FicWad

Two men in suits look up at Jim, and the shorter of the two men glances at the number of Jim and Sid’s apartment on the door. He looks around, pretty uneasily, while the taller of the two simply glances at his shoes and then over Jim’s shoulder. The taller one seems pretty confused as well as bored. The shorter man decides to cut to the chase, clears his throat and speaks then, “Excuse me, we didn’t mean to interrupt you or anything. We were told that James Donald Root lives here.” Jim almost answers this, kind of hoping it isn’t the IRS (he doesn’t know why they’d be after him; he’s struggled to pay his taxes, but he always did). But then somewhere in the back of his mind, as he studies them more, he realizes who these two men might be and why they managed to track him down. The suits pretty much give them away. Aw /shit/....

He can only widen his eyes and swallow hard, wishing that they were from the IRS, before the second man speaks, “Yeah man, we trying to track him down because he stole some money?” At this, the shorter man blinks and slowly glares at his partner for saying something so revealing and so stupid to an innocent bystander. The second man doesn’t really know what he’s done wrong, so he can only say, “What?”

The first man chuckles nervously at Jim and grabs his partner’s sleeve. “Excuse us for a second.” He pulls the man away and walks him to the side. Well, Jim can only blink for a while as the guy starts screaming and hitting the second man for such a blunder. “Fucking dumbass! You do NOT,” a slap on the head, “tell people like him why we’re here, you fucking,” another blow to the shoulder, “idiot! That person will fucking turn. Us. /In/!”

“I’m sorry!!” The second man protested quickly. “I got too excited, we ain’t found anyone in awhile and I got so excited that the guy’s in these apartments somewhere!”

“Shut the fuck up! I swear the god, you if mess this up even more I’m gonna fucking kill you! Got that?” The second man can only nod feebly as he’s grabbed by the sleeves and taken back to Jim.

The first man clears his throat and smiles. “I’m sorry about that sir, my partner’s a bit of an idiot. Now, can you tell me if James Donald Root lives in this apartment?”

After simply staring at them for what seemed like an eternity, and after wishing he had shut the door while they were arguing, he composes himself and smiles nervously, shaking his head. “Never heard of him,” he replies with a confident tone in his voice.

“Okay, then, sorry about that.” He glares at his partner and says, “C’mon,” as Jim shuts the door.

And now he can shed his façade and pretty much panic at the situation he should’ve known he’d found himself in. He bangs his head against the door. “Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck/fuck/!” he whispers harshly, his heart pounding and his palms sweating against the door. He backs away from the door and runs his fingers through his hair, trying to calm down. He’s sort of surprised that the men don’t really know what he looks like, and he wonders if they knew what some of the other employees looked like before they killed them. Maybe they were stupid enough to reveal their names. “Okay,” he whispers to himself as a means to calm himself down. That doesn’t exactly work so he says it again, “Okay, okay, okay, calm the fuck down Jim, they don’t know what you look like, they’re not gonna come after you as long as they don’t know...”

Sid comes out of the bathroom then with some night clothes and a towel around his neck, and he raises an eyebrow at his roommate. “Hey dude,” he speaks, almost startling Jim. “Who was that at the door?”

Jim shakes his head and tries to compose himself again. “No one,” he answers rather quickly, “just the IRS looking for someone.” He pauses then and wonders why he had said something so mindboggling stupid.

__

Meanwhile, Mick, relieved to be away from the snot-nosed children (and he could’ve sworn one of them was that little bad girl that taunted him earlier this month), walks over to his and Joey’s door. He stops there, however, expecting to see his roommate watching television and having a smug look on his face. He really wants to get Joey back eventually. He really does, but he also knows that he got himself in this situation. He sort of relieved that he’s in their apartment again. Shaking his head, he unlocks and opens the door, and he can only blink when he sees Joey watching television in a t-shirt and short boxers. Now, Mick really doesn’t know why he’s fixated on that, but he clears his throat as he shuts the door and heads for the kitchen, not really greeting him. Joey blinks at the sight of his roommate, before he quickly turns back to the television. He did say he’d forgive Mick if he went as Santa, but he’s still self-conscious around the guy. He has a blanket, but it’s not covering his legs, and he’s noticed that Mick was probably staring at them, so he pulls the blanket over him. He’s still isn’t sure he wants to talk with him right now.

He reaches for the remote and turns up the television slightly because he can’t hear what the character is saying. He knows that Maury is coming up next, and he really doesn’t want to watch that. For some reason, the increased volume prevents Mick from concentrating on what he wants to snack on (he’s starving), and he sighs and asks Joey, “Can you turn that down a little?” Joey blinks at that and annoyed, he reaches for the remote to turn down the volume.

“There, it’s quiet. Are you happy?” Joey asks rather dryly. Mick turns around and stares at the response, before he shakes his head. However, he decides to just say it then.

He slams the refrigerator and begins with, “I certainly hope you’re happy, Joey.” The short man slowly turns around to face his roommate. “That shit you pulled on me, to make me dress up as fucking Santa, that’s not gonna happen again. I really hope you’re happy. You really wanna know how much I had to restrain myself from strangling fucking Corey? The fucking kids?” But then he also says, “I’ve been humiliated, you got me, there.”

Joey sighs and turns off the television, not feeling like watching it anymore. Instead he turns to Mick and retorts, “Yes, Mick! I’m very happy. You got up there and humiliated yourself with a bunch of whiny kids in response to you watching me give head to your fucking friend. And I do forgive you. Are YOU happy now?” He stands up and begins walking over to his room. “Because if not, then what-the-fuck-ever.” Mick mutters something bad as Joey shuts the door. He honestly expected Joey to be a little more grateful, but it seems as if he really can’t win his roommate’s favor easily, if not at all. He tries to come up with some words to say, before he walks over to Joey’s door. He sighs exasperatedly as he knocks on the door. When he’s answered with, “Go a/way/, Mick!” the large man decides to just fuck it, and opens the door. Joey was just setting his bed together when he rolls his eyes, sighs, and turns around. “What do you want? And make it fast because I wanna sleep.”

“Think we really need to talk about this, Joey” Mick replies almost angrily, “because I’m sick of you acting like you’re on your fucking period around me. You just said that you forgive me, but you still act like you got some fucking problem.”

“Getting me to forgive you doesn’t happen overnight, Mick,” Joey retorts, sitting down on the bed.

“It’s been half a week!”

“I don’t care,” he replies tiredly. “I don’t care if you go out of your way to fucking redeem yourself, and I don’t care if it takes me a year, I’ll forgive you when that time comes.” Mick has been shaking his head, frustrated at Joey as well as at himself. Joey then finishes with, “Now leave me the fuck alone so I can sleep.” The large man opens his mouth to respond when someone knocks on the door. He half-glares at Joey, before he shuts his door to go open the apartment door. Joey sighs almost shakily. To be honest, he doesn’t know why Mick is willing to get the short man to forgive him. Like I said, he still feels uncomfortable being around him, to be honest, so it really will take Joey a while to forgive. And even if someone forgives, they’ll never forget. He sighs again before turning off his lamp.

