by Marie Hall
Elisa cocked her head; she’d never heard of this. “Mom?”
Smiling softly, she shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. Point is, you have to make the decision you can live with. Be fair to him and be fair to you, that’s all you can do.”
A knock sounded on the front door, one Elisa immediately recognized as belonging to Julian. She sucked in a sharp breath, giving her mother a terrified, wide-eyed look.
“It’s okay, honey. Things have a way of working themselves out the way they’re supposed to be.” Then, getting up, she walked to the door and greeted Julian with a big smile and hug.
He looked delicious today. As always. Julian could walk in wearing a potato sack and Elisa would think he’d never looked better. It was sick how bad she had it for him.
He walked toward her with his hands in his blue jean pockets, his hunter-green shirt making his tats and eyes pop, and her heart trembled with an even greater, even deeper love.
He seemed to sense immediately that something was wrong with her because when he took a seat, he didn’t kiss her as he normally did. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
She was going to break his heart either way.
“I got the call from Boston.”
He wiped his palms down his lap. “Where are you going, Smile Girl?”
“Where do you want me to go?” she asked, knowing what her mother had said, but she needed to hear from him. He was part of this too; she could lie to herself and say this was her life and her choice, but it wasn’t, Julian was her partner. And that mattered to her.
Taking her hands, he kissed her fingers and then placed them gently onto her lap. “Don’t ask me that. I knew when we got together that someday you’d have to leave me again, and I prepared for it. No matter where you go, I’ll be there. Even if it means I have to fly.”
Bottom lip going wobbly again, she tossed her arms around his neck, tapping words between his shoulder blades. “I will love you forever, Julian Wright.”
~*~
The day before she flew to Dublin, Elisa joined Julian at the Ink Blot—the tattoo parlor where he’d gotten nearly all his ink from since the age of fourteen. His buddy, Ray—also deaf—gave them matching tattoos.
On the spot of his arm where there’d been an empty space Julian tattooed the word “Destiny.” She’d gotten words printed on the inside of her wrist, words that resonated with how she felt when she thought of her and him.
“Destiny may decide who touches my life, but only my heart can decide who touches my soul…”
She flew to Dublin the next day, and even though Julian had hugged her and swore nothing would change, Elisa knew that everything had.
Chapter 16
One Month
Elisa squealed the moment Julian’s image displayed on the screen. He looked exhausted. There were tired lines around his eyes, but otherwise he looked as gorgeous as she remembered him.
“Hi,” she signed quickly.
Julian leaned over and his finger flitted over the screen and for a moment she could almost feel his touch. Her heart twisted in her chest as she leaned into the screen.
“I wish I could really feel you,” she said.
Sighing, he nodded. “I miss you, Smile Girl.”
“If there were some way I could crawl through this screen, I think I would.”
He frowned. “What’s wrong?”
Giving him the type of smile that consisted of nothing more than a muscle spasm, she sighed. “I don’t know. Just lonely I guess.”
“No friends?”
She shrugged. “I guess so. One. Meredith. I tell her about you all the time. I think she’s getting sick of hearing about my awesome boyfriend.”
He grinned. “It’s going to be okay, baby.”
“Really? You don’t regret this already?”
Julian was sharing the apartment with Christian and Roman now. It panged Elisa to see that their couch that used to be there was now gone and in its place was a foosball table. There were empty pizza boxes strewn on the counters. Julian was living like a bachelor and it made her skin prickle with goosebumps to see it. It was no secret that Christian and Roman hadn’t grown out of their whoring ways, not that she doubted Julian would stay faithful to her, but if she were honest with herself, she didn’t like to think of what he might be seeing.
Which was silly, of course, but she was fiercely protective of what was hers.
“I don’t regret it, because it makes you happy—”
“I’m not sure it does anymore, Jules.” She huffed, trying to dry her tearing eyes before he saw it.
But he must have, because he tapped his chest and then said, “You’ll shatter me if I see you cry.”
