Work Text:
March 2025
“He misses you, ya know?”
Putting down the red pen she’s holding as she tries to focus on the script she’s editing in front of her, Lexi turns and looks at where Rue has just popped back up in the doorway of her tiny kitchen. The girl had shown up late last night, smelling of stale sweat and weed, looking for a place to crash for a few days and despite herself, Lexi’s never been good at telling Rue no. When she’d woken up this morning Rue was still sprawled on her couch, looking worse for wear since the last time she’d shown up out of the blue, and Lexi had decided she’d walk to her favorite coffee shop that morning to grab breakfast instead of waking the clearly exhausted girl, but by the time she was unlocking her front door Rue was wide awake, chain smoking on the terrace as she talked animatedly into her phone.
Lexi didn’t have to ask to know who she was talking to.
Instead of replying, Lexi just picks up her matcha latte and takes a sip as Rue sighs exasperatingly from the doorway.
“You can’t ignore Fez forever,” Rue notes as she pushes herself off the frame and snags the black coffee Lexi had left for her.
“Funny, cause I’ve been doing pretty good so far I think,” Lexi mutters, jaw tight.
At least twice a month she receives a call that comes up CALIFORNIA STATE CORRECTIONS that she sends to voicemail. Sometimes Fezco leaves a voicemail, sometimes he doesn’t. Not that Lexi listens to them.
(But she doesn’t delete them either, and she’s unwilling to really dig into the reason why.)
Rue sits beside her, and Lexi can’t help but notice the girl must have woken up before the phone call because she’s freshly washed and wearing new clothes from the duffle Lexi keeps tucked away in her closet for these times Rue shows up unannounced. The still-maybe-addict stirs in an obscene amount of sugar into the drink before leaning back and chewing on her lip, like she’s trying to decide what she needs to say. Which is odd because Rue has never been one to hold her tongue about anything.
“Just spit it out,” she grumbles, knowing for certain that it’s going to be another attempt by her best friend to finally give in and take Fezco’s call.
“There’s a new lawyer looking at Fez’s case. She thinks she might be able to get him a new deal.”
Lexi blinks, her heart racing, suddenly hopeful for the first time since that day at the end of her junior year that Rue had to tell her Fezco had been arrested and it was serious. Then she remembers the boy she once knew was serving a thirty year prison sentence and even a new deal will likely mean years left behind bars.
“That’s good,” she says cautiously, picking her pen back up and turning her attention to the script she’s been working on. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“If it goes his way, he’ll be able to come home, like, immediately.”
Honestly, she should have led with that.
“What? How?”
She can see the way Rue tries to bite back her smile. “Oh, so now you’re interested in what’s going on with Fez.”
Lexi swats her friend against the arm lightly, giving her a glare. “I’ve never not been interested, it’s just. Hard. For me. That’s all.”
Oh, like it hasn’t been hard for him? a cruel voice in her head reminds her, and Lexi winces.
Rue, thankfully, misses it, instead launching into the details with enthusiasm. “Okay so, he wasn’t able to say too much to me about what’s going on, just that they think there’s enough loose ends in his case that they can get some of the convictions overturned. And he’s willing to give up some information that would help out the Feds, which he hadn’t done previously.”
“Laurie information?” Lexi whispers, leaning in as if someone will overhear them. She doesn’t know a whole lot on what her best friend does for the drug lord but she knows enough.
Rue shrugs lightly as if she can be nonchalant about this whole thing. “He didn’t really say. That would be…. That would be fucking great though, yeah.”
“Would she try to implicate you?”
“I don’t fucking know Lex,” Rue says sourly, taking a sip of her coffee. “But like. Maybe just answer his call the next time he gets a chance to hit your line. Like I said, the dude fucking misses you, and I know you don’t say it to me, but you fucking miss him too.”
It’s been five long years since the last time she saw Fezco live in person. It was the night before her play opened and he’d shown up outside her mom’s house in East Highland, chocolate milkshake for her in hand as she got into the passengers side of his old Cadillac and they drove aimlessly around her neighborhood talking until she was tired enough to go to sleep.
Her anxiety had been palpable across the phone and the teenage boy, who was really more of a man than anything, had taken it upon himself to make it better. Milkshakes and talking about anything other than Our Life or her sister had done the trick, and by the time they were pulling up to her house Lexi had fallen a little more in love.
“Of course I miss him, Rue. It’s just that our schedules don’t exactly align and like… what are we supposed to talk about? What would I say? Sorry your brother and grandma were killed in the raid on your house and now you’re in prison for thirty years? Or how about I graduated college and have been working on television sets while you’re behind bars, sorry we haven’t talked in five years, I’ve been busy. Because both of those make me an asshole.”
Rue stirs another packet of sugar into her coffee, littering the table with the empty papers. “In all this time, all you’ve ever said is that you fell in love with him, but like. Was there more to it? Because you can tell me, I wouldn’t tell anyone anything, swear to God.”
“What, Fezco hasn’t told you anything ever?” Lexi mutters, not really wanting to get into this with Rue, again.
“C’mon now Howard, all I know from either of you is that you two were in love and from the outside it feels like some really puppy love type of shit, but like. It’s been years and the guy is like, yearning for you in the pen and you haven’t so much as dated a single person ever, as far as I can tell. So I kinda feel like I’m missing something.”
Lexi wants to tell her the only thing that happened was holding hands on his grandma's couch while they sang Stand By Me to each other in a rainstorm, but that’s not the whole story either. That night with the milkshakes, as they sat outside her house, Lexi finding excuses to not leave the car yet despite the ways her eyes grew heavy with sleep, something else happened.
