Chapter 41
Chapter Forty-One
Julie
“ J ules,” Molly squeals when I walk through the front door of the office. “Hallie, Em, she’s here,” Molly yells up the stairs before throwing her arms around me and squeezing. She hasn’t let go yet when Hallie and Emma come barreling down the stairs, joining our hug so that all four of us are wrapped together in the entryway of the office. In the circle of my friends’ familiar arms, it hits me how much I missed them, and how grateful I am that I have this to return to. I have anchors all around me, I realize suddenly. It’s long past time I start using them.
“Missed you,” Hallie whispers.
“Missed you more,” I whisper back. She leans her head on my shoulder, and I am really, truly home.
We all pull apart and Molly studies my face carefully, her hands on my shoulders.
“You look happy, Jules,” she says. “Really, really happy.”
Her voice is quiet, a little serious. It’s uncharacteristic of her, and a little jarring that my happiness is the first thing she commented on instead of demanding the details about all the sex I’m having.
“I am happy,” I say simply, because it’s the absolute truth.
“I’m really glad.” There is something in her eyes, an expression on her face I don’t quite understand. For as close as we all are, and as outgoing as she is, there’s a part of Molly that stays walled off from us. A tiny piece of her she protects. Once, early in our first year of law school and soon after the four of us became friends, we all got drunk on tequila at some random dive bar, and Molly let it slip that she was still heartbroken over her college boyfriend who broke up with her late in their senior year. I will never forget the haunted look in her eyes when she mentioned his name. That was the only time she ever voluntarily brought him up, and the few times one of us has asked about him over the years, she clams up immediately and gets that same look in her eyes. She never talks about it, and she also never dates seriously, and it doesn’t take a genius to realize that those two things are linked.
Emma must see what I see because she slips an arm around Molly’s waist and gives her a squeeze before we all migrate to the kitchen, taking our usual spots around the island, Hallie next to me on one side and Emma and Molly on the other. Donuts and coffee are already laid out. Looks like they were serious about a breakfast story and, for probably the first time in my entire adult life, I’m not anxious or antsy about getting to work or making a list of all the things I need to accomplish on my first day back in the office in two weeks. All I want to do is sit here with my friends and eat donuts and talk.
“Heads up, Hal.” Molly tosses a bag at Hallie, no doubt with a maple donut inside. Hallie loves them, and we hate how they make every other donut taste like maple, so she gets hers in a separate bag. Just one of a million tiny details that make up the tapestry of our years-long friendship .
“Jules.” Molly gestures to me with a chocolate donut in her hand. “I think you have some things to tell us.”
“Yeah, no shit,” Emma says. “Spill it, Jules.”
“Hold on.” Hallie speaks through a mouthful of maple cream. “First, I think we need to have a moment of acknowledgement and appreciation for the fact that Julie has been in this office for five minutes already and is now sitting at the table, eating a donut, and has not asked about work one single time. She spent two weeks away and hasn’t demanded a progress report on her clients or asked what any of us are working on. That has to be some kind of record.”
I shrug a shoulder. “There’s time for that later.” And I know there will be. I haven’t turned into an entirely different person. Work will always be important to me, and it will always be important to me to be good at it. To give my clients the best service I’m capable of. I love being a lawyer, and it’s a big part of who I am. But what I understand now that I didn’t two weeks ago is that I don’t have to give it all of me. And that’s the most critical difference. Sitting here on a Monday morning having donuts with my friends instead of downing my fourth cup of coffee while I work, my entire body humming with anxiety, feels like a revelation. “You guys seem to have held it all together while I was gone.”
“And we did it with style.” Molly points at me. “Now spill, Jules.”
I wonder for a second where to begin and decide to just tell the whole truth of it. “I think it was the best two weeks of my entire life.”
All three of them stare at me.
“Better than the day you found out you got an Elle Woods level score on your LSATs?” Hallie asks.
I open my mouth to answer but Emma interrupts. “Better than when you posted that picture on Instagram of your scarily perfect handwritten law school notes that went weirdly viral and that company sent you a lifetime supply of notebooks and pens?”
Molly jumps in again before I have a chance to respond to that. “Better than the day you found out you beat that asshole Joe Thompson’s GPA by less than a tenth of a point and edged him out for valedictorian of our law school class?”
“Yes,” I laugh. “Better than all of those things. It was…” I pause, not sure what to say next. “He is…” I try again. Then I think, fuck it. “He’s everything.”
“You love him.” Molly says it matter of factly, like she’s telling us the sky is blue.
“Are you psychic or something?” asks Hallie. “I remember another conversation about six months ago that went a whole lot like this.”
Molly shrugs. “I see what I see. You love him, don’t you?”
Fuck it , I think. These are my most important people. “I do.”
Hallie reaches over and squeezes my hand, and I give her a smile, grateful for the support.
“He’s one of the best people I have ever known. He’s kind and patient and funny and really, really fun. He loves his family and bakes cookies and cried when he met his new nephew. And he gets me. Like, really, really gets me, all the way through. He understands things about me that I didn’t even understand about myself, and I think he has since the first time we met at the gala in July. It seems weird to say because I didn’t think I believed in shit like this, but it feels like he was made just for me. Knowing him for two days or two decades wouldn’t matter. He’s meant to be mine.”
“Fuck, Jules.” Molly sniffles and wipes her eyes with a napkin. “I definitely didn’t have cry at Julie’s love confession on my to do list today. ”
“It’s not weird.” Emma speaks with conviction. “Like I told Hallie months ago, love and feelings come when they come. And some people are just meant for us. I understand how it would be harder for you to accept it, though. You love spreadsheets and logic and to-do lists and plans. Feelings are chaos.”
