Previously…
– Finn was arrested in connection with Loretta Ragan’s death but quickly released after it was determined that he had not harmed her in any way.
– Tori and Landon shared with Matt their concerns that Lucy, the employee at Matt’s restaurant, was a victim of domestic violence.
– Rosie returned to King’s Bay and apologized to Travis for her abrupt departure.
– Travis and Elly appeared to be hiding some kind of secret about the night of the Objection Designs gala, which was also the night of Loretta’s death.

“Give it up for Miss Elle Toe!”

Applause breaks out throughout The Lookout. The crowd gathered for tonight’s Holiday Drag Spectacular claps, whoops, and shouts with appreciation for the latest performer. The bar’s floor-to-ceiling windows, which reveal a view of the bay with its surface shimmering under the moonlight, are decked out with string lights. Onstage, drag queen Elaine Zbornak — going by the moniker Candy Cane Elaine for the Christmas season, as she always does — holds a microphone as she emcees the event.

“Let’s just hope her sister, Camel Toe, doesn’t crash the show! She’s real stuck-up, if you get my drift,” Elaine quips, eliciting laughter from the crowd. “But for now, we’re gonna have a real quick intermission so the girls can switch out their wigs and you can refresh those drinks and get some fresh bills from the ATM to tip us!”

The lights in the club come up, not to full brightness, but to a level that makes moving around less fraught. At one of the high-top tables spread throughout what is usually the dance floor, Samantha Fisher leans over to comment to her group, “This is so fun!”

“It would be even more fun if ‘Dawn Chase’ showed up for a surprise number,” Alex comments.

The other three giggle.

“I don’t know if Mr. Chase has a big future in drag, even if he did pinch-hit on that Pride float,” Trevor says.

“Maybe someone needs to ask him to do a encore performance,” Samantha suggests.

Alex is about to respond but stops cold when he spots something across the bar. His tablemates all follow his eyeline to see Finn Campbell, a half-drunk cocktail in hand, approaching them.

“Are we not asking him to pull up a chair?” Tempest asks. The others’ silence serves as a perfectly resonant answer.

“I know it’s winter time, but what’s with the frosty reception?” Finn asks as he sidles up to their table.

“No offense, Finn, but you heckled your way through the fashion show that Trevor and I — and our entire company — worked really hard on,” Samantha tells him.

“And you got arrested for murder at the same party,” Alex adds.

Trevor sits stiffly, hands gripping the seat of his chair. Finn gives him a wordless look

Finn rolls his eyes. “I was questioned and released. I would’ve thought word made its way to all of you by now: Molly‘s dear husband realized pretty quickly that I had nothing to do with Loretta‘s death, so he let me go.”

“So you were fighting with her and she just, what, dropped to the ground?” Tempest asks.

“Yes,” Finn replies insistently.

“That’s the other thing,” Alex says. “Why were you arguing with Loretta Ragan in the first place? How did you even know her?”

—–

“Did you and your mom get everything you needed at the store?” Travis Fisher asks as he enters the kitchen of his mother-in-law’s home.

“Pretty much,” Rosie Jimenez replies from behind the open refrigerator door. “The Christmas tamales should be a go.”

Travis smiles. “Good. Is your mom bringing more stuff in? I can go help her.”

“She had to run out again. She wanted those disposable aluminum trays to bring the tamales over to your grandma‘s.”

“I could’ve stolen some from work.”

“It’s fine. She’s already out.” Rosie finishes stashing the newly acquired groceries and closes the fridge. “Thanks for offering, though.”

“Yeah, no problem.” He sticks his hands into the pockets of his jeans and watches his wife continue to bustle around the kitchen, putting away additional items. It feels like such a normal interaction between them — a world away from how dire things felt when Rosie abruptly left town to visit her brother. Still, Travis senses a brittle tension in the air, and he can’t shake the feeling that one false move could cause things to shatter.