As she remembers it, she was yammering away about something useless and Fezco sat there, attentive as always, looking at her with a sense of awe that made Lexi blush and start to stammer over her words. And then, once she had finished her little speech, clear as day Fezco told her I love you Lexi Howard and leaned across his console to kiss her for the first time ever. It was sweet, just a press of their lips together as he cupped her chin, nothing demanding but her heart raced all the same. And when it came to an end, Lexi had told him she loved him too before promising to see him the next night and fleeing his car to the safety of her own bed.
She had been so busy that next day that they didn’t have time to talk on the phone, though texts were exchanged with no mention of what had happened the night prior.
Lexi had spent the last five years with Fezco’s last words to her on a loop in her head, and it was making her miserable.
“He told me he loved me,” Lexi admits with a sigh, feeling very much like a high schooler once again. “He told me he loved me, kissed me for the only time, and then I said it back. It was the last time we physically spoke or saw each other before the raid. Fuck, it was the last time we spoke or saw each other, period.”
Rue had attended his pretrial in person, wanting to be moral support now that he had no one. Lexi, despite how desperately and deeply in love she had been at the time, couldn’t bring herself to go, even though Rue had said her presence would raise Fezco’s spirits. As selfish as it was, she couldn’t bring herself to see him that way, cuffed up and escorted by police officers
“Damn, he never mentioned any of that,” Rue replies after a few moments of silence. “Fuck, Lexi. I’m sorry dude.”
“It is what it is, Rue. Fezco is gone for an indefinite amount of time and I need to be able to move on. And I don’t know how to do that if I’m still caught up in his orbit all the time.”
At that, Rue snorts. “Hate to break it to you kid, but you’ve been avoiding him like the plague and you still can’t figure out how to move on.”
She knows. Oh how she knows.
How do you find it in yourself to be able to let go of the love of your life when the world makes it impossible to be together?
If anyone has any ideas, Lexi would like to see them in her inbox sooner than later. Because she’s been trying for five years to figure this out and is still unable to come up with anything for herself.
“Are you seeing anyone?” Rue asks casually as they sit on top of the washers in her building's laundry room. Lexi wrinkles her nose up at the question, annoyed that Rue’s even asking.
“Did you not tell me, like, two hours ago that I hadn’t moved on from Fezco? What do you think?”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t be like… hooking up. You don’t have to have feelings for someone to fuck them Lex.”
“Ew. No thanks.”
Rue groans, throwing her head back and nearly cracking it on the cement block wall. “C’mon, that's not what I meant. I just meant that you don’t need to be in love with someone to wanna get between the sheets, that’s all.”
The thing is, Lexi knows what Rue means. And it’s not like she hasn’t tried! When she was in college she definitely flirted with cute girls and handsome boys, and occasionally would go on dates all in a vein attempt to forget, but whenever things would take a turn to the physical. Well. She could never follow through. She’d gone as far as some above the clothes groping and that was it.
Twenty-two years old and still a virgin. Pathetic.
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s for me Rue,” she says dismissively. “I need a like… connection… to be comfortable enough to even think about going that far.”
For a few minutes you can’t hear anything in the room other than the machines running and their breathing.
“Would you have… with Fez… if things were different?”
Lexi could almost laugh at the question, because of fucking course she would have had sex with Fezco if things had been different, if the outcome of their fate had been written with a different ending. Those few months where they teetered the line between friends and something more had been some of the most sexually frustrating ones in Lexi’s whole life. She remembers feeling like she could combust with an explosion of want from the simplest touches, his hand on her lower back as he moved around her at the Dairy, the way he’d hold her hand so gently, his thumb brushing over her knuckles. All of them innocent but so fucking charged that Lexi would find herself pushing her hand down the front of her panties at night after Cassie cried herself to sleep just to get some relief.
She gives Rue a skeptical look. “Do you really want me to answer that? Isn’t Fezco like, basically your brother?”
“And you’re practically my sister,” the brunette says, shrugging. “But like. Gimme something here Howard. I knew things between you two had been intense, but up until a few hours ago I didn’t even know you’d told each other I love you. My head's been spinning.”
“Fine,” Lexi replies, pushing herself off the washer. “If the raid didn’t happen, and Fezco had made it to my show, I probably would have gone home with him that night. We never really talked about it, in so many terms, but like. It’s like we were waiting for the right moment. And honestly, I probably would have been so giddy and excited about the success of Our Life, that I would have decided that was the moment, you know what I’m saying?”
“Yeah, yeah I hear you,” Rue says, jumping a little as the buzzer on the machine goes off. “He probably feels the exact same.”
“Oh my god, please don’t ask him that next time you talk.”
Rue laughs. “Oh yeah, that would be a fun conversation starter. Hey Fez, did you ever think about fucking Lexi when you two were secretly in love?”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
She doesn’t, which is half the problem. Despite all the things Rue had done in the past to absolutely set their friendship aflame during the worst of her addiction, Lexi had never found it in herself to actually hate Rue. Sure, there were times the girl was one of her least favorite people and she had felt used in their friendship, but Lexi couldn’t say she’d ever lost hope in their ability to find one another again. Even when it was probably better for her if they did.