I huff out a laugh. “They sure are. But I think I might be getting better at learning to live with a little chaos. I’ll never get rid of my spreadsheets because, spreadsheets, yum. But I think maybe I’m a little more okay with everything not lining up in perfect columns. And actually, there’s something I need to tell you all before I lose my nerve. The actual reason I went on Asher’s road trip.”
“Finally!” Hallie says. “I thought we would have to get you drunk to get it out of you.”
I take a deep breath and tell them everything about the panic attack and Asher finding me on the floor of my office and suggesting the road trip.
“That was my first panic attack, but I’m anxious, like, all the time. I worry about everything and pretend I don’t. And I try and control everything because if I do, then I don’t have to worry about something going wrong. I hate half my clothes because they’re too perfect to sit in. I hate my house because I tried to make it so perfect that I forgot to make it comfortable. And, until Asher, I never even had an actual orgasm I didn’t give myself because I couldn’t relax enough with another person to let it happen. I’m basically a mess, and, well, I just thought you should know.”
There’s a pause, and then Hallie wraps me in a one-armed side hug.
“Thank you for telling us,” Hallie says. “It must have been really exhausting for you to put on that fa?ade all these years. I’m sorry I never noticed when you were having a hard time.”
I take another deep breath, and this time, when I let it out, it feels like I breathe out a weight I’ve been carrying for years. “It really has. But don’t be sorry. There was no way for you to know. I papered over it with color coded spreadsheets and a perfect wardrobe.”
“It’s a relief, you know,” Molly chimes in. “That you’re normal. We’re all kind of a mess, Jules. We all hide it to varying degrees, some better than others. I think it keeps us interesting.”
“And tell us, okay?” Emma reaches across the island and lays a hand over mine. “When you’re struggling. When you need one of us to carry some of your weight. We did it when you went away, and everything was fine. We’re a team in this office, and we’re friends always.”
“I will. I think sometimes it served me. Like, I did really well in law school and was always at the top of my associate class. But, somewhere in there, I got the idea that I had to do everything perfectly, and the whole thing kind of took on a life of its own. But the last two weeks…” I trail off, wondering how I can possibly summarize the last two weeks and do them justice.
“They were kind of a revelation. Asher had a plan, but it changed all the time. We would see a billboard for something ridiculous, and then next thing I knew, we were driving fifty miles out of the way to see a cow made of butter or a giant ball of rubber bands. We played road trip games and ate a million pounds of peppermint Hershey Kisses and gummy candy, and I literally howled at the moon. And after the first day, I barely even thought about work. It was like once I powered down my brain, it was too overworked and exhausted to come back online and it ended up being exactly what I needed. He is exactly what I needed.”
Emma squeezes my hand. “I’m really happy for you, Jules.”
“So, what happens now that you’re back?” Molly asks.
“Now we’re going to be together for real, every day, not just on the road making stops to see giant barbershop poles and the world’s largest taco. I went to his house when we got back and you’re never going to believe this, but he lives five houses down from my parents.”
Hallie laughs. “That’s a weird coincidence. That’s your favorite street in the city.”
“It is. And his house is amazing. It’s big, but it’s comfortable and happy. You can feel it the second you walk in the door. I loved it.”
“What about the fame thing?” Emma looks concerned when she asks. “I’m sure no one cared who he was on the road, but here he’s, like, the most recognizable face in the city. Maybe it’s not as bad in the offseason, but when pre-season starts this summer, he’ll be back in the spotlight.”
My stomach tightens, thinking of Asher at the stadium, wondering what’s going on and whether he will, in fact, be playing come pre-season. I wish I could talk to my friends about it, but it’s not mine to tell.
“He actually got recognized the second we got off the plane. It was sweet; a little boy asked him to take a picture. After that, there were cameras pointed at us everywhere and he panicked for a second thinking that I would freak and run, but it turns out I actually don’t care about that at all. He’s the same guy whether the cameras are pointed at him or not. So, to prove it, I made out with him in the airport. The pictures are probably all over the internet right now.”
I’ve barely stopped speaking when all three of my friends whip out their phones and start typing madly.
“Holy shit, Jules.” Molly gapes at her screen. “You look amazing, and it looks like that man can kiss .”
“Yes, he is very talented in that area. And…other areas.”
Hallie snorts out a laugh. “I just bet he is. I bet he’s another guy whose mouth could win awards. ”
“Yes, he and Ben seem to have that in common,” I say dryly, still icked out I have that information about my twin brother.
“I could use an award-winning mouth on me,” mutters Emma. “It’s been too fucking long.”
Molly slides her a look. “I can think of a certain ex-hockey player who I’m sure would volunteer as tribute. I bet his mouth can do amazing things.”
“Oh, it can,” mumbles Emma, her voice so low I’m not sure I heard her right.
Molly seems to have heard just fine because she gapes at Emma. “Is there something you’d like to share with the class, Emma, love?”
Emma looks startled, like she didn’t realize she said that out loud. “Definitely not.”
There’s an air of finality to her voice, and I think we all tacitly agree not to press her, even though I’m curious as fuck.
“Okay, well if Emma isn’t sharing, Jules, it looks like you’re still in the hot seat.” Hallie grins. “We are going to need so many more details. Like, what was your safe word? Tell us more about the head off the bed situation.”
“Yeah, I really need to know about the mechanics of that,” says Emma, looking relieved to be off the hook.
“It’s the best way to give a blow job. Really opens up the throat.” I think she’s joking, but when I look at Molly, she’s dead ass serious and it makes me laugh.
With laughter in the room and my best friends by my side, I settle in for story time, happy to be home.