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Celina Juarez, 716: "What are the chances he took these off a grave?"
Celina and Rodge hadn’t stayed long after Tamara and Seth had left, finishing their lasagna and wine over slightly strained conversation—pointedly ignoring the two empty seats across from them—before making their exit with excuses of an early shift and… whatever it is that Rodge does.
“Well, it could’ve gone worse,” Tim quips as the sound of their Uber rumbles out of the gravel driveway. Lucy just glares at him from where she’s starting to clear the leftovers from the table.
“Yeah, maybe if your house had burned down halfway through.”
“Actually, I would’ve considered that an improvement.”
Lucy scoffs momentarily, before pausing and almost stomping her foot in irritation, because… “yeah, me too.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Lucy sees Tim glance up at her, before returning his eyes back to the table where he’s collecting the empty wine glasses. Then he glances back up again, and then back down. Up, then down. Up. Down.
Right as she’s on the verge of glaring at him and snarkily asking what the hell he wants, Tim finally speaks, voice nonchalant and eyes laser-focused on his task.
“You okay?”
She should’ve seen that question coming from a mile off, but she’s been trying not to dwell on it.
“Yeah,” she sighs, not untruthfully. “I... I kinda predicted something that like that—”
“An engagement?” Tim’s disbelieving voice cuts in right as Lucy starts shaking her head, realising what she’s just said, and their words overlap.
“Not—not an engagement. God, no. That was—” …not something she thought she’d find out tonight. She throws a napkin down forcefully, pressing a hand to her forehead in frustration as she remembers the moment she’d spotted the ring glinting in the warm light. “Fuck—what is she thinking?”
“God knows,” Tim sighs. “I know the girl’s been through a lot and she’s wise beyond her years, but she’s still way too young for that shit.”
“Right? And with Seth of all people. I thought she had more sense than that.” Picking the napkin back up and folding it neatly, Lucy mutters under her breath, “thought I taught her better.”
Of course Tim catches it.
“Look, you’ve taught Tamara a lot over the last few years, Luce, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that she’s spent most of her life without a stable home environment. She has street smarts and a whole lot of intelligence, but there’s a lot she didn’t learn, and that’s not your fault. Hell, it’s not even hers.”
Lucy sighs. “I know. I just hope I can talk her out of it—if she ever talks to me again—or that she comes to her senses before it’s too late.”
Walking over to the kitchen area and skimming her gaze across the kitchen counter to see if anything in there needs clearing up, Lucy’s eyes catch on the bouquet of flowers Seth had given her. They’re still laying exactly where Celina had left them with an awkward quip after Lucy had passed them off to her like they were explosive.
To Seth’s credit, they are beautiful flowers. A white arrangement, symbolic of innocence and new beginnings.
He’s not subtle.
As she picks up the bouquet to admire them one last time before tossing them into Tim’s back yard to become one with the rest of nature away from her sight, she spots a small card nestled in the bouquet, wedged halfway down between the stems. Plucking it out, Lucy frowns slightly. The flowers were kind of awkward and overboard enough, but a note? Tamara really must have been desperate to make her warm up to Seth.
She huffs out a laugh, lifting the small card to show Tim across the room. “They wrote a note for the flowers.”
Tim just rolls his eyes as begins to collect the dinner plates. “He must really want to earn your respect back, huh?”
“Yeah, like that’s ever fucking happening,” she huffs, glancing down and beginning to read the florist’s trained cursive script.
My dearest Dorothy,
I’ll miss you forever and always.
I hope you’re resting in peace.
Your love, Brad.
What the—
In her shock, the note slips from Lucy’s fingers, falling gracelessly back into the bouquet and getting caught between the stems of a decorative filler flower.
Holy fucking shit.
“Oh my God.”
Tim looks up in alarm. “What is it? You okay?”
“Celina was—she was—she was right.”
The absolute horror in her voice clearly scares the shit out of Tim, and he sets down the plates he’d been stacking before walking over, eyebrows wrinkling in confusion as he tries to think back over the last couple of hours. “Right about what? What does it say?”
She digs the note back out of the bouquet, shoving it in Tim’s face with a slightly shaking hand.
“Seth stole these from a grave.”
Tim’s eyes widen as he closes the gap between them, glancing down to read the words. Lucy suddenly clocks the gritty feeling of mud under the pads of her fingertips where they’re still wrapped around the flower stems, and she realises very quickly that she does not want to be holding these anymore.
The bouquet drops to the counter, flecks of water splashing across the varnished wood.
“Well,” Tim mutters, processing the words he’s seeing at the same time Lucy reaches for a napkin and wipes at her hands furiously, wanting the grave dirt off of her hands.
“What do—uh—what do we do?” Lucy stammers, giving up with the napkin as it gets covered in small streaks of mud and just going to the sink to fully wash her hands.
