“I don’t want to keep depending on just condoms,” he said. “Maybe add an IUD or something, whatever you think is best,” he said. “I’m sorry there really isn’t much I can do besides condoms.”
“I’ll make arrangements,” she said. “Probably an IUD, because they last for 10 years. And in 10 years, yeah, that’s probably about when I might be ready. Though I could take it out before then if we wanted.”
“You’re the expert on the female reproductive system, not me,” he said. “But I’m a fast learner.” He started kissing her, and their only problem was how to keep kissing as much as possible while getting all their clothes off as quickly as possible. They managed, eventually, and then Nick proved what a fast learner he was by giving Julie multiple orgasms before he finally entered her and had one of his own.
Cuddling together afterward, she looked at the silvery lines of German poetry shining in the moonlight.
“I wonder what that says.”
“I looked it up,” Nick answered. “It’s sort of perfect. It has to do with wanting to get everything you can out of life. First two lines would translate to something like, ‘You see, I want a lot. Maybe I want everything.’”
“You do want everything,” Julie said. She lightly stroked his chest with one finger, making him shiver.
“I feel like I have everything now.” He hugged her and pulled her closer to him.
“What would have happened if we hadn’t run into each other at Vinnie’s?”
“I thought about just mailing you my thoughts,” he said. “But it was better this way.”
“Lori’s wedding is this weekend. I had put you down as my plus one, and never changed it. You’re still game?”
“Sure. Just help me figure out what to wear. I will probably have to buy something,” he said. He pulled the sheet up around them, shifted into a more comfortable position, and within seconds he was asleep. She carefully reached out for her phone and set her alarm. And then she abandoned herself to the kind of delicious sleep that is only possible after complete sexual satisfaction with someone you love.
Chapter 22
Lori’s wedding was by far the fanciest Julie had ever attended. Some might have called it over the top, but it was exactly the sort of thing Julie would have expected from her.
Of course the reception had to be in the poshest venue in Springfield, and of course there had to be a full band and an open bar. Naturally, Lori looked amazing, with her blonde hair arranged into a classic updo and with a dress that must have cost half her yearly salary.
She had apparently invited everyone in town, and Julie saw lots of people she knew. Catarina, of course, played her violin for the wedding march, and her husband Remy had a twin on each hip he bounced while their mother played. Molly and her husband had brought their little boy. Julie loved that Lori had declared her wedding family-friendly, and she pointed out Molly and her young son to Nick.
“That’s him! I helped deliver that little boy at Lori’s house party,” she said. “We’ll go over and talk when we get a chance,” she said. There were lots of others to talk to in the meantime. It was like a town reunion. She found she even recognized one of the guys in the band, who had been in her high school class. She greeted him and wrote down a song request on a notebook the band had for that purpose.
Tanya was there as well, and after her second glass of champagne, Julie managed to get her aside to ask her the question she and Nick had been debating since the night they’d met her.
“So the rent is like half of what we expected, and we can’t help but think Catarina cut it after you two went off into the back room. What did you see in my cup?”
Tanya laughed and jiggled her baby on her hip. “I didn’t see much of anything in your cup except general nervousness. That, and I did see some clues that you would end up living in the apartment eventually.”
“OK, how about in Nick’s?”
“Nick had a cup full of dreams. I actually thought at first I’d gotten the cups mixed up. I would have expected a young woman to be the one with dreams of babies and a young man being the one full of fear for the future. But when you said the apartment was just for Nick and you hadn’t dated him for long, that combined with your worries made me think Nick might not take the apartment if the cost was too high. So, it was easy to convince Cat to give it to you cheap, as a sort of match-making endeavor. Did it work?”
“Well, I’m not living there officially, but I might as well be. I’ll probably make the move soon. I’m just super-cautious,” she said.
Tanya switched her baby to her other hip. “There is nothing wrong with being cautious, as long as you know when not to be. You know, I was married before. But we were in a bad accident and I lost my husband and the baby we were expecting. Brian had been the love of my life, and I didn’t go on a single date with anybody else for 10 years. But when I met Rhys, I knew immediately I was going to marry him, and we were living together a week later. He is also the love of my life. Don’t be afraid to wait until things are right. But when things are right, don’t be afraid to jump in.”
Impulsively, Julie gave Tanya and her baby a quick hug.
“Thanks for talking Catarina into the discount,” she said. “I could never let Nick support me, and I couldn’t pay my share of the rent if it weren’t so cheap. So thank you.”
Tanya was all smiles. “I’m so glad it is working out. Come in for a bowl of free ice cream soon. I started taking a shift most Friday nights. I wanted to give Zora a chance to have some fun on the weekends.”
Julie promised to do so, and then she went off to find Nick. They still hadn’t had a chance to congratulate Lori.
She finally found him. He was holding one of Catarina’s twins, which made Julie snort.