Mick slowly opens the door and raises an eyebrow at the two men—the same men who knocked on Jim and Sid’s door. He slowly speaks, “You guys aren’t the IRS, are you?”

The shorter of the two men answers, “No, we’re not. I do sorry for knocking on your door at this time of night, but we’re looking for a James Donald Root.” Mick simply blinks at that, and he peeks out to glance down the hallway.

“He’s just down the hallway. 307,” Mick replies tiredly as he points to that direction.

The taller of the two men blinks and asks his partner and Mick, “Wait, weren’t we just at that door?”

“...dude, I dunno.” And Mick shuts the door before either of them can respond. At first, he sets his focus back on Joey, but he decides to forget it. He won’t to bother him for the rest of the night. Mick slowly goes over to the kitchen and opens the refrigerator to make himself a snack. As he takes a closer look at the refrigerator, he sighs upon the realization that they may need to go to the grocery store again. They’re almost out of milk, and he was going to eat some left-over cake. So he decides to make a sandwich instead. He takes out mayonnaise (because there’s no sandwich without that—although who would mix peanut-butter and jelly with that?) and some bologna. When he takes out two packs of cheese, Joey slowly walks out of his room, looking quite unsure of himself. Mick notices, and continues to make his sandwich. Without looking at his roommate, he asks, “Is there something that you want to say?”

“Yeah,” he replies eventually. “You don’t have to worry about me kicking you out because I’m not gonna do that.”

Mick simply raises an eyebrow at Joey and shakes his head. “I know that.”

“And...” the short man sighs. “It’s just gonna be awhile before I can get over it, okay? Because it still bothers me. So just fucking bear with me.”

Mick sighs and glances at Joey. “All right,” he sighs. “That’s all you really needed to say.” Joey says nothing else, and he steps back into his room.
___

Sid sighs as he gets rid of his dishes before setting them on the sink. He’ll clean them up tomorrow. “Man, I don’t think you wanna know what’s been going on with me at the Garden tonight. This guy just wouldn’t leave me alone, I tell him I have a boyfriend, and all he said was, ‘We can share.’ ” He simply looks at Jim. “Is he completely retarded?”

Jim is pretty much snapped from his thoughts regarding those men, and he blinks at Sid. “Oh, um, yeah. Think we should.” Sid simply stares at his roommate, noticing how weird the guy is acting.

“Should do what?”

At this point, Jim remembers what he said just now, and he shakes his head. “Nevermind.” Sid raises an eyebrow at him before he steps away.

“Well, anyway I guess I should do something about it. I wonder if anyone has harassed Craig at his job.” Jim has paid attention to what Sid said this time, and he nods.

“Well, I’m sure Craig won’t let anyone touch him,” he replies as he goes over to lock the door. Sid walks over to the couch and turns off the television, and then he picks up his blanket and glances at the clock.

“Well, be glad no one has ever decided to touch you at your job,” he mutters, yawning. Despite the fact that he doesn’t have anywhere to go until later, he’s tired and the whole ordeal has pretty much drained him.

Jim raises an eyebrow. “Who said anyone hasn’t touched me over there?”

Now, Sid can only blink at such a comment and asked, “Wait, someone, one of the other guys at the car shop, actually harassed you?” Jim can only smile a bit at the young man’s reaction, and he shakes his head.

“Nah, I’m pretty sure they’re all straight over there.”

Sid rolls his eyes. “Yeah, but you don’t know that. All men are straight, until they’re not.” Jim simply stares at him at such a comment as Sid goes over to his room. “And one can suddenly lunge after you, man!” He calls out.

“I think you need to stop watching that lesbian show,” Jim responds, leaning against the door. “It’s giving you way too many dumb ideas. Besides, I never exactly reveal my personal life to anyone in my job. It’s not really a good idea to do that anyway.” Suddenly someone knocks on the door again. Jim pretty much acts on impulse, having that dumb show stuck in his head (because he’s watched it and sometimes he wonders why Sid likes it so much, other than the lesbian sex), and opens the door. His heart immediately jumps and he blinks at the sight.

Well, the two men show up at his door. The first man speaks again. “Someone said that James does live here,” he speaks with a firm tone. Now, how would Jim respond to this at this point? He immediately comes to conclusion that Joey and/or Mick are probably home and their big fucking mouths just had to tell these men that he lives here. He tries to speak, but the first man pushes the door further open, walking inside the apartment. “Step aside,” he says as the second man blinks at the place. He’s looking over at the television, while the first man looks up at Jim. He’s just as short as Corey, pretty much, but despite that, or maybe because of it, he has had to develop a nasty attitude and streak. “So who are you?”

It takes Jim a while to answer because the fact that these guys are inside and he’ll probably die seems so unreal at this point. He simply replies, “Name?”

The first man sighs and shakes his head. “No, your girlfriend’s name,” he mutters.

“Um...” Maybe Jim can still pull it off and keep them from thinking he’s the guy they’re looking for. He tries to think of a good name fast. “David?” he simply replies. For some strange reason he thought of his great-nephew. Maybe it’s the fact that the boy will grow up without knowing the man?

“...David?”

“Yeah, David.”

“What kind of movies do you have here?” The second man asks, looking over at the DVDs by the television. He then glances at a photo of Sid, Paul and Brenna. “Are one of these guys James?”

Just then Sid, who was on the phone for a bit because Charlie wanted to speak to him, comes out of his room, and immediately blinks at the sight of the men in the room. “Are you guys the IRS?” he asks, a bit worried.

The first man looks over at the young man and asks, “Are you Jim?”

The confused man stares at Jim, who’s mentally freaking out at the fact that Sid might reveal his name. Sid simply looks skeptically at his roommate, before he turns back to the first man. “I’m not,” he replies, but can I ask who you guys are?”

“It doesn’t matter. We’re told that the guy lives here, and,” he looks over at the couch before he sits on it, relaxing. “We’re just gonna sit here until he arrives.”

Jim sighs shakily and turns to his roommate. “Sid, I need to talk to you about the job deal that you’re too stubborn to take,” he speaks quickly as he walks over and grabs the confused guy back from the men. He swallows, knowing that he’ll have to tell Sid everything. The only thing he hopes is that Sid doesn’t freak the fuck out afterwards. We really don’t need that to happen now.

“What job deal?!” Sid can only ask before he’s shoved into his room. Jim shuts the door and turns around, taking a deep breath. This still seems a bit unreal, and he’s surprised he hasn’t completely panicked himself yet. He slowly looks up at his roommate, who can only look skeptically at the tall man. “What the hell is going on, Jim?” he asks. “IF that’s your name. No really, what’s your real name and what the fuck is going on?” He pauses and steps closer to him. “Are you Jim’s evil twin brother?”

