17. Jason
17
Jason: I’m picking you up at 7.
Julie: It’s 6:45
Jason: See you in fifteen.
Julie: What if I have plans?
Jason: You don’t.
Julie: This is not a truce. It sounds more like a hostile takeover. Or a kidnapping.
Jason: Wear a swimsuit.
Julie: Jason…
Jason: Trust me Jules.
T en minutes later, something between a groan and a grunt echoes through my car. It’s loud, it’s gut wrenching, and it’s waking up my dick because it’s fueled by an image I’m going to be jerking off to tonight.
She’s looking fucking gorgeous.
Julie walks out wearing shorts that bring out her long legs, a black crop top that’s snug around her upper body, showing me the swell of her perfect breasts.
Oh, I can’t wait to have those babies in my hands again.
She yanks the passenger door open, and instantly I’m greeted by a whiff of vanilla I want to die in. I want to bottle it and put it in my home diffuser. I bet there’d be a permanent smile on my face if that’s the first thing I smell at seven in the morning.
The moan I stifle puts a crack in my chest, but the agony is not enough to wipe the grin off my unshaved face.
There’s a scowl on her pouty lips, her heartbreaker whiskey eyes narrowed.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I wait as she drops her pretty ass in my car, tempted to pull her high ponytail and kiss her senseless like I did when I called a truce.
Which was as smart as it was stupid. I love that we sorta agreed to stop fighting. But did I have to kiss her? It’s all I’ve been thinking about ever since.
“Where are we going?” Julie puts on her seatbelt and neatly folds her hoodie on her lap.
“The beach.”
Terror launches in her widened eyes, complete with a shaky gasp, as if I just confessed I killed her childhood dog. Damn. She’s really terrified of open water.
“Jason.” Her tone is careful, hesitant, but the rigidness in her muscles makes it clear she’s not liking this one bit.
Out of habit, I grab her hand, just like I used to do back at home, and link our fingers.
There’s a little glint of confusion in her fiery embers, but she doesn’t pull away when I let our connection rest on the center console.
“Relax, I’m meeting Jordan at the beach to go surfing. Thought you could hang with us. Like old times?” I shoot her a hopeful expression.
It’s a form of self-torture, I’m aware. But now that we're on speaking terms again, I want to at least get some of what we had back. Whatever it was in the end.
Especially after her drunk babble about my asshole brother. Something tells me she needs to know she’s not alone in this big city of fame and fortune. To know that even though nothing between us is what we’ve always known, I’m still here for her. I can still be that little piece of home away from home.
“Truce, right?” I meet her eyes, and when her lips curl just a teeny tiny bit, my heart bounces like a kid at the carnival.
“Truce.”
“How was your week?” I’m in no hurry to let go of her hand, enjoying her soft skin against mine, so I continue driving one-handed.
“Good.” She relaxes, putting a smile on my face and a fuzzy feeling in my stomach. “Relatively uneventful. Pulled in Thomas Marino for a commercial today.”
“Thomas Marino? San Diego Scorpions Major League Baseball legend?”
She nods, and I squeeze her hand.
“Really? That’s amazing! Bet your dad went ballistic when you told him.”
I still remember her dad trying to buy some signed jersey from eBay, ready to throw down some serious zeros for it. Being the son of a tradesman from San Diego, Mr. Bradford never made it a secret he’s a Scorpions fan through and through.
Julie clears her throat, then untangles her hand from mine before she starts fidgeting with her hoodie. I briefly whip my head to find her eyes, the fire burned out by…guilt?
“I– Uh, I haven’t told him.”
“What? Your dad is, like, his biggest fan.”
She drops her gaze to her lap. “We haven’t talked in a while.”
The discomfort radiating from her entire stance fills the vehicle, pressing on my chest as if it’s replacing the oxygen.
“Jules?”
“It’s nothing.” She shakes her head, but her eyes still grow moist. “He just wasn’t happy when I moved to LA.”
I can only imagine. In fact, I think her dad had half a heart attack, since I was in shock to find her at NVS. “Why did you?” I ask carefully.
She’s good at making any deal. It doesn’t matter if it’s selling or buying a house, working with athletes or brands, hell, she could even become a sports agent, and she’d rock it.
But for as long as I’ve known her, she has always planned to join her father in real estate, and eventually, take over the business.
“I guess I needed a change.”
I don’t think it’s a lie, but I don’t believe she is telling me the full truth either.
“And real estate?”
Her insecure expression quickly turns into something fierce. “I didn’t wanna work with Jacob anymore. Working for another agency didn’t feel right.”
A dozen questions are flying around in my head just by that single comment.
Why didn’t you fire him?
Why is he still there and you’re not?
Did your dad pick him over you?
What does my brother have to do with anything?
What are you not telling me?
I drive into the parking lot for the beach, spotting Jordan standing next to his truck. He’s on his phone, surfboard next to him and ready to go.
“Jules?”
“Hmm?”
I park next to my brother, then put the car in park and turn to face her. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”
Her eyes tell me more than I can make sense of. There’s a spark of gratitude, a dash of wariness, a drop of determination, but I swear, mixed in it she stares back at me as if she’s telling me a story I don’t understand.
What am I missing?
She sighs. “Yeah, I know.”
I don’t believe her, but that's all I can do right now. Let her know I’m here.
Her freshly polished nails, orange to match her hoodie this time, grab the door handle and we both get out.
“Well, if it isn’t my favorite sister-in-law.” Jordan welcomes her with a boyish grin and open arms, holding her close to his body while I pull my board from the top of my car.
“I’m not your sister-in-law anymore,” she murmurs, though it’s still loud enough for me to hear.
“Give it time.” Jordan winks, letting her go, and I roll my eyes at him in reply.
