I was pulled into a fucking game of closet Twister in the dark before I could say anything!”

“What’s closet Twister?” Lottie asked.

“It’s the newest sensation sweeping the nation,” Jackie said sarcastically, “it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I know for a fact that that stupid little ten million dollar flash drive is currently sitting in a room all by itself waiting to be picked up and we only have,” she checked her watch, “twenty-three minutes to do it.”

“How do you know that?” Nat asked.

“Because of the fireplace,” Jackie snapped.

“The fireplace told you?” Van asked, sounding confused.

Lottie sounded excited, “It was probably the logs — the trees around here are very old, what else did they say?”

Jackie pulled the earpiece out of her ear, put her hands on her hand, and closed her eyes.

Beside her Shauna shifted. “Was it a double fireplace, like the one upstairs?”

Jackie nodded.

“So you could hear Alice talking to someone in the other room?” Nat asked.

“Okay, and I’m guessing,” Jackie felt Shauna touch her wrist and twisted it so Shauna could see her watch, “they said something about a thirty minute window between the drop and the pick up? Which leaves us with the twenty-three, well now twenty-one, minute time limit.”

Jackie nodded again. Relaxing her shoulders, she opened her eyes to see Nat and Shauna watching her.

“This is good,” Shauna said, keeping her voice positive, “we know what to do. We just need to go get the key, open the door, take the drive, return the key, and get the hell out of here. Five steps. We can do five steps.”

Nat nodded along as Shauna spoke. “Five easy steps.”

“Just five,” Jackie said, putting her earpiece back in just in time to hear Lottie say, “Me Five or five five?”

“Not you,” Nat said to Lottie.

___

Jackie slid the key into the lock and turned it, pushing the door open. The room looked like a standard office and appeared to be more modern than the rest of the house. She crossed to the large desk and began looking for the flash drive.

“Any luck?” Nat asked from the doorway.

Jackie shook her head. “Not yet, it’s small though,” She moved aside some papers.

“Anything?”

“Nat,” Jackie said, “you can literally see me, does it look like I found it?”

“Sorry,” Nat said, leaning against the door frame. Jackie checked her watch. 15 minutes.

She looked at the desk, trying to remember if Alice had made any noises to indicate where in the room she had been. Jackie had an idea.

“Nat,” she said, “go into the room next door and stand by the fireplace. I want to see something.”

“Uh okay,” Nat said. Before going she looked down the hall, “Shauna, Jackie wants me to go into the other room — you good?’

Shauna’s voice was in Jackie’s ear.“Yeah, stairs are clear.”

As Nat disappeared into the hall, Jackie positioned herself in the middle of the room.

“Jackie, hellooo,” Nat said from the other room.

“Nat, take out your earpiece for a second,” Jackie said. She did the same, letting hers dangle down her back.

She heard a slight shuffling noise and then Nat’s voice. “Okay, ear is empty.”

“Okay,” Jackie took a step forward, “can you hear me through the fireplace?”

“Yep,” Nat said.

Jackie stepped closer to the desk. “How about now?”

“Yeah, but it’s a little quieter.”

Jackie smiled, that was exactly what she was hoping to hear. Alice’s voice had been loud enough to hear clearly the entire time Jackie was listening, which meant she had to have been closer to the fireplace than the desk. Jackie placed herself between the two.

“And now?”

“Sounds like the first time you asked, maybe a little louder.”

Jackie looked around where she was standing. With the desk being empty Alice had to have put the drive somewhere else in the room. An end table sat next to the fireplace holding a stack of old books and a small ornate box.

“Gotcha,” Jackie said.

“Got what?” Nat asked from the other room.

Jackie opened the box and pulled out the flash drive. She held it up between two fingers and laughed. “You have caused me a lot of stress.”

A voice spoke from the doorway. “You’re telling me.”

Jackie turned and almost dropped the drive. Colin leaned against the door frame, watching her.

“Now,” Colin said, pushing off the door frame and walking into the room, “I know Alice likes to keep her secrets, but I don’t think you’re supposed to be here.”

Jackie slid the flash drive into her pocket and shrugged. She realized her earpiece was hanging down her back instead of in her ear and tried to stay calm.

“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not — I was just leaving anyway.”

Jackie moved towards the door, Colin blocked her path.

“Small problem,” Colin said, pointing towards Jackie's pocket, “that’s not yours to take.”

“It wasn’t yours to take either.”

Colin laughed. “That’s fair, but I am going to need you to give it back.”

Jackie tried to sidestep him but he moved with her.

“C’mon Jackie, just give it back and you can go.” As Colin took a step forward, Jackie took one back. Locking them in a strange two-step. Colin let out a strangled laugh. “Don’t do this, Jackie. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Jackie forced a smile, “Maybe I don’t want to have to hurt you. Although,” Jackie remembered that her mic was still on, meaning the team could hear her even if she couldn’t hear them, “I could use a little help. Six? Seven? Five? I’d take One or Eight. Really not being picky here.”

Colin stopped moving, looking confused. “Why are you counting?” He shook his head, “Why are you counting out of order?”

Jackie played his confusion to her advantage and swung her fist back, slamming it into his face. Colin staggered back a step and Jackie felt a rush of pride, until the pain struck her hand.

“Ow, ow, holy fuck, ow,” Jackie whined, hopping in a circle. “That really fucking hurt.”

Colin regained his balance and started towards Jackie. Before he could get close, Nat was there connecting her foot with his stomach. Colin doubled over and dropped to the floor.

“Are you serious,” Nat said, pulling Jackie out of the room, “all you do is talk about soccer and you didn’t think to kick him?”

“Oh I’m sorry,” Jackie said, “I wasn’t expecting a brawl. Next time I will be sure to use my feet.”

Shauna was in the hallway looking worried. She saw Jackie cradling her knuckles and reached forward. Jackie let her take her hand.

“Why the fuck weren’t you responding? That guy came up the stairs and I had to wait him out in another room.”

“I needed to take my earpiece out to test something,” Jackie said, putting her earpiece back in place.

Shauna examined Jackie’s hand, running her fingers over the knuckle. “You didn’t break anything,” she said gently.

“Okay,” Nat said, pushing Jackie from behind, “not the fucking time.”

Behind them, Colin was back on his feet looking angry. Shauna clocked him over Jackie’s shoulder. “Uh Nat’s right, we should go,” she said, turning up the hall. The three of them took off down the hall towards the staff stairs to the third floor. Colin ran after them.

“Lottie, why do rich people insist on such long hallways?” Nat said as they ran.

