Chapter 17
Lucy
“…no fucking way. No fucking way. No way, Lucy, are you fucking serious?”
Julian is trying to be quiet, but that doesn’t stop his hisses of disbelief from traveling through the restaurant, turning heads from the tables around us.
It’s a bird-themed brunch spot. When Aunt Ruby informed me—after dragging me out of bed at an ungodly early time this morning—that we would be getting drinks with Julian, I thought it would be another fancy place, like when we went for Korean food.
But this place is more than casual—there’s a massive donut-shaped black-top grill in the middle, where the cooks are flipping bacon, sausage, and ham.
A part of the grill is full of hash browns, which they top with hot, melted cheese, green chilies, and bacon.
Another portion of the grill is dedicated wholly to eggs—fried, scrambled, and sunny-side up.
The air hangs with the thick, hearty smell of breakfast, but I’m not hungry.
Around us, the walls are peeling and clearly old, the floor scuffed, and all the plates and bowls are mismatched, like they walked into a thrift store and just bought everything they had on hand.
Aunt Ruby’s mimosa is in a sparkling, delicate glass of fine crystal.
Julian drinks his iced Irish coffee from a sippy cup without the lid.
And I got a coffee—without the Bailey’s—because at the time Aunt Ruby dragged me out of bed this morning, I’d only managed a few hours of sleep. It didn’t help that it took me forever to fall asleep, looping through thoughts of what I did with Cole.
Kissing Cole—the first thing out of my mouth after the server left with our food order. Julian took three seconds to recover before gripping the edge of the table like the news was going to physically blow him away.
“Yes, I’m serious,” I choke out in answer, face hot as I look between the two of them, waiting for their reactions. Their judgment.
“I’ve never been so jealous of someone in my entire life,” Julian whispers violently, before leaning back and taking a slug of his drink with an urgency that tells me he needs it, and he’s going to order another.
Aunt Ruby turns her mimosa carefully on the table, disrupting the perfect ring of water it left on the wood.
“You have a look on your face,” I say to her, expecting some version of what she did when I told her about the first time—the time with Dane. “What does it mean?”
“It’s also jealousy,” Julian mutters, before finishing off his drink. “You should try to kiss Nico, too. You’d be the only person on this planet who could accurately tell us which of them is the best kisser. You could write a book about it, make millions, go on 60 Minutes.”
If it’s possible, I flush even harder at the thought of kissing Nico, too.
And, weirdly, I want to tell Julian that there’s no better or worse.
There’s just… different. Kissing Dane feels like jumping off the high dive, letting gravity take over as you plummet toward the water.
Kissing Cole felt like kicking up to the surface again, gasping in that first, precious breath of air and pushing the sopping hair from your face.
And maybe kissing Nico would be climbing the ladder, water cascading from your body, making you feel like a movie star or a model.
Or, maybe that comparison doesn’t make any sense. Maybe Julian wouldn’t get it at all.
“No,” Aunt Ruby says, slowly, still turning her cup.
Taking a breath, she pushes her hair away from her face, making her feathered earrings swing widely, and meets my eyes.
It’s not judgment in her expression, but worry.
“As much as I want you to have fun, dear, it’s just that…
I don’t really trust men all too much. They have a tendency to be territorial.
Like dogs. And I don’t want you to get caught up in something like that. ”
“Do you think Dane is going to be… mad?” I ask, voice quiet.
It makes me feel like a little kid asking like this, but I’m dying to know.
Each time I think about him finding out, I think I should feel guilt or dread, but instead, all I feel is a strange sort of…
exhilaration. Like I want him to know that I kissed his best friend, shortly after entering into a sex agreement with him.
Sex agreement? Intimacy deal? Intercourse instruction?
Whatever it was, we never specified that we would be exclusive. Still, I get the sense that Dane wouldn’t be happy about sharing.
“I just think you should tread carefully,” Aunt Ruby says, eying me with a gentle grace.
When Julian first told me she was taking people under her wing, it surprised me. Since moving in with her, I’d found her to be eclectic and chaotic, all motion and movement. Forgetful and fanciful, she’d twirl through the apartment like a whirlwind, then not clean up the clutter for days.
But this—the way she’s looking at me right now—it’s like she’s responsible for my well-being and trying to determine just how much to let me get away with.
Like a parent watching their child on a bike for the first time, trying to figure out when to steady them and when to let them fall on their own.
“I wish they would tread on me,” Julian says, wistfully looking at his empty cup. Glancing over at me, he says, “And, seriously… kissing Nico would be the easiest of all. Just put on a tight dress and hang out at the country club. Then you’ll have the information we need.”
“I’m not that kind of girl,” I say, the words popping out of my mouth like I’m a toy with a drawstring in my back. I didn’t even really mean to say them, and Julian gives me an appropriately withering glare.
“What kind of girl is that?” he asks, rolling his eyes. “A girl who likes to kiss handsome men? Have some fun while she’s young?”
I bite my tongue as Frankie comes to mind, taking my hand in hers and insisting we make the most of the time we had left.
Well—the time she had left.
“…you can always get married and have babies later, right?” Julian is saying, waving his hand like there’s a fly buzzing around. “So, why not have a good time now?”
“You’re right,” I relent, shoulders relaxing. Aunt Ruby opens her mouth, like she’s going to say something, but the server arrives with our food.
“Yes! Over here—thank you,” Julian says, accepting his omelet, and just like that, the conversation moves on to the breakfast, to the person who owns the place, to Aunt Ruby’s—of course—personal connection here.
Even as the conversation moves along, and even as I groan at the impossibly amazing flavor of the wild berry pancakes in front of me, I can’t keep the thought of Cole out of my head, or the taste of him from lingering in the back of my throat.