Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 89397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 447(@200wpm)___ 358(@250wpm)___ 298(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 447(@200wpm)___ 358(@250wpm)___ 298(@300wpm)
I’d been subtly trying to avoid Julian—well, as much as it was possible to avoid someone you couldn’t resist sneaking into bed with every damn night, anyway—because I didn’t want to talk to him about any of this until I was a hundred percent sure what it all meant. I was done making half-hearted promises and getting swept up by the tide like I had with Erin. Julian was too important for anything else.
But then Julian had been standing in front of me, yelling at me, looking so desperate and angry and concerned and loving and mine, and suddenly, all those puzzle pieces fell into place like click click click, and the picture became perfectly, amazingly clear.
Of course I hadn’t felt a spark with Tiller. Because I wasn’t in love with Tiller. Just like I wasn’t in love with Erin… which was why I could never have been the partner she needed, no matter how hard I tried.
Julian was all I could think of.
He always had been.
His body, his smile, his infernal ability to both get under my skin and also be the ultimate comfort.
His words took a minute to sink in.
Supposed to be me moving on from you.
“You don’t get to move on from me,” I growled in a low voice. I was trying my hardest not to yell at him, not to grab him and shake him the way he’d shaken me just by being himself lately.
“You don’t seem surprised that I had feelings for you.” Julian’s eyes flared. “Oh, god, please don’t tell me you’ve known all along—”
I shook my head. “Mikey mentioned it at the bar the other night. He wanted me to stop giving you mixed signals, but I hadn’t known I was. I hadn’t known I could. I didn’t know my own mind. But you know I’d never hurt you—”
“But you have,” he whispered, his voice raw and small in a way that Julian’s voice should never be. “You didn’t mean to, but…”
My chest felt tight, and it became harder to pull in air. The thought of hurting him was excruciating.
“Talk to me,” I pleaded. “I can’t fix it unless you tell me.”
“You can’t fix it at all. It’s ancient history, and none of it is your fault. Like, did you know that I was going to ask you to homecoming the same day Erin did? Yeah.” He nodded when I grimaced. “I made you a poster. A whole big prom-posal thing, with puns and glitter—”
“But you went on a whole rant about prom-posals,” I reminded him. “You told me they were elitist, and exclusionary, and heteronormative. I figured it was because no one had given you one. That’s why I did that whole stupid fake prom-posal thing at the Rockies game—”
“I know. But what was I supposed to tell you?” he said tiredly. “That I had glitter under my nails for two weeks because she got to you first? That I cried myself to sleep? What good would that have done, Parks?”
“I would have been more careful, at least! I wouldn’t have, I dunno, kissed you as much. Or slept in your bed. Or snuggled up on your couch when we watched movies.”
Julian huffed out a breath. “Don’t you get it? I didn’t want you to stop doing any of those things. I told myself that was all I’d ever get of you. I tried to convince myself that was enough. For more than a decade, Parker. And I swore to myself that it was going to end this week. This—” He waved a hand at the cabin around us. “—this was my wallowing hole. The place where my unrequited crush was going to end once and for all.”
I met his gaze squarely, my mind a tangle of heartbreak for what I’d put him through, fear that it might be too late, and a tentative, cautious hope that he and I might transform our friendship into something even more precious.
“It’s not unrequited. It’s you and me, Jules. Always.”
I could see the rapid up and down of his chest. Jules was as riled up as I was, and I knew him well enough to know it wasn’t all anger.
“Don’t do this,” he begged. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
I moved even closer until one of my legs was between his. The warmth of his thigh against mine made the hair stand up on my legs. “What if I do?”
“You’re just upset about Er—”
“Don’t do that, Jules. Don’t tell me what I’m feeling. I can assure you the only person I’m thinking about right now is in this room.”
I noticed a slight tremor in Julian’s body, and I was torn between soothing him and provoking him further.
“Is this you being weird about Rocco?” Jules asked with a slight desperate tone to his voice.
“Who’s Rocco?”
Julian’s hands clutched the front of my hoodie. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to keep me from moving away or moving closer.