Lottie’s voice cut in, “I don’t know, there’s not a Floor Plans 101 class you’re required to take once you hit a certain tax bracket.”

“Oh my god,” Jackie snapped, “not the fucking time you two!”

Tai’s voice was in Jackie’s ear. “Why does it sound like you guys are running? Are you being chased?”

“I think pursued is a more accurate term,” Shauna said as they rounded the corner of the hallway. The three of them collided with the door to the stairs, all of them reaching for the handle at the same time.

“Move your hand!” Shauna said.

“You move your hand!” Nat replied.

“You’re both crushing my broken hand!” Jackie said.

Nat and Shauna immediately dropped their hands, letting Jackie throw the door open. Colin turned the corner as the three of them tumbled through the door. Shauna slammed it shut and slid the lock into place, leaning against it. Her body shook as Colin pounded on the other side. They all froze, watching the door shake for a moment before it stopped.

Jackie leaned towards the door and heard Colin’s muffled voice on the other side.

“Come fucking help me. Jackie is here and she has the fucking drive,” he said into what Jackie assumed was a phone, “the girl from the robbery! She drove the fucking car! You said she was hot!”

“Ew,” Jackie, Nat, and Shauna all said at once.

“I don’t know man, just come help me. She’s with two other people and they’re on the third floor so they have nowhere to go.” Colin said.

Jackie jumped back as the door rattled again. She lowered her voice into a whisper. “They don’t know about the door on the roof.”

Nat and Shauna nodded at her. Jackie pointed up the stairs to indicate they should go. As the three of them started up the stairs Jackie heard another voice outside the door.

“Just break it down." Jackie recognized Patrick’s voice.

“I can’t,” Colin said, “this stupid house is old and protected or whatever.”

“Move, move, move” she said, forcing Nat and Shauna to move faster. Jackie looked back to see the door had stopped moving again.

“Ah fuck,” Nat said, “they’re going to use the main staircase.”

They kept going up the stairs, bursting onto the third floor. They turned the corner into the main hallway and found Colin and Patrick standing at the top of the stairs.

“Hey Jackie,” Patrick said with a cold smile, “we’re gonna need that back.”

Jackie dropped her voice so only Nat and Shauna could hear her. “If we can get them to think we’re hiding instead of running we’ll have an easier time getting away.”

Van’s voice came through their earpieces. “You gotta Scooby-Doo them!”

The five of them stared each other down.

“Just give us the flash drive,” Colin said. “Throw it down the hall and we can all walk away from this.”

Jackie reached each of her hands out and tapped Shauna and Nat on either side of her. “Trust me,” she said under her breath. Jackie took a step forward.

“I think we’re good,” she said. “Thanks for the offer though.”

Colin scowled. Jackie turned on her heels and entered the room to their left. Nat and Shauna stumbled after her. She heard Patrick and Colin groan in the hallway.

“Jackie, what are we doing?” Nat asked.

“Scooby-Dooing them!” Jackie said, leading them into a connected bathroom. Jackie had spent countless hours in the last week memorizing the floor plan of this house. Sending a thought of gratitude to Misty and the photocopies of the blueprints she had given Jackie, she visualized the entire third floor in her head.

“That’s not a verb!” Shauna said as Jackie dragged them through the bathroom. The bathroom gave way to an adjacent bedroom. Jackie stopped at the door to the bedroom, cracking it open to look in the hall.

Colin stood in the hall at the door of the next bedroom, talking to Patrick.

“There’s a door over there, check in there.”

Jackie heard Patrick’s voice in the bathroom. “It’s a bathroom.”

Colin took a few steps into the bedroom, “Are they in there?”

As soon as Colin disappeared into the room, Jackie flung herself into the hall with Nat and Shauna on her heels. As they left, Patrick appeared in the second bedroom through the bathroom door.

“Oh fuck, Colin,” he yelled over his shoulder, “they’re in the hall.”

Colin re-entered the hall as the three of them barreled into the room across from them. Jackie steered Nat and Shauna through the room and into another bathroom which gave way to a small sitting room. She skidded to halt in the sitting room, watching the door behind them.

“Uh Jack,” Nat said, “stopping seems like an objectively bad idea.”

“Just give me one second,” she said. She waited for Colin and Patrick to appear in the bathroom before grabbing Nat and Shauna’s hands and hauling them after her. She directed them back into the hallway and into another bedroom. As soon as they were in the room Jackie pushed Nat and Shauna into a closet behind the bedroom door, pulling the door closed after them. Jackie left the door open just enough to see Colin and Patrick barrel into the room.

“Door,” Colin said, pointing to the door off to the right.

“This place is a fucking maze,” Patrick said. He followed Colin through the door, which Jackie knew would lead them through a sitting room and office and spit them out down the hall. Once they were gone she pushed the closet door open and pulled Shauna and Nat into the hall.

They hurried towards the roof door. Just as they were about to turn into the small hallway containing the door, Colin and Patricks appeared at the end of the hall.

“How the fuck,” Patrick said, “I don’t care. Don’t move.”

They started towards the girls. Jackie weighed the options in her head. She glanced at Nat and Shauna. “Still trust me?”

They both nodded, their eyes wide. Jackie smiled and bolted into the open door to her right. Nat and Shauna followed. The library was the length of three bedrooms and Jackie knew a second door sat at the other end of the room. They dodged shelves as she led them to it.

“Woah,” Shauna said, looking around as she ran, “this is so cool.”

“Move it, Shipman,” Nat said, pushing Shauna forward. Jackie stopped in front of a bookshelf at the far end of the room.

“Why are we stopping again,” Nat asked.

“Because,” Jackie said, running her hands along the inside of the shelf, “I need to find the — got it.” There was a small click and Jackie pushed the shelf forward. It gave way to her touch.

“Oh now that is cool,” Shauna whispered.

Jackie glanced behind her and opened the door quietly. The three of them stepped back into the hall as Colin and Patrick stepped into the first door of the library. Jackie settled the shelf-door back into place. She held a finger to her lips and tiptoed down the hall. They stopped at the first door and listened.

“Jackie,” Colin said, “we know you’re in here. There’s nowhere else for you to run.”

Jackie risked a glance into the library and saw Patrick and Colin heading into the shelves. She waited from them to disappear behind a row of them and gestured for Nat and Shauna to pass. The three of them cleared the door and tiptoe ran down the hall turning into the hallway containing the door to the roof. She peaked around the corner to see the hallway behind them was still empty — the boys were still in the library.

