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Julian caught up with her at the door, curling a hand around her elbow and slowing her to a stop. They faced each other in the darkness of the entryway. “Listen to me for a second.” His eyes went right to left, as if searching for an explanation. “I go from zero to a hundred in three seconds flat with you. I’m not used to it. Somehow I go from having boundaries for everything to burning them down. Something about you brings me to the edge of my comfort zone. In the past . . . look, my experience going beyond that boundary hasn’t been positive.”
“I’m messing with your inner compass and you want to keep it pointed north. It’s fine. I totally understand.” It wasn’t fine. He was ripping her heart out. Why did she say that? “I really have to go.”
As she spoke, he’d started pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. “Goddammit. Maybe that was too honest. But that’s my other problem around you, isn’t it? I talk to you in ways I don’t talk to anyone else.”
“I’m glad you’re honest with me,” she said with a catch in her throat. How did he say the exact right thing while simultaneously breaking her in two? “But sometimes the truth is just the truth and we have to accept it. We’re too different.”
Julian dropped his hand away, braced it on the doorjamb. He shook his head as if to deny it, but didn’t. How could he? Facts were facts. “It’s still raining pretty hard. You shouldn’t drive.” He started patting his pockets, coming up empty in an obvious search for his keys. “Please let me get you home safely.”
She almost laughed. Like this wasn’t awkward enough? “Look, I can talk to my friend Owen about taking over the garden out front—”
“I’ll have no one but you.”
Hallie waited a beat for him to clarify that confusing statement, which seemed to indicate the opposite of what was happening here—a good-bye of sorts?—but he added nothing to that stern denial, the confusing, complicated man. Not wanting to give Julian a chance to find his car keys, she spun on a heel and jogged out into the rain. “Good-bye, Julian. I’ll be fine.”
As much as she wanted to leave without looking back, her gaze was drawn to him while backing down the driveway. I’m sorry, he mouthed to her. And she replayed his silent apology over and over on the way home, deciding to accept it and move on. Which would be a lot more difficult now that he’d exceeded her fantasies, both physically and emotionally, by about several hundred miles.
Unfortunately, their differences had never been more obvious. I go from zero to a hundred in three seconds flat with you. I’m not used to it. Somehow I go from having boundaries for everything to burning them down.
Something about you.
Julian needed planning and predictability, and she bucked those qualities like a rodeo bull. And she couldn’t, in good conscience, continue to play Julian’s imaginary girlfriend now that she’d missed her opportunity to reveal herself as the secret admirer. It wouldn’t be right. Even she didn’t have that much anarchy inside of her.
Time to put this crush behind her once and for all. Before she caused any more trouble.
Chapter Eleven
Julian stood in the low-lit kitchen, drumming his fingers on the island, the sound weaving together with the tick of the clock to create a pattern of sorts. Even by his own punctual standards, he’d gotten dressed too early for the Wine Down Napa event this evening. Anything to avoid the blinking cursor on his computer screen. And memories of a certain energetic gardener gasping for air against his mouth. Jesus. He couldn’t get the fucking taste of her out of his head. It stayed with him day, night, and every second in between.
Turned out, he’d almost kissed her once before. Fifteen years ago. That night, he’d drunk too much out of pure irritation with his sister. Vodka and anxiety had blurred the details of the evening. But ever since the memory resurfaced, details were returning. Vivid ones that made him question how he could have ever forgotten in the first place—even after checking out for a brief window of time afterward. Now? Julian remembered the fading light on her hair and the overwhelming urge to kiss her. The smooth skin of her back.
And the realization that she was a freshman, after which Julian was fairly certain he’d hustled her back to the party with his face on fire.
How did he misplace a memory that had the power to rock him now?
Julian didn’t know, but it appeared that Hallie was determined to turn up once every decade and put cracks in his concentration. He couldn’t fit his regular thoughts in between the ones of her moaning, thighs shaking with her orgasm. And what happened afterward.