Rue breezes out of her place two days later, telling her that work calls. She’s not totally sure what the girl has to do with the scary drug supplier woman, how she’s working off this debt she collected when her addiction was at its worst, but Lexi knows that without a doubt Rue will find her way back to her couch in another couple of weeks. She’s wiley like that, just born with an innate ability to survive any circumstance regardless of how hard she’d tried to kill herself with the drugs in the past.
It’s back to the grind after that. Her work takes up most of her life, and for that Lexi’s pretty okay with it. The more time she spends at the studio, the less time she has to do other things, like let her mind wander to shit she’d rather not think too hard on.
If she’s busy, she can’t be sad about how drastically different life turned out compared to the plan she’d come up with in high school. Honestly, there’s no one to blame there but herself, because when she’d come up with her ideal timeline for all the things she wanted to achieve in the future, it had been a nameless, faceless partner she’d imagined. And slowly, over a gradual amount of time, the nameless, faceless partner had morphed into a very real, very solid vision of what her life with Fezco O’Neill could look like.
So yeah, if she buries herself in work, who could blame her?
“There’s this industry thing tonight, at a bar downtown,” Maddy says as she waits for whatever client has her on set today. “You should come out.”
“I don’t know,” Lexi replies, gesturing at the pile of scripts in her arms. “I need to go through all these revisions for Patty and I have to be back here for an early call time tomorrow.”
“It’s not like, an East Highland rager Lex. It’s literally just a little casual mixer for a bunch of up and comers on the scene. Which, you totally are.”
Lexi blushes at the comment, ducking her chin into her chest. Sure, she’s not a writer on the show yet officially, but she helps with script revisions sometimes and some of her suggestions have been used by her producer. Her foot is metaphorically in the door. And if she just keeps working the way she does, putting in the extra effort, she’s certain her boss will hire her on to the writers room.
“Not to be all on my granny shit Maddy, but I have a four am wake up time tomorrow, so it’ll be take out for dinner and probably falling asleep with a red pen in my hand in my bed at like eight o’clock tonight.”
“You never come out!” Maddy whines, pulling on her arm just like she did in high school. “All work and no play makes Lexi a boring girl!”
“I was just out with you and Rue when she was in town,” Lexi argues because it’s true. “Have you ever considered that you go out too much?”
“Blasphemy.”
Lexi giggles at that. “Whatever. You know I want to get hired as a writer, and I can’t do that without putting in my dues. I’m not the only person in Hollywood who graduated at the top of their class trying to break into the industry. It’s a dog eat dog world out here.”
Maddy pouts a little longer before finally relenting, dragging a promise out of Lexi to come out next time, reminding her that networking is good. “You cannot convince me that you want to be a staff writer on LA fucking Nights, bitch. Not after you wrote that fucking play about us in your junior year of high school.”
“I gotta start somewhere,” Lexi mumbles, fiddling with the ring on her thumb. “It’ll be worth it in the end.”
“If you say so,” Maddy says with one last sigh. “Text me soon? I know your schedule is insane, but we can get together for lunch sometime when I’m on set to babysit.”
Promising her friend just that, Lexi makes her exit to head back inside the writers office and to her little side desk outside Patty’s office, stacking her scripts neatly in a pile before heading off to the office coffee cart to get enough caffeine to plow through the tedious work she’s about to get into.
“Howard, what are you still doing here?” Patty asks as she steps out of her office some hours later. Blinking, Lexi looks at the clock in the corner of her laptop screen, the white numbers reading 5:48pm.
Barely looking up from the script she’s working on, Lexi replies. “It’s not even that late Patty.”
“Everyone’s gone for the night, kid. Some industry networking thing going on. I expected you to be there too.”
“Oh,” Lexi says, surprised that her boss thought she had enough acumen to be at that sort of thing. “I uh. I don’t think I’m really at the level I need to be to go to something like that.”
Patty gives her skeptical look. “You’re working in Hollywood right? I think that’s the only level you need.”
Frowning, Lexi looks back down at her script pile, suddenly regretting turning down Maddy’s offer to go out tonight. A long time ago someone told her that she needed to stop doubting herself, and for a while, she had taken that advice to heart. With her newfound confidence she’d poured her heart and soul out into a script, staged a full production, and determined she wanted to attend college for her screenwriting degree all in a matter of months. And for a while, she’d gotten really good at living the fake it til you make it life, but then she entered the real world and things weren’t so easy anymore.
Most of the time she felt like she was barely treading water in this industry, like she’d done the thing she had set out to do in high school and still wasn’t satisfied with the results.
Like something was missing.
Or rather someone.
Lexi just didn’t know how to rectify that.
“Go home, Howard,” Patty says, not unkindly. “No use staying here to work when everyone else has gone.”
Honestly, she should have gone to bed.
Instead she ordered take out from her favorite Indian place near her apartment complex and opened a bottle of white wine to go with it. One glass became two, and before she knew it, she was pouring the last bit of the bottle into her stemless glassware her mother had gifted her as a house warming present.
The irony is not lost on her.
She’s scrolling through her phone, liking Maddy’s IG posts from tonight, wishing she had just gotten up the nerve to go out when the device starts buzzing in her hand.
CALIFORNIA STATE CORRECTIONS CALLING is emblazoned across her screen and even though she’s a little tipsy she’s not in so much of a state that she doesn’t know who is on the other line.
Over the last few years every single time this caller ID has popped up, Lexi’s let it go to voicemail. It hurts, not being letting herself speak to Fezco, but she thinks he understands her reason why. Or at least she hopes he does. Rue makes it sound like he does anyways.
Still, he tries her line occasionally, seemingly hopeful she’s changed her mind about picking up.
