Chapter 34
Kurt
Waking with a start, I see Juliana standing in front of me. Her hands are on my arm and I can tell she’s just been trying to shake me awake. I sit up and run my fingers over my head, looking around the room.
“Hey, your alarm is going off.” Juliana moves away from me when she sees that I’m awake. I reach over and grab my phone, shutting off the alarm.
I watch Juliana walk around the kitchen and soon the smell of scrambled eggs makes its way to where I sit on the couch. I catch myself from gagging but it does not smell good. Then she starts using the blender. Oh no, why is she doing this to me? Is she doing this on purpose? Did I annoy her or make her angry because of my actions last night? Maybe I don’t want to know the answers to those questions.
I haul myself off the couch and join her in the kitchen. I lean against the counter as Juliana makes breakfast for us. She has two plates set out and two glasses. She blends one more time and I wince. She doesn’t seem to notice though. When she stops blending, she pours equal amounts into each glass and then hands one of the glasses to me.
“Thank you,” I say before taking a sip. She nods and takes a drink from her own glass. I take another small sip then take a bigger one. “Wow, this is really good.” I finish the smoothie quickly and my head is already starting to feel better, even the eggs start to smell alright. I go over to Juliana, peering over her shoulder and wrapping one arm around her waist.
“Eggs?” Juliana offers as she leans back against me, scraping the bottom of the pan and mixing the eggs so they cook evenly. She sprinkles on some cheese, salt, and pepper. Then while she waits for them to finish, she grabs the salsa from the fridge, unraveling herself from my grip.
“Sure, thanks.” Juliana turns off the stove, puts some eggs on each of our plates, and then scoops out some fruit from a bowl that I didn’t even notice we had. We bring our plates to the kitchen table and sit silently eating breakfast together. After a few minutes of silence, I remember that I haven’t told Juliana about church and lunch with our families. “Oh hey, my mom called this morning and wants us to attend church, that’s why I set my alarm. And then apparently, she is setting up a lunch with our families afterward.”
“Oh, okay, sure. What time do we need to leave?” Juliana keeps eating her breakfast but shoots a glance at the clock.
“Church starts at 10 so we probably need to leave about 9:40.” I polish off my eggs and get up to get a second helping. There isn’t that much left so I lift up the pan to offer more to Juliana, she shakes her head no so I dump the rest onto my plate.
“Okay. We have almost an hour then.” She pauses to finish her breakfast then she brings her plate to the kitchen where I’ve stopped to eat the rest of the eggs at the counter. They ended up being delicious as well. “What are you going to wear?”
“Excuse me?” I look over at her and she smiles, tilting her head at me.
“What are you going to wear to church? It’s not a hard question.” Juliana laughs a little at my perplexed expression. “You’ve never been asked that question before?”
“Not about church, no. I don’t think I’ve been asked that since…” I tail off thinking, I don’t remember Ashley ever asking. “I don’t know, since college? And that was for dances where every couple wanted to match.”
Juliana laughs as she washes her dishes and puts her glass and plate into the dishwasher. “No, no, we don’t need to match. I’m just trying to see if we’re dressing up; cute, fancy, cozy, casual?” She smiles when I still have a funny look on my face. “Right, well since it’s church and lunch after, with both of our families, I would say leaning towards fancy. Not fancy fancy but church fancy.”
“Wow, I have a lot to learn.” Juliana laughs at me as she reaches for the pan on the stove but I wave her off. “Don’t worry about it, I will clean up since you made breakfast. You can go get dressed in your ‘church fancy’ outfit that way I can see what that means and dress accordingly.”
“Sounds good,” Juliana says and smiles at me. She looks like she wants to say something but she doesn’t. Before she can turn and walk back to the bedroom, I pull her toward me and plant another soft kiss on her surprised lips. When I pull away, her surprise morphs into a smile. I smile back and then release her to go get ready.
I finish cleaning the kitchen and then head back to the bedroom to get dressed. I knock on the door to make sure I don’t walk in on her. She opens the door and is wearing a pretty pink and blue floral church dress. She steps back to let me into the room then she turns her back to me.
