The Wright Brother (27 page)

It wasn’t a question.

Biting onto her bottom lip, she nodded. “They did.”

“You seem surprised.” He traced her cheek softly. “I knew you’d get it.”

Grabbing hold of his finger, she felt suddenly sick to her stomach, but tried to put on a brave face. “It was probably because of the way I kept gushing about their Strachan collection.”

She swiped her fingers along the kitchen table, as if dusting it off.

“You didn’t say yes.”

Closing her eyes briefly, she sighed. “I need to hear back from Boston first. Besides, they pay more.”

Giving him a weak smile, she got up from her seat. “I think we should go see a movie—give me a sec to go get ready.”

She felt Julian’s eyes follow her out the kitchen like a hot brand searing into her shoulder blades.

Two days later she got the call from Boston while Julian was out of town with his brothers.

She hung up only to spot her mother and father looking back at her from their spots at the kitchen table. As one, they stood and walked to her side, taking a seat on either end of the living room couch.

“So what’s the news?”

“They accepted me, too.” She turned to her dad, but it was her mom who threw an arm around her, and with no warning whatsoever, Elisa began to cry big, fat, ugly tears. “I don’t know what to do.”

Her father’s large, warm, and comforting hand rubbed up and down her spine as her mom petted her hair. “Baby girl, that’s the beauty of having choices, you can decide.”

Sniffing, she wiped at her nose, wishing like hell she was ten again and back at the beach with the boys before they moved away, before Mr. Wright had died, before things with Julian had become so much more complicated.

But she wasn’t ten. She was twenty-four and life was complicated, it was messy, and she had a huge decision to make.

“You’ll make the right choice, Elisa Jane, you always do.” Her father’s deep voice brought a tiny smile to her face.

Pulling away from her mother, she tried to get herself together. “I know what my heart wants.”

“And that is?” Her mother took her hand, patting it gently as her father got up to putter around in the kitchen.

Looking deep into her mother’s brown eyes, so similar to her own, Elisa envied her in a way she never had before. Mom had gotten it all. She’d married her dad straight out of college, found her dream job in her dream place, bought her dream home, and had lived the fairytale life.

She closed her eyes. “I want to work in Dublin, but I want to live in Boston.”

“Yeah,” her mother chuckled, “but we both know that’s not possible at all. So let’s weigh the pros and cons. Dublin?”

She shrugged. “Pros. It’s probably one of the top three most prestigious libraries in all the world. I’ll have access to their rare and special collections department that literally makes me want to weep with joy. I’ll live in a new and exciting place.”

“Now cons.”

Her father came back in then and handed her a warm mug of chamomile tea. Elisa took it with a grateful smile. With a kiss to her forehead and one for her mother, he turned and walked out the door, heading out for his daily twenty-mile bike ride.

Dad tried, bless his heart, to support her, but he’d never been very comfortable with heart-to-hearts. Especially after how she’d reacted when Mr. Wright had passed.

“Cons.” She sipped from the tea. “It will only pay half of what I’d get at Boston. But more than that, the distance between Julian and I might as well be planets apart.”

Agreeing with a gentle nod of her head, her mother plucked at her shell-pink capri pants. “True. And as much as I wish it were otherwise, long-distance relationships rarely work out.”

“Really?” Elisa sat her mug down and turned her body fully toward her mother. “Don’t they sometimes, Mum? I mean, I’ve heard of it happening. I’ve heard of people making it, and Julian and I, what we have, it’s magical. I’d like to believe that if I choose Dublin we’d be able to make it work until he graduated and could come out to me.”

“Ha.” She gave a surprised laugh, her blonde brows reaching up into her hairline. “Honey, that’s assuming an awful lot. Just because you want to go there doesn’t mean he would.”

Her mother’s words made Elisa’s heart bleed. Deep down she knew it was true, but her desire to get it all beat strong inside her. “But he’s an artist, he can work anywhere.”

“But baby”—she patted Elisa’s knee—“the quickest way to make someone resent you is to force them to live the life you want. If Julian decided he’d like to go, that’s one thing, but don’t pin all your hopes and dreams on that.”

