Star-Crossed (15 page)

“So where are y’all tonight?”

“Minnesota,” Clay said, sounding unamused. “And it’s fucking cold as hell. I ain’t even kidding, Jules; your spit freezes before it hits the damn ground.”

“Not having fun?”

“I hate this shit. I can’t wait for this fucking publicity tour to be over,” Clay grumbled. “But Romeo does most of the work. He runs his mouth and hams it up, and I ain’t got to do more than sign autographs and look mean. Turns out he’s a handy friend to have.”

“Yeah, well, those are usually the kinda friends you attract. Big mouths and bigger personalities.”

“I heard that,” Wyatt said next to her. “And it sounded like you just compared me to Wellings.”

Wearing only a pair of boxer shorts, Wyatt was lying on the bed facing the television. His feet rested on the pillow next to Jules’s head, and a big bowl of popcorn was nestled in-between the fold of his arm.

“If the shoe fits.” Jules shoved at Wyatt’s feet in annoyance. “Speaking of shoes, get these size fourteen beasts out of my face.”

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Wyatt pushed his bare foot against her chin in response, making her shudder. It didn’t matter that he’d just gotten out the shower; the idea of Wyatt’s bare feet touching her face was enough to make her reach out and punch the exposed curve at the back of his knee, forcing his leg to jerk forward.

“That
hurts
, Jules!”

“Good!”

“Fine, we’ll see how you like it.” Wyatt wrapped a big, bare arm around her legs, digging his thumb into the sensitive spot in the curve of her knee.

Jules squealed into the phone and then lashed out before he could actually hurt her. She kicked at Wyatt’s head and laughed with sadistic glee when he hit his chin against the popcorn bowl.

“You’re a bully.” Wyatt tightened his arm around her legs, making it impossible for her to kick him again. Then he went back to eating his popcorn with his other hand as if holding her immobile was second nature. He mumbled with his mouth full, “No wonder you ain’t got a man. A fella’d have to be certifiable to wanna date you.”

“Pig,” she whispered, frowning at the back of his head.

“What’re you two doing?” Clay asked, reminding her that he was still on the phone. “Besides the obvious.”

“He’s watching
The Chinese Connection
—again.” Clay laughed. “When’s he gonna get sick of Bruce Lee?”

“Never.” Jules rolled her eyes as she looked at her brother, who’d gone back to giving the movie his full attention. “He saw it was coming on one of those stations that plays old movies and made popcorn and everything. So sad.”

“He owns the dang movie.”

“I know that. But he likes when it comes on actual television, like the stations are gonna know he’s supporting the cause of showing these old, crappy movies from the

’70s.”

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“Blasphemy. They ain’t crappy,” Wyatt said defensively and then pinched her leg for good measure. “And you know it.”

The truth was Jules liked Bruce Lee just as much as Wyatt. He was an artist and a huge influence on Mixed Martial Arts. She and Wyatt grew up watching his movies and idolizing the man, but she was still bitter and wasn’t inclined to admit the truth, even if Wyatt knew she was full of it. After all, she did bounce into bed right next to him to watch the movie.

“You love Bruce Lee,” Clay reminded her even if Wyatt didn’t. “And you can’t say you don’t. You got a big-ass poster of him over your bed.” Jules decided to change the subject. “Is Melody having fun on the publicity tour?”

“Oh yeah, she’s having a good time even if I ain’t,” Clay said conversationally, making Jules think he was staying on the phone just to keep Jules and Wyatt from fighting. “She likes seeing all the new towns and talking to people. She’s more friendly than I am.”

“That ain’t exactly hard.” Jules laughed. “A rabid bear’s more friendly than you.”

“You are a bully tonight,” Clay observed drily. “What’s got you pissed off at the world?”

Maybe it was lying in bed with her brother at ten thirty at night watching Bruce Lee instead of doing something more exciting. She was so frustrated she could hardly see straight. Almost a month of phone sex with Romeo was starting to wear on her. It was fun, but she wanted more—a lot more.