“You should never let this guy hold your babies. He’s liable to take off with them. I never knew such a baby-crazy man,” she teased.
Catarina laughed and reached out her hands. “There are days I’d let him take off with them, believe me. Twins are no joke!”
“I just talked to Tanya,” Julie said. “Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for letting us have the place at a price I can afford to pay my share of.”
“I’m thrilled for the two of you,” Catarina said. “When did you move in together?”
“Tomorrow,” Julie said, looking directly into Nick’s eyes. He melted, and Julie hugged him.
And then it was time to congratulate Lori and her brand-new husband, Jake. Jake had wandered off to push his brother’s wheelchair through the guests. Most of the guests hadn’t met his developmentally disabled brother, who lived most of the time in a nursing home. Julie decided to catch up with him later.
Lori stood by a professionally made sign with a picture of a beautiful teenage girl. The sign was surrounded by flowers, and a donation box for the Sarah Andrews scholarship fund was placed in front of it. Sarah had been only 16 when she died from a car crash. It was generally known that Lori had helped care for her in the Emergency Room of the Fairview Medical Center that night, though she would never discuss it.
Sarah had planned to be a nurse, so her parents had established a scholarship for Fairview students planning to become nurses. Lori had told everyone that she and Jake had everything in the world they needed, and asked that guests please donate to the fund instead of buying a gift. Sarah’s parents had been invited to the wedding and they had come, but they opted not to attend the reception. They just weren’t ready for anything like that.
Nick withdrew some money and placed it in the box as they approached. Julie introduced Lori and Nick.
Lori gave Nick a hug; she was hugging everyone tonight. “Your girlfriend and I delivered a baby together on my bed! Did she tell you about it?”
“She told me some of it,” Nick said.
“Make her tell you the whole story. It’s a good one.” She turned to Julie. “You should tell him about the bed, too.”
Julie blushed. “She, uh, had a pretty unusual bedroo
m.”
“Cat tells me you two are living in her old place, so you have a pretty great bedroom, too, right?”
“We do,” Nick said. “But now I’m curious about the bedroom you had. I’ll have to get that story out of Julie soon.”
A few minutes later, Lori was called away for the bouquet toss.
Julie got in line with all the other young women, but to Nick’s disappointment, she didn’t catch it. Ashley, who Julie almost didn’t recognize outside her natural habitat of The Clipper, caught it triumphantly, admitting loudly that she didn’t have a boyfriend so she was going to have to work fast if the next wedding was really going to be hers.
Julie returned to Nick’s side and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Don’t look so disappointed, she said. “We aren’t going to get married anytime soon. You know that. But I’m ready for our first baby step. I’m moving in with you tomorrow. And you know we are going to get married eventually. I love you.”
Nick wrapped Julie in his arms. “You’ve never said that to me before. It’s not just the champagne and being at a wedding, is it?”
She hugged him tightly. “It has nothing to do with the champagne. More like tea leaves.”
Nick looked puzzled, so Julie explained. “I talked to Tanya. She told me a little more about what she saw in our tea leaves, and she gave me some good advice. I decided to take it.”
“I don’t even need to know what she saw or thought she saw. I’m just glad that we’re together. I can be patient about the rest. I love you, Juliana Simmons. That means I want you to get everything you want out of life. Everything.”
Then the band struck up the song that Julie had requested and she stood up. “This is our song.” The subject matter seemed an odd one for a wedding, of course, but she didn’t care.
Nick smiled and stood as he recognized the song they’d danced to in his sister’s living room. “We can dance this time without holding babies.”
Julie smiled. “For now.”
∞∞∞
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Crazy Little Thing
Small-Town Secrets: Book 5
By Sophia Sinclair
“Last call!”
Ashley Butler wrung out an old white bar cloth and started attacking the sticky bar. It had been a hopping Saturday night, and she was tired. It would take a while for the last stragglers to give it up and go wherever they were going next. She didn’t care where they went; she only cared that they leave the bar. The sooner they were on their way, the sooner she could close up.
She was off tomorrow and couldn’t wait. She’d worked 11 days straight. The Clipper did a good business but the manager, Sheila, claimed the bar hadn’t been making enough money to hire more help, and at the moment it was just Ashley and one part-timer, Dean. Ashley knew how much money was coming into the bar and how much was going out and knew the woman was lying about the budget.
But she kept her mouth shut and went along with whatever she said. She had a plan.
“One more beer, honey?”
She turned her head. It was the 30-ish guy in a fancy suit who had been sitting there with his friends all evening, and he looked absolutely trashed. She’d noticed him earlier, of course.
He was the sort who stood out in the crowd. He had been catching the stares of everyone in the bar all night, especially the ladies. Not every man looked sexy in a suit. This guy did.
She’d noticed him checking her out repeatedly during the evening, but she’d studiously avoided meeting his eyes. Nothing good ever came from his sort. He was very good-looking, yes, but in a spoiled rich boy kind of way. Nice haircut. Perfectly cultivated beard stubble. Almost hipster-esque. Ashley knew his type, and she didn’t care for it. Not one bit. Men like him were nice to look at — but only from a distance.
The bar had employed a girl named Veronica for a while who would flirt back with this type, always thinking she had a chance at landing a well-off boyfriend who might be her ticket out of Fairview. Ashley had tried to tell her never to trust a compliment from a drunk, but Veronica fell for it time and again. Ashley was utterly unmoved by such men. No matter how rich and gorgeous and flirty a drunk was, in the end, he was just a drunk. She had no time for that type.
“Nope, sorry, you missed last call,” she said. “And I think you’ve had enough.”
“Oh, come on. You’re so beautiful. What’s your name?” He was pulling out his wallet, waving a $50 bill around. His drunk friend, the only other person still here, was pulling at his arm, trying to get him to behave.
“Forget it. The night’s over,” she said, and returned to scrubbing the night’s spilled drinks off the surface of the bar. She had learned the best way to deal with drunks was to engage as little as possible. But when she looked up from her work a few minutes later, she could see that the drunk had his head on the table and appeared to have fallen asleep. She groaned. Now she’d have to engage.
“OK, no sleeping in the bar,” she said. She addressed the friend. “Can I call you a ride? You need to get him out of here.”
“I think we need a room,” the man said. “Can I leave him here while I go arrange it?”
“Don’t be gone long, or I’ll have to call the police. I can’t have people passing out in the bar,” she said.
“Your fault for serving him, then, isn’t it?”
That made Ashley mad, but the truth was, she could get into trouble for something like this, so she bit her tongue.
“Just get a room and get him into it.” Hopefully, the guy wasn’t looking for trouble and would be back quickly. She stopped cleaning so she could keep an eye on him. He seemed OK. She wondered what these guys were doing in Fairview. They didn’t fit in at all.
Fortunately, the friend was back in just a few minutes.
“I got him a room,” he said. “But I doubt it’s the luxury accommodations Maxwell is used to.”
“Maxwell, huh? That figures.” She placed her hand on his shoulder. “Wake up, Maxwell. Time for you to go.”
The man stood up, bleary-eyed. Then he looked straight into Ashley’s eyes and made a dramatic declaration: “Honey, I’m going to marry you.” He took a step toward Ashley and would have fallen right onto her if his friend hadn't caught him. She just shook her head and walked away as Maxwell’s friend half-carried him out of the bar. She locked the door behind them and almost immediately forgot all about them. They were just two more in a long line of annoying drunks.
She’d started working at The Clipper in high school. She cleaned rooms at first, and that was a filthy job she was glad to be rid of. People could be so gross. The Clipper had a reputation as a party place, and sometimes guests left the rooms trashed. Trashed or not, the housekeeping staff was supposed to turn a room out in less than 30 minutes, and more often than not, that was impo
ssible without cutting serious corners.
She recalled some of the stuff she’d seen. Of course, empty liquor bottles and beer cans were common. So were filthy sheets, sodden towels, and loads of trash. And then there were the “special” things the maids sometimes found: sex toys, used condoms left lying on the bedside table, dirty magazines, you name it. People could be disgusting pigs.
So she was glad to move up to the bartender job when she turned 21. People could be pigs in a bar, too, but the work was more interesting and the pay was higher. And she liked knowing what was going on in town. She probably had a better idea of what really went on in Fairview than the mayor or any cop.
She stacked all the chairs upside down onto the tables, mopped the whole bar and then dumped the dirty mop water into the floor sink. Surveying the bar, she mentally went through her list. Glasses? Clean. Bar surface? Clean. Tables? Clean. Floor? Clean. Cash register zeroed out and deposit put in safe? Check.
Time to go home.
Home for Ashley was a studio apartment: One not-very-big room served as living room, dining room, bedroom and kitchen, with a small bathroom in the back. The carpeting was stained and worn and the walls were dingy. It would be depressing if she let it be, but she looked at her surroundings with satisfaction: It was all a part of her plan.
She regarded her reflection after washing her face and brushing her teeth. The drunk rich boy had said she was beautiful, but she knew she was no such thing. Pretty, yes, with shiny brown hair she usually kept in a ponytail. She’d been born with perfect teeth, which she was grateful for, because her mother never would have been able to have paid for braces. She did, however, take a lot of pride in her figure, and could still wear the same jeans she’d worn in high school.
Tired as she was, she opened her small, inexpensive laptop and signed onto her bank account. This was the highlight of her day, and she very seldom went to bed without checking her accounts.
Perfect Fit (Small-Town Secrets-Fairview Series Book 4) Page 20
