Текст книги "Keeping Her"

Автор книги: Alexis Noelle

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Chapter Two

Julia

When I hear the bell ring I look up to greet the new customer just to have the wind knocked out of me. Brian. Why is he here? How is he here? I haven’t seen him since the night he decided I was no longer good enough for him. I can’t help but stare at the man who was the first love of my life. Brian and I had a crazy all consuming love that ended in heartbreak. I cried over him for months just to find out not only did he abandon me but went as far to leave town just to get away from me.

He sits down at one of my tables and my stomach drops. As I look him over he is wearing the same t-shirt he was the night he gave up on me. It’s like another knife in my heart to see him in it. I don’t know what type of game he is trying to play, but Brian Evans is my past and will never be part of my future. I look over to Sara, one of the girls that works for me, “Hey can you take that table? I need to make a phone call.”

She nods and heads over to Brian’s table as I slip into the back like a coward. I look down at my shaky hands trying to get a grip on myself. Why would he come in here? I’m sure he has heard about me and Dan by now, he has nothing left in this town. It doesn’t make sense for him to come back.

I smooth out my clothes before taking a deep breath and walking back out front. “Why are you hiding from me?”

A deep voice whispers in my ear and I jump at the sound. Brian is standing next to me the two of us too close for comfort in this tiny hallway. As I breathe in my senses are invaded with his cologne. It’s the same one he wore all those years ago. I feel like a lovesick teenager again. Like the same little girl who couldn’t control herself around him. I’m not her anymore though, she was broken. As I stare at the man who destroyed my life all those years ago, contempt and anger run through my body.

“I’m not hiding. I just have no desire to see you,” I say as strong as I possibly can but know my voice is still a little shaky. I move to walk away from him when he grabs my arm. I turn to face him and he takes a step closer, forcing me to step back until my back hits the wall.

Brian takes another step and puts his hands on either side of my head. “You were hiding from me, Jules,” he slowly annunciates my name letting the sound drag from his lips. “I know you better than anyone, even the douchebag that you married. How is it, Jules? Does he make you scream the way I used to? Does he even know what to do with you?”

How dare he come back here after eight years and say shit like that to me? I try to think of some smart assed comment but right now all I need is air. I push one of his arms away and walk out into the bakery, grab my purse from behind the counter, and let Sara know I’ll be back later. When I look back, I see Brian in the same spot leaning against the wall and just watching me. I head for my car and take my phone out to call Lacey. She has been my friend since high school and the reason I survived when Brian broke my heart.

“Hey, babe.” Her cheery voice greets me not knowing the shit storm that is going on right now.

“Lace, he’s back.” My voice is cracking from the tears I’m trying to sustain.

“Who?” I know I’ve caught her off guard and couldn’t expect her to know what I’m talking about.

“Brian.” I say choking out the name I never thought I would say again.

“What? Why the hell would he come back here? What happened? Are you okay?” I can hear the fear in her voice that I’ll slip back into the person I was the first time he screwed me over.

“Can I come see you?” Lacey has her own real estate business so I have no idea if she is at the office or doing showings all day.

“Yea, I had one meeting today but I’ll call and reschedule it.” I can hear her rifling through papers.

“No you don’t have—“

“Shut up, and just get here,” she tells me in the voice I know I can’t argue with.

“Okay, I’m on my way now. You’re the best.”

“Tell me something I don’t know. See you soon, babe.”

“Okay, bye.” I hang up and do my best to calm the emotions coursing through me. Lacey’s office is only about a ten-minute drive and when I pull up in the driveway she is standing at the door.

I head inside with her and sit down on the couch in her office, bury my head in my hands, and let the first tears fall from my eyes. Lacey’s arms enclose me.

“What happened? What did he say?”

I groan. “He was such an asshole, Lace.” I recount the events to her and notice how pissed off she looks by the end of the story.

“What the fuck, Julia? I mean, what is he doing?”

I shake my head. “I have no idea. He left me, so why is he coming back here now after so long acting like he is jealous or something? I don’t even know what he was acting like. I do know that no matter how much I hate him that pull, that connection between us is still there.”