“You really think Romeo’s coming to Garnet next month after the tour’s over?” Jules couldn’t help but ask, voicing her frustrations out loud.

“Definitely,” Clay said without doubt. “We’ve been talking ’bout it on this tour.

He’s got that fight with Lipton coming up in May, and Lipton’s a big, mean, good ol’

boy if ever there was one. Those former pro wrestlers ain’t a joke. Romeo’s faster than Lipton, lots faster, but he’s still got to up his ground game if he’s gonna get the flashy win he wants after our fight.”

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“If Lipton’s a big, mean good ol’ boy, what the heck are you?” Clay laughed. “What better way to get ready for the fight than to train with the biggest, meanest good ol’ boy of the lot?”

“Saving Melody was Wellings’s civic duty,” Wyatt interjected. “Clay doesn’t owe him anything for it, and he sure ain’t got to bring a criminal into our town just to prove a point.”

Jules would’ve kicked Wyatt if he wasn’t still holding on to her legs. “He served his time. I don’t think it’s fair to keep holding something that happened well over ten years ago against him.”

“It really ain’t,” Clay agreed.

“And look at Chuito,” she went on to prove her point, because she was in lawyer mode. “You spent a full year complaining ’bout Clay bringing him here, and now that boy’s your pride and joy. I swear you would’ve mounted his championship belt on the Cuthouse Cellar’s wall if you could.”

“Chuito doesn’t have a record,” Wyatt reminded her.

“Only ’cause he didn’t get caught.”

“I don’t wanna talk ’bout it.” Wyatt gestured to the television. “How am I supposed to watch this movie with you yapping?”

Jules sighed. “Lemme go, Clay. He’s being a pain in the ass.”

“Talk to you later,” Clay said, not sounding too disappointed about hanging up.

“We’re gonna go watch television anyhow.”

Jules laughed. “Is that what we’re calling it now?”

“Night, Jules.” Clay didn’t bother to deny her assumption that he and Melody were going to do
something
, but it surely wasn’t watch television.

After Jules hung up, she kicked one of her legs despite Wyatt’s tight hold and managed to nudge his shoulder. “Look what you did. You made me hang up with Clay and be rude besides.”

120

“I did that man a favor,” Wyatt said dismissively. “The last thing he wants to be doing is sitting there talking to you when he’s got his girl alone in one of those fancy hotel rooms.”

“Probably.” Jules had to reluctantly agree. “I kinda miss Clay living here.” Wyatt was quiet for a long moment before he admitted, “I kinda miss him too.”

“You ever think of redoing this house?” Jules asked before she broached a sensitive subject. “And moving into Daddy’s room?”

“You move into Dad’s room if you think someone’s got to clear the cobwebs out of there.”

“There’s no cobwebs,” Jules whispered in a soft voice, because she always cleaned their father’s old bedroom and left it exactly the same. “But I’m so sick of this house. It’s depressing.”

“Not me. I like it. Even if it seems emptier with Clay gone. This house is our history.”

“Our history’s depressing. I want something new, classy, and fresh. Not outdated and cursed.”

“Yeah, I ain’t surprised by that,” Wyatt said with a laugh. “You got champagne taste ’cause Daddy spoiled you rotten. This whole town knows you spend a small fortune on designer clothes. You like the flash and glitter; you always have.”

“I wish I knew how to decorate. I’d fix this place up.”

“Thank God you don’t.”

“Maybe I should hire someone. Get Terry to come over and see what he can do.

He’s always fixing up old houses and—”

“Over my dead body,” Wyatt said sharply. “We’re not changing it, Ju Ju Bean, no matter how badly you wanna citify this place. You need something to modernize, go work on your office—again.”

“I own half this house!”

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“Which means you need permission to change things from the other owner, who has fifty percent stake in this property, and unfortunately for you, he likes it just the way it is.”

She folded her arms over her chest and sulked. “I hate you.”

“And I’m really broken up over that,” Wyatt said, not sounding broken up at all.

“Why dontcha go smile at your phone and text your boyfriend in Las Vegas since you’re in such a charming mood this evening?”