“Even if I choose Boston, we’re still several hours apart. It’s long distance either way we go.”

Elizabeth shrugged. “Yes, that’s true. But one doesn’t require you to save thousands of dollars a year just to fly out to see you.”

A tear leaked out the corner of her left eye. “Mom, I don’t know what to do. I applied at Ashe College, but there was nothing available. I applied everywhere I could think of… Do you know how improbable it was for me to get asked to not one, but two of the top libraries in the world? The odds of that are astronomical. I’ll never get this chance again.”

Her mother hugged her hands to her breast in a Saint Mary type of pose. “Honey, I know. And I also know that he will understand no matter what you choose.”

“So why is this so difficult?” She licked her dry lips, hating that she couldn’t even be happy right now. Either choice would take her far away from Julian. For a time their age gap had ceased being a problem, but now here they were again in the same situation as high school. She couldn’t afford to stay and he wasn’t able to leave.

“Because you love him desperately, and he feels exactly the same way about you, and I’m going to be the bearer of bad news, Elisa, as much as I don’t want to. Two years is a long, long time. You could stay, get a job at a local Wal-Mart, bag groceries, flip burgers, whatever”—she flicked her wrist—“but as the weeks rolled by and turned to months, then years, and you’re stuck in a dead-end job with no prospects you’d grow to resent him for it. You’d think about everything you lost by choosing him and you’d grow to hate him.”

The way she said it, with an emotionless tone of voice, gave Elisa chills. “You sound like you’re familiar with that.”

Her mother had been staring off into space, but now turned her gaze back to Elisa. “Why do you think your father walked out of here? Elisa, if you think he and I have always had it easy, you couldn’t be more wrong. Your dad and I made it work, because we love each other, but there was a time…” She closed her eyes and a small shudder worked its way across her shoulders.

Elisa cocked her head; she’d never heard of this. “Mom?”

Smiling softly, she shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. Point is, you have to make the decision you can live with. Be fair to him and be fair to you, that’s all you can do.”

A knock sounded on the front door, one Elisa immediately recognized as belonging to Julian. She sucked in a sharp breath, giving her mother a terrified, wide-eyed look.

“It’s okay, honey. Things have a way of working themselves out the way they’re supposed to be.” Then, getting up, she walked to the door and greeted Julian with a big smile and hug.

He looked delicious today. As always. Julian could walk in wearing a potato sack and Elisa would think he’d never looked better. It was sick how bad she had it for him.

He walked toward her with his hands in his blue jean pockets, his hunter-green shirt making his tats and eyes pop, and her heart trembled with an even greater, even deeper love.

He seemed to sense immediately that something was wrong with her because when he took a seat, he didn’t kiss her as he normally did. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

She was going to break his heart either way.

“I got the call from Boston.”

He wiped his palms down his lap. “Where are you going, Smile Girl?”

“Where do you want me to go?” she asked, knowing what her mother had said, but she needed to hear from him. He was part of this too; she could lie to herself and say this was her life and her choice, but it wasn’t, Julian was her partner. And that mattered to her.

Taking her hands, he kissed her fingers and then placed them gently onto her lap. “Don’t ask me that. I knew when we got together that someday you’d have to leave me again, and I prepared for it. No matter where you go, I’ll be there. Even if it means I have to fly.”

Bottom lip going wobbly again, she tossed her arms around his neck, tapping words between his shoulder blades. “I will love you forever, Julian Wright.”

~*~

The day before she flew to Dublin, Elisa joined Julian at the Ink Blot—the tattoo parlor where he’d gotten nearly all his ink from since the age of fourteen. His buddy, Ray—also deaf—gave them matching tattoos.

On the spot of his arm where there’d been an empty space Julian tattooed the word “Destiny.” She’d gotten words printed on the inside of her wrist, words that resonated with how she felt when she thought of her and him.

“Destiny may decide who touches my life, but only my heart can decide who touches my soul…”

She flew to Dublin the next day, and even though Julian had hugged her and swore nothing would change, Elisa knew that everything had.

One Month

Elisa squealed the moment Julian’s image displayed on the screen. He looked exhausted. There were tired lines around his eyes, but otherwise he looked as gorgeous as she remembered him.

