Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
JULIETTE
Blaire doesn’t even let me set down my purse before she demands, “Start from the beginning and don’t leave anything out.”
“I just got here. Let me at least—” I stop when I get a look at her face. My best friend is not playing around; she wants the details, and she wants them now. Two wine glasses in her hands, one of them extended to me.
I take it. Saunter to her living room with her hot on my trail.
“You are going to be the death of me, I swear to God,” she grumbles, falling on the couch next to me, knees tucked under her, eyes bright and predatory.
“From the top, please. You texted me that you were outside his building and ‘rethinking your life choices’ and almost changed your mind. Then what happened?”
I have told her this story ten times already, but we haven’t been together in person.
I sigh dramatically and take a long sip of wine. “To summarize—this sex may be worth getting fired over.”
Blaire slaps the back of the couch. “I knew it. I freaking knew it!”
I roll my eyes. She has no idea the internal battle I’ve been dealing with because I slept with a player.
“Do not joke about that,” she says, though she’s grinning from ear to ear. “You are not losing your job over good sex. No man is worth it!”
She raises her glass and we toast, glasses clinking together.
“Amen!” I say. “But I mean…”
“No, Juliette, knock it off.” She laughs. “I’m serious. He’s your Hall Pass, not the father of your future children.”
My jaw drops, mouth gaping. “You literally have daydreams about me becoming a WAG and living the life of luxury.”
“No! I have dreams of me becoming a WAG and living the life of luxury! Stop confusing the two.” She points the wine glass accusingly in my direction, and I watch as the liquid sloshes inside. “I would thrive in luxury. I was born for soft lighting and private drivers.”
I roll my eyes as I take another sip. “You get carsick in Ubers.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Calm down. I am not trying to become a WAG,” I insist. “I am trying to not get fired.”
“And you won’t,” she says, waving her hand dismissively. “You slept with one guy. You didn’t embezzle money. Good lord, stop being so dramatic.”
“I fraternized.”
“You had adult consensual fun, and you can’t take it back, you got good and fucked. Now, you have to live with it.”
“With a player.”
She leans closer, lowering her voice. “You say that like you committed treason.”
“It feels like treason.”
“To who? HR?”
“Yes! And my brother. What would he say?”
“Oh my god, your brother. Who cares what he thinks?”
“I do.” I care.
“Jules, name one time that douche has ever been there for you.”
She’s being harsh, and I press my lips together, staring down into my wine. “I think you’re forgetting the time I dated Bruno Rusthaven. Our sophomore year in college?”
How could she forget? Bruno was on the hockey team and a junior; and when he’d asked me to a hockey party during hell week, I couldn’t freaking believe it. He was a popular enforcer I’d had a crush on, with scars on his face and a few missing teeth, not that it mattered.
I was used to guys with gaps where teeth should be.
Blaire had done my make-up and my hair, and we’d gone together. But when we’d arrived at the party, not only did Bruno have his arm around someone else, he asked me to join them in an upstairs bedroom. I’d been so embarrassed because I had genuinely thought…
Well.
Never mind what I thought.
Somehow Declan found out—and when his university played ours, my brother had leveled Bruno during the game, knocking him on his ass, and told him never to text me again.
He has always had my back in his own way.
“Bruno Rusthaven was a dick,” Blaire declares, tipping her head back against the couch cushion. “And you are a grown woman. You do not need your brother’s permission—or his savior complex—to have a relationship.”
“It’s not a relationship.”
She shakes her head. “Whatever—semantics, you get my point. Declan does not get a say. I mean, have you seen some of the women he dates? Not a single one he can take home to your mother. Not a single one you’ve met!”
I can’t help it. I laugh.
But Blaire wouldn’t understand, because Blaire is an only child—and, she doesn’t trust him, doesn’t respect his opinion, and has called him shady on more than one occasion. She’s also been calling my brother a slimeball since college, and she has never once softened on that stance.
“Don’t you dare defend him. He doesn’t get to decide who you sleep with—Declan doesn’t own you. Your job doesn’t own you. You are allowed to have a life.”
“I know that, Blaire,” I insist quickly. “I don’t want this to turn into a thing.”
“Too late. It already is a ‘thing’.” She uses air quotes around the word.
I give my head a shake. “It’s not.”
“You had lots and lots of sexy sex with one of his teammates—I’d say that constitutes a thing. Or a fling.”
“Okay,” I concede. “It makes it a small thing.”
“A medium thing,” she corrects.
“Fine.” I pull a face. “A medium thing.”
She laughs. “Why are you spiraling?”
“Because it’s messy.”
“Messy how?”
“Because. If my brother finds out, he’ll assume the worst. He’ll assume I’m being na?ve. Or need saving.”
“And are you any of those things?”
