by Kahlen Aymes
I started the water in the tub and sprinkled in a generous amount of bath salts before I started stripping out of my clothes.
Ellie knocked on the door. "Julia?"
I wrapped a towel around me and she handed me my phone. "I think you have a text from someone that you want to hear from."
I smiled and raised an eyebrow at her.
"What? I can't help it that it shows on the screen who it's from. Who in the hell else would it be from anyway? Unless you're holding out on me about Mike!" She left the room with a smile and I opened the message.
Are you naked yet?
I laughed out loud. Ryan's sense of timing was incredible. I slid into the warm bubbles and shot a message right back.
Mmmm...Wouldn't you like to know?
The water felt great. In combination with the wine and the sweet messages from Ryan, the night was looking up. He made me feel better even from clear across the country. I felt sleepy and a warm calm settled around me. A connection was all I needed. We continued our electronic conversation as I lounged in the bath, letting the warmth relax me.
I do know. Take a picture and send it to me. I miss touching you.
I miss you with me, next to me, inside me. And yes...I'm naked, Ryan.
Fuck, don't do that to me. Please. What are you doing?
I laughed. He was begging for mercy and asking for more in the same text.
Can't help it. If I tell you that you do the same to me, will it help?
It only makes the suffering unbearable...but I wouldn't have it any other way. So...TELL ME what you're doing. LOL
In the bath.
Mmmmmm. Wish I were there. Don't forget about me. I'm the one who loves you.
I remember you, Matthews. Always.
You're always on my mind and in my heart. It doesn't hurt that you set my body on fire, either.
Now who's killing whom? Love you and miss you madly. Why don't you just call me, babe?
I want to, but I know we'll be up all night and you need to be fresh tomorrow for your talk with Meredith. I love you, beautiful girl. Sleep well.
I didn't. Not at all.
RYAN~
“What the hell are you smiling at, Ryan? You look like an idiot!" Aaron boomed as he came slamming into the apartment. The neighbors would be knocking the door off the hinges in protest soon.
I was sitting on the couch, my bags still in the doorway and just finished texting Julia. I was aching the entire way back to Boston, but our seductive little exchange had changed my mood completely. Spelling out my name with words was only something Julia would do and my heart swelled to the point of bursting. I was grinning from ear to ear as I shut my phone and set it on the coffee table, wincing at the time. 1:30 AM.
"Aaron! Even your sorry ass is not going to get to me tonight! No way!" I called. "Where's Jen?"
"At the hospital." He came into the room and fell into the armchair near the sofa. His huge body took up the entire space, his feet crossed on the coffee table, he took a pull on his beer. "I guess you had one thankful Thanksgiving from the looks of you." He smirked at me knowingly. "I thought you'd be home earlier. What happened? Was the flight delayed?" He raised his eyebrows at me.
"Um, something like that. I was delayed, yes." I smiled and went to pick up my bags and take them quickly down the hall to my room before going back to talk to my brother. I needed sleep, but I felt the need to talk about Julia.
"Hmmmph!! Delayed or laid, dude? It's written all over you. Jules is a hottie, right? I knew she would be," Aaron stated matter-of-factly. "This is the most relaxed I've seen you in months."
My brow furrowed. Aaron didn't mean anything by it, but something clenched inside at his knowing comment. "Oh?" I asked.
"Come off it, bro’. Even though she played all innocent, she smolders underneath. She's sexy as hell. As you now know firsthand."
"Yes." What else could I say? It was the truth. Obviously, he wanted to know more.
"Ryan, come on. Did she finally cave and tell you she loves you?"
I stopped and looked down at my hands, tenting in front of me as I leaned my elbows on my knees. I nodded, and my hair fell across my forehead. I reached up to push it away.
"So, what? Am I talking to myself?" Aaron looked at me incredulously.
"What is it you're asking, exactly? It was all I hoped for and more. Yes, she told me she loved me and has loved me just as I've loved her. While it made me incredibly happy, I was sad because we should have been together all this time. And pissed."
