Before Ryan Was Mine (The Remembrance Trilogy - Prequel) (13 page)

I set the half-full popcorn bucket on the floor, just as the credits began to roll.

Julia looked at me. “That was so sad!”

The corner of my mouth twitched. I’d have to take her word for it since I stopped paying attention after the chick cracked her head on the floor. You never knew in these movies. People were always coming back from the dead. Hell, movies were made and remade with different shit all the time. “Maybe she isn’t really dead,” I said as I stood up and helped her with her coat.

She shot me a wry glance and began to walk down the aisle in front of me and I followed her out and down the stairs, and out of the theater auditorium.

She looked up at me and gave those big green eyes a roll. “Ryan, he went to the funeral. She’s dead.”

I shrugged. “Okay.”

“Didn’t you like the movie? You picked it!” We filed out of the main doors, just part of the crowd. It was smaller than usual, probably due to the holiday.

“It was okay.”

It was cold and the car was parked a few blocks down the street. The theater was an old time style, on a regular street without the huge parking lot and patrons had to find parking on the streets around it. It was dark, and starting to flurry, so the light from the streetlamps reflected off the flakes.

I watched Julia’s breath come out in a frosty huff. Soon she would be shivering. “Come on! You’ll freeze your little ass off.” I grabbed her hand and pulled her along toward the car.

“Quit it, Matthews! You’re my friend, so stop looking at my ass. It’s weird.” She said the words but she was laughing, as was I.

“Shut up, Abbott! I’ve been staring at your ass for months now.”

She didn’t say anything about my comment or about where we were. I’d taken her back to my apartment because, even though we’d spent practically the entire day together, I wasn’t ready for the evening to end. Aaron had some beer in the refrigerator and it felt like we hadn’t even eaten dinner.

I opened the door for her and waited for her to breeze past me into the living room. When we were peeling off our coats and kicking off our shoes, my stomach growled loudly. My eyes shot sheepishly to Julia’s.

“Oh, God. Okay!” she lamented then went into the kitchen and started opening cupboards. “Whatcha got?” She opened the refrigerator that was conspicuously bare except for some milk and beer. Maybe there was some yogurt that Jen stashed inside, but other than that nothing but some moldy cheese and a few potatoes. Julia’s nose crinkled in disgust as she pulled out the smelly cheddar that was beginning to turn all green and fuzzy. “Ugh! Ryan!”

I moved into the living room and flopped down on the couch, leaning forward to grab the remote off the table. The furnishings were eclectic: a mixture of stuff my mom was willing to part with and other shit we’d gotten at garage sales and through newspaper ads in the month before classes began two years earlier. The only thing we had that was worth anything was the flat screen. It looked obnoxiously out of place, but we had an Xbox 360 and cable TV. Those were our splurges. Aaron spent all his money on sports and war games before he met Jen.

Julia came in holding two potatoes. “Do you like potato soup? It won’t be up to my usual standards because the cheese is moldy so I can’t use it, and there isn’t any bacon, but I’ll try.”

“Sure. Anything. I’m starving.” The truth was, I wasn’t a huge soup guy. Soup was for pussies, but it was too late to order pizza and if Julia made it, I’d eat it.

“I have no clue what you guys eat,” she mumbled and left the room.

I stretched out and settled on old reruns of SNL. It was a mash-up of Jimmy Fallon and Will Ferrell skits Soon, I was laughing my ass off.

“Ryan, what are you watching?” Julia called from the kitchen.

“Old episodes of SNL on Comedy Central! The older casts were freaking hilarious.”

“I’m almost done.”

Five minutes later she was setting a bowl of steamy white soup in front of me on the coffee table along with a slice of buttered bread. She disappeared briefly, to return with a second bowl.

I’d grabbed two beers when we first arrived, so I cracked the second open and scooted it in front of her. “There’s a skit coming up with JT and Fallon.”

Julia settled onto the couch next to me. I picked up the spoon to taste the soup. It was surprisingly delicious. I looked at her, amazed that she could take an empty refrigerator and come up with this. She was concentrating on the TV and not really interested in her soup.

