Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
JULIEN
S itting in the bedroom, my back against my headboard, I stare up at the ceiling while I wait for my brother to come home.
I just spent two hours with a distraught Ryder. He was upset, thinking he had destroyed our friendships with his declaration about his intentions for Liz. I reassured him that everything would be fine, that Jayson just needed some time to process.
I pick up my phone and check the time. Jay, where the hell are you?
On automatic pilot, my thumb scrolls through my photos until I come to the one that I took of Ryder and Elijah on their dirt bikes. I hit the circle on my screen to pull up my contacts.
Don’t do it. Don’t press the—dammit, Julien.
Me: Hey. You up?
I send it before I lose my nerve. It takes mere seconds before a reply comes back.
Elijah: Yeah, I’m up. Just watching some TV in bed. You?
I relax into my pillows, the swarm of butterflies in my stomach calming.
Me: Things turned to shit tonight and…I don’t know. I just needed somebody to talk to.
My phone vibrates in my hand, and I almost drop it when Elijah’s name pops up.
“Hey,” I answer, then I hold my breath as I wait for his reply.
“Thought you might need to hear a friendly voice instead of a text.”
“I’m sorry for bothering you so late. I don’t know what I was thinking. You were probably about to go to sleep,” I prattle.
“Julien, it really is no problem at all. I was up.”
I hear rustling in the background, and I assume he’s getting more comfortable in bed. Oh, the images that conjure up. I whack the phone against my forehead, hoping to reboot my brain.
“Julien? You still there?”
“I’m here.”
“What’s going on?”
“Tonight has been messed up.”
“Talk to me. Maybe I can help,” he gently prods.
I need a friend to talk to. I can’t talk to Ryder about it, and Jay is definitely not a contender for a “shoulder to cry on.” I can’t go to Liz because she’s the topic of conversation I want to talk about.
“Ryder told me and Jay something tonight, and my brother flipped the fuck out.”
“Why?”
This is the hard part. “Ryder told us that he wanted to ask Liz out. That he’s in love with her.”
I hear him suck in a small breath before replying, “Ouch. How are you feeling about that?”
“It was weird at first, but I can think of no better man for her than him.”
“How is Jayson handling it?”
“Not good. We all thought you liked her, so Ryder’s big announcement took me by surprise.”
“I never liked Liz like that. I like someone else.”
The softness creeping into Elijah’s voice has me on edge. Has me thinking things. Impossible things.
“What if that someone else likes you, too?”
I say it out loud without meaning to because there is no chance in hell that Elijah would ever be interested in me. He may send beautiful smiles my way, but that doesn’t mean anything. Elijah is a nice person all around. He smiles at everyone.
Total silence ensues over the line.
“Julien?” Elijah whispers, and I hear him say my name as if he were sitting right here next to me.
“Yeah?” I swallow hard.
“I consider myself a pretty good judge of character when it comes to reading people. Someone like me has to be.”
What does he mean, someone like me ?
“If I read you wrong, then please say so. But I don’t think I did.”
Tiny beads of sweat pop up along my forehead.
“I’m not sure I understand what you mean,” I tell him, even though my conscience was screaming inside my head, calling me a bald-faced liar.
“You caught my attention the first time I laid eyes on you at the swim meet. Do you remember that day?”
I remember every fucking second.
“That was almost three years ago,” I reply.
“I know. That’s how long I’ve been waiting for you to say something. To call me. To ask me out. Anything.”
I pull the phone away from my ear and stare at it. Does he mean…? No fucking way .
“Elijah—”
“Go out with me this weekend.”
My heart hammers like a bass drum. Want and desire consume me like wildfire, but disbelief and fear hold me back from saying yes.
Deciding to play dumb, I say, “I thought we already decided to hang out this weekend.”
Stupid, stupid, stupid .
Elijah’s gentle laughter rolls over me like silk. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
“Then I’m going to need you to spell it out for me.”
“All right. Hi, Julien. I’m Elijah. I like you. A lot . And I think you like me, too. In fact, I’m pretty sure that you do. So, I’d like to ask you out on a date.”
I want to say yes so badly. I’ve had a crush on Elijah for years, only now to find out the feeling was mutual.
“Julien?”
Pain seizes my heart as indecision claims me. What will people think if they see me and Elijah together? What will Jay think? Or Liz or Ryder? My parents? Fallen Brook is a small town and small towns can have small mindsets.
Feeling like I want to cry and cursing the universe for being so unfair, I choke out, “Elijah, I can’t. I’m sorry. I’m not ready. I don’t even know if this is what I want.”
“Do you like me?” he asks.
Yes! I dream about Elijah almost every night. I dream about how it would feel to kiss him and touch him. Every single time I see him, I swear, I swoon like a fucking Southern belle. He’s gorgeous and kind, and my body has a visceral response to him whenever he’s within a hundred feet of me.
“I can’t ,” I reply, wanting to say the exact opposite, but too chickenshit to do it.
He sighs, and I want to crawl through the phone and wrap my arms around him. I’m not rejecting him. I’m scared. I’ve never told anyone, not even Jay or Liz, about my feelings because I don’t even understand them. How can I be attracted to girls and to guys?
“I understand,” he eventually says, but I can hear his disappointment.
I try to meet him in the middle and be as truthful as I can.
