Chapter 15
Bridger
Dad was flashing bright on my phone screen, and like always, I felt my heart start to race as I answered and pressed the phone to my ear.
I had been doing something I shouldn’t have been doing just seconds earlier: looking at that damn bracelet from Juliette again.
All I had done was brush my fingers against it when my phone started ringing.
Maybe that was a sign to just leave it the fuck alone.
“Oh, that felt like one second,” my dad’s warm voice said on the other line. “Was that a new record?”
“I’ll hang up right now,” I joked.
“Don’t be a baby. Me and your mother have been wondering where you’ve been.”
I sighed deeply, eyeing the clock on my living room wall. Chase was supposed to be coming over soon. “Sorry I haven’t called you guys in a while. Just been kinda busy.”
“You and that parlor. We can’t keep you outta there.”
“You know how it is. It gets crazy down here.”
“When are you coming over to visit?”
“When are you guys coming over? Don’t you wanna be in the streets of Chicago again?”
“I miss the city sometimes, but the country life is what I really prefer. You know that. It’s good for me and your mom. I think it’d be good for you too. You know, to have a break from all that work, even if it’s only for a little while.”
I wasn’t entirely opposed to moving, but the more time I got to spend in Chicago, the more chances there were to earn all that money that would go to him and Mom.
Not that he knew that. And as of late, there had been a certain someone who had a hold on me that was a little too strong.
So strong it had me wanting to stay in the city forever as long as she was there.
“Come on down for a week or two,” he said. “Me and your mom both miss you. You can hop in my old chair and we can race around the porch.”
I snorted. “Mom will kill the both of us.”
“Not you. You’re still her sweet, little angel.”
My brows rose. If only either of them knew what I was up to since they had left for North Carolina. “Your twenty-three-year-old little angel.”
“In your mother’s head, that’s exactly how she sees you.”
“Is she home?”
“She’s asleep on the couch. We were watching a movie. That woman pushes herself too hard…”
Which was why I needed to make sure her and Dad had as much money as possible. I didn’t want them to ever have to stress about anything or anyone again. Life was already hard enough. “Sounds like you guys had a long day,” I said.
“Yeah, we went into town for my physio appointment, and then we went for a walk around the park and got some groceries. She deserves a nice, long rest.”
I let out a long breath. “Yeah, she does.”
The sound of knocking hit my ears and I eyed the clock again.
Chase was early. Getting up, I moved over to the door and swung it open without checking to see who it was, but that was a dumb move, because there stood Juliette.
She looked as beautiful as ever with her brown hair cascading down her shoulders and her big eyes on mine, and God fucking dammit, I felt my heart leap right out of my chest the second I got sight of her.
“Uh, Dad?” I said, and I could have sworn I saw Juliette’s eyes widen that tiny bit.
“Yes?” he said.
“I gotta go. I have a visitor.”
“Is it a girl?”
“Yeah,” I said, my eyes fused to Juliette’s face.
“You got a girlfriend you’re not telling us about?”
I hummed. “Not quite.”
“What’s she like? Is she nice?”
“Kinda.”
“Is she pretty?”
“Extremely.”
“I’m sure your mother would love to meet her.”
I grinned at that. Mom hated Juliette with her whole heart. It didn’t used to be like that, but after prison? After that letter? After everything? Juliette had become public enemy number one. “Oh, I’m sure they’d have a lovely conversation.”
“Well, I’ll leave ya to it. Goodnight, son.”
“’Night.” I ended the call, my eyes still on Juliette. “You after something?”
“Was… Was that your dad?” she asked, voice all small as her fingers fidgeted together.
I nodded. “Yup. The one and only.”
“How is he?”
“Do you care?”
“Of course I do,” she said with narrowed eyes. “You know I do.”
“It’s funny, ‘cause he hates you now. I should have given you the phone. He woulda yelled at you.”
Her tongue clicked. “That’s hilarious.”
“Is there a reason you’re showing up at my place?”
“I have another complaint.”
“What’d I do this time?”
She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she brushed past me and entered my apartment, looking as out of place as she ever had. The dark walls of my apartment surrounded her as she stood there in her boring beige dress that probably cost more than my rent for the month.
