R. Griffin - Seamless

It was Stella’s turn to spit her drink out and vodka sprayed all over Millie. Millie screamed and wiped her face with her napkin. Dumb and Dumber stood up instantly, ready to react, until they realized the girls were laughing.

“Fuck!” Millie looked down at her wet shirt.

“Sorry,” Stella apologized quickly. “Millie. NO! Why would you think that?” Stella had thought Millie would assume that, but hearing her say it out loud was ridiculous.

“Because, for the life of me, I can’t figure out what happened between you two and neither one of you will tell me,” Millie explained in an eerily calm voice. “Nobody tells me anything. I mean, you tell Patrick and George everything, then Patrick tells Billy everything. It’s like you guys think I’m a fucking moron or something, which I’m not, by the way. I’m way smarter than you—I was in the top third of our law school class. I’m not just some girl you keep around so you can have someone to buy shoes with, I’m your best fucking friend and you better start acting like it or maybe I should get a new best friend that doesn’t get shot or blown up or called a whore constantly on Twitter...”

Stella’s eyes widened at Millie’s outburst and she cleared her throat. “The reason why we haven’t told you is because we’ve been trying to protect you.” This was it. She had to tell her.

“Protect me?” Millie was incredulous. “My two best friends can’t stand to be in a room together, but when I finally get you guys to see each other, he almost drools just looking at you.”

“Oh, now you’re just being a jackass. No, he doesn’t. He’s been helping me, Millie.”

“Do what?” Millie slammed her glass down on the table.

“Fuck,” Stella muttered and turned to look for the server. Catching her eye, she waved and signaled two more. “We’re going to need another round before I can launch into this story.”

“It must be bad.” Millie analyzed Stella’s face for any indication of what was to come; Stella’s face gave nothing away.

“It is,” Stella agreed as the server sat the drinks in front of them. Stella clinked her glass with Millie and drank the entire martini like a shot. “Shit. Okay. You need to understand that, by telling you this, I’m putting you in danger and Patrick might fucking kill me.”

“Fuck Patrick.”

“Okay, wait. Let me start from the beginning. I’d been working for the General Counsel for the FBI for a couple of weeks when I was called into a conference with the ATF. There was some fuck up with an undercover operation and they wanted a little help from the FBI in the cleanup. As you know, they assigned me to go out to Montana to be a liaison for the DC office. Well, at that meeting, I was sitting with my supervising attorney when the ATF personnel came in with one of the undercover agents. It was Jamie.” Stella had been looking out the window at the New York sights. When she paused, she looked at Millie, surprised to see her face blank.

“Jamie who?”

“Jamie. My dead fiancé who turned out not to be dead.”

“Wait, what?!” Millie yelled. “Sorry, I’m just…”

Stella paused, curious. “Who did Patrick tell you who the guy was who George beat up at your house, Mil?”

Millie didn’t move, she just stared at Stella’s face. Then she shook her head. “He said that it was someone George used to know, that he’d seen the house on the news and pretended to know everyone, to work with Patrick. He said that he’d wanted to get pictures of your old house, get close to you. I didn’t ask any more questions; it scared the shit out of me…”

“Shit, sorry. That day is a fucking blur and Patrick said he’d take care of everything,” Stella apologized. “I thought that meant he’d tell you. Fuck.” She shook her head.

“So I let Jamie into our house?” Her voice was nothing but a squeak.

“Oh, Millie,” she grabbed for Millie’s hand, “it’s not your fault. Jamie is an undercover agent and lies for a living.”

Millie looked down at their hands and squeezed Stella’s.

“Anyway, that guy who ‘works with Patrick’? It was my Jamie, who’s now going by the name of Jack Ryder.”

Millie nodded, unblinking.

“So, that was Jamie,” Stella said more forcefully.

Millie’s eyes grew so large they usurped the other features of her face.

“Yes, it’s true. I can’t make this shit up.” Stella took a sip of Millie’s drink that was still sitting on the table in between them. “So my entire year of drowning myself in alcohol and depression was for fucking nothing. It was all bullshit so that he could go undercover with the ATF.”

“OH MY SHIT.” Millie’s eyes were still wide. She pulled her drink from Stella and downed the remaining martini.

“Right?” Stella motioned for another drink. “So, I know I’m all over the place, but after I saw him in the conference room, I freaked. I went home and ran with Cooper. George found me lying in the park with Cooper. He picked me up and carried me to his house. I told him about Jamie because I was so shocked. I kind of wish I wouldn’t have told him, but I’m glad I did, too.” She took a break and wished she had another drink already. “I don’t know...”

She shook her head and examined her recently manicured nails; they were so foreign to her, but Millie told her to get a manicure before the interview. “While I was at George’s, Patrick kept texting me, and basically told me he knew the whole time because he kept asking if I was okay and asking where I was.” She took a deep breath. “Mil, he watched me go through that entire year…shit, four years of fucking misery and he knew Jamie was alive. I don’t know if I can ever trust him again. He was my best friend and it was all a lie. Jamie threw me on him and he felt sorry for me.” Her voice was hoarse from trying to keep all of the emotion she’d hidden away from escaping through her words. It was still hard for her to even deal with the fact that Patrick lied to her for so long. She’d decided that not dealing with that part of her story would keep her the sanest.

Millie was silent. Her hands tore the beverage napkin.

Stella took another deep breath and continued. “So, I went to Montana after getting back together with George. I refused to even acknowledge Jamie. He came to my hotel and apologized to me through the door; said he wanted to talk. I told him to fuck off. Two days later the office blew up and I was shot.”