Shauna slowly opened the door to the staircase and hurried Nat and Jackie through it, before slipping through herself and closing it behind her. They went up the stairs, wincing at every creak until they reached the top. Jackie pushed open the door and the three of them spilled out onto the roof. Jackie closed the door and they all slumped against it — Jackie in the middle with Nat and Shauna on either side of her. For a second they all stayed quiet, trying to catch their breaths. Then they were laughing.

“Jinkies,” Nat said, “I can’t believe that worked.”

Tai’s concerned voice rang out in their ears. “Are you guys okay?”

“Yeah,” Jackie said, getting to her feet. She offered Nat and Shauna each a hand and hauled them up. Jackie knew it was only a matter of time before Colin and Patrick realized there was a door to the roof and didn’t want to be around when they did. She nodded towards the fire escape ladder. “Let’s go.”

They crossed the roof and started down the ladder. On the second level platform Nat stopped, looking into one of the windows. “Oh my god, look.”

She stepped out of the way to let Shauna and Jackie see. The door to the bedroom they were looking into was open, and through it, they could see Colin and Patrick arguing on the main staircase.

Shauna laughed. “They’re so fucking confused right now.”

Jackie watched Colin push Patrick, forcing Patrick to hold onto the railing to stop himself from falling. “No wonder Alice is the leader,” Jackie said, “boys can be so stupid.”

Lottie spoke in her ear. “Do you guys have it?”

Jackie closed her fingers around the drive in her pocket, “The operation was a success.”

“Are we allowed to leave?” Van asked. “Or are we expected to work a full shift?”

“We are not working a full shift,” Tai said, “you guys should head back to where we dropped you off. Van and I will get the car and pick you up so we can get the hell out of here.”

Jackie started back down the fire escape with Nat and Shauna behind her. Once back on the ground they ducked behind the line of hedges.

“Coast looks clear,” Nat said, surveying the driveway, “I think we’re in the sweet spot of everyone already being here and no one leaving yet.”

They watched the driveway for a few more minutes to confirm it would stay empty before darting across it back into the woods. As they made their way through the woods Jackie began to feel a sense of relief. They had the drive, Van and Tai were on the way, all they had to do was get in the car and this would all be over. Nat and Shauna were several paces ahead of her, just as she was about to call out to them, the sound of a stick breaking made her stop.

Alice stepped out in front of her from behind a large tree, blocking her view of Nat and Shauna.

“Word of advice, Jackie,” Alice said, “I’m not the kind of person you should fuck with.”

Chapter Text

Shauna started toward Jackie, her eyes ablaze. Jackie held up a hand to signal her to stop. She had just pulled off a heist, she could handle this last obstacle on her own. Nat stood beside Shauna like a cat waiting to pounce.

Alice glanced over her shoulder at the two girls looking mildly curious. She turned back to Jackie.

“Do you know why I picked you to be part of my plan?” Alice asked, tilting her head.

Jackie didn’t respond.

“You seemed lonely,” Alice said, “I watched you for weeks, sitting at the same table in that same coffee shop. I almost felt bad when we decided to rope you in — taking advantage of a poor girl with no friends.” She briefly looked back at Shauna and Nat and shrugged, “guess you managed to find a few.”

Alice took a step closer to Jackie. “I’ll give it to you, I did not expect you to try something like this.” She flicked the brim of Jackie’s hat with her finger. “You were so oblivious to what we were planning right in front of you. Imagine my surprise when those two idiots told me who had just run off with our drive.”

Jackie clenched her hand into a fist. The knuckles burned from hitting Colin. She pulled her fingers in tighter, letting the pain simmer.

“You don’t know me,” Jackie said, trying to keep her voice even.

Alice raised her eyebrows. “Don’t I? We hung out for weeks, granted it was only for a handful of hours, but I think I learned enough about you to know that this whole expedition is pretty out of character for you.”

Jackie clenched her jaw. Alice sighed, “Oh come on, Jackie — it’s not like you got caught driving the car. You could have walked away from all this, so why didn’t you? Why double down? You don’t strike me as a money chaser, so what was it?”

Jackie felt her eye twitch. A lazy smile spread across Alice’s face.

“Oh, I see. Getting tricked made you feel bad, didn’t it?” Alice pursed her lips into an exaggerated pout. “Bet it hurt when you realized we weren’t really friends. If it makes you feel better,” Alice placed a condescending hand on Jackie’s shoulder, “I think we could have been under different circumstances. I even read that book you showed me the day we met.” Alice began walking in a circle around Jackie like an animal on the prowl. “Pretty dark stuff. What is it called? Lost Causes?”

Behind Alice, Jackie saw Shauna’s face fall into a perplexed frown.

“Tell me,” Alice stopped behind Jackie, breathing down her neck, “what is it about that particular book that hooked you?”

Jackie stayed quiet, focusing on the pain in her hand, as Alice circled back around to face her. “Let me guess,” she said, stopping in front of Jackie, “the survival aspect? No, that’s not enough — you said you read it at least ten times, there has to be more to it.”

Alice studied Jackie, tapping her finger against her lip. Out of the corner of her eye Jackie saw Shauna’s eyes shift as if she was trying to solve a math equation in her head.

Alice continued, “Personally, I found the psychological side interesting, trying to imagine what I would do in that scenario. What lengths I would go to to stay alive. But something tells me that is not the draw for you — there’s something deeper there. Something that gets under your skin when you read it.” She leaned forward, placing her face a few inches from Jackie’s. “Do you want to know what I think?”

Jackie flexed her fingers. “Not really.”

Alice laughed, “You strike me as a romantic. Classic romance on the surface, but deep down you like the messy ones. The morally gray. I think the reason you keep coming back to the book is the tragic love story — two people who hurt each other over and over again only for one of them to die before they realize what it was they actually felt for each other. That struck a chord with you.” Alice kept going. “So my question is, who is it that has you all twisted up in knots?”

Something in Jackie tore open like lightning striking a tree — every part of her felt illuminated.

Her eyes drifted past Alice to where Shauna and Nat stood watching her. She heard Shauna’s voice earlier in the night explaining the plot of the same book Alice was taunting her with now.

The book Shauna had written.

If Jackie was honest, she had always found the plot to be a bit outlandish. She didn’t have much interest in the everyday structure of surviving in the woods. It was the way the author, the way Shauna, wrote that had trapped her. Jackie had recognized the emotions buried in the words for what they were. The barren wasteland of unrequited love. The lost potential left behind in the wake of a single reckless mistake. The pain of losing something, of losing someone, before you had the chance to say the things that mattered — to tell them the truth.

