by Marie Hall
But as much as she tried to occupy her thoughts with something other than the fact that Julian was in her apartment, her brain just kept circling around to the big question.
Why was he here?
“How have you been?” he finally asked.
The question was so awkward and strange that it only served to ratchet up her nerves.
She wiggled her hand to indicate so-so. Then decided that if all he wanted to do was shoot the breeze, she needed to relax. He’d eventually get around to his real purpose for being here.
“Finished my final exam today. It sucked hard. I’m hoping I made a B at least.”
He nodded, but didn’t actually seem to be paying attention. By the way his knee kept bopping up and down she could tell he was anxious.
“So where are you planning to go to college?” she asked.
His shoulders slumped and his stare was a mile long. “Smile Girl, has it really come down to this?”
She dropped her hands, sensing that he was finally going to get to the reason for his coming.
“A year. You called my mom. Why?”
Was he upset that she’d kept tabs? “Because I wanted to know how you were doing.”
“Then you should have texted me. Called me.”
She swallowed hard. For the past three nights Thomas had been showing up at random, odd times. What if he came over tonight? The last thing she wanted was for Thomas to see Julian and get strange ideas.
“I didn’t call you, Jules, because I didn’t know what to say.”
“We’re friends! That’s what you told me.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “Just like I am with Chris and—”
“Stop. Stop lying to me. Stop lying to yourself. It’s not like Chris and Rome, because you still talked to them. But you locked me out. You stopped writing. I have a girlfriend.”
Why that should feel like a blow to the gut she didn’t know. But it made her feel cold and sick to her stomach.
“I kiss her. She kisses me back.”
She frowned. “Jules, why are you telling me this?”
“Because she loves me, Elisa. Me.” He patted his chest. “She didn’t keep pushing me away, telling me she didn’t care.”
“I did care. I do. But too much. You’re in high school.”
His brow rose and his nostrils flared. “So what? I’m eighteen.”
“You’re seventeen. Not eighteen until tomorrow.”
He rolled his eyes.
“Jules, why did you come out here? Why did you find me? If you have a girlfriend, that’s good.” No, it wasn’t, it really wasn’t. Not to her. But it needed to be and he needed to see that.
“Because she’s not you! Because I kiss her and I hold her and she’s not fucking you!”
Elisa couldn’t catch her breath. Fire skated through her veins, rushed through her blood, made her feel hot and dizzy.
“You said I didn’t know what I wanted. I want you, I’ve always wanted you. And it seemed like the more I wanted you the more you pushed me away. I know you felt it that night, Smile Girl. Because I felt it too.”
She shook her head. Mostly because she didn’t know what to say to him. She had felt it, still did. The second she’d seen him standing in her door all the old feelings, everything, it’d all come crashing back with a ferocity and intensity that had terrified her.
He closed his eyes and tears sprang to hers. She had a boyfriend. A good one. She loved him…
God, she was liar. Even to herself, Julian was right. He always had been right about her. She’d never felt a tenth for Thomas what she’d always felt for Jules.
But it just couldn’t work. He was still in high school. What would it look like to everyone if she dumped Thomas for some freaking senior in high school?
But Julian wasn’t just anybody either.
“Can I sleep here tonight?”
Could she tell him no? If he wanted in her bed, was she really capable of pushing him away again? It was why she hadn’t gone home, because she’d known the truth of it when her father had broken them up that night.
Julian was her kryptonite.
She nodded, sucking her bottom lip between her teeth as her stomach danced with drunken butterflies.
“Don’t worry, I’ll go home tomorrow.”
Then, shucking off his shoes, he sprawled out on her couch. It was almost midnight, but she was far from sleepy. Now that he was here she was wide awake, nervous, and excited all at the same time.
She should call Thomas, let him know what was going on, just in case he decided to try and come over. But she didn’t want to talk to him.
Not about Jules.
Getting up slowly, she walked into her room, pulled down one of the spare blankets from her closet, and brought it out.
When he wouldn’t take it, she opened it up and laid it over him. He didn’t say thank you, but when she turned to go she caught him dragging her blanket up to his nose and taking a deep breath.
Turning off all the lights, she locked the door and went to her room, texting to Thomas that she was going to sleep early tonight and she might see him tomorrow.
Stripping down to her bra and panties, she crawled into bed and tried to sleep. But she couldn’t. Because every creak and groan in the apartment made her terrified that Julian would try to sneak out without saying goodbye.
She tossed and turned for a long time, staring up at the ceiling and feeling like the world’s worst girlfriend because all she wanted to do was go back into that living room and kiss him.
Touch him.
Make sure that he was really real. That he was really here.
Why had he come?
Rolling over she stared at her bedside clock. The glowing red numbers read eleven fifty-five.
It was so bizarre, him just showing up this way. After so long not talking, after so long of pretending that she didn’t really care anymore that she’d actually begun to believe it. And then he showed up and every lie, everything she’d told herself for the past year just came crashing down around her feet.
Elisa cared too much.
