Jean made most of the business calls as Friday was too unreliable and knew it. Their eyes on him made him wonder what his Alternate Jean would do, and if it was smart or not.
"Yes," Alternate Jean says.
"You sure?" Alternate Suji says. "That's risky. You'll have to go out to the city more."
"Good. We never go out," Alternate Friday says. "I haven't real Chipotle in years."
"Table your takeout," Alternate Suji replies, and grabs her computer to showcase the new client. "The first one is at a party. And they're rich. Sorry."
"Not rich people."
"You're rich people." Alternate Jean flicked the lighter off for the last time, and looks out the window to wonder why the forest he hates is suddenly terrible to leave. "How much?"
"2.1."
"Thousand?"
"Million."
"He wants someone in a high place dead."
Alternate Friday smiles, and puts his newly cleaned shoe away to run cool fingertips over Alternate Jean's arms.
"Even better," he says.
Alternate Jean does not like this universe as it happens, and for once in his life, much rather likes the endings.
"Do you ever wish we never killed anyone in the first place?"
Friday rested on his chest, their bodies wrapped in white sheets and each other. Their bedroom of their third house had been long expanded, wallpaper traded for yellow paint, their closet exchanged for a separate walk-in, their bed a mile long and drowned in silk-wrapped cotton. The wall of windows, paneled in sections, were doorways to welcome the outside world at any given time.
Not that people like him cared about the world. Or, your world, at least.
His world said, "Maybe. Sometimes. I like to think it was inevitable."
"Inevitable?"
"Unavoidable. Set in stone. Inexorable. Predestined."
"Why?"
Alternate Friday curls his face into the crook of Alternate Jean's neck. He likely smells like shower soap and pine trees, but Alternate Friday seems to like it when he smiles into his skin and opens his mouth wide on purpose despite his whisper, just to let his teeth graze.
"Don't you think we met a little too well?" he asks. "That we work a little too perfectly?"
Alternate Jean pushes his hand into heat and tender skin. The night watches like a ghost in the corner, like it knows something Alternate Jean doesn't and probably never will until it has already happened.
The happening is happening, however. And Jean might think over it, but Alternate Jean is preoccupied.
"Nothing's perfect," he murmurs.
"Don't lie," Alternate Friday says. "You always lie and never win."
Alternate Jean chases that down with his mouth, and this universe is the best of all.
Perfect, if you will.
For the skeptical questioners out there, I'll clear up the logistical part to keep you satiated.
YOU ARE READING
June & Joker
Short StoryThey were partners in crime, quite literally. Blood is binding like that. ______ Jean K. Joker and Friday June are murderers, and good ones at that. But even murderers have lives, and when two intertwine, perhaps neither are as heartless as they co...
IV : The Hound
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