23. Chapter 22
J ulia’s sisters laughed around her, their voices fading to a buzzing drone. They all seemed happy tonight. Content and excited and secure. It was a good thing since she couldn’t pay attention at all.
The past week, she’d drifted on autopilot. She didn’t know what to do about Jinx’s confession. Was she supposed to do anything? He knew where she stood. He’d always known.
She’d texted him the next day to make sure he was okay, because they were friends. They’d always be friends.
He’d responded like normal. They’d texted back and forth a few times this week, and nothing had seemed any different. Because nothing was different, not really. Was it?
She had no idea. No one besides her family had ever told her they loved her before. Was this what was supposed to happen when someone said it? Was her focus supposed to be splintered, as if the confession had to take up a certain amount of allotted space in her mind?
“Jules?” Heather asked.
She looked up from the broccoli stem she’d been poking at on her plate. Her sisters were staring at her as if waiting for her to say something.
Since there was only one thing on her mind, she blurted out, “Jinx told me he’s in love with me.”
Rachel blinked, her hand pausing with her wineglass halfway to her mouth. Heather’s mouth opened, but no words came out. Even Maria seemed lost for what to say.
“Is it really that surprising?” Julia asked, her irritation flaring like it had all week. She wasn’t irritated at her sisters. No, she was irritated at herself. Jinx had assumed she’d known all along, and she kept expecting a part of her to have known, but it still felt foreign and strange.
“That his love confession is your something good? Yes, that’s pretty damn surprising!” Rachel said, draining her glass.
“What?” It was Julia’s turn to blink. “We were doing the something goods?” That’s what she got for not paying attention.
Maria grinned, practically bouncing. “I think it’s wonderful! Love is always a good thing.”
“You’re such a sap,” Rachel muttered. “I feel sorry for him. Jules probably stomped all over his poor, fragile heart.”
“Please tell us you let him down easy?” Heather asked, her brow creased in concern. “He’s such a sweetheart, and he’s been holding that torch for you for a long time.”
Julia flushed. “So I should have known?”
Her sisters stared at her. “You… didn’t?” Maria asked.
“Of course not!” Julia flushed as she remembered what she’d done with him in her apartment, more than once. “Do you really think I would have had sex with him if I’d known he was in love with me?” Saying it out loud made her stomach swirl like it’d been doing all week.
Heather winced.
Rachel gripped her empty glass. “Wait. You had sex with him? Did we know this?” Her eyes shifted around the room.
Maria’s eyes were huge. “I didn’t,” she murmured. “I thought they were hanging out as friends.”
“Friends with benefits,” Heather said. Their other sisters turned toward her, but she was looking at Julia. “You seemed so happy about it when you brought it up at our parents’ house. He seemed happy, too, and I figured it would be a one-time thing, like you always do.”
Julia squirmed. “It might have been… more than once.”
“Well, well.” Heather’s eyebrows lifted.
Maria’s face softened. She was going to her own utopian universe again. “Does that mean you like him?”
“It’s Jinx. Of course, I like him.” Julia blew out an annoyed breath. “But if you mean like like him, then no. I don’t do that.”
“ Like like? I’ve never seen you beat around the bush like this before.” Rachel’s eyes narrowed.
She shifted in her seat. “I was clear with him about what it was. I figured as long as we were both honest and straightforward, it’d work out in the end. And he… well, he needed this. At least, I thought he did.” Her head lowered to the table. Dread curled inside her. “I made a mess, didn’t I?”
“Is he upset?” Maria asked, her voice tentative.
Was he? He’d still been texting her back all week, and he’d told her it was okay. But he’d had that look, that kicked puppy look. “I’m not sure.”
“He knows you pretty well, right?” Heather asked. “And you were clear about what the sex was?”
Julia lifted her head to glare at her sister. “I’d never lie to him.”
“What you think is obvious when it comes to jumping into bed with someone might not match his expectations.” Rachel raised her hands when Julia’s glare shifted to her. “I’m not judging. I’m just assuming your experience levels are different.”
“We talked things through.” Julia didn’t feel defensive about that part of it at all.
She’d been very clear. Of course, she’d also promised to only be with him once.
But then there had been the lead up to it, and after the actual sex there’d been the blow job.
She’d even been the one to wake him up last weekend so they could have sex again.
If she were honest with herself, she still wanted to have sex with him. She crossed her legs, feeling a definite twinge of interest.
“If you were clear in communicating your truth, then his feelings aren’t your problem,” Rachel said with a shrug.
Julia stared at her.
Rachel stared right back. “Isn’t that what you said to me when I finally admitted to no longer being in love with my husband?”
Julia couldn’t deny it. She frowned, dropping her gaze to the table. “This is different.”
“How?” Rachel pushed.