The book she had bought on a whim, not because of the description of the morbid plot on the back, but because of the dedication. A single sentence that had made her feel both comforted and unreasonably sad for a reason she was never able to articulate. The poetry of the words had struck her. She was mesmerized by the way it could be read as both a promise and a confession.

This life, the next, every one before and any that come after — I’ll be there to love you.

Jackie’s memories were realigning within a new context. A film reel of her life played out in her mind, the lens just slightly adjusted to shift the perspective.

Every scene contained a co-star. Another half.

The little girl with her practiced cursive. The awkward preteen hiding behind a book. The brooding teenager with a bad attitude and a secret easy smile. The impulsive young adult who was equal parts infuriating and infatuating. The tortured writer with the graphite stained fingers. The one who hurt her. The one who healed her. All of them different, while exactly the same.

That constant pull in her gut that had taken shape when she was a teenager — like a second force of gravity that kept her grounded to the Earth. How unbearably painful it had been to live without it for the last three years, an open wound that only started to properly close a few days prior when she had opened her eyes in an alley and seen that same person standing in front of her.

Of course Shauna had written the book. There was never anyone else.

There never could be anyone else.

Her eyes met Shauna’s and the entire universe exploded.

“Oh.”

Alice was frowning at her. “What is wrong with you?”

Jackie tore her eye’s from Shauna’s confused face to look at Alice. She mimicked Alice’s smug head tilt. “Do you know what happens when you agitate a yellowjacket?”

The change in tone caught Alice off guard.

“They sting.”

This time, Jackie kicked.

Her foot connected with Alice’s stomach, sending her forward. As she fell, Jackie brought her knee up to meet her face. She heard the satisfying crunch she had missed out on all those years ago at Nationals as Alice fell to her knees holding her nose. Jackie dropped down to her level.

“Word of advice,” she put a finger under Alice’s chin, forcing her to look up, “I’m really not the kind of person you should fuck with.”

She left Alice on the ground, rushing past her to meet Shauna and Nat.

Nat beamed at her. “That was awesome. The yellowjackets line was awful and I am never going to let you live that down, but that was awesome.”

Jackie barely heard her. She was too focused on Shauna to comprehend anything else. She studied Shauna’s face, the one she knew best in the world, put her arms out towards her, and shoved.

Shauna stumbled back and caught herself on a tree.

“Why didn’t you tell me!” Jackie demanded.

Shauna gave her a timid look, as if she wasn’t sure what Jackie wanted her to confess to. “Tell you what?”

“That you wrote my book!” Jackie blushed, “I mean that book. The book. Lost Causes.”

“Your book?” Shauna’s face flickered through a series of emotions as she finally connected all the dots. She leaned her back against the tree, “Wait, the book you’re obsessed with is my book?”

“I’m not obsessed with it,” Jackie said, failing to sell the lie. She took a threatening step towards Shauna. “You wrote me a bajillion letters and never thought to mention that you were writing a book with a character that had an awful lot of similarities to me? No wonder I liked the damn book so much, it was like looking in a mirror!”

Something about that statement felt far more real than Jackie intended it to.

Shauna pushed off the tree, taking a step towards Jackie. “It didn’t start out that way. I didn’t realize what I was actually writing about until I was almost done with it.”

Jackie was very aware of how close Shauna was to her, she narrowed her eyes. “And what was it that you were writing about, Shipman?”

Jackie couldn’t pinpoint what emotions she was feeling towards Shauna or what exactly it was she wanted Shauna to say, but she needed a level playing field.

“I was just making up a story and thought about how it would ruin someone to lose the one person they l—,” Shauna shook her head, “I was alone in Paris and we weren’t talking and I started writing and it just happened. It wasn’t you until suddenly it was and by then, I don’t know, a lot of things made sense and a lot more things didn’t.”

Jackie closed her eyes, trying to sort through her thoughts. “In the book the best friend dies — you killed my character off! Oh my god and then they eat her! You killed me off and had them eat me? Wait,” Jackie opened her eyes to look at Shauna. “But the girl who dies…after she’s dead her friend realizes that she’s been in l—.”

“Jackie,” Shauna said, sounding nervous.

“Shauna,” Jackie responded, as if it was a question.

Nat looked between the two of them. “What are yo—” she stopped and rubbed her forehead. “Oh you have to be fucking kidding me, you’re doing this now? Fifteen years to work this shit out and this is the moment you choose?”

Jackie and Shauna turned to look at her, both looking confused.

“What do you mean?” Jackie said.

Nat sounded annoyed, “You two are several years late to the party, which is impressive, considering it’s your party.”

Jackie and Shauna looked at each other and then back at Nat.

“What?” Shauna said with a frown, taking a step back from Jackie. The sudden distance between them made Jackie feel like an arctic breeze had cut through the woods.

Before Nat could answer, Lottie’s voice did. “Nat, be nice to them. It’s a lot to come to terms with.”

“I guess Lottie wins the pool, I had them down for figuring it out in their thirties,” Tai’s voice said.

Van laughed, “Welcome to the loser club, I had them down for college.”

“Figure out what?” Shauna said, looking genuinely concerned.

Jackie opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by Alice, who seemed to have gotten her bearings back and was rising to her feet.

“Jackie,” she said, wiping blood from her face, “I’m not letting you leave with that drive.”

Nat clapped her hands. “Let’s go ahead and put a pause on this whole situation,” she waved a hand between Jackie and Shauna, “and get the hell out of here.”

Shauna held out a hand to Jackie.

Jackie had never been more confused in her entire life, but she took Shauna’s hand. The weight of it in hers felt more solid than the ground beneath her feet. A second force of gravity.

She let Shauna pull her forward and ran.

___

Shauna was the only thing keeping Jackie on her feet as they ran. Ahead of them Nat dodged between trees, a blur of blonde hair in the moonlight.

Behind her, Jackie could hear Alice crashing through the woods trying to catch up.

“Shauna,” Jackie said as they ran.

Shauna hummed in response but did not look back.

“Shauna,” Jackie tried again, stepping around a large rock.

“We’re almost there.” Shauna said, looking back past Jackie in the direction Alice was. They entered into a clearing and Jackie pulled hard on Shauna’s hand, forcing Shauna to stop and spin back and face her.

“Shauna!”

Shauna looked alarmed. “What? Are you okay?”

Jackie planted her feet. “Did you mean it?”

Shauna glanced around her, looking for Alice. “Mean what? That we’re almost there? Yeah, I think so.”

“No, not that. Did you mean what you wrote?”

Shauna gave her a concerned look. “What?”

“In the book, Shauna. In the dedication of the book. Who —.” Jackie felt very flustered. “The book dedication. This life, the next…did you mean it?”

Shauna’s face softened, she quirked an eyebrow. “You memorized it?”

Jackie frowned slightly. “But if you — who? Did you meet someone in France?” The thought of Shauna answering that question made Jackie’s blood run cold. “Never mind,” Jackie said, moving to push past Shauna. She made it the length of her arm before realizing Shauna still had her hand. Shauna gave her a small tug.

“No.”

“No you didn’t mean it?” Jackie asked.

“What? No, I meant it,” Shauna said, “I just didn’t meet someone in France.”

Before Jackie could respond, Nat appeared in the clearing. “Why are you stopped? We need to go.” Her eyes shifted from Jackie watching Shauna, to their clasped hands, to the sky in a very dramatic eye roll.

“Oh for the love of God, did you somehow forget that we are being chased?” Nat said.

Tai’s voice sounded alarmed. “You’re being chased again?”

“Oh good,” Nat said, “now we’re being chased and we’re in trouble with Tai.”

Jackie was vaguely aware that the noises behind them had died down. The woods had fallen into an eerie silence. She watched Shauna’s eyes widen and looked over her shoulder to see Alice standing in the clearing with them. Using their joined hands, Shauna dragged Jackie behind her — putting herself between Jackie and Alice.

Alice was breathing like a wounded animal. The blood from her nose had spread to her dress, creating a two-toned pattern of red around the collar. She wiped the back of her hand across her face, sending lipstick and blood up onto her cheek, “Jackie, either you give me that fucking flash drive right now or I swear to God I will fucking ki—”

A faint woosh echoed through the clearing. Alice brought a hand to the side of her neck, gave it a curious look, and dropped to the ground in a heap. Jackie, Nat, and Shauna all froze.

A mess of blonde curls appeared from behind a tree.

Nat covered her eyes with her hands. “Oh for fucks sake.”

Misty smiled at them. “Hey guys!”

“Misty, if we just became witnesses to murder —,” Nat started, peeking at Misty though her fingers.

Misty laughed, crossing over to where Alice was on the ground. “She’s not dead, silly. It’s a mild sedative. She’ll be good as knew in a few hours. Here, look, I’ll even do this.” Misty bent down over Alice’s face. Jackie flinched as a single crack rang out.

Misty stood up, “There, I set her nose so it won’t heal crooked.” Misty looked between the three of them. “Which one of you broke it?”

From behind Shauna, Jackie awkwardly raised her free hand.

“Good shot,” Misty said with a proud nod.

Nat dragged her hands down her face, “Misty, I would ask why you are here but I hit my quota of weird shit for the month about three weeks ago.”

Another voice filled the clearing. “Are you guys lost? The driveway is just over that way.”

Lottie appeared behind Nat wearing a very expensive looking dress, and no shoes.

“Sure, you’re here too, why not,” Nat said, in a tone that suggested she had very much given up on the situation.

Lottie noticed Misty and smiled, “Hello, Misty. Nice of you to join us.” She nodded towards Alice lying on the ground. “Is she dead?”

Misty waved a hand. “No one is dead.”

“Someone is close to being,” Nat grumbled. Lottie placed a hand on Nat’s shoulder and Jackie was surprised to see Nat’s body relax into the touch.

Jackie realized that Shauna was still holding her hand. She risked a glance at Shauna’s face and was startled to find Shauna already looking at her.

While Nat, Lottie, and Misty debated what to do with Alice, Shauna turned to face Jackie, dropping her voice for just Jackie to hear, “I,” she stopped. Jackie felt vaguely panicked as Shauna reached out and grabbed her other hand. Shauna guided Jackie’s hand to her chest. “Hold this here,” she said, letting go and doing the same to herself.

With one hand holding Shauna’s and the other on her chest, Jackie looked like she was in the middle of a very awkward rendition of The Pledge of Allegiance. Shauna must have seen the confusion on her face because she let out a small laugh.

“It’s to cover the mics,” she said, lifting her hand up to show Jackie the mic clipped to her shirt collar, “I want to say this to just you.”

With her hand on her chest Jackie could feel her heart speeding up. At some point since they entered the woods Shauna had turned her hat backwards, leaving her eyes on full display — which did nothing to slow Jackie’s heart.

“When I finished the book,” Shauna said, “the publisher asked me about a dedication. They said it was a way to express gratitude to a person or people that helped make the story possible. By that point I had reread the finished book and finally knew exactly what it was I had written about.” Shauna swallowed. “I made up the plot, but the feelings — those are real. So I used the dedication to do something I’ve never been very good at.”

Jackie searched her eyes for an answer.

Shauna shrugged. “I told the truth about my feelings.”

Whatever is was Jackie had been waiting to hear was hidden in the words Shauna had just said, but instead of trying to decode them she asked —

“Feelings about who?”

“Jackie!” Nat called from the edge of the clearing. Jackie jumped so violently she smacked herself in the chin with the hand on her chest. Nat stomped over to them.

“We’re leaving the Wonderland bitch here for Tweedledee and Tweedledum to find.”

“Okay,” Jackie said, feeling dazed.

Nat pointed her thumbs towards where Lottie and Misty were waiting. “So let’s move.”

Jackie and Shauna didn’t move. Nat tapped her foot. “Now, let’s move now.” She walked back towards Lottie.

Shauna let go of Jackie’s hand and Jackie physically shuddered at the loss of contact. She looked down at her newly free hand and wiggled her fingers.

“I’m so sorry,” Shauna said, “I just noticed that I’ve been practically crushing your hurt hand.”

“Huh,” Jackie said. She examined her hand to find that Shauna was right, she had been holding her bruised one — Jackie hadn’t felt an ounce of pain.

“Oh,” Jackie said, “it’s fine, it doesn’t hurt any more.”

Shauna gave her a slightly amused look. Nat called them again. Without thinking, Jackie reached out with her uninjured hand and grabbed Shauna’s. “Let’s go before Nat loses it.”

Shauna briefly looked at their joined hands but said nothing, this time letting Jackie pull her along after her.

__

By the time they made it to the driveway Van and Tai were already waiting for them. Tai got out of the driver’s seat, slamming the door behind her.

“What the fuck happened out there?” She noticed Misty standing next to Lottie and did a double take. “When the fuck did you get here?”