"Dude...you were together. Night and day for four years, so what was wasted exactly?"
"Hmmph." I let out my breath. "Yeah, that's exactly what Julia said. And...she didn't play innocent, Aaron."
His eyes widened and he leaned forward in his seat toward me, obviously expecting some detail of my time with Julia, but I wasn't going to expound. Aaron had shared many of his sexual escapades with Jenna, despite my protests, but what I had with Julia was mine and mine alone.
"What are you saying, Ryan? That she started it?"
I shook my head in response.
"She was innocent. I'm not going to give details, but she was innocent."
His eyes widened as understanding dawned on him. "Ryan, really? 23 and still with her cherry? Are you serious?" His face lit up like a candle.
“I'm only telling you because I need to talk about it, but can you please use a little discretion? This is Julia. Not some random chick I banged on a one night stand," I said impatiently.
He sat back and rubbed the stubble on his chin thoughtfully. "No shit!" he said like he couldn't believe me. "Julia was a virgin?" he said more to himself than to me.
"She's...special, Aaron. She's not like other women. I never thought she was, but this weekend, I discovered a whole new side to her."
"Ryan, I love Julia. I know how much she means to you. I love Jen, but I don't think it's anything close to what you and Julia have. Did she tell you why? I mean, she's had boyfriends-" he paused. "Boyfriends that drove you bat-shit crazy, so I thought..." his words dropped off and he shrugged.
I got up and filled a glass with water out of the refrigerator. I paused, my back to him, as I spoke.
"She said that she couldn't let anyone else touch her. Can you believe that, Aaron?" I asked incredulously. "She said she couldn't bear to be with anyone else because of how she felt about me. All the time when I was going mad with jealousy, she wasn't even going there…I can't tell you what knowing that does to my insides. I'm...stunned."
Aaron watched as I walked back to join him on the couch. "Fuck me," he said.
"I know." I ran a hand through my hair and tugged on the ends. "She's so beautiful and she trusted me completely. It just makes me love her even more."
"Yeah, right. You drove me nuts before. Always mooning around but never admitting it. It was frustrating living with your moody ass then, now it will be insane." He laughed; the sound coming from somewhere deep in his chest.
I smiled. "But I do love her more, Aaron. She's amazing. Innocent, yes, but so damn passionate. It's like we're one person and we instinctively know what the other needs. The love she has for me seeps right into my skin whenever she touches me, Aaron. It's that intense. Being with her was like nothing I've ever experienced in my life." My tone was serious and reflective as I lost myself in the memory of her mouth and body moving with mine.
"Did you talk about your, um, habits, Ryan?" Aaron asked hesitantly. "Ryan?"
I looked up, snapped out of my memories of the weekend.
"You mean my dating habits?" I shrugged. "Yeah, it came up, but not like you think. She wasn't grilling me." I thought of the drawing in my bag and quickly stood up. "Wait a minute."
I went and retrieved the sketch book. It was almost like I was sharing one of Julia's secrets, but I couldn't explain this any other way.
"It hurt her when I went out, but she said because women passed through my life quickly, yet she and I always remained close, she didn�
��t want short-term gratification and lose what we had. I can’t believe she hid her feelings, but, I guess I did the same thing."
"Julia is very smart, Ryan. She had your number all along."
"Yeah." I smiled. "She had me alright. All those other women were to get her out of my system and it was a fucked up mess. I should have known it was hopeless to try. Nothing could make me fall out of love."
"Especially since she was your best friend, dickhead. How do you fall out of love with someone you can't stay away from?" he scoffed. "Jen and I used to bet on which one of you would crack first."
I chuckled softly and shook my head. Leave it to Aaron to blast me with a dose of reality whether I wanted one or not. "Who won?" I raised my eyebrow at him sardonically.
"Neither. You both caved at the same time and all it took was a little thing like Harvard Med."
