Jasmine

by Bene, Jennifer

I grin, thinking about the last time they were out. The studio put them up at the Beverly Wilshire and Carmen had gone on about it for a month afterwards. “I told them yes! I just wanted it in writing that both you and Marianne would be coming. Then I’d sign.”

  “Such a gentleman.”

  “Hardly,” I reply, and we both laugh. The conversation fades into a comfortable silence as I remember the months after we found Sloane Finley. Well, after Clint found her.

  I’m still not sure, even after all this time, what exactly made her story go viral. It could have been Senator Harris’s tweet about it, or the tearjerker story that WTHR Indianapolis did when she came back home to her parents. Or, maybe, it was just her, because that’s another thing Clint was right about — it’s hard not to like Sloane Finley if you spend even five minutes with her.

  Whatever it was, the world fell in love with Sloane overnight. Her blog crashed from the views, her Facebook page exploded as soon as it went live again, and every talk show and morning news show wanted to cover it: the sweet, beautiful midwestern girl who went to Hollywood to become an actress, and experienced a horrifying tragedy on her journey home.

  Fucking media gold.

  It was public safety, and tragedy, and inspiration all rolled into one, and Sloane was everything the world wanted her to be. Strong, humble, positive, and smiling. Always smiling.

  They couldn’t get enough, and now a year later the press is back for more.

  I’m still lost in thought as someone passes behind me with a speaker at top-volume, deep bass thumping loud enough that I can feel it like a hand smacking against my back. As soon as it fades, Carmen’s voice comes through, thick with faux disapproval. “You’re out at that bar again, aren’t you?”

  “I am.”

  In the pause that follows I can almost picture her looking at her watch. “Jesus Christ, Mason. It’s only three thirty there.”

  “It’s five o’clock some—”

  “Oh my God, shut up.” Carmen laughs, but a moment later it turns into a heavy sigh. “Tell me the truth, Mason. You sure you’re up for the whole media circus again? Much as I’m looking forward to seeing you, we don’t have to do this. We can just say no. From what I’ve heard, Sloane and Clint are declining requests this year.”

  “Yeah, I heard that too.” I shrug, taking a sip from my beer. I’ve already had this debate with myself. Whether I really want to go sit on Ellen’s couch and smile and laugh and pretend I’m a decent person so that the world can go on believing there are good people looking for all the little lost girls out there.

  “If we don’t go, who will?”

  “Our bosses,” Carmen replies, deadpan, and I can’t help but chuckle.

  “Then it sounds like we don’t have any fucking choice, do we?”

  “Agreed.” She laughs. There’s a moment’s pause, and then her voice, serious. “It’ll really be good to see you again, Mason.”

  “Same. Just let me know when all the arrangements are made, okay? When you’ll be in town, excetera...”

  “I will,” she answers, and I can hear the smile in her voice.

  “All right. I should let you get going.”

  “Yeah. I’m sure you’ll hear from me soon. I’ll no doubt need one more bitch session about Whitmann before I come out.” Another bright laugh bursts across the line.

  “Take care, Mason.”

  “Bye, Carmen,” I reply and the call ends. The first few months after recovering Sloane had been a whirlwind of back-to-back interview trips for us both. During all of it we’d become friends, and as weird as it feels to admit it… I miss her company. I never have to pretend I’m not an asshole around her, and lately that’s become a rare fucking thing.

  Yeah, it will be good to see her again.

  Holding my phone on the bar in front of me, I flip back to the YouTube video I was watching before Carmen called. It’s a channel I’ve been following for some time now, and although I’ve fallen behind on episodes, I’m slowly catching up. I hit the play button and watch as it picks up where I left off. I’m still amazed at how popular it is. 2.35 million subscribers, and this video alone has 685,000 views and it’s pretty new.

  I shake my head, grinning at the video’s corny title. I Shot the Sheriff (But I Fell In Love With the Deputy!).

  I pick up my beer, taking a drink as I watch. I don’t have the volume up high enough to hear what’s being said, but that doesn’t matter. I’m not really watching it to hear the dialogue. I’m watching it to see them.

