I scooted closer to her, instinctively wanting to put my arm around her, and then stopped. In the quiet stillness of that house, we were just two perfect strangers brought together by tragedy.
She wiped her eyes. “So, what do you want from me, Jude? Because I’m pretty sure I don’t have any money if that’s what you’re after. Your mother has probably already wiped out all the bank accounts.”
“Oh, I don’t want any money,” I said, laughing at her sudden directness. I placed my hand on my chest, drawing an ‘X.’ “Swear.”
“Then what is it?”
“Julian asked me to be here,” I said. “He sent me a letter and asked me to take care of you should anything happen to him.”
She drew her legs up onto the sofa, wrapping one arm around them as she chewed on the nails of her free hand. Her eyes focused on a random book lying on the coffee table. “So, let me get this straight. Julian didn’t talk about you. Didn’t tell me you existed. But he wants you to take care of me? Yeah. Right. Makes perfect sense.”
I laughed at the absurdity of the situation knowing full well there was no way to get around how completely insane this sounded. “I know it seems crazy, but I’ve got the letter right here.” I patted the left breast pocket of my jacket.
“Let me see it.” She reached her hand out.
“No can do. Julian asked me not to show you.”
She rolled her eyes, still not buying any of it.
“When did you move out of Haverford?” she asked. If it made her feel better to fish for information, I was going to be an open book. I just wasn’t going to show her the letter. Not yet.
“When I was eighteen,” I began, “I left to go to UC Davis. Never came back.”
“How come?”
“Would you want to come back to Haverford if you didn’t have to?”
“My family’s here.” She shrugged. “It’s not that bad.”
“Well, when your family is like mine,” I said, “sometimes it’s not worth coming back for.”
“So, you just abandoned your sickly younger brother? Nice,” she said, her voice rampant with much-deserved sarcasm.
“Julian was sixteen when I left. He wasn’t a kid. He could fend for himself. Plus, I figured he’d be out of the house in two years,” I said, justifying my actions. “Unfortunately, he didn’t take it that well and stopped talking to me.”
“Can’t say I blame him. Pretty shitty thing to do.” Evie’s face twisted into a scowl as she sipped her wine. “But then again, can’t say I blame you for wanting to get away from Caroline.”
“Good old Caroline,” I said. She nailed it. I stretched my hands behind my head and settled in. “How’s that crazy broad doing these days?”
“She hates me,” Evie said. “That’s about all I know. She thinks I married Julian because I thought I was going to inherit money. Couldn’t be further from the truth.”
“Yeah, she is obsessed with her money,” I said. “That, and control.”
“And your dad lets her call the shots,” she continued, starting a mini rant. “He doesn’t even say anything, just lets her act like some crazy person.” Evie began to tremble as if the mere mention of my mother sent her blood boiling.
“Do you think she’d listen to him?” I asked. “He used to try, believe me. He just got tired of always losing those battles. Somewhere along the line, he just stopped fighting.”
Evie shook her head. “It blows my mind that he’d stay with her all this time.”
“All the money is Garner money,” I said, “not Willoughby money. He’d be left with nothing. He loves material things too much to let that happen. Have you ever seen the man’s car collection?”
She nodded as a faint smile crossed her full lips. It disappeared as quickly as it had arrived as if I’d briefly reminded her of something.
An awkward silence filled the space between us until Evie got up and grabbed our empty wine goblets. Her body swayed a bit, and she had to lean over and grab the arm of the sofa.
“Whoa,” she said as she steadied herself.
“Need help?” I asked as I began to get up.
“No, it’s okay,” she assured me, bringing herself into an upright position before swaying her way to the kitchen. Running water and clinking glass told me she was rinsing the goblets. Perhaps she needed to step away from me for a bit.
A stack of leather-bound books rested neatly on top of the coffee table, and I knew they were Julian’s. I grabbed the top one and began thumbing through it reading the very same pages my brother had once read until Evie came back into the room.
