Falling for Seven (16 page)

I didn’t leave like intended. Not when I saw Kit with Marilyn and Angel. They were talking in the corner by the stairs and it looked too fucking serious for a party. I thought I knew Kit pretty well, but how much I could trust her was something else. Especially when she had been drinking and I’d not long ago turned her down.

Yeah, leaving looked like the best thing right now.

“Julian!”

Too late. I wiped the exasperation off my face and turned around. “Marilyn, what’s up?”

She ushered me over, her eyes half-closed and her drink spilling from her cup. “Come here a sec.” I started to walk towards them, brushing past a crowd off people. Angel’s expression was guarded, defensive even. “Who invited Jordan here?” Marilyn asked with a serious attitude, all pissed like it was my fault.

I smirked. “Maybe someone forgot to call Pest Control.”

“He’s upstairs,” Marilyn stormed on, more drink spilling to the floor, “in bed with another girl.”

I looked at Angel. Weakly, she said, “They weren’t doing anything.”

“Not my problem,” I said, staying neutral. “I was leaving anyway.”

I left them to it. I wasn’t getting involved in that. How much worse did things have to get before Angel woke up and saw what he was really like?

I cut across the lawn outside, where someone had set up a slip ‘n slide, even though it was fucking cold, and I realized that there was nothing neutral about the way my fists were clenched at my sides.

“Julian, wait!”

My fists clenched tighter at the sound of Angel shouting out my name. I turned around as she stumbled over the slide, slipping onto her ass to a round of cheering and beer-sloshing. I groaned and went to help her up, ducking to pick her up off the soaked grass.

“You okay?” I asked, when she winced at my hand on her arm.

She scooped her hair behind her ear, snatching her hand away quickly. “I think I sprained my wrist. It really hurts.”

I sat her down on the nearest wall, away from everyone else. “Stay here. I’ll be back.”

I raided the scarce freezer inside the frat house, taking a bag of frozen sweetcorn.

“I know what you’re doing.”

Kit was blocking my exit.

“Making Sweetcorn fritters? Get out my way, Kit.”

She gave her head a subtle shake. Her icy-blue eyes were shining, her cheeks flushed with a pink tinge. It was hard to ignore how hot she looked when she was angry. But she needed to get out of my fucking way.

“I saw her fall, and I know why you’re helping her. Since when were you a knight in shining armor? Your suits rusty, you should really polish it.”

“Move, Kit.”

“Did you call off the bet?”

“There’s no bet.”

“She loves Jordan.”

“Help convince her that tonight?”

Kit’s gaze dropped and I sneered as I walked around her, bending down so she could hear me clearly. “That’s what I thought. You’re a great friend to Angel, really. But I see right through you.”

THERE WAS A LOU
D
buzzing in my head, an unfiltered white noise that refused to quieten down. I sat on the wall where Julian left me, cradling my wrist in my hand, immune to the laughter from the other side of the lawn.

Jordan had fallen asleep in bed with someone else. I didn’t see who—I wasn’t sure it mattered. So, yes, Jordan and I were officially over. His words might have been incredibly unclear, but lying next to another girl? The visual was affirmative. I felt cold—maybe from the weather.

“Got you this.” Julian sat next to me, straddling the wall, his whole body facing my direction. He pressed a frozen bag of something against my wrist, until I took over, holding it for myself.

“Thank you,” I said. I was starting to get a headache from how much I had drank earlier in the night. Turning up on Greek Row wasn’t planned, we winged it, last minute after a text from Kit.

Now I wish I’d stayed home.

It was too much, resisting the urge to lie down, so I gave in for a split-second, letting my body sway to the side. I was drunk, it was the only reason I hadn’t overreacted when I saw Jordan, and kept some semblance of my cool. Julian caught me before my body collided with brick and dragged me up into a straighter position, my back flush against his chest, between his open legs.

The ice-cold bag fell away from my wrist and Julian’s arms came around me, slapping it back against my skin, eliciting a wave of goosebumps from the chilly compress.

I looked down at his arms when they didn’t pull away, his tan skin against mine, holding the pack as if he genuinely gave a damn. I think I might have snuggled closer against his body, I was too dizzy from the alcohol to know for sure, or act embarrassed.

“I didn’t want to come tonight,” I said, mainly to myself. “Kit talked me into it, and Marilyn can’t say no to a party.” My eyes started to close, and then I was spinning. I knew it was only a matter of time before I would throw-up. “Why does he do this to me?” I didn’t think I’d said it out loud, but then Julian spoke.

“Because you let him.”

I took the longest breath. Sighing, I opened my eyes. “I don’t want to act this way, or to care as much as I do. But I don’t know how to be any different. I’ll never be good enough for him. Never.”