He reached for the book in my hand but I pulled it back. "Julia used to sketch me on the nights I went out." The corners of my mouth lifted in a sad smile. "I wish I would have known how much it hurt her because it wasn't worth that to me. Wednesday night after we made love, I fell asleep and she drew this..." I finally handed it to him and he flipped open the cover.
"Holy shit, Ryan," Aaron exclaimed quietly after looking at the half-finished drawing. He stared down at the drawing, admiring the fine details and pencil strokes so lovingly placed on the page. "She's very talented. It's perfect, almost like a photograph." He looked up at me as I stood above him.
I moved to the couch and sat down slowly. Aaron looked at the drawing again and then shook his head with a smile on his face.
"I know how incredible it is," I said softly. "How incredible Julia is. It's like she looks right through me or into my soul or something. I can't even find the words to describe how I feel."
Aaron closed the cover on the sketch pad and set it on the coffee table, leaning back in the chair. "So...what are you gonna do about it?"
"We talked about her moving to New York. She's going to ask her boss about getting a transfer."
"We've been over this. Has some seismic activity altered the state of the universe or is New York still two hundred and twenty miles from Boston? Distance is still distance."
"Yeah, well two hundred and twenty is better than three thousand. At least we can see each other more often. And we need that. Neither one of us is forgetting our goals or responsibilities, but we have to be closer to each other."
He rolled his eyes. "I'm just sayin’...I know you, Ryan. You won't be satisfied until Julia is in Boston, preferably living here."
He was right. Everything inside of me screamed for her, to have her near me, accessible whenever we needed each other. I was terrified of Julia being in Manhattan all alone and still being four hours away. What if she needed me and I couldn't get to her fast enough? My chest tightened.
I nodded. "I know that's true, but she's worth going through anything. I'll deal."
"Again with the dealing bullshit! Am I having déjà vu? Didn't we have this same damn conversation that night we both got our acceptance letters?" I started walking down the hall toward my bedroom.
"Screw you, Aaron!"
"Ok, fine. Whatever, Ryan. You go deal. Riiiiiight," he mocked after me.
I flipped him off over my shoulder and he burst out laughing.
As I closed the door to my room, stripped off my clothes and lay down in my lonely bed, I suddenly ached for Julia, wishing it was her bed. At least then I'd have her scent.
"Gah!" I groaned in my frustration, rolling over onto my stomach and grabbing the pillow. I bunched it up underneath me and rested my chin on my forearms. Sighing, my mind flooded with memories of the weekend spent in her arms. Such beautiful, love filled days and nights.
Suddenly my arms and my life felt very empty indeed. Julia...I love you.
I closed my eyes and tried to lose myself in the memory of her voice breathing out that she loved me, her beautiful face lost in the passion we'd shared and the blissful contentment in the knowledge that she loved me. She loved me.
Julia~
I smoothed the material of my black pencil skirt down over my hips as I walked into my office. I noticed Andrea on her way in as well and she bounded into my office, flashing a bright smile on her way. She had her red mop piled on top of her head in an attractive, but messy, up do.
"So? How was the weekend? Did your hottie friend make it into town?"
I smiled up at her because I couldn't help myself and a flush of heat crept up on my cheeks. "Yes. He did. We had a fabulous time together."
"Hmmm...I can see that by the look of you. I thought this dude was just your friend, Julia."
I flipped on my computer and waited for it to boot up. "Yes, he's my best friend. We met when I was a freshman in college."
"So? Do I have to drag it out of you?" She laughed and plopped down in the chair in front of my desk. My office was small and the desk, the two chairs and the art board took up most of the space.
"Did you get those photos back from production? The ones for the Men's Sex Secrets feature?" I rolled my eyes at her. Some of the articles we did amused me, but it wasn't my job to question the content, only make it look good.
"Do I have to do it now? Can't we talk first?" she practically whined.
"Get the photos and then we can talk and work at the same time. Please?" I glanced up from my computer screen and pursed my lips.
"Oh, okay! Slave driver!" She hurried from the room.
My eyes flashed to the corner of my desk and a picture of Ryan and me at a Dodger’s game. Ellie had taken it one weekend when we'd all road-tripped to Los Angeles our junior year. He had his arm around me and was dumping beer into my open mouth from a cup a few inches above my open mouth. We looked so happy it made my heart lurch.
Ryan could have been the model for this shoot and though the pictures would be gorgeous, I wouldn't want to have him spread all over the pages of the magazine in his underwear. I smiled at the memory of the weekend, his naked body and how it had claimed ownership of mine. My breath left in a rush, desire and love washing over me in a wave. Finally, I could say he was mine. I smiled secretly to myself.
"What's that about, Julia? That face looks like you got laid this weekend. If that's what you wanted, I certainly could have obliged." Mike walked into my office and leaned in the door frame. He was blonde with blue eyes, a muscular build and attractive.
I glanced up at him as I waded through my inbox. "Hey. Um...thanks, but no thanks." I smiled as he put a hand over his heart.
"Julia, you wound me deeply!" he groaned. "I'm the best catch around." He was attractive in a slick, narcissistic sort of way, always dressing trendy with an edge, his hair always perfectly coiffed. It was more his personality that put me off. He thought he was funny, but sometimes he was just annoying.
"That's why we never dated, Mike," I scoffed and rolled my eyes but kept avoiding his gaze. I started typing an email to production regarding a proof on the layout for one of the fashion features for the January issue.
"We never dated, because I didn't try that hard, Jules." He sat on the edge of my desk knocking the picture over and I reached quickly to keep it from tumbling to the floor.
"Oh? Was that it?" I said flatly.
"Of course," he said as he brushed back a strand of hair that had fallen out of my low ponytail. Instinctively, I pulled away and glared.
"Pfft. Whatever. If it makes you feel better to think so, have at it."
Andrea walked in carrying several boards of photos and laid them on the slant table, glancing at Mike on her way in. I had a feeling that she wouldn't mind a little of his swarthy attention. She'd said on more than one occasion he was hot and she wouldn't mind a sample.
Gross.
Andrea was still eyeing Mike but he was watching me as I walked to the table. Obviously he wanted me, he'd made no secret of it, but my love for Ryan had always held me back from anything. Even if he’d been Adonis with a personality to die for, I woul
dn't notice. Truthfully, he was a great guy and extremely easy to work with, but his tactics didn't move me in the slightest.
I stood over the photos, Mike and Andrea behind me, examining with a critical eye. The pictures were full color; the man had a tanned, muscled body and gorgeous face, in various poses with a scantily clothed glamour girl draped all over him.
"These shots are very good, Mike," Andrea gushed. My brow furrowed. They were sort of overkill. I wanted something more subtle, and could have sworn we'd talked about it during casting, but now I was stuck with this. Shit!
"Julia, what do you think?" he breathed in my ear. I prickled and moved away, seeking the barrier of my desk, and taking the photos with me.
"Um....well," I bit my lip. "It's not really what I wanted. The guy looks good, but the girl is sort of whorish. I didn't approve that God awful red lipstick. I wanted hot real people, not a hot guy with a...well, a hooker. Ehh," I wrinkled my nose in distaste.
He winced. "Sorry, Mike. It's my job. I gotta be honest. After all, it's my ass that's on the line for the final look."
"And what a nice ass it is," he stated, leaning back to check it out. I plopped down in my chair.
"Ugh, really? Did you just say that to me? You know sexual harassment is a serious offense, right?"
"Puh-lease," Mike sat down across from me, an expression of boredom on his attractive features. "You know you love me, Julia," he mocked.
"Yeah, but not like that, and you know it," I teased.
Andrea was leaning against the art table and didn't look happy. "Julia's got a boyfriend, you know," she shot out and my head popped up to look at her as my eyes widened.
"Andrea."
"What? You do! Is it a secret?" she asked, her expression completely changing when I raised my eyebrows and shot her a look that told her to zip it.
