I BREATHED A SIGH of relief as Greg walked away from me.
If he’d approached me anywhere else, I would have told him to fuck off. But causing a scene at the Briggs’ Halloween party was the last thing I wanted to do. I knew how much tonight meant to their family, and I’d already been the one to ruin it once. I didn’t need to ruin it again.
“Was that Greg Kennedy?”
My mom took Greg’s place beside me, and I had a feeling she wouldn’t let him steal it back.
Katherine St. James had always been overprotective like that, a bit of a helicopter parent. Gemma and I were both raised with educators for moms, but Gemma’s was the free-spirited English teacher while I’d been gifted the middle school principal who loved control. I’d often wished for a sibling when I was younger—just so I had someone to share her attention with. Just so I could breathe a little. But I knew everything my mom did came from a loving place.
I loved my parents. I loved our home and even this town on most days. I would forever be grateful for the spin of fate that allowed my parents to find me.
Chance played a part in everyone’s lives, but it felt different for me. So many decisions and doors needed to open just to match me with my own parents, my own house, my hometown.
But being adopted sort of worked like that.
I nodded, taking a long sip of Julian’s famous “apple pie”—longer than was smart, considering how the sweetness of the drink likely masked an ungodly amount of vodka.
My mom made a noise of disgust in response to my affirmation that Greg Kennedy was lurking around the party. She flicked a single blonde curl over her shoulder as my dad joined us, an easy smile on his face that I knew was somewhat fake. Parties weren’t his thing, but he knew how to make people believe they were.
“I heard Kennedy was engaged to that Kelly girl who was a year ahead of you in school,” he said, always the casual gossiper. It would probably surprise people that my dad, the hardworking businessman, had a propensity to run the rumor mill. But that was Brooks St. James.
“Huh,” I said, simultaneously intrigued with Greg’s engagement to Julian’s ex and, well, that Greg was engaged at all. Maybe I’d misread his intentions when he approached me.
“Think you’ll be invited to the wedding?” Dad teased, a sliver of a smirk appearing just before he tipped his beer back to hide it. He knew I had no interest in attending Greg Kennedy’s wedding, nor did I want to talk to him. I suspected that was why he’d joined my mom over here—to stand guard in case Greg returned.
“Definitely not.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the door to the garage swing open, and I prepared myself for Greg’s return. But a flash of auburn hair told me no one was coming back into the house. No, Julian was leaving. Following Greg? Unlikely, considering how much he’d always disliked him.
Putting both irritating men out of my mind, I faced my parents. And took a deep breath.
“Speaking of weddings,” I began, “I was invited to Sofia’s.”
“Oh?”
My mom’s eyebrows rose. Meanwhile, my dad took another slow drink of his beer, his poker face holding its place.
“Are you going?” he asked.
“Yeah, I want to.” I tapped my fingers on the glass in my hands nervously. “I hope that’s okay.”
“Of course it’s okay, Juniper.”
My mom’s response was swift, but I caught the tension in her stance. On the other hand, my dad leaned against the wall, a picture of neutrality.
I’d never met my half sister, but since my adoption was open, my parents had told me everything they legally could regarding my birth family. I imagined a part of them had always been waiting for this day to come.
Receiving Sofia’s invitation shocked me. It probably wasn’t how I would have gone about our introduction, but I saw it as an opportunity, an open door to have something I’d always wanted: a sister.
Gemma had always been like my sister, but I was painfully aware that she wasn’t my sister. My hair wasn’t red; my eyes weren’t blue.
“Whatever you want, Juniper,” my dad said earnestly, almost like he could sense my hesitation on their behalf. I met his green eyes and saw that he meant it. Of course he meant it. He had a lot of chances to hide my birth family from me, but he never did.
A loud clattering from the garage interrupted our moment at the same time Julian’s mom hollered across the room at my parents. Something about the desserts they brought. I stopped listening, staring at the garage instead. My curiosity led my feet toward the sound, leaving the party behind and my parents to talk with their friends.
The cool air caused goose bumps to erupt on my skin as I stepped into the garage. Julian stood a few feet away, a look of smug satisfaction on his face as he watched Greg walk down the driveway to his car.
A slight drizzle interrupted the silence, pattering softly against the pavement until Greg drove off, and the wheels of his car squealed through the night air. The street was lit by dim streetlamps. One flickered. Just like orange string lights flickered in the garage, making it glow.
I turned to Julian, and his expression fell upon seeing me.
Typical.
“I heard something.” I surveyed my surroundings, wondering what it might have been. “I thought I’d come out to the two of you fighting.”
Julian scoffed. “You think I’d waste my time fighting Kennedy?”
“Then what happened?” My curiosity rose. It thrummed in my veins, powered by alcohol. “He told me he would be back.”
