Chapter Forty-Two Aftermath
HADLEY
The silence inside Carson’s spare apartment is suffocating. I’ve been finding it hard to breathe for the last six days.
How could Julian keep something like this from me? A trade that would take him to a different city and state? That would take him away from me? Acting like we were together, when the whole time he was contemplating leaving. I can’t decide if I’m more hurt or furious at him for it.
By the time Saturday morning finally rolls around, the anger that spiked in my chest outside the physical therapy offices has settled into an aching bruise beneath my ribs. I’m still not fully over the fight, and I’m still furious that Julian kept something so massive from me, but…I miss him.
I haven’t responded to any of his text messages, but I’ve re-read them enough times to memorize them. However, I couldn’t keep my hurt and confusion bottled up. Two nights ago, I finally broke down on the living room rug. I confided the whole messy situation to Lainey.
“Hadley, he’s an idiot,” she’d said softly, her gaze sympathetic as she looked at me from my phone screen. “He didn't tell you because he was terrified of losing you, not because he didn't care. Forgive him.”
I want to…and I know I eventually will, but…it just hurts.
With the knowledge that the team gets back this morning, a part of me wants nothing more than to leave and wait outside of Julian's apartment, just to see him. I know I told him I needed space. I know I'm still mad and haven't reached back out, but I would also give anything just to see him.
I'm considering doing just that when the apartment’s buzzer sounds at nine in the morning. My stomach does a violent, anxious flip. It has to be him. I press the release, my fingers trembling against the intercom, and walk over to open the door before there’s even a knock.
Julian is standing in the hallway, and the sheer scale of him fills the doorframe.
He looks exhausted. There are dark, bruised shadows under his eyes from a week of hard travel.
His beard and hair are wilder than usual, looking a bit unkempt.
He’s wearing a heavy black Carhartt jacket and clean jeans, holding two cups of coffee in his hands.
For a long, agonizing second, neither of us breathes.
“Hey,” he rumbles at last, his voice rough.
“Hey,” I whisper.
Julian steps into the apartment, setting the coffee cups down on the kitchen counter with slow movements.
He turns around, arms opening, and I know he wants to hold me.
Still, he hesitates, gauging my reaction.
When I step into him instead of pulling away, he wraps himself around me in a tight embrace.
“I am so sorry, Hadley,” he murmurs, his eyes burning with an intensity that knocks the wind right out of my lungs. “I was wrong. I was a coward to keep it from you.”
He was wrong, and he did hurt me. He should’ve trusted me.
“Julian,” I murmur. “Why couldn’t you have just told me the truth?
Trusted me? If moving to Chicago is something you had to do, no matter what, we would have figured things out.
But you lied to me. Kept secrets. Made me feel like I didn’t matter.
I’m just not sure if I can trust you to be honest and open with me anymore. ”
“Fuck, Hadley. Sweetheart, you are right. About everything. I fucked up. But you can,” he insists. “I want to prove to you that you can trust me. Will you do something for me? Just today. Come with me. I'll show you how much I want you, want us, and how sorry I am. Please.”
He puts his hand out and waits for me to take it.
I stare at it for several seconds, trying to decide if I should really trust him. I want to. I want to so badly.
“Okay,” I breathe, reaching out to take his hand. “What are we doing?”
A relieved smile curls his lips, softening the hard lines of his jaw. “Put on some layers and hiking boots, and don't ask any questions.”
“Julian,” I hiss, my brow furrowing. “I don’t love surprises.”
Julian lets out a low chuckle. “Of course you don’t…but that’s the whole damn point of today. Move your butt. The clock is ticking.”
Our day starts in the mountains just outside the city limits.
It’s an unusually warm day for early December.
The sun is burning bright and gold against a sky so blue it looks painted.
The snow has melted off the lower elevations, leaving the dirt trails dry and dusty.
Despite the beautiful weather, I make it my personal mission to complain through the entire first hour of the trek.
I can’t make this too easy for him, after all.
“This isn't a trail, Julian, this is a vertical wall,” I huff, wiping a bead of sweat from my forehead as my hiking boots slip on a patch of loose gravel.
Julian is walking two paces ahead of me, his big body moving up the steep incline with the effortless discipline of an athlete who trains on ice for a living.
