Chapter 13
Something told me Justin wanted to make sure I ate my soup and drank my juice. I didn’t have enough fight in me to resist this sudden wave of whatever it was that’d come over him.
Granted, I didn’t want to examine it too closely either.
Justin came around the other side of my bed, bypassing my desk. He paused, before picking up my laptop and joining me.
I kept my attention focused on the soup in my lap and not on the way my bed dipped when he got on, or the fact that he took his shoes off and wore adorable socks with cartoon seagulls on them.
Our shoulders bumped and the heat of his body had me flush all over.
I didn’t know what it was about Justin. I’d communicated with plenty of men in my life.
Being a computer major meant my classes were not lacking in the male student department.
I’d sat next to numerous guys from school, plenty of them attractive.
But I’d never felt this draw before. The foreign hollowing out in my stomach when Justin was near.
The way I seemed to count the minutes until I would see him again.
It didn’t make sense. And I hated things that didn’t make sense.
Lost in my thoughts, Justin took it upon himself to open my laptop and boot it up.
“Password?” he asked, hands already on my keyboard.
I couldn’t help but fixate on them. Now I’d always remember the way they looked over my backlit keyboard. “Give it here,” I started to put my soup down.
His hand on my arm stopped me dead. “You need to eat, I’m not going to sell your password on the internet, Katie. What is it?”
“It’ll only take a second for me to type in.”
His fingers pressed more firmly against my forearm.
We stared at each other, his body too close for comfort. I tried to communicate with my eyes that there was no way in hell I was giving him my password, but every non-verbal barb I threw at him seemed to bounce off his impenetrable exterior.
I huffed out a breath and told him the sequence of numbers and letters.
It didn’t take long for my computer to start up. Justin watched every program that popped up, his eyes scanning the documents I had saved to my desktop. He was so focused that for a second, I questioned if I had anything incriminating on there.
“Is this the program?”
Shit.
Like that.
He clicked on it.
“It’s not done yet.”
A preview of the program popped up, the main page and all the tabs.
Justin’s eyes went wide. “This is completely different than what I saw a few weeks ago.” The awe in his voice had my chest inflating.
I’d wanted it to be a surprise, but I guess this kind of was.
“It’s not done yet. My professor and I are still figuring out the best way to make it run. He thinks it has potential. If you don’t mind beta testing it for me, I can market it for clinical use, maybe even sell it.”
“Katie this looks amazing.”
His praise did something to my insides. I took a large mouthful of noodles and broth.
He started to navigate around the page, some of the connections not built to the other pages.
“I’m still working out the kinks. Shouldn’t take too much longer though.” I’d been checking my email almost every day, waiting for any word from my professor on news of his contacts.
It was fun to watch Justin play with the program, his face completely enraptured by what I’d made. He toyed around with a few more working commands and then closed it. “You’ll let me know when it’s done?”
The genuine interest in his gaze had my cheeks heating. I cut my gaze back to my soup. “Sure.”
I could feel his attention on me. His arm was pressed up against mine and it was all I could do not to melt into him. Something about having a Justin sized body pillow sounded so very inviting. But cuddling was something couples did. People who cared about each other.
And that was not me and Justin.
“You want to tell me why you suddenly tensed up?” he asked nonchalant, as he logged into a streaming service.
“No,” I stuffed my mouth with soft, warm bread.
Beside me, he sighed. “I get why you blame me, Katie, I do. I didn’t know until it was too late. I should’ve known. I should’ve—" He inhaled, and now it was my turn to study him.
“You should’ve what?”
He was quiet a moment. “Put the pieces together. When the meds started disappearing from the clinic, I thought it was local break-ins. We’d been drifting apart, and I didn’t notice until it was too late.”
I frowned. “What are you talking about?”
His head whipped around to face me. “Your mother’s death, Katie.”
I nodded, slowly. The pieces not falling into place in my foggy brain. “She wrapped herself around a tree, she was under the influence. She always liked a stiff drink.”
I hadn’t even finished my sentence when Justin started to shake his head, his eyes despondent. “Katie,” his throat worked. “Your mother was under the influence of drugs—oxycodone. She got addicted…”
A strange buzzing filled my ears.
I was vaguely aware of the plastic container being plucked from my hands, something warm cupping my face, drawing me back to the two pools of azurite.
His thumb brushed along my cheek where a single tear had fallen.
“You didn’t know,” he said.
I stared at him, helpless. “I didn’t know.” I hadn’t cared. I didn’t even know how my own mother died—that she’d had a drug problem. What if…what if I could’ve helped someway, somehow?