Later she’d blame it on the bottle of wine she’s had to drink while also feeling bad for herself, but as the phone keeps ringing Lexi does something she’s never done before.
She answers the call.
Or well, she lets it connect, pressing the button for speaker phone as the automated voice tells her the call may be recorded.
There’s a pause as the line connects and Lexi doesn’t think she’s breathing at all but she must be because she can feel her heart pounding in her chest.
“... Lexi?” a familiar voice says, full of uncertainty and oh god how has she gone so long without hearing Fezco’s voice?
When she doesn’t say anything, Fezco tries again. “Lexi Howard, you there?”
Her whole mouth has gone dry, her tongue like sandpaper as she can’t figure out how to make words work for maybe the first time in her life.
“I know you there, Lex. Can hear you breathin’. Uh. S’alright if you didn’t mean to accept this call. Got me all excited when it didn’t go to voicemail though,” he says with a chuckle and Lexi feels her heart breaking in half all over again. “Just uh. I fuckin’ miss you. Rue says you doing good, I watch that show you workin’ on by the way. Think you too good for that shit, but you prolly know that.”
Tears burn at the edge of her eyes and Lexi has to slap her hand over her mouth to not sob out loud. Fezco might know she’s here but he doesn’t need to know she’s holding back tears over the sound of his voice when she’s the one that’s been avoiding him all these years.
“Okay. Uh, Imma letchu go, if you even still listenin’. Maybe we can do this again sometime? Preferably with you talkin’ too. Have a good night Lexi.”
The line goes dead moments later and Lexi finally lets herself crumble into a heap on her kitchen floor, heart cracked open as she lets out a sob that comes from somewhere deep in her body. There’s been an ache in her soul these past few years that she’s done her best to bandage up between being a high achiever in university and working herself half to death at her admittedly not-so-dream-job. For her whole life, Lexi has found it easier to bury shit down, to live in her fantasies and make up worlds where things don’t hurt so bad.
A dad that never left her.
A mother who loved her as much as her sister.
A sister who cared about more than just herself.
A best friend that wasn’t struggling with addiction.
And now, maybe most of all, the quiet, unassuming boy who treated her better than anyone ever not being in prison, but being here, with her, where he belongs.
She’s not really sure how long she cries on the floor before she finally stops, picking herself up off the ground and wiping the back of her hand across the wet, snotty mess that is her face before dragging herself to the shower. Never, not once in the year plus she’s been working on LA Nights has Lexi called out, never taking any of her sick days and only scheduling time off when it’s for something important, but as she’s peeling off today's clothes she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror and finds herself pulling up her email and sending something off to Patty about being certain she has food poisoning and needing to be out of the office tomorrow.
There’s absolutely no way she’s going to be able to put on a brave face and go to work tomorrow like her whole goddamn life didn’t just crash and burn.
April 2025
“You didn’t say anything back?” Rue half screeches into the phone. “You finally picked up Fez’s call and said nothing?”
She knew the girl was going to react this way but fuck, it sounds way worse when Rue says it out loud.
“I didn’t know what to do!” she whines into the phone, burrowed under a pile of blankets. “I like. Heard his voice for the first time in years and froze.”
“You’re a dumbass, Howard.”
“Thanks Rue, real helpful,” Lexi sniffs. “I’m afraid he won’t call back now.”
She can practically see the way Rue rolls her eyes. “Will you pick up and fucking talk to him this time?”
Lexi’s grateful she took the day off, because she slept like garbage last night and once she finally had her bearings this morning she’d immediately called Rue to tell her about what had happened. What she hadn’t expected was her best friend being so blunt with her about it.
“I… uh. I don’t know Rue. I don’t know if I can?”
The line goes quiet long enough that Lexi fears the call dropped.
“Go listen to his voicemails. I know you keep them saved.”
“You couldn’t possibly–”
“– I’m you best fucking friend since preschool, Lex. I know you save his goddam voicemails. Go listen to them and then decide if you want to talk to him when he calls again. And he will call again, probably sooner than later, because you picking up gives him hope. And hope is a powerful thing to a man in his position.”
It’s not that Rue was trying to make her feel bad, not in so many words at least, but Lexi ends the call feeling even guiltier than she’d felt previously, which is to say is a lot.
“You can do this, Howard,” she mumbles to herself as she opens the voicemail tab on her phone.
Over the course of the last five plus years a total of thirty-three voicemails have been left. As Lexi scrolls through the messages, she notes that some of them have long gaps between them, even if the calls have consistently come through twice a month since the beginning. Might be that Fezco didn’t have anything to say of importance sometimes, or that maybe whatever it was felt too important, too big to leave there on her voicemail.
It only feels right to start at the beginning.
June 8th 2019 - Voicemail - Orange County Jail
“Lexi Howard. Was hoping you’d pick up, but can’t say I’m surprised you didn’t. Just got outta the hospital, they sent me directly to the Big House. Um. Ion know what to fuckin’ say girl. Shit’s fucked right now. I’m sure Rue’s filled you in on it.”
“I’m sorry I missed your show. Swear to God I was on the way out the door when that spineless rat showed up to my crib. You gotta know I woulda never done nothing to let you down on purpose Lex. I told you that I loved you, and I meant that fuckin’ shit. Ionno how things got so far outta hand, but Imma fix it. Promise.”
May 28th 2020 - Voicemail - Orange County Jail
“This pandemic shit sucks. All my court shit is now happening on fucking Zoom calls and my lawyers say it’s gonna be harder to win sympathy from the jury if it ain’t gonna be done in person. Ionno Lex, I feel like Imma ‘bout to go down for a long ass time.”