  “They make a cute couple, don’t they?”

  It takes effort not to be startled by the sudden sound of a voice directly behind me, but I play it cool as I turn my head, watching her come around my side.

  “How’re you doing, Agent Jones?” Trish Tucker pushes her sunglasses on top of her head, giving me a warm smile as she sits on the stool next to mine. After a moment she glances down at my phone, and I do too.

  “I’m fine, and you’re right. They do.” I reach with my thumb to pause the video, turning my attention to her. “So, how did you find me, Ms. Tucker?”

  “Oh, you know…” She raises her hand above her head, finger pointing downwards.

  “Journalism major,” I say before she can, repeating her line from a lifetime ago.

  “Well, actually… journalist now.”

  I dip my head in recognition. “I see. Congratulations.”

  “I graduated last semester, got an offer from the Times a month later. I mean, I’m just a stringer, but…” Her voice trails off, but I don’t miss the pride in it.

  “I’ve no doubt that’s only temporary.”

  “Thank you.” She smiles brightly, and orders a beer when the bartender approaches. “And another for him,” she adds, gauging what’s remaining in my bottle.

  For a second she stares at my phone screen, and I follow her eyes to take in the image once again.

  “The anniversary’s coming up,” she says, looking at me. “I imagine you’re getting inundated with interview requests.”

  “I am,” I answer stiffly, and I wait for it. Wait for her to make one of her own. But… she doesn’t. Instead, she changes the subject.

  “Have you spoken to them recently?”

  I shake my head slowly. “I think it was… three months ago? Maybe longer.” I continue to gaze at my phone, looking at the picture of them frozen in tableau. Clint behind the kitchen counter, head bent as if he’s shaking it in disbelief at something she’s said. Sloane on the other side, head tilted back, face bright with laughter.

  I don’t miss that his hand is reaching across, holding hers.

  “I try to stay out of their lives,” I finish, setting the phone on the bar.

  “Why?”

  “Because.”

  Trish purses her lips, staring at me. She reaches for her beer, taking a long sip, and when she puts it down her face grows serious. “She owes her life to—”

  “No.” I cut her off, and I hate how harsh my voice sounds. She doesn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of that. “No,” I repeat, this time tempering my tone as I tap my finger against my phone screen on the body of the young man holding Sloane Finley’s hand. “That’s who she owes her life to. Not me.”

  “The articles I’ve read tell a—”

  “It’s bullshit. All of it.” I cut her off again. I hate doing it, but I don’t think I could stand to listen to a recitation of what’s been written about me.

  She clamps her jaw closed, and I watch as her lips mash against each other as she bites back whatever response is going on in her head.

  “You went out there, Mason,” she finally says, softly, no doubt expecting more backlash but willing to accept it. “You found her.”

  I yank my beer up to my lips, taking a long pull, and when I set it down, it’s with force enough to bring foam bubbles to the top.

  “But that’s the thing, Ms. Tucker. I didn’t. They’ve all got it wrong. I didn’t go out there looking for her. I went out th
ere to finish off a report. A trip to write a dozen lines to send to her father. ‘Did the best we could; sorry we didn’t discover anything.’ I didn’t even expect to find a fucking body. Much less her. Living. Breathing.”

  I place my hands on the countertop, and the same anger, frustration, and guilt that’s stewed inside me since that day comes bubbling back to the surface.

  “No, Ms. Tucker, I didn’t have any intention of looking for Sloane Finley. But he did.” I look to the screen. I look at the kid who’s a better man than me in his worst moments than I am at my best. “He found her. He saved her. Not me.”

  “But you went.”

  I look at her, and I can’t help the incredulous way my voice comes out. “So. What. That doesn’t mean anything.”

  For a moment she says nothing. She lifts her beer, swallows more of the amber liquid before setting it down slowly, gently. “Did you ever see the interview he did on Good Morning America?”

  I shake my head, thrown by the question. “I… I might have? I honestly don’t remember.”