“Just promise me we’re going to be okay,” she signed it quickly.
“I promise, Elisa. These last two years will fly by and then nothing will keep us separated again.”
Biting a corner of her lip, she gave him a brave smile. “I love you,” she said.
“I love you too.”
~*~
Three months later
Elisa laughed as she stumbled through her front door, Meredith trailed in behind her, lifting a bottle of half-drank wine high and chirping, “Here’s to all the galas in all the world, may they all rot in hell.”
Tossing her keys and purse to the counter, Elisa toed off her shoes and snort-giggled. “I think I might be a little drunk,” she said as she lost her balance and had to grab hold of the support pillar in her kitchen to help keep her upright.
“Oh, I’d say so, just a little.” Meredith tossed herself onto the couch. “Did you see the way that pompous, officious little man looked at me all night?” She kicked off her bright red sling backs and closed her eyes.
Covering her nose with her hand, Elisa chuckled. “I do believe the Dean might be a little star struck with you. Which isn’t entirely bad; maybe next time you see him you can offer to show him the goodies and get us a new copy machine.”
She snorted. “I’m no one’s trollop. Though I’ll do much for a proper copy machine.” Meredith glared at a curl of brown hair that’d slipped over her shoulder. “I hate brown hair. Have I ever told you how much I hate brown hair? I must change it, but first I need to close my eyes for a minute. I’m so very, very tired…” Her words slowed and by the time she said “tired,” a soft snore escaped her parted lips.
In two more minutes she’d be dead to the world.
Elisa opened her mouth, ready to tease Meredith back, when her laptop buzzed with an incoming call.
Frowning, it took her a minute to realize she was over an hour late for her Skype call with Jules.
“Oh crap.” She tripped over Meredith’s shoe as she ran to her desk and accepted the call.
Julian looked more than a little upset when he popped up on the screen. “Are you okay?” he asked quickly.
Grimacing, feeling like the world’s worst girlfriend, she took a seat. “Honey, I’m so sorry. I totally spaced on the gala we had tonight. Needed to raise funding for the library and Mere”—a loud snore punctuated her friend’s name—“asked me to tag along as her date. I’m so sorry. I thought I’d be home in time, but we got stuck in some pretty awful traffic coming home. Please don’t be mad.”
Knowing Julian the way she knew him, he didn’t seem mad so much as disappointed. In her. It just about broke her heart.
Picking up her laptop, she tilted the screen to the side so that he could see Meredith lying on her couch.
“That’s her,” she said a minute later when she put the screen back on her face.
But rather than it appeasing him, he said, “I should go. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“You still coming next month?”
She itched to shove the lock of hair that’d fallen over his eye back.
“Yeah. I am. But…um…”
She frowned, heart going still for a moment. “What?”
Christian and Roman bent over Julian’s shoulder and waved like idiots i
nto the monitor.
“Hey sexy.” Chris’s deep blue eyes twinkled. “You miss us?”
She loved joking around with her brothers, but right now she was fighting a pit of anxiety working through her stomach. Julian wasn’t smiling or laughing, even though his brothers were trying to get him to loosen up.
“You know I do,” she said softly. “But I’m really tired, Chris.”
“Oh yeah, well.” He shoved his fingers through his hair. “Kind of feel like I’ve interrupted something. Just wanted to stop by and say hi.” He clapped Julian’s shoulder.
Roman leaned in. “Real quick—Mom’s trying to figure out how many are coming back for Christmas this year, can you make it?”
As much as she wanted to, she doubted it would be possible. At least not this year. “I wish I could, Rome. But tell her I said hi and sorry I’m taking Julian away this year.”
Roman frowned and looked as though he meant to say something else, when Julian shook his head. They both said something, but Julian had his back turned in a way that she couldn’t read what he said.
Turning back to her a second later, Roman shook his head. “Okay then, girl, I’ll leave you guys alone. Love ya.”
“Yeah, me too.”
Julian came back on the screen and wiped a hand down his jaw.