“Once again, you know exactly what you did,” she said.
Clearing my throat, I shut the door behind me before I eyed her up and down.
Why’d she always have to look so pretty?
Even in that boring fucking dress she still looked good.
She smelled good too. That sweet, expensive perfume; the same one she used back when we were together.
Flowery, soft, addictive. At least some things about her hadn’t changed.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“You keep surprising me. I thought it’d be fun to do the same thing to you,” she said, arms crossed over her chest as she leaned against the back of the couch. “Not so fun, is it?”
“Do you see me complaining?”
“You don’t mind living right above where you work?”
“Not really.” I shrugged. “It takes me a minute to get downstairs and back up here. Makes for a short journey.”
“I still don’t get why you own a tattoo parlor.”
“I told you: all that cash would look suspicious otherwise.”
“So, do you do the tattoos?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at me. “Because from what I remember, the only thing you could draw were stick figures.”
I laughed lowly, hands pushed into my pockets. “No. I just handle all the business shit, the behind-the-scenes stuff. You were always the artistic one. At least you used to be.”
Nodding, her eyes landed on the floor. “Why’d you send that stuff?”
“What stuff?”
“You know what stuff.”
“You’re gonna have to be more specific.”
“Did you do it to make me happy or to make me angry?”
“Why would that make you angry?”
“You know…” One heeled foot tapped against my cheap carpet. “You know I haven’t painted in years.”
“Is he angry?” I asked.
Her head shook, her hazel eyes finally meeting mine. “He doesn’t know. I hid everything from him and set it all up upstairs.”
“Ah. Grandpa can’t get up the stairs at the moment, right?”
Her pretty, pouty lips twitched for a millisecond. “No, he can’t.”
“Guess you can get back to doing what you like.”
“He’s going to heal soon…”
My head tilted. “Is that you asking me to hurt him again?”
That time, she didn’t hold in her laugh.
It fell right from her lips, the sound making my heart rate pick up.
It had been a long ass time since I had heard that noise.
That sweet, airy laugh. The sound I always tried to get her to make when we were together back then, and it was always enough to turn a shitty day into a good one.
But that sound disappeared just as quickly as it showed up, her lips pressing together tightly to keep that noise hidden from me. She didn’t want me to hear it. Probably thought I didn’t deserve to.
“No,” she said. “It just means I’ll only have a few weeks to paint, because once he gets better and goes up those stairs…”
I nodded slowly. “You’ll have to stop again. Don’t you think it’s dumb that you had to stop at all?”
Her eyes closed. “Maybe you were trying to prove a point. Maybe you thought I’d throw it all out and get angry.”
“Did you?”
Still not looking at me, her head shook. “No. I painted something yesterday. Just some dumb, little thing. It’s nothing special.”
“It’s special if you did it,” I said before I could take the words back.
Eyes snapping open, her cheeks went pink.
I had really missed making her blush. It felt like my cue to move over to her, and I was feeling the pull, anyway.
She was drawing me in just like she always did.
I was her target whether she knew it or not, and she always fucking got me.
I was walking so slowly that there was more than enough time for her to move, for her to shuffle to the side, but she stayed still, leaning against the couch.
“It’s been so long,” she said with a humorless laugh. “It felt weird doing it. Like I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing.”
“You used to do a lot of stuff you weren’t supposed to do,” I drawled. “I remember. I remember everything, Juliette. Do you?”
Her lashes fluttered. “Of course I do,” she whispered.
“It’s kind of hard to forget, isn’t it?” I asked. “All of that…”
“It’s not the kind of thing you forget. What we had… First love,” she said before shaking her head wildly. “I don’t get why you’d do something so nice after you did what you did.”
I moved closer to her, so that there was only a tiny bit of space between our bodies. Just a few inches—if that. She still didn’t slink away from me, though. “And what did I do?”
“You know what you did,” she said, and I noticed the annoyance there in her tone instantly.
That soft, light, airy sound to her pretty voice had faded away the second she brought that up.
When that thought got into her head, she really did act like she hated me.
“It makes no sense you’d do something so sweet when you did something so awful to me. ”
“Exactly.” I nodded once. “Makes no sense.”