The Wright Brother (12 page)

“It’s eleven o’clock at night, who in the world could possibly be—”

“Mum, you do realize I’m almost twenty-one, right?”

She sighed. “Don’t remind me. We’re setting a place for you at our table, Elisa Jane. You’d better show up.”

“Goodbye,” she said as the pounding increased.

Hanging up, she grumbled under her breath. She wasn’t expecting anyone, so it had to be Thomas. Chastity was already home. He was probably showing up for a late night booty call.

Not that she minded, but she minded.

“Thomas, what?” she groused as she swung the door wide and then yipped when not Thomas, but Julian Wright stared back at her.

“Holy shit!” She covered her mouth and peered over his shoulder to see if any of the other Wrights had shown up. Parked out in front of her apartment was the beat-up Corolla.

How in the hell had he found her apartment? He’d never been here before.

Sucking her bottom lip into her mouth, she looked slowly back at him. A strange flash of memory came to her then. In tenth grade science class she’d been forced to watch a nature documentary about deer. Beautiful, graceful, stupid deer. There’d been one scene in particular that had imprinted itself on her mind. A speckled doe had been minding her own business, munching on sweet blades of saw grass, and then suddenly its head had snapped up, and, standing very still, it’d scented the air. And all the fine hairs on Elisa’s arms had gone up when the camera had zoomed right to show the shadowy image of a gray wolf hiding in brush. The deer had tried to run away, but it had only managed to take two steps before the wolf brought it down by its throat.

That’s what she felt like.

Like she was that deer and Julian Wright was the big bad wolf.

Dressed entirely in black, his gaze was intense.

Julian was a man.

Her pulse thundered.

No longer was he hinting at manhood, or just a scrawny, skinny boy.

He’d filled out nicely.

Even under the layers of clothes she could see the fine definition of muscle. Not only did he have the lip ring still, the one that would sometimes wake her up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night when she’d dream about that thing moving across places it never had before, but he also had gauges in both ears. They weren’t stretched wide, but they were definitely stretched, and he was looking at her with the kind of force she’d only ever witnessed in that documentary.

He shivered and that’s when she noticed that fat flakes of snow drifted outside her door. She couldn’t leave him out there, but she wasn’t sure she should bring him in either.

Throwing caution to the wind, she grabbed his hand and pulled him in. “Jules, you must be freezing, come inside.”

And even as she did it she couldn’t help but glance down the street one final time, feeling entirely too guilty for her peace of mind. What if someone walked by who knew her, knew Thomas? What would they think, or say?

But the street was deserted.

He stepped in, and she closed the door quickly.

It wasn’t until she turned around and looked at his back that she felt like her comfortable apartment was suddenly cramped and too small. With fingers that shook just a little, she helped him out of his jacket and hung it up on the coat rack Chastity had found at a garage sale last year.

“What are you doing here?” she asked when she finally walked back in front of him.

For the longest time he didn’t say anything, not when he walked into her living room, not when he sat on her couch, and not even when she sat across from him on Chas’s boyfriend’s hideous taupe-colored recliner. Some piece of crap thing he’d found just lazing about outside of a dumpster a few weeks back.

Elisa hadn’t wanted the flea-ridden thing in her house, but now she had to admit that ugly as it was, it was more comfortable than anything else they had in the apartment.

Leaning back on the couch, Julian seemed to be grappling with his words. His fingers kept twitching on his thighs.

Trying to break the ice, because she was still totally shocked that he was here, she signed, “You walk good.”

“Thanks.”

She nodded and tried to hide the sigh when he didn’t take a lead off her cue to say something.

Elisa had to admit, though, it was good to see him walking with barely a trace of a limp. Even though she’d stopped writing to Julian personally, she’d never stopped asking about him.

In fact, she’d taken to calling Lori every so often to find out how physical therapy was going. It was how she knew that he’d flown through therapy much faster than his doctors had anticipated. Instead of a year, he’d learned to walk on his own after only five months.