Jim runs his fingers through his hair, not really prepared for those questions. “Jim is my real name, Sid,” he replies quietly, “and I don’t have an evil twin brother. He’d be straight and sleeping with strippers.” He feels that he needed to add in some humor, even though it’s nowhere near appropriate. At all. He glances at the guy and whispers. “Look, there’s something that I have to tell you, and...and I don’t want you to freak out, okay?”

“I’m freaking out right now!”

“Shh!” Jim places his hands on Sid’s shoulder. “Look, um...” he glances at the door before he turns back to his roommate. And then he just says is, and quickly, “The reason why I’m here, in Des Moines, is because they’re fucking after me, and I wish they were the IRS right now, but they’re not. They’re...” how is he going to explain this to Sid, “part of some crime family, okay? From Jacksonville. No, I don’t know why it’s possible to have a crime family down there. And...and they think I stole some money. They think a lot of us stole some money when our employer did, because he was trying to invest in his fucking restaurant and I used to work there, and he framed us and these guys are killing all of us.” He pants, having said so much in so little time. He swallows hard as he waits for Sid’s reaction.

Sid remains calm. “Okay, so lemme get the straight...” he speaks. “Are you saying that, the reason why you’re here is because you’re running from a mafia family who thinks you and some other people stole some of their money?”

Jim nods quickly.

Sid slowly nods and turns away from his tall roommate. “Okay,” he says quietly. “Okay, I’m calm. We can get through this. We’ll get them out.”

Jim blinks at Sid before he sighs and leans against the door. The younger man closes his eyes, rubs the palms of his hands on his jeans, and takes one deep breath.

“THE FUCK?!” He shouts that again and grabs Jim’s arms and shakes the man violently. “We’re gonna fucking die! We’re gonna die! Oh ga-had! I can’t believe this!” he sobs. Jim breaks free from Sid’s grasp and tries to get the quivering and terrified man to shut up but to no avail. “What the fuck were you thinking?! I can’t believe you’d bring them here! And now they’re gonna shoot both of us! We’re gonna be joining Paul soon, man!”

“Will you shut up?!” Jim whispers harshly.

“Nononono, you don’t understand.” Sid grabs the tall man’s arms and shakes him again. “They’re gonna bust a cap in both our /asses/!” Jim breaks free and stills Sid, covering his mouth.

“Fucking calm down,” he speaks quite firmly. “They’re gonna hear you and then they’re really kill us!” Sid breaks away from Jim and glares at him.

“It’s all your fault, you know?”

Jim takes a moment to grasp such an idiotic statement. “/How/ the hell is it my fault?!”

“Because you were living a lie!”

“Oh my god...”

“You pretty much lied and said,” and then Sid puts on a falsetto voice, “/Oooh woe is me, I miss my family and the town, and I wanna come back. ‘Cause I’m home sick/. Yeah, that’s living a lie.”

“Sid, if I told you why I was really here, you wouldn’t let me move into your apartment!”

“Of course I wouldn’t!” Jim sighs exasperatedly at this comment and glances at the door again. Sid takes a deep breath. “Okay... okay, look, what are we going to do?”

Jim leans against the door and shakes his head. “We gotta get them out of the apartment.” Sid rolls his eyes.

“They’re not gonna do that until ‘James Root’ arrives, /David/,” the younger man mutters.

“Yeah, I know Sid, I’m not stupid,” Jim retorts. Their conversation is interrupted by a knock on Sid’s door. Jim gulps before he slowly opens the door. He looks up at the second hit man and speaks, “Yeah?”

“Hi, we’re kinda hungry and we don’t know when this guy’s coming, so do you have anything for us?” Jim simply stares at the man before he slowly turns to Sid, who’s pretty horrified. The tall man sighs and turns back to the hit man.

“We’ll be right out,” he speaks before closing the door. He takes a deep breath before looking at his roommate, confused by the shocked look o his face. “What?”

“.../We/?!” He simply speaks.

“Yeah, what’s the problem?”

Sid looks gravely at his roommate and begins with, “Oh hell no, Jim! If you think I’m going out there with these motherfuckers, you’re out of your fucking mind!”

“Sid, I need some help here!”

“You can cook by yourself!”

Jim throws his hand in the air and almost screams out in pure frustration on Sid. Of course he should’ve known the younger man would chicken out (yes he considers this chickening out) on him like this, so he shakes his head. “You know what?” he begins in a low voice, scratching the back of his head, “Whatever. You just stay here and...just chicken out. I gotta figure out what the fuck I’m gonna do.”

“Yeah, I’m just gonna sit here,” Sid simply mutters as he sits down on his bed, and then he glances at a photo of Craig sitting on his nightstand and clutches it, holding it to his chest. “Where it’s safe.” Jim rolls his eyes and grabs the door knob. He stops and takes a deep breath before he opens the door. There the two men simply sit on the longer couch, looking pretty bored. The short one glances at his watch, and then at the apartment’s, wondering if the time is right, and the shorter man looks at a magazine Sid left behind. Jim sighs and quietly shuts the door to Sid’s room and he looks over at the refrigerator, remembering that he still has his lunch to make. And then he wonders why he’s even thinking about that when he’s going to get killed in some dark alley anyway.

The shorter man looks up at him and simply asks, “Um, what time is he supposed to be coming back here?” Jim blinks and swallows hard at the man’s impatience.

“Um, he’s not going to be back for awhile,” he replies, hoping they’ll accept this answer. “Maybe an hour?” he continues, walking over to the kitchen.

The shorter man sighs. “Great.”

“Can we watch something on TV?” the second man asks, grinning. He turns to look at his partner, who’s glaring daggers at him. “What? I’m bored!”

Jim sighs and nods. “Yeah, help yourself.”

“Like some movie?”

Jim simply blinks at him, and he turns away for a moment. Sometimes he needs to do a double take to see if this is real. You got two men that you’ve been running from, sitting on your couch, and they’re hungry and one of them wants to watch movies. He turns and walks over to the living room and glances at the movies. “Um,” he begins, trying to remain as casual as he can, “We got ‘The Wall,’ ‘The L Word,’ ‘8 Mile’ ‘The Doors,’ ‘Blazing Saddles’—we got a bunch of movies.” He looks up at the second man in particular, kind of afraid to look at the first man. Obviously that guy is much focused on his job; he wonders how much they’re getting paid to hunt people down like this.

The second man concentrates on the choices Jim has presented so far, and he bites the inside of his lip. “What’s the L Word again?”

Jim shrugs. “Oh, it’s some show about some glamorous lesbians in West Hollywood,” he answers. Apparently, he said something the second man liked because the man is grinning at him like he’s receiving an expensive gift for Christmas. Suddenly he’s reminded of the fact that he may not live to give David his little gift. These guys picked the worst time to show up at his house. Have they no heart?

“Lesbians?!” The second man exclaims. “I love lesbians!” But then he frowns. “Wait, like are you talking about the gross, butch, hairy lesbians or the pretty ones?”