The server put a new martini down in front of Stella.

“I need another one too, please,” Millie said without looking at the server.

“Jamie shot me, Millie.” Stella blinked and felt the alcohol hit her senses. “He looked directly into my eyes and he shot me.”

A smothered cry escaped Millie’s lips and all of sudden her glass toppled over and vodka surged across the table toward Stella. Stella hurriedly put down napkins to block the alcohol.

“That’s alcohol abuse,” she tried to break the emotional conversation with a lame joke.

“I… I don’t know what to say, El. I-I’m so…” Millie sputtered.

“Don’t…” Stella was so tired of the pity that she saw in Millie’s eyes. “So anyway. I didn’t tell anyone about Jamie shooting me.” Stella looked at Millie and shook her head. “I know. It was stupid and I have no idea why I just didn’t tell the FBI the first time.”

“Holy shit, El.”

“Right?” She took a drink and looked outside again. “Then, when I went to Atlanta, he kidnapped me and took me to Key West and told me he loved me and he never meant for any of this to happen.”

“Wait. Slow down.” Millie tapped her nails on the table like she did when she was nervous in law school. “You’re seriously telling me you were shot and then kidnapped?”

Stella nodded.

“By your formerly dead fiancé?”

Stella nodded again. It sounded like a bad soap opera when she laid it all on the table like this. Jamie’s evil twin just needed to turn up—or maybe Jack Ryder was his evil twin! That makes so much more sense…

Millie burst out laughing. “You must be drunk if you think I’m going to believe that shit. You’re so stupid.” She shook her head and wiped tears of laughter from her eyes.

Stella was shocked and then realized what it sounded like and began laughing too.

“You’re a fucking idiot. Why can’t you just tell me what happened with you and Patrick?”

Laughing, Stella blurted out, “I fucking swear.”

“I’m not that stupid.”

“George, Jesse and Greg came to get me, hence the pictures of me and George drunk in Key West.”

Millie stopped laughing and looked at Stella. Stella knew she remembered those tweets; she’d made fun of Stella for days after the video of them dancing at the topless bar surfaced.

“His sister drugged me at that bar in Atlanta. You saw the pictures of me being dragged out. I wasn’t drunk, I was drugged. Then he drove me down to Key West and out to this house he said was ours. He broke my nose,” Stella rubbed her crooked nose, “then he fed me a load of bullshit about the ATF and what he had to do. He said he loved me and wanted me to stay with him, that we would have a new start. Then he calmly went to fucking sleep.”

Millie just sat there looking stunned.

“He went to sleep, Millie, like it was nothing. I had a gun, but it was in the car. We had gotten to the creepy house—which we had to enter via ladder and trapdoor—by boat. He had a gun, but I couldn’t find it. I was just going to kill him and be done with all this, but I couldn’t find his fucking gun.” She didn’t want to see her best friend’s face when she admitted that. She examined her nails again, thinking the dark grey color was exactly how she felt all the time. “I don’t think I could’ve done it anyway,” she conceded. “I found the keys and took the boat. I thought I’d be able to find the car he left, but I couldn’t, and ended up finding a marina with a pub. Jesse, George and Greg found me and took me to Key West.”

“This is fucking unbelievable.”

“No shit,” Stella agreed. “So, I threatened him and his family so that he would leave me alone. I honestly thought he would, but after testifying, he moved my car and threatened me.”

“That’s why you said ‘Jamie’ when your car showed up? I was wondering about that.” Millie was trying to digest all the information Stella had given her. “And Patrick knew the entire time about Jamie and didn’t tell you.”

Stella nodded.

“You never had sex?”

Stella shook her head. “No.”

Millie waved her hand and the server and signaled two more. “Porn martinis, please.”

Owen and Kate walked into Finnegan’s and George waved them over to where he was sitting and eating lunch. He took in Owen’s expertly tousled hair, his designer jeans, and his big paw holding his youngest sister’s hand. He rose as his sister moved closer and gave her a bear hug.

“Hey, little,” George whispered into Kate’s hair. He put his chin on her head and held her close. George hadn’t seen her in a while because she was going to school and too busy for her big brother. His fatherly instincts kicked in and he glared into Owen’s brown eyes. According to Kara, Kate may not have time for her family, but she was certainly making time for Owen. He knew this was normal, but it was still difficult to deal with his 20-year-old sister doing…what she was doing.

George stepped out of the hug and held his hand out. “Owen.” They shook hands and George used the strongest grip he could muster.

Owen was a friend of the family from Ireland, but that didn’t mean George was okay with him fucking his little sister. He was only in the States on a student visa while he attended Georgetown University in the Public Policy Master’s Program. Kate was going to Catholic University and majoring in Early Childhood Education.

“Will. How’s it going?” Owen greeted.

George motioned for them to sit. He was eating shepherd’s pie and it really wasn’t that good. He hadn’t been able to run to Cosi for lunch like usual, so he’d gotten something from the kitchen. No one ate at Finnegan’s unless they were drunk, which was fine with him.

“Pretty good,” he answered. “Look, I asked you here because I need someone to manage this place, at least on a part-time basis. It’s kicking my ass and I’m doing more reporting, so I need some time to write.” He directed his statement to Owen. Kara had told him that Owen was looking for a part time job.

Owen looked at Kate with wide eyes. Then he turned to face George. “Really?”