A big arm wrapped around me, pulling me against the strong planes of Justin’s chest. I clung to his shirt, uncaring if I wrinkled it. Letting it all sink in for a minute.
For the first time, those strange conversations between Justin and I started to make sense.
“You feel guilty,” my voice came out muffled against his shirt, but by the way he tensed, I knew he heard me.
“I should’ve put it together sooner, hidden the keys to the clinic, gotten her help.”
“You think I blame you for her death.”
The hand rubbing up and down my arm, froze. “Don’t you?”
What did I even say to that? My blame suddenly seemed so…petty compared to the guilt Justin’s been carrying this whole time.
“Is that why you paid for my schooling?”
He was quiet for a long moment. “No. I paid for your schooling because I wanted to, because ever since your mother introduced us, I couldn’t shake you from my thoughts.”
I sucked in a quick breath of air. Justin’s arm tightened around me as if afraid I’d pull away.
We’d only met once in person, as if my mom was all too ready to shut the chapter of her life with me in it.
Silence crept between us before Justin’s low voice broke it. “Does that bother you?”
It should. But instead it made my stomach flip.
“Even when you were with her?”
The sigh he let loose had me sinking further against his body.
“I’m not going to sugar coat things for you Katie.
I’m not a good man.” Yes he was, he was fighting for a clinic in low-income neighborhoods to help fix birth deformities, or those who suffered from accidents that didn’t have funds to find help themselves.
What kind of evil man did that? But I didn’t dare interrupt him as he continued.
“The first and only time I met you, I knew there was something special about you, something that drew me in. You were young and it was wrong. I cared about your mother, I did, but very quickly it became apparent that what she wanted wasn’t a connection to someone, but a connection to money.
” I could have told him that, mom’s strict upbringing left her obsessed with material things—name brand items, including alcohol and pills apparently.
I felt like I didn’t even know her at all.
“She can be very convincing,” I consoled him. It was part of her charm, those few glimpses into what kind of mother she could’ve been kept me coming back, kept me hopeful that one day she’d wake up and realize how much of a great daughter I was. That I’d be enough to keep her.
It was why I kept this shitty blanket.
I suddenly wanted to throw it in a dumpster.
“She was,” he sounded lost in thought. “But I never stopped thinking about you.”
My pulse quickened and part of me feared he’d feel it with my body pressed so close to his.
“As I said before, Katie,” my name came out gruff and it sent a shiver down my spine. “I’m not a good man. I thought about you, asked about you more than I should’ve, found myself imagining what if…”
The comforting position we were in suddenly felt much more erotic. My nipples were hard against his chest, my face buried in his shirt, my core flush with his hip. One tiny maneuver, and I could be straddling him. The only thing holding me back was my precious laptop balanced over his thighs.
Beneath my ear his heart pounded, strong and fast.
Was that because of me?
I licked my parched lips. “Is that why you stayed away?” I swore I’d never ask, that I’d never dig into why they didn’t want me, but everything was flipped on its side now. Had Justin stayed away from me for other reasons? Because he’d been attracted to me?
Fortifying my courage, I looked up and found him frowning, confusion written all over his face. “Away…?”
A knock came from my door, startling me.
“You okay in there, Nina?” Mrs. Ramirez’s voice came through the door.
The pills Justin gave me must’ve started working because when I swallowed it didn’t hurt as bad. “I’m fine.”
I could feel her hovering on the other side before footsteps drifted away.
“I don’t think she likes me,” Justin’s lips pressed against my ear, his voice playful. It made my chest ache. It made everything ache.
“It’s because you’re wearing an outfit that costs more than their mortgage and your Mercedes is parked out front.”
His chuckle vibrated against my chest. “So you’re saying if I want to visit you again, I should wear jeans and a t-shirt?”
I scoffed. I couldn’t help it. “I’m pretty sure your designer jeans and t-shirt would still make you stand out.”
“How do you know I wear designer jeans?”
I picked my head up from where it’d gone back to resting on his chest. He had a really comfortable chest. “Are you telling me that you don’t?”
His lips twitched. “Define designer.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re hopeless.”
His arms tightened around me, the possessive squeeze he gave me causing my throat to close up with too many emotions I didn’t want to face.
This afternoon was a one off. Tomorrow I would go back to reality. For today I would bask in this moment because I felt lighter than I ever had my entire life.
“Would you care to watch something?”
He’d already pulled up a streaming service and Dr. Who.
I smiled into his shirt and took a deep breath of his distinct scent. “I have all the episodes downloaded on my computer you know.”
“Legally?”
“Um…”
He toyed with a loose strand of my hair, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger. “You’re hopeless,” he whispered and pressed a kiss to my forehead.