Plain Sight

A/N: Hi! I know it's been ages and ages since I've posted. In case you remember my other stories and care, I am pulling "Looking Glass" and "At Your Service" out of inactivity. Please read and review. It's crack to my muse.


Chapter One: Unveiled

There were four half-empty pizza boxes on the counter, but no plates stacked in the sink. She didn’t own any. Except the kind you threw away, anyway. She wasn’t sure if the moldy cheese in her refrigerator had once been cheddar or baby Swiss. The potatoes in her cupboard were growing. The stack of outdated newspapers next to her trash can dated back to early summer, and it was almost Halloween. And that was just her kitchen. The living room and the bedroom, where she actually spent time, were way, way worse. But she liked to keep the kitchen in better shape because it was the first room her mom would see if she stopped by to visit (or bitch about the cleaning habits of her youngest daughter).

Hey, James never said she wasn’t a fucking slob.

She elbowed two beer bottles (good beer—imported because she had standards) and a box of tampons out of the way, clearing a space on her coffee table for her Chinese takeout. She found the remote control under a Victoria’s Secret catalogue and decided it was maybe time to bust out a few Hefty bags and disinfecting wipes. Seriously. Victoria’s Secret? Who kept that kind of shit except single pervs and girly girls who spent half their paychecks on overpriced scraps of lace?

Maybe she’d give the catalogue to her Ella. That sort of thing was right up her friend’s alley.

Her phone jangled disharmoniously, dragging her attention from a riveting account of some moron’s trek up a big fucking mountain to lose two fingers and prove he had a big dick. Speak of the devil. Ella. She groaned.

She loved Ella. She really did—mostly because Ella wouldn’t allow anything else. Stubborn as a mule behind a brick wall.

“Hi there! Are you busy?” her friend chirruped.

“Yes.”

“Liar. Eating bad takeout in front of the TV is not being busy.”

“I’m not in front of the TV. It’s fully a forty-five degree angle,” she argued.

“Not good enough, smarty pants. Come out with me tonight?” No matter how it sounded, Ella hadn’t issued a request. She didn’t think Ella had ever made a request in her life.

“Do I have to?” Still, it was worth a try, right?

“Yes.”

“Fuck me. Why can’t you find somebody who actually likes going out with you?”

“James, you watch your mouth.”

“So I can watch myself as I tell you that you sound like my goddamned mother?”

“Har dee har. I’ll pick you up in an hour,” Ella informed her.

An hour? She was going to have to wait an hour? It’d only take five minutes to find a clean t-shirt and throw her hair in a ponytail.

“Wear something nice. None of that t-shirt and jeans stuff you pulled on me last time. Wear that top I bought you. And a skirt.”

A top? James hated that word. Just because it didn’t look big enough to be a shirt didn’t mean it wasn’t still just a shirt.

“And make sure you shave!” Ella added before hanging up.

Well, bugger. That meant she’d have to shower. And find a razor that wasn’t rusted to her bathtub. Jesus ice-skating Christ in a feather boa.

She was still cussing while she waited an hour and ten minutes later for Ella. She was sitting cross-legged on the hood of her car, because Ella would throw a hissy fit at the state of her apartment if James let her inside to see it. So what if it was only fifty degrees out and she was wearing a skirt and “top” and Ella was taking her own sweet time getting here? Not like she hadn’t gone to a lot of trouble. Oh, no. She hadn’t had to resort to using one of the razors that her ex-boyfriend had left and forgotten about when he gave her the boot a year ago. She hadn’t cut her ankle till her shower drain looked like a scene from a horror movie. She had quit at her knees. There were some parts of her that she really wasn’t willing to risk. And since she was wearing the long denim skirt that Ella despised, it wouldn’t matter anyway. Ella would never have to know. She had even put her hair into a sloppy bun instead of a ponytail.

Ella rolled her eyes when she pulled up, but refrained from commenting on her friend’s idea of effort.

“Get in,” she said instead.

“Why can’t we take my car?” James wondered.

“Because I don’t want to smell like stale French fries.” James gave her the finger.

“So, where are you making me go?” James asked.

“Out of that cesspit you call home,” Ella teased.

James singsonged, “Home is where you leave your crap.” Ella just grimaced.

Ella parked outside of a sports bar. James could cope with this. Deep-fried appetizers, decent beer, people paying more attention to the game than her.

“This okay?” Ella looked a bit worried, as she always did at her choice.

“Yeah. This is okay.” James rolled her shoulders and headed for the bar. She dug her ID out of her back pocket for the bouncer and promptly allowed Ella to order her a stiff drink. Ella glanced at her watch. Then she did it again.

“Tell me you didn’t,” James begged.

“Didn’t what?” Ella sounded innocent, which meant she wasn’t.

“Goddamn. You better be glad I love you, or I’d break your fucking nose. I don’t want to meet any of your ‘really nice’ guy friends. I don’t want to meet anybody.”

“James, James, James. You know that I only have your-- Oh, look, here they are now.”

Jim, Ella’s boyfriend, and some guy James didn’t know stood suddenly next to her. Bar noise must have covered their approach. She shot one last glare at her friend before turning her polite smile on the men. Well-intentioned friends were James’s personal hell. Still, Greg, the set-up guy, seemed okay. Not great-looking or terribly interesting, but he had a real job and didn’t smell like pot. He was probably a pretty decent human being, if you went for the boring as shit sort. He gave her his number at the end of the evening, so she could just lose the scrap of paper in her garbage disposal. It wasn’t an awful evening, all in all. Still, she was glad to get home and slip into sweat pants and a t-shirt and crawl into bed.

Her life was pretty boring. She knew it. And she liked it that way. She just preferred to be bored by herself. She really thought she had earned it. She rolled over, pulled a screwdriver out from under her thigh, and fell into a comforting, solitary sleep.

Her mom called her the next day during her lunch hour.

“What?”

“I don’t like your tone, young lady,” her mother said.

“Your fault. Everyone says I sound just like you on the phone.” James smirked, but only until her mother’s next comment registered.

“Sorry, Mom, I just spaced. Can you repeat that?”

“That’s okay, dear. I was just wondering if you had a good time last night, out with your friends.”

“Yeah, sure. I guess, but—Mom, how did you know I was out last night?”

Henrietta James sighed audibly. “Sweetheart, your picture was in the tabloids this morning.”

“Mother fucker. What cock-sucking mother fucker—the bouncer. He carded me. Oh God. Oh Jesus God. That asshole.”

Henrietta cleared her throat but didn’t reprimand her daughter for her language. Her tone was gentle as she said, “I’m sorry. I really am. But did you really think you could hide forever?”

James’s laugh sounded like it had been dragged over a mile of gravel road.