“You can’t go down that road again. You and Dan are doing great and have been since you got together. The other day you said you guys were talking about trying for a baby. You can’t let that asshole fuck everything up for you.” The door to the office opens and Lacey swears under her breath. “I thought I locked that shit. I’ll be right back.”

I get up and look in the mirror trying to tell myself I am strong enough to handle him being back.

“Get the fuck out of here!” I hear Lacey yell and I run out to see what’s wrong.

Brian is standing in the middle of the office staring at Lacey with a smirk on his face. When he sees me, his eyes roam over me and I can feel my body heating with a blush.

“Are you deaf? I said get the fuck out of here!” Lacey yells at him once more.

“Chill out, ice queen. I was just looking to see if there were any apartments for rent.” His voice is cool and has a hint of laughter behind it.

“Not for you, dick. I can’t believe you even had the nerve to come here.” Lacey takes an angry few steps toward him.

He holds his hands up in surrender. “Hey, in my defense the sign says Steven’s Realty. I had no idea it was your place.”

“It’s a married name, and now that you know you can get the hell out.”

Brian walks toward the door and opens it before turning back toward us. “See you ladies around town.”

He shuts the door and leaves us both standing there dumbfounded.

My heart is beating at twice its normal speed. I just want to curl into the fetal position that I spent most of the summer in when he left me. A part of me is still attached to him but I buried it long ago. Now that he is back in town that part is fighting to get out.

I look over at Lacey and she is standing there as much in disbelief as I am.

“What am I gonna do, Lace?”

“I have no idea, babe. He seems like a man on a mission, and if had to wager a guess, I would say you might be that mission.”

Just fucking great.

Chapter Three

Julia

I drive home trying to figure out how to tell Dan that Brian is back in town. He is definitely not going to be happy and I am too emotionally drained for an argument right now. I have to say compared to the hurricane of a relationship that Brian and I had, Dan and I barely fight. It’s really nice, but at times I feel like it’s a bit boring when we agree on almost everything. As much as he hurt me, seeing Brian today lit a flame in me that had been extinguished long ago. He always had a way of doing that, of setting me on fire and making me feel alive. Until the day he didn’t care anymore.

That summer was supposed to be the most amazing time of my life. Traveling all over Europe with Lacey, seeing things that I had been dreaming of since I was a little girl. What really happened was anything but that. I spent most of the days crying and depressed not understanding why he threw everything we had away. I wrote him a few letters but never received a response. A week before our trip ended, Lacey laid into me.

“That’s it!” Lacey storms in the door and slams it behind her. “You are getting the hell up! And enjoying the little time we have left here!” I look up to see her standing there with her hands on her hips.

“Lace I—“

“No. No more of this ‘I don’t want to.’ ‘I’m fine, you go out.’ ‘Maybe I’ll get a letter today’ crap.” I lower my eyes to the floor as I realize what a pathetic mess I have been. Lacey sits down beside me and puts her arm around me. “I get that he hurt you, babe, and trust me I will castrate him when we get back if you want me to, but you need to understand that you’re letting him win. You’re letting him control you from thousands of miles away.”

She’s right. Brian never wanted me to go away this summer maybe this was how he planned it. I have spent the entire time closed up in our apartment and grieving my relationship with him. Lacey is right, I need to get over Brian Evans because he was obviously over me. I smile at her and she jumps up.

“Hell yes! Now get out of those ratty sweatpants and into something that isn’t going to scare people.” I laugh as I get off the couch and head into our room. I say a silent goodbye to Brian. I don’t care if he begs me when we get home I am done with him.

I think I felt lighter after that day. The weight of our failed relationship wasn’t weighing me down constantly and while I wasn’t happy, I was definitely on my way to getting there.

I pull into my driveway and take a deep breath before I get out of the car. As I’m walking up the pathway, I see a realtor showing the house across the street. They have been trying to sell that thing forever without any offers. It’s a nice house but definitely a fixer upper. I wave to her, my hand stopping in mid-air when I see who is standing next to her. Brian.

