The Unloved (12 page)

I glanced at her and noticed a pink tint touch her cheeks. Was it just me or did Jules just blush at the acknowledgment that we were alone for the night?

“What’s he out doing tonight?” I asked, keeping the conversation flowing.

“Some party or something.” She shrugged and poured us both a glass of Pepsi.

“Cool,” I said.

The microwave dinged and I reached in for the popcorn and dumped it into the large bowl Jules had gotten me. She grabbed up the bag of cookies and one cup of Pepsi before starting toward the couch again. I scooped up my glass and the bowl of popcorn before I followed her.

Setting the bowl and my cup down on the scarred wood of the old coffee table, I started to put in my movie.

“You’ll have to sit there until you press play. I have no idea where the remote is; we lost it a while back,” Jules said through a bite of soggy cookie.

I smiled. “Okay.”

I hit menu as soon as the movie began to start the previews and heard her grunt behind me once the main screen came up, showing that creepy ass clown.

“No. Way. I am not watching this!” Jules shouted as I hit play.

I turned to face her and started toward the couch. “Why not? We all have to face our fears at some point in our lives. It’s healthy.” I smirked.

“You know how much I don’t like clowns,” she said, raising an eyebrow, and then added, “I won’t be able to sleep tonight.”

“You’ll be fine,” I insisted, liking watching her squirm a little too much.

She shook her head back and forth. “No, I won’t be. I don’t think Cole’s coming home tonight at all. You’re going to make me watch this creepy clown movie with you and then leave me all alone! You’re freaking cruel!”

I tossed a few pieces of popcorn into my mouth and glanced at her sideways. “Who said anything about leaving you alone tonight?”

I knew it was a bold thing to say as soon as the words fell from my lips, but I didn’t care. After the moment in the kitchen, I was bound and determined to let Jules know exactly how I felt about her tonight. Screw going snail slow. I’d passed my patience for snail slow in the kitchen.

I watched as her eyes grew wide and that same pink tint flushed her cheeks again before she shifted her gaze away. I took it as a good sign.

The movie started and neither one of us said a word. A considerable amount of space remained between us, but as the movie progressed, and Jules began to grow scared, that space decreased inch by inch. By the time we’d come to the part that even I was afraid of—where the clown was talking through the sink drain to the little girl in the bathroom—that space was gone and Jules was pressed up against my side like I’d wanted her to be all night.

“Oh my God, move away from the sink! Away from the sink!” she shouted at the TV, flailing her hands in front of her just before covering her eyes, fingers spread apart.

I wrapped my arm around her and she snuggled her head into my shoulder. My thoughts shifted. They weren’t on the movie or the scary scene playing out in front of my eyes anymore; my thoughts were on Jules and how good it felt to be holding her in my arms again.

“I’m seriously going to have nightmares tonight. Thanks,” she said, smacking my stomach playfully and laughing once the movie rolled on to a calmer scene.

“I can stay with you tonight…if you want me to,” I said, glancing down into her bright eyes and praying she’d say yes.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

JULIE

He’d said the words with such seriousness that my heart rate spiked a little and I wondered if he could tell what he was doing to me tonight. How hard he was making things.

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” I said, shifting my gaze back toward the TV, but not really seeing it anymore.

“Why not? It’ll be like old times. I’ll go home, that way mom will think I’m there, and sneak out to come back over. I’ll even climb up that old maple tree beside your window like I used to. I could use an extra workout,” he insisted.

I remembered how many times he’d done that in the past. How many times he’d crept into my open bedroom window in the middle of the night because he wanted to make sure I was safe from the boyfriend of the week or the party my mom was throwing or simply because his dad was in another one of his moods and he was afraid he’d come for him again. It had all been innocent and safe. I wasn’t sure I could say the same about it now.

“I don’t know,” I repeated.

“Why is this time any different?” he asked.

I could feel his eyes on me, lulling words that I’d rather leave unspoken to the tip of my tongue. I shifted my eyes to meet his and realized my mistake, but it was too late. I’d already locked with his stare and noticed the almost dare swirling within the deep green and honey brown for me to answer him honestly.

“It just is,” I insisted.

“Bullshit,” he said, setting the bowl of popcorn on the coffee table.

“What?” I asked, surprised by his outburst.

“I’m calling bullshit.” He shifted his body to face mine and stared hard at me. “Why is this time any different, Jules? Tell me.”

My chest flamed red and I could feel the exact moment when the color reached all the way up to my face. “It just is, Nick; we’re older. We’re not little kids anymore.”

“Bullshit again. That’s not why it’s different now. It’s different now because you like me and you know that I like you.” He was so confident in his words. So sure of himself, of his feelings. It was almost like we’d been playing a game and now he’d grown tired of it.

I shook my head and refused to look at him, especially his eyes, because he’d know my next words were a flat-out lie. “No, that’s not why.”

“Isn’t it? Admit it, Jules.”

I hesitated, gathering strength, before I tilted my head to look up at him, ready to deny my feelings verbally instead of just inside my head in the hopes that this would make me believe them finally and not just him, but the second I tilted my head up, Nick’s lips pressed against mine. My heart stopped and my breath caught in my throat as Nick continued to brush his lips across mine, urging me to react. To kiss him back.

Warmth spilled through my stomach and I closed my eyes, allowing myself to become lost in the moment. My lips moved beneath his skilled ones with ease. His hands cupped my face and his kisses grew slower, softer, before he pulled away.

“That’s why, Jules, because you know there’s something between us.” He breathed across my lips, and then pulled away a little more to look me directly in the eyes.

