18. Julia
18
JULIA
I took another swig of my beer and giggled. “I don’t know why you’re bringing up Halloween from the seventh grade.” I tossed a balled-up piece of paper at her and moved around on the couch trying to find a comfortable spot.
Mia pointed a hot wing at me. “Because you’ve always just gone for it. Even when you were skating in the seventh grade. It didn’t matter that you didn’t know how to twirl in skates. You did it anyway.”
“And fell right on my ass.” I laughed, rubbing my butt. “I can still feel the bruise sometimes.”
“No, you don’t.” She laughed back and turned her attention to another band gearing up to play a few songs on the New Year's Eve TV broadcast. She clicked the button on the remote. “What channel do you want to stream? There are too many to pick from.”
“I don’t know. I think if we pick one channel, there will be movies to watch until it’s ready for the ball to drop.” My doorbell rang. We both whipped our heads to the door.
“Did you lock the first floor doors?” Mia asked. Her eyebrows were high in surprise.
“Yes, I don’t have a doorbell on this door.”
“Do you think it could be your silver fox?” Mia scowled.
“His hair is barely gray.” I brushed the comment off. “Besides, I told him we were hanging out tonight. Plus, he’s not my anything. Your warnings have been stuck in my head since the first time I slept with him.”
“And yet, you had sex with him two more times after that.”
I rolled my eyes. “It was really good sex,” I said. The doorbell rang again, and I rose to answer it.
“Take something to protect yourself!” Mia responded as I went out the door, and I shook my head at her nonsense.
“Knock it off, it’s probably just kids being dicks.” I snorted and hopped down the stairs. I stopped when I saw a man’s silhouette through the glass. “Crap,” I whispered. I told Nick I was busy tonight.
Annoyance percolated in my chest. If he wasn’t going to respect my boundaries, that would give me a good reason to really let the idea of some sort of life with him go.
I marched up to the door, unlocked it, and “Jared,” fell from my lips as he turned.
“Hi...” He smiled and stood there with flowers in his hand. White daisies. My favorite. “Can I come in?”
“No,” I said as he tried to hand me the flowers. “Why are you still in Heart’s Creek?”
“Because I came to make amends.”
I shivered, rubbing my arms from the cold air that seeped in around me and the chill down my spine at his words.
“Oh, sorry.” He stepped into the foyer, and I let the door close. The only reason I even let him close to me was because it was frigid outside. Now, I just needed to hear what he had to say so he would think he said everything he needed to and then kick him out.
He handed me the flowers. “I’m not taking these, Jared.”
“I can’t believe you’re that angry with me that you won’t take your favorite flowers.”
“I think you’re delusional if you believe I would take anything from you.”
He leaned forward with a smile he thought was charming and said, “That’s not the first time you’ve said that to me.”
I released a huff, letting him know he was on thin ice, and gave him a hard glare. “What do you want, Jared?” I asked. He knew about my New Year’s Eve tradition with Mia. He even knew that Mia had moved with me. He was totally shitting over everything because he was trying to save his precious ego.
He deserved a good kick to his ego, and I wasn’t sad about being the person who delivered that blow to him.
“Hey!” Mia shouted down the stairs. “Was I right?” I leaned back to see her kneeling down, trying to get a look at who I was talking to. “Oh,” she said, not hiding her disdain. “Do you need a knife or an umbrella?” she called. My eyes snapped close, trying and failing a little bit to stop the laughter from coming out of my mouth because neither Jared nor Mia needed that type of encouragement.
I turned my attention to Jared who did not look amused at Mia’s suggestion that I get a knife for my protection. I was tempted to say something, but I didn't.
“Please do this for me. I know I was an ass. But I need you. You were the only one who was doing the job right.” I wondered who else he tried to hire and if they rejected him. If they did, I’d send them a fruit basket. “And I miss you too.”
“Jared, I’m booked up through March,” I said. I really just needed to get him away from me. “I’d keep looking for another PR person if I were you, but if I’m free then, maybe I’ll help you out.” He handed me the flowers. I shook my head. “I don’t want those. I’m not interested in starting any kind of romantic relationship with you ever again.”
I didn’t blink when his smile drooped. I almost believed his sadness and shock were real, except that I remembered who he was and how he thought he could win people over with manipulation.
“I’ll hold you to that project,” he said, his smile perking right back up.
“You need to leave.” I wasn’t going to respond to that statement at all. “I’m spending time with my friend.”
“You’ll kick me out even though you know I don’t have any place else to go?”
“I did not invite you to this town, nor to come and see me. It’s your fault you have nowhere else to go.”
He tried to hand me the flowers one more time. I opened the door and ushered him out. “Julia, wait.” He stepped forward and placed his hand along my cheek. “We were good together, baby. I’m sorry I flirted. Please just think about giving me a second chance.”
