38. Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty
JULIAN
I’m way too sober for this.
Jack’s friends are much different from the type of people I’m used to being around.
Most of them went to college together—all now in their mid and upper twenties.
Once we departed from the dock, the party got pretty lively and now it’s just plain rowdy.
Anyone who prefers the quiet can be found in the main salon.
That’s where I’d be if it wasn’t for the auburn-haired woman that I don’t plan on taking out of my line of sight.
Guilt still stirs from earlier when I walked away from her, but I had to.
The memories of my past have no goodness in them—they’re the darkest parts of me.
The parts I’ve worked hard to hide. Her mentioning the idea of talking about the things I’ve buried has brought back the version of me I despise the most to the surface.
When I emerged onto the lower deck, she already found a friend.
She still talks to Kira now as they play a game she calls Quarters.
Her unapologetic laugh hits my ears, and I live in the sound of it.
They’ve gathered a lot of attention, and I don’t miss how a few guys go up to talk to Andrea.
She shrinks away from most of them, clearly not wanting the attention but before I can step in, Kira does it for me.
Felix is the one who predicted Kira and Andrea would get along. Kira grew up with her family’s money, but she’s an incredibly humble and kind person.
I stand with Jack and Felix, the latter leaning against the rail, staring at the dark water below. He’s had a sour look on his face all evening and has been unusually quiet.
“What’s with you tonight?” I finally decide to ask.
He doesn’t look at me when he responds with a quick, “Nothing.” His voice is somber as if he’s attending a funeral instead of a celebration.
Jack clamps a hand down onto his older brother’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about him. He’s just pouting ’cause I beat him to something again. Ain’t that right?” He shakes him a little, laughing.
To me, his words come off as harmless taunting but judging by the muscle that feathers in Felix’s jaw, there’s more to the story here.
“Fuck off.” He shrugs off his brother and stumbles away.
“Felix!” I call out to him, feeling slightly worried and confused.
“I think what you meant to say is ‘congratulations!’” Jack yells, not knowing when to quit. His voice catches Kira’s attention. She follows Jack’s his line of sight to Felix. Her smile falls slowly, her dark brows creasing in concern.
As if he can feel her attention, he pauses to look at her. I’m too far away to decipher the meaning behind it before he disappears, but whatever his face said, she understood it.
Interesting.
“What was that about?” I ask Jack.
He downs the rest of what’s in his glass and shrugs. “You know Felix better than I do these days. When you figure it out, let me know.”
“Hey, Julian.” I turn to find a pretty dark-haired woman in a cocktail dress and fur coat .
“Blake,” I state, her name coming to me immediately.
She laughs and the sound of it sparks a memory.
“Oh man, I’ve missed that voice of yours.
” She steps closer to me, and I do my best not to move away from her proximity.
It’s not that she makes me uncomfortable.
Her face is only a reminder of another time I’d like to forget.
“I thought it was you earlier, but I wanted to be sure before I walked over here and made a fool of myself.”
“You making a fool of yourself?” I ask, a brow raised. “Unlikely.”
Her eyes light up at my banter and she mistakes it for an invitation to lay her hand on my arm. Before I can remove it, a throat clears to my left. We both turn to find Kira and beside her, Andrea. There’s a look on her face as she stares at where Blake touches me.
Kira slides herself under Jack’s arm and he places a quick kiss on the top of her head. “What’s going on?” she asks, giving Blake a skeptical look.
“This is Blake,” Jack says unhelpfully.
I don’t miss how Andrea keeps her distance. It eats at me in a way that has me stepping around Blake and sliding behind Andrea. She wraps my arms around her chest and leans into me, immediately relaxing. “On a scale of 1-10, how drunk are you?” I ask, my voice low in her ear.
She looks up, one eye pinched closed in thought. “A six.” She shoots me a lazy smile. “On a scale of 1-10, how tired are you?”
“Three. Night owl, remember?” I murmur.
