16 Julian
Julian
Okay, pretend I’m Nathaniel.”
The complete and utter shock on Leti’s face is worth sweating through Andrew’s hiking boots and North Face jacket after trekking up the humid stairwell to her apartment.
I’m dying for her to let me in already so I can cool off in the glorious AC hitting my face through her open door.
I slide my blue-tinted sunglasses up to the crown of my head to see her better.
Re-creating Nathaniel’s Enchanted Rock selfie is worth it, though, because I’ve never seen Leti smile the way she is now.
She covers her mouth with both hands, but it’s not nearly enough to muffle her laughter. As I walk through her front door, she backs up one step before tripping over the shoe rack and landing flat on her ass. I’d be more concerned if she hadn’t burst into a fit of giggles she can no longer contain.
“Come on, I know I’m not as built as that guy, but you get the picture.” I reach down to offer my hand, which she takes once she’s calmed down enough.
“Permanent. Record.” She emphasizes each word with a clap of her hands.
“What the hell is that?”
“You’re a teacher, so you should know.” She taps a finger to her temple.
“I’m making a mental catalogue of your lowest, most embarrassing moments.
” She smirks before counting them off on her fingers.
“The time you polished off my eight-dollar truffle fries, breaking into my dating profiles without my permission, and now this.”
“Always bringing up old shit.” I shake my head and tsk. “You forgot the time we dated twice.”
“Well, that makes both of us look bad.” I let out a laugh as she cringes.
“But, please, for the love of god, warn me the next time you’re about to do something like this.
I was not prepared for you to come dressed exactly like Nathaniel.
Did you already own this whole”—she waves a hand to indicate my outfit—“look?”
“Borrowed most of this from your brother. I’d never own something so douchey.” I wink. “Let’s get to business, woman.”
“Am I really expected to take you seriously right now?” She follows me into the living room. “Can you at least take off the sunglasses?”
“It’s part of the role,” I tell her. “I’m not Julian. Today, I’m Nathaniel.”
There’s only one way to describe the curve of her lips as she looks at me: radiant. Like the photos on her wall, surrounded by the people she loves most. She’s lit up from the inside out, and it’s because of me.
It’s only once the practice date is over that I realize the amount of absurd shit I’ve been doing the past couple weeks isn’t normal.
Dressing up as Nathaniel. Breaking into her dating accounts.
Spending my entire planning period in the teacher’s lounge printing upward of fifty pages in order to help her, not that Leti ever asked for this much help from me.
It’s all been in service of her. Of making her smile. Making her laugh. Making her…happy. Ultimately, with someone who isn’t me. This was my idea, wasn’t it? Then why does it suddenly sound like the stupidest goddamn thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life?
Holy shit.
I’m an idiot. An idiot in a hell of my own making.
“Where have you been all day?” Andrew’s brow rises as I enter through the front door. “Is that my jacket? And…my sunglasses? Dude, what the hell?”
“It’s a long story.” I shuck off the coat before placing it on a hanger and back inside the hall closet.
Then I rub a hand against my chest before thinking better of it.
I make a mental note to buy another bottle of Aquaphor.
I’m gonna need it, in case I make another spontaneous trip to the tattoo parlor. “I was…trying to impress someone.”
Your sister, specifically. The one who hates you.
The one I realized I have it bad for.
“Really?” His mouth quirks up. “In that getup? Did it work?”
“It made her laugh, which is what I was going for,” I tell him, figuring it’s safe to talk about Leti as long as he doesn’t know that’s who we’re talking about. “We’re friends, though. She has a date with someone else tomorrow.”
“That’s a bummer.” He rummages through the fridge and turns back with a hard cider and a beer cradled in his arm. “Need a pick-me-up? I didn’t know you liked someone.”
What a coincidence. Neither did I.
“Thanks.” I take the hard cider and flop down on the couch.
For a moment I consider how much is safe to tell Andrew when the person in question is Leti.
If she knew I was telling him even this much, she’d kill me.
Hell, if she knew I like her as much as I do, she’d kill me. “And it’s sort of hard to explain.”
“What’s so hard about it? You like her, she likes someone else.” He takes a sip from his beer. “It’s a tale as old as time.”
“Yeah, well, the problem is I didn’t even know I liked her until about two hours ago,” I say. The man has the audacity to laugh into his beer. “What?”
“This coming from the guy who gives me shit for low emotional intelligence,” he says. “Not so fun now that the tables have turned on you, is it?”
“Shut up,” I grumble, and he laughs again. “How the hell did I let this happen? She already shot me down once.” Twice, not that he needs to know that. “And that was supposed to be the end of it. I was fine with that being the end of it.”
“You sure about that?”
“Obviously not anymore.” I let out a groan. “I just need to ignore it. If I ignore my feelings, they’ll go away eventually, right?”
“Now I know something’s seriously wrong with you, because you’re thinking like me. And trust me, you don’t want to do that to yourself,” he says. “Remember last year when Kayla went out with that chem major and I was going to give up, and you convinced me I shouldn’t?”
I nod, remembering how down bad he was for Kayla before they finally got together.
“I’d probably still be pining if you hadn’t given me the kick in the ass I needed to get over myself and ask her out.”
If there’s anything Andrew has in common with his sister, it’s his stubborn streak.
Too often, he gets set in his ways. I’d been telling him for two months to shoot his shot with Kayla before he finally made a move.
