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“Admit it,” said Jules.
Billie still said nothing. She didn’t think she could. She was hypnotized by the Jules’s heavy-lidded eyes, by the movement of her thumb, by her touch.
“Fine,” Jules said, removing her hand and pushing back the piano stool. “I’ll memorize this and be back tomorrow.”
She walked out without saying goodbye and Billie was left alone feeling like she’d failed some kind of test. Her heart still throbbed in her chest and her skin still tingled with Jules’s touch and if she’d had suspicions, they were more than confirmed.
She had feelings for Jules Hawthorne. Big feelings. Feelings that she didn’t want to jinx by naming out loud. Feelings that she didn’t want to have but was ecstatic to have all at the same time. Feelings she hadn’t thought she could have again.
She sat at the piano for a long time until the sun was going down and her stomach was rumbling with hunger. Jules’s perfume lingered in the air.
Chapter Twenty One
Jules slept so badly that when she finally emerged from her room Amelia wolf-whistled.
“Whoever she was, she’s a lucky girl,” Cass said from the breakfast table.
“What are you talking about?” said Jules, making a bee-line for the coffee machine. She didn’t have the patience for this this morning.
“I’m talking about whoever kept you up all night,” said Cass, mouth full of crunchy cereal.
Jules grunted in reply.
She didn’t know why Billie was getting to her so much. Up until just two days ago Billie was barely on her radar, other than as a potential friend, a piano teacher, and a definite pain in the backside. Now though, things had changed, and she wasn’t so sure she liked it.
“Forgive my sister,” said Amelia. “She’s just got her knickers in a twist because Billie Brooke kissed her.”
“Huh,” said Cass.
“Huh?” Jules said.
Cass shrugged. “Didn’t know she played for your team.”
“That’s all the reaction I get?”
“Well, you’re attractive enough when you’re all cleaned up, I’m not that surprised,” Cass said, digging back into her cereal. “Mind you, she’s a bit uppity, isn’t she? I mean, I’m not sure she’s my cup of tea.”
“Just as well you don’t have to go out with her then, isn’t it?” snapped Jules, springing to Billie’s defense without thinking about it.
“So you are going out with her?” Amelia asked.
“No!” Both Amelia and Cass stared at her until Jules felt her shoulders slump. “I don’t know,” she admitted.
“Do you like her?” asked Cass.
Jules thought about the electricity that buzzed up her arm when she took Billie’s wrist the day before. She thought about the way Billie’s lips felt, she thought about the smell of her, the darkness of her eyes, the thought of tangling her fingers in that long, dark hair. And she almost passed out.
“So you do like her then,” Amelia said with a smile of amusement.
“Well then, what’s the problem?” crunched Cass.
What indeed was the problem?
The fact that Billie couldn’t even admit that she’d kissed her because she wanted to was kind of a problem. It didn’t sit well with Jules. Nor did the fact that Billie apparently didn’t want to be a part of village life, didn’t want to make an effort to be a part of Jules’s life.
Jules was damned if she was doing anything secretly. And if Billie wanted her then she had to want everything that went along with her, including her sister, the pub, and Whitebridge as a whole. Without dwelling on the past and whatever else might have happened.
“She’s damaged goods is Billie Brooke,” Cass said now.