“Julia, this is really good.”

“It would be better if you actually had
food
,” she mocked. “Lucky I found part of an onion and a bit of butter or it would taste like crap, for sure.”

“How’d you get it so creamy? My mom’s potato soup is runny, almost like it’s just hot, white water. It tastes like ass.”

Julia laughed. “I made extra potatoes and mushed them up.”

I really didn’t care how she did it. I was too busy wolfing it down. “I didn’t think I liked soup.”

She smiled softly and leaned back on the couch, bringing her legs up and curling them beneath her.

When the episode came back on, it was a skit where Jimmy Fallon was Nick Lachey and Justin Timberlake played Jessica Simpson as a blonde ditz. It was funny as fuck. Soon, we were both laughing so hard I almost snorted soup out my nose, and Julia’s head fell back and she held her stomach as wave after wave of laughter peeled out of her.

As much as I’d dreaded this night, it was turning out great. For the next hour, we watched the rest of the show, and I finished the rest of Julia’s soup. My beer was gone, but she still had half of one, and she pushed it toward me after noticing I’d finished.

It was comfortable and natural. If I’d finished any other chick’s beer, she’d probably twist it into a commitment of some kind when really, all it meant was I was thirsty. The thing was, with Jules, I wasn’t certain what this was, exactly. Maybe I’d be okay if she assumed I was interested in her romantically, but Julia would never do that. I sighed as my thoughts smacked me upside my head. I was distracted, getting tired, or maybe the later skits weren’t as funny, but we fell into a comfortable silence.

When the show was over and the soup gone, Julia yawned. “I should go clean up the kitchen.”

I was flipping through the HD channels looking for a movie. “Nah. Leave it. I can clean it up in the morning.”

She yawned again. “I’m really tired, Ryan. I should get going.”

I got up, went to the window, and opened the blinds. It was snowing moderately, leaving a rare white blanket over the streets. “It’s snowing.” I glanced back at her, and she was half-lying down on the couch, cuddled up into a ball, her eyes closed. She looked so soft and alluring; my heart flopped around inside my chest. The feeling was uncomfortable and foreign. Literally, it skipped a beat, and I pressed on the wall of my chest with my hand in an unconscious effort to assuage it. “Why don’t you stay here? I’ll take the couch, and you can have my bed.”

Her eyes opened halfway then closed again. “I don’t want to take your bed,” she murmured sleepily.

I glanced at the clock. It was almost 2 AM, and Aaron wasn’t home, so he was surely cohabitating with Jenna in her dorm for the night, which meant all the sappy V-day shit worked for him.

“Julia, please. You’ll be doing me a favor. I won’t have to drive in the storm. It’s cold out and neither one of us needs to go out in that.”

“Okay, but can I just stay here on the couch? I’m so sleepy.” Her eyes were closed and I could tell from her voice she was more than halfway gone.

I went into my room, peeled the comforter off my bed, and took it back to the living room. When I put it over her, she snuggled down in a similar way she had when she’d been sick a few months back. Now, like then, all I wanted to do was take her in my arms and hold her, to snuggle up next to her and feel her soft warmth against me.

Snuggling? Seriously?
If anyone suggested that to me before, I would have beaten the living shit out of them or laughed in their face.

“Mmm….” Julia murmured and pulled the blanket closer around her. The sound went straight to my dick.
Good thing her eyes were closed
, I thought as I pulled on the crotch of my jeans. Jeans were not made for getting boners and it downright hurt. I undid my belt and pulled it from the waistband, then unbuttoned my pants so it would be less restricting.

I sighed as I looked down at her, my groin throbbing painfully. The TV was still on and was the only light in the room. It cast bluish-gray shadows on the stunning features of her face. I loved just watching her. Her eyelashes were ridiculous, fanning out on the smooth surface of her cheeks. She was gorgeous. I doubted I’d ever think another woman was this beautiful.