“What do you mean?”
“We have to—to do something, right? Seth can’t just go around stealing bouquets of flowers from graves—”
Tim holds a hand up and Lucy pauses as he interrupts. “Okay, hold on a second. First of all, I know Celina joked about it, but we don’t know that he did steal these from a grave. Maybe there was just a mix-up at the florist with the cards or something.” Sometimes Tim’s logical nature grates on her. She’d been hoping that, just this once, his utter contempt for Seth would be enough for him to hop on the crazy train with her, just for a minute, entertaining her ideas before slamming on the brakes and bringing them both back to reality. But no such luck. “Second, in the extremely unlikely event that he did steal them, it’s not like he killed the person whose grave it was in order to get them.” Lucy shoots Tim a glare, her eyes easily conveying that we don’t know that for sure. Tim backpedals, “okay—he probably didn’t kill anyone to steal their flowers. A crime hasn’t exactly been committed here, Luce.”
“Tim—”
“Don’t get me wrong,” he continues, “if it is the case, and if Celina’s joke turned out to be one of her psychic visions or whatever, it’s beyond fucked up. But technically, there’s nothing illegal about it.”
She knows he’s right, that Celina’s passing joke has just conjured up the most unlikely scenario in a laundry list of reasonable explanations, but now it’s in her head she just can’t shake it. The mental image of Seth walking through a cemetery, plucking the least-wilted looking flowers from in front of poor Dorothy’s rain-worn headstone and bringing them back to Tamara like they’re fresh from the florist, sends her skin crawling.
She grimaces, shivering involuntarily. “I can’t let Tamara get married to a pathological liar who might steal flowers from dead women. What if—what if this isn’t the only time? What about their first date? Their engagement party? Oh my G—if he clears out a graveyard for their weddi—”
Striding over, Tim cuts off her rambling by placing two firm hands on her shoulders. “Lucy. Stop spiralling.” Taking an exaggerated deep breath, he motions for her to follow his lead. Even though he isn’t speaking aloud, she hears his voice in her head, repeating words he’s used in this situation so many times in a soft, reassuring tone. In, and out, Luce. Just breathe. Slowly, the rabbit hole releases its claws on her, and her shoulders relax beneath his fingertips. “Now,” he continues once she’s taken a pause, “we both know damn well that wedding is never going to happen. Tamara will find out the truth soon enough.”
Lucy can practically feel the warmth of the metaphorical lightbulb dinging over her head, and she stands up a little taller. “We have to confront him.”
The we was somewhat of a slip-up, a lingering remnant of an old habit, but Tim doesn’t even seem to notice. “Is that what you want to do?” he asks, voice steady against her slight unravelling.
Nodding emphatically, Lucy steps back to grab the offending card from the bouquet. “Right now,” she says, having never been more certain of anything. “I can’t stop Tamara from staying with him if that’s what she truly wants, but she needs to know what kind of person he really is.”
“Okay,” Tim agrees, heading over to grab their jackets from the closet. “Then let’s go confront Seth.”
It sends a warm glow through Lucy, the realisation of how easy it is for Tim to just slot in right beside her, following her lead like it’s second nature rather than a decision he has to think about. The two of them really have been partners since day one, and that didn’t end with their break-up.
Lucy spends the car ride borderline interrogating Tim about his past rookies—herself not included, for once—wondering if any of them were as bad as Seth, or if she’d somehow angered the universe and she’d been assigned the most awful rookie in LAPD history as some kind of penance for her sins.
Despite Tim’s best efforts at reassurance, by the time they’re walking down the hallway towards Seth’s apartment Lucy is convinced she colossally fucked up in a past life.
A strange nervousness washes over her as she reaches up to knock on the painted wood. If this doesn’t go to plan, she knows she’s completely torching the remains of her relationship with Tamara—the girl will never forgive her. Lucy is just crossing her fingers it doesn’t come to that. The steadiness of Tim’s presence at her six is all she needs to not take off running before the door opens.
When the door swings open, Lucy startles slightly, steeling herself. She feels Tim’s hand lightly brush against the small of her back to steady her.
Seth looks perplexed by their presence. “Lucy? Uh—hi,” his tone takes on an apologetic hue. “Look, I’m sorry, but I don’t—I don’t think Tam wants to speak to you right now.”
The use of the overly familiar nickname is all Lucy needs to feel the rage bubbling inside her once again. He doesn’t know Tamara like that; it’s barely been two months, for Christ’s sake.
When she speaks again, she’s surprised by the firmness in her voice. “That’s fine,” she says cooly. “I’m not here to speak to Tamara.”
The younger man’s brows furrow, and he leans one arm on his doorframe. “Then what—”
Seth’s expression is completely clueless, innocent, and Lucy doesn’t know if she’s completely crazy or if he’s just that good. Either way, her agitation spikes.
