You Were Always Home (Homecoming #3)

by C. Lymari

  “I left some chili in the crock—”

  “Yes,” Jess said with excitement. “Come on, Rosie, let’s help Juliet with her cart.”

  “I guess it’s settled, then.” I walked after the girls to pay for the food we weren’t going to eat today.

  Jana waited for us so that we could follow her home. As soon as Jana got out of her car, her mom was already opening the door to her home. I hadn’t seen Jana’s mom for a long time, and it made me feel a little embarrassed. Especially after how close we had been. We got out of the car and as soon as Jana’s mom saw me, she came straight to me.

  “Juliet, sweetheart, it’s been such a long time.” Elise hugged me.

  She was always fond of me, and I of her. She was warm in a way my mother never was to us growing up.

  “Indeed, it has. Elise, you look lovely as always.”

  “Oh, you’re too kind, my dear. Who do we have here?” She peeked her head at the girls.

  “My neighbors.” The explanation didn’t do it enough justice; they were my new family.

  “Bye, girls. I only came over so Jana could rush to the store. Honey, come over one day. We can catch up. I’ll make some of my cinnamon rolls you like so much. Emma calls about once a month, trying to get my recipe.”

  “Will do.”

  “Bring the girls,” she yelled before she got in her car.

  Jana and Rusty’s house was a cute ranch with cobblestone in the front. As we walked in, the place smelled… warm. I knew that sounded stupid, but have you ever walked into a house and immediately felt at ease, and you could practically feel the love like a warm blanket? That was the Haywards’ place.

  On the brown sectional was a baby sleeping, covered with a pink blanket. Before I removed my jacket, I was curious to see Jana’s baby. She was adorable. Her face was Jana’s, but her hair was all Russell’s. A tiny part of me felt an ache for the baby that could never be—the baby that would have been my niece. Prescott’s hair was dark like Russell’s, and for a second, it was not hard to picture what could have been.

  “She’s beautiful,” I murmured.

  “Sometimes, I wonder too…” Jana whispered. “I’m going to check on the chili. Be right back.”

  “Is she okay?” Jess asked.

  I ignored the quizzical look Jess gave me. Instead, I left both girls seated and followed Jana to the kitchen. She was checking on the chili while tears streamed down her face.

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you…”

  “Sometimes, I hate myself for it. I should have said no. I should have walked away from everything. I can’t even bring myself to touch that money. I look at it, and I feel disgusted… How could I—” Jana didn’t finish her sentence, her voice breaking.

  The pit of my stomach sank. That tone—I knew it all too well. It was full of self-loathing.

  “Jana.” I tried moving to her, but she started to sob.

  Her hand came to her mouth, choking back a cry. “No amount of money could ever replace what I lost… It’s not Prescott’s fault. It wasn’t your fathers. It was my fault in the end—my baby needed me to fight for him. My baby needed me to give us a chance, and I was a coward!”

  I didn’t wait any more. I grabbed Jana and pulled her into my arms. I felt the pain in her words piercing my soul. It broke me in places I didn’t know I could be broken. Jana started to sob into me. The weight of her was too much, and we both started to slide onto the floor, neither of us bothering to stop it.

  Jana never stood a chance against what my father wanted. I wasn’t there when it happened, but I knew the type of fear my father could instill on a person. Up until my troubles, I had witnessed it firsthand when he’d threatened Freya. She was strong—she stood up to him on the other side. I was weak, but Jana was alone. She was lost, and my dipshit brother wasn’t there for her when she needed him the most. Prescott claimed to love her, but love didn’t come with conditions or requirements. It was to be taken as a given.

  I ran my hand through Jana’s hair, soothing her while she rested her head on my lap. My back rested against the cupboards while I felt the remainders of the tremors leave Jana’s body. It didn’t take long for her to fall asleep. My hands were running through Jana’s hair when I noticed someone was by the door. Russell was leaning against the threshold, his eyes on his sleeping wife.

  “She’s never shared any of that with me.” Russell’s voice sounded broken. He hurt for Jana.

