Called Up

by Jen Doyle

  Summoning up all the strength in the universe, Fitz briskly said, “It was nothing. Peggy’s a bitch.” Deke went tense and Fitz was momentarily sorry. That was another sentiment she’d kept to herself for half her life, this time out of deference to Deke and his thing for Peggy. His inexplicable thing, but whatever.

  “It’s not nothing,” Jules persisted. “If Nate hadn’t gotten there in time, Lyle might have...”

  And now they were entering forbidden waters. “Do you need a glass of water?” Fitz asked, hoping Jules would get the freaking hint.

  But Jules refused to be put off.

  “I watch Emily try and protect Geo and Matt from everything,” she said, “and I get so angry because they’re getting so battered by this divorce. Then I think about how Ella did that with Nate and with me, but...” With tears streaming down her face, she looked up at Fitz. “It wasn’t just that you had no one. That you had lost both your parents in the storm when we’d only lost Dad. But I was so...” A shudder ran through her as she looked away. As the guilt came over her face. “So awful.”

  Fitz had never blamed Jules for any of that high school stuff. Peggy Miller, yes. And Jeremiah for being a complete asshole because he’d wanted to impress Jules, who had made her dislike of Fitz clear way back then? Absolutely. Jules, however? Even back when Jules was being horrible, Fitz had understood how badly she was hurting, too. As devastated and even angry as Fitz had been, she’d never doubted her father’s love for her. She wasn’t the one he had left. Jules was. Nate and Ella and Mama Gin.

  More than ready to leave, Fitz turned to Deke just as Jules, in an entirely un-Jules-like meek little voice, asked, “Did they... Did they touch you?”

  “What?” Fitz’s head snapped back to Jules. As in touch touched? “No.”

  God, no.

  Yes, Peggy was the meanest of mean girls, as far as Fitz was concerned. And Fitz had been a naive, innocent, broken fifteen-year-old girl who fell so easily for Peggy’s whole “Deke likes you” line that her entire being lit up the moment she heard that the object of her crush, the one freaking ray of light after her parents died, might like her, too. That he wanted to actually meet her back out behind the school. So Fitz had gone out to the shed thinking she’d be seeing Deke, but instead got Lyle Butler, the town bully, along with two of his friends, and she realized she’d been had. She’d been so angry and mortified it hadn’t occurred to her until afterwards that they could truly have hurt her. Done so much more.

  That day was the first time she’d really understood how alone she was. That she had no one to watch her back, no one but herself to ensure her own survival. Standing there, facing off against three boys, each about twice her size, watching them come at her, getting all handsy and leering at her... She’d taken every ounce of fury at what the world had handed her and unleashed it on them. She’d scratched and hit and kicked enough to startle them, and then Nate had gotten there before they got around to fighting back. They’d been too embarrassed to even look her way again.

  But she’d taken care of it. It was done.

  “No,” she repeated. “They didn’t touch me.” And she never wanted to talk about this again.

  As she was about to say when she felt Deke move beside her. The look on his face was nothing short of murderous.

  She’d known the man for seventeen years, sixteen of those as friends. The closest he got to being mad was when his piecrust didn’t come out right. He was an insane perfectionist when it came to pastry. But he tended not to get angry. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him even lose his patience with anyone, much less Jules, who he loved almost as much as he loved Lola. That was even less okay than the weird almost kissing thing. Fitz’s very existence had already almost destroyed one family she loved; she had no interest in upsetting another.

  She gave Deke a look he’d damn well better take as a warning, before turning back to Jules. “It was a long time ago. We were kids. We’re not anymore.”

  “I don’t need you to pretend to forgive me,” Jules said, her voice wavering. “I just need you to know I’ll make it right someday. Somehow I’ll—”

  “There’s nothing to forgive.” Discussion closed. “We both got handed a raw deal. You’ve booted Jeremiah out of your life, and as far as I’m concerned, that makes us even.” Then, with every ounce of strength Fitz had, she smiled. “Please. We need to be done talking about this because Deke’s gotten a major overdose of estrogen and God knows how devastating a threat that is to the female population of Inspiration. I think his dick might be shrinking as we speak.”

  “Hey!” Deke exclaimed as expected while Jules’s eyes went wide and she gave a shocked laugh. Fitz wouldn’t normally have said something like that in mixed company, but it had to be done. Anything to stop things from getting even more out of hand.

  Except Jules surprised them both and said, “It might not be the worst of things for the ladies of Inspiration to get less of Deke,” as she gave a vague wave in his direction.

  And now Fitz was the one looking at Jules in shock.

  “Really?” Deke said, as Fitz and Jules both burst into laughter. But he seemed relieved, too. Turning to Jules, he asked, “Is there anything else you need tonight? Anything with the kids?”

  Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, Jules shook her head. “Thank you, though. For everything.”

  “Okay, great,” Fitz said as brightly as she possibly could. The damage had already been done. “See you tomorrow.” Then she walked straight past Deke and to the door. From behind her, she heard Deke say, “Love you, Jules. You take care,” but she didn’t wait for him. She needed distance. She called out good night to Emily and the boys as she headed out to Deke’s truck.