“This was one of his favorite books as a kid,” I said, shutting the cover and rubbing the palm of my hand over the embossed title, A Wrinkle in Time.
She smiled as she sat back down next to me.
“I taught him how to read,” I said with a bittersweet smile. Evie said nothing as she watched me put the book right back where I’d found it. “This is awkward, but do you mind if I stay here tonight? I’ve been driving all day, and I’m spent. I could sleep on the couch.”
“You’re Julian’s brother,” she said without pause. “Of course, it’s okay.”
She stood up shuffling her way to a hall closet and returning with a stack of clean linens and a pillow and setting them neatly on the edge of the couch.
Evie glanced at the watch on her wrist, her eyes fatigued and swollen. “I hope you don’t mind. I’m going to go to bed now. It’s been a very long day.”
“Of course,” I said.
“Good night, Jude,” she said, offering the smallest half-smile I’d ever seen.
“Evie,” I called after her as she walked down the hall.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for letting me crash here tonight.”
“That’s what family does.”
Chapter 2
EVIE
A light rapping on my door woke me that morning.
“Evie?” a man’s voice called from the other side of the door. It was him. I’d completely forgotten for a moment that there was a strange man staying in my house.
I pried my sore, swollen eyelids apart, and my eyes burned like fire the second the sun hit them. I attempted to read the alarm clock on the nightstand, but my blurry vision would only make out the first number. A seven.
“Evie?” he called again, knocking again.
I’d hoped to sleep in that day. The more time I spent dreaming, the less time I’d spend mourning Julian, and the less hours I had to spend in a world without him, the better.
I dragged myself out from beneath the warm covers and shuffled to the door pulling it open. “Yes?”
We were mere inches apart, Jude and me, and the way the top of my head lined perfectly with his mouth was nearly identical to the way I lined up with Julian. Jude’s chocolate brown hair was neatly combed over, parted on the side the way Julian always did his.
“Wanna go out for breakfast?” he asked, unusually chipper for someone up so early. “I’m starving. My treat.”
“Is that why you’re knocking on my door at seven in the morning?” I groaned.
“Yeah,” he said, flashing a smile full of perfect, straight white teeth that were once again identical to Julian’s. “Your cupboards are empty. Hope you don’t mind that I already checked.”
I stared at his mouth as he spoke watching his full lips move and briefly wondering if kissing them would feel like kissing Julian.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Sorry, sorry,” I said, waving him off. “Just thinking.”
“I probably remind you of him, huh,” Jude said, his face twisting into a painful wince. He placed his hands on his hips and took a step back. “I’m sorry. It must be hard for you.”
I shrugged and nodded fighting back another wave of teary eyes. The tears seemed to come and go at random intervals set off by just about anything that remotely reminded me of him.
Jude changed the subject. “You look hungry. Let’s go.
”
“Give me two minutes,” I conceded, shutting the door in his face. I threw on a clean pair of yoga pants and a baggy sweatshirt of Julian’s before wrapping my hair into a top knot and making my way to the bathroom to freshen up.
The girl staring back at me in the mirror looked strange and unfamiliar. Her eyelids were puffy, and her cheeks were red. The corners of her mouth were pitifully paralyzed in the shape of a frown. I splashed cold water on my face before dabbing on a bit of makeup and calling it good enough.
“Ready?” I called, emerging from the bathroom.
Jude was seated on the sofa flipping through another one of Julian’s books. His linens from the night before rested neatly on the arm of the sofa, folded as if he’d never used them at all.
“I can drive,” he said, standing up and jingling his keys.
“You’re going to have to,” I said. “You parked behind me.”
Outside we were greeted by a tepid June morning as we climbed into his white BMW. I slid across the tan, buttery leather seat and buckled myself in watching him through the corner of my eye.
Although we’d just met, there was something oddly familiar and comforting about him, like he was an extension of Julian. He was the designer imposter version. A close knock off. The same, but different.
