AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Seven
Me: Hope you’re satisfied with yourself.
On impulse I scrolled through my contacts for the old number I’d saved for Tricia before the wedding. After I’d tapped out a text, I pressed the send button. I was surprised when it went it through and livid that I had broken my resolution not to contact her again.
Tricia: You’re thinking of me… I was thinking of you.Perhaps we need to talk? Fuck.
My heart had somersaulted the moment she’d answered, even though I felt pissed with myself for texting her in the first place. What the fuck are you doing?
Switching my cell off, I threw it on the coffee table and sat in Sawyer’s La-Z-Boy chair. Lifting my weary legs, I settled back in the chair and stuck my hands in my jacket pockets. When I closed my eyes, my head should have been full of ideas to make Juliette forgive me, but instead I’d poured gas on the flames by texting Tricia.
For months I had convinced myself I’d misread Tricia; that I’d read more into the way she looked at me than I should have, and had somehow become fixated because she had rejected me. I argued with myself until nothing else mattered because all she had wanted me for was my body.
A memory came back on rewind about the way our eyes had locked and how seeing me had affected her breathing, but my most vivid recollection from the day was of how her eyes had been full of burning desire. One thought sparked another, and I remembered reading signs of regret, but regret for what? Our encounter had been abruptly ended before I’d been able to process what I’d seen and what all of it meant.
I shook the thought from my mind and tried to ignore another sharp pulse of electricity that coursed through me because no matter how unwelcome my feelings were, I couldn’t forget them. Fuck.
* * *
A distant noise dragged me from a deep sleep, and when I stirred a searing pain shot through my neck. It radiated down my spine to my ass when I tried to move. An instant wave of nausea jolted me fully alert and I realized my whole body felt stiff and ached because I’d fallen asleep on the chair.
Hearing a spoon clanking against pottery from behind the kitchen counter drew my bleary eyes over to it. Juliette stood, freshly showered, fully dressed, with wet hair and puffy eyes. My heart crushed in my chest with the hurt look she gave me as she lifted a mug to her lips.
Wincing, I sluggishly slid forward and pulled myself upright in slow motion, and was instantly crippled by the memory of the barrage of words I’d unleashed in frustration toward her the night before.
My chest was steeped in deep regret as I awkwardly pushed the leg rest in from Sawyer’s chair and placed my feet on the floor. The weary bones in my neck cracked as I moved my head from one side to the other, and when I stood, another huge wave of nausea rolled my stomach. A pounding frontal lobe headache reminded me I had drunk far too much, and the last thing I’d needed to compound my desperate situation was a raging hangover and an argument.
The second Juliette lowered her drink it only took one look at her pinched lips, set jaw, and her narrowed suspicious eyes scrutinizing me to know, how I felt right at that moment was nothing in comparison to how I would feel after Juliette was done with me.
“Do you want to go out for some breakfast?” I asked, trying to placate her mood and give myself a chance to think what I could say that would redeem me in her eyes. My croaky voice from sleep made me sound flat—disinterested even—which was far from the truth.
“No. Thank you, I’m going to skip breakfast,” she replied, sounding clipped but composed as she checked her wristwatch, then glanced toward me again. “I’ve hired a car and driver, it’s due in about fifteen minutes. I’m going back to the city.”
“You don’t even want to talk about this?” I asked, before something else struck me. “You were just going to leave me asleep? Jules, don’t you think we should at least sit down and catch our breath—work through this? Last night, I said—”
“What I needed to hear,” she cut in. “Honestly, James? We could probably talk about it now, and who knows, I may even tell you it’s okay if we did that, but I’d be lying to myself.”
Anxious, I stared at her, my eyes pleading with her to believe me. “Sweetheart, I love you.” My declaration sounded hollow, inept, and not nearly enough for how I had made her feel. Lust had gotten the better of me and ruined the best relationship I’d had in decades.
My heart squeezed because I could see how distressed she was. Still she maintained her dignity and fought bravely to quell tears. Her lips quivered slightly when she swallowed roughly, and for a long minute I thought she may lose the battle and cry. But suddenly her frame stiffened and she stood tall, drew in a deep breath, and her chin rose up in defiance.
“I believe you do, James,” she replied, despondently, “but sometimes, loving someone just isn’t enough. The way you stared at her was like you needed her to breathe, you’ve never looked at me that way … not once.”
Stunned into silence, I stood searching my brain for something I could say that would take us back to how happy we were before the party. Nothing could wipe what happened from her mind, but I wanted her to know what she meant to me.
“Isn’t love… our love worth fighting for?” I asked in desperation. “Cancel the car, I’ll take you back…” I suggested, frantic for more time. “We could talk this through on the wa—”
“No, James, I don’t want you to do that. I’ve already called Leon, and I’m moving in with him until I can figure a new lease out.”
“Don’t you just need a bit of time to—wait—you’re really leaving me at the first hurdle, without trying to work through this? For Christ’s sake, Jules, she was a hookup… an … and you’re really going to stay with Leon?” I scoffed, because I knew her college friend, Leon, loved her. Until I’d pointed that out she’d been oblivious as to his feelings toward her. “Bet he’s rubbing his hands together with glee. The guy’s like a love-sick puppy around you.”
Pacing the floor, running both my hands through my dishevelled hair, I stopped, grabbed two clumps in my hands, and huffed out an exasperated breath. “Please don’t do this, sweetheart, I love you, and you know how Leon feels about you,” I told her with true feeling in my tone.
“I’d never noticed how Leon felt about me, until you pointed it out. Since then, yes, I’ve seen how he looks at me … it’s kind of like how you looked at her.”
“How did I look? What did you see that has you folding on all we could be?”
“Lust, desire… but with Leon it’s all purely one-sided. That is not what I took away from yesterday. When you saw her your posture immediately changed. I can’t explain it but there appeared to be a silent communication between you. The instantaneous connection between you stole your breath, left her gasping for air, and rendered you both speechless. Damn, James, I saw you didn’t want to feel what you were feeling but you were powerless to fight it, and when I spoke to you and asked who she was, your expression was a mixture of torture and ecstasy. Whatever you have or had with her … it’s something I can’t compete with.”