  There was a reason she’d spent the last sixteen years hanging out with guys who had no interest in chatting about anything, much less their feelings. Since that fateful conversation with Peggy, in fact. It was a don’t ask, don’t tell, kind of thing and Fitz was good with that. She’d been pathetic and needy back then. She wasn’t now. The last thing she’d needed tonight was a reminder of where she’d been.

  It had been a pitiful story, of course; one picked up by the national media over and over again, the tragedy that was the counterpoint to the feel-good story of the scrappy high school basketball team they’d nicknamed The Dream. The fifteen-year-old girl who’d been in the car with her parents on a road outside of Inspiration when the tornado hit. Whose parents had been torn from the car and killed but who herself was left unharmed. Traumatized and unwilling to speak for weeks after that, but with barely even a scrape on her. With no family or even friends to claim her, she’d been placed in the nearest foster home available, with the Jensens on their farm.

  That the farm was in Inspiration, the town in which Fitz’s father had left a whole other family was just part of the worst luck ever. A family Fitz had no knowledge of and vice versa. That Mama Gin had even considered adopting her, much less gone ahead and done it, had been just another step in the surreal dream over the course of that year. Fitz wasn’t at all surprised at how Jules had reacted back in the beginning. She still had days she couldn’t believe how soon Nate had come around. Largely, as it turned out, thanks to the Lyle Butler incident. When Nate had come charging around the corner of the shed, she’d even had a moment of thinking he’d been part of it. But then he’d come to a sudden stop and actually smiled when he saw she’d, well, laid them all out. A few days later he made it clear to the entire school that he had her back and he’d been her staunchest supporter ever since.

  The irony of it all was supremely satisfying. The very thing Peggy had hoped would put Fitz in her place actually ended up putting Nate squarely in Fitz’s corner. That moment after the shed was the first civil conversation she and Nate had ever had. The first time in seven months of knowing about each other and walking the same halls that he’d done anything other th
an glance in her direction before looking away. But he’d come to find her after the shed to make sure she was okay. She’d said she’d be fine if he could keep it from ever seeing the light of day, and he’d somehow buried it deep enough that Fitz had never heard anyone so much as hint at it.

  Until toda—

  She jumped when she felt a hand on her shoulder and whirled around to see Deke. She wasn’t big on being touched by anyone other than the kids. And Dorie, oddly enough. Dorie was a hugger. It had put Fitz off completely at first, but she’d kind of gotten used to it by now.

  “Jesus, Fitz,” Deke muttered. “You want to tell me what that was all about?”

  “No.”

  She’d never wanted anyone to know it had even happened, especially not Deke. For reasons that changed over time but were as equally important now as they were back then. No way she was about to share the details now.

  She went to the passenger side door and grabbed the handle. “Can we just go home?” She knew he was glaring at her, but she refused to look at him, instead staring out her window once she’d climbed inside.

  The drive back to Lola’s was silent and excruciatingly long. She didn’t care. She didn’t have heart-to-hearts on a regular basis with anyone, and she wasn’t about to start now. But when they pulled up to the house and she moved to open the door, he reached out and put his hand on her leg to stop her. Before she could fully register it was there, she felt something stir inside her. Being She Of So Little Experience—and also She Who Had Just Recently Been Reminded How A Once Upon A Time Deke-Crush Had Led To Disastrous Consequences—she just stared at it. But her breath caught and the rush from that almost-kiss flew through her.

  She pulled her leg away. Pulled her whole self away.

  After everything that had happened earlier she felt raw. Exposed. Flayed and still bleeding. Just like that, this thing she’d kept so carefully contained was suddenly back out in the open again. The idea of going from cool and capable Fitz Hawkins back to poor little Angelica Wade was terrifying.

  “You’ve gotta know,” he said, “I’m not letting this go.”

  No, he wouldn’t. He might be the most happy-go-lucky guy in the world, but when he cared for someone it ran deep. She closed her eyes, trying not to cry as long-ago emotions rose up to the surface. Doing everything she could to hide it, she attempted to brush it off with a brisk, “Oh, perfect. So now what, you go all protective on me?”

  She was too emotional. Not only didn’t she pull it off, it backfired completely.

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Deke actually sounded kind of pissed off.

  Unusual for him, but much easier for Fitz to deal with. Unlike him, she got angry regularly. She just didn’t tell anyone she did. “It means I don’t want your pity, okay? It was a long time ago. I’m over it.”

  “Pity?” he asked. He’d gone straight to DEFCON five. Or one. Whatever the bad one was.

  It was an entirely new side of him. Fitz watched with fascination as his hands gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles went white and his breathing turned shallow. “You think I pity you?”

  “I think you’re looking for something to fix,” she snapped, maybe getting a little too up in his face.

  “I’m not trying to fix anything.” His whole body shifted toward her. “I can’t fix something if I don’t know what’s broken.”

  “I’m not broken.” She jabbed his shoulder. “That’s the whole point!”

  “I didn’t say you were broken, for Christ’s sake.” He grabbed her hand. “Stop putting words in my mouth.”