“What was that about?” she asked once Roman was gone.
“Nothing. Don’t worry about it. I’ve got to go, I’ve got classes.”
She’d forgotten that it was already Monday morning there. “Julian, I’m really sorry. Don’t be mad at me.”
His look was tired as he said, “I love you, Elisa. Glad you’re okay.”
They hung up a minute later and when she crawled into bed she couldn’t stop wondering what in the world had been going on between him and Roman and why she suddenly had the worst feeling of foreboding.
~*~
Five months.
Five long, agonizing, excruciating months since she’d physically seen Julian last. Elisa tapped her heel on the marble floor in a nervous, methodical rhythm as her stomach churned with excitement.
Meredith peered up from her workstation wearing a smile on her painted red lips. “Do try to contain your excitement, Elisa Jane.” She winked, her British accent sounding all proper and Jane Austenesque, which they both knew was nothing like what she actually sounded like.
Elisa snorted. “Oh, bite me.”
Meredith lifted a brightly painted purple brow, but chuckled beneath her breath. She’d recently gotten rid of her brown and Elisa thought she looked a million times better. Of course the boss hadn’t been exactly thrilled by it, but Mere worked behind the scenes so he’d not fired her for it either.
Meredith was originally from Manchester; she was hip and trendy and basically Elisa’s polar opposite in every way.
Elisa was tanned and blonde (well, considerably less tanned now than she’d been when she’d first arrived) while Meredith now had lavender and navy blue hair. Elisa dressed like a preppy librarian, replete with the cardigans, pencil skirts, trendy Mary Janes, and pearl necklaces, and Meredith was pure modern mod, or, as she liked to call herself, a modern-day Twiggy.
They’d formed a friendship over their love of Austen, Shakespeare, and blues.
Elisa glanced up at the clock again. In three more hours, she’d see him. In one more she’d be walking out the door to her flat to change and hail a taxi to Dublin airport. Running her finger beneath her necklace, she began to tap her foot again.
“Good God, Eli, you’re driving me insane. How can I properly restore this binding with you carrying on as you are?”
Growling, she threw her friend an evil little glare before sticking out her tongue. “I’m not carrying on. But I am excited.”
A twinkle gleamed in her friend’s bright blue eyes. Setting her work aside for a moment, she turned and leaned against her desk, tapping her gloved finger on its edge as she studied Elisa. “I can’t wait to meet this boy. I have a feeling I’m going to be terribly disappointed in the looks department, though.”
Elisa gave an exaggerated gasp.
“Oh yes.” Mere nodded, causing her slicked bangs to spill into her eyes. “I think you’ve been toying with my imagination. There is simply no way a man such as you’ve described could actually be real.”
“Is that a bet?”
She shrugged. “Might be. If I’m wrong, I’ll pick up the tab tonight, if you’ve lied, you will.”
Elisa grimaced. She’d forgotten all about the pub-crawl.
“What?” Meredith narrowed her eyes. “Please don’t tell me you plan to bail again. You did it last time. I won’t let you toss me to the wolves.”
“Toss you to the wolves.” She laughed. “You’re so crazy. It’s not like you don’t know them all.”
“Ha!” She rolled her eyes. “Tobias with his filthy, dirty jokes. And Angelica and her ‘I’m so rich and you are not’ superior attitude, and let’s not even mention Callum and his—”
“Callum and his what?” A deep male voice caused both women to emit low pitched shrieks, turning toward the door as one as the thirty-two-year-old former Calvin Klein model and now full-time nerd leaned against its frame with a large, Cheshire grin on his Adonis-like face.
Short brown hair with a soft wave to it that he styled in such a way as to make it look sexy but still scruffy, a very neat, full beard, and piercing brown eyes, Callum Dunn had set many a hearts on campus to fluttering. Even Elisa had felt her cheeks grow warm the first time she’d met him.
He reminded her a lot of slightly beefier version of Jamie Dornan. Oh whom Meredith currently had the biggest crush.
