Chapter 28
Julian
Present Day
“Where’d you go?” Ever’s question pulls me out of my flashback.
“I . . . I guess seeing my place through someone else’s eyes for the first time took me back to when I first moved in.
Allie gave me room and board to fix the place up.
It took about a year to get it just the way I wanted it.
The project and this place kinda saved me, I guess.
Gave me a new lease on life, a new path.
But . . .” I give an involuntary shiver.
“Enough of my memory lane. Tell me something I don’t know about you, your life. ”
She considers me for a few seconds.
I hold my breath hoping she’ll play along and we can stop talking about my past.
“Sylvie cornered me in the gym and told me to stay away from you. And I know that’s why you wanted to come here instead of staying at the coffee shop. I saw her car.”
I bark a short laugh. “You aren’t afraid to just say the truth, are you?”
“I mean, it seems to me it’s the shortest route to getting to the point of a thing.”
“Tell the truth. You’re a reincarnated thirty-year-old, aren’t you?”
“If I were concerned about aging, I think I’d be insulted right now. But in case you’re serious, I’m really eighteen. I probably sound older because I read a lot.”
I feel my grin in my cheeks. Shaking my head and chuckling, I subconsciously rub the tattoo on my chest. This enchanting being is seeping into my skin, my bones. Easing the ache. And for the first time in three years, I welcome it. “And what are you currently reading?”
I watch her forehead crease. Maybe because I don’t address the Sylvie topic, although it wasn’t unintentional. I’m just insatiably curious about her. I want to know everything.
“I’m in between books right now.”
“Why is that troubling?” If her frown isn’t about books, as I suspect it’s not, now is her chance to say it.
“Troubling?”
“Yeah, you’re frowning like it bothers you not having an answer to that question.” I leave the door wide open for her to bring up Sylvie again. She doesn’t.
“Oh, it’s just weird not to have a book to read. For me, anyway. I DNF’d the last book I started. It wasn’t doing it for me. I’ve been writing more instead of reading. But I may reread an old favorite until I find a new one that gets me out of my slump.”
“Hmm, okay.” A slump? As in a reading slump? “So, what’s DNF?”
I’ll never tire of watching the flush bloom on her cheeks. “Oh, Did Not Finish. It’s a bookish term for—”
“Not finishing a book?” I say, cutting her off, winking.
“Yeah.” She smiles shyly.
“And you write, too?” She intrigues me so much. “What do you write? Stories, or . . . ?”
“Someday, hopefully. But I mostly journal, maybe some poetry, but honestly, I haven’t written poems in a long time. Kinda lost my passion for it.”
“I think I’d love to read some of those.”
“You read? Sorry. That sounded rude. I meant, do you like to read? I’ve just never seen you with a book, so I didn’t think . . . I just . . . wow. Sorry, Julian. I sounded like a snob just now.”
“Ever, you’re good. I’m not offended.” I want to laugh because she looks like someone just kicked her puppy.
I don’t think I even know another guy who would be offended by this.
But I want to let her off the hook, so I say, “I really didn’t love reading most of my life.
I started really enjoying it about three years ago.
I, uh, I got into a bad accident and spent some down time recovering.
Reading was a great way to kill time while lying around, and it distracted me from the pain.
” I don’t elaborate that the pain I’m referring to had nothing to do with my injuries.
“What was the first book you read three years ago?”
“Ah, promise not to laugh?”
“I don’t lie so I can’t make that promise. What was it?”
She had a perfect, enchanting response for everything. I rub my chest again as I answer.
“Catcher in the Rye.”
She looks surprised. Probably because most people read that in high school.
I quickly follow it up to fill the silence and try not to be offended. “What is your go-to favorite book?”
She pulls her chin back up, closing her slightly agape mouth at my answer, her forehead creasing again as she considers the question. “Pride and Prejudice?”
“Why did that sound like a question? Because that’s the book a respectable book girl like you should call her favorite?” I raise one eyebrow in challenge. Before she can answer, I add, “What’s your real favorite?”
“So . . . Sylvie—”
“Nooo, first tell me your book. Then we can talk about Sylvie.”
“It’s called Paradise. It’s by a popular romance author of the eighties, weirdly enough. I found it at a secondhand bookstore and bought it for the title alone. But I love it.”
“It’s a good title.” I pause and raise my hands out at my side, purse my lips together and tilt my head to the side as if to say, I guess it’s time to do this.
I bring my hands back together lacing my fingers and rest my elbows on my parted legs.
“Sylvie and I . . . had a thing.” I feel the embarrassment like a weight around my neck.
I want to be better for this girl. I want her to think I’m better than I am.
The weight settles in that empty spot in my chest. “Just physical and only a few times. I thought it was mutual. And I think it was at first. When it got weird, I ended it.” I pause in case she wants to say something.
She doesn’t, so I add, “I’m sorry she came at you.
I wish you’d told me when it happened. I promise I’ll be talking to her about that.
It won’t happen again.” I say all this looking Ever squarely in the eyes, so she knows I mean every word.
“I just don’t want to cause any problems. For you. Or Allie. And I really don’t want to cause any problems for me. I don’t have any other towns to run away to.” She adds the last part with a half smile and a shrug.
“You’re not causing anyone problems. This isn’t on you. This is the fallout of my poor decisions. This is what happens when guys think with their . . . when they don’t think.”
She purses her lips together in a straight-lined smile but says nothing. Her eyes say it all.
“Don’t give up on me, Ever. I’m going to fix this.
” I reach across the little table and clasp my hand around hers, never breaking eye contact.
“If I’d known . . . if I’d had any idea I’d meet someone like you, I’d have never given Sylvie the time of day.
And I’m not hating on her. I’m just saying, I never thought I’d ever want to feel anything below the surface.
Sylvie was surface. I thought it was for her too. ”
She crinkled her nose. “I get it. I do. It’s just . . . icky.”
“Hmph,” I snorted. “Fair. And I admit, through this new lens . . .” I wag my finger between us to imply her and me. “I might have to agree.” I turn her hand over and draw lazy circles on her palm. “Truth?”
“Always.”
“Does that mean that you think I’m . . . icky?”
“It would simplify things if I did. Wouldn’t it? But no. Believe me when I say I get being closed off. It’s just way less acceptable if, say, I, a young girl, chose to go . . . scratch an itch with a man twenty years older than me.”
Leaning my head back on the lounger, I wrinkle my nose at the thought of Everly with some old guy.
Or any guy. Except me. I want her all to myself.
I love that I’m the only one who’s ever seen her in the height of pleasure.
I want to be the only one to ever see it.
I look up at the sky as I bring our joined hands to my chest, stretching her arm out straight across the table and our forgotten coffees that are surely cold now.
Fingers intertwined, I press the back of her hand over my hollow heart tattoo.
My boxers pull tight over my junk at the image of her in my arms coming apart for me alone, my thin joggers doing nothing to conceal it.
I prop up my knee that’s closest to her to camouflage it.
Her train of thought must mirror mine because she brings up the sleeping arrangement I proposed on the way to get coffee.