Julian (Beautiful Mine #1) (9 page)

“I never stopped loving you,” he said. “I just didn’t know how it was going to work out with me being three hundred miles away and us never seeing each other.”

He failed to bring up his indiscretion, like always, still standing by his claim that kissing another girl while drunk at a party hardly counted as cheating.

“We could’ve made it work,” I said. The desperate, teenager in love part of me would’ve moved mountains to stay together back then.

“Maybe.”

“I would’ve made it work.”

“My dad…” he started. “Never mind.”

“Your dad what?” I asked, stepping back.

“He thought you’d be a distraction. He wanted me to have the true college experience, you know?”

“And I would’ve prevented that?”

“I think so.”

“Does your dad know you’re talking to me now? I mean, I know it’s only been a couple days, but what would he think? And do you care what he thinks now?” I could taste the bitterness of my words, but behind it was a sliver of hope, the sliver that always remained, no matter what.

He ran his fingers through his thick auburn hair, leaving a mess of tousled tendrils behind. “Everything is so complicated right now, Evie. You don’t even know.”

“Right,” I said, hand on my hip. “That’s what you said last night.”

He reached his arm out to my hips and pulled me back into him. “All I know is that no one I’ve been with since we broke up has made me feel half the way I felt when I was with you.”

My eyes welled as he said the words I’d been needing to hear for years. Spencer reached up and wiped away a tear that had formed in the corner of my eye and leaned his face down toward mine. “I don’t want to go back to Nashville. I want to stay here with you.” He sucked in a deep breath, and for a minute, appeared to be considering it. “But I-I can’t. I don’t think my dad would allow it. I’d probably be disowned. Cut off.”

“Do you even want to be a doctor, Spencer?” I asked. “Biology was your worst subject. I did all your homework, remember?”

“Yes,” he replied. “I do.”

“Whatever daddy tells you to do, right?”

“It’s not like that.”

“Okay.” I didn’t even try to hide the sarcasm in my voice.

“Hey, now,” Spencer said, pulling me into his arms and wrapping them around me. He leaned down and planted small kisses on my forehead.

“I’ve missed you,” I blurted. The words came so natural when I was in his arms. “I never stopped loving you.”

I silently kicked myself for laying my cards on the table like that. Carys would’ve killed me for admitting that to him. It gave him the power I’d been trying to take back for so long.

Spencer stopped kissing my forehead, took me by the hand, and led me back to my car. My heart sunk. Our little meeting was coming to an end just when it was starting to get good.

“I love you too,” he said. “Always have. Always will.”

“Where do we go from here?”

He shrugged. “Let’s just play things by ear and see what happens. I still have a year left at Vanderbilt, anyway. Then four years of med school after that. Then my residency…”

“So, you wouldn’t come back home to be with me?” I couldn’t help but ask. “You can’t go to school around here?”

“I would if I could,” he said, his blue eyes earnest. I believed him. “My dad would never let me in a million years. You know that.”

“So what do I do, just wait for you? That’s not fair to me.” I tried to stifle the emotional vomit that was about to happen. “Would you want me to move to be near you?”

“I think we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves,” he said with a chuckle, his words slicing my heart like a knife.

“Maybe this was a mistake,” I said. “Us talking again.”

I crossed my arms and stared down at the greening spring grass. The faint rumble of thunder filled the thick, humid air and tiny raindrops began to fall.

“Hey,” he said, cupping my cheek in his hand. “Don’t be like that.”

“But it is like that, Spencer,” I said, stifling sobs. “You were the love of my life. You were my first love. When you broke up with me, it destroyed me. I’d never felt so worthless. I was depressed for a year. I never thought I’d be happy again. I almost had a nervous fucking breakdown because of you.”

Spencer winced, as if he hadn’t known. I was sure he did, though. People talked in Halverford.

“You told me we were going to be together forever,” I continued, “and I believed you. I was a naïve little teenager who believed everything that came out of your stupid, lying mouth.”

“Evie,” he said, bracing his hands on my shoulders and looking me squarely in the eyes. “You need to calm down.”

“Can you blame me, Spencer? What are you doing to me right now?”

“I’m telling you, it’ll be okay this time. Everything’s going to work out.” His words were convincing but his expression not so much.

“Easy for you to say,” I huffed as I wriggled out of his hold. “I’m over this.”

“What are you talking about?” Spencer asked. “Over what?”

“You. Me.
Us.
This entire conversation.”

“All I’m saying,” he said with a frustrated sigh, his voice low, “is that we should keep in touch and see what happens. I don’t like not having you in my life, Evie.”

“You choose to not have me in your life,” I reminded him.