Jim simply stares at the guy at such a question, and he decides that he’s not even going to get into how stupid that question sounded. He decides to humor him. “....The pretty ones?”

“Awesome! I wanna watch that, then!” The man’s partner rolls his eyes while Jim can only stare at the horny man, raising an eyebrow before he takes out a DVD with a set of episodes. He figures that the guy probably wouldn’t give a fuck if he was watching season one or season three. As long as he’s watching two women have sex, then it’s fine. He turns on the television and sets up the DVD player before putting in the DVD. He uses the DVD’s remote to get the DVD to play the episodes. He sighs as he looks at a scene where a nun in the 1980s fingers another. He rolls his eyes, having seen it before and he hands the remote to the slightly shorter man who thanks him.

As he walks over to the kitchen, he can feel the short hit man’s eyes on him. He fears that eventually he’s going to end up questioning “David” and Sid. They’re probably going to tear down this apartment to look for the money, and pretty soon they may end up torturing the men until Jim admits his true identity. He’s been watching too much crime movies you know, but this is pretty much what he expects to happen. Anyway, he opens the refrigerator and sees a pot of macaroni that Sid made earlier this evening. His first thought is to use that for lunch, but then he remembers that he has these two men here, listening to the annoying theme song of the television show. He turns around and speaks, “We have left –over macaroni and cheese if you guys want that.”

The second guy doesn’t turn his eyes from the television. “Cool, I’d like some hot chocolate, too.” He turns to his partner. “You want some hot chocolate?”

The shorter hit man rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “You know what? I’ll just have a beer,” he calls out to Jim, who slowly nods and takes out a bottle of beer. He ignores the comments from the taller hit man about how hot this show is, and he takes out a cup and a box of hot chocolate mix. He was going to take out the jug of water, but he doesn’t care if these people get lead and other bacteria, so he opts to using the faucet instead. He looks over at the bottle of beer while he fills in the cup with water. He glances between the cup and the fork three more times before he suddenly has an idea. It’s a crazy idea, but at this point does he have any other options? He puts the cup in the microwave and goes over to Sid’s room, opening the door. Sid blinks at his roommate.

“What?”

“You have any sleeping pills? Any strong ones?” Jim whispers.

“Yeah, they’re in the bathroom, why?”

“I just got this idea, you know...knock them out with them and get them out while they’re still cold, and I need all the pills you got.”

Sid simply looks at Jim, presumably as if the latter has lost his mind, but then he grins widely. “Ho shit! That’s actually genius, Jim! I just knew you had a brain!” Jim’s smile slowly fades and he slowly glares tiredly at Sid’s response before he shuts the door. He thinks that crushing pills out in the kitchen would create too much suspicion, and so he heads for the bathroom and shuts the door while the two men continue to watch the show.

He sighs and opens the mirror cabinet to see a bottle of Ambien and takes it out. He thinks that four pills for each man should be enough, and he takes out eight tablets. He looks over and sees that there really isn’t anything to crush the pills, and then he remembers that they can easily dissolve. He’s taken one before with water before he went to bed a couple nights ago. He doesn’t want to create suspicion, as said before, so he pretends that he was using the bathroom and flushes the toilet, turning on the faucet to make him think that he’s washing his hands. He steps out and goes back to the kitchen and takes out the hot cup. Looking over his shoulder at the two men, he sighs and puts in two pills in the cup at a time, mixing it up with his finger. After he puts in and mixes two more, he takes out a bag of sugar to get rid of the bitter taste it may have. He wipes away the small bead of sweat dripping down his forehead, and he almost grins at himself, thinking how clever he is. He’s actually surprised when he comes up with the sugar idea. Then again, maybe this quick thinking he’s acquired is an act of desperation, a mode of survival. This is after all a matter of living his life and getting smoked in a dark alley, and no one wants that.

His thoughts are broken when someone knocks on his door. The short hit man starts up in his seat, thinking it’s the man they’re looking for. Jim sets everything down and says, “I’ll get it—”

“No, you get back in the kitchen and do what you were doing,” the hit man responds as he walks over to the door. “I’ll get it.” Jim gulps, and he quietly steps back into the kitchen, knowing that whoever’s at the door will reveal his true identity. He rests the palm of his hand on the counter and leans down, silently cursing to himself. But then he looks up and blinks when he hears a very familiar female voice.

“Is Jim here? I’m his friend and he left something in my car.”

Oh shit.

“No, he’s not here,” the short man replies. “We’re waiting for him ourselves.” Cristina can only blink at such a statement, and her first response is to wonder if these guys were the IRS. The man asks, “Why don’t you step inside while we wait for this Jim, eh?”

Cristina can only nod as she slowly walks inside the apartment. She glances at the taller hit man watching television, and then she glances at the kitchen, where Jim is no longer standing in. The taller hit man looks over and blinks at the woman, and he grins. “Hello there.” Now she can only narrow her eyes; somehow she knew she was bound to get hit on.

“Hi,” she flatly responds.

“Are you a lesbian?”

“....”

Jim slowly opens the door and peaks out from the bathroom. He sees Cristina backing towards the door as the short hit man sits back down on the couch. He is bewildered at the fact that he now has to reveal everything to her before she can say anything to give him away. “Psst!” Cristina slowly turns around and blinks at the tall man. Confused, she almost says his name, but Jim is able to stop her. “Shh! Just come in, fast. I need to tell you something,” he whispers. Cristina is even more confused, but then she obeys him and quickly gets into the bathroom, hoping that the two men hadn’t noticed. The shorter man sighs at the show before he looks over and sees that everyone is out of the kitchen, and he becomes pretty suspicious at their actions.
___

Meanwhile, Jim sighs at what he’s about to say to Cristina. He really hopes that she doesn’t think him a criminal for one thing, and for another, he hopes she doesn’t freak out as badly as Sid. He takes her hands and begins with, “Okay, basically, I’m hiding in here right now, because...well I’m supposed to be making them something, and—”

“Jim just tell me what’s going on,” Cristina says softly, honestly worried at what they both have got themselves into. “They said they’re looking for you. Did you do anything to them?” Jim can only shake his head for a moment.

“I’ll be lucky if they just literally castrate me until I admit to stealing the money.”

“Money?!” Cristina gasps, horrified. Jim tries to calm her down by placing his hands on her shoulders.

“Listen to me, okay?” Just then, the second man calls out at Jim, telling him to hurry up because he’s hungry. Jim sighs as he and Cristina glance at the door before he faces her again. “They only think I stole some of their money, when I really haven’t,” he says. “And this started back in Jacksonville and I’ve been here in Des Moines so that they could never find me.”