“Well, that’s one way to shoot a girl down,” Blake chides, grabbing our attention. “And to think my chances were unlimited with this one.”
Andrea’s fingers tighten around my jacket. “How do you know Julian?”
She blinks and then sighs as if disappointed that she doesn’t know who she is. “We were lovers,” she purrs, winking at me.
I grimace. “Blake.”
She scoffs and throws up her hands defensively. “Fine. Only the one time.”
Jack whistles and Kira smacks his arm, the big diamond glinting in the moonlight. “Behave.”
“We met a few months after I turned eighteen,” I clarify. “She gave me a place to stay after finding me asleep in my car.”
Blake cuts in with a laugh. “It was a beat-up Volkswagen. Piece of shit barely ran.”
“It did the job,” I state dryly, giving her a look.
I didn’t want to burden Abigail when I became homeless, but I wasn’t so stupid enough to not accept help when it was offered to me.
“Blake left the system a few years prior, so she knew what I was going through. She was a good friend when I needed one.” I don’t mention all the nights I found her coked up and beaten bloody by her ex-boyfriend who’s now locked away somewhere in the state of Massachusetts.
Though, I see the memories briefly pass through her eyes.
“Once he made it big, he gave me enough money to kick-start my business. Still my favorite investor to this day,” she says, grinning.
I don’t have to look down to know that Andrea’s face is coated in a genuine smile. I can hear it in her voice as she replies, “In that case, it’s lovely to meet you and since I know you’re not hitting on my boyfriend, I can tell you you’re really pretty.”
Blake smiles, delighted to hear this. “Careful, love, or else I might start hitting on you .”
Andrea laughs like she told a joke, but I know better than that. It has me holding her a little tighter, a strange surge of jealousy coursing through me. It’s a silly reaction, I know, but the idea of it still bothers me in a way that if it happened, it’d hurt.
A lot of guys might think two girls would be hot, but not when one of them is yours and you have attachment issues. My jaw clenches as a slice of annoyance at Blake for putting this idea in my head cuts into me.
“Whose plus one are you?” Kira asks.
“I came with Felix.” Blake looks at her curiously. “Will be leaving with him, too.”
Something flashes across Kira’s face too fast to place it. Blake clearly knows something the rest of us don’t as she takes an elegant sip from her champagne glass.
The upbeat song that’s been playing comes to an end and a slow one comes on next. Kira looks up at Jack and gives him a tipsy smile. “Let’s dance, my love.”
He makes a face as if the idea of dancing with her is gruesome but follows her like a lovesick puppy.
Blake sighs. “I guess I’ll go find my date. Any clue what direction he ran off to?”
I dip my head toward the glass doors. “That way.” I give her a look that warns her his mood is shit before adding, “Good luck.”
She huffs a laugh, shaking her head. “Yeah, thanks.”
Once she disappears, I take one of Andrea’s hands in mine and spin her around to face me. Her eyes light up with mischief as I tug her chest flush against mine.
“Are you dancing with me?”
“Do you have another word for it?” I ask, amused by her question and the contemplative look on her face as I sway with her in my arms. It doesn’t matter how many times I tell myself this is all for show, every time we have these little moments to ourselves, everyone else disappears.
I can call it a hoax all I want, but I know my heart is falling over its wits for this woman.
“My brain isn’t functioning well enough to think of synonyms right now.”
“Fair enough.” I chuckle as she rests her temple against my chest.
“You should do that more for everyone,” she says quietly.
“Do what?” I ask, my lips pressed to her head.
“Laugh.”
“Why’s that?” I murmur, my arms and heart tightening around her.
“It’s a lovely sound; people should hear it at least once,” she tells me, then leans back to rest her chin against my chest. “Oh, and fun fact; did you know that laughter is medicine to the sad parts of your brain?”
“What makes you think there are sad parts in my brain?”
Her expression softens and I admire the freckles rolling across her nose—matching the constellations in the sky. “Because your sad parts call to mine.”
I tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear, brows furrowing. “Are you sad, ma cerise?”