“Look, if you meet someone else and fall in love, I’ll bow out gracefully and you and your new guy can live happily ever after,” he said with sort of casualness that broke my heart, as if I wasn’t worth fighting for. He rubbed my arm in a failed attempt to comfort me as he stared at my tear-filled eyes.

“You really know how to make a girl feel good,” I said, looking away. I reached down, clicking the car door open. “I have to go.”

Spencer said nothing, just nodded as he stared at my face before leaning in and giving me one last kiss on the lips. Within seconds, the scattered raindrops from above turned into a massive downpour. I climbed in my car and shut the door. Through the rain-beaded window, I watched him run back to his Range Rover. As I pulled away, I saw him in my rearview, standing against his car, getting soaked, watching me drive away.

JULIAN

I paged through the thick, leather bound book in my hands, trying to concentrate on the words in front of me. Nothing made sense. I wasn’t sucked away into another world. I couldn’t escape like I normally did. My mind was on Evie and what she was doing and who she was with.

I bookmarked the page I was on and sat it down on the nightstand before sinking back into the pillow. I shut my eyes for just a second before the faint click of a car door outside brought me back into the moment. My parents had left that morning for another one of their trips, and I could only hope it was her.

“Knock, knock,” a sweet, singsong voice said minutes later as my door creaked open. She walked out of the darkness and stood by my bed, smiling warmly, but her cheeks were red and flushed and her eyes were watery. She’d been crying.

“Your parents gone?” she asked. “They left a note for me. I haven’t read it yet.”

“Yes,” I said. “Ten days, this time.”

She probably didn’t notice it, but her face lit slightly with that revelation. I couldn’t blame her. Working for my mom wasn’t an easy feat. She was always watching, always lurking, always suspecting. Sometimes I swore she wanted something to be wrong so she could feel vindicated for being so suspicious and paranoid all the time.

“I got you something,” she said, pulling a white plastic sack from behind her.

“What?” I sat up. “You didn’t have to do that.”

She pulled out a box containing what looked to be a cell phone. “Ta da!”

“A cell phone?” I asked. “Why?” I’d never had one, nor had I ever had the need for one before.

“I want you to be able to get a hold of me anytime you need,” she said as she pulled it out of the box. “Day or night. No stupid buzzers or bells or intercoms. No relying on your parents to speak on your behalf. You’re a grown man, Julian.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“This is your first step toward autonomy,” she said as she handed it to me. The sleek, shiny metal was cool against my palm. “I have big plans for you.”

“You didn’t have to do this, really,” I said as I pressed buttons and began familiarizing myself with the little device.

“Now you can text me anytime,” she said, smiling. “And our messages will be strictly confidential. No one’ll see them but us.”

“Oh?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“That’s not what I meant,” she said as she nudged me and laughed. “Just please don’t tell your parents you have this. Hide it and keep it on silent at all times.”

“And defy my parents?” I said cheekily. “Excellent idea, Evie. Best one you’ve had in a long time.”

“Are you being sarcastic?” she asked. She didn’t know what to think of me sometimes. I could tell.

“Not at all,” I said in earnest. “I love it. Thank you.”

“It’s a pretty basic phone,” she said. “I couldn’t afford a smart phone, or anything high-tech.”

“Don’t apologize. This is fine,” I assured her, cracking a genuine half-smile.

She whipped her phone from her back pocket and composed a text, and within seconds, my phone buzzed in my hand.

“My first ever text message,” I said. “Put this in the history books.”

“What me to show you how to send one?” she offered.

“I think I can figure it out.”

“Okay, I’m waiting.”

Several seconds later, her phone buzzed.

She read the message out loud. “Would you like to watch a movie with me?” She laughed. “You’re so proper, Julian.”

She looked up at me for a split second before responding, taking me in as if she were momentarily lost in thought. “Sure. Let’s watch a movie. What did you have in mind?”

“You pick.”

“Wait, do I know you right now? Who are you?” she teased.

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” I said with a smirk. “So, I take it you’re not mad at me for yesterday?”

“I’m over it,” she replied, as if she had bigger things on her plate to deal with. “Just don’t do that again.”

“You have my word.”

“Let’s watch
The Notebook
,” she said as she grabbed the remote and got comfortable next to me. “I could use a good release.”

“What is that, some kind of sappy love story?” I asked. I knew exactly what it was.

“You said I could pick,” she reminded me, defending her selection. Within minutes, she’d located the movie on demand channel and the opening credits were playing across the screen. She propped up some pillows behind her and settled in, mere inches from me. “You better not fall asleep, Julian.”

“I won’t,” I promised, sitting with my arms folded like a perfect gentleman. All I really wanted to do was put them around her, pull her in, and hold her close. She looked tired, but then again, she always did. She was always giving so much to other people and never took the time to take care of herself. Sometimes when she slept, she’d whimper or make little puppy dog noises, and it was the cutest damn thing. She was adorable, and she didn’t even know it.