Dressed in his typical fashion of dark jeans and a steel-gray cardigan, Callum was definitely easy on the eyes. And the fact that he originally hailed from Northern Ireland, Belfast to be exact, made his accent even a slightly bit more exotic than the norm out here. Which in turn made it sometimes hard for Elisa to talk with him.
Mostly because she found his accent to be one of the sexiest she’d ever heard in her life, much as she hated to admit it.
“Hm?” He lifted a brow. “Callum, what? I do believe I heard my name.”
Snorting, Meredith batted a wrist. “How long were you waiting out there just to hear your name? You’ve quite the ego, Callum Dunn.”
His smile was nothing but straight white teeth and dimples, which Elisa pointedly ignored. She was on the hunt for a Jacobite scroll and had found little in the past two days of searching to lead her to believe she was any closer to sussing the thing out.
“You are coming to the pub tonight, eh, Elisa?”
“Mm.” She didn’t glance up at the shivery sound of his voice. “I don’t know.” She clicked on a new screen. “I’m picking up my boyfriend from the airport today.”
“Elisa,” Meredith whined, “you have to come. I’ll not go without you.”
“There, see?” Elisa could practically hear Callum’s smile. “You must come. And bring him too.” Then with a nod in her direction, he turned and walked back out.
Meredith jogged over to her a moment later and shook Elisa’s elbow, forcing her to glance up. Her friend’s face was a bright cherry red.
“That man is so fuckin’ beautiful I just want to take a bite out of his arse.”
“What?” Elisa’s face scrunched into a half-grimace, half-laugh.
“Yes.” She reached out her hand and pretended to grab something from mid-air. “Just sink my teeth into and shake it. God, he’s lovely.”
“I’m just, yeah, wow, I’m not touching that one with a ten-foot pole.”
“Oh, hush, I know you have a boyfriend, but if you cannot see that man is fine, then you’re blind, Elisa Adrian.”
With a huff, Elisa began to power down her laptop. “I’m never going to find that scroll today. I think I’m just going to go, I have to get ready for Julian.”
She hopped off her stool and grabbed her purse.
“Bring him to the pub,” Meredith
said in a high falsetto. “I demand it, I must see the glories that is Julian Wright.”
Giving a finger wave, Elisa rolled her eyes. “I’ll think about it. Later!”
If it hadn’t been for the heels, Elisa would have run the entire two miles back to her flat. Hopping into the shower, she washed up quickly, before moving on to her closet and choosing her sexiest outfit. Which wasn’t really all that sexy.
Not skanked-up sexy, as Meredith would put it anyway. It was just a floral-print strappy dress that came to just above her knees and cinched at the waist. She paired it with dove gray heels, and applied just a little bit of makeup. Something she’d been getting into more and more lately, thanks to Meredith’s assertion that to not wear makeup was nothing short of criminal.
Putting a touch of smoky eye shadow onto the corners of her eyes, she curled her lashes and applied a light tint of shell-pink lipstick. Thankfully she had great hair that didn’t require much in the way of upkeep. A quick blow dry and a little bit of gel gave it a tousled, just-woke-up-from-bed feel.
Biting onto the corner of her lip, she raced around the small apartment and picked up the bras she’d allowed to collect around her living room and bedroom. Realizing she was starting to stall, she rang for a taxi. They got to her within ten minutes. The drive to the airport felt hideously long and short all at the same time. By the time he dropped her off, she felt like she might puke.
They’d been keeping up by Skyping whenever possible, and of course emails when one or the other wasn’t free for a face-to-face chat. But that all felt so impersonal, Elisa was almost desperate to see Julian.
She ignored the swivel of men’s heads as she walked through the doors to the waiting area.
What if Julian had changed? What if he didn’t love her like before? So much time had passed.
But the moment she saw his smiling face coming down the escalator, she forgot all her nerves, all her what ifs, and, with a happy squeal, raced over to meet him.