“Sorry you’re losing out on the end of your senior year because of this shitshow. You the smartest person I’ve ever known and I can’t believe you ain’t gonna get to have a real graduation ceremony. Rue told me they’re mailing your diplomas to your house and planning some like, drive by ceremony bullshit. Don’t seem fair after all the hard work you put in to get it reduced to sumn so meaningless.”
“I miss you Lexi. Wish you would pick up and just talk to me, but I’ll keep leaving these voicemails to you, keep reminding you I love you, keep begging you not to forget about me. Be safe. I’ll call soon, maybe you’ll answer this time.”
August 5th 2024 - Voicemail - CALIFORNIA STATE CORRECTIONS
“So, I been watching LA Nights the last few weeks since Rue told me you was working on it now. I gotta couple of questions about it. First, what the fuck is on my TV screen Howard? What is this shit? Some typa soap opera nonsense? It ain’t even a good soap shorty, where’s the supervillain at? Or like, the evil twin that is parading as the heroine that's locked up in a secret dungeon? I used to watch Days of Our Lives with Kitty back in the day, and that soap had real flair you know?”
“Imma keep watching, even if it’s garbage, cause I like seeing yo’ name in the credits. I’m proud as fuck of you Lexi. You out there doing the damn thing you always wanted to do, working on a television show right out of college. Hella impressive.”
March 26th 2025 - Voicemail - CALIFORNIA STATE CORRECTIONS
“The one fuckin’ time I really hoped you’d change your mind about shutting me out Lex,” he says, voice full of disbelief. He laughs a little and that's the first time Lexi’s heard something so joyful sounding from him in these messages. “I gotta new lawyer looking at my case. For the first time, I’m feeling hopeful again. If this works out, means Imma get to come home. Shit man, I wanna talk to you so fuckin’ bad baby. Wanna know there’s sumn worth comin’ back home to. I miss you, so damn much. And I know it sounds crazy, but fuck, I’m still so, so in love witchu, even if you won’t talk to me. I know I fuckin’ hurt you, and I know I been gone a long ass time, but if I get out, I hope you lemme try an’ make it up to you.”
The only time he sounds like himself is right at the tail end, when he’s running out of time and he’s reminding her that he loves her.
Every single call, without fail.
She’s the worst fucking person alive.
May 2025
Lexi wishes she was able to do something about… all of this. But before her phone even has a chance to come up with CALIFORNIA STATE CORRECTIONS CALLING again, she has to deal with the other looming deadline in her life.
Cassie’s wedding to Nate Jacobs.
If you had told her when her sister was chasing her around stage during Our Life all those years ago that she’d be the maid of honor in the wedding of Cassie and Nate, she probably would have laughed you right off the stage - of course only after Maddy had chased Cassie off, but that’s besides the point.
To be perfectly clear, she still hates Nate. She thinks his family is weird and that he’s a creep, and she’s never once let Cassie know why Fezco beat the shit out of him at Virgil’s party her junior year. It had taken a solid year for the sisters to even speak again after the disaster that was her play, Lexi being stubborn as fuck over the way Cassie had once again made something all about herself, but then the pandemic hit and people were dying by the masses and Lexi decided to be the bigger person.
If she had known it was going to end with her being the maid of honor at some shitshow of a wedding, she probably wouldn't have been so quick to mend that wound.
Of course the whole day is a downright disaster. Not that Lexi expected less - when you get together under the circumstances Nate and Cassie did, you can’t really expect things to be rainbows and butterflies. Even on your wedding day.
And now with that nightmare out of the way, Lexi thinks it’s time to finally be as fearless as Fezco always said she was and answer the damn phone.
“Hello? Fezco?” She answers the phone quietly as she leans against her kitchen counter. Both her hands and voice are shaking.
There’s a beat before she hears a response.
“Lexi Howard. How you doin’?”
It shouldn’t make her heart rate kick up instantly but here they are.
“I’m good. Um. Thanks for calling.”
Fezco sighs, deep and unexpected. “Thanks for finally picking up.”
“I… I uh. About that,” she begins, wanting desperately to explain but Fez just cuts her off.
“Ion need an explanation Lex. I know you gotchu reasons, but that shit can wait until I get my ass home.”
“Is that… Rue said… Shit. It’s like I forgot how to talk to you or something. Jesus,” Lexi says with an uneasy giggle. “I listened to your voicemail. The last one you left. Actually, I listened to all of them, but that’s not the point. You said you have a new lawyer and you might be coming home soon?”
She can practically hear the way he’s smiling into the line. “Hell yeah. Can’t talk much about it here, but my new lawyer has a good case she’s building, thinks she’ll get me released on time served if shit goes our way.”
“That’s amazing. I’m… I am so incredibly happy for you, Fezco.”
“Ain’t a done deal yet girl. Prolly another year in here working out the details? But uh. ‘Nough ‘bout me right now. Wanna hear about you,” Fez says with so much sincerity that Lexi begins to melt. Guys in Hollywood have nothing on this jailbird, and she’s a bit alarmed about the state of the world with that piece of knowledge.
“Well, not much going on here,” she begins, ignoring Fezco’s tut. “LA Nights has me really busy, so like. No dating or anything.”
She doesn’t want to think too hard about why she’s telling the man she’s been in love with since she was seventeen years old that she’s decidedly single when he’s still locked up in state corrections, but the pleased hum she receives in return sends a pleasant thrum through her body regardless.