He was also going to be graduating with honors and was even now trying to figure out where to apply to go to college.

But as much as she tried to occupy her thoughts with something other than the fact that Julian was in her apartment, her brain just kept circling around to the big question.

Why was he here?

“How have you been?” he finally asked.

The question was so awkward and strange that it only served to ratchet up her nerves.

She wiggled her hand to indicate so-so. Then decided that if all he wanted to do was shoot the breeze, she needed to relax. He’d eventually get around to his real purpose for being here.

“Finished my final exam today. It sucked hard. I’m hoping I made a B at least.”

He nodded, but didn’t actually seem to be paying attention. By the way his knee kept bopping up and down she could tell he was anxious.

“So where are you planning to go to college?” she asked.

His shoulders slumped and his stare was a mile long. “Smile Girl, has it really come down to this?”

She dropped her hands, sensing that he was finally going to get to the reason for his coming.

“A year. You called my mom. Why?”

Was he upset that she’d kept tabs? “Because I wanted to know how you were doing.”

“Then you should have texted me. Called me.”

She swallowed hard. For the past three nights Thomas had been showing up at random, odd times. What if he came over tonight? The last thing she wanted was for Thomas to see Julian and get strange ideas.

“I didn’t call you, Jules, because I didn’t know what to say.”

“We’re friends! That’s what you told me.”

“Yes.” She nodded. “Just like I am with Chris and—”

“Stop. Stop lying to me. Stop lying to yourself. It’s not like Chris and Rome, because you still talked to them. But you locked me out. You stopped writing. I have a girlfriend.”

Why that should feel like a blow to the gut she didn’t know. But it made her feel cold and sick to her stomach.

“I kiss her. She kisses me back.”

She frowned. “Jules, why are you telling me this?”

“Because she loves me, Elisa. Me.” He patted his chest. “She didn’t keep pushing me away, telling me she didn’t care.”

“I did care. I do. But too much. You’re in high school.”

His brow rose and his nostrils flared. “So what? I’m eighteen.”

“You’re seventeen. Not eighteen until tomorrow.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Jules, why did you come out here? Why did you find me? If you have a girlfriend, that’s good.” No, it wasn’t, it really wasn’t. Not to her. But it needed to be and he needed to see that.

“Because she’s not you! Because I kiss her and I hold her and she’s not fucking you!”

Elisa couldn’t catch her breath. Fire skated through her veins, rushed through her blood, made her feel hot and dizzy.

“You said I didn’t know what I wanted. I want you, I’ve always wanted you. And it seemed like the more I wanted you the more you pushed me away. I know you felt it that night, Smile Girl. Because I felt it too.”

She shook her head. Mostly because she didn’t know what to say to him. She had felt it, still did. The second she’d seen him standing in her door all the old feelings, everything, it’d all come crashing back with a ferocity and intensity that had terrified her.

He closed his eyes and tears sprang to hers. She had a boyfriend. A good one. She loved him…

God, she was liar. Even to herself, Julian was right. He always had been right about her. She’d never felt a tenth for Thomas what she’d always felt for Jules.

But it just couldn’t work. He was still in high school. What would it look like to everyone if she dumped Thomas for some freaking senior in high school?

But Julian wasn’t just anybody either.

“Can I sleep here tonight?”

Could she tell him no? If he wanted in her bed, was she really capable of pushing him away again? It was why she hadn’t gone home, because she’d known the truth of it when her father had broken them up that night.

Julian was her kryptonite.

She nodded, sucking her bottom lip between her teeth as her stomach danced with drunken butterflies.

“Don’t worry, I’ll go home tomorrow.”

Then, shucking off his shoes, he sprawled out on her couch. It was almost midnight, but she was far from sleepy. Now that he was here she was wide awake, nervous, and excited all at the same time.

She should call Thomas, let him know what was going on, just in case he decided to try and come over. But she didn’t want to talk to him.

Not about Jules.

Getting up slowly, she walked into her room, pulled down one of the spare blankets from her closet, and brought it out.