  At that moment, I knew I never had any of that with Chad. We didn’t share burdens; we didn’t share our hopes and dreams. We just were. We existed in the same orbit, and everything was fine and dandy as long as we were going in his direction.

  “Sometimes, it’s easier to tell your darkest thoughts to a person you don’t like. You don’t care about their opinion. When you loathe yourself, you don’t want a person you like… love to see you the way you see yourself. You want them to see you whole and not the cracked pieces.” I didn’t dare to look at Russell for fear that he would see the truth behind my words.

  If he knew what those words meant to me, he didn’t comment. He made his way to me and started to lift Jana. I felt like an intruder, witnessing the way he looked at her. There were no words to describe it. I wanted someone to look at me that way, and maybe one day I’d finally be strong enough to let someone in. I thought I had allowed Chad in, but in reality, I hadn’t. I had just gotten comfortable in the relationship.

  It was easy to stay the same when nothing was going wrong, but one day down the road you realized that you hadn’t been prospering or growing—you just were. You’d gotten so used to just existing together you never realized you were stuck. I was stuck in a loveless marriage, stuck with a husband who never treated me right. And even though I was un-stuck now, I had no idea how to start picking myself up. It was one thing to do it physically, but mentally was another ball game. Like the nurse who’d helped treat me suggested, maybe I did need professional help.

  I liked to think I was strong enough to handle it on my own.

  “You know, she still considers you one of her best friends. She doesn’t hate you at all,” Rusty said before he disappeared, leaving me with a tiny bit of hope.

  29

  Jake

  Four days later, and I was going crazy out of my damn mind. I hadn’t seen Juliet since the day I finally had a taste of her, and it was driving me fucking crazy. It was all I could think about. Her sudden exit was bothering me, but I couldn’t figure out what I’d said that had offended her. Even though I couldn’t stop thinking about her, I’d been busy, and I didn’t feel like I should apologize for something I never did in the first place. Still, that didn’t mean I hadn’t started to type an apology a hundred times before stopping myself.

  When I walked into the coffee shop, Emma and Freya were there, as well as Quincy.

  “Hey,” I greeted all of them when I walked up to the counter.

  “Jake, is it true you’ve been having an affair with that pretty little redhead?” Quincy, the football star, asked.

  Under her breath, Emma hissed, “What part of, ‘Here comes Jake. Don’t say anything,’ didn’t you understand?”

  “Have you seen that girl’s ass?”

  “Q!”

  “Quincy!”

  Both Emma and Freya hissed this time. I arched my eyebrow at Quincy, and he at least had the decency to look bashful. I guessed that explained why my mother had been blowing up my phone. I wasn’t stupid. I saw the looks people gave Juliet the other day, and then to add Gary to the mix? that was a recipe for disaster.

  “Q, talk about her ass one more time and I’ll have to get Blake to cover your shifts for a long time.” The words came out before I could fully process them.

  Quincy put his hands up in surrender. “Damn, Jake, I never took you for the possessive type… I mean, if I had a fine girl like that, I would want everyone to know she was mine—shieet, I would parade that bitch around town in a biki—”

  “Ther
e are dishes that need washing in the back!” Freya snapped her fingers and glared at Quincy.

  “Damn, mamas, no need to be jealous.”

  The ego on that kid was only going to get worse when he headed to college. He was already one of the most scouted players in the state. He loved the field, the crowd, and the groupies. For his sake, I just hoped he knew how to stay grounded, because a crash could often break you, and no amount of recovery could fix you.

  “I’m sorry. He’s been stressed lately,” Emma sighed.

  Freya and I turned to look at Emma questioningly.

  “I feel like we expanded the store, and Q’s ego grew with it. Oh, Max’s here.” Freya threw her cup in the trash and started to run outside, but before she did, she handed me a white chalk. “Board’s empty. Give it a whirl.” She winked at me. “See y’all later… Bear, I’ll see you at the tree lighting. We’re doing ornament decoration at Jana’s.”

  I just shook my head and watched her and Max leave.