Later, she confessed she’d been waiting on him to make a move for twice as long.
It was tiring, watching them circle each other, both too afraid to make the first move. The kick in the ass was warranted.
“You and Kayla are perfect for each other. It’s not the same,” I tell him. “I just got this girl to tolerate me. We got off on the wrong foot, initially, and now…we’re friends.” I cringe slightly. “Friendly. Friends-adjacent. She’d probably still hate if I called her my friend.”
“She’s really making you work for it, huh?” He gusts out a laugh. “Why didn’t she like you?”
I bite down on my tongue, along with the urge to spill my guts. As much as I hate keeping secrets from Andrew, the last thing I’d ever do is betray Leti’s trust.
“Oh, some misunderstanding or other.” I shrug. “She knows how to hold a grudge.”
“Sounds like my sister.” He snorts. “Now, there’s someone you really don’t want to get involved with.”
I still, my heart beating overtime beneath my rib cage. If I were a smarter man, I’d let the comment go. I’ve let a lot of his comments about Leti go, back before I knew who she was. The few times I’ve pressed him on them, he hasn’t been willing to give away much.
“Have you talked to her recently?” I ask him.
“No.” He tries for a light tone, but there’s no mistaking the way his shoulders tense up.
“You know, she is upstairs.”
His gaze cuts to me, brows furrowed.
I panic internally for a beat before I self-correct. “The Grubhub mix-up, remember? Looked like she’s in the apartment right above us. It seems like ignoring her would take more work than confronting her.”
“You sound like my parents,” he scoffs. “They thought if we lived in the same building, we’d be forced to talk through our issues eventually.”
“Is that why we chose this place over the townhome?”
He merely shrugs.
“We could’ve had a dog park!”
“We don’t have a dog.” He rolls his eyes.
“We could’ve been across the street from an HEB plus. We have to take the highway from here.”
“I know, I’m sorry.” He shakes his head. “But saying no to my parents isn’t an option for me, unlike some people in my family.”
“What does that mean?” Is he talking about Leti?
“Leti does whatever she wants, without a care to how it affects everyone else. If it weren’t for Elena, we probably never would’ve heard from her again after she moved out of our parents’ place.”
“Oh, come on. I’m sure that’s not true.”
“It is. Not only because of me either,” he says.
“Our parents were hard on all of us growing up, but every time Leti resisted, they came down even harder on her. Elena and I stopped fighting our parents at all as teenagers and did whatever they said, because we knew what we were in for. And if I’m being really honest?
After a while, I think we started to feel bad for them.
It’s why I still can’t say no to even their dumbest requests, like moving into the same apartment complex as Leti as if we can solve all our issues by proximity alone. ”
“You’re an adult now, Andrew. What would they really have done if you’d refused and gotten the townhome instead?”
“I’d never hear the end of it, for one.” He sighs.
“I couldn’t even lie and say there were no vacancies because my dad called the leasing office when I tried.
They were one step away from a guilt trip, so I caved.
It was easier that way. Besides, at least I can say I tried and blame the fact that nothing has changed on my sister. ”
Nothing about that sits well with me, and not only because I know who Leti is now. Or maybe she’s the entire reason.
“You want to blame the sister they’re already extra hard on for something that’s not even her fault? You don’t see how fucked up that is?”
“She doesn’t care what they think. She can handle it.” He downs the rest of his beer before rising from the couch.
“Enough about my family. What are you gonna do about your girl?” He changes the subject from the kitchen, where he dumps the empty beer can into the trash and grabs another from the fridge. “What’s your plan?”
“Help her date other people.” I let out a disappointed sigh. When I glance up at him, he’s looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. “What?”
“Is that what that getup was about? You’re dressing like the people she’s dating?” His mouth drops open when I don’t bother replying. “Do me a favor? The next time you borrow my jacket, don’t let it be for something that will humiliate us both.”
“This was our arrangement, and it was my idea,” I tell him. “What am I supposed to do? I can’t back out now just because it took me this long to realize I still like her.”
“Sure you can,” he says, like it’s so easy. “Tell her how you feel. Better yet, tell her you want to help her date you instead of other people.”
I narrow my eyes on him. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Fine.” He shrugs. “Swallow your feelings. See how well that works out for you.”
“Does it have to be one or the other?” I lean forward and rest my elbows on my knees as I rub my temples.
“If I tell her how I feel, she’ll run the opposite direction the first chance she gets.
But if I swallow my feelings, I risk the chance of throwing them back up at the most inconvenient moment. Neither option get me what I want.”
“You really like her.” He doesn’t say it like a question. “I wondered when you’d finally get over the whole Ryan thing.”
“You mean the whole destroying my family thing?”
“Your mom is better off without your dad, and you know it,” he says, and not for the first time. “You’re better off without him too. Anyone you’re related to who thinks otherwise doesn’t deserve to call you family.”
“I know that,” I say. “I really don’t want to fuck up another relationship before it starts.”
“Maybe it doesn’t have to be one or the other,” he says, and I immediately glance up. “You sure you wanna listen to me? I’m not exactly known for my great relationship advice.”
“I’m batting at zero here,” I remind him. “Whatever stupid idea you have is better than what I have, which is nothing. So, what is it?”
“You said her date’s tomorrow?” When I nod, he says, “Oh, I know exactly what you’re going to do.”
“And what would that be?”
His mouth lifts into an evil smirk before he tells me.