“I was wrapping presents while you were out,” he says. “I was wondering…”

His pause causes Rosie to stop what she is doing, with one of the dated white cupboards open, and turn toward him.

“Do you want to sign the card to go with Gabrielle’s present?” Travis asks. “I don’t know if that’s weird, or…”

“You’re doing a card with it? I mean, she can’t even read it.”

“It’s a gesture, I guess. This is the first Christmas that we aren’t…” He trails off, well aware that he doesn’t have to finish the thought; the pain in Rosie’s face only reinforces that.

“Yeah, I’ll sign it,” she says at last.

“Okay. Good.” He tries to slap a cheerful expression on his face. “Do you think you’d maybe want to bring it over with me, too?”

She considers that, then sighs and closes the cupboard. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Cool. If you do want to…”

Rosie nods, suddenly seeming weary.

“I know this is hard,” Travis offers. “I don’t want to pressure you. I just… I want things to get better.”

“So do I.” She plants one hand on the countertop, leaning against it. “But I’ve gotta say, I’m a little surprised by how much better some things have gotten.”

Confused, he cocks his head. “What do you mean?”

“When we ran into Elly the other day,” Rosie says, “you two seemed a lot friendlier than the last time we saw her. What changed since then?”

As Matt Gray steps out of the kitchen and into the staff locker room of Bill’s on the Pier, the yearning sounds of Michael Bublé’s rendition of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” reach out to him from the speakers. Matt has never been a particular aficionado of Christmas music, but he has distinctive memories of hearing different versions of this song during those dark holiday seasons after his parents died and during his estrangement from his brother, Jake. Things seemed so hopeless then, before he met Andrea Yang and then Sarah Fisher, who changed his life in so many incredible ways.

He sees Lucy Champlain sitting on one of the benches that run between the rows of lockers that employees use to store their possessions during their shifts. She has her head down, focused on her phone, but she has changed back into street clothes and has her purse over her shoulder.

“Waiting for a ride?” Matt asks.

Lucy slowly lifts her head. “Oh, no. Not really.”

Matt regards her curiously, not sure what to say. “Oh. Thought your shift ended a while ago.”

She offers an expression partway between a smile and a grimace. “It did. I’m just…”

He detects a sadness about her that feels oddly suited to the song currently playing. Deep conversations have never been Matt’s thing, especially not with virtual strangers; he has known Lucy for some time, as an employee of the restaurant, but they’ve never had particularly substantive exchanges, and he doesn’t like to pry into people’s lives. Still, Tori and Landon‘s concerns about her home life ring in his head.

“Anything going on?” he asks as casually as he can. “Something that makes you not wanna go home?”

She reacts with alarm, but before she speaks, she appears to temper that reaction.

“It’s nothing serious,” she finally says. “Just needed some quiet time. Zoning out and watching TikTok. You know.”

Matt grins. “My son’s always staring at that app.”

“It’s good for when you just don’t want to think, you know?”

“That’s what I use sports podcasts for.” He goes to his locker and opens it, in order to check his phone, which was the actual reason he came into the room. As he does so, he inquires, “But everything’s okay? You’re sure?”

“I promise.”

“If you wanna sit at the bar and have a drink… it’s on the house.”

“Really?” She appears to light up a little, but just as quickly, that light dims. “I probably shouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

She thinks about it for a moment, then shrugs. “Not a good idea, I guess.”

Matt busies himself checking the notifications on his phone, which are nothing too important. “You going home for Christmas, Lucy? I remember you saying you were from California, right?”

“Fresno. Yeah. But no, I’m not going anywhere. Flights are expensive, and…”

He hears a whole lot of burden in the way that she trails off, but she never finishes the thought, and then she is quickly gathering her things.

“I guess I’ll go,” she says.

“You don’t have to–“

“No, I should. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” Matt replies, as she shuffles out of the room, leaving him convinced that there must be something very real to Tori and Landon’s concerns.