His brows shot up. “Did you want him to come back?”
“Of course not.” The attack in his tone brought out my defensive side.
“Good,” he mumbled before staring back at the street with a stormy expression fitting for Halloween.
“So, what happened?” I pressed.
“He kicked that chair.” Julian pointed at a folding chair, his lips twitching with amusement. “Then he took off to buy more cigarettes or something.”
“He kicked the chair? Why?”
Julian winced. How odd.
“I might have said something,” he admitted. He took his hands out of his jeans pockets before crossing bulging arms over his jean shirt. It made his red puffer vest puff up even more, momentarily derailing my curiosity.
“What’s happening with your outfit?” I wagged a finger up and down. “That is far too much denim to wear at once.”
“I’m obviously Marty McFly.” His look was accusatory when he trailed his eyes over me. “But you can’t really judge, Ms. Same-Costume-Every-Year.”
I wrinkled my nose at him, adjusting my beret, even though I had perfectly placed and pinned it earlier.
“What did you say to Greg?” I asked, reverting the conversation again.
Julian released a stream of air between his teeth. A near whistle. “It was about us.”
“Us?”
“You and me.”
“You and me?”
“Yeah.” Julian met my gaze before calmly answering. “I told him we were fucking.”
He said it so naturally that it took a few seconds to register, maybe even more. The words swam in my head, bouncing off the walls of my brain. That we were what?
I stared at him, unblinking. Julian ran a hand nonchalantly through his hair, clearly not caring about my internal meltdown as I processed what he admitted. He waved a hand in front of my face, looking for a reaction I didn’t have.
“Daisy?”
My mouth tried to make words, sounds, anything, but the apple pie had caught my tongue, that god-awful sneaky drink.
Julian took a step toward me, brows furrowing. “At least give me a sign that you’re breathing, ’kay?”
Nope, couldn’t do that. This was an impossible-to-breathe moment.
Julian lifted a hand when I didn’t reply, pressing his fingers along my neck. His touch, gentle but firm, jolted me into awareness.
“Strong pulse, at least,” he murmured. Did his eyes get bluer somehow? Bigger? Why was he looking at me like that? “Kinda quick, actually.”
Finally, my words sputtered out. “You told Greg Kennedy that we were sleeping together?”
Julian dropped his hand, but his fingers slid the length of my throat before disappearing from my skin. Yeah, my pulse was definitely quick. More than quick. Racing.
“No.”
Oh, thank God.
“I told him we were fucking.”
Jesus Christ. He needed to stop saying it like that. It was not helping anything.
“Why the hell would you do that?”
The words had no problem tumbling out of my mouth now. They were loud and clear. Very loud and clear. Probably too loud and clear.
“Look,” Julian said, inching forward in a deliberately soft voice that was obviously meant to remind me to keep my voice down. “I—”
“Why, Julian?”
This entire scenario didn’t compute in the slightest. Julian hated me. Why he would want anyone to think we were associated even more than we already were was beyond me.
“Because I wanted to piss him off,” Julian hissed, throwing his hands up. “Because it’s Greg fucking Kenn—”
I stabbed my finger into his overly puffy vest. “You wanted to piss him off, or you wanted to piss me off?”
More likely, it was a two-in-one deal for him.
“Him,” Julian said firmly. “And don’t pretend like you didn’t want to do the same. I saw your face when he was talking to you. I saw how you felt.”
“You don’t need to do that overprotective thing with me, Julian.” I stabbed him even harder with my finger. That would surely show him. Right? “You have five sisters you can do that for, but I’m not one of them.”
“Trust me.” He tossed his head back with a laugh that stung because of its implication. Then he looked down at me, lowering his voice. “I’m well aware you’re not my sister.”
I spun on my heel, walking toward the edge of the garage. God, why did he have the ability to make me feel this way?
The rain broke the tension, coming down harder against the pavement.
“I’m sorry, Juni.” Julian’s sigh was ragged, echoing in the empty space. “I know you’re mad.”
“I’m…” My sigh matched his as I came down from my initial shock, feeling deflated. “Not,” I finished, surprising even myself. I was confused, yes. Pissed at the things he’d said, yes. But I wasn’t really mad.
See, there was an irony here that I appreciated. Greg had a multitude of excuses for cheating on me in high school, but there was one that hurt more than others: I wouldn’t put out. Sex hadn’t been on the table. I wasn’t ready for it. Not with him. So, of course, he had to get it elsewhere.
If allegedly sleeping with Julian was what got Greg Kennedy to finally leave me alone, well, that was rather poetic, wasn’t it?
He didn’t need to know it wasn’t true. He didn’t need to know I still hadn’t put out for anyone. Ever.