Cristina gasps again and clutches her tall friend’s arms. “/Jim/?! I can’t believe thi—”

Jim shushes her and explains. “This guy I used to work for back in the city stole the money and he framed all of us—the others that worked in this restaurant.” He swallows and glances at the door. “They already killed several people in many other places. I should’ve known they were gonna come after me.” He’s surprised it’s taken them more than half a year, too. Cristina is still horrified at this barrage of information lodged into her brain, but she eventually knows that this isn’t Jim’s fault. She knows that he’d never hurt a fly like this and he like the other unfortunate people were simply caught up in the middle of this terrible ordeal. “So, um, I know you think I’m nuts and this is unbelievable, you know, but this what’s been going on with me.” He then continues with, “But you know I’d never steal anyone’s money. Why would I even do that? If I wanted money, I’d just go get a better job or work two.”

“I know, Jim. I know you’re not like that,” Cristina reassures him. “But they don’t know that.” She bites her lip before asking, “Do you think if you just tell them that you didn’t, they’ll leave you alone?”

“Oh no,” Jim immediately answers, shaking his head. “They would’ve left all those other people alone if that worked. The only thing I can do right now is get them out of the apartment without them knowing who I really am.”

“What do you mean?” she asks, confused.

Jim scratches the back of the head before he chuckles nervously, and Cristina wonders why he’s even doing that. “I sorta told them that I’m David, and, uh, that Jim isn’t here yet.” Cristina can only stare at him at this comment. She slowly nods afterwards, making a mental note to call him David until this is over.

“Okay, that sounds like a good idea, to stall them!” she replies with a little more optimism in her voice.

“For now anyway,” he says tiredly, leaning against the wall, running his fingers through his hair. He needs some aspirin. All of this quick thinking and fear is giving him a terrible headache, and then he wonders how long he can keep this up before these headaches starts messing him up in the process. “I’m trying to drug them and get them out of here, because they’re not leaving until Jim shows up.”

“With sleeping pills?” she asks. She then grins and clutches his arms again. “Jim! That’s genius! As long as they don’t wake up while we get them out of here, we’re great! I’ll help you as much as I can.”

He smiles back at this, knowing he’s somewhat taken her for granted. “Really?” he begins, somewhat surprised that she wants anything to do with this. “I...thank you, Cristina,” he speaks softly. “I can’t believe you want to actually have anything to do with this.”

Cristina just grins even more. “You’re my friend, Jim, and whether either of us like it not, I’m involved now.” She sighs and then asks, “Does anyone else know about this?”

“Sid does,” Jim replies softly, almost rolling his eyes. “He’s in his room, freaking out.”

In his room, Sid has been in tears for awhile now, and has been thinking about what to say to Craig, since he may not make it through the night. However, he really has no idea what to say, so then he calls Corey, simply because they’re roommates. He sniffles as the man answers the phone and speaks quiet irritably, “What, Sid?”

“Um...” the younger man begins, “I just need you to tell Craig something...”

“...What is it?”

“In case I don’t call him tomorrow, can you tell him...” he pauses and swallows as his voice breaks slightly, “That I love him?”

After a moment of awkward silence, Sid is answered with a dial tone.

Back in the bathroom, Cristina sighs and nods, taking Jim’s hands into her own. “Okay, well, I’ll see if I can get him to calm down, and you just concentrate on getting these guys to sleep,” she says, placing her hand on his shoulder encouragingly. “As long as they don’t suspect anything, we’re fine.” Jim looks down at her and smiles, nodding. He sighs and slowly walks out of the bathroom. He glances at the two men before he swallows and walks over to the kitchen to finish what he is set out to do. He realizes that the cup is probably cold, so he puts that in the microwave again while fixing the pot of left-over macaroni and cheese into two plates. Cristina follows out of the bathroom, looking over at the two men as well. Her eyes shift to a sex scene, and she blinks at it, tilting her head for a moment before the shorter hit man glances at her. Cristina catches him staring at her, and she immediately turns away.

Jim takes out a colder beer and quietly mixes the bottle with the four pills. He then sighs and takes it over to the hit man. “Here you go,” he says softly.

The short hit man glances at Jim before he sighs and thanks him. He slowly drinks his beer, immediately noticing the strange taste, and he scrunches his face. “The fuck kind of beer is this?” he asks, looking up at Jim, who by that point was taking the hot cup out of the microwave.

He can only blink at the man’s question for a moment, and then he shrugs. “It’s Miller Lite,” he responds. And then with a hint of ridicule, he adds, “Maybe something’s wrong with your taste buds.” This earns a glare from the short hit man before he’s interrupted by a hoot from his partner. Cristina sighs at this before she decides to do what she told Jim, to calm down Sid. Admittedly, even though Jim told her that he was with him and the others at Flashing Lights, she never really met him. Jim meanwhile fixes one plate and puts in the microwave. He glances at Cristina who asks Sid if she could come in, and then the two men, before he mixes two other pills in the hot cup, adding in the hot chocolate mix afterwards. He knows that these men will be knocked out. The question, however, is how long will it be before the drug kicks in? Add that with the short hit man’s impatience and you have a somewhat worried Jim. He adds in some sugar and mixes that up with a spoon, before walking over to the taller hit man, who turns and smiles at the sight of his hot chocolate.

“Thanks, dude!” he says, carefully taking the cup from Jim’s hands.

Meanwhile, Sid sighs, shaking his head and looking up at Cristina who is sitting on the bed next to him. “I dunno, It’s just that, I had so much planned for me and Craig, and now that this is going to happen, I just...” She sighs and places a supportive hand on his shoulder.

“You shouldn’t think like that,” she replies. “Jim’s doing everything he can to get these two out of here.”

“I know,” he says in a low voice. “I just can’t believe that I’m living with someone who’s got the mafia on his ass!” He lulls his head over at the woman and continues, “My last roommate died in some motel from a fucking drug overdose. I don’t know about you, but I think I’m having some bad luck with roommates. Either something bad happens with them or they’re assholes.”

Cristina raises her eyebrow at that. “I’m sure that isn’t true, and I’m sorry about your last roommate.” She looks down at her hands, trying to think of something else to say. “What about the roommate you had before that?”

“He cheated on me.”

“Oh.”

“For some reason I’m still friends with him. But no, the one I had before Jim was a nice guy, you know. And Jim’s nice too. They both like to keep things clean around here, that’s for sure,” Sid says, glancing around his room. In addition to a lot of opened bottles on top of the dresser, there is a clothes hamper by his window, overflowing with dirty clothes. He’s forgotten that he needed to do some laundry. “Have you seen Jim’s room? It’s so tidy. I’m just upset that this has had to happen again. It hasn’t even been six months! Why couldn’t he go somewhere else?”

“Maybe because this is the only other home that he knows?” Cristina replies. “I only know the abbreviated story, but he’s told me a lot about his life in Jacksonville. He never really wanted to come here, and you know that the life he knows and loves has been disrupted by this....” she bites the inside of her lips and tries to think of a way to describe her tall friend’s situation, “pretty bizarre situation.”

Sid nods slowly and sighs deeply. “Yeah, I know.”