“I’ve been here the whole time,” Misty said cheerfully. She pulled a radio out of her bag and held it up, “I was listening to you guys on this.”

Van started yelling from the passenger seat, “I told you! I told you that codenames were important because of intercepted frequencies!”

Misty smiled, “I liked your codenames! You guys were not good at sticking to them, but I liked them.”

Tai looked into the woods, “I take it you’re not being chased anymore?”

“Nope,” Lottie said, “Misty took care of that.”

Shauna peered around Jackie to look at Misty. “What did you hit her with? A stun gun?”

“I used this,” Misty said, reaching into her bag. She pulled out a tube that looked like a piece of bamboo.

“There is no fucking way you hit her with a blow dart,” Nat said.

A pair of headlights appeared in the dark down the road from them. Tai swept her arms in a frantic motion. “Get in the car, all of you, get in.”

Jackie pulled Shauna into the backseat. Lottie settled in next to them, forcing Nat and Misty to share the trunk. Nat cursed as she pulled the hatch shut. She looked at Tai in the mirror. “Well, what are you waiting for? Drive!”

Tai floored it down the driveway, earning them a scowl from the guard at the security gate as they turned out onto the road without stopping. Tai drove them several miles away from the house before pulling off onto the side of an empty road. She put the car in park and turned around in her seat to face the rest of the team. She locked eyes with Jackie.

“So?”

Jackie looked at her. “So what?”

Tai clenched her fist. “Did you get the drive?”

“Oh!” Jackie said, remembering the point of the whole adventure. “I did! It is right,” with her left hand in Shauna’s she used her right to reach across her body into her pocket, withdrawing the drive, “here.”

She held it out in the palm of her hand. Tai leaned forward and picked it up, holding it in the air between two fingers.

“All that, for this,” she said, spinning it in her fingers.

“Easier than a bag of diamonds,” Lottie said.

Van laughed, “I forgot this started with diamonds.”

“I have a question,” Nat said from the trunk. The next thing Jackie knew Nat was climbing over the backseat, her arm colliding with Jackie’s face. Shauna took a boot to the stomach as Nat wedged herself between the two of them. The weight of Nat’s entire body forced Jackie to let go of Shauna’s hand.

Jackie used her now free hand to smack Nat in the back of the head, “what are you doing?”

“I will not be regulated to the trunk with Misty and her homemade weapons,” Nat said. She snatched the drive out of Tai’s hand. “What happens next?”

“I throw you onto the road and we drive away,” Jackie said.

“Ha ha,” Nat said in a snide voice. “I’m serious, what do we do with it now that we have it? Do we just take it to Mr. Security?”

Tai looked at her watch. “It’s late on a Saturday, I doubt he will be in his office.”

Jackie paled. “I don’t love the idea of holding onto it until the work week starts. I bet he’d be willing to meet tomorrow, he was pretty eager to get it back.”

Misty chimed in from the back, “Why don’t we just take it to him tonight.”

Tai rolled her eyes. “Because like I just said, I doubt he’s at his office right now.”

“So let’s take it to his house.”

They all turned around to look at Misty — a challenging task in an overloaded car. Lottie spoke gently, “Misty, do you know where he lives?”

Misty made a face. “Of course I know where he lives.”

“If I ask you a question, will you be honest?” Van said, looking at Misty, “have you ever been to jail? Even for the night.”

Misty shook her head.

“See,” Van said, wagging a finger, “that feels like a lie.”

“Misty’s possible criminal record aside,” Tai said, “we need to decide what to do.” She looked at Jackie.

“What?” Jackie said, feeling all of their eyes on her.

“This is your operation. What do you want to do?” Tai asked.

Jackie looked at all of them. She thought about what Alice had said about her seemingly lonely — and she had been, but she wasn't anymore. She had called on them to help her with something so insane it didn’t seem real and every single one of them had shown up. Her team. Her friends. She blinked hard to keep herself from crying.

She met Tai’s gaze, “let’s finish this.”

__

Roger’s house ended up being only a few blocks from Lottie’s parent’s. Jackie pressed the doorbell without hesitation. She heard a bell tone chime through the entryway and waited. Just as she was considering going back to the car, the door opened to reveal Roger. He gave Jackie a surprised look.

“Jackie Taylor.”

Jackie smiled. “Hello, Rog.”

“How do you know where I live?” Roger asked in a dull voice.

“I have my sources.”

Roger peered around Jackie towards the sidewalk and pointed a finger in the general direction. “Let me guess, that’s your bodyguard?”

Confused, Jackie turned around to see Shauna leaning against the railing at the bottom of the stairs. Jackie had told them all to wait in the car, but found she didn’t mind that Shauna hadn’t listened. Shauna gave her a small wave.

She turned back to Roger. “Something like that.”

Roger gave Shauna another look before returning his attention to Jackie. “I’m assuming there is a reason you’ve shown up at my house this late.”

Jackie raised her eyebrows. “Maybe we should talk inside? You seemed pretty keen to keep our business quiet.”

Roger looked skeptical, but held a hand out, gesturing Jackie into the house. She gave Shauna a quick glance before going in. The foyer of the house was similar to Lottie’s, with the addition of several framed family photos. Jackie leaned forward to look at them.

“You’re a dad?”

Roger closed the door and looked at the photos, “I am. Two daughters.” The look on his face as he said it made him seem much kinder than the cold businessman she was used to.

Roger looked at Jackie. “Why are you here?”

Jackie pulled the drive out of her pocket and held it up.

Relief spread across Roger’s face. "You got it.”

Jackie nodded. “I got it.”

Roger went to take the drive from Jackie but she pulled her hand back, trapping the drive in her fist.

“Let’s talk payment.”

Roger frowned. “Before I give you anything, I need to verify that that is my drive. For all I know that one is empty.”

Jackie hadn’t considered that — she felt a brief sense of panic that she quickly let go. Alice had been way too devoted to getting the drive back for it to be a fake. She crossed her arms.

“Let me guess, you’re going to need a few days to validate it? I’m not going to let you take this without paying me.”

Roger shook his head. “No, I can do it here.” He started down the hallway, motioning for Jackie to follow. She followed him up a set of stairs into an office with a large desk. Roger sat down at the desk and turned on the computer in front of him. He held a hand out to Jackie.

She placed the drive in his hand and sat down in an empty chair.

Roger plugged the drive into the computer and began clicking around. Jackie couldn’t see the screen, but after a moment, Roger smiled and nodded his head. He leaned back in his chair.