  While Emma made my burger, I stared at the chalk, wondering what the hell was I supposed to do with it.

  “Where the hell is Jess? Ain’t you leaving soon? I don’t want to stay alone.” Quincy started to complain.

  “You won’t be alone. Isaac is here!” Emma yelled.

  “He doesn’t talk; he just puts his headphones in and works,” Quincy hollered towards the kitchen.

  “You should try not talking,” Emma screamed back.

  I sighed. These lunatics were my friends. Good thing I really cared about them.

  Once Emma came back, I handed her the chalk. “Here.”

  “Maybe should write that you ain’t having an affair,” Quincy added.

  I cut the kid a glare. That wasn’t a bad idea, but it would imply that Juliet wasn’t in any way mine.

  The phone rang, and Quincy picked it up. “Glooms, where ya at, girl? Seriously, the old people are giving me a headache… What? Why, is everything okay?” He lost his cocky tone and became deadly serious. He handed the phone to Emma. “Here, it’s Jess.”

  “Hey… Oh, God. Is she okay? Okay, no, that’s fine. No, don’t worry about it. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.” When Emma was done, she looked at me and started to fidget.

  “What happened?” I asked, not really thinking about how whatever Jess said concerned me.

  Then it hit me, and I felt my blood drain. Those girls were attached at the hip with Juliet.

  “Emma!” I shouted, needing an answer, and fast.

  “Someone broke into Juliet’s apartment.” Her soft voice was carried with the wind.

  I didn’t let her finish; I was already on my way out. The first call I made was to my brother.

  “I was about to call you. The call barely came in,” Clark answered.

  “Is she okay?” I croaked. My hands were shaking when I tried to put the key in the ignition.

  “I think so. She sounded shaken up, but she’s fine.”

  I followed the directions Clark gave me and cursed and sped the whole way there. Luckily, the roads weren’t icy, or else it would have been much more difficult. When I saw the shitty apartments, a part of me had hoped that my brother was wrong. Clark was barely getting out of his car when I parked mine and jogged after him.

  “Brother, do me a favor.” Clark put a hand to my chest, stopping me from entering the hallway door. “Try and keep cool.”

  Instead of answering, I pushed past him. I had no idea where Juliet lived or why the hell she was living in this part of town, but I didn’t have a rational thought when I saw her.

  Juliet was standing at the end of the hall while her door was open. She was sitting on the floor with Rosie on her lap, and they were playing peekaboo. Jess and Rosie were in their pajamas, but Juliet was in her coat, her face made up, and was wearing a pair of those high-heeled boots she seemed so fond of.

  It irked me that she had plans today and I didn’t know about them. I didn’t have a right to know, but a part of me didn’t care about that. I wanted to walk up to her and demand for her to tell me anyway. The second thing I noticed was that her purple cast was missing. I had told her I’d take her to get it removed, but we weren’t talking, and she’d gone without me, and that fucking bothered me. I walked up to her, and I lost whatever cool I had when I saw past her open door.

  Juliet’s apartment was small. From the door you could see into the living room, and her couch was upside-down and torn. The stand where her television sat was in fragments, and the TV was cracked. That was a good television, and if someone robbed the place, it would be one of the things they would take. I didn’t need to be a detective to know this wasn’t a robbery, but vandalism. Someone had it out for Juliet, and I didn’t fucking like it.

  “Jake.” Juliet’s whisper snapped me out of my rage. “What are you doing here?”

  She set Rosie aside and started to get up.

  Once Rosie was out of the way, I pulled Juliet up to me and kissed her, glad she was okay. I didn’t care who she was with this morning if it had kept her safe and out of the apartment. Unconsciously, though, I think I was reminding her of the deal we had. A knot formed in the pit at my stomach with the mere thought of what could have happened if she had been home when her place got broken into. The kiss was frenzied, but it still tasted sweet like Juliet, and it helped calm me.

  “You know, brother, when I said keep your cool, this wasn’t what I had in mind.” Clark patted my back.

  At hearing my brother’s voice, Juliet broke away from me.