When he wouldn’t take it, she opened it up and laid it over him. He didn’t say thank you, but when she turned to go she caught him dragging her blanket up to his nose and taking a deep breath.

Turning off all the lights, she locked the door and went to her room, texting to Thomas that she was going to sleep early tonight and she might see him tomorrow.

Stripping down to her bra and panties, she crawled into bed and tried to sleep. But she couldn’t. Because every creak and groan in the apartment made her terrified that Julian would try to sneak out without saying goodbye.

She tossed and turned for a long time, staring up at the ceiling and feeling like the world’s worst girlfriend because all she wanted to do was go back into that living room and kiss him.

Touch him.

Make sure that he was really real. That he was really here.

Why had he come?

Rolling over she stared at her bedside clock. The glowing red numbers read eleven fifty-five.

It was so bizarre, him just showing up this way. After so long not talking, after so long of pretending that she didn’t really care anymore that she’d actually begun to believe it. And then he showed up and every lie, everything she’d told herself for the past year just came crashing down around her feet.

Elisa cared too much.

Eleven fifty-eight.

“Why did you come?” she whispered to the shadows on the walls.

And why did it hurt her so much to think of him letting some girl touch his body, trace the lines of his tattoos? How far had they gone? All the way? Like her and Thomas?

It made her sick how angry the thought of that made her feel. She’d done the right thing by leaving him alone. She had.

Eleven fifty-nine.

He was a kid. There was no way that at age fifteen he could see her and think she’d be it for him. No way. It was a phase. Just a crush.

But that kiss last year. And now him here.

What if she’d been wrong? What if it hadn’t been crush? And if it hadn’t been a crush then how perverted was she for wanting him in the same way? When she should have been looking at guys her age, Elisa had been falling madly in love with Julian Wright.

Little Julian Wright.

She squeezed her eyes shut as midnight rolled over.

“Happy birthday, Julian.”

Sniffing, she closed her eyes, wrapped the blanket tightly around her, and kept telling herself that she’d done the right thing.

Ten minutes later, she heard the distinctive sound of a creaking floorboard.

He was up. He was leaving.

Heart trapped in her throat, she sat up just as her door opened.

His dark shadow filled the door, and she realized she was practically naked. She felt his gaze raking over her flesh like a caress and she shivered, clutching the blanket to her chest like her life depended on it.

Utter silence could sometimes be louder than words. In that silence she could feel the throb of her beating heart bang against her ribcage as he made his way unerringly to her side.

A sliver of moonlight sliced across his body from the tiny crack in her bedroom window. He was still fully dressed.

Sitting down beside her, his body heat so warm, and his smell of soap and mint so strong, he turned her hand over and danced his fingers across her palm.

“Tell me now.”

She grabbed his other hand. “What? What do you want to know?”

He hesitated a second. “Is it just me?”

She could lie. Tell him it was just him and she knew, knew with every fiber of her being that he’d leave. He’d walk away and she’d lose Julian Wright forever. Or she could finally open up and be honest with him, with herself.

There was Thomas. There was his girlfriend. People would get hurt.

Heaven help her…

“No, Jules, it’s not just you.”

With a moan that tugged at her heartstrings, he placed his forehead to hers, his fingers still trapped inside her palm.

“I tried to move on, Smile Girl. For you, I tried.”

“Jules.” His name came out a broken whisper.

And even though she knew he couldn’t hear her, he seemed to understand exactly what she wanted. His hands were so gentle as they glided up her bare arms and where she’d been warm just a second ago, now her body broke out in a wash of goosebumps.

He was slow and methodical, trailing his nose down the side of her face, and along her neck, taking his sweet time to get to her lips. When he finally got there he didn’t devour her like last time, he flirted. Moving against them so softly it felt like the brush of a rose petal.

The simmer in her stomach turned into liquid flame. There’d never been anyone like Julian.

She framed his face as tears squeezed from the corners of her eyes, because she knew what would happen tonight and there was no way in hell she would stop it.