“Now, we can talk payment.”

—

Jackie left Roger’s house to find Shauna still waiting at the bottom of the staircase.

“This is definitely not his first rodeo,” Jackie said as she reached the bottom of the stairs. “He explained it better than I ever could, but the long and the short of it is that I will be the highest paid employee at his company for the next few months.”

Shauna frowned. “He gave you a job?”

“No,” Jackie said, “well, kinda — based on the contract Tai wrote I will be employed as a contractor so that the payments can be made without getting flagged as questionable.”

They started walking towards where the rest of the team was waiting in the car around the corner.

“Do you get good benefits?” Shauna asked.

“Damn,” Jackie said, with a laugh, “I didn’t think to ask about benefits for my fake job.”

They settled into a comfortable silence. Shauna’s hand was swinging next to Jackie’s just close enough to brush her knuckles as they walked.

The last few hours had left Jackie feeling like she was crackling with an electricity that demanded to be exercised.

“Now that this is over, are you staying in New York?” Jackie asked, not looking at Shauna.

Shauna stopped walking. “Do you want me to stay?”

Jackie stopped too. “Do you want to stay?”

Shauna scowled. “Not if it is going to make you uncomfortable.”

Jackie was still untangling her revelations from earlier in the night. The atmosphere between her and Shauna was new and familiar and frightening and exhilarating. Jackie was speaking before she really knew what she was saying.

“Why did you sleep with Jeff?”

Shauna looked as if Jackie had punched her. “What?”

Jackie’s heart was pounding faster than it ever had before in her life. She was afraid of the new feelings, so she leaned into old ones.

“You heard me, why did you sleep with my boyfriend?”

Shauna still looked confused, “Jackie, we talked about this. You know why I did.”

“Were you in love with him? It’s okay if you were, you can tell me, but I deserve the truth.”

Jackie was well aware that she was spiraling, but she couldn’t find a way out.

“What?” Shauna said, “No! Of course I wasn’t in love with Jeff. I hated Jeff! I still currently hate Jeff!” Shauna reached a hand out, “Jax, are you okay? This has been a very long and very weird day — why don’t we just go back to your apartment? I can get you a cab if you want to be alone.”

Shauna staying calm while Jackie lost it was not helping.

“Okay, so not Jeff — what? You fell in love with some fancy French person? Did they buy you snails to eat and make you baguettes?! Did they take you to The Louvre and buy you croissants at the Eiffel Tower? Did they introduce you to a mime?”

Jackie had no idea what she was saying.

Shauna’s voice was measured, “Jackie, there wasn’t someone in Paris.”

Jackie couldn’t take it anymore, she needed an answer to a question that had been eating her alive for the last two hours. She needed to hear Shauna say it, to confirm the suspicion she was far too scared to say out loud.

“Then who is the stupid dedication in your book about?!” Jackie started to pace, taking frantic steps across the sidewalk, “Who are soooo enthralled with that you plan to love them in this life, the next, every one before and any that come after?! That’s a lot of lives, Shauna! You’re saying it’s not Jeff and it’s not some beautiful Parisian — so who is it?!”

Jackie stopped, smacking a hand to her forehead, “Oh my god, is it Lottie?! I’m so stupid! She spent all that time with you in Paris! I heard what you said to Nat earlier when Lottie was tricking Travis.” Jackie put on a horrible imitation of Shauna’s voice, “I get it. Oh I bet you get it. Nat is going to kill you.”

Jackie was breathing like she had just sprinted a mile.

Shauna finally abandoned her calm demeanor and met Jackie in the trenches. She threw her head back and yelled, “I am not in love with Lottie!”

Jackie took a step towards her. “You promised to be honest Shauna!” Jackie jammed a finger into Shauna’s face, “So be honest! Who did you dedicate your creepy ass cannibal love story to?!”

Shauna’s eyes gave Jackie her answer before her words did. The truth hit Jackie like a truck.

“YOU!”

Now Shauna was the one pacing while Jackie stood frozen. Jackie was still coming to terms with her feelings for Shauna and found that she was nowhere near prepared to consider Shauna’s feelings towards her.

“It’s you! It has always been you! Even when you are bossy and overbearing, you’re kind and generous and you care so much about other people and there is, oh my god,” Shauna stopped in front of Jackie, their faces almost touching.

“There is not a single part of me that is not hopelessly, painfully, embarrassingly,” Shauna sounded afraid, “in love with you.”

They stared at each other in the glow of the streetlight, both breathing like boxers in a ring. Jackie marveled at how curious it was to be able to know someone for almost your entire life and, in the length of an evening, suddenly see them in a whole new way. Although, Jackie thought, it wasn't really new — loving Shauna was the most familiar thing she knew.

She tried to steady her breathing, “How long?”

Shauna gave her a half shrug, “Forever.”

Jackie met her eyes. Shauna pulled her mouth into a sheepish smile, “Realistically? 8th grade,” she shook her head, “I think. It’s hard to tell exactly.”

Jackie’s breath hitched, “Then why — you never.”

“Neither did you.”

Jackie frowned at her, “I didn't know!”

Shauna was so close to her now that Jackie could feel the exhale of her laugh against her lips. Her body was vibrating at a frequency that made her feel invincible. Jackie thought of the time she had gone with Shauna to a Catholic mass. She had sat in the pew and wondered what it was that people felt that brought them back to the same spot week after week.

Being this close to Shauna, she finally got it — the power of standing in the presence of something holy.

She felt her eyes start to close as Shauna leaned in.

“Wait,” Jackie said, her eyes flying open. Shauna’s entire body went rigid.

“Does that make me your muse?”

Shauna’s body relaxed as she exhaled, her forehead coming to a rest against Jackie’s. She sighed, opening her eyes to look at Jackie. This close up, Jackie could almost count the shades of brown that made up the color of Shauna’s irises.

Jackie continued, “I’m just asking because based on what you said, it sounds like I inspired your entire book — even if it was unintentional. So by basic definition that would make me your—”

Suddenly, without warning, Shauna’s lips were on her lips and for the first time in her life — Jackie had nothing to say.

___

A month later, Jackie leaned against her car in front of an empty shop front. She felt a small tug in her heart as she saw Shauna coming up the street towards her. Jackie pushed off the car and met her on the sidewalk with a grin.

“Hey.”

Shauna returned the smile. “Hey.” She looked around the street. “Where are we?”

Jackie gestured to the empty store in front of her. “We’re here.”

“Where is here?” Shauna asked, taking in the blank windows.

