Chapter Nine
Juliet
Thad’s cat, Wilbur, purrs against my knee as the end credits roll on another cheesy Christmas rom-com.
The Connecticut sky outside the window is purple and gray like a bruise, promising more bad weather.
Thad hands me another mug of hot chocolate and grins, his blond hair tossed into a disheveled halo.
“How many is that?” he asks, knowing my obsession with Christmas romances.
“Don’t judge,” I say as a preface to the next.
We’ve been watching Christmas rom-coms and couch rotting for almost two days while we wait for the weather to clear.
When it does, Thad will drive me to Rhode Island.
He’s going to hang out with us for a few days because his mom lives near Gran.
His dad, Junior, was killed ten years ago in a motorcycle accident, when Thad was seventeen.
Thad moved to Connecticut for work after college.
Lyla, his mom still lives in Rhode Island where she grew up and raised Thad, which is short for Thadius Simon Rockfall the third.
“It has to be like ten.” He’s over exaggerating, of course.
I roll my eyes to make a point. “Not ten, eight.” I flash a smile.
“I think we should see Big Buckeye Christmas next.” Now its time for him to roll his eyes again, but he loves it.
He just has to be a dick because I don’t have any siblings and he’s always thought it was his duty to expose me to the torture I never got the chance to experience.
“Aren’t there any gay ones? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love me some cable knit sweaters, but it’s getting a little old, Jules.” He does have a point, we’ve seen a lot of vanilla Christmas lovin’. Perhaps a light, happy, guys-in-love Christmas delight might shake things up.
“Sure, there’s My Mountain Christmas Carol.
John is a lawyer from New York, he’s having to visit his Grandma for Christmas who is about to lose her sheep farm when strapping Sebastian, Grandma’s farm assistant, comes in with a solution that will save the day.
” I read the blurb on the screen next to a promo of a man in a green flannel shirt and another in a cream cable knit sweater and a blazer.
“Okay, okay. That works. I’m ordering Thai,” Thad blurts out and I can’t balk at a little Christmas Thai to fill our bellies.
“Thai sounds good,” I say. “I’ll pay this time,” I whip out my card.
“Girl, working at the weed shack ain't giving you shit, save your pennies,” he scolds me.
“I’ll have you know it’s called Sproutz with a ‘Z’ and we serve coffee and tea, not just weed,” I tease back.
“Tofu pad Thai?” He pretends he doesn’t even hear me as he orders on the app.
“Yes, vegan.” I remind him.
“Oh, girl I know,” he laughs. “You go hard for the plant-based.” He orders our food and comes back to the couch ready for another round of rom-com.
“So does My Mountain Christmas Carol sound good or do you want something else?” There are a couple more MM options.
“No, it sounds delightful. So, are you ready for the T?” He launches in before I get a chance to start our movie.
“I’ve been here way over twenty-four hours and you’re just now spilling T? Are you okay?” I make my reaction big.
“Well, I had to see if you can still be trusted. I mean you and all those crunchy bisexuals at school are a weird bunch. I wanted to make sure you didn’t get any weirder.” He gives me the side eye.
“This is coming from you?” I tease. “The weirdest of the Rockfall Follies?” I shake my head.
“Okay, okay. I swear, Jules, this guy at work ... he’s perfect,” Thad says as his eyes light up. “Tall, funny, has this dorky laugh that makes me want to melt into a thick gooey puddle. I think I’m obsessed.”
I laugh as Wilbur circles in. “Define obsessed. Is it more hopelessly smitten? Or are you going full stake out?”
He gives me a playful shove. “Define stakeout.”
“Oh, you’ve tumbled for him. Tell me, what's the game plan?” I’m now way more invested in his love life than in the movie we’re about to see.
I want to tell him about the plane and Marcel but I’d have to explain how I let a stranger pull me into a moment so recklessly I still ache a little. Shame prickles at my skin. What kind of person does what I did?
“Well, we’ve already gone out for bagels so, he’s gay. Very gay. Almost too gay? Is that a thing? I mean, he’s so perfect.” Thad is lost to his crushing.
“No, there’s no such thing as too gay.” I console him, because Thad is pretty gay himself, though he tends to dress conservatively and does act straight in public when he’s not with his friends. He’s just used to code switching because he’s in the Senator’s office. He wants to go into politics.
“So, have you asked him out yet?” I furrow my brow and wonder why my totally hot cousin hasn’t already gone for it.
“Not yet, but Monday. I will Monday.” I hope he does.