“Hey, neighbor!” he shouts as he waves back at me. He wouldn’t. He can’t. “See you around!” he yells with a smirk before heading into the house. He is.

My hands fist at my sides as I try to keep myself from losing the little bit of composure I have left. He is trying to drive me crazy and in the few hours he’s been back in town it’s working. I am half scared that he will be living across the street from me because I have no idea what his motive is. The other half of me is so pissed off that all I want to do is punch him in the face.

I make my way up the steps trying to calm myself down. When I walk in the door all of the lights are out. I walk into the living room and when I turn on the lamp my breath catches in my throat.

Dan is standing in the middle of the room with a bouquet of roses and he is wearing a suit. “Welcome home, beautiful.” The anger inside me vanishes as I realize how amazing the man I married is. I walk over to him and wrap my arms around his neck.

“If this is the kind of greeting I get, I’ll buy you flowers every day,” he whispers as he trails light kisses down my neck. Dan and I have been together for almost six years. We started dating my freshman year of college. It was weird at first because we had been friends for so long. Also he was there throughout my whole relationship with Brian, and saw the mess I was when it ended.

I pull back and look up at him thinking about how he saved me from the shell of a person I had turned into. “What did I do to get so lucky?” I laugh at how cheesy I sound. The thing is that it’s true he showed me that love didn’t always need to hurt and that people didn’t always take you for granted. From the moment we got together he has shown me every day how much he really loves me.

“I don’t know, I guess you just hit the jackpot.” He smiles and winks at me. “I’m taking you out to dinner, go get dressed.” I turn to walk away from him determined to put all thoughts of Brian out of my mind. If he is going to be here then I need to learn to deal with it. I can’t spend every day avoiding him, or letting him get the best of me. He ruined my one summer abroad, he’s not going to ruin the rest of my life. I can’t let him win again.

Chapter Four

Brian

I am on my way to meet a bunch of my buddies for dinner, but all I can think about is Jules. I have to say I am enjoying toying with her more than I probably should, but it serves her right. After everything she put me through I have no sympathy for her now, she was the one that ended things. Now I’m just trying to have a little fun.

I pull up to the restaurant and head inside. Jake, Ryan, Mason, and Hunter are all sitting at a table, beers already ordered. All five of us served together in the marines, it’s crazy how we lived so close to each other but had never met before then.

“Yo, dude! Why are you always late?” Jake shouts as he sees me coming.

I just shake my head. “I was dealing with some business.”

“Oh yea? You just got back into town today. What the hell business could you be doing?” Ryan looks over at me and I swear to God he knows I’ve been up to no good. He is like a damn human lie detector.

“I put in a bid for a house. The owners have been trying to settle forever and are just looking to get rid of it at this point.” I laugh as I remember Jules’ face when I called her neighbor.

“Putting down roots already?” Mason cocks an eyebrow at me. “I remember hearing you bitch for four years about how you were so happy to get out of this damn place.”

I’m about to answer him when something catches my eye. In a matter of seconds my entire body goes rigid as I see them. Dan and Jules. The motherfucker is holding her hand and she is smiling up at him. My hands fist at the table trying to control the anger flowing through my veins.

“Dude, did you just fucking growl?” I look up at Hunter with a “don’t fuck with me” expression on my face and he immediately backs off.

I’m staring at her, at their joined hands, at their smiling faces. When the waitress leads them back to a table our eyes meet and I can see the look of shock in her eyes at seeing me. She’s had it every time I approached her today, and I love it. She better fucking get used to it though because I’m not going anywhere. Jules slows her pace and Dan turns around his eyes following her gaze. When his eyes meet mine he looks more taken back than she does. She hasn’t told him? I thought that would have been the first thing she did when she got home. Maybe she didn’t tell him because she didn’t want to admit that she cared that I was back. If that’s the case then why would she have screwed me over in the first place? Dan leads her back to where the waitress went but her eyes don’t leave mine until she is out of sight.

I take a drink of the beer in front of me clenching my jaw and trying to make myself stay in this chair and not go after them.

“Brian, what the hell was that?” I look up and see them all looking at me like I’ve got two fucking heads.