Jackie strolled up to the door and made a show of pulling a key from her pocket. She held it up for Shauna to see before sliding it into the lock and pushing the door open.

Shauna followed her into the store. The walls were lined with empty bookshelves and a long counter rang the length of the back wall. Jackie spun in a circle, ending facing Shauna with her hands stretched out on either side of her.

“It’s mine,” Jackie said, “as a renter, but still. It’s my store.”

“Your store?” Shauna said with mild surprise.

“And cafe,” Jackie explained, “it will be a bookstore cafe that sells only the best books and serves only the best coffee.”

She wandered over to the counter. “I’ve been talking to Mari about supplying the pastries and was hoping to tap your brain for inventory selection. What do you think?”

Jackie felt nervous watching Shauna look around the store. She settled her eyes back on Jackie with a smile. “I think it’s great.”

Jackie beamed at her and walked over to a bookshelf holding the only book currently in the store. She pulled the book from the shelf and took it to Shauna, holding it out to her.

“This is for you.”

Shauna accepted the book. She looked at the cover and looked back at Jackie.

“It’s my book.”

Jackie nodded. “Open it.”

Shauna opened it to the cover page.

Jackie gave her a slightly annoyed look. “Okay, well put some effort into it, flip through it.”

Shauna did, surprise creeping onto her face as she took in the sheer number of annotations Jackie had crammed into the margins of the book.

“Those are all my thoughts, every single thing that book made me feel while I was reading. That you made me feel while I was reading it.”

Shauna studied the book for a second longer before closing it and handing it back to Jackie. “I don’t want it.”

Jackie’s heart sank. She clutched the book in her hands. “Oh, um, okay.”

“Wait, no,” Shauna said, putting a hand on Jackie’s arm, “I don’t want it because it’s yours. Those are your thoughts and feelings — and they should be yours to keep, not mine.”

Jackie paused.

“And that is really sweet and beautifully said,” Jackie said, lightly whacking Shauna on the forehead with the book , “but I was kind of trying to do something here that you just ruined by being stupidly kind and chivalrous.”

Shauna rubbed her forehead, “Ow?” She saw Jackie’s glare and bit back a laugh, “Sorry?”

Jackie let out a dramatic sigh. “It’s fine.”

“What were you trying to do?”

“Nothing,” Jackie said, strolling back to the counter to set the book down.

Shauna followed after her, “Wait, I want to know. What was it?”

Jackie sighed again, leaning against the counter. “It was nothing, just something silly.”

“Jackie.”

“Oh my gosh, fine, if you’re that concerned. If you had flipped to the end of the book you would have found this.” Jackie opened her hand to show a key dangling off a keychain looped around her middle finger.

“A key?” Shauna asked.

“Yes,” Jackie said, “a key to the apartment upstairs. My new apartment.”

“Oh.”

Jackie made a face. “Yeah, oh.”

Shauna grinned. “Is it for me?”

“No, Shauna,” Jackie said, “it’s for Nat, but I taped to the back of the book that has extreme emotional significance for you and I.”

“That’s a weird way to ask Nat, but okay,” Shauna said.

Jackie threw the key at Shauna, who caught it.

“I hate you,” Jackie said.

“No you don’t,” Shauna responded, examining the key. “The answer is yes, by the way.”

Jackie raised her eyebrows, “I didn’t ask you anything.”

Shauna continued, getting closer to Jackie with each word, “That’s okay. The answer is still yes. Yes to the apartment, yes to helping you pick inventory, yes to anything and everything you think up. It’s always going to be yes.”

Jackie closed the gap between them. “You’re going to regret saying that.”

The door of the store flew open and Nat, Lottie, Van, and Tai all spilled into the shop. Shauna knocked her head against Jackie’s shoulder with a defeated sigh.

“Hi!” Jackie said, placing a quick peck on Shauna’s head before side stepping her to greet their friends.

“When you told me you were moving out I thought it would be to another apartment,” Nat said, surveying the empty room.

“Very funny,” Jackie said, crushing Nat into a hug, “the apartment is upstairs. This will be the bookstore.”

Lottie gave Jackie a hug. “It has very radiant energy.”

“I’m sure Jackie read over the energy section of the lease very carefully, Lot,” Van said.

Jackie smiled, “I wouldn’t know, I had my lawyer read the lease for me.”

Tai rolled her eyes. “Yes, I paid very close attention to the clause on energy.” Tai returned Jackie’s hug, “It looks great. I’m excited to see what you turn it into.”

Shauna had joined the rest of them. Nat caught sight of the key in her hand.

“Shouldn’t keep the key to your diary out in the open like that, Ship,” Nat said, “someone might steal.”

“You’re so funny, Nat. Be sure to let me know when your standup tickets go on sale,” Shauna said, tucking the key into her pocket.

Jackie rolled her eyes. “It’s a key to the apartment.”

Van wiggled her eyebrows. “You two are going to be roommates?

“We’ve been roommates before.”

“Well yeah,” Nat said, “as friends, but now—”

Shauna cut her off. “Tell me, has Lot officially moved into your apartment or is she still just visiting.”

Nat flicked her off. Shauna returned the gesture, but they were both smiling.

“There’s actually a reason I asked you all to meet me here,” Jackie said.

Her friends all looked at her.

“Follow me.”

Jackie led them to the back shop. She opened the door and flicked a light switch, illuminating a room. A table took up the center of the room. One wall contained several bulletin boards. The other had the white board from the apartment.

Jackie entered the room and walked the length of the table, stopping at the other end.

“Nice office?” Van said, trying to be nice, as the rest of them crowded into the room.

Tai looked around. “Why did you bring us back here?”

Jackie pulled a business card from her back pocket and slid it down the table. It came to a stop in front of Nat, who picked it up.

“Wilderness PR? You had a business card made for our fake company?”

“No,” Jackie said, bracing her hands on the table, “I made a business card for our new company.”

“Jackie, we still don’t know anything about public relations.” Nat said.

“Who said anything about public relations?” Jackie asked innocently.

Nat flipped the card over. “You’re not serious.”

Jackie saw Shauna leaning against the wall by the door and winked at her, mouthing, “Yes to anything?”

Shauna shrugged and nodded.

“Rog called me the other day,” she said, looking back at her friends, “and told me that an associate of his is in need of some assistance.”

Lottie smiled. Van looked excited. Shauna looked tired already.

Tai took the card from Nat, “Wilderness Private Retrieval?”

Jackie raised her eyebrows. “You guys ever been to Vegas?”