Eleven fifty-eight.
“Why did you come?” she whispered to the shadows on the walls.
And why did it hurt her so much to think of him letting some girl touch his body, trace the lines of his tattoos? How far had they gone? All the way? Like her and Thomas?
It made her sick how angry the thought of that made her feel. She’d done the right thing by leaving him alone. She had.
Eleven fifty-nine.
He was a kid. There was no way that at age fifteen he could see her and think she’d be it for him. No way. It was a phase. Just a crush.
But that kiss last year. And now him here.
What if she’d been wrong? What if it hadn’t been crush? And if it hadn’t been a crush then how perverted was she for wanting him in the same way? When she should have been looking at guys her age, Elisa had been falling madly in love with Julian Wright.
Little Julian Wright.
She squeezed her eyes shut as midnight rolled over.
“Happy birthday, Julian.”
Sniffing, she closed her eyes, wrapped the blanket tightly around her, and kept telling herself that she’d done the right thing.
Ten minutes later, she heard the distinctive sound of a creaking floorboard.
He was up. He was leaving.
Heart trapped in her throat, she sat up just as her door opened.
His dark shadow filled the door, and she realized she was practically naked. She felt his gaze raking over her flesh like a caress and she shivered, clutching the blanket to her chest like her life depended on it.
Utter silence could sometimes be louder than words. In that silence she could feel the throb of her beating heart bang against her ribcage as he made his way unerringly to her side.
A sliver of moonlight sliced across his body from the tiny crack in her bedroom window. He was still fully dressed.
Sitting down beside her, his body heat so war
m, and his smell of soap and mint so strong, he turned her hand over and danced his fingers across her palm.
“Tell me now.”
She grabbed his other hand. “What? What do you want to know?”
He hesitated a second. “Is it just me?”
She could lie. Tell him it was just him and she knew, knew with every fiber of her being that he’d leave. He’d walk away and she’d lose Julian Wright forever. Or she could finally open up and be honest with him, with herself.
There was Thomas. There was his girlfriend. People would get hurt.
Heaven help her…
“No, Jules, it’s not just you.”
With a moan that tugged at her heartstrings, he placed his forehead to hers, his fingers still trapped inside her palm.
“I tried to move on, Smile Girl. For you, I tried.”
“Jules.” His name came out a broken whisper.
And even though she knew he couldn’t hear her, he seemed to understand exactly what she wanted. His hands were so gentle as they glided up her bare arms and where she’d been warm just a second ago, now her body broke out in a wash of goosebumps.
He was slow and methodical, trailing his nose down the side of her face, and along her neck, taking his sweet time to get to her lips. When he finally got there he didn’t devour her like last time, he flirted. Moving against them so softly it felt like the brush of a rose petal.
The simmer in her stomach turned into liquid flame. There’d never been anyone like Julian.
She framed his face as tears squeezed from the corners of her eyes, because she knew what would happen tonight and there was no way in hell she would stop it.
When he finally took her lips, he claimed them like a brand. Tugging her bottom one between his teeth and suckling. She moaned, needing to get as close to him as possible. Wanting to feel him all over her.
Reaching for his shirt, she wasn’t gentle as she tugged it off, forcing them to separate so that she could toss it to the floor. With a growl he pushed off her, getting to his feet and for a second she panicked when she thought he meant to leave.
But he didn’t. His fingers fumbled on the buttons of his jeans as he slid them down and kicked them off.
Elisa placed a hand over her heart.
He wore no underwear. He was long and thick, and even in the darkness she could see that the very tip of him was pierced too.
She’d almost expected to see him covered in more tattoos, but he hadn’t added to the collection.
She looked up at him. Shadows danced through the room. But there was just enough streetlight that she knew he could see. Moving to her knees, she brushed her hair over her shoulders and taking a deep breath, undid her bra, and tossed it to the floor.
Elisa wouldn’t look at him when she reached for her underwear.
She was shy about her body. Not that she wasn’t toned or athletic, but she didn’t have the kind of large breasts men liked. They were small and perky, and what if he was disappointed?
His hand stopped her when she went to pull her panties down.
And gently pushing her back down onto the bed, he sat on his knees beside her and pulled them down her legs himself.
Her center ached, her breasts tingled, every inch of her felt like an exposed nerve. Like if he even breathed on her she’d combust.
His fingers danced over her stomach.
“So beautiful.”
And the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding suddenly expelled from her lungs in a slow whoosh, and she smiled.
He was too; he was so beautiful. But Julian wasn’t waiting around to hear her response.
Draping a heavy leg across hers, he rested his weight on his elbow, almost as though pinning her in, and proceeded to lick and nibble along her bellybutton for a while, so long that she began to giggle.
“Julian, I’m ticklish.” She smacked his shoulder.
Which made him smile in return. But then he went from teasing to serious, and his kisses began to trail languorously upward, moving right up the center of her until he got to the valley between her breasts.
And as he kissed her, she began to writhe and moan. Her body filling with heat and need, with desire she’d denied them for so long.