“You’re…not.” Julian said the words with slow disbelief.
I shook my head. “If it keeps Greg Kennedy as far away as possible, it’s hard to be mad.”
He had been sliding into my DMs and lurking around my house whenever I was in town for far too long.
“I’ll drink to that,” Julian grunted, lifting his beer to clink it against my plastic cup.
I rolled my eyes. Did he think he was off the hook? Because I was still working very hard to resist punching him square in the nose.
“If Greg starts running his mouth about us, I will personally end you, Julian Briggs.”
The town was small, and word of mouth spread fast.
“I’d like to see that.” His lips curved up. “But he won’t,” he added, seeming pretty sure of himself. But of course he had to be sure; he wouldn’t want more people to think he actually liked me.
Before I could reply, Greg’s squealing car tires returned. Oh, shit. I’d hoped he was gone for good. But he just kept coming back—like a goddamn boomerang. I tipped my cup back, trying to drown myself in sickly sweet alcohol.
“Easy there, Lily.” Julian’s voice was husky and incredibly close—the only reason I didn’t jump when I lowered my drink to see him directly before me, only inches away. “Stuff’s strong. I would know. I made it.”
I licked my lips before frowning. “Maybe you should lighten up on the vodka next time.”
“Stop making that face,” he muttered. A light chuckle filled the space between us. “If you want Kennedy to fuck off, you’ll need to do a better job than that.”
“A better job?”
“A better job pretending you like me.”
“Oh my God,” I groaned as a car door slammed behind me. “Do I have to?”
Julian chuckled again, appearing to find this far more amusing than I did. I couldn’t be sure, though, because I refused to look at his face. Not when we were so close like this. But then he slid an arm behind my back, yanking me closer, and murmured, “Come on, Rosie.”
Begrudgingly, I raised my gaze to meet his. Those bright blue eyes were already trained steadily on me.
“This is ridiculous,” I hissed, unnerved by his direct attention. “Why did Greg even come back?”
“I think he was here with his parents. He probably returned for them.”
“Did you know he’s engaged to Kelly Mcvarish?” I asked, remembering the conversation with my parents earlier. I was curious how Julian would react, considering how much he hated Greg and how he’d dated Kelly.
Julian’s brows rose. “Really?”
I shrugged. “According to my dad.”
“Your dad would know,” he said with yet another chuckle, surprising me. That was three times now. A noise resembling laughter had come out of Julian’s mouth three times while talking to me. Could he be drunk? That would likely explain everything. Especially how his thumb was rubbing my side slowly, his touch burning through my thin shirt.
“Yeah.”
Yeah. All I could think to say was yeah.
A knowing smile lit up Julian’s face, but it quickly dimmed. His eyes darted over my shoulder as footsteps splashed through the pools of rainwater. “That makes me hate him even more if he’s engaged and still pulling this shit,” he breathed, shocking me yet again. He didn’t seem to care that Greg was marrying his ex, but he did care that…what? That Greg had talked to me?
We were so close that I felt Julian’s words against my hair, similar to the night he carried me through the parking garage.
I still couldn’t believe he’d carried me through the parking garage.
“Me too,” I agreed, and before any other words could be ripped from my throat, Julian tugged me into his side instead so we were both facing Greg as he trudged back through the garage. A breeze blew in with him, and I shivered. Julian’s grip tightened. The alcohol turned my limbs to jelly, and I melted against him.
“Back so soon?” Julian asked, a clear challenge in his voice. I would know. I was used to hearing that challenge.
Greg’s eyes narrowed as they shifted from Julian to me, tucked beneath Julian’s arm. I could tell he hadn’t believed it until this moment—that I would ever get into bed with Julian. Or, more likely, that Julian would get into bed with me. His lips flattened as he visibly bit down on a response.
But his self-restraint only lasted a moment.
“You never could shut up about him when we were dating,” he said to me, bringing heat back to my skin.
And then he walked away, returning to the party before I could tell him to fuck off. Goddamn Greg Kennedy and his massively annoying mouth.
Julian only waited a second before he turned to me, dropping his chin with a smirk. “Aw, you talked about me?”
I pushed Julian away with a hard shove, scowling as a flush worked further up my neck and into my cheeks. “Believe me, it was nothing good.”
“Of course not.”
It was hard to tell if he meant that. If he did, in fact, believe me. Considering his slight grin, I doubted it.
After a glare over my shoulder, I put as much distance between Julian and me as possible without walking into the cold autumn rain. “Right now would be a good moment to hop into your DeLorean and find a time warp to get stuck in, McFly.”
Julian leaned against the side of the garage, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Oh, yeah?”
“Absolutely.”
“Sorry.” A bit of wistfulness snuck into the word like he really did wish he could jump into a car and disappear from this garage. “My DeLorean’s in the shop at the moment.”
