AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She grins, looking smug as all hell as she points the top of her beer bottle at me. “Made you smile, though.”
I clink the top of my beer against hers and watch as she takes a swig, her emerald eyes glued on mine the whole time. She might as well be holding my heart in her hand instead of that bowl of popcorn because I can feel my chest squeeze tighter and tighter the longer she stares at me, her lips wrapped around that beer bottle.
Lucky fucking bottle.
She raises an eyebrow at me. “Well…?”
“What?” I ask, pulled back to my senses.
“Are you going to start the movie?”
“Yeah.” I snatch the remote up and press play, grateful for any distraction I can get. Unfortunately, Julia is impossible not to watch as the movie goes on. I try to keep my eyes on the screen, but they keep gravitating back to her. Everything she does is so… animated. It’s like there’s so much life inside her that it spills out of every movement, every word, and every laugh. It’s like Julia turns the colors on around her.
She’s so engrossed in the movie that my inattentiveness goes unnoticed but about halfway through, a fluffy lump of tabby cat jumps up in my lap, making me jump. A pair of bright green eyes stare at me with what I can only assume is malice.
“Jules, when did you get a cat?” I ask as the feline stares daggers at me.
“That’s Tuna. She’s an asshole,” Julia replies without looking. “Don’t break eye contact or she’ll assume you’re weak.”
My eyes dart to Julia and sure enough, the second I look away, the cat bats me across the face. “What the fuck?” I stare at the cat, taken aback. “Why did it slap me?”
“You showed weakness, I told you not to look away.”
“Where did this thing come from?” I whisper.
Julia grins at me. “She turned up a couple weeks after I moved in. She snuck in during a rainstorm and wouldn’t leave the next day. I couldn’t kick her out because someone declawed her. I put up about a thousand posters, but no one claimed her.”
“I can’t imagine why.”
Tuna jumps down and pads a couple feet away. She sits and cleans herself but keeps her unnerving gaze on me the whole time.
When the movie ends, Julia stretches, her back arching as she lifts her arms over her head.
“How you doing, Luis?” She asks, patting my dad on the knee. He’s still snoring, having barely moved an inch over the last hour and a half. He wakes up just enough to squint at her and grunt, “Sleeping,” before falling asleep again.
Julia laughs kindly as she gets up, retrieving a blanket from a basket in the corner and spreading it over him.
“Alright,The Italian Jobnext,” she says, pointing double finger guns at me. “That way you can get your Charlize fix.”
“Another movie?”
“You have better things to do right now?” she asks, hands planted on her hips.
She’s got me there. “Fair enough.The Italian Jobit is.”
“Thank you. I’ve got this mental image of Will Ferrell as a pimp roaming around in my brain thanks to your last pick. I need to replace it with something less yucky.” Julia shudders, her face twisted in exaggerated disgust. “That really was aterriblemovie.”
“Terrible or not, you enjoyed it,” I point out.
“Uh…” She leans in like she’s going to confide something, close enough that I can see the little flecks of black and gold around her irises. “That’s what she said.” Julia laughs as she saunters away.
“You’re a child, you know that?” I call after her.
“I’m a peacock, captain! You gotta let me fly!” She yells Mark Wahlberg’s line over her shoulder as she heads down the hall to the bathroom.
I chuckle, shaking my head. It’s been years, nearly a decade, since I’ve spent time with Julia like this. Somehow, I’d forgotten how much fun she is. My dad’s words play through my head: “You’ve avoided her for so long…”It’s not that I’ve actively avoided her, not really. But I certainly allowed myself the space to forget.
My phone buzzes on the coffee table. Message notifications popping up one after another.