“Fine.” Jules rolled out of bed and snatched her cell phone off Wyatt’s nightstand.

“Have a great time sitting here all alone with your girlfriend Bruce.”

“I will,” Wyatt said, ever confident he didn’t let the jab bother him. “Be sure to have fun making that boy jerk off for you.”

Jules gasped, feeling her cheeks heat. She wasn’t sure how Wyatt knew she was doing that. She was always careful. It was likely he was just guessing, but that didn’t make it any less embarrassing. It was on the tip of her tongue to say something terrible, to point out that at least she had someone who cared, even if he was far away and only able to connect with her via phone sex. Wyatt had been alone since Tabitha left, and Jules was fairly certain he hadn’t had sex in over a decade.

“Go ahead, say it,” Wyatt taunted, making it obvious he was reading her intentions clear as day. “Cut me, Jules. I dare ya. See if I bleed.” There was a dark, miserable side of Wyatt the rest of Garnet never saw. All they got was the outgoing, charming sheriff, and they didn’t have to deal with the heartbroken shell of a man a young, pretty redhead had left behind a long time ago.

“Will you?” she asked curiously, wondering if Wyatt was so dead inside the pain had dried up and left him completely broken beyond repair. “Do you still bleed over her?”

“Always,” Wyatt said without hesitation before he turned away and looked back to the television. “I’ve never stopped.”

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Jules’s face scrunched up, and she was surprised to find she was fighting tears. If it was for herself or her brother, she wasn’t really sure. She did know she needed space from him, because Wyatt was self-destructive in a lot of ways. He’d rather sit in this old house that had ghosts in every corner and sulk over a woman long gone instead of go out and fall in love with someone new. For a long time Jules was right there with him.

Sad and unhappy, goading Wyatt into hurting her just to make sure she was still alive enough to bleed.

Wyatt was her twin; she knew that’s what he wanted, for her to hurt him deeply enough to really
feel
something, and for once Jules didn’t feel like playing. She wasn’t going to cut him just so he could ache over a woman who didn’t deserve that level of loyalty from him.

“I feel sorry for you, Wy Wy,” Jules said, knowing even as she said it that her pity cut deeper than anything else she could have said.

Sure enough, Wyatt turned to give her a look of horror, his light eyes wide and stunned. For a long moment he didn’t say anything; then he growled in a low, furious voice, “Get out of my room.”

Jules didn’t argue. She closed his door and ran down the hallway. Her bedroom was as far away from Wyatt’s as two bedrooms in that house could get. It was by design. Her father had separated them once they’d gotten old enough to fight in the vain hope it’d help. It hadn’t, not once, and Jules shut her door more forcefully than needed. She flipped the lock despite knowing Wyatt wasn’t coming to talk to her, not after that. Conners could deal with just about anything, take any pain and come back asking for more, but they couldn’t tolerate pity.

By the time she fell onto her bed and dialed Romeo, she was crying about a whole miserable lifetime of loneliness. Over being too tall and too strong and too intimidating to men to end up like all her friends from high school who were content and settled.

They’d gotten married in their twenties and had babies. Now they went to baseball

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practices and dance competitions. They stood outside the schoolyard talking and gossiping with each other, and they were truly happy. Jules could see it on their faces.

And she was on the outside of all of it. She told herself all the time that she didn’t need those things, but it was a lie. She wanted a husband and kids and so very much more than an old house and a broken twin who didn’t know how to find happiness any more than she did. Now she was nearing her thirty-fourth birthday, and she might
never
have it.

“Hey,” Romeo answered on the second ring.

“Am I a bully?” she sobbed into the phone. “Do you think I’m too rough ’round the edges? Do you think I’m gonna be alone forever?”

“Whoa.” Romeo’s voice softened as he said, “Jules, come on, calm down. What’s going on?”

“I don’t like it when you call me Jules,” she finally admitted, though she’d probably deny it tomorrow. “Everyone in this town calls me Jules, and they all think I’m gonna die old and alone like my father did and my grandfather and every other Conner ’cause we’re cursed. Didja know that?”