I hesitate. “No.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
I sink back into the couch, staring at the ceiling.
“The problem is that I liked it,” I admit quietly. “Not just physically. I like being with him.”
She reaches for the bottle and tops off both our glasses like we’re commemorating something historic. “Say all this again, but slower.”
“I don’t want it to be complicated.” I laugh.
“Too late!”
And then—
My stomach growls.
Loudly.
Blaire freezes mid-sip. “… Was that you?”
“I don’t know, maybe it was the couch?”
It growls again.
She bursts out laughing. “You are starving.”
“I forgot to eat.”
“You forgot to eat because you were too busy daydreaming about lover boy and his giant dic—”
“Finish that sentence and I’m leaving,” I warn.
She cackles. “You can’t leave. You’re weak from hunger and poor decision-making.”
“I came straight here from work,” I defend. “I assumed you’d have food.”
Blaire giggles. “See, that’s where you’re wrong. What do I look like, a planner? Someone who grocery shops on a regular basis?” More laughing. “See! I was meant for the WAG life!”
She gestures broadly toward her kitchen.
It is, in fact, probably barren.
“You think WAGs don’t grocery shop?”
“They do not,” she says with authority. “They have assistants. They have fruit pre-sliced for them.”
We laugh again and drink from our glasses, giddy giggles slipping from our lips at the absurdity of the conversation.
“You know what this is?” she says, pointing at me with the neck of the wine bottle. “This is proof. You need a man who texts you about dinner. And I need a man who texts me about dinner reservations.”
She’s tipsy—but so am I.
“I did not forget to eat. I thought you were going to feed me because you’re a normal person with food in their fridge.”
She opens her mouth to respond—
And my phone starts ringing.
Not vibrating.
Ringing.
We both freeze.
Slowly, like we’re in a horror movie, our heads turn toward the coffee table.
My phone screen lights up.
Blaire squints at it, eyes widening to cartoon proportions.
“Oh my god,” she whispers.
I don’t move. “Is it him?”
“Yes!”
“How do you know?” I ask, panicked, flapping my arms helplessly.
He and I spoke already this afternoon but that was then and this is now, and the last thing I was expecting was for him to follow up.
“Because it says AARON BISHOP on the screen,” she hisses, smacking my arm. “Why is he calling you?”
“I don’t know!”
“Is this a booty call?”
“I don’t know, Blaire!”
She plucks my phone off the coffee table and chucks it at me. “Answer it!”
“I can’t answer it like this!”
“Like what?”
“Like—wine-drunk!”
“Dear god, you are not drunk, you’ve had half a glass.”
“That’s enough!”
“I swear to God if you let it go to voicemail—” Blaire hisses.
“I’m answering! Stop bossing me around.”
“Put it on speaker!”
“I am not putting it on speaker.”
“You owe me!”
I panic.
I swipe to answer and immediately stand, pacing at the other side of the small living room as if the distance will make me sound sober, and prevent Blaire from eavesdropping and taking over the conversation.
“Um, hello? This is Juliette.”
Behind me, I feel Blaire rolling her eyes theatrically toward the ceiling and groan.
I swat the air in her direction. BE QUIET!
“Did I catch you at a bad time?” Aaron’s deep timbre asks. Completely unaware that my best friend is about to hyperventilate, already exhausted by what a loser I am.
“A bad time? No!” I say too loudly. “This is a great time, actually. Totally great.”
Blaire slaps her own forehead.
“I’m still at Blaire’s. We were, um, arguing about dinner plans.”
“Ah. So, the two of you are planning on eating somewhere?”
“Planning on eating somewhere?” I parrot him, stupidly. “We were about to have dinner, but…” I glance at my best friend, who is flapping her arms up and down, the universal signal for NO! ABORT. STOP SAYING WORDS.
I turn back toward the window so she can’t interfere with her angry faces.
“We were discussing options,” I say diplomatically.
“I don’t want to interrupt your plans,” he adds casually.
“You weren’t. There is no food here.”
A small pause.
“If you don’t have plans,” he says tentatively, “I was going to cook.”
“Cook?” I repeat.
“Yeah. Nothing fancy,” he says quickly. “I’m exhausted. Long day. I was going to throw something together and figured I’d ask before I did.”
My heart does a slow, stupid somersault.
“You cook?” I ask, because apparently that’s what my brain decided was important.
“Don’t sound so shocked.”
“I’m not shocked.” It’s one more unexpected layer to him.
“I’m sweaty and tired and probably not great company,” he adds. “But if you don’t have plans, I wouldn’t mind seeing your sweet face.”
My sweet face.
I turn away from Blaire completely because I cannot survive her reaction and this conversation simultaneously as she begins whisper-hissing, “What’s he saying? Jules—what’s he saying?”