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“Let’s hit the ball back and forth for a few minutes until you get the hang of it,” he suggests. He hits the ball onto my side and I swat it back over the net toward him. “Good job,” he praises, eliciting a smile from me.
Several minutes go by as we’re volleying back and forth—or so Julian calls it—before I’m finally ready to play.
“Okay, let’s do this.”
He serves the ball to me and I miss... pathetically.
“It’s all right. Try again,” he says, trying to encourage me.
I send the ball back so that he can serve again. He bounces it once and sends it back toward me. I swing and this time the paddle flies out of my hand and slams into a wall, making a loud clunk. My hands come to my mouth. I’ve managed to put a nice dent into his drywall.
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry, Julian.”
A grunt breaks through his chest, followed by bubbling laughter. He finds this funny.
“Stop laughing. I nearly put a hole in your wall,” I say, almost in tears.
His head falls back and he barks, he’s laughing so hard. My arms cross over my chest and I groan in irritation. When he finally stops laughing, he wipes a stray tear away from his eye.
“I don’t care about my wall, Marina. It was your face. You were so serious when you swung. I’m glad it was a ball and not my head in your path. You looked positively wicked.”
No matter how hard I try to contain it, a chuckle breaks through my own lips. Julian mimicking my face is hysterical. I do have a tendency of going overboard, and I’m sure his impression isn’t too far off.
“Maybe we should do something less dangerous,” Julian says, pointing toward the television.
“A movie sounds good,” I reply, ready to be done with table tennis. I’ll leave games to people who are good at them.
We spend the rest of the evening curled up on his couch watching some black-and-white movie that I can’t remember the name of. It doesn’t matter. I’m content. We’re not touching, but the close proximity of our bodies isn’t lost on me. I can feel the heat coming off him. His deep breaths make my heart skip a beat or two. Julian and I exchange glances occasionally, but I do my best to turn away, not wanting him to see how he affects me. Feelings that don’t make sense bubble inside of me, threatening to burst out. I stuff them down. Nothing good can come from loose lips.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“You’re such a witch,” Stacey says, pulling a brush through my tangled hair.
I wince as the brush gets stuck on a snarl.
“I offered my spot to you and you refused. You don’t get to be bitter.”
Watching her in the large mirror, I see her smile. She isn’t really mad, just a bit jealous. I don’t blame her. I would be too. A night out on the town with Julian Bellamy sounds like heaven. The past week has crawled at a snail’s pace while I waited for him to get back.
“As much as I wanted out of here, I think you and Julian need some alone time.” She wiggles her eyebrows suggestively insinuating more than a platonic dinner date.
“You’re insane. There’s absolutely nothing going on between Julian and me.” On my end, there is attraction, but that’s where it starts and stops. He’s simply too handsome for his own good.
“It’s ridiculous. He’s a vampire,” I add, to make my case. I’m not sure who I’m trying to convince at this point.
“A sexy one,” Stacey says off-handedly.
“Not human.”
The truth is, no matter how attracted I may be to Julian, we would never make sense. “While he never ages, I’ll grow old and wrinkled.”
She pouts her lips. “Who said anything about the future? I was merely suggesting you lose that V-card.”
I groan at her lack of decorum in bringing up my chastity.
“I’m not interested in losing my virginity to anyone, especially not someone I have no future with.”
Her lips thin into a straight line. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there’s a good chance you don’t have a future, period. Don’t miss out on your chance to experience something mind-blowing because you’re stuck in ways that no longer matter.”