“That? That was fucking Jules.” I take another drink of the beer as I see the realization set in.

“The girl you never stopped talking about?” “The bitch that fucked you over?” “That chick that married the asshole?” Questions are coming at me like wild fire but I don’t feel like answering any of them.

“The girl that has moved on with her life, and that’s exactly what the fuck I’m gonna do too,” I say with an irritated tone letting them know the conversation about Jules is over. “I’ll be back”

I get up and head toward the bathroom needing to walk a little and shake off some of the tension. When I turn down the hallway where the bathrooms are I see Jules coming out of the women’s room.

“Will you stop following me? It isn’t funny, Brian!” she yells in a whispered tone.

“Hey, princess, I know you think the world begins and fucking ends with you but I just need to take a piss.” Her cheeks flush and I smile at the effect I have on her.

“I’m just supposed to think this is a coincidence? You come into my shop, show up at Lacey’s office, and then you’re buying the house across the street from me?” Her hands are on her hips and I have to admit that she still looks sexy when she gets pissed off. It’s why our fights never lasted long when we were together. I couldn’t resist her like this.

I take a step forward so that we’re so close that an inch more and we would be touching. “I don’t know what to tell you other than you better get used to seeing me around ‘cause I ain’t going anywhere.”  I grasp her chin between my forefinger and my thumb. “Now why don’t you go back to Dan the Douche and stop accusing me of shit.” I take advantage of her frozen state and place a kiss on her cheek enjoying the feeling of my lips on her skin again. I pull away and then walk past her toward the bathroom.

“Why did you come back?” she asks, her voice so low that I almost miss the words.

“Guess that’s for me to know and you to drive yourself crazy over.” I step into the bathroom leaving her out there in the hallway. I know I’m acting like an asshole but I can’t control it. I am still as in love with her as I was the day she broke my heart. I’m acting like this because even after preparing myself, seeing her is fucking killing me, especially seeing her with that asshole. I take a deep breath to calm myself down hoping that she isn’t out there when I leave.

Then I see the last person I expected to, Dan. He takes a step toward me and looks as if he is about to say something. “Listen, dick, I advise you to fucking walk away right now.”

I walk past him slamming my shoulder into his as I pass. “You need to leave Julia alone.” I can tell he is trying to sound tough but the little rich boy inside is shining through.

I immediately stop walking and turn around to face him. My hand darts out and slams him against the wall causing him to flinch. “You will not tell me what to fucking do. I still remember you as the nerdy little shit you used to be before you became this hot shot CEO. I will do what I want. When I want. And with whomever the fuck I want to. She was mine first.”

I walk away before I decide to bury my fist in his face.

When I get back to the table, I mumble something about needing to leave and barely say goodbye to anyone.

The entire drive back to the hotel my hands are clutching the wheel so tight my knuckles are turning white. I can’t believe that asshole thought he was going to warn me away from Jules. Who the fuck does he think he is? I don’t give a shit what he wants, I’d never listen to his punk ass. Hell, I wouldn’t let him throw water on me if I was on fire.

When I pull up to the run down hotel, I sit in my car not wanting to go in. I want to go back to that damn restaurant, grab Jules, and hold her hostage until she apologizes and says she wants me as much as I want her. Realizing how psychotic that sounds, I make the better decision to get out of my car and go into my room.

I look around at the room wishing I was like the other guys. They all had something or someone to come back to. Girlfriends, family, homes. All I have is what I carry in my suitcase. I would rather have nothing than have my family though. My mother was a pill addicted waste of space and my father was an abusive asshole. The day I got out of that house was the best fucking day of my life.

A small part of me had hoped that I would see Jules, she would apologize, and ask me to take her back. I left hoping eventually I would have something that we never were, a family.

A family with Jules.

I guess it’s back to square one.

Chapter Five

Julia

I sit at dinner and my hands are still shaking from my encounter with Brian. Mostly I’m just mad that he’s making himself a constant presence in my life and goes out of his way to get to me. While I got over my feelings for him, I don’t think that they ever actually went away. When you lose someone you love, someone who was a part of you, that part just gets buried under everything else. Your experiences after that just mask their presence and push it down deeper into your consciousness until you are able put them out of your thoughts. Now that Brian is back, those memories are no longer buried, they’re back full force and torturing every minute of my life.