I took his wrist and moved it away from my face. “No, Jared. It’s time you moved on.”
“Fine. But I’m not giving up on us yet,” he said and clipped my chin with his finger. I pulled back, not bothering to hide my revulsion. As Jared walked away, he placed the flowers on my porch in some weird attempt to prove whatever he was trying to prove.
If I had shoes on, I'd have picked them up and tossed them at him. But it was a good representation of who he was as a person, leaving me to clean up his mess. I went to close the door, but a truck’s headlights caught my attention. It looked like Nick’s truck.
My initial thought that it was him at the back door still lingered, but the truck pulled away and drove off. I didn't know what he saw, but if he saw everything, I had a pretty good indicator of what it was.
The fact that both Nick and Jared showed up at my house when I explicitly told them not to pushed my annoyance to the next level. I knew I wasn’t going to have anything to do with Jared again.
But now I needed to know what I was going to do about Nick.
I closed the door and started back up the stairs trying to ignore the ache in my chest from when I thought about not being with Nick. And I just wasn’t sure what it all meant.
When I got up the stairs, Mia was nowhere to be found. I headed over to the bathroom and knocked on the door. “You in there?” I asked.
“No, you ass, I’m in Antarctica.”
“Just make sure to light a match, lady.”
“Ew. Where do you get your weird-ass thoughts?”
“I learned it by watching you.” I chuckled and went back into the living room. I plopped down on the couch and grabbed my phone only to see a few messages from Nick telling me he wanted to spend the night with me, and would I be okay with him coming over?
Confusion riddled my mind because it would have been nice to spend time with him tonight, but he did still come over even though I expressly told him I had other plans tonight.
But then, a small part of me wished I had invited him up. He wouldn’t have put a damper on the fun Mia and I were having, and while she would have pouted about it for a minute, it would have been a good chance for them to get to know each other.
I shook the thought out of my brain. They didn't need to get to know each other. They had a working relationship, but it didn't need to turn into friendship.
“Why so serious?” Mia plopped down on the couch next to me.
“Just working through some things,” I muttered and set the phone down.
Mia perked a brow. “Sex things?”
“No. Feeling things.” I sat up and combed a hand through my hair. “Things we aren’t going to talk about because you’ve already expressed your opinion to me, and I don’t want to hear a broken record.” I stuck my tongue out at her, and she faked being surprised, placing her hand over her heart and releasing an overexaggerated expression of shock on her face.
I took the closest throw pillow to me and hit her on the shoulder. “Knock it off.”
“Okay, so we’re going into a new year. Let’s just talk about the possibility of your catching feelings for a man.”
“Mia…” I warned. “No, this isn’t up for discussion right now.”
“Everything is up for discussion always. It’s why I’m your best friend.”
“Why are you pushing this?” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“You look like someone ran over your cat,” she said, sitting up straighter and giving me a serious face.
“I don’t have a cat,” I said.
“Yes, but saying someone ran over your fern has a lot less of an impressive image. Right?”
“My God, your brain is fucking strange.” I picked the beer bottle up and took a drink out of it. “What is the point of this?”
“To determine whether your great sex is just that or not.”
“Again, I say, why the change?”
“Because if you are going to jump into something, then it’s better to know it’s really worth it.” She turned to face forward and grabbed a piece of cheese and pepperoni. Seeing the cheese board she brought made me think of being with Nick the other night.
I loved how he took control. I liked how he told me what to do and the way he let himself be around me while still making sure I was enjoying it too. I took a strand of my hair and twisted it around my finger.
“See, you have a far-off, whimsical look to your face.”
I laughed. “Do you hear yourself speak sometimes?”
“Yes, but you also thoroughly avoided my statement.”
“It’s a statement. You don’t have to respond.”
“Fine. Why is your face lit up like Rudolph's nose and why do you have a dopy expression?”
I swung my eyes to the ground and tried to find anything else to focus on except Mia’s eyes. When I couldn't, I looked up at her. “I think I like Nick.”
“Well, at least you're being honest with yourself now,” she snorted.
“Not because I want to be. But because you’re forcing me to be,” I whined.
“We both know you can’t be forced into anything.” I perked my brow, waiting for her to finish because I was forced to leave Buffalo to get away from the shitshow that was my professional undoing. “I already know what you’re thinking, so stuff it.” Mia put her hand up.
Then, she pointed a finger. “One: You chose to leave Buffalo.” She added a second finger. “Two: You are killing it here, with or without a guy on your arm.” She put another finger up. “Three: If you like someone, you can’t really help it sometimes. You might just want to see it through.”
She leaned into the couch. “But I’m not moving again if things go south. You’ll just have to figure out a different way to make it work.” Her eyes flicked to mine. “No pun intended, but I’m noting it because it’s clever.”
I rolled my eyes and smiled, turning my attention to the television.
Now I just had to figure out whether I was brave enough to take that step with Nick.