Not quite as magical, but still fun to shop with my sister. For her to try and gently steer me away from the bejeweled jeans and cowboy boots I picked out just to fuck with her.
“Ican’t,” Jules says, bringing me back to the present moment as she shakes her head. “I’ve thought about it, but it’s just…scary, I guess.”
Moving closer to her, I unravel the blanket from around her shoulders and fold myself into its embrace. It’s surprisingly soft—a throw blanket added by the decorator that I’ve hardly ever touched.
“You do scary things, Jules.”
She shakes her head again, puffing up her cheeks and letting out the breath, “Yeah, but notget evictedscary. The salary from the PR firm pays Gus’s tuition, and?—”
“Let me pay for it.” She’s shaking her head the moment I start the sentence, but I don’t let her cut me off. Taking her hands in mine, I hold them to my chest, staring her down with the look I normally reserve for the bedroom. “Let me pay his tuition out for a few years. Let me do the same for your rent—or move in with me. I want this for you, and I want Gus to have a mom who’s not exhausted and frustrated from her work. You love this shit, and I think you could do a much better job with your own place. This thing…I’ll be getting my inheritance because of you, Jules. And even if I wasn’t, I want to invest in you. So let me.”
Jules stares at me, inhaling sharply, then drops her gaze to her hands, held against my chest. I was engaged to Margot for nearly a year, and this feels like the most intimate moment of my life.
“Russell,” she says, staring at her hands on my chest. “Where…where is this going?”
I could play dumb. Ask her what she means by that—but I’m not dumb. I know what she’s asking and have felt that question knocking around in my head for the past few weeks.
But that’s not true—I knew from the moment I saw her that I’d never really be able to do something fake with her. Knew from the moment I caught sight of her hips and ass that I’d want to touch her, and knew from the first time she opened her mouth that I’d never back down from one of her challenges. That we could be the type of people to rise to each other again and again, climbing together and always making the other better than they were before.
This time, a string of buzzes rumbled from my phone, making it slide toward the lip of the coffee table.
“One second,” I say, snatching the phone and preparing to rip into Orie for a total fucking lack of patience, or just to put it on silent, but then I see who the texts are from.
Alena.
“Shit,” I mutter, standing up and unraveling myself from the blanket with Jules. The texts are from my sister, who just confronted her shitty, cheating husband.
Jules’ face falls, and she shivers, looking up at me with a broken expression.
“I—” I turn, looking around frantically for my wallet. “I have to go. But I?—”
The words are there, sitting in my mouth like marbles, ready to fall out. But for some stupid reason, I swallow them down instead.
I should just tell her how I feel about her. What I want from her. But panic courses through my body, worry for my sister taking precedence.
“…I don’t know,” I finish instead, feeling lame and like a coward for not just telling her how I really feel. Because this moment needs more attention, needs for me not to be distracted.
“You don’t know,” she repeats, her eyes trailing down, catching on my phone.
“It’s—” It’s like I said last night. It could be real.
It already is, for me.
You’re getting a fake fiancée, not a real one.
She made herself clear when we started this. And then, we made it clear that it was just physical. So, what’s happening right now—is she trying to say she wants to make this real? Or is she worried that I’m going to try and make it something it’s not?
Would admitting how I feel about her be crossing a line? Butsheaskedmewhere this is going—does that mean she’s thinking the same thing as me, or wants to make sure I’m not getting the wrong idea?
My phone buzzes again in my pocket, and I let out a sharp, anxious breath. Matt never gave me any reason to think he would be violent, but he also never gave Alena any reason to think he might eventually cheat on her, right after they’d finally managed to get pregnant.
I should just take a moment and explain what’s going on to Jules. But Alena has been so ashamed, and so secretive about the thing, that I feel a sense of loyalty holding me back. She’s already mortified about the entire thing.
And besides, it just doesn’t feel like there’s enough time to really explain.
“Just—stay put, okay?” I say, finally finding my wallet where I tossed it and moving to the door, watching Jules as she turns on the couch, looking at me with an expression I can’t read. “And we can talk about it when I get back.”
Jules makes a noise that approximates agreement, but it doesn’t quite land. Instead, it sounds more likewhatever you say, which is beyond frustrating, but I can’t stay to make her understand.