“Hi,” she signed quickly.

Julian leaned over and his finger flitted over the screen and for a moment she could almost feel his touch. Her heart twisted in her chest as she leaned into the screen.

“I wish I could really feel you,” she said.

Sighing, he nodded. “I miss you, Smile Girl.”

“If there were some way I could crawl through this screen, I think I would.”

He frowned. “What’s wrong?”

Giving him the type of smile that consisted of nothing more than a muscle spasm, she sighed. “I don’t know. Just lonely I guess.”

“No friends?”

She shrugged. “I guess so. One. Meredith. I tell her about you all the time. I think she’s getting sick of hearing about my awesome boyfriend.”

He grinned. “It’s going to be okay, baby.”

“Really? You don’t regret this already?”

Julian was sharing the apartment with Christian and Roman now. It panged Elisa to see that their couch that used to be there was now gone and in its place was a foosball table. There were empty pizza boxes strewn on the counters. Julian was living like a bachelor and it made her skin prickle with goosebumps to see it. It was no secret that Christian and Roman hadn’t grown out of their whoring ways, not that she doubted Julian would stay faithful to her, but if she were honest with herself, she didn’t like to think of what he might be seeing.

Which was silly, of course, but she was fiercely protective of what was hers.

“I don’t regret it, because it makes you happy—”

“I’m not sure it does anymore, Jules.” She huffed, trying to dry her tearing eyes before he saw it.

But he must have, because he tapped his chest and then said, “You’ll shatter me if I see you cry.”

“Just promise me we’re going to be okay,” she signed it quickly.

“I promise, Elisa. These last two years will fly by and then nothing will keep us separated again.”

Biting a corner of her lip, she gave him a brave smile. “I love you,” she said.

“I love you too.”

~*~

Three months later

Elisa laughed as she stumbled through her front door, Meredith trailed in behind her, lifting a bottle of half-drank wine high and chirping, “Here’s to all the galas in all the world, may they all rot in hell.”

Tossing her keys and purse to the counter, Elisa toed off her shoes and snort-giggled. “I think I might be a little drunk,” she said as she lost her balance and had to grab hold of the support pillar in her kitchen to help keep her upright.

“Oh, I’d say so, just a little.” Meredith tossed herself onto the couch. “Did you see the way that pompous, officious little man looked at me all night?” She kicked off her bright red sling backs and closed her eyes.

Covering her nose with her hand, Elisa chuckled. “I do believe the Dean might be a little star struck with you. Which isn’t entirely bad; maybe next time you see him you can offer to show him the goodies and get us a new copy machine.”

She snorted. “I’m no one’s trollop. Though I’ll do much for a proper copy machine.” Meredith glared at a curl of brown hair that’d slipped over her shoulder. “I hate brown hair. Have I ever told you how much I hate brown hair? I must change it, but first I need to close my eyes for a minute. I’m so very, very tired…” Her words slowed and by the time she said “tired,” a soft snore escaped her parted lips.

In two more minutes she’d be dead to the world.

Elisa opened her mouth, ready to tease Meredith back, when her laptop buzzed with an incoming call.

Frowning, it took her a minute to realize she was over an hour late for her Skype call with Jules.

“Oh crap.” She tripped over Meredith’s shoe as she ran to her desk and accepted the call.

Julian looked more than a little upset when he popped up on the screen. “Are you okay?” he asked quickly.

Grimacing, feeling like the world’s worst girlfriend, she took a seat. “Honey, I’m so sorry. I totally spaced on the gala we had tonight. Needed to raise funding for the library and Mere”—a loud snore punctuated her friend’s name—“asked me to tag along as her date. I’m so sorry. I thought I’d be home in time, but we got stuck in some pretty awful traffic coming home. Please don’t be mad.”

Knowing Julian the way she knew him, he didn’t seem mad so much as disappointed. In her. It just about broke her heart.

Picking up her laptop, she tilted the screen to the side so that he could see Meredith lying on her couch.

“That’s her,” she said a minute later when she put the screen back on her face.

But rather than it appeasing him, he said, “I should go. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“You still coming next month?”