“Where’d you get the flowers from?” she asks, trying to inject some lightness into her tone to make it feel less like an interrogation. She fails miserably, and her words come out slightly strained. “They’re beautiful.”
“You… you came all the way over here to ask me—” Seth huffs out an uncomfortable laugh in disbelief, cutting himself off involuntarily. Lucy just nods, like there’s nothing wrong with it. “Uh, it was the—the florist a few blocks from here.”
“Oh, cute,” Lucy says flippantly. Seth is beginning to shift on his feet uncomfortably, knowing damn well there’s more to it. Good. Let him squirm. “Well, like I said, beautiful flowers. Although…” Wanting to draw out Seth’s discomfort, she turns her head towards Tim to back her up. His expression looks exactly like it had over dinner, like he’d literally rather be anywhere else. She’s grateful he’s here, anyway—a past version of him would’ve insisted on waiting in the car. Small doses. “Perhaps I wouldn’t be leaving them five stars on Yelp,” she finishes conversationally. Tim nods in agreement, and Lucy turns back to face the doorway.
Seth’s confusion remains firmly in place, only with concern now plastered over the top. “Oh, what’s—what’s wrong with them?”
Lucy holds up the small card between her fingertips, flecks of mud from the bouquet dusting the printed photo of daisies on its front. It takes every ounce of her self-control not to throw it at him and use copious amounts of hand sanitizer to dispel the grave dirt from her hands once again.
“The card?” She lifts the folded paper slightly like it should speak for itself, but as Seth eyes it his perplexed expression doesn’t budge.
“What ca—?”
Even though she’s read over it so many times she could probably recite it from memory, Lucy makes a dramatic show of reading aloud from the paper. “‘My dearest Dorothy, I’ll miss you forever and always. I hope you’re resting in peace. Your love, Brad.’”
When she looks up, Lucy can see the cogs turning in Seth’s mind. “Oh, shit,” he mutters, and Lucy’s not sure if they were meant to hear him. She and Tim share a sideways glance before she continues.
“Bit inappropriate to write to your old TO, huh? Got both our names wrong, too.”
Tim snorts quietly behind her, quickly disguising it as a cough. Yes, they both know she’s written far more inappropriate things to her old TO, but that’s not the point right now.
“Look—I—I can explain,” Seth stammers, his bumbling stutter that Lucy had grown accustomed to over the months they’d ridden together making its reappearance.
She throws her hands up, encouraging him to go on.
He presses a hand to his forehead. “The—the florist must have mixed up the notes,” he murmurs. Believable enough. “Look, my—my grandma passed away recently, and I was picking up some flowers from my grandpa at the same time, and—” aaand there it is.
“Nope.” Lucy cuts him off, shaking her head. “No, no, no, no, no, enough with the lying already!” Her tentative composure cracks violently.
Seth scratches at the back of his neck, agitated. “I don’t—what are you trying to imply?”
“You and I both know your grandma didn’t just die, Seth.” Lucy takes a step towards him, frustration overtaking her. She just wants the truth to come out of his mouth for once. “Where did you really get those flowers from?”
His mouth is agape, searching for a response when Tamara’s voice calls out from further inside the apartment.
“Seth? Is everything okay? Who’s at the door?”
His eyes fall shut, and he pinches the bridge of his nose. “No one, Tam, it’s nothing.”
“I thought I just told you to quit with the lying,” Lucy quips coldly, her eyes not leaving Seth’s face even as Tamara appears in the doorway.
“What—” she breaks off as she clocks Lucy and Tim, sighing. “Lucy… please, just go. I really don’t want to talk to you right now.”
Lucy ignores the pain those words flare up in her chest and asks what she needs to know.
“Where did Seth get those flowers from, Tam?”
“You what?”
“The flowers he gave me earlier, where were they from?”
Tamara looks baffled, growing more annoyed by the second. “What the hell are you—?”
“Just answer the question, Tamara,” Tim murmurs.
“The—the florist, I guess?”
“So you weren’t with him when he bought them?” Lucy asks, eyes still locked on Seth, whose own gaze is now firmly trained on the floor of the hallway. Guilt and shame is beginning to radiate off him in waves, and Lucy knows her instinct was right—this wasn’t just some simple mix-up.
“No, I wasn’t. What are you trying to imply here?”
“What I’m implying is that your fiancé,” she spits the word out like it’s poisonous as she finally meets Tamara’s eyes, furiously waving her hand in Seth’s direction as her resentment boils over, “stole those flowers from some poor woman’s grave.”
“Lucy…” Tim mutters in warning, covering his face with his hand momentarily.
The immediate tension in the air feels like Lucy’s just started the timer on a bomb right here in the hallway. She can practically hear it tick, tick, ticking down to an inevitable explosion.
Seth remains silent and unmoving at the accusation, which tells Lucy everything she needs to know. Miraculously, she’s hit the nail on the head.