___

It’s been an hour. Jim can only swallow as he glances at the two men, whom have had their drinks and have eaten their dinner. The taller hit man is watching another episode, kind of irritated that there aren’t any sex scenes yet, and he’s even said that the show was getting boring. The good news is that Jim is noticing the drowsy expressions in their faces, and he knows that it won’t be long now. Cristina and Sid quietly peak out of his room to see how things are going with Jim’s plan. To Sid’s horror, he sees that the men are still up, and he whimpers. Unfortunately for him, the taller hit man hears that, and he turns around and grins. “Hey, why are you guys hiding? Come sit with us!” Jim can only blink at this, while Cristina and Sid can only exchange glances with him and with each other.

Before the two even do anything, however, the shorter hit man slowly stands up, turns off the television (much to his partner’s dismay) and mutters, “You two stand right there by the door.” Suddenly he pulls out a gun, and the two as well as Jim blink in horror. Sid whimpers and cowers behind Cristina, even though he’s taller than her, and the short hit man turns and glares at Jim. “It’s been an hour and a half, David. I’m getting real impatient here, and I wanna know when the fuck Jim’s coming home.” Jim swallows, coming up with an answer. Thankfully, Cristina steps in.

“Well, maybe…maybe it’s just the traffic!” she speaks, “And the bad wea—”

They all quickly gasp as the gun is suddenly pulled on her. “Excuse me, is your name David?” the short hit man snaps at the woman, who immediately shuts up and steps back. He steps back as well, withdrawing his gun and follows up with, “No? Well then shut the fuck up and let the men handle this.”

Jim sighs exasperatedly and glares at him. He chuckles dryly. “Are you fucking serious? You’re just gonna pull a gun at a woman? Look, I don’t know what your name is, but causing a racket in our apartment’s not going to bring him here any faster.”

Before the man can respond to that, his partner speaks, “Yeah, man. It is pretty heartless to kill a woman.”

The short hit man glares at his partner and shouts, “Shut the fuck up!” He then glances at the other bedroom and narrows his eyes at it. “Is that his bedroom?” Jim blinks and turns around, and before he can reply, the man speaks, “We’re searching it.” Cristina and Sid gasp as the short man walks inside, kicking the door open. His partner sighs and follows him, and Jim, pretty much in shock with what just happened, can only shake his head and swear under his breath as he runs his fingers through his hair, feeling pretty much drained at this ordeal. All three of them jump slightly at the loud racket the men are carrying on in his room. Cristina sighs worriedly and sits beside Jim, and then Sid quickly walks over to them, panicking.

“Fucking hell, Jim! Do something!” he whispers.

“What the fuck am I supposed to do, huh?” Jim snaps. “Get myself killed?”

“You’re supposed to get these guys out of here!”

Jim shakes his head. “I’m not a superhero.” They hear things being shoved against the wall now, and he glances at the door. He can only imagine what kind of damage is occurring in his room.

Sid whimpers at this and slowly responds with, “Yes you are, James.”

“Guys, let’s not argue, okay?” Cristina whispers before they hear a loud thump on the floor. She sighs and stands back up. “We’ll get them out of here! I know we will. We just need to quickly think of a plan.”

“Yeah, like when are they gonna sleep?” Sid mutters. He turns to Jim and asks, “How many pills did you put in their drinks?”

Jim lulls his head over to Sid and answers, “Four, each.”

“So it shouldn’t be any longer now,” Cristina whispers and leans against the wall just as the two hit men come out of Jim’s room, the taller man shutting the door. The shorter one rubs his forehead, feeling a little dizzy before quickly concentrating back on his task at hand. He sets down his gun on the kitchen counter. Jim, Sid and Cristina simply swallow at the sight of the two men, wondering what they’re going to do now. At this point, anything can happen. One of these possibilities is that someone else could come into this apartment and spill the beans, getting themselves involved in this mess. It’s bad enough right now that Sid and Cristina are in this situation with Jim. He really did not want them to be in any danger at all.

“Well, I’ve seen nothing,” his partner speaks, yawning. “I need some coffee.”

“Well, he probably stashed it in his bank account or something,” the short hit man responds. He looks over around the apartment, wondering if he should search every single closet and cabinet in this place. He knows that the people who have stolen the money aren’t stupid enough to hide things in any predictable place. So Jim couldn’t have hid it in his room because the man knows that they’ll go there first. So, the money’s either behind a closet, or under a couch, or it’s stashed away at a bank. Either way, this man will catch hell as soon as he enters the apartment. He clears his throat. “Well, I think I know of a way to get him here faster.” Jim, Cristina and Sid blink at this, and Sid huddles close to his tall friend. “We’ll just have to call him,” he mutters and yawns, while Jim gulps. “Tell him that if he doesn’t get here soon, his friends are going bye-bye, a little early Christmas gift for him.” Sid gulps. Cristina whimpers and looks at Jim, really hoping that he’s got some idea. She steps back a little more, until she blinks and looks at something behind her.

“I’m so tired. Can’t we just kill them already?” The taller hit man whines. He glances between the would-be victims and then his partner, and then he looks over around the apartment, including all of the doors. “Wait a minute, if you two and Jim live in this apartment, how come there are only two bedrooms?” As Sid clings to Jim again, Jim tries to come up with an answer, but the short hit man grabs his gun again.

“Good point. So that means...” he begins, “that you all have been lying the entire time. And I don’t fucking like liars.” The three innocents blink in horror and Jim mentally swears to himself again. Somehow they knew that they really couldn’t get away with lying to these men. Jim should’ve known that eventually he’d be found out. He knows that he’ll never forgive himself for this, but then he wonders why is he even thinking when he’s going to be dead anyway. They may spare Cristina, but as far as he and Sid are concerned, they’re as dead as a drug dealer in a dangerous Brazilian favela. “Especially when I’m so fucking tired as well.”

His partner grins. “That’s right!” He glances at Cristina and then Jim and Sid. He stands by the short hit man and pulls out his gun as well. “One of these three has to be James Root!”

No one even tries to correct the statement the man just made, and his partner can only shake his head, dumbfounded. He then pulls his gun at Jim and Sid. He mutters, “So, why don’t you one of you fess up. The innocent will go free and I promise I’ll make it quick and painless for the guilty one.” Jim wonders why he’s even hiding now, and the idea of a quick and painless death seems like a good plan. He might as well just fess up, and as long as Cristina and Sid are spared, then that’s all right with him.

“All right,” he whispers. Sid blinks at this

The short man raises an eyebrow. “Come again? Can you speak up please so I can get this over with?” Jim takes a deep breath and refusing to look at the two men or his friends, he closes his eyes, biting his lip.

“I said that I’m Ji—”

He’s interrupted by a sound of something metal hitting a head, the short hit man shouting and the same metal sound again. He quickly opens his eyes and can only blink at the sight before his very eyes. The two men are on the floor, very unconscious. There’s Cristina with a shovel, and she pants, looking down at the scene and unable to believe that she’s actually done this. But she quickly comes to her senses and sets the shovel down. “Jesus!” She breathes. “I’m so lucky I found this from under the shelf.” She looks up at Jim and Sid, who can only stare wide-eyed at the woman for what she did. She sighs and continues with, “I don’t think I killed them. Not a good idea to do that anyway. The sleeping pills probably weren’t working as fast as they could and this was the only other option any of can take.”

