I’ll be over this afternoon to get my things.
Well, it wasn’t much, but it was an opening.
That was why we were sitting here at my kitchen table, staring at each other. Juliet’s face was taut with barely contained fury and hurt. And I was trying to figure out what to say.
“Juliet,” I began, my hands gripped together on the table. “First, I want to say that I’m sorry. Not only for what you heard at the party, but for how I’ve acted since you first showed up at my house. You didn’t deserve any of it.”
She blinked at me. “I know that.”
“But you stayed anyway, even when I was a jerk.”
Her green eyes filled up with tears. “Because I care for you, Noah. I wanted to make things better for you. I felt bad about everything that happened, and I wanted to make it better.”
“I know. Thank you.” I groped for what to say next. “I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
“Wallowed endlessly in your own filth, probably.”
“Maybe.” I ran my tongue over my lips. “Listen, Juliet—I want to try again, okay? But not like this. I want us to start over. You keep telling me that I can have a future still, and you could be right. But we can’t do it like this.” I took a deep breath. “I need you to move back to your own house.”
Her pretty lips dropped open. “You’re kicking me out?”
“No. Not really,” I rushed to assure her. “I just think it’s better if I have some space for now, so I can figure out what comes next. I still want to see you. To be with you. But we jumped from casual sex into living together, and that wasn’t a good idea.”
Juliet nodded slowly. “All right. And just what does this look like, other than us living in separate houses?”
“It means I’m going to arrange for my own rides to therapy. I don’t want you to be my caretaker, JC. That mixes shit up too much. If we’re going to date, I can’t have you also being the person who gets on my back about being responsible. I need to do that myself.”
“Okay. But you will go to therapy?”
“Yeah,” I affirmed. “I’ll go. I’ll either get Zeke or August to drive me, or I’ll arrange for a car service. But I’ll go.” I let a beat go by. “I’m feeling . . . lost, Juliet. I don’t know how to come back from that, but I know it’s something I have to figure out. If you don’t want to be part of that process, I’ll completely understand. I’ve been an asshole. I wouldn’t blame you at all if you wanted to walk away and never talk to me again.”
She stared at me in silence for a long time, so long that I was sure she was about to get up and walk out. And who could’ve blamed her? Not me. Was there part of me hoping that she’d stalk away, leaving me so that I could say I’d done my best, but it hadn’t been enough, and I could be alone again? Oh, yeah. I knew it wasn’t right, but it would’ve made my life easier on so many fronts if Juliet left me.
But in the end, she leaned across the table and covered my hands with hers.
“Of course, I want to be part of helping you find your new life, Noah. Like I said, I care for you. I know you’ve been struggling, but I thought if I stuck it out, eventually you’d see how good I can be for you.” Her lips curved up. “And I can be so fucking good for you, Noah.”
“I know you can be. You are. I mean, I appreciate what you—how you—”God, I sounded lame.“But that’s something else.” I wasn’t sure exactly how to say this and not sound like I was calling her something incredibly insulting. “We need to ease up on the sex, okay? Maybe slow down . . . take a break on . . . that.”
Juliet’s eyebrows rose, and she tilted her head. “Excuse me? You want to try celibacy? Is that part of this next act in the life of Noah? Because I’m going to say it doesn’t sound like fun to me.” She smirked. “Wouldn’t be fun for you, either. I don’t think you’d last long before you’d be begging me to come back to your bed.”
“Not celibacy, exactly,” I hedged, ignoring the rest of her comments. “But there have been times when I get the feeling you’re, uh, initiating intimacy in order to . . . get your way. To distract me.”
She was quiet again. “That doesn’t make me sound like a very nice person, Noah.”
My neck was beginning to ache with tension. “I’m not accusing you of anything, Juliet. It’s just . . .” I sucked in a breath. “Something I haven’t told you before now is . . . I’m not very experienced when it comes to sex. I was with my wife from the time we were practically kids. She was the only woman I ever slept with until a long time after she died.”
Surprise infused Juliet’s face. “Oh. I had no idea. That’s . . . I never would have guessed. So how many women have you had sex with?”
I stared down at my hands, feeling my face heat. “Three. Counting you.”
“So . . . there was someone after Angela and before me? Who was it?”
“That doesn’t matter.” I didn’t want to talk about Alison with Juliet. It felt wrong in so many ways. “But I’m probably not as confident in that area as other men might be. I feel like I could be easily manipulated, especially when my self-confidence is suffering. So I’m just asking you not to play me, okay? The men you’re used to be with might be okay with games like that, but I’m not.”
“Okay. I get it.” She traced her fingertip over the back of my hand. “But we’ll be exclusive, right? You’re not going to date other women, too?”
I gave a strangled laugh. “JC, I’m barely okay with just dating you. So no, I’m not planning on sleeping around. Taking this step is hard enough for me right now.”