“Is that diner on 10th Street still around?” he asked, backing out of the driveway. “They used to have the best breakfasts.”
“They are,” I replied, silently recalling the many mornings Julian and I had enjoyed breakfast there. My eyes danced back to his direction once more tracing the outline of his profile and then falling downward taking in his near-identical figure. They had the same physique, that was for sure, but Jude had a sturdier build with at least an extra twenty-five pounds or more of muscle. And his flawless skin was kissed with a touch of a California tan.
“Why do you keep staring at me?” he said a few blocks later. “It’s freaking me out.”
“Sorry, didn’t mean to,” I lied, my face flushing as I turned to stare out the opposite window.
“Growing up,” Jude began, “people always thought Julian and I were twins, except Julian was always a little bit smaller. That was the only difference. Oh, and I have dimples.”
He flashed a megawatt smile and revealed the most gorgeous and perfectly-placed dimples I’d ever seen. If Julian was classically handsome, Jude was the modern-day, Abercrombie-model version.
“That’s the only difference?” I teased, trying to distract myself from feeling any ounce of completely confusing and inappropriate attraction toward him.
“Pretty much,” Jude grinned. “We’re here.”
We seated ourselves in a corner booth, the very same one Julian and I had spent many mornings together and waited for our server to arrive. A young girl, probably still in high school, walked up and took our drink orders.
My eyes ached as the bright sunshine poured in through the large windows next to us forcing me to stand up and yank the shades down.
“Hope you don’t mind,” I said.
“Not a fan of sunshine?”
“Not today.”
“I can’t live without it,” he said. “That’s why I stayed in California. It’s beautiful. Sunny. Palm trees. Hardly any rain. Growing up in that dark house… never again.” He shuddered.
Our server returned with my orange juice and Jude’s chocolate milk.
“Julian always liked chocolate milk,” I said with a fond smile.
“I know,” Jude said, sipping it slowly. “I got him hooked when we were kids.”
“You two ready to order?” the waitress asked, whipping out her notebook and pen. I settled on an English muffin and a fruit plate while Jude ordered the biggest breakfast platter he could find on the menu.
“So, what’s your plan while you’re in town?”
“I guess I mostly just wanted to get to know you,” he said, locking his hazel eyes on mine. He slid up the sleeves of his light jacket to reveal a myriad of tattoos covering his left forearm. My eyes honed in on a picture of a beating heart with a dagger through the middle. “Julian asked me to do some things. Tie up a few loose ends, that sort of thing.”
“What kinds of loose ends?” I asked. I couldn’t think of a single thing I wouldn’t have been able to handle myself.
“I have to admit,” he said, ignoring my question, “I was a little shocked when Julian wrote me. I hadn’t heard from him in years, and all of a sudden, he’s in love with some girl and married? And then my source told me he’d passed…”
“Who’s your source?” I asked, trying to hide the urgency in my voice. I had to know. He was so tight-lipped about everything, and it didn’t seem fair.
“No one you’d know,” he answered.
I sank back in the seat. It was going to be harder than I thought to get him to open up about things. “Tell me about yourself, Jude. What do you do? Where do you work?”
“I have various e-commerce endeavors,” he said. “It’d bore you to death, but it pays the bills and lets me work from anywhere in the world.”
“That doesn’t seem shady at all,” I huffed, rolling my eyes at his vagueness.
“Yeah, well, my business degree from UC Davis and my MBA from Pepperdine beg to differ,” he countered with an air of smug pride that seemed unfitting for a man with a sleeve of tattoos.
“Is that supposed to impress me?” I laughed, throwing him an eye roll.
“I don’t need to impress you, Evie. I’m just saying what I do is legit, and I’m serious when I say it’s boring,” he said. “Websites. Clicks. Referrals. SEOs. That sort of thing. Your eyes would glaze over if we went over it all.”
“I see.”
“What do you do?” he asked.