“Shit,” Fezco mumbles, dragging out the word long and slow. “You don’t say? Thought half of Hollywood would be lining up to date you.”
“I’m a lowly assistant on a primetime soap opera, Fezco. It’s not exactly a front facing type of role.”
They continue their easy banter for the next ten minutes or so before they get interrupted by a buzzing noise that indicates the end of the call in the next minute.
“Hey um. I know you know how I usually end my calls…” Fez says, trailing off.
Lexi gulps anxiously. “Uh. Yeah. I do.”
“I ain’t gonna say it to you right now, not cause I don’t mean it, but ‘cause Ion wanna make this weird.”
“Okay.”
“But know I’m thinkin’ it,” Fezco states simply, all the meaning behind his words hitting Lexi like a ton of bricks.
Lexi nods, cheeks blushing red before remembering they are on the phone. “Call me soon?”
“You’ll pick up?”
“Promise.”
November 2025
And all of the sudden, Lexi lives and dies by those moments where her phone rings and it’s Fezco calling again. Just like high school, only he’s somewhere upstate and they don’t have hours to talk about whatever they feel like. It’s quick connections, thirty minutes stolen here and there throughout her week, chances to unload about her job or her sister or Rue to someone who was always the most patient listener.
“I know I don’t understand how making a television series works an’ shit, but feels like you doing a whole lotta work you ain’t getting paid to do, Lexi,” the man observes one particularly late night after she spends the first eighteen minutes of their call going off on how a new writer on the show doesn’t know the difference between there/their/they’re and how she’s the one stuck making all the edits to the scripts because of that.
“I know. I just. I gotta pay my dues Fezco. If I keep showing Patty how useful I am, she’ll promote me to the writers room here eventually. She knows that’s what I want to do, we’ve talked about it.”
Fez makes a noise of disagreement but doesn’t say anything, biting his tongue over the topic in a way Lexi doesn’t like.
“Spill it O’Neill,” she demands.
Sighing, Lexi imagines him running a hand over the curved scar on his head, just like he used to do when he was about to tell her a hard truth she didn’t want to hear. “When’s the last time you an’ yo’ boss talked about you moving into the writers room?”
This gives Lexi pause. “What do you mean?”
“Like the last time you explicitly stated that you want that opportunity? Cause we been talking for like, six months now an’ this is the fifth new hire they’ve had. Just feels like you getting passed over for opportunities, that’s all.”
“Yeah but. Replacing me will be a lot harder than replacing some halfwit writer on this show. I do so much for Patty already, she’d need like two personal assistants to cover my responsibilities, she can’t just hire anyone off the street.” Even as she’s saying it, something about it feels wrong to admit out loud.
“Do you not hear yo’self, Lex?”
The thing is, she does and she knows it’s a little fucked up that she’s willing to put herself through all of this for the sake of even getting herself a chance to be considered for a different role on the LA NIGHTS set. But she’s invested so much time into this show that she’s certain if she can push through this minor inconvenience that it’ll be worth it in the end.
“It’s not that big of a deal, Fezco,” she says quietly. “Can we just drop it for now?”
“Sure thing, baby.”
He calls her that occasionally and it makes her heart flutter in her chest every single time.
“How was your appointment with your lawyer?”
So much information has come out over the past few months as his new lawyer is looking through his case's discovery. Negligence in the operation the feds completed the night of her play, their lack of consideration to the comatose patient on the grounds, and their refusal to stand down as Fezco was screaming at them that it was a scared fucking kid in the bathroom that day— who they shot dead without second thought. The whole thing is horrifying, and Lexi can’t believe they were just able to get away with it and send Fez to prison for thirty years.
“We opting for a bench trail, no jury. Just us, the judge and whatever fucking lawyers the state decides to appoint. Think it’s our best chance to win the appeal.”
Before Lexi has a chance to say anything, that dreaded buzz breaks into the call letting them know they have one minute left.
“I’ll call you again later this week Lexi,” Fez says with a sigh. “I know you asked me to drop it, but I really do think you needa talk to yo’ boss ‘bout yo’ job, you feel?”
“I feel,” Lexi mumbles. “I miss you. Mean it.”
“Mean it too.”
February 2026
It’s another three months before Lexi finally hits the breaking point and talks to Patty about getting hired into the writing room. The ratings of LA NIGHTS plummeted when the writers decided to throw in a serial killer plot and started killing off many of the franchise’s beloved characters while actors were going through contract negotiations until they were forced to reverse course and reveal that this was all a dream one of the main characters was having while in a coma. But the damage had already been done and it caused a lot of turnover in that department, an almost entirely new team of writers being brought in to replace the team that chose that terrible storyline.
Of course, Lexi was still working as Patty’s assistant instead of getting one the open spots on the writing team.
“Hey Patty, do you have a quick second?” Lexi asks as she pokes her head into her bosses office. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”
Patty looks up from the script in front of her, right over her glasses as she motions for Lexi to enter the room.
“What can I do for you, Howard?”
Standing with her arms held behind her back, Lexi rocks on her toes. “Well, as you know, I went to college for screenwriting. That’s what my degree is in. And when you hired me, we had agreed that my time spent being your assistant would be a transitional position, with me learning the ropes before transferring into the writers room.”
“I recall.”
“And well. We’ve gone through a lot of writers during my time with the show, so I guess I was kinda wondering why we haven’t just um, made that switch yet?”