“You’re right,” I admitted in a whisper, finally allowing myself to feel everything that I’d kept bottled up for months now. It was like it had all been pulled out of me with each sweep of his lips against mine and I didn’t have the will power to bury it back down somewhere inside of me anymore. I was exhausted from trying to hide my feelings from myself…from Nick.

A slow smile stretched across his face and he leaned in to kiss me again, this time a little more eager. I felt his tongue gently slide across my lips and I parted them, allowing him the entrance to my mouth that I presumed he wanted from the gesture. I was glad that I had, because it allowed me to taste him, to submerge myself in him. Something I’d wanted to do for what felt like a lifetime.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

NICK

“So you guys are like an official item now, huh?” Blake asked me Monday afternoon during lunch.

“Yeah, I guess so.” I grinned as I replied.

“She’s hot,” Quiet Tom said with a slight nod of his head just before taking a large bite of his taco.

“That she is,” I agreed. Words could not describe how stoked I was that Jules and I were now together.

Emily tossed a fruit roll-up onto the table and opened her Dr Pepper as she sat down across from me. “Is what I heard from Tiffany true?” she asked me directly, her tone sounding a little clipped.

“Depends on what you heard,” I said.

“That you and Julie are together now.”

“Yep, you heard right.” I smiled, unable to hide my pride.

“You hurt her and I’ll mess you up,” she said with a seriousness about her that made me wipe the smile off my face.

“I have no doubt.” And I didn’t. I’d always figured the girl probably had a crazy streak in her.

“Good, dude, ‘cuz she will,” Blake said just as serious, affirming my theory.

“Duly noted,” I replied, trying to hide my smirk. Wow.

“Anyone down for a party this weekend?” Emily asked, all seriousness evaporating from her eyes and excitement entering.

“Where at?” I asked, amazed by how smoothly she could go from one emotion to the next. Wasn’t that something someone bipolar did?

“Tracy Carmon’s house Friday night. I just talked to her in the bathroom before lunch and she said her older brother’s going to be home from college for the weekend and he’d already agreed to buy a keg,” Emily said, opening her fruit roll-up and wrapping it around her index finger.

“I heard about that earlier. I meant to ask you if you wanted to go,” Blake said to Emily.

“Sure you did,” she teased with a little scoff.

“I’m game,” Quiet Tom said between bites of his second taco.

“I’ll have to check my work schedule tonight to see if I work and I’ll have to check with Jules too, see if she wants to go.”

“Wow, that didn’t sound whipped at all, dude,” Blake sneered.

I rolled my eyes and took another bite of my taco to hide my smile. “Whatever, man.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

JULIE

The week blurred by. I’d only worked three days this week due to the colder weather, which caused no one to have the desire for ice cream anymore. At this rate I’d have to find another job. I hated that because I enjoyed where I was at, but I didn’t get paid for liking the place and our fridge at home had been empty for a while now.

~

Friday night came and I stood in my room getting ready for my date with Nick. He’d wanted to go to a party at Tracy Carmon’s house tonight with everyone else but I hadn’t. I’d only wanted to spend time with him, alone.

I walked to the bathroom and grabbed my deodorant from in the closet. I was in the middle of slathering on a thick layer, lost in my thoughts, when I felt someone begin rubbing the section of my lower back I knew was visible due to my raised shirt. I spun around, startled. Dwayne, mom’s newest boyfriend, stood staring at me with bloodshot eyes. Rob was long gone—he’d probably gone back to his lovely wife and three adoring children—and had been replaced by this newest loser in no time. I wondered if my mom had them lined up or something with the way she went from one to another so quickly.

Dwayne stared at me with that hungry gleam in his eyes that I had feared from some of mom’s past boyfriends. My mom was beautiful for a woman in her late thirties and I wasn’t sure why she always picked the scum who had a tendency for young girls.

Dwayne licked his lips. “Hey, Angel.”

“Hi,” I said, feeling my heart begin to hammer in my chest. I pulled my hand down from under my shirt and placed the cap back on my deodorant. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you needed the bathroom.”

“I don’t. I just needed a sweet little glimpse of you.” He breathed, sucking air between his teeth, his eyes flaring with a desire that frightened me. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a beautiful little thing?”

I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. My heart had moved to my throat, making it hard for me to breathe let alone speak.

“Well, you are, honey. You are.” He nodded in approval of his words as I felt his eyes graze over my entire body.

“I have someplace to be,” I said as I moved to dart around him.

Dwayne caught my arm, stopping me abruptly in my mad dash to get away. I let out a startled gasp and he put his callus-covered finger to my lips.

“Shh.” He hushed me as he glanced around the door frame and toward my mother’s room.

I struggled to get my arm free. “Let go!” I shouted, hoping she would come out of her room, wondering what I was yelling about and find Dwayne manhandling me. She’d have no choice but to believe me this time if she saw it with her own eyes.

Dwayne tightened his grip on my arm and hushed me again as he steered me back into the bathroom, closing the door behind him with his shoe. “I just want a little something from you, that’s all.”

Fear prickled across my skin. “Let me go! Someone will be here to pick me up any minute,” I shouted, my voice quivering.

“It’ll only take a minute,” he insisted, his body pressing me against the far wall of our small bathroom. “Shh…only a minute.”

Tears stung the corners of my eyes as fear from what was about to happen—what I had miraculously avoided for so long—consumed my mind. If I screamed bloody murder would mom come running, then? What would she say when she saw Dwayne with his hands on me the way that they were?

Dwayne began to fumble with the button of his jeans and my eyes widened as I glanced around the room, searching for something to use to fight him off. A curling iron sat on the counter, a brush beside it, and closest to me a can of hairspray. I shifted my feet to the right, hoping to get closer to the hairspray, but Dwayne moved to block me. He pressed into me harder and I had no choice but to back myself against the wall behind me.