“I’m a registered nurse. Currently unemployed.”
“I thought nurses were always an ‘in-demand’ profession?”
“I thought so, too, but not in Haverford,” I said with a sigh.
“Is that how you met Julian?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I just assumed you knew that. I was his home nurse.”
Jude’s face pinched. “Oh, yeah. I can see how you marrying and running off with him would upset Caroline, then.”
“Why do you call your mom Caroline?” I asked, dying to know more about their odd family dynamic.
“I’ve called her Caroline ever since she disowned me,” he said. “The word ‘mother’ is reserved for people who actually fit the bill for that role.” Disdain filled his voice when he spoke about her, the same exact tone I’d heard in Julian’s voice whenever his mother came around.
“Oh, awesome,” Jude said the second our food arrived. He wasted no time digging in, shoving bite after bite of fluffy scrambled eggs, syrup-drenched buttermilk pancakes, and crispy bacon into his mouth. He ate like a man. He wasn’t picky like Julian.
“You don’t have any greasy spoons where you live?” I asked, watching him eat as if he hadn’t eaten in years.
“Few and far between,” he said between bites. “Nothing beats your hometown diner. That nostalgia makes things taste just a little better, don’t you think?”
I picked around at my fruit plate, most of it soggy, questionable, or simply inedible. My appetite hadn’t returned yet, so I resolved myself to watching Jude eat.
“Oh, man,” Jude said as he sat back in the booth and pushed out his belly. “That was good.” He rubbed his abs and stared contently across the booth. “I missed that. Everyone back home is either vegan or on some raw food kick. It’s hard finding someone to eat crap with.”
I looked down at my untouched fruit and back at him.
“I guess you didn’t eat crap today,” he said with a smirk. “In fact, you didn’t eat at all.”
The server brought our check, and Jude whipped a twenty from his wallet and slapped it on the table as we left.
“I forgot how cheap small towns are,” he said as we walked outside. “I don’t even think I could get breakfast for twenty bucks bac
k home.”
The sun shone brightly above us, and the mild morning weather begged for windows to be rolled down. As we cruised down the streets of Haverford, the warm air brushed our cheeks and rustled our hair.
“So, what’s your plan?” I asked him again, still unsatisfied with his answer at the diner. “How long will you be in town?”
“No itinerary,” he said as he drove with one hand on the wheel and his tatted arm propped up against his door. “I was going to ask you something. You can say no if you want, and I’ll understand.”
“What?” I asked, almost scared.
“Would it be okay if I stayed at your place while I’m in town?”
“You’d rather sleep on my couch than in a nice hotel?” I asked.
“Name one nice hotel in Haverford,” he countered.
“Good point,” I murmured. “Of course, you can stay with me.”
“You’re a sweet girl, Evie,” he said, turning toward me and flashing a subtle smile.
We pulled into my driveway a bit later, and I realized he still hadn’t answered my question.
“Do your parents know you’re in town right now?” I asked as we made our way inside the house.
“Nope.” He reached out and gently placed his hand on my shoulder, stopping me dead in my tracks. “And it better stay that way.”
“Got it,” I said, jerking my arm out from under his touch. He should’ve realized by now that I was estranged from them.
I tossed my purse and house keys on the kitchen table and kicked off my shoes. The house, for the first time all week, had stopped smelling of burnt eggs and canned air freshener. I drew in a deep breath and relished the fact that that awful reminder of that horrible day was finally gone.
“Surely you can tell me what you’ve got planned for today,” I pried. “Anything in particular?”
“A few things,” he said as a smirk curled upon his lips. He knew what I was trying to do. He knew I was fishing. “I’ll probably take off for a bit. You going to be around most of the day?”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “I’ll be here.”
Jude leaving meant I was going to be alone again with my memories and thoughts and empty house. It was not something I was looking forward to.
The Beginning of Everything: Garner-Willoughby Brothers Duet — Book One Page 19
