Chapter Ten Nomi #2
“You must be looking for Dr. D’Angelo,” the bored teen says, not a question.
How many furious people does this kid field each day because of Julian?
With a sigh, he closes his graphic novel, its cover all in Japanese with badass girls in prim school uniforms throat-punching businessmen.
God, when did the youth get so cool? I was reading the novelizations of my favorite CW shows at that age.
Without missing a beat, the teen airdrops a note to my phone, which buzzes in my pocket.
I glance in surprise between it and his bored face, then open it tentatively.
You can’t tell with these Gen Alpha teens.
“This is Julian’s—address?” I stare at the kid. “You’re giving angry people his home address?”
The teen nods, and a small, sly smile flickers on his face before the apathy wipes the slate clean again. “You asked where he is.”
I make a mental note not to fuck with this kid. “Thank you… Khalil,” I finish, finding his name tag. “I’m going to go yell at Julian now.”
“Bet.” Khalil reopens his novel.
I’ve been dismissed.
It takes all of five minutes to reach Julian’s place, a sunny little beach cottage with no beach in sight.
It’s painted pale blue with cream-colored shutters, the sweet porch out front decorated in country chic.
I close the door to my car, feeling the rage ebb and replaced by unease as I take in legit flower boxes, their greenery and lush summer blooms spilling out of them.
Maybe it’s an Airbnb? A suspiciously well-kept rental?
I bang the heel of my fist against the door. He won’t mistake me for a gentle, kind Jehovah’s Witness or a well-meaning but deluded college student canvassing for the Green Party.
Nobody answers, but he’s definitely home—his Volvo’s parked in the driveway. I screech against the curved windowpane at the top of the door. “Answer the door, you asshole!”
I’m halfway through another set of pounding knocks when the door opens.
Julian’s black waves are sleep-mussed, and the shadow across his face foretells an aggressively masculine beard pattern with full-growth potential should he wait three days’ max to shave.
His eyes seem weirdly small, and then I realize they’re barely open.
This asshole’s been sleeping? His soft, gray T-shirt is too small to be decent.
Thick straps of triceps peek from the sleeves, his muscular arms as curvaceous as a 1940s starlet, though one is still wrapped in a soft cast. And the sweatpants, oh ho, slung so low around his hips, I have to witness a solid inch of black waistband fitting snugly beneath?
Infuriating.
“Nomi?” the idiot mumbles. “Wha—”
I place a full palm against the flat of his sternum, enraged at the rise of chest muscles on either side, and drive him backward, inside, where I can yell at him properly. He may be sleep-dumb, but he has the good sense to look terrified as I slam the door behind me like a thunderclap.
I wave the manila envelope in the air hard enough to take down a hornet. “You filed a zoning complaint?!”
The evidence of his assholery works like a beacon, summoning the tiny, nefarious demon ruling Julian’s brain to repossess its bumbling human host. I watch it bodily re-inhabit him, his spine straightening, shoulders rotating back, eyes cranked all the way open now.
The fuzzy quality of sleep that made him so soft and dammit, inviting, has burned away.
His armpits look like terrible cuddle zones now.
“I did, because it’s valid, Nomi. You can’t open your little weed bordello—”
“Bordello? Do you hear yourself, Julian?”
“—next door to a family medical practice! What message would it send our children?”
My eyes must bulge as wide as his does, because he hastily amends, “The children of Sparrow Nook, of course! Not our children, like ones we make together—”
My eyebrows stretch so high, it feels like facial Pilates.
“—but the proverbial, royal Our, as in—” His cheekbones have colored a bright red, and thanks to his skimpy ass T-shirt, I can see the blush travel down the planes of his neck and collarbone.
I shake my head in disbelief. “What, exactly, do you think goes on at a dispensary?”
“People making bad decisions about their health, money, and well-being.” He folds his arms. “And maybe sex. In the back.”
“What?!”
“I listen to rap, Nomi, I’m not naive!”
The single, wild laugh that escapes me quickly morphs into a groan because he is that naive. “Listen, zoning complaints take months to reconcile—you might not even be here by the time they set the hearing date!”
“So?”
“So, what is your end game here? Swoop into town to piss everyone off, burn everything I’ve worked for to the ground, ruin my life, and then leave again? You don’t even live here!”
“I’m not ruining your life, Nomi. I’m saving you and Sparrow Nook from marijuana.”
“Don’t lie to yourself—you’re not saving anyone!
” I take a step forward, hating the vulnerable confession I’m about to share.
“Listen, Julian. I need to open Stranger Drugs immediately, or else my savings will be wiped out by the time this zoning hearing resolves. Your scheme will make me go broke.” I pin him with my gaze, imploring him to listen. “Do you understand?”
“See?” Julian huffs, completely unmoved by this declaration of my impending doom. “A terrible business idea.”
Tears unexpectedly sting my eyes. I guess a small part of me thought hearing the very real consequences of his actions would have some effect on him, but the demon’s at Julian’s wheel right now, and it’s happy to ram me over a cliff.
“Why are you so desperate to turn me into the loser you’re so sure I am?
Is this about high school? Some pathetic need to get back at me for what—what happened? ”
The stern, sneering set to his brow softens, his whole face falling, like it’s me pushing him over the cliff right now. “No, I—that’s not it at all! I—”
Just then, the front door swings open, making us both startle back. “Julie? Is my son that I am not talking to home?” Gisella calls as she tramps in, her arms full of stuffed grocery bags.
Julian lives with his mom? And she’s mad at him??
Glee floods the caverns of my petty, petty heart.
“Nomi! Great to see you.” Gisella shoves the bags at Julian, who stumbles back beneath the sudden weight of them, and then throws her arms open and wraps me in a big, lung-compressing hug.
She holds me back to look at me. “You did great at the city council meeting, sweetie. How’s your baby-maker—all healed up? ”
And just like that, the glee is gone, replaced by absolute mortification. My eyes dart to Julian. “You told your mother about my—area?”
Julian looks like he’s about to faint.
“No, of course not, your mother did,” Gisella answers for him, frowning. She pauses, looking between the two of us like guilty children, before her eyes widen. “Noooo… it was my Julian that sewed up your vagina?” She caws out a laugh. “Oh, he must’ve loved—”
“Mother!” Julian finally splutters out, and one full bag slips out of his grip, sending clementines rolling across the floor.
“Clean those up,” she orders him, then blinks at me. “Well? Did he do a good job at least?”
“Um,” I whisper, unable to fully breathe. “Yes?”
“Ha!” Gisella sashays into the kitchen. “Now that’s a ringing endorsement. As long as it still works, right, sweetie?”
I grab the wall for support, physical and emotional, while Julian gathers up clementines, cursing. He eyes the last one that’s rolled in front of me. He plucks it cautiously, as though I might knee him in the face.
Fair.
He slowly rises all the way to standing, the bottom of his gray shirt now cradling twenty small fruits, revealing his vicious abs beneath. We stare at each other, both drowning in this abyss of mutual horror. “I’m so sorry,” he mouths silently, eyes pleading, “for my mother.”
But not for ruining my dreams? I laugh once, shaking my head, then take a menacing step forward. “Withdraw that zoning complaint, Julian. Immediately. Or you’ll really be sorry.”
With narrowed eyes, I slap the underside of his shirt basket, upending the clementines once more, and stomp out.