“You’re looking at it wrong.” Julian’s fingers started in a soft trail over the goosebumps raised on my arm, his warmth gradually making them fade. I felt like I should feel awkward or uncomfortable, but I didn’t. I was warm and content. “He’ll never be good enough for you.”

I frowned. Julian’s fingers stopped, like he was waiting for me to bite his head off, but I smiled, knowing he couldn’t see me. And then the spinning reached a level out of control and I jerked forward, leaning over the wall, emptying my stomach onto a dark patch of soil that may have been the early stages of a blossoming flowerbed. “Oh god, don’t look,” I warned, wiping the frozen packet of veg across my mouth. “I’m disgusting.”

“You’re not disgusting, you just need to go to bed. I’ll take you.”

I shifted my head to the side so I could see him. He looked different when he wasn’t so smug. Or maybe he looked different because we had fooled around, and he was no longer
just
Julian, my irritating partner in Sociology. “That was why I came out here, for a ride.”

A dark, transient look flashed in his eyes. “I’m parked round the corner.”

I looked at him longer, his expression once again evenhanded. It wasn’t just the smugness, or the fact that I had let him touch me in places I really shouldn’t have—he was different. “You cut your hair,” I said, dropping both my legs to the other side of the wall so I could reach out a hand and touch his short hair. It suited him. I mean, I liked his hair just fine before, all tousled and downright sexy, but this shorter, close-cut was totally bad-boy.

“Guess I am human. I need a haircut just like everyone else. It gets too long.”

I let my hand fall away when Julian narrowed his eyes, his lips curving in the silhouette of a smile. “I’m hungry,” I said. My stomach was hollower than an empty pit. Breakups should be recommended as the faddiest and most successful of all diets, because Jordan had made sure I could hardly eat a thing.

“I need grease.” I yawned, tiredness flooding my body. Standing up, or moving, suddenly looked like an unachievable task. “Lots of it.”

“I can stop by Five Guys if you want. It’s downtown, but it’s good.”

“Sounds perfect. I am so hungry I could eat you.”

Julian’s gentle smile swerved onto a more dangerous route, a shadow bathing his eyes. “Careful what you say, Angel.”

It seemed to take an age to walk to the car. But once we got going, the humming of the engine and the heat from the radiator wrapped me in a sleepy cocoon. I snuggled in next to the car door, the street lights blending together, whizzing past in super-speed. The glass was cool on my burning cheeks.

“Will Mia be in?” Julian asked me, as we bombed it down the highway.

“She was studying, so yeah, I guess so.” I side-glanced Julian, a loose smile on my lips. “Why? Were you hoping to get lucky?”

His look was smoldering and heat rushed into my cheeks, a lighter-than-air sensation rising in my tender stomach. What was happening?

“Not tonight, Angel.”

“What if I want to?”

“You’re drunk.”

My fingers started to tingle. “So?”

Julian’s husky laughter was like gravel cutting through silk, but I didn’t know what he had to laugh about because I was being one-hundred percent serious.

“So, I don’t take advantage of girls when they are hammered.”

“I would hardy say I was hammered.”

“I don’t care. Not happening, Angel. You’ll thank me in the morning.”

“Uh-huh, whatever.”

“What happened to one-stop shop?”

I observed the night’s view from the passenger window to avoid the cocky grin Julian was showing off. He was force-feeding me my own words and it was just the trick to bring me back to my senses. “Don’t flatter yourself,” I said, “You have to get under someone to get over someone. I was testing out a theory.”

He hedged me with a doubtful look. He didn’t believe a word of it. “Did you bring your notebook?”

My face scrunched. “No. why?”

“Notes for Sociology.”

“Notes for Sociology?”

“You talk shit when you’re drunk. Anyone ever tell you that?”

<>

We didn’t make it to Five Guys. Mia let me know that Julian brought me home, empty stomach still empty, and crashed out deep enough that I was snoring.

After a cold-
ish
shower, I sat on my bed while Marilyn—after five minutes from walking in, still in last night’s outfit—let loose like a grenade. “I shared a cab with Jordan, in case you’re wondering.”

“I wasn’t.” Total lie.

“He stayed all night, in bed with some ho.”

“Were calling other girls hos now? And
you
stayed all night.” Pointing out Marilyn’s same mistakes was the easiest way to take the limelight off of me.

“He’s fucking you around. I’m not.”

I balanced my heel on the edge of the mattress to fix the laces on my vans. It was a waste of time, my wrist splintered with pain every time I dared move it. I remembered falling over, and my hand slipping on something wet when I tried to save myself. “We split, remember?”

