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“Hey!” Miguel said, coming to stand at the edge of our table. “You drank my pop.”
“You snooze, you lose,” she said, taking a big slurp.
“That’s cold, Chief,” Miguel said. “Cold.”
Miguel reached over and snagged a handful of Juliette’s fries and her smile was something new, or rather, something old. The old Jules sat here, surrounded in sparkle and gold dust. My heart leaped and love flooded me.
I felt removed for a moment, lifted away from the scene as if watching it from miles away. Juliette threw a French fry at Miguel, who reached over and stole another handful. She laughed and appealed to me, but I could only smile.
A certain kind of fear trickled into my stomach. A fear that this was as close as I would get to real family—and that it could all be taken away from me.
TYLER
A half hour later, Miguel led us out of Ed’s and high-tailed it right to the passenger seat of Juliette’s car, his thumbs going to town on his cell phone.
“He just said goodbye to them,” I said about the girls Miguel was no doubt texting. “Is he telling them about the parking lot?”
“It’s Friday night,” she said. “They’re making plans he didn’t want me to hear.”
“Ah.”
“Speaking of plans,” she said, an awkward cheer in her voice, “are you at Remy’s tonight?”
I nodded.
“Maybe…maybe I’ll see you there,” she said, her smile flirty. Again. I sobered.
“What are you doing, Juliette?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
I reached out and turned her to face me, looking hard into her eyes, seeing every insecurity I felt. Every ounce of love and desire and fear.
“What are you doing, Juliette?” I whispered again and I knew, I could see it in her eyes, that she understood me.
“Do I have to know right now?”
“I can’t do casual, Juliette. Not with you.”
She swallowed and I stepped closer, pushing my fingers into her hair. I could feel her heart hammer against the heel of my palm. The scent of lemons flooded me.
“If you come out to Remy’s tonight,” I murmured, “be prepared.”
“For what?” she breathed.
“For me,” I said, and pressed a whisper of a kiss against her sweet lips.
I walked razor wire all night. Believing she would walk in Remy’s door at any moment and hoping, oddly, that she wouldn’t.
Dying every time I looked up from the keys and saw that she wasn’t there.
She’s not coming.
How could she not?
You should be glad. Relieved.
I want her so much I can’t stand it anymore.
Raquel, the singer, stopped singing and Mitch at the drum kit played his last fill when I realized I was still playing the chords of the chorus.
“We’re going to take a quick break,” Raquel said, the perfect ebony of her skin absorbing the lights. The woman had shoulders like an archer and a voice like a songbird.
Maybe I should start something up with Raquel, I thought, sick of myself and Juliette and the past. With Raquel I could do casual. And maybe casual is what I need. Maybe casual is all I’ll ever need.
“Tyler,” Raquel said, coming to stand between me and the crowd. “You with us tonight?”
“Right here,” I muttered, lifting the hem of my shirt and wiping my forehead.
“The hell you are,” Mitch said, his hand over the microphone.
“You’re playing like the living dead,” Raquel said, slightly more sympathetic. “If you need time—”
“I don’t need time,” I snapped. Everything in me was wound so tight I was about to burst. “I’m fine. Let’s just keep playing.”
She shook her head. “Baby, I don’t let anyone make me look bad, and you are walking real close to that line.”
I sighed. “Yeah. I know. I’ll get my—”
Behind Raquel I caught a glimpse of jet-black hair, skin like cocoa. I leaned back, my heart a jackhammer against my ribs.
In the middle of the emptying dance floor, in a red dress that told me every secret her body ever wanted kept, was Juliette.
I stood, the bench screeching against the stage.
“Ty!” Raquel cried as I leaped off the stage.
Everything vanished, Raquel, Mitch, the rest of the set—the entire world just disappeared and it was Juliette. Right here.
Right now.
16
JULIETTE
Desire hit me like a freight train. He leaped off the stage and crossed the empty dance floor, stalking me like some kind of jungle animal. His khaki pants hung low, his white tank top was damp and stretched at the bottom, like he’d been wiping his face with it all night. Beneath his beat-up fedora, his eyes burned holes through my dress until I stood there naked for him.
Mindless to anything but him.
Here. Now. On the damn dance floor in front of everyone—it didn’t matter. I needed Tyler’s touch. I needed him, hard and high inside of me, touching places no one else ever seemed to find.
Finally, he was there, the smell of sweat and beer and sex rolling off of him. In his eyes there wasn’t even a question. There was only happiness and delicious, delicious lust.