“I’m going to text you and hold you to it,” I warn and he flashes his pinkie. “We pinkie swear on this and it’s stone, you know that.”
“I’m ready.” He waves his pinkie in the air and we lock in.
“Done!” We release each other’s pinkies and I laugh, though I’m a little sad.
All night, I keep my secret. I watch the storm gather outside, watch Thad talk about his crush, and I bite my tongue. We eventually finish the movie and it's so cute. I'm feeling all warm and cuddly and also cold and shitty at the same time.
The next day the weather has cleared. Just before we load the car for our road trip to Gran’s, it bursts out of me.
“I met a guy.”
I think Thad might have a heart attack. “No. No. No. You don’t meet guys. My little cousin/sister doesn’t meet a guy, she gets swept off of her feet by a prince. What happened?” He opens his car door and gets into the driver’s seat.
Now I don’t want to say anything, because he’s right. He’s always wanted me to date the best man on Earth.
“Nothing will come of it,” I add quickly. “It was ... just for a moment. A mistake, really.”
“Okay, so tell me about him. What’s his name, where does he work? How did you meet? If you drop a bomb, I need all the deets.”
“I got upgraded to first class and he sat next to me. We flirted and um ... stuff.” I know I sound like a loopy teen. I look at him and bite my lip and I know I’m about to get ripped to pieces. “All I have is a name.”
I shouldn’t have said anything.
“Oh, no, no, no. Put my hotspot on,” he hands me his phone. “And you surf while I drive, I need to know what the hell is going on here.” He’s suddenly very serious, though he is still sort of joking.
“Marcel Dubois,” I say, and I’ve actually been too afraid to look him up because I sort of don’t want to know who he is in real life. I’m fairly certain he’s going to be someone I’m either going to pine for or despise.
“Okay, start surfin’” Thad waves at me and I press ‘search’ after typing his name into Google.
I get thousands of results and my stomach drops. I think I might actually pass out. His name brings up page after page and an AI summary of one of the world’s richest and most elusive bachelors.
“Ugh,” I huff.
“What, what is it? Serial killer? Married? What did you find?” Thad is way too invested in this.
“Multi-billionaire real estate investor, ruthless, notorious for bulldozing communities without a second thought. Elusive, cold, and cruel,” I say in a monotone because that is not the man I met on my first class flight; the one and only I’ll ever take.
Fuck, really? Is Marcel a monster?
Thad shakes his head and groans. “You dodged a bullet letting that POS go. He’s a shark.”
The words sting even though I know he’s right. I feel dirty and slutty, like a girl who threw herself at a stranger and let him take her virginity like a needy little tramp. I’m now feeling completely down.
“Don’t worry about it, Jules. You’ll meet an amazing guy one day and when you do, you are going to make the prettiest little babies with him.”
I can’t believe Thad sometimes. “Oh my gosh, maybe I don’t even want children.” Of course Thad knows this is a lie.
“Please, you’re you. And don’t feel too bad, I met a guy on a train to Baltimore once ... let’s just say there was a lot more steam in the observation car than the train’s engine.” He gave me a Devilish glance.
“You did it in public?” Oh my gosh, I don’t feel so bad now.
“I mean it was like three in the morning, but um ... yeah. He had a sleeper car; it was cramped as fuck. We did it fast and dirty. It was fun, but when he got off the train we parted ways and voila, fun time over.
“It’s a rite of passage. Welcome to the world, Jules. Did y’all join the mile high club?”
I don’t feel like I want to say much more at this point because I’m too disappointed in myself. “He’s a card-carrying member,” I say, trying to play it off.
“Oh I bet he is.” He snarks like a grandma in church.
The drive to Rhode Island, on slick roads is a little treacherous so Thad cranks up the music and we car-dance the rest of the way.
We sing every song we know at the top of our lungs, very off-key, laughing so hard we’re both out of breath.
For two hours, I forget Marcel Dubois exists.
Gran greets us with warm hugs and the smell of fresh-baked cookies.
She has a dinner of chicken and dumplings ready and has a portion set out for me of dumplings and creamy vegetable soup made with coconut milk.
Though I’ve only been a vegan for three years, I’ve always been lactose intolerant and have never liked meat.
I just didn’t enjoy the taste and the fact that we had to kill animals to have a meal.
I take my suitcase upstairs into the attic which was my childhood bedroom with pink walls and huge purple flowers painted everywhere—even on the slanted ceiling.
At the far end of the room is the window I used to climb out of to the roof.
Though it’s freezing, I crawl out of the window to see the night sky spread above me with stars peeking through the storm clouds.