Re: Eddie & Juliet at the Diner
She watched his fingers press up against the crumpled black of her sleeve and Juliet's mouth curved wide. This man across the table was honest in a way she'd come to learn among many who pretended they were never honest. Juliet had known a lot of men. Some good, some bad, and she sought out strength in the men she picked up, knowing that they wouldn't break within her grip, shatter like glass. They could walk away whole, and she knew she picked the ones who cared the least because it did them less damage, she did them less damage drowning in her grasp on driftwood.
Eddie was honest about the drowning and he was honest in his own fragility. It was raw and it was goddamn brave, and she knew it would scare her shitless. He wasn't hardened and he could love humanity with the same ease he smiled up at the woman who had her name written on her shirt for people to use, who didn't. Juliet had got inured to suffering, to pain lived out loud because there was so goddamn much of it she could only fight the battle in front of her before picking the next. Eddie? Eddie was the kind of guy who could stand back and pick the best battle in that moment.
The moment was as honest as the man in front of her, and Juliet closed her fingers back up into her sleeve. Emotion, and she wasn't good at it.
"Local," she confirmed. She had no idea what her father had done, but he had worn a shirt and a tie so logic pointed toward someplace that took skill and smart shoes. "She was a photographer." It was one of the few things that Juliet knew about her mother as a separate entity from 'Mom'. She liked pictures. Juliet wasn't artistic. It wasn't a tactile connection, but it was a thin filament in the dark.
She exhaled on a laugh, breath-sound and wry. "Like I could stop you." He had a mind that slid like a pick into a lock, that worked over a problem until it had some kind of solution. Eddie was elegant, and Juliet admired that too. Brute force got you a lot of places, but elegance got you the last inch. She wasn't elegant. She had no interest in trying.