—–

Amidst the tables on the dance floor of The Lookout, Finn blinks his eyes back at the foursome gathered for the drag show.

“It was nothing,” he tells them, though his voice is shaky and his nerves are evident.

“You were just fighting with Loretta for no reason?” Alex questions.

The briefest look of silent communication passes between Finn and Trevor. Although Trevor has no immense insight into what happened that night, it has been at the front of his mind that Finn’s biological mother was Camille Lemieux, the woman who founded Objection Designs — a secret that Finn shared with him during a vulnerable moment, the same vulnerable moment that led to them sleeping together. Ever since the night of the gala, Trevor has wondered if that had something to do with the animosity between Finn and Loretta.

“Finn was drinking a lot that night,” Trevor interjects. “That probably explains it.”

“Right!” Finn says, gratefully taking that baton and running with it. “I was drunk, and Loretta crashed the show, and when I saw her outside, I thought it would be a good idea to confront her. Which was actually a terrible idea, but you know how drunk brains work.”

“So they asked you a couple questions and let you go?” Tempest asks.

“They had nothing to hold me on,” Finn says, “especially after they realized that Loretta dropping dead had nothing to do with any kind of altercation. The whole thing was a misunderstanding.”

The lights dim again, signaling the imminent end of intermission. Trevor breathes a sigh of relief.

“I don’t suppose I’m going to be asked to join you,” Finn says, “so I should get back to my seat.”

The foursome stares back at him wordlessly.

“And my rent should already be paid for January. Isn’t it, Trevor?” Finn adds.

Trevor gulps. “Uh, yeah. Got the Venmo already. Thanks.”

Finn winks — a wink that Trevor hopes can be interpreted as being for the entire table, not just for him — and heads off.

“That was weird,” Samantha says.

“I think he’s weird,” Tempest comments.

Thankfully for Trevor’s nerves again, music blares over the speakers, and all attention returns to the stage as Candy Cane Elaine does, too.

—-

A dagger of panic stabs Travis in the chest, but he does his best to cover his reaction. Even as he glances at the scuffed kitchen floor, he can feel her investigative gaze boring into him.

“I told you… Elly and I ran into each other while you were gone. We decided it would be better to try and move on.”

“That’s great,” Rosie responds. “But it feels really neat and tidy.”

“It is, I guess.” Travis finds himself having to breathe through the words, even as alarms go off in his mind. “I hit my limit with holding onto shit, I guess.”

“She came after us — after me — in court like a damn vulture. Bringing up my dad’s death the way she did — and putting Jesse on the stand–“

“I know. I’m sorry.”

He waits and watches for her to soften, but she shows no signs of doing so. The tension that was bubbling beneath the surface mere moments ago now feels as if it is consuming him, consuming them.

“I was spinning out after your mom told me that you’d left,” he says at last. “Without telling me, by the way. So forgive me for acting a little erratic or, I don’t know, trying to smooth over something that I actually could control.”

Rosie sets her jaw, and Travis can tell that he has hit a nerve. He isn’t sure if that is a good or a bad thing.

“It just sucks, that’s all,” Rosie says. “Elly used my dad’s death to make us look like unfit parents, and I come back and you’re wishing her a merry Christmas like nothing happened.”

They stand there, caught in a standoff for a moment that feels like an hour.

“I don’t know what else to tell you,” Travis says. “I’m so tired of fighting with people. With my aunt and uncle, with Elly, with you.”

Rosie’s shoulders sag. “Where’s the card? I’ll go sign it.”

“It’s next to the tree, where I was wrapping presents.”

“Okay.” She moves past him and out of the kitchen. Travis lingers in there, relieved that this didn’t explode into something larger, but the peace between them still feels so tentative… and he fears how it might fall apart completely if Rosie were to learn how desperate he really got while she was out of town.

END OF EPISODE 1245

What is Travis hiding from Rosie?
Should Matt do anything regarding Lucy?
Will Finn’s secret stay a secret?
Talk about it all in the comments below!