Marilyn heaved out her chest, her sigh reaching the ceiling. “You did not split. He dumped you. Huge difference, right there.”

“I don’t care what he did.”

“You need to save that bullshit for someone else.”

I yanked my bag out from under the bed and stood up. “Marilyn, stop. I can look after myself.”

“You are torturing yourself, more like.”

“I can handle Jordan.”

“I so wish you would handle him.”

“Goodbye!”

I quickly started my playlist on my iPhone and let the music crash and mingle with all the crap jumbled up in my head. As much as I was in love with Jordan, I was really starting to hate him. Even if nothing had happened with him and the girl, he had lain with her all night. He’d shared a bed with someone else, and I was so crazy jealous I wanted to beat someone up. Preferably Jordan. But I had classes, and thankfully, my last one finished at 2p.m.

I got through the day without hearing a word from Jordan and headed straight out to see Nellie afterwards.

She was in the dayroom when I got there, another elderly woman in the chair next to her, both chatting through a gameshow that was showing on the TV. The woman swatted Nellie’s hand away and laughed at something she said. I smiled watching them, although what they were laughing about was another matter entirely. Nellie was as crude as a teenage boy.

I said hi to Stella, Nellie’s partner in crime, and sat on the windowsill absorbed in their unfiltered banter. “My, is this your daughter?” Stella asked, putting on her glasses that hung round her neck on a chain.

“No, you silly old bat. That’s the nurse.”

“She looks like I did ten years ago,” said Stella, then choked herself up cackling.

My cell rang out signaling a text, but I couldn’t bring myself to check it just yet. I wasn’t ready for whatever it might say.

“Answer your telephone,” Stella prompted. “It might be your lover boy.”

Nellie looked over at me. “Who is that trying to contact you?”

“Some fit, young thing I should expect.” Stella started to cackle again, her headscarf coming loose around her perm and dropping onto her forehead. Nellie pushed it back for her too hard, and nearly snapped her neck off in the process.

“They don’t make ‘em like they used to,” Stella said, shaking her head. “Men are not men anymore.”

“Then you’ve never met my Sam. Just yesterday he took me to the playground after dark and—”

“Okay! Don’t say anything else. You two are dangerous,” I said, springing for my cell.

“I know that look,” Stella observed. “He either did something really bad or really good.”

“Hmm.” I opened up the message. “That depends who we are talking about.”

“By god.” Nellie clutched her chest over her cardigan. “She has two. No wonder we are suffering a drought.”

I laughed, reading the message. It was from Julian, and like always, straight to the point.

I got you tickets to the game. Just think about it. 7 x

I deleted the message and put my phone away.

<>

Friday—game night. I sat at my desk with Mia’s silence for company, the end of my pencil tapping against paper, numbing my wild imagination. My body was fidgety from memory of Julian’s hands on me, my hands on him, bringing me to life. Then I turned a dark corner and thought about Jordan and his lack of giving a shit. I was turning to Julian for the sole purpose Jordan didn’t want me. It was a slippery slope and I would have to dig my ski poles in deep to stop from slipping any farther. I wasn’t interested in Julian, like that. Not really.

I was sure I wasn’t.

Yeah, I was pretty sure.

My gaze slanted to my cell and my finger robotically swiped the screen. It was five minutes to eight. Only another five minutes till the opening kickoff. Julian had left three tickets under my door in an envelope. Mia very impolitely declined, and Marilyn was out on a date with the hockey team’s center forward, Mario Demara.

My body was moving before my mind had made its decision.

I was wearing white sweatpants and a pink, ribbed tank top. I looked like a slob, but there wasn’t enough time to change. I zipped up my training jacket in the car and as usual, fastened my hair into more of a knot this time than a bun. Yeah, I was your everyday mess.

I got to Julian’s house in just under half an hour and I jogged up to his front door, rapping my knuckles against the scuffed wood. I stood a moment and then the door was flung open.

Taj smiled up at me, his game console hanging by his side.
I saw you from my bedroom window. Julian’s got a game tonight,
he signed.
He’s not home.

He took a huge bite of a Twinkie, the whole thing almost disappearing down his throat. I supposed a ten year old had to eat.

I signed back,
I know. Want to come?
I looked around him, inside the hallway.
Where’s your mom? Are you home alone?

Right after I said it, footsteps rushed down the stairs and Kristina patted Julian on the shoulder. She frowned at him. She mustn’t be able to sign, or he knew that expression too well. She gave him a slight shove and he shuffled into the living room without argument.

“I never normally need to worry about him answering the door to strangers, but he fled. I didn’t know what was going on.” Kristina crossed her arms over her chest, but didn’t invite me in. Her stance told me she wanted me to leave.