  She gives me a gentle smile. “Clint said that while you and he had differences in how you handled the case, that without you it wouldn’t have ended the way it did. He said you pushed him. Challenged him. Taught him things about the realities of what it means to pin on a badge. Things that he had not been willing to believe until he had to face them head on.” She laces her fingers together on the bartop, staring down at them for a moment before she looks back up to me. “He said you taught him the value of experience. And the importance of standing firm for what you believe.”

  Fuck. Damn kid is still getting under my skin, even after all this time.

  “Yeah? Well, he’s an…” I stop myself from saying it. Stop the word that should so easily slip off my tongue.

  Idiot.

  Go on, Mason. Say it. It won’t be the first time you’ve called him that.

  But I don’t. Because as much as Officer Clint Nolan frustrates me, irritates me, makes me recognize things about myself I don’t really fucking want to, there is one thing I know for certain.

  He is a good man.

  “Yeah,” I say, picking up where I left off. “Well, he’s a smart kid, and an incredible actor to boot if he’s peddling that story. Sloane has really rubbed off on him.” I point to my phone screen. “And this stuff probably hasn’t hurt either.”

  Trish chuckles, and then shakes her head slowly, giving me a look that tells me she’s not buying it. She’s looking beyond my self-deprecating and self-loathing, and finding something that she thinks is good about me.

  Dammit.

  “You didn’t ask for it, but here’s an exclusive for you,” I say, stabbing my finger at the screen. “Clint Nolan is the sole reason Sloane Finley is alive today. The sole reason. Carmen Rodriguez did as much as she could, as did Sheriff Braddock. Me?” I shake my head. “I didn’t do a fucking thing.”

  “Thanks for the story, Mason.” Trish smiles and tips back the last of her beer. “Too bad I can’t use it. Nobody would believe it.” She sets the bottle down, and then leans in closer to me. “And neither do I.”

  “Really?” I shake my head in chagrin. People keep on believing what they want… “Well, they say ignorance is bliss.”

  Trish gives me a laugh. It is pure, and heartfelt, and sincere, and as frustrated as I am right now it cuts through my angst like a blade. Despite my best efforts, my mouth twitches upward toward a grin.

  “I always did say you wore your cynicism like a suit of armor.” Her eyes narrow, mouth slipping upwards in a sly curve. “But I see the chinks that are there.”

  My grin turns into a full-blown laugh as Trish slides off her stool.

  She throws a pair of bills on the counter, motioning to the bartender. “Another for my friend.” She looks over at me, smiling. “I’ll see you around, Mason.”

  “See you around, Ms. Tucker.”

  She dips her head, turns, and I watch as she walks away into the beach crowd that flows down the sidewalk around her. A moment later the bartender comes over, sets another Artifex in front of me. I nod, picking up the one I still haven’t finished, and turn to stare out at the ocean. The sun glitters off it, the surface a million shards of diamond. I tilt back the beer, and feel the sharp bitterness slip down my throat.

  Maybe I should call them.

  Add it to the list of things I have to do. Like those interview requests piling up for approval by the FBI. Because even a year later the obsession with Sloane and Clint’s story isn’t fading. Theirs is the kind of storybook romance that a million Hollywood producers would love to dig their claws into, but Sloane has spurned them all — and I have to admit I love her a little more for it.

  I try to imagine for a moment what I might say to the two lovebirds if I did call them. More empty bullshit, undoubtedly. Just like what I’ll say on every couch I sit on in the next few weeks.

  I finish my beer, start the new one. I watch the gulls swerve toward the water, and smile. It’s all just bullshit, and I probably won’t call. But who knows? Like Ms. Tucker said, I’ve got chinks in my cynical armor, and Sloane is the biggest one of all.

  And it’s a beautiful day, filled with opportunity.

  So, this time, maybe I will.

  * * *

  Sloane

  The music changes and Billie Eilish starts to sing about wearing a warning sign, and I’m bobbing my head to the beat as I read through a sixth way to make slime. Making notes, I can’t help but smile as I imagine Clint doing this blindfolded.

  People will love it, but… everyone loves him. It’s hard not to.

