Chapter 27
JULES
T he phrase weak in the knees was a foreign concept to Jules before Riley came along.
It had taken significant effort to stride by him as confidently as she had moments ago.
Even now, she shifted in her seat beside Maddie as her hand unconsciously drifted up to the place on her neck where he’d left his mark.
The action was seemingly primal on the surface.
Normally, she would have been appalled. But with him, it didn’t feel territorial—it felt like a reminder just for her.
Proof that he really did know the intricacies of her pleasure. That he took the time to truly see her.
“What did he need to talk to you about?” Maddie asked, stacking the empty shot glasses they’d just deposited on the table.
“Oh, just wanted to ask about Knox. You know, because they’re friends.” He had called Knox his friend.
I didn’t come here tonight to watch you flirt with my friends . Those were his exact words.
“Right…” Maddie replied, her voice hinting that she didn’t buy it.
“Alright, Mads. If you were single,” Cooper started, flashing a knowing look towards Jules. He was saving her. Keeping their secret just as Riley had promised he would.
“I’m not single, Coop.”
“But if you were, and I approached you saying it’s my birthday and asked if you were my present?—”
“Cooper,” they cut him off in unison.
“No. Just, no.” Jules shook her head.
“How do you get so many girls if you think that is a viable pick-up line?” Maddie scowled.
“I’m charming,” he replied with a shrug. “It’s all about the delivery.”
“Well, you certainly have a way about you,” Jules agreed, reaching out and pinching his cheek.
“Growing up around Brett and Grey, I thought having brothers was bad. But I’m starting to think that sisters might be worse,” he mumbled.
“Maybe. But this sister is exhausted from all that dancing.” Maddie turned to Jules. “Still spending the night?”
“Absolutely, I’m ready to go when you are.”
Maddie looked to Cooper. “Coming with us or are you going to see if Riley can be your ride home?”
“Mads, I’ll find a girl who isn’t like a sister to take me home.” He winked before rising to hug them both goodbye.
Parting ways, he moved to meet Riley at the bar while they headed for the door.
Jules took a second to glance over her shoulder, locating a certain mustached heartthrob.
He crossed his arms and leaned against the wood edge of the bar.
It was thrilling to always find his attention on her.
She bit back the giddy smile as their eyes met across the way then blew him another kiss before disappearing out the door.
A step towards dropping the secrecy. She hoped he could see that. Because it wasn’t about playing a game, it was about not wanting to disappoint even more people when she had to leave.
It was bad enough that she would let him down if she decided to go to Argentina early. And he was the last person in the world that she wanted to disappoint these days.
“You’ve been quiet tonight,” Maddie commented.
They were changed into sweats—matching sets they had ordered together late one night when scrolling socials side by side at the apartment they shared. And sitting tucked in under cozy blankets on Maddie and Grey’s corner couch, it felt nearly the same. Comfortable.
In the kitchen behind them, Grey was busy whipping up homemade pizza for their late-night snack. An addition to their familiar routine she was plenty happy to accept.
“Me? No way,” she denied, focusing her attention on the cattle dog sleeping before the wood burning fire.
“Jules.”
She glanced back up at the seriousness in Maddie’s tone. Her best friend’s brow was creased in concern, and she bit her lip, contemplating Jules. “Do you like it here?” Maddie asked after a beat.
“Oh! Babe, yes. I love it here.” She let out a huff. “That’s the problem.”
The sound of Grey’s steps through the cottage caught their attention, pausing the conversation. He rounded the corner with fresh, wood fired pizza in hand. Pepperoni and green pepper, Maddie’s favorite.
“He’s the perfect man. You know that, right?” Jules pointed out to her best friend as he handed her the pizza.
Maddie pulled Grey down into a kiss. “I know,” she replied as he settled in at her side, dropping his arm around her shoulders. “ But you can’t change the subject that easily. Why is it a problem that you love it here?”
She was always open with Jules, trusting. And Jules prided herself on doing the same normally. Then there was the fact that Riley didn’t want any more secrets. It seemed like time.
With a sigh, she decided how to begin. “I got a call tonight. Right before you picked me up, actually.”
“What was it? Family?”
“I have news with that too,” Jules replied with a huff. “But no. It was Rustic and Ranch. They want me to leave for Argentina next week .” It hurt to say it aloud, the words burning on their way out.
“Next week?” Maddie gasped. “But it feels like you just got here.”
“I know. I hate this. And on top of that, my mom showed up in town the other day trying to throw all this guilt on me for not being present with her.”
“When she called me,” Maddie guessed.
“Yeah.”
“What does that mean? She’s the one that left.”
“I told her that?—”
“That is great, I am so glad!”
“But she suggested that I am also running away, that my photography is just a hobby and distraction.”
Her best friend’s eyes widened, face frozen in shock. She opened her mouth, searching for a response, Jules assumed. Beside her, Grey pressed his mouth together in a hard line.
Finally, Maddie found her words. “I can’t believe she said that to you. You know that your career is such a skill, right?”