  Pulling back again, she reached for the door handle with her other hand. “Whatever. You don’t need to treat me like your little sister. Nate does that well enough on his own.”

  Deke gave a harsh laugh and, looking down, muttered, “Like my sister. Right.”

  Which made her realize he was staring down at where his hand grasped her wrist.

  The hair on the back of her neck stood up as his head came up and he stared at her. A coil of heat unfurled in her belly and began to work its way down.

  And then his hand was cupping her head and he was pulling her to him and his lips were on hers and...

  Oh.

  Oh, God.

  Before she could think twice, she straightened up and leaned into him. All those unreliable emotions had her opening her mouth to his. She had every intention of putting a stop to it—she needed to think for a minute, damn it—but instead found herself threading her fingers through his hair. Through those tendrils that curled under right there at the back of his neck. She wanted to nuzzle her way into the crook of his shoulder just to have all that softness wash over her.

  He cradled her head, tilting it back just so. She opened her eyes and looked into his and...

  No.

  She wrenched herself away, putting distance between them as she shrank back against the door. Her chest heaved as she gasped in air; her hand shook when she raised it to her lips.

  “Oh,” she whispered. “My God.”

  She reached behind her and opened the door, then jumped out before he could say a word.

  Chapter Seven

  Deke watched as she ran up to Lola’s front walk. He felt the sting as he slammed his hands down on the steering wheel.

  “Fuck!”

  What the hell had possessed him? And, yes, he’d been possessed, unable to stop himself from pulling her to him, so desperate and raw that in hindsight he wasn’t sure it could even be called a kiss.

  Goddamn it.

  He should have said something about earlier. Apologized for whatever it was that had passed between them over the boys’ bath and told her he’d figure it out and it wouldn’t happen again. But now...

  No. Hell, no.

  Apologies, followed by denial. Put it behind them and move the fuck on.

  “Fuck!” he shouted again to no one in particular, before putting the truck into gear and heading home.

  It wasn’t even so much the kiss, although that in itself was more than enough. What was truly getting to him was that something had happened to her, in high school it seemed, and he had no idea what it was. He had no idea it had even happened. How the hell had he missed it? They’d barely spent a day apart from each other in years, for Christ’s sake.

  Deke jabbed the button to close the garage door behind him and pulled the Deacon’s truck alongside his Jeep. Times like these, he was glad he lived in a converted warehouse with an entire floor to himself, with only one neighbor—Jason—on the floor above him, and a basement that was half garage and half basketball court. He turned up the music loud, changed into a pair of basketball shorts and grabbed a ball, thinking about Fitz the whole time.

  It sure as hell went beyond her goddamned nickname, which, incidentally, he’d hated from the day she’d gotten it. It had been in the early days of the Iowa Dream ridiculousness—late March, probably, since they’d just taken the State title. They’d done one of those morning radio shows up in Ames, and came back to find a commotion at school. In reality, it had probably been only a few kids, but in Deke’s memory, almost everyone in the school was lining the hallways, the tribe turning on its weakest link, building nothing into something in the way of high school kids everywhere.

  And there was Fitz, her only offense being that she was the bastard child of Patrick Hawkins, throwing her shoulders back in defiance even as tears streamed down her face. As if she hadn’t already been through enough. Before he could so much as step forward, though, Lola was already there and pretty much telling everyone else off. But the nickname was there for good.

  Well, whatever. As Fitz had said tonight, she was “fine” with it. As vivid as that day was in his memory, it was apparently just a blip on her radar, whereas this other thing Jules had brought up was a whole battleship
being blown sky high.

  Jesus. What was it?

  About a hundred free throws later, the only conclusion Deke had come to was that he needed to talk to Nate. He didn’t give a shit if it was two in the morning. He shut down the lights on the court and headed up to his loft as he dialed the phone. When Nate picked up, sleepily muttering, “Deke, what the...?” Deke immediately launched into, “You want to tell me what happened to Fitz back in high school and why Jules would feel the need to apologize for it?”

  “Are they okay?” Nate snapped, fully awake now.

  “Define okay.”

  “Fuck,” Nate muttered. “What happened?”

  After Deke gave the short and not-so-sweet rundown, Nate said, “So, yeah, I guess that puts you in need-to-know territory.”

  “Well, yeah,” Deke echoed back. “Considering I love each of them as much as I love my own sister, I would sincerely fucking hope I’m in need-to-know territory.” Jesus. He went over to his bar and poured a shot of Jack.

  “You remember when we found out about Fitz?” Nate asked.

  Deke sat down on his couch, glass in hand. He put his feet up on the slab of concrete that served as his coffee table, and let his head fall back as his eyes closed. “You mean the day you found out she was your sister?”

  That was way before the nickname. The second or third day of school. Deke, Wash and Nate had been walking down the hall after Phys. Ed. when, as one, they’d come to a sudden stop at the sight of Mama Gin standing in the hallway with the principal. Her lips were trembling and there were tears in her eyes. “Yeah. I remember.”

  The tornado had happened in July, but because Fitz’s father had been going by the name of Patrick Wade when he died, not Patrick Hawkins, it had taken a month or so for all the pieces to be put together.