  “I’m sorry.” Her eyebrows were furrowed, and she looked freaking cute.

  “Ewwwww.” Rosie made a face.

  “I haven’t gone in,” Juliet explained.

  “Where were you this morning?” I asked, and it didn’t come out as a question but more like a demand.

  “Jake…” Clark warned.

  “I left around eight to go get my cast removed. I stopped and got some donuts on my way to town for Rosie and Jess, and when I got back, the place… it was vandalized.”

  Clark started to walk inside the place. “I need you to take a look to see if anything is missing.”

  Juliet seemed hesitant until I placed a hand at her back, guiding her inside. From the doorway, you couldn’t see the mess that was the kitchen.

  “Oh my God,” Juliet gasped, her hands coming to her mouth. “My dining set…”

  Coming closer to her, I rubbed her shoulders.

  “It’s going to be okay, baby,” I whispered.

  My words had the opposite effect than I was aiming for. Instead of feeling comfort, I felt when Juliet’s spine went rigid, and she walked into the living room. Then she ran to her room and the bathroom and walked out looking completely broken. It was a look I’d never seen on her face and one I never wanted to see again. There weren’t any tears in her eyes, but you could see it in her gaze—this gutted her.

  “They… destroyed… everything.” She dropped to her knees and started sobbing.

  Crimson dishware was shattered all over the kitchen floor along with the wine glasses. The couches had been flipped over and ornamental pieces scattered on the floor. Fuck, I felt that cry in every fiber of my being. If I could have, I would have taken the pain away. I wanted to find the son of a bitch who did this and kill them. I sat down on the floor and pulled Juliet to my chest.

  “It’s going to be okay, Juliet. I swear I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “I have nothing, Jake—nothing!” She kept crying, and I just stayed there holding her, showing her that I was going to be there for her.

  A few minutes later, I heard another voice talking to my brother. Dex walked in, and he looked as pissed as I was. He walked over to us and bent so he could be at eye level with Juliet.

  “Darling,” he started to say.

  I didn’t realize I glared at him, but Dex just rolled his eyes at me.

  “Juliet, I need to ask you a few more questions.”

  “S-s-sorry,” she answ
ered, wiping tears from her cheeks.

  “Is there anyone who would want to hurt you?”

  I felt it the moment her body became taut against mine. I held on to her tighter, stopping myself from shaking her and demanding that she tell me who it was.

  “No…” It wasn’t a good lie.

  “Baby…” I turned her to look at me and saw the fear in her eyes.

  Before she could speak, Jess came out holding a broom.

  “It’s okay, Juliet. You can tell them.” She didn’t look at Dex or me, but at the floor.

  “Tell us what?” Dex asked Jess gently.

  “My… my dad, he sometimes gets… He’s violent.” Jess paused, looking back at the hall.

  Rosie was there playing with Clark. And although he was playing with the little girl, I could tell he was hanging to every word Jess said.

  “The other day, Juliet walked in before he could hit me…” Jess trailed off.

  “Did he hurt you?” I snapped.

  Juliet flinched and started to shake her head.

  “Baby,” I added more softly.

  Juliet took off her coat, then turned around and lifted her blouse, and I could see where there was a fading bruise. Then I remembered the day at the store when she was complaining.

  Dex must’ve seen the intense look on my face because he was there before I could take a full step.

  “Clark’s already handling it,” Dex said as he walked out, but turned around to talk to Jess. “I think it’s best if you girls stay right here for now.”

  Jess nodded, grabbed Rosie’s hand, and closed the door.

  “Uh-oh, what happened?” Rosie kept moving her hands up, gesturing and saying “uh-oh” every time she saw something broken.

  Juliet wiped her tears and put on a smile. “Santa Claus was scouting the area for where he was going to leave our presents, and his sleigh crashed in my living room.”

  “Santa always forgets about Jess and me.”

  When Rosie said that, more tears slipped down Juliet’s face. Shit, I felt that too.

  “I heard…” I started to say, but my voice was too hoarse. “Santa will bring all the presents he forgot to bring you last year.”