“Guess you’ll have to make do with something else.” I glanced around the space, looking for other escape options.
Julian nodded toward the motorcycle leaning against the back of the garage—the only choice around. “I doubt Noah will like it if I take his bike to a different decade.”
He walked over to it, running a finger over the handlebars and then the shiny leather. I sipped from my cup, watching him closely as he appreciated the motorcycle.
“It’s Noah’s?”
A nod. “He bought it at some auction, but it needed a ton of work. So it’s been a project of mine for a while.”
“Are you finished with it?”
“Yeah.” Julian’s eyes swept over the motorcycle, apparent pride in them. He looked like he wanted to hop on it and ride, escape. So I gave him the option to. The buzzing in my veins told me it would be a good idea. I sidled up to the bike, putting one palm flat on the seat and leaning on it.
“We should probably test it out, huh?”
There was a spark in Julian’s eyes as he digested my comment, and something odd, something akin to hope, spread in my chest. But it vanished when he began shaking his head, rejecting the idea. Rejecting me.
“No, we shouldn’t.”
His demeanor shifted while he took a familiar stance in front of the bike. Of course he would protect his special project from me. I’d find a way to fuck it up, wouldn’t I? I’d find a way to ruin something else for him.
“You would drive,” I said. I assumed that’d be obvious, but maybe Julian thought I wanted to test it out, and that was his problem.
“Obviously, I would drive.”
Goddamn him.
Julian’s expression was stern, final. And it brought back my irritation from yesterday when he wouldn’t even let me and Gemma drive home from Boston without him. After all this time, I couldn’t believe he was still like this.
I shrugged, trying to let it go. “When are you giving it back to Noah? I’ll ask him to take me for a ride, then.”
Julian stiffened. More than I thought was possible. But there he was, in all his six-foot-three glory, standing rigidly in front of me, his jaw ticking with evident frustration.
Usually, I did a better job at controlling myself, at keeping my mask firmly in its place on my face, especially when Julian was involved. But my tongue felt a little loose, my fingers a little tingly. And my lips started to curve with a ghost of a sly smile.
“I’ll text him right now,” I added before remembering I didn’t even have my phone on me. Apparently, Girl Scouts didn’t believe in pockets.
Julian took a quick step toward me, seeming ready to intervene. But when I didn’t take out my phone, he sighed.
“We can take it for a spin when you’re sober,” he said while slowly assessing me. And at that very inopportune moment, the world swayed around me. Or maybe I was swaying. Because Julian’s hand shot out, settling firmly on my waist to steady me. “I don’t trust that you can hang on to me while on a moving vehicle right now. That’s all.”
I automatically opened my mouth to argue before the image of what he’d said started to conjure in my brain. Me, behind Julian. My arms, around his waist. Us, sitting on the same seat. Close. Too close. The thrum of the motorcycle engine. The thrum of—
He was right. It wasn’t a good idea. None of this was a good idea. Not how he was touching me, not how I was proposing ideas for us to touch more.
“Okay,” I whispered, refusing to meet his probing gaze. Instead, I darted away, back into the safety of the Briggs’ house.
The crowd, the music, the sprinkling of redheads amongst guests—I could hide here. This was familiar and safe. The garage was officially off-limits, and the person inside it had always been off-limits. But it was good to remind my tipsy self of that.
I didn’t see Julian for the rest of the party. I saw every single Briggs except for him. And that was okay. I was fine with that. I was relieved by that. I didn’t see Greg, either. Another reason to be relieved.
Yet unease spread like a web within me, catching all my worries and holding them there. I couldn’t even put a finger on what they were, just that they were there.
Not even alcohol seemed to release them. But I kept trying.
I tried until everything was fuzzy, spinning, warm. A bed—I needed a bed. To lie down. I told my parents earlier that I would be staying with Gemma, but all the doors in the hallway were closed when I made it to the second floor. God, this hallway. It felt like home. It smelled like sleepovers in high school and mischief and the vanilla bean candles Jenny Briggs always lit.
I counted the doors as I walked down them. Gemma’s was the third on the left, and I sighed with relief as I found it, ready to sink into her mattress.
I didn’t bother turning on the lights. I wanted it dark, like a mask. I wanted to escape in it.
A body turned on the other side of the bed when I slid beneath the covers, and I frowned, wondering when Gemma had gone to bed and why she hadn’t told me. But asking her didn’t seem worth waking her up. And it definitely didn’t seem worth delaying my sleep or the release of my worries. Not tonight when they crawled over me, getting stuck in that web.
We’d talk in the morning. For now, I pressed closer to the familiar warmth in the bed, to the feeling of home.
And let myself fall.