She takes my hand and presses it to her collarbone. “Do you know that feeling of missing something, but you can’t quite place it?” she asks, eyes switching between mine.
Swallowing thickly, I nod. I’ve felt that my entire life.
She continues, “And it makes you sad because your heart knows something your mind won’t tell you. Not until it’s standing in front of you.”
My fingers twitch and I suddenly despise the fabric that hides her skin. This space between us eats at me. I need her on me like a person needs a heated blanket after they’ve been stuck in the cold. “Are you telling me you’re a believer in fate, Andrea?”
“I’m a believer in many things. . .like you, for instance.” She bites the corner of her bottom lip, a small smile slipping through as she discovers whatever’s on my face. “Has no one ever believed in you before?”
“I don’t know,” I respond hoarsely.
She lets her smile break free. “Well, now you can change your answer to yes because Andrea Sommers does.”
I wonder if she knows what affect her words have on me.
I have never known this; I have never met anyone like her and the thought of losing what lives between us scares the shit out of me.
It never mattered how many times I told myself to not get attached to this woman, I knew that I would from the second I laid eyes on her.
And now, at this moment, I’m certain that I never want to be undone from it. “I’m really glad that I met you, too.”
The moonlight reflects in her eyes. “You think I can make a believer out of you?”
Grinning, I dip her. She laughs at the sudden drop. I dip my head down, my nose grazing her cheek. “Maybe you already have,” I whisper before lifting her back onto her feet.
“That so?” she breathes, her mouth now dangerously close to mine.
I nod once.
“You thinking about kissing me again, Julian Havord?” she asks huskily, peering up at me through her lashes as she throws my words back at me.
I take them earnestly, dipping my head slightly so that my nose ghosts over hers. When she sucks in a quick breath, a shiver shoots down my spine. I tell myself that I only allow her to get this deeply under my skin because we’re not alone, but I’m a liar.
I’m this close to her because I want to be. I let her in because I want to and I’m going to kiss her because I need to. “Maybe, I am. What are you going to do about it?”
Somewhere behind me, Kira yells, “Kiss!”
A flash of uncertainty crosses Andrea’s face and my immediate reaction is to retreat myself and take a step back, but before I can, her grip tightens around me.
“Not real.” She inches her lips closer to mine. “Right?”
I grit my teeth. Her words are like a cold splash of water, and they hit something I thought I’d made unreachable.
I remind myself what this is really about—the deal we made.
It makes me pause as I consider this feeling of mine to be one-sided.
I’d made the mistake before so I wouldn’t be surprised if she felt nothing whereas I was beginning to feel everything.
“Not real,” I strangle out and then place my lips softly against hers.
I haven’t had one drop of alcohol tonight, but my head goes stupid as she flicks her tongue over mine and pulls me closer—always pulling me closer.
I’m aware of the tempo of the music changing, but we don’t stop.
It’s a slow and intimate kind of kiss. It has my knees going weak like a goddamn teenager.
Typically, I’d be against this public display of affection, but the mere thought of the other men looking at her tonight shuts it down quickly.
I want them to see; every single one of them to see that this one is mine.
“Jesus,” she gasps out and then she’s kissing me again only to stop once more. “How are you so good at this?”
I laugh into the kiss before she breaks away. “Need some air?” Her eyes flick up to mine and she gives me a subtle shake of her head. I run my thumb over her parted mouth. “You’re panting, Andrea.”
She swallows and straightens, gathering herself. “I’m fine.”
I cup my hands on the side of her neck, tracing her delicate skin. “Better, actually.”
The look on her face at my praise causes canons to go; signaling a war beginning inside of me. It was the look that tells me I’m officially fucking toast when it comes to her.
“I totally rocked your socks off, didn’t I?”
I laugh, pressing my lips to her forehead. “Totally,” I mock her voice, and she shoves me away from her playfully, and with one of those laughs I’ve come to adore.
There’s one word that buzzes around like a bee in the back of my mind. Real.