I can’t stop thinking about the way that he used to look at me before he told me he loved me, like I was the only person he could see. The day we first met, and his playful attitude are playing through my mind. The last night we were together is haunting me.

Dan comes back to the table and once he sits down I can see the irritation and anger on his face. This is so rare for him that it stops me in my tracks. “What happened?” Once I had come back to the table he could tell something had shaken me up. I told him that Brian was back and without going into tons of detail that he was basically trying to piss me off every hour of the day.

“Nothing abnormal, just him acting like the asshole he is.” I flinch at the term and am really surprised at the way that Dan is acting. I think one of the things that made me take the leap with him is that he is so completely different from Brian. The anger and attitude that Brian possesses always pissed me off and Dan had none of those qualities. “I think it’s best if you try to avoid him, Julia. He seems like he came back with a huge chip on his shoulder. I don’t want you to get involved with his over the top BS.”

I know he’s right and that I should stay away from Brian, but I don’t think it’s going to be that easy. “Let’s stop talking about him.” Maybe if we do I’ll stop thinking about him. “How was work today?” Dan started his own financial company when we got out of college and it has done extremely well.

“It was fine, just hectic.” He really doesn’t talk about his work much but he never has. I can honestly that I wouldn’t be really interested in it either. Numbers and business make my head hurt which is why it also helps that Dan is capable of managing the business end of my shop. “Has Brian said anything to you, Julia? Anything that is upsetting? I am trying to understand why after all this time he has just decided to come back and is still focusing on you.”

“Well, that is definitely the question of the day. Yes, he has said upsetting stuff but that’s his MO. Brian has always known how to make me mad. As far as why he came back, I have no clue. He hasn’t said anything to me about it. I really don’t want this to ruin our night though.” I look at him almost begging him to let this topic drop and to just move on with the night.

“I don’t want it to ruin our night either and luckily he left.” I nod and look over at the table where I first saw him. When I do, I see the faces of four men all fixed on me. Each one of them seems to be silently judging me and it makes me just as mad as Brian did.

The rest of dinner is pretty uneventful and that is perfectly fine with me. When we get home the lights in the house across the street are on. There is no possible way that he already bought it.

“Did they finally sell the house?” Dan asks me as we walk up to the door.

“Um, I guess so.” I really don’t want to drop that bombshell right now.

“What the fuck?” I look over at Dan to see what happened. “He bought it?” His voice is so full of disbelief and anger. I turn to see Brian walking out of the now dark house.

Dan looks at me and I laugh out of nervousness. “Didn’t I tell you that?” I try to sound completely innocent but fail miserably.

“This is so fucked up.” He walks past me and into the house. Brian being here is definitely causing Dan stress and is bringing out a side of him I haven’t seen in all the years we’ve been together. Before I know what I am doing I start to walk across the street.

“You can’t buy this house!” I yell from the end of the driveway.

He smirks and laughs before turning back to his car and opening the door.

“I mean it, Brian! You need to stay away from me and stay out of my life!” I feel bad for the last comment but I shouldn’t, it was his choice to not be in my life in the first place.

“Let me set something straight for you. I used to let your sexy little ass boss me around when we were together ‘cause it got my dick hard.” I gasp at his gravely tone and the words slowly seeping from his mouth. “Now that shit is over. I will do what I want, when I want, and the only thing your little tantrums are gonna make me do is enjoy it even more.”

My mouth drops open and I try to think of something to say. I have nothing though. How do you even respond to that?

He laughs at me again only making my blood boil even more. “You gonna move or are we having a staring contest? If we are, I’ll win ‘cause you are still a hot piece of ass to look at.” His eyes slowly trail up my body as if he is memorizing every inch.

I let out a screech of frustration before turning around and stomping into the house. I know he won and I think that might be pissing me off more than what he said to me. Brian always had the upper hand when we argued and he still does now.

The only issue is at least he cared about me before.

Now he’s just doing it to hurt me.