I picked up the remote and turned the volume down.
Probably, because I know how cool she is
, I reasoned. I sighed and meandered back to my room, to grab sweats and a T-shirt from my dresser, then headed back to the bathroom for a quick, and decidedly cold, shower. “Yeah. It’s not her perfect body at all. Nope. Not a bit. Keep telling yourself that, Matthews,” I said softly as I turned on the spray. I peeled off my clothes and left them in a heap. “Maybe you’ll convince yourself.”

As I stepped under the spray, I had to ask myself if I wanted to keep torturing myself like this. The way I saw it, I had three options. One: keep getting a case of blue balls that required I beat off in the shower and dating various women who never seemed to measure up; two: give in and try to take it to a romantic place with Julia and risk fucking our friendship; or three: stop spending so much time with her so the friendship was bearable.

I closed my eyes and soaped up my body. I sighed, deep in my chest, leaning a bent arm on the side of the shower stall. The problem was, I didn’t want to risk the friendship, but neither did I want to stop spending time with her. She made me happy, and when I was pissed or upset, she was the first person I wanted to talk to.

Somehow, I’d have to get the libido under control. Aaron, and any other guy I knew would just think about fucking her, but it wasn’t so easy for me. Julia was important to my life, even as a friend. I didn’t want to lose that.

Why did I have to think so goddamned much? It was the middle of the night and I was standing in the shower arguing with myself about whether I should try to get into my best friend’s panties. I mean, what the fuck? Really, I had to get a handle on it. I had shit to do here, and while I cared about this girl, I couldn’t lose focus. I had to keep my eye on the ball, and that ball was medical school. After this year it would get messier—harder classes, more labs, MCATS, less time for partying. There were a million assholes, just like me, competing to land a slot at Harvard Med, and I had to remember that.

No. I’d have to cool it with Julia. As much as I hated the realization, distance was the only way I was going to keep my head on straight. Maybe I’d see her just on Sundays. It would hurt her if I stopped seeing her altogether. And, I’d miss her.

I’d finished shampooing my hair and was rinsing it out when I got a sick feeling inside, mainly because we were great friends, and Julia was the last person on earth I wanted to hurt. My mind began racing with the question: should I tell her what I was doing or just distance myself? That was the typical “guy” thing to do. I’d done it many times. A girl got too clingy or needy and I’d just stop calling. I’d always found those situations uncomfortable to deal with, except Julia wasn’t like one of those girls. She was just awesome, and the reason I couldn’t see her had more to do with me than it did her.

I pushed back the shower curtain and grabbed a towel, briskly rubbing myself down. My dick was now blissfully relaxed, but my gut strangely aching. I pulled on the sweats and T-shirt, and draped the damp towel around my neck, using it to rub the water from my hair with one hand as I walked back down the dimly lit hall toward where Julia lay on the couch, now fully asleep.

I stood there and looked at her for a good sixty seconds. Yes, tomorrow at coffee I’d talk to her. I threw the towel across the back of the couch then bent, sliding one arm under her knees. I was about to lift her into my arms and carry into my room when her eyes fluttered open.

“Ryan?” She lifted her head a little at being disturbed. “What’s the matter?”

I shook my head and stood up with her in my arms. “Nothing. It’s late and I’m putting you in my bed. Don’t wake up.”

Her body was slight, and I lifted her easily, still wrapped in my comforter. She was warm and soft as she snuggled into me. I wasn’t sure if she even knew she was doing it. The beer would have made her sleep harder than usual. Julia rarely drank beer, though she only had a little it might affect her.

“You don’t need to do that. I’m fine here.” Sleep filled her voice and her head lolled on my shoulder. I made short work of the walk to my room and kicked open the bedroom door, being careful not to hit her head or feet on the frame as I angled through it, letting the glow from the television in the other room be the only light.

When I laid her down, she rolled onto her side and pulled the covers closer around her.

“Night, Jules. See you in the morning.” I reached out, touched her hair then let the back of my knuckles graze her cheek. This would be even harder than I thought.

~5~
Up Close & Personal