“Can you zip me please?” Juliana gathers her hair and moves it over her shoulder so I can access the zipper. I reach out and take hold of the zipper, my fingers accidentally brushing her skin. She shivers slightly, but I can’t tell if she likes my touch as much as I like touching her. And I have found myself wanting to touch her more and more.
“Gorgeous,” I say quietly and she looks over her shoulder at me. Again there seem to be words left unspoken between us. But it seems like neither of us wants to be the first one to bring it up. She turns back to face in front of her, red spreading across her cheeks. I make quick work with the zipper, pulling it up when I’d rather be pulling it down. No, I cannot think like that.
“Thank you,” Juliana says then she goes back to the closet to grab a pair of shoes. She pulls out a pair of short heels that have a similar blue as the dress. She really knows how to pull an outfit together. I’ve always noticed and liked that about her.
“So that is what ‘church fancy’ means? I like it.” Juliana smiles at my comment and does a quick spin for me then sits back on the bed laughing. “Absolutely stunning.”
“Do you want me to help you pick out something to wear?” Juliana offers, sighing in playful annoyance. She smiles up at me, looking excited, it makes me happy.
“Of course, I’m sure you have some great ideas.” I go over to the closet and open the doors. Juliana gets off the bed and comes to stand next to me.
“I do.” She begins going through all my button-up, hanging shirts. She slows down when she reaches the right color blues. She pushes a couple aside then pulls one hanger off the rack and hands it to me. “I’ve seen you wear this one before. It looks nice on you and I think it’s the same blue as the blue in my dress. Unless you think it’s too matchy with me?”
“No, I like it. Nothing wrong with matching.” I smile at her and take the shirt off the hanger. I put it on and begin buttoning it up while Juliana grabs a pair of the khakis I tend to reserve for church. “Thanks,” I say when she hands them to me as well.
“Sure. I’ll leave you to get changed.” Juliana exits the bedroom, shutting the door behind her.
Getting ready doesn’t take long but I do take the time to freshen up in the bathroom. When I’m done, I sit on the bed to put my socks and shoes on and then I check my phone and see that it is 9:35 am. We should probably head out soon.
“Juliana?” I call as I exit the bedroom. Juliana looks up from her perch on the couch. “Oh hey. You ready to go?”
“Yep.” Juliana hops off the couch and grabs her purse off the cushion beside her. I hold the door open for her and she waits outside the door while I lock up.
The car ride to church is relatively quiet. I look over at Juliana occasionally and I can tell she is nervous. Although we had our engagement party with everyone there, going to church is a little more intimidating. There are fewer people so there will be more chances for one-on-one conversations. I reach over and take her hand. The gesture might be too intimate and I debate pulling back but Juliana looks up and smiles at me. She squeezes my hand gently, and I bring her hand up to my lips, kissing it softly.
“Are you nervous too? Or am I just being silly?” Juliana asks to recover from the blush my kiss caused. I smile at her reaction. Her hand feels good in mine and I have to remind myself to focus on the road and to focus on what she’s saying to me.
“Uhm, no,” I say, then remember she asked two questions. I clarify. “No, you’re not being silly. And I guess I am kind of nervous. This is our family. Our church. A small community..” I trail off and glance over at Juliana. She’s looking at me with a guilty expression. “What?”
“I’m sorry, I feel so bad. Should we bail before church? We can leave a voicemail for our parents and tell them we got into a fight or something.” Juliana rambles and I know she can go on longer if I don’t stop her.
“Hey,” I interrupt and squeeze her hand. “It’ll be okay. It’s just church then lunch. We can survive that. And I don’t think anyone would believe that we would ever fight,” I add, which thankfully makes her laugh.
We pull into the church parking lot as I finish my sentence, so no backing out of this now. There are a lot of cars today so we have to park further away. The parking lot is mostly void of people. I check the clock in the car and see we made it with one minute to spare. Getting out of the car, I walk around to Juliana’s side and help her out. I take her hand in mine and smile down at her, trying to reassure her.
“We’ve got this. Right?” Juliana hesitates, looking up at me. She squeezes my hand in a nervous gesture.
“We’ve got this.” I hold onto her hand and we make our way into the church. Luckily, church has already started so we only have to offer a few smiles to those who turned to see us enter before slipping into the last pew, settling in for the service.