Does my heart do funny things when he says shit like that? Yeah, it does.
But we’ve just established a truce. I’m not stupid enough to go all in right away like last time. Baby steps . We’ve got all the time in the world.
With my board beside me, I take the bottle I had stuffed away in the corner pocket of my trunk, then push the bottom for it to close.
“Here.” Board tucked underneath one arm, I hold out the other to Julie.
“Peachtree?” Her eyebrows move up, her lips glued together to prevent her amusement from slipping through.
It was our go-to drink when we would hang out in high school, mostly dumped by Hunter and Charlotte. We would steal a bottle of Peachtree from her dad’s liquor cabinet, always stocked since her mother always opened her weekend with a tumbler of the fruity liquor and ice, and head to the riverbank to hang out.
We’d go by bicycle, me riding hers and her jumping on the back. We always finished the bottle, and we always crashed into some magnolia trees on our way home at least once.
“So the plan is to get her wasted and take advantage of her again?” Jordan kills the unspoken good memory that I know is going through both our minds right now.
“If I kill him right now, would you testify against me?”
Julie shrugs with a playful smirk. “Tough one.”
“What? I’m wounded.”
Ignoring my brother’s dramatic reaction, she softly takes the bottles from my hand. “Thank you.”
Her smile hits me like a bullet to the heart, elevating my mood. If that’s the smile I get for a bottle of peach liquor, I’m ready to buy her a damn store.
We take our stuff and stroll to the beach, then drop it all on one pile, Julie unfolding a towel a couple of yards from the water and taking a seat.
“Are you heading back to NC for Hunter’s birthday?” Jordan asks, attaching the leash of his board to his ankle.
“I don’t think I’ll be allowed to see his kids again if I don’t.”
“Are you staying with your parents?” I adjust the strap of my leash a bit, then run a hand through my hair when I straighten my spine.
“I’m thinking about staying with Hunter and Charlotte. You know, see a bit more of the kids. I haven’t seen them in a while.”
There it is again.
It’s not a lie. But it’s not completely truthful either. She hasn’t seen Logan and Lizzie in a couple of months, but that’s no excuse to not stay with her parents. They adore her. Or at least, they did.
What changed?
“We should all fly out together,” Jordan suggests, then heads toward the ocean with a running pace. Water sloshes up, his hair dancing in the movement before he throws his board on the water and dives in like he’s shooting an episode of Baywatch.
“You good to hang out here for a while?” I twist to where Julie is sitting cross-legged on my gray towel.
She holds up the bottle. “You made sure of it.”
I nod, then wink. “Save a little for me.”
My feet sink into the sand as I follow behind my brother, at a little less theatrical pace than he chose.
“Can’t make any promises.” She chuckles, exposing her cheeky behavior, and my genuine laugh is something I haven’t heard in a while.
I forgot I was capable of experiencing a full laugh. I don’t give it much attention, instead I exhale in a form of full contentment when the water wraps around my legs.
For the next twenty minutes, I get lost in the waves with a serenity I haven’t felt in a while. The evening sun warms my skin, the ocean giving me perfect wave after wave, the sensation of my muscles being used in a satisfying way calming my mind. But it’s Julie sitting on the beach, watching us, watching me, waiting for me, just being present, that’s creating an eternal bonfire in my heart.
“You guys working it out?” Jordan asks when we’re out in the ocean for the dozenth time, waiting on our boards for the next wave.
Our feet float beside our boards, our hands moving back and forth in the water.
Are we working it out?
“I hope so,” I confess, but there’s still that little bit that keeps nagging at me. “She said something weird the other night when she was drunk. She babbled about some girl being right about Jacob.”
“Being right about what?”
“Him hurting other girls?” I rear my head toward Jordan, meeting his frown.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. But it’s been running through my mind ever since.”
It was no secret Jacob was eating out more times than we probably know of. Being seniors in high school and him in college, he always felt superior to us. As if being a college student gave him the right to fuck other girls whenever he wanted. So why do I have a feeling that’s not the kind of hurt she was talking about?
“You think maybe he wasn’t just cheating on Jules? Maybe had some serious relationships on the side? Living a double life?”
“No clue,” I shrug.
It could very well be the case. Maybe some scornful girl contacted her to talk about him, and that’s what she meant. So, why do I have this loud voice in my head telling me that’s not what she was talking about?
And why did the bastard text her?
I run a hand through my hair, then glance at Jordan. Blue eyes find mine, and a question flashes through them when he senses I have more on my mind.
“He texted her that night. Said to call him in the morning.”
“Jason.”
His disappointment is undeniable. “They broke up.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He’s getting fed up with me. I can’t blame him. I might be driving him mad with my hot and cold, but I trust me, it’s nothing compared to the bullshit ping-ponging in my head.
I know what my heart says, what it feels, and what it knows .
But I also know what my mind heard, what it saw, and how it fucking feels when it all goes to shit.
“Yeah, I do. I know she ain’t lying about that.”
“But?” Jordan presses.
But it’s like I’m walking into a dark cave with no fucking flashlight. It’s nerve-racking, and it really sounds like a stupid idea, but my curiosity is also bigger than my sensible mind.
“I don’t know, man. I do.” I nod, then groan. “Mostly. But I feel like there’s a lot she’s not telling me.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.” I stare at the pretty blonde sipping Peachtree on the beach.
Sometimes I wish I could turn back time and snatch her away from Jacob the first chance I got. But mostly, I just want everything to go back to normal. When I didn’t have to second guess if she was speaking the truth or not. I just knew.
“Do you trust her?” Jordan's question is simple, but the answer is anything but.
I think I do. I want to. But how can I really trust her when I know she’s not completely honest? How can I fully trust her when, deep down, I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop?