Page 67
No wonder I feel so trapped.
* * *
Three weeks later, I arrive at an LA bus station. Donna insisted I go on the trip, and I countered by only coming for the tail end. Grady was also invited—God knows why—but I chose an eight-hour bus ride over being stuck in a car with him.
I walk outside into the balmy air and look around. There are tall buildings, mountains, and millions of people no one knows, and for a moment I find myself desperately wanting to stay. To just grab another bus and head into the city and make it my home. It would be a fresh start, a place where I can be anyone, where I can reinvent myself.
Luke’s Jeep glides to a stop in front of me with Danny at the wheel. I guess Luke is surfing, or didn’t care about seeing me.
We head toward the coast, and I stare at all the shops and restaurants as we pass them, trying to quell my longing. No one would know me in any of those places. No one will have heard the pastor talk about the bruised girl who wasn’t safe, who couldn’t count on a hot meal, who was scared to go home.
I’d just be…a girl.
I force my gaze to Danny. “How’s the surfing here?”
He shrugs. “Bad surfing is better than none. The house is kind of a dump, though,” he warns. “We’re sleeping on the floor.”
“That’s okay,” I reply. It’s not the house I’m worried about. It’s Luke. I have no idea what to expect from him when I arrive: will he fault me for staying with the Allens after that kiss? Will he try to do it again? And what will I say to him if that happens?
“There’s no pool or anything,” Danny continues. “We’ve just been using the neighbors’.”
“They don’t mind?”
He laughs. “I’m not sure they know. The family’s in France for spring break. The girls are following their travel on Instagram and very jealous.”
We enter Malibu and take a left into a development along the coast. I’d always assumed Malibu held nothing but mansions, but the ramshackle house Danny pulls up to—two lots back from the beach—is a one-story relic of earlier days, with a gutter that hangs askew and two different bird fountains in the front yard filled with algae and rainwater. Definitely not a mansion. I stare at the wooden walkway along the house’s side, the one that would lead me to Luke, and my stomach spins with a sick sort of excitement.
Danny guides me inside, where I find shag carpeting, Formica counters, linoleum floors. Someone has pushed the coffee table off to the side of the room and replaced it with a keg. There are red plastic cups and people I’ve never laid eyes on wandering through the kitchen, and then the side door opens and a bunch of guys file through, laughing and loud, throwing sandy towels on a chair by the door.
Luke is the last to walk in, wearing a wetsuit hanging off his waist. His gaze locks on mine and I can’t seem to look away. Nothing has changed. The pull toward him is as strong as it ever was, and I’m not sure how I ever hoped it wouldn’t be.
Danny’s arm wraps around my waist and Luke walks straight to the fridge and grabs a beer. He’s had half of it before he even turns around to face me again. “Jules,” he says quietly. There’s a storm in his eyes—this thing hasn’t died for him either.
He grabs a second one as he heads to the shower.
By the time he emerges again, pizza has arrived.
Luke sits across from me and Danny and eats while a girl hangs all over him.
I didn’t know it would be this hard. I didn’t know that I’d struggle to even look at anyone but him, that I’d want to throw over the whole fucking table to get that girl away. It’s always bothered me, seeing him like this, but it’s far worse now. I know he’s not mine. I know he never will be. But do these girls even see past the surface? Is it all because of his face, his body? Or do they understand his secret sweetness—that lost look he gets on his face sometimes, the one that makes me want to curl up in his lap and ease it away?
I don’t want them to have noticed—those things are all mine.
“I’m so fucking sick of pizza,” says one of the guys, which is when I realize I was staring at Luke again. I’ve got to stop.
“Juliet can cook,” Danny offers. “You got some experience cooking for a crowd all summer, right?”
Before I can reply, before I can reluctantly agree to do the same shit I do every night, Luke slams his beer bottle down.
“She’s not here as the help, right, Dan?” he asks. “If she’s the housekeeper, our bathroom could use a good scrub, but you’d better offer her a salary first.”
Danny laughs, good-natured as ever. “Of course she’s not the housekeeper, but she’s like my mom. She loves to take care of people.” He turns to me. “You don’t mind, right? It’s not like you’ll be surfing all day.”
There’s no way to gracefully tell him, “No” in front of everyone. There’s no way to say, “I thought this was my vacation, too, and as it happens, I fucking hate to cook.” But Luke, in his own way, was standing up for me. I’ve hung him out to dry before, with Aaron Tomlinson and Donna. I’m not doing it again.
“Are you going to help?” I ask.
Danny’s eyes widen. He glances at me, waiting to see if I’m joking. “Uh, sure? I guess? I mean, I’ll be surfing all day and you might not have much to do, but…”