“I do like you, Elijah. I want to say yes. But I just can’t right now. Is it okay if I asked for more time? Can we see how we are as friends first?”
Without hesitation, he replies, “Yeah, Julien. I’d like that. I would love for us to be friends.”
All the tension that had been coiling inside me, ready to explode, expels in a deep exhale. “Thank you.”
“Can I tell you three really important things?” he asks.
“Go for it.”
“Thing number one. You have the most beautiful gray eyes I have ever seen. I dream about your eyes. The way they look like liquid silver, and how they shine when you smile.”
My breath hitches, and it feels like all the blood drains southward to my dick.
“What’s the second thing?” I literally groan.
“Everything will be okay. Things with your brother. Things with Liz and Ryder. I’m a believer that stuff happens in life for a reason. If it didn’t, I wouldn’t have met you.”
I melt a little at his statement. “What’s the third thing?”
“One day, when you’re ready, I’m going to kiss you.”
It was after three in the morning when Jayson sneaks into our room through our bedroom window. I figured out where he was after I got out of the shower and saw the outline of his silhouette inside Liz’s bedroom. I lied to Mom when she saw me downstairs in the kitchen getting a midnight snack. She asked me where Jay was, and I told her he was already asleep upstairs.
When I finally settled into bed for the night, I texted Ryder to make sure he was okay. He was still a mess. He thought Jayson hated him. He thought he’d lost his best friend. I reassured him over and over that everything was going to be okay. Our bonds of friendship were strong. But like the stupid asshole my twin brother just made me when I saw he was with Liz—I was a liar. What I promised Ryder was now all a big, fat lie, and that infuriated me.
“Where the hell have you been?”
I glare at my brother as he strips off his shirt and shorts and climbs into bed. His nonchalance only adds fuel to my anger. I lob a pillow at his head.
“I asked you a question.”
“Fuck off!” He turns his back to me and takes the pillow I just chucked at him, punching it a few times before resting his head on it.
Needing to see his face—knowing I will catch him in a lie if he tries—I sit up and sling my legs over the side of my bed, ready to confront him.
“Are you seriously going to pretend that I did not just see your fucking idiot self in Liz’s bedroom?”
I get nothing.
“After everything Ryder said to us tonight. He laid his heart out, and you shit all over it.”
That gets his attention. Jay leaps out of bed and lunges at me. My brother may be muscular, years of swimming giving him broad shoulders and strong arms, but I’m faster, my soccer skills and quick feet coming in handy. I easily dodge his attack. He immediately recovers and grabs my shoulders, shoving me backward. I know it’s not me who he’s fighting. He’s fighting himself. He’s at war with what he’s done and needs to channel that aggression into something physical. Unfortunately, I’m his punching bag.
Jay catches me off guard with a punch to the jaw, but I give back as good as I get and clip him on the nose. We both freeze when we see blood. Some drips from the cut he opened on my lip, and some is from his nose. We both look over at our bedroom door at the same time, expecting Mom to barge in and catch us fighting.
“Does hitting me make you feel better? Want me to see if Liz wants to come over so you can pound out your guilt on her, too?”
Jay’s face blanches. He quickly backs down and takes a seat on the side of his bed, his anger deflating right before my eyes. Like earlier tonight at Ryder’s, his head hangs low as he refuses to look at me.
“I panicked. I fucking panicked. I heard what Ryder was saying and all I could think about was that I was going to lose my girl. My girl ,” he declares, thumping his chest above his heart. “I know I should’ve told her how I felt ages ago. I know I should’ve talked to Ryder. The three of us have been dancing around the subject for years. I wasn’t expecting him to finally grow a pair and pursue her. So yeah, I panicked. Fucking hell ,” he finishes on a tortured groan.
“You need to fix this.”
“I know. I promised Liz that I would take care of everything. I’ll make sure she doesn’t lose any of us. I made her a promise, and I will never break my promises to that girl.”
“You didn’t see what you running off did to Ry. He’s devastated. He thinks you hate him. I promised him otherwise. Told him you just needed a moment. Now I’m a lying asshole, thanks to you.”
If I thought Jay’s head couldn’t hang any lower in shame, I was wrong.
“Talk to me. No matter what, I am here for you. But I won’t betray Ryder. I’m not going to lie to him.”
“I love her, Julien. I can’t live without her. I’m sorry.”
I love my twin brother, too. I hate seeing him tying himself into knots about this. We all knew things would come to a head sooner or later when it came to Liz. Lines would have to be drawn, boundaries established, choices made. I only wish he had gone about it better. Talked to me and Ryder, instead of running off behind Ryder’s back to stake his claim on her and steal her away from our best friend.
“He still plans on telling her how he feels tomorrow. You’re going to have to suck it up and talk to him first before he sees her. Otherwise, it’s going to cause a shitload of problems.”
I touch his shoulder, and he reaches up, grabbing my hand like a lifeline. Sitting down beside him on his bed, I wrap my arm around his shoulders and pull him to me.
“Want to talk about it?”
Jayson wipes wetness from the corner of his eye and smiles. “It was beautiful.”
“Okay, not wanting too many details because the girl is my best friend, and I may decide to punch you again if you made any moves on her. But go ahead.”
Jay tells me that Liz said she loved him back. Regardless of how screwed up the circumstances, she made a choice. I hope Ryder is strong enough to live with it.