“Riley agrees,” Jules huffed.
She hadn’t realized it, but she’d just inadvertently led them to the next piece of news. Maddie tilted her and asked, “Why does Riley know about your mom’s visit before me?”
Looking into her assessing gaze, Jules took a deep breath and admitted, “I knew him before this summer.”
The couple stared back at her in surprise. “Wait, knew how? Why didn’t you mention that?” Maddie asked, leaning towards her in curiosity now.
“A year ago, when I was at that ranch in Texas, I went to shoot the rodeo there. He was competing and… we hooked up.”
An amused Grey rubbed his hand along his jaw, trying to hide his enjoyment with this turn of events. “That explains a lot,” he said.
“No, hold on. We are not going to just take that as the whole explanation.” Maddie lunged forward, nearly knocking the pizza out of Jules’s hands as she clutched for her forearm. “Hooked up how exactly? Are we talking making out a little or like sex? Details now.”
Jules couldn’t help but laugh at the way Grey’s face soured at his girlfriend’s questions.
“I don’t think we need details,” he grumbled.
Maddie waved her hands dismissively. “Hush, we talk about you too.”
“You do?” His eyebrows shot up to his hairline.
“Have some pizza,” she told him, keeping her focus on Jules. “Details, J.”
She grinned wildly, recalling the marathon of a night they had in that hotel room. Every detail was seared into her brain, but she would spare Grey tonight. After all, he had made her post-bar pizza. “Like—we really hooked up. The sex was unreal. Hands down, the best I have ever had.”
“Oh my god, you had sex with Riley.”
“Yes.”
“You had sex with Riley a year ago.”
“I did. And… again last week.”
“Oh my god, Jules. Why am I just hearing all of this now? And you didn’t keep in touch or anything? Did you know he was here? Did you know it was him when you first got here?”
Her friend was firing off questions at record speed, it sounded like Jules’s brain felt. Placing her pizza on the table, she reached for her best friend’s hand. “Okay, slow down. One question at a time.”
Maddie took a deep breath and squeezed her hand. “Right. Back to the beginning. How did you leave things in Texas?”
“I was feeling guilty and embarrassed that I had been unprofessional. I was reckless and focused on myself even though I was there on a job. And then the ranch called, worried about what happened and where I had gone. I felt awful for worrying them, and I didn’t think past that feeling. I just fled… before he woke up.”
“You didn’t even try to wake him up to say goodbye?”
“I didn’t know what to do. I might be impulsive, but I had never put myself in a situation like that,” Jules groaned. She fell back onto the couch, covering her face with both hands. “Plus, you know he was this wild rodeo cowboy. I figured he had nights like that all the time.”
“I don’t think he did,” Grey told her.
She nodded. “Since being here, he has kind of mentioned how that was a rare thing for him. But seeing him again and working with him daily… it’s been impossible.
We’re—I don’t know what we are. We keep having these little moments.
And lately they have escalated, specifically just before you all went up to camp. ”
“He really likes you,” Maddie guessed.
“It would seem so.”
“And you are clearly crazy about him.”
“I don’t think it’s that clear,” Jules grumbled.
Maddie grabbed a slice of pizza and took a hearty bite. With a mouth full, she shook her head. “You’re wrong. It all makes sense now. I knew you had been acting weird.”
“What’s the problem, though?” Grey asked. “He’s a good guy. You two work well together, you like each other. What’s the hold up?”
“If we let go and really jump into this, I don’t think I’ll be able to leave again. And it’s not like I can stay here. Bringing us back to the call tonight.”
“Why not stay?” Maddie asked gently. “I mean, go to Argentina still. You went a year apart from one another before; this is only a few months. And he understands your job. But then after that, come back here.”
Jules turned away from them, staring out the window at the dark ranch beyond. It was a clear night, the moon illuminating the sky and causing the jagged mountains to stand out with their magnificent presence. It was about more than Riley. It was this place.
“What if I can’t settle in after everything with my family?” she whispered after a minute.
Her best friend waited patiently for her to turn back around.
When she did, Maddie offered a soft smile.
“I hope I get this right. You’re usually the one that gives me the empowering speech.
But bottom line, you can’t decide your life based on what your parents did.
And they shouldn’t have put you in the middle like they have, making it feel worse, I’m sure. ”
“If I do stay and it doesn’t work… I end up losing another home—whatever that word means anymore. And I mean, do you even think I could belong here?” Jules asked quietly.
Maddie’s smile widened, replying without hesitation. “I think you already do.”
Hope flickered in her chest like a worn-down light bulb that refuses to stay dead. “Could you imagine? Us together again?”
“Already have,” her friend replied, eyes sparkling with delight.
It was a nice dream. This breathtaking ranch, the team that feels like a family, Lucky, Maddie… and Riley. She ached for it all. A persistent ache that had taken root long before she realized what the feeling meant.
“Me too,” she admitted, sinking down on the sofa and pulling her knees to her chest. “Me too.”