He doesn't even look winded. Every time the trail splits into an easy, winding switchback or a steep, rocky scramble, he takes the harder path, and I swear it’s just to mess with me.
“Builds character, sweetheart,” he calls back over his shoulder, an amused smirk flashing on his face. “Keep those legs moving. You’re lagging.”
“I am a student, not a mountain goat!” I yell at his broad back, but as the words leave my mouth, a strange thing happens.
The suffocating, tight coil of anxiety that has been sitting in my stomach since the first fight with my dad begins to loosen.
The thin mountain air fills my lungs, the smell of pine and warm dirt soothing me.
By the time we finally reach the rocky overlook at the summit, the city of Denver sprawling out like a miniature grid below us, I am completely out of breath…and I’m laughing.
Julian stands near the edge, his hands jammed into his pockets, watching me as I lean against a boulder, trying to catch my breath. I look at the view, then look at him, and for the first time in a week, the dark clouds in my brain are gone.
Julian isn't done. An hour later, we pull up to a sleek, modern commercial building on the outskirts of the city. The second I read the massive vinyl lettering across the glass facade, I stop dead in my tracks.
Indoor Skydiving.
“Absolutely not,” I declare, crossing my arms over my chest and stepping back toward the truck. “No. Not a chance. You are actively trying to kill me, Julian Wilder. I am not jumping into a giant wind tunnel.”
“Hadley,” Julian laughs, his hand reaching out to catch my waist, pulling my back against him. His chest is warm, and he rests his chin against the top of my head as I squirm. “It’s just air, sweetheart. It’s perfectly safe.”
“It is a category five hurricane inside a glass tube!” I argue, turning around in his embrace to glare up at him.
Julian just looks down at me, his eyes dancing with a teasing challenge that activates every single stubborn bone in my body. “What’s the matter? The smart girl can’t handle a little wind?”
My jaw drops. “Oh, you think you’re funny? Fine. Let’s go. But if I die, I’m haunting your big ass forever.”
Ten minutes later, I am zipped into an oversized blue jumpsuit, a helmet buckled tight under my chin, and goggles pressing into my cheeks. The roar of the vertical wind tunnel is deafening, a massive column of air rushing up through the steel grate.
The instructor gives me the signal, but I hesitate. Can I actually do this? I’m not sure…
Julian suddenly puts a hand on my shoulder, pulling me from my spiraling thoughts.
“Hadley, you got this,” he assures me with a grin. “You are the strongest person I know. You moved from abroad to Denver. Started a new school. Got a job. Moved out on your own. You can do anything you set your mind to. So just jump, sweetheart. I'll always be there to catch you.”
His words give me the shot of courage I need, and before I can let my brain plan a way out, I lean forward and let myself fall into the stream.
The air hits me like a solid wall, lifting my body off the ground. A loud, terrified scream tears from my throat, echoing inside my helmet, but the pure rush of weightlessness is so shocking that the terror vanishes within two seconds.
Through my goggles, I see Julian step into the tunnel right after me.
The wind catches him, but he stabilizes as he reaches me.
He catches my hands. We float there together in the center of the glass tube, suspended in mid-air, the world outside spinning in a blur.
Julian looks at me and opens his mouth, his booming laughter swallowed by the roar of the wind, his eyes crinkling with a pure joy I’ve never seen on his face before.
By the time the fans slow down and the instructor pulls us back onto the solid rubber floor, my legs are shaking from the surge of adrenaline. My heart is hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird, an ecstatic laugh tearing from my lips.
I rip my helmet off, my hair falling wild around my face, and turn to Julian. “That was…oh my God, Julian! That was insane!”
Julian doesn't say a word. He takes one look at my flushed cheeks and my wide, happy eyes, and he steps forward, his arms wrapping around my waist. He lifts me clear off the floor, his mouth slamming down onto mine in a fierce, breathless kiss that knocks whatever air I had left right out of my lungs.
I grip the shoulders of his jumpsuit, kissing him back hard. The residual adrenaline from the flight melting straight into a thick heat that floods my lower stomach.
“Come on, sweetheart,” he grins against my lips. “The day’s not over yet.”