Patty sighs, placing her glasses on the top of her head before she folds her hands on the table.
“Frankly Miss Howard, it’s because I’m being selfish here. You’re quite literally the best assistant I’ve ever had and I’m loath to lose you to a different department. You’re just so adept to your job that I don’t even need to give you instructions any longer, you can just anticipate my needs. Do you understand how rare that is in personal help these days?”
Pursing her lips, Lexi gives a forced smile. “Yeah. I uh… I love being your assistant Patty, I’ve learned so much from you. But that’s why I feel like I’m ready to take on a bigger position on this production. Like, I’ve had a chance to really see what it takes to write for this show and how to balance all the demands between the studio and the actors and the fans, and I really think my voice would give a useful, nuanced approach to how the writers on this show plan out future storylines.”
For a moment, Lexi thinks her boss is moved by her mini speech. Patty’s wearing a look of pride as Lexi pleads her case, but seconds later she’s dropping her face and moving her glasses back on the bridge of her nose, before turning her eyes back to the pages before her.
“That’s probably so Lexi, but you know we’re already in the early planning stages for Spring Sweeps, so the timing is just horrible for that sort of thing. I need you focused on helping me get through this time period. We can always talk about your little writers room dream after this crucial time period is over, but for now I need you here with me.”
Defeated, Lexi puts on her brave face. “Um, yeah. Sure Patty, you’re right. I wouldn’t even know where to start with planning out storylines for Spring Sweeps. We can wait to talk about this again at a better time.”
“If that’s all, I need fifteen copies of tomorrow's scenes highlighted and tabbed on my desk by the end of the day. I’m sure you’ll have it ready to go for me in plenty of time.”
“Yeah… no problem.”
April 2026
“I can’t believe you’re still working on that stupid show Lex,” Rue says as she smokes a cigarette on the terrace. “It’s a waste of your talents.”
“You sound like Fezco,” Lexi responds glumly, resting her chin against her palm. “We finish filming for sweeps next week, and they start airing in May. Once we get a look at our numbers, I’m sure Patty will keep her word and we’ll talk about me becoming a writer for real.”
“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that,” the brunette replies with a snort. “Speaking of our favorite inmate, have you heard anything from him this week? I know his hearings started.”
That’s part of the reason Lexi’s feeling so down right now, because the last time they had talked was the night before the bench trial started four days ago. Fezco hasn’t called since, and she has no idea how things are going.
“Nothing. I don’t know if that’s a good sign or a bad sign.
“No news is good news,” Rue replies with a sense of authority. “I’m sure he’s just preoccupied with everything that’s going on.”
Lexi gives a half shrug. “Yeah, probably. Hopefully. I’m still preparing myself for worst case scenario. Who knows if this judge even has a heart? The last one sure didn’t.”
“Man, I can’t fucking wait to see him again. Of course I’ll give you two a like, 48 hour window of one on one time, but then that’s it.”
Confused, Lexi raises her eyebrows at her best friend. “Why on Earth would we need 48 hours of one on one time when he gets out?”
Over their long and winding friendship, Lexi’s gotten used to all the brawdy things Rue often says, but nothing could have prepared her for this one.
“Please do not play in my face and pretend you two aren’t going to be fucking like rabbits over every surface of this apartment, Lexi Howard. I know you’ve been dreaming about what it’ll be like to get dicked down by a post-prison beefcake Fez,” Rue says dryly.
She drops her over heated face into her palms. “Jesus Christ.”
“48 hours Howard. And then you two will need to get it under control because I miss my homie too.”
“How did it go? What happened? You haven’t called in like two fucking weeks and I was starting to worry,” Lexi says instead of giving a proper hello the next time her phone rings with CALIFORNIA STATE CORRECTIONS CALLING.
“You gotta car?” Fezco replies, ignoring her questions. “Or like, can you rent one or sumn?”
“Yeah I own a car. I live in LA, not New York City. You can’t really get anywhere without one here.”
“Great,” Fezco says, voice flat. “Imma need you to do sumn for me in like, three weeks.”
“I mean, I gotta see if I can get the time off work, but if you need to do something for you, I’ll try my best to make it happen.”
Fezco laughs a little into the line. “You gonna wanna make this happen Lexi, I promise.”
“Stop being cryptic and just tell me.”
“How you feel about driving up here to pick me up when I get released in three weeks?”
It takes an embarrassingly long time for Lexi’s brain to compute what Fezco is saying. “What?”
“The judge sided with me an’ my lawyer, Lexi. Imma be a free man again. Takes three weeks to process my shit, but I getta go home and put all this shit behind me. Was hoping you’d come an’ get me instead of having to take the bus back to LA.”
She doesn't even have to think twice before answering. “I’ll be there.”
May 2026
“I can only manage to give you one day Lexi,” Patty says after her days off request has already been approved by the staffing manager. “I know Hector approved the whole week, but he didn’t consult me before doing that and I would have told him no.”
She’s supposed to leave tomorrow morning to drive up to Sacramento to pick Fezco up. It’s a six hour drive to begin with, without considering stops for food and fuel, and she was going up a day early so she can be at the prison on time for Fez’s release. They weren’t even going to drive back down immediately, Fez was leaving with next to nothing and they had to pick up some essentials until he can get into the storage unit in East Highland that Rue had stored his stuff in when he got arrested.
“These aren’t really adjustable plans Patty,” Lexi replies meekly. She hadn’t been the most forthcoming with the exact reason why she was taking so many days off, but it wasn’t the business of anyone she worked with either. “I’m picking a friend up and moving them back home. I put in for my days off three weeks ago, and Hector approved it immediately.”