“I—” She swallowed, her head throbbing as she tried to find a way to explain. “I don’t want to lose Jinx.” That was the biggest truth. “I just got him back, and I like spending time with him.”
“Just as a friend?” Maria asked.
Julia couldn’t imagine anything else. She wasn’t the romantic type.
“How was the sex?” Heather asked, rising from the table to grab the wine bottle from the counter.
Julia flushed. “It was good.”
“If you went back for seconds, it was better than good, wasn’t it?” Heather poured herself another glass.
Julia had been thinking about it. A lot. Dreaming about the sounds he made, too. “I enjoyed it. He did, too.”
Rachel accepted the wine bottle from their sister. “Would you want to keep doing it?”
Julia pressed her thighs together again. “Yeah,” she admitted, her heartbeat louder than her voice. “I mean, if I was sure it wouldn’t hurt him, yes, I’d want to keep doing it.”
Maria sat up straighter in her seat, waving away the offer of wine. “It sounds like you like like him to me.”
Julia stared back at her. There was something about the wide smile on her sister’s face that made her antsy. “I like him as a friend.”
“A friend you want to continue banging, enjoy hanging out with, and think about all the time, right?” Maria asked.
Rachel snorted. “Oh, yeah. She totally likes him.”
Julia’s heart continued to thud too hard. “I told you. I don’t feel that way about people. It’s always just casual.”
“You mean you didn’t feel that way and it always used to be casual.” Rachel looked annoyingly smug. She took another sip of wine. “Face it, Jules. You like your first boy.”
She felt way too warm under her sisters’ gazes. “I’m not in love with him.”
Maria’s smile fell a little.
Rachel rolled her eyes. “You didn’t even realize you liked him a second ago. Would you really know?” Her smug expression faded, too. “I lied to myself about how I felt about my husband for years. Why can’t you be oblivious, too, even if it’s in the opposite way?”
Julia pressed a hand to her chest, hating the way it had begun to ache. “I feel like I would know.”
“Well, what did you say to him when he told you he loved you?” Heather asked, twirling the stem of her wineglass.
“That I wasn’t sure what to say.” Julia still didn’t know what the right reaction would have been.
Rachel paused with her wineglass halfway to her lips again. “You didn’t bluntly tell him you weren’t in love with him?”
Confusion swirled inside her. “I thought he already knew. Are you saying I led him on?” She hated that idea. Her sisters were already voicing denials, but she wasn’t reassured. Hurting Jinx was the last thing she wanted to do. He should never be hurt. He deserved all the best things in the world.
Which didn’t include her, not when she would stomp all over his heart. “Oh God, I’m really going to hurt him, aren’t I?” Her hands covered her face as panic filtered in. She’d only wanted to help him.
“Why do you say that?” Heather asked.
Rachel let out a loud sigh. “Have you ever worried about hurting anyone before? You’ve turned down a lot of your one-night stands wanting more, haven’t you? I remember that one guy who you said clung to you and cried. You didn’t feel bad about that.”
Julia let her hands drop. “I felt a little bad.” She hadn’t realized she’d been his first, and his confession of love had surprised her.
She’d tried to be careful and clear but had awkwardly patted his shoulder while he cried.
That was before the night when she’d comforted Jinx after the party.
It was part of why she’d worried she’d messed it all up.
She’d never been good at navigating emotions.
“And would you feel just a little bad about Jinx?” Maria asked. She scooted her chair closer, rubbing her hand along Julia’s back.
Julia let out a breath. “Not a little.” Being the one to make him cry would gouge a hole in her gut that could never be filled. “I hate this. I didn’t want to hurt him.”
“Because you care about him.” Maria continued her slow rubbing.
“You care about his feelings over your own, you want to be around him, and sex with him is good enough that you broke your own rules.” She smiled again, though it wasn’t as bright as she usually did.
“Honestly? I think he is your something good again this week.”
“We’re not allowed to use the same thing two months in a row,” Julia mumbled.
“I think she should date him for real,” Rachel said.
Julia stared at her.
“What? Would it be so terrible to date someone who you’ve admitted you like?”
“I don’t date,” Julia said, but her tone sounded weak to her own ears.
“You’re acting like you can’t, though. You haven’t wanted to in the past. If you want to now, who says you can’t?” Rachel’s eyebrow rose. “That’s what you all said to me when I was stalling last month.”
Julia’s head spun even more than before, but there was also a fluttering in her stomach. “Do I want to, though?”
Maria squeezed her shoulder before pulling her hand away. “Only you can answer that.”
Heather lifted her glass in a toast. “To Julia’s something good.”
Rachel was the only other one drinking, and they laughed as they clicked their glasses together.
Jinx was something good, for sure. Whether he was Julia’s, she still wasn’t certain, but she needed to figure it out soon. Before she really did break his heart.