The two men still stare wide-eyed at Cristina.

She sighs again. “So how do we get them out of here?”

Jim finally comes to his senses and sighs. “Gotta carry them.”

Sid sighs. “Well, you’re strong enough to do that, Jim.”

Jim can only glare at his roommate for a moment before he replies, “Yeah, but I can’t just put them outside.” He stands up and walks over to his coat for his packet of cigarettes and his lighter, really needing a cigarette right about now. After he lights it, he mutters, “They’ll come right back over here. We gotta get them out of the city, because like I said, they’ll come back here.” He then comes to a realization. Even if they don’t come back for him, they’re gonna terrorize Cristina and Sid and even worse... “Oh fuck!” he whispers. When Cristina asks what is wrong, he answers, “They’ll fucking come after my family. They’ll come after you too because of this. I can’t believe I wasn’t thinking about them...” He dislikes his family, but no one should have to be hurt because of this.

Cristina sighs and walks over to him. “We’re not gonna let that happen to us, Jim. I’ll be fine, and I can defend myself.” To cheer him up, she smiles and adds, “I know Judo.”

“Judo won’t beat guns,” Sid replies. He stands up, hoping that the men don’t wake up. “So in other words,” he begins, trying to remain calm, “we need to get them far away from the city.” He tries to think for a moment before he continues, “We can put them on the river! I know it goes down to the Mississippi river, and pretty soon they’ll end up in the bayou. Hopefully the alligators will eat them.” He

Jim simply stares at his roommate before he replies, “I think you’ve been smoking something again.”

“Oh fuck you, Jim!”

“I seriously doubt that there are any boats around at this time of year. And we’d get caught.”

“It’s almost midnight, Jim! I doubt anyone’s going to see us.”

Jim sighs at this and closes his eyes, shaking his head. He takes a drag off his cigarette before he slowly opens his eyes. “Some trucks go to this company near the car shop,” he whispers, standing up straight from the wall he’s been leaning on. Cristina blinks at this as he continues, “I figure if there’s a truck out there at this time of night, we can put these men in. I know they drive from here to fucking California or to New York.”

She can only blink at this. “That’s not a bad idea, if someone drives at this time of night.” She then says, “But let’s think of a Plan B. If the company is closed for the night and no truck is around, then we can go to truck stop. I do know of one but the closest is actually pretty far.” Jim nods at this.

“I don’t care. I just want them out of this city.”

___

And so, after Jim and Sid carried the two men over to Cristina’s rented car and loaded them in the trunk, they hop inside her car and drive off over to where the car shop is located, with Jim giving her directions. It’s only thirteen degrees outside by this point with a windchill of three below zero, and they’re freezing as hell. None of them can wait until they can safely get into their warm beds again and forget that this happened. Cristina tries to keep them all up, by putting on some Christmas tunes on the radio, from “Let It Snow,” to that Mariah Carrey tune to “Waltz of the Flowers.” The last one, however, almost lulled Sid back to sleep, so Cristina began playing songs from the Tran-Siberian Orchestra. Jim can’t be bothered by the music. As sleepy as he is, his thoughts are keeping him awake, but he’s had to be snapped from these thoughts while giving Cristina directions. He has thought about how would his family and friends react if he were smoked in a dark alley. Well, obviously his family would’ve been devastated. He knows that his friends, including Corey would be devastated as well. It really hurts with that last bit. He sighs then and tells Cristina, after they’ve passed the car shop, that the company is two blocks away.

After Cristina finds the place, she sees that there are some men that are currently loading some raw products inside the truck. However, a couple of thoughts invade her brain. What if the hit men wake up before the truck leaves? That’s the big one. She stops and parks her car a little closer to the truck, but not so close that the workers can see them, and then she sighs, thinking of how to go about this. Sid sits up as well. “All right, how the fuck do we get the men away from the truck?” Jim, ready for another cigarette already, sighs deeply. He then turns to Cristina.

“Think you can distract them?” he asks.

She bites the inside of her lip at that question. “Well, I can try,” she replies. Jim smiles faintly at this, and then he gets out of the car, immediately shivering at the ice cold air hitting his skin. Sid follows, putting on some gloves, and Cristina tries to think of a way to distract the workers away from the truck. She grins when she’s got an idea, and she hops out. There’s a light attached to the outside of the building so everyone can see the inside of the truck. Cristina sighs and slowly walks over to the three men talking as they slide a heavy box of whatever’s inside into the truck. She clears his throat, and the men look at her. “Um, hi,” she begins. She looks around and takes a deep breath. “I lost my dog.”

“Your what?” a rather chubby man replies.

“Well, my dog ran off when I was trying to make a stop around here,” Cristina says, a bit slowly. The three men raise their eyebrows at this as she looks around. “And,” she continues, “I’m sure he ran off in this area.” She feigns a sad sigh and a little sniffle. She hides her face with her hand and sighs deeply. Cue the sad violin. “I get worried about him, you know,” she speaks sadly. “He’s not very well, and he doesn’t have that much longer to live. I’ve had him since I was very young, and he has been my only friend for a very long time. I would’ve been a goner if I didn’t have him by my side when all of my family members were murdered. He’s not done anything wrong to anyone. I don’t know why God would want to take him away.” She turns to glance at the men, who seem to look pretty sympathetic. She smiles faintly with tears in her eyes, and she gently takes the hands of one man. “Will you help me? Can you help me?”

The men stare at her for a moment before the tallest of the three speak, “Oh course we will, sweetie.” Thankfully he really isn’t after getting in her pants. “Now, do you know where he might have gone?”

Cristina looks over to her right, and she points to it. “I think he went that way.”

As she and the three men go over to that direction, leaving the truck, Sid and Jim simply blink from behind the wall. The former shakes his head. “Your girlfriend can act, Jim.”

“Shut up,” the tall man mutters before he takes a closer look at the site. Confident that they’ve all disappeared, he whispers, “I think they’re gone. C’mon.” At that, he goes over to the car to pop open the trunk before they both gently carry the sleeping hit men out, Jim carrying the taller guy and Sid carrying the shorter one. Sid is a little concerned, hoping that the men don’t show up until after they have the hit men inside the truck. As they walk closer to the truck, the shorter hit man groans. Sid whimpers and panics quietly and Jim stops to see if the guy wakes up. After a moment, the shorter hit man starts snoring. Sid, who by this point begins sweating out of fear, simply follows Jim to the site. The tall man glances at the various boxes inside the large cargo. It’s almost full, but then he spots what could be a space between two large boxes. He knows that the three men would not be able to see them. “All right, we can put them over there,” he whispers. Sid nods and shivers from the ice cold air, looking over to see if anyone’s returning, before they both climb inside with the hit men. Jim carefully drags his hit man over to the back, as does Sid with the shorter hit man.