Halfway through the movie, I got slightly bored. My eyes nonchalantly turned her way. I just wanted to watch her. She was a million times hotter than Rachel McAdams, anyway. She must have felt me watching her, because after a while, she turned toward me and I quickly glanced away, hoping I hadn’t been caught.

The movie ended another hour later, and Evie lay there, staring at the screen in pure silence. Her lip began to quiver, and from the looks of it, she was fighting back tears.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, reaching my hand over to cover hers. “The movie wasn’t sad. It had a happy ending. Why are you crying?”

“It’s nothing. It’s dumb. Don’t worry about it,” she waved me off and rolled her eyes as she hopped up to grab the remote and shut the movie off.

“It’s that asshole ex of yours, isn’t it?” I knew it. I knew she saw him over the weekend.

“No,” she whispered, her voice unconvincing and hollow.

“What’d he do now?”

“It’s a long story. It’ll bore you to death,” she said, picking at her nails.

“I’ve got all night,” I insisted. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You were right when you said people do stupid things when they’re in love,” she said, her voice cracking and deflated. “I shouldn’t have met up with Spencer last night. And again this afternoon. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“You were thinking with your heart and not your head.”

“I guess I thought he still loved me.”

“Did he say he still loves you?”

“Yes.”

“So, what’s the problem?”

“He pretty much said we can’t be together right now, we should keep talking, and that we should just see what happens down the road.”

“Sounds logical. What’s the problem?”

“I just want him to want me again,” she said, drawing her knees up to her chest as if to comfort herself.

“What’s so great about this asshole, anyway?” I asked.

“Everything and nothing all at the same time,” she said, her lips curling into a wistful yet regretful smile. She leaned back on the bed again, resting on the downy pillows. She opened her mouth to elaborate and then simply said, “It’s hard to explain.”

“I don’t buy it,” I said. “You’re just holding onto an illusion. You’re clinging onto what might have been and what once was. You need to move on, Evie. If he truly loved you and wanted to be with you, he’d be with you. He wouldn’t string you along like some backup plan.”

“It’s not that simple,” she objected.

“Yes,” I said, my voice raising. “It really is. You just refuse to see it that way, and that’s really too bad for you.”

Her eyes widened at the loudening of my voice, but I couldn’t help but get worked up. She needed to waste her tears on someone who deserved them, not that ass hat.

“Hm, someone’s opinionated,” she said, rolling her eyes and refusing to swallow my jagged little pill of truth. “Maybe some part of me wants to prove that I’m good enough for him because I never felt like I was.”

“Ah,” I said. “So that’s what this is about: rejection.”

“Maybe,” she said, her eyes glued to the comforter. “I don’t know anything anymore.”

“So, you’re going to put your life on pause for some guy who’s not even sure he wants to be with you right now, but he wants to make sure you’re an option for him? You’re a princess, waiting for her knight in shining armor to show up and rescue her from the depths of despair, when really there’s no guarantee that he’ll even show up. Pretty sad. Not to mention cliché. Come on, Ev. You can do better than that.”

“You just called me Ev,” she said, ushering in a much needed change of subject.

“I did,” I said with a slow smile.

“I didn’t know we were on a nickname basis,” she laughed, her first real smile all day. “Now I need to think of one for you. And don’t tell me to call you ‘Jules’ again. How about J-dog? J-man? Juliano?”

“Oh, God. Stop,” I said, stifling a laugh. “Those are horrible.”

“I’m going to think of a good one,” she promised. “Just wait.”

The atmosphere around us instantly lightened, and I thanked God for that.

“I’m hungry,” I announced, trying to drown out the obnoxiously-loud rumbling of my stomach.

“Okay,” she said, popping up quickly and changing gears. It was easy to forget that she was just an employee sometimes, just someone working for the family. “I’ll be right back.”

She ran downstairs and returned a short time later with a tray full of some kind of pasta dish and vegetables and placed it on the table.

“I thought you could eat here tonight,” she said, nodding toward the table by the window.

I slid my feet out from the covers and placed them on the cool wooden floor before carefully walking ten feet across the room to the table. It felt easier that time, easier than it had ever felt before. I took a seat, the steam from the pasta filling my nostrils, and rolled some noodles onto my fork.

“Chicken Alfredo,” she said. “Another Cawthorn family recipe.”

“It’s very good,” I said between bites. “Another attempt to fatten me up, I see.”

She smiled as she watched me eat.

“This is good, and I don’t even like food,” I said in an attempt to compliment her.

“Hey, I’m going to my room for a bit,” she said. “I’ll come back for your tray later. Just text me if you need something.” She grabbed my new phone off the nightstand and placed it next to my tray before leaving my room. Her mind was clearly on other things.

Or other people.