  “Sloane!” he calls out from the living room, and I groan as I check the time in the corner of my laptop. “It’s nine o’clock, babe. You—”

  “I know, I know, I promised we’d watch Dark Phoenix tonight. Two more minutes?” I ask, and he walks into the kitchen with an indulgent smile on his face.

  “Two minutes?” he asks, slipping behind me to look at my screen. One of his hands lands beside my notepad, and the other starts rubbing my neck as he leans forward to read. “Slime, really?”

  I hum an acknowledgement as his thumb finds the exact spot on my spine that’s tense. Just as I start to lean back into it, he stands up and I turn my head to look at him.

  “You want more of that, you’re gonna have to join me on the couch.” He sidles backward, swaying his hips in his cheesy sexy dance, and I can’t help but laugh.

  “Two minutes.”

  Clint sighs and shakes his head at me. “They’re going to love whatever you come up with, babe, because you’re a genius.”

  “Genius takes work!” I shout after him as he disappears through the doorway of the living room, and I hear him laughing.

  “I’m starting a timer!” he calls back, and I roll my eyes as I go back to my notes. I finish as fast as I can, check the time, and then return to skimming the comments on our last video.

  You two are amazeballs!

  OMG, I want to be just like you guys.

  Sloane and Clint are the best couple ever!

  There are days, like today, when my life doesn’t feel real, and scrolling through three thousand comments doesn’t help at all. Hundreds of people saying they love me, love us, that they want ‘to be just like us,’ but I know that’s not really true.

  They want the bad karaoke date nights, the no-hands cooking challenges, the trips to the mountains… they want to be in love like this. But they don’t want the stuff that I never put on our YouTube channel. No one really wants to go through what I did to get here. No one wants to watch a video about my night terrors, about the nights when I end up throwing up and Clint sits on the floor beside the toilet rubbing my back even though he has to be up at four AM.

  If anything, they want Clint. They want the kind of man who refuses to leave your bedside at the hospital, who uses all of his vacation time to sleep on a tiny hospital couch in Amarillo because he insists on giving your mom the recliner.

 
They want the kind of man who uproots his entire life to move to Indianapolis because he promised not to leave your side, and he meant it.

  They want him, but you have him.

  That thought is what finally pulls me away from the laptop, and I go straight to the living room couch to curl up against him. He laughs softly as he wraps his arm around me. “That was more than two minutes.”

  “I know, I got distracted.”

  “Found another slime recipe?” he asks, and I can hear the grin in his voice.

  “Nah, just thinking about how lucky I am.”

  Clint leans down to press a kiss to my hair as I snuggle in closer, and then he says what he always does, “I’m the lucky one, babe.”

  I don’t bother arguing, we never get anywhere with it, but it does make me smile. He always makes me smile, and that’s how I know I’m the lucky one. He makes me happy, makes me feel loved, makes me feel alive.

  Without him, I wouldn’t even be alive, and that means I win — even if he’ll never admit it aloud.

  “Ready to watch Jean Grey be an epic badass?” he asks, reaching for the remote, and I sit up so I can grab a pillow.

  “I am totally ready,” I answer, planting the pillow in his lap so I can lay down, but then I groan. “Wait, did you answer that voicemail from The Today Show?”

  “I did. I told them no,” he answers, but I catch the look of concern on his face. “Did you want to—”

  “No, no, I just had it on my mental to-do list. I really don’t want to do any more of those, but…” I shrug, reaching for his hand to interlace our fingers. “You know, if you want to, you can totally do them.”

  “I think we’ve had enough of that kind of press to last a lifetime, babe.” Clint kisses my hand, squeezing it as his blue eyes flick back and forth over my face. “You okay?”

  “As long as I have you, I’m always okay.” I smile and lean forward to sneak a quick kiss, but he catches the side of my face and pulls me into a real one. Butterflies take off in my stomach just like they did the first time we kissed. Months after he pulled me out of hell, after we’d been dragged in front of a hundred TV cameras side by side, after I’d already fallen in love with him. I’d had to make the first move, a clumsy, anxiety-ridden kiss outside a coffee shop that had left him looking stunned and me fearing I’d made the worst mistake of my life — until he yanked me against him and kissed me for real.