His mouth captured her left breast and she hissed, arching into his touch and raking her nails through his hair.
Julian was tender, taking his time. Increasing her desire with every touch, every kiss, moving his tongue along her flesh until she felt that she would die from the pleasure. He was masterful in his worship of her and she sang from his touch.
“Please,” she mumbled incoherently, undulating her hips until the center of her touched the hardness of him. “Please, Jules.”
He stopped moving, his gaze going to hers, and his beautifully callused fingers fluttered along her bicep as he rested the weight of his other hand against her throat.
“Say my name,” he signed.
“Julian,” she smiled as her vocal chords rubbed against his palm.
A visible shudder rippled through him. He kissed her deeply, and though he’d never be able to verbally talk with her, she heard his words.
Felt what neither of them seemed to be willing to say. Because this moment was so fragile, and yet too full. It was like birth, like opening her eyes and seeing Julian for the first time. Really seeing him.
“Condom?” he asked.
And she thought it was exceedingly adorable and totally clueless on his part not to have brought one himself, she shook her head.
“Pill,” she wrote the letters on his back.
With a happy sigh he slid deep into her and they moved together as one, and Elisa saw the truth for what it was.
Julian had been made for her from the very beginning. Crafted just for her. And though their paths didn’t always align as they should, they always intersected. Lying there in his arms, Elisa was sure of one thing.
Julian was her partner in every way, but there were still problems. He was still in school, and she in college. There’d be distance, but she believed deeply they could weather it because this was more than just lust. More than chemistry.
It was destiny.
And right before they shattered in each other’s arms, he asked her to say his name one more time.
“Julian. Julian Wright.”
Chapter 8
She blinked her eyes open and then proceeded to do a long cat stretch. She was facing the window, Elisa vaguely remembered rolling over at some point during the night and him scooping her into his body so that every inch of her lay flush against every inch of him.
They’d made love.
For the first time in her life she really felt like she understood the definition of that word. And the little girl who grew up dreaming what her Prince Charming would someday look like and imagining what kind of wedding she’d someday have suddenly saw all the pieces click into place.
Not that she’d ever tell him so, but deep down, it felt right to think it.
Yawning loudly and wanting to talk about what’d happened, what this meant for their relationship, she realized he must have scooted back at some point. Patting his side of the bed, her heart leapt to her throat the moment it dawned on her that he hadn’t scooted back, Julian just wasn’t there.
Wide-awake now, she sat up and blinked, staring at his empty side of the bed for a solid ten seconds. Where had he gone? Was he in the house? What’d happened?
That final question finally kicked her numb brain into gear.
Kicking off the sheets, she called his name. “Julian!”
She knew he wouldn’t hear her, but she padded out into the open living room, uncaring that she was still naked as a jaybird. The sheet she’d laid over him last night was on the floor. But his shoes were gone.
Where in the hell was he? “Jules?” she asked with a thread of despair, even while she clung to hope that he was just out of sight somewhere.
She peeked into the bathroom. He wasn’t there. Her hands were sha
king now.
Elisa even went so far as to open Chastity’s door.
A sinking, bottomless pit that felt a lot like the beginnings of heartache took hold of her when all she saw was an empty room and a made-up bed. There was one last place to check.
Opening the front door, she gazed out at the empty parking spot. A fresh blanket of snow had covered the asphalt where he’d parked, which could only mean he’d left hours ago.
Julian was gone.
Racing back to her room to grab her cell, she stopped dead in her tracks when she saw a white envelope resting on the framed drawing he’d done for her of her and him in the hospital room what seemed like a lifetime ago.
No way had he left her a Dear John letter.
Just no way.
Not Julian.
He’d never do something like that to her.
Each step she took felt like a lead weight had wrapped itself around her feet. Her breathing was short and choppy when she finally tore it open.
His familiar, artistic scrawl greeted her eyes.
“Elisa,”
The first tear fell.
“I had to know. Had to know if what I’ve been chasing for so many years was real. You told me once that I didn’t know, couldn’t understand what I was feeling. And maybe you were right.”
A strangled sound spilled from her lips. Her head grew suddenly dizzy as she stutter-stepped back onto the bed, clutching the letter like her life depended on it.
“For an entire year you kept me away, and I think a part of me began to understand why. I even started to feel human again, feel okay with it. It wasn’t easy at first, it was like you’d ripped my heart out and had taken it away with you. I might see in only in shades of gray, but whenever I was with you it was like my world exploded with life. So maybe I clung to you because I needed that. I don’t know. All I do know is I’m sorry.”
It was like someone had shoved their fist down her throat, it was so swollen and thick and full of heat. All she could do was shake her head. Reading the letter with the vain hope that there’d be a silver lining even while intrinsically knowing there wouldn’t be a happy ending for her.
“Smile Girl, sometimes I think I’ve loved you all my life. Like I’ve stopped living my life because of how much I needed you. But this year apart helped me to see that I could survive without you.