Tamara, however, has never looked more furious.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she seethes, eyes glaring right into Lucy’s soul. “How the hell could you accuse him of something like that?”
Agony courses through Lucy at the way Tamara is looking at her, with so much rage and disappointment that is makes her chest ache, but she tries to remain steady and level-headed against it. She wants the girl to truly see what she’s tangling herself into here.
“Tamara—“ Tim starts, taking a step forward in Lucy’s defence.
Lucy presses a gentle hand against his chest, and he retreats. “No, it’s fine, I get it. Just—did Seth’s grandma pass recently?” she asks plainly.
“What?” she scoffs, rolling her eyes. “What has that got to do with anything?”
“Tamara,” Lucy pleads.
She tuts, folding her arms across her chest before finally responding, “No. We went to visit her yesterday, so what?”
Once again, Lucy glances over and her eyes meet Tim’s, his eyes holding as much quiet shock as she’s sure hers are. They’ve literally caught him in his lie, right here and right now.
“This card,” she holds up the paper with the offending words once more, offering it over to Tamara who takes it reluctantly, “is addressed to a dead woman from her mourning husband. It was in the flowers Seth gave me before dinner.”
The certainty in Tamara’s eyes begins to fracture as she reads the words, but her tone remains indignant all the same as she shrugs nonchalantly.
“The florist mixed up the notes. Big deal.”
“Yeah,” Lucy scoffs, “if Seth had said just that, I probably would’ve believed him. But he just told us that that note was addressed to his recently deceased grandma. Apparently, he was picking up flowers on his grandpa’s behalf.”
At this, Tamara glances over at Seth, who still hasn’t moved a muscle, not meeting any of their eyes. Her brows furrow in confusion. “But—your only set of grandparents got divorced before you were born. And your grandpa lives in Atlanta. And their—their names are Hazel and Richard.” Seth remains frozen as Tamara’s voice takes on a slightly hysterical edge, unhinged and confused laughter creeping in. “And Hazel was definitely alive when she was serving us tea yesterday. Who the hell are Dorothy and Brad?”
Silence.
“Seth,” Tamara’s tone is begging, “what the fuck is going on?”
Still more sprawling silence. It’s almost like someone hit mute on the whole building. They’re all waiting for him expectantly, and Lucy knows he can feel all the eyes on him.
Eventually, Seth shifts on his feet under the weight of their stares, opening his mouth before clearly hesitating. And then…
“I—I didn’t have a lot of the backpay money left after I bought the ring, okay?”
“Oh my God,” Tim mutters under his breath. Funny, Lucy had been about to say the exact same thing.
“And—and I wanted to take Tam’s suggestion, buy some nice flowers to try and mend bridges; but the florist was just so expensive, and—and I walked past the cemetery on my way home…”
“Oh my fucking God, Seth,” Tamara cries, taking an instinctive step back.
He gestures to the card still clutched in Tamara’s hands. “I didn’t realise there was a card inside,” he laments.
“What the fuck?!”
He reaches out for Tamara's hand and she shakes him off, taking another step back. “Come on, Tam, it’s not like I killed anyone for them!” Desperation seeps into his tone as he tries to keep hold of the one good thing he has.
Jesus.
He’d clearly tried for humour, but the three sane people in the vicinity visibly recoil.
“Like that’s the fucking point?” Tamara huffs hysterically, already pushing past him to leave the apartment. “God, I can’t even look at you right now.”
“Tam—no, please, wait. I can explain.”
Shaking her head, Tamara keeps her back to the doorway. “You just did. Just—just give me some space, okay? I’ll come talk to you if I’m ever ready.” Eyes now glancing between Lucy and Tim, her voice is quiet as she murmurs, “can you guys take me home? Please?”
The defeat in her voice reminds Lucy of the terrified teenager with nowhere to go, and her heart breaks. She doesn’t want to just drop her back to her houseshare.
“You’re coming back to the apartment,” Lucy decides, placing a comforting hand on Tamara’s shoulder. She makes a point of not looking back up at Seth as he hangs his head low.
Tim steps aside, allowing Tamara and Lucy to begin walking down the hallway ahead of him. They’ve barely taken two steps when the slam of Seth’s door resounds down the hall, and the moment it does, Tamara doubles back on herself, going to back in front of the now-closed door.
“No—Tamara,” Lucy whispers, trying to grab hold of the girl’s wrist.
But she doesn’t make to knock or open the door with a key. Instead, in one quick movement, Tamara pulls the engagement ring from her finger and slips it through the letterbox.
“Maybe he can sell it and use the money to buy his next girlfriend a fresh bouquet, instead of disrespecting the dead,” she quips. With that, the letterbox swings shut, and the muffled sound of the ring clattering to the hardwood floor on the other side of the door has an air of finality to it.