“Like I said, he didn’t talk to me about it, kid. Now that we’re seeing our sweeps numbers we need to start making our storyline adjustments and I need you here to help me coordinate script changes. You can’t just take a whole week off, this is a vital time.”
“I know, it’s just that I have been here for like three years now and the most time off I’ve ever used was those three days last year for my sister's wedding. I have so much PTO sitting around.”
Patty gives her a bored look over the rims of her glasses. “And things absolutely fell apart last year when you took those three days. Now you want a whole week? I’m sorry Lexi, but there’s just no way we can manage without you here keeping things on track.”
“Just think of it as a trial run for when I transfer into the writers room,” Lexi tries, giving her boss the best smile she can manage. “I really wouldn’t take this time off if it wasn’t absolutely necessary that I do so.”
“You think I’m going to allow you to move to the writers room after pulling this nonsense on me, Miss Howard? I can’t have undedicated writers working on my show, and clearly your priorities lie elsewhere if you’re so insistent you need a week’s vacation out of the blue. I’m sorry dear, but if you take these days off, you’re really going to have to put in the time and effort to show me that you’re actually ready to become a screenwriter in Hollywood.”
It’s with sudden clarity that Lexi realizes that all of Rue and Fezco’s doubts and questions about her job have not actually been coming from a place of genuine dislike for the show itself, but instead from a place of concern about Lexi pouring herself into a project that never wants to pour back into her.
Patty was never going to allow her to move into the writers room, of that Lexi is now certain.
She was going to keep her stuck in her position as an assistant until Lexi either became completely burned out or decided writing wasn’t for her. Either way, Patty wasn’t interested in doing what was best for Lexi, she was only worried about herself.
“I fucking quit.”
She doesn’t even realize she’s said those words until she’s at her desk, quickly grabbing her important personal items while mentally composing an email to Hector to ask for her nonessentials to be boxed up for her to pick up next week.
“You can’t quit,” Patty says from over her shoulder. “You’re too important to quit, Miss Howard.”
Looking over her shoulder, Lexi notes that Patty at least looks fucking stressed over the turn of events. “Well I just did. I’ve dedicated myself to this show for the last three years, I’ve worked holidays and missed birthdays and my sister’s bachelorette party. I’ve jumped through so many hoops for you, Patty, but you’re never going to give me a chance as a writer and I see that now. So I’m done.”
“If it’s about those vacation days, I’m sure we can work something out.”
Pulling open her email on her phone, Lexi starts laughing at the desperation of Patty’s plea. “It’s not. It’s about me finally realizing I deserve so much better than what LA NIGHTS can give me.”
Fezco had called last night shortly after Lexi checked into her hotel to let her know what time he was getting out in the morning. The conversation was awkward and full of tension brewing between them. Neither of them had spoken about what they expected from their reunion, but Lexi was pretty sure they were on the same page with where they stood with each other.
She wouldn't have driven to Sacramento for a man she wasn’t still head over heels in love with, and Lexi doubts he would have requested her to be the first person he saw on the outside if he was anything less than crazy about her too.
Leaning against the hood of her car, Lexi waits at the end of a very long concrete path that’s surrounded by chain link fences topped with barbed wire. She’s watched enough criminal procedurals to understand what a prison looks like, but it’s so much more intimidating up close and personal.
She’s lost in thought when a very loud buzzing sound comes from the interior gate, the heavy metal fence rolling to the side as Fezco walks forward, flanked by two officers. Thankfully he’s not in handcuffs, but it would appear the officers have to walk him out to the last gate that separates them. Lexi’s genuinely too afraid to say anything, worried that the officers will change their minds and take him away from her again if she says something they don’t like.
“We don’t want to see you back in here O’Neill,” one of the escorts says as the final gate buzzes open. “Stay out of trouble.”
Bright blue eyes connect with her for the first time in over half a decade and Lexi thinks she might cry or possibly throw up at the way Fezco’s smile spreads like butter on her warm pancakes across his face.
“No worries, I ain’t fuckin’ this up again,” he says to the officer but Lexi knows it’s a promise to her too.
And then, all of the sudden, Fezco is standing ten feet across from her and her mind goes pleasantly blank for the first time in years. He’s just as handsome as he was when they were teenagers, but maybe even more so now. Fez was always broad, but somehow he looks bigger, the tight white simple tee he wears clinging to his shoulders and biceps. Rue had been more than correct over her calling him a ‘post-prison beefcake’, she knew it was common for men serving time to bulk up but she hadn’t considered Fezco would look like this. Buzzed hair, freckles and her favorite blue eyes are making her brain fuzzy. So fuzzy in fact that she blurts out the first thought that crosses her mind.
“I quit my job!” Lexi shouts awkwardly, stopping Fez right in his tracks. “It’s a long story but you were right, I’m too good for that show.”
Fezco lets out a belly laugh that warms her to the bone. “Hell yeah! That’s what’s up!”
She’s grinning like a lunatic as he walks right up to her, standing close enough that all she has to do is reach out and touch him. A year of phone calls had brought them back together, but nothing beats the reality of Fezco O’Neill standing live and in the flesh before her eyes.
“Lexi Howard, you sure are a sight for sore eyes,” he mumbles in that low gravelly voice of his that draws shivers down her spine. She smiles even broader, and when Fezco smiles back—
Just like that, Lexi is breathing for the first time in years.