After Jim carefully lays the taller hit man down, Sid carefully puts the shorter hit man on top of his partner. The two sigh deeply and are relieved at the sight before them. Sid smiles at the position that the two hit men are in. “Hehehe, they’re gay, Jim.” Jim slowly stares at his younger roommate’s comment.

Suddenly, they hear faint talking coming from Cristina and one of the workers. “Shit!”

“Getoutgetoutgetout!” Sid whispers as they hurriedly jump off the truck and quickly walk (and then run) back to Cristina’s car.

Soon, Cristina indeed returns with the men, all looking completely worried. The tall worker rubs her shoulder and says, “He must not be here, Miss Scabbia. I’m very sorry about this.”

Cristina can only shake her head. “It’s okay, sir. I’m sure he went somewhere else.” She smiles gratefully. “Thank you so much for your help. All of you.”

“The pleasure’s ours, Miss Scabbia,” the chubby worker replies before Cristina wakes goodbye and walks over to her car, hoping that Jim and Sid were able to get the deed done.

___

The ride back to the Riverside Apartments seemed so quick, that Jim can hardly figure out why. Sid sighs gently as Cristina parks her car near the door. She sighs deeply and clutches her steering wheel. “Well, that was an adventure!” she beams, almost sarcastically.

“I don’t like adventures,” Sid mutters as he opens the door, talking to no one in particular. “This is too much for me. I need a joint, need to get high. My mind’s too crazy right now...”

While Sid mutters on over to the door, Jim sighs and walks out of the car as well. He shivers at the cold, eager to get to his warm bed and sleep and forget, and he glances at Cristina as she hops out as well, just to say goodbye to him. He sighs and smiles gently. “Thank you so much. I think we all’d be dead, you know, if you weren’t around.” He suddenly remembers the kiss he gave her earlier this evening, and he suddenly feels awkward now. Why can’t he be in love with this woman? She’s the perfect someone for him, the Miss Right. And she has so many qualities that make her likeable. Sigh. Cristina smiles at that, having remembered the kiss as well, and she almost blushes, but she knows that whatever that kiss was. She shouldn’t make it something big, special and awe-aspiring. She mustn’t get her hopes up for something like that, because she knows that if they want to be together it should be slow and a process.

“It’s not problem, Jim,” she replies. Then she suddenly remembers why she came to the apartment in the first place. “Oh! Wait a minute! Here you go...” She fishes for something in her coat pocket, and then Jim blinks when it’s none other than his cellphone.

“Aw fuck…” he whispers, mentally kicking himself as he gently takes it from her hands. “How did I forget that?”

“You left it in your seat, and I think someone called.” She smiles. “Don’t worry, I didn’t check to see who it was.”

“I’m sorry about that,” he whispers, digging his hands into his coat pockets. “I must not be thinking straight tonight,” he continues, rolling his eyes at himself. Cristina giggles.

“Everyone has those moments.” She pauses before asking, “Well, it was great seeing you tonight. Wish it could’ve been under more favorable circumstances.”

“Tell me about it,” he mutters. He then smiles at her and says, “Well, I’ll see you around. I’ll call you about the New Year’s Eve thing.”

Cristina nods and replies, “Okay, James. I’ll call you soon.” They both know they won’t be able to see each other on Christmas, but they already exchanged cards, what Jim still has in his pocket. They part ways, now and Cristina gets back inside her car as Jim walks inside the building.

___

Sid sets out what he said he was going to do, and he lights up a joint he rolled up this morning. He was going to save it until tomorrow night, but after this fiasco, he really needs it right now. He sits back on the couch, not bothering to turn on the television. He closes his eyes as he takes a drag and smiles gently at the fix that’s entering his body and mind. He’s pretty much ready to relax now But then someone knocks on his door. Sid blinks, wondering if Jim forgot his key. He sighs and slowly gets up to open the door. He can only blink at the sight of Charlie, who immediately walks in. Sid groans loudly, because knowing Charlie, the DJ will probably never be able to relax now. “Dude, what do you want?! I’m trying to sleep!”

Charlie blinks at the joint on the ashtray as he takes a seat on the couch and replies, “Uh, no, you’re trying to get high.”

“It’s been a rough day, okay?” Sid moan, sitting back down.

“Yeah, well me too.” Sid raises an eyebrow as Charlie takes off his coat.

“Riiiight, sitting on your mother’s couch and not having a job make it rough,” he mutters as he takes the joint back to his lips. He takes a drag and blows the smoke, resting his head to the back of the couch. “I could eat this if I wanted.” Charlie can only stare at him.

“Yes, it is frustrating when you can’t find a job.”

“You can find a job around here, dude. This isn’t Ohio.”

“Well, I’m really frustrated because,” he sighs. “I can never find a girl.”

Sid narrows his eyes at Charlie. “Maybe if you get a job, you can find a woman for you.” Then he jokes, “Or maybe you’re gay and just doesn’t know it.”

Charlie ignores the second bit and sits back on the couch. “Corey’s unemployed and he left the bar we were in with some fucking girl.”

Sid blinks at that, but then he shrugs it off. “No wonder he hung up on me,” he replies before taking another drag, feeling a bit high already. He tries to come up with something to say about that. “First of all, Corey’s a closet whore and as long as the girl isn’t diseased, he’ll go with her. Secondly, he’s only recently been unemployed and he’s actively finding another job. Third, he doesn’t act like a desperate virgin.”

“I’m not a virgin!”

“Well you act like one!”

Charlie rolls his eyes. “I’ve not seen him with anybody since July. He’s not a closet whore.”

“He IS, because he’ll still go with some girl he’s never met for some one night stand, even if it’s infrequently.”

Jim slowly opens the door then, yawning and shivering. He really doesn’t want to think about anything anymore. He just wants to pass out on his bed. Charlie grins. “Hey, Jim. How was your day?” He pauses. “With your girlfriend.” Jim stops at that, wondering how Charlie knows that he went out with Cristina, and then he glares at Sid, who simply shrugs.

“She isn’t my girlfriend,” Jim replies with a faint smile as he slowly walks to his room.

Sid looks at his roommate, before he whispers to Charlie, “Yes she is.”

“I believe it,” Charlie grins. “Little half-Italian babies, man.”

“Yeah, I doubt Jim’s gonna settle down like that.” Suddenly, the two hear a loud “FUCK!” coming from Jim’s room. Sid turns around at that, and pretty soon, he remembers that the two hit men had basically trashed Jim’s room. “Oh boy,” he mutters and Jim shouts again in frustration from his room. “He’s not getting any sleep tonight.”

Charlie, confused, simply asks, “Why, what happened?”

Sid shakes his head. “Let’s just say we got some visitors tonight.” He pauses. “And they weren’t the IRS.” Charlie simply raises an eyebrow at this, but then he lets it go. Sometimes it’s just best not to ask questions.