Julien's Book (8 page)

Nadine climbed into Julien's
Jeep, thinking about how much she loved the feel of an old car. It was old enough to be considered classic, but he kept it up really well. She'd seen it in the parking lot several times, and wondered who it belonged to.

"I like your
Jeep," she said.

He just smiled as if he knew she was going to say that
as he started the engine.

Chapter 8

Julien took Nadine to a park on the college campus. It was dark out, and he knew it'd be a good place to hang out for a few minutes. They sat on a park bench, looking out at the fenced-in swamp in front of them. He shifted and turned to regard her.

"
There's a woman named Shea Miller. She wrote a romance novel about a guy named Julien who had a birthmark like mine. She used my name and my birthmark, but made up a bunch of other crazy shit about me to make the character Julien's story worth telling." Julien paused, but Nadine just stayed silent, waiting for him to continue. "The girl character in the book is named Nadine, and when you came in the gym, I assumed you were just saying your name was Nadine just because you'd read the book and you thought that would make me like you."

"Why's that such a big deal?"

"It's not, which is why I'm trying to get you to trust me when I tell you I don't think you should read it. I'm asking you to do that as a favor to me because I think I'd like to get to know you and I'm afraid that you reading the book would change things between us."

The only words Nadine focused on w
ere "I'd like to get to know you." The thought of
getting to know
this gorgeous, mysterious guy made her weak in the knees. And what exactly had he meant by that
anyway?

She was lost in thought
about getting to know him before she remembered the unsettled feeling she was having as a result of the whole book thing. "I'm feeling like there's something you're not telling me about the book," she said.

He looked at her with a smile, but
she could see the underlying intensity in the way his jaw was set. He sighed before he spoke. "The book's just got a few coincidences that are impossible to ignore. The main characters are Julien and Nadine, and they look a lot like you and I."

He could tell by the way she listened that
it was the first time she'd ever heard any of it. There was no way to describe how he knew she wasn't lying, he just did. He felt as if he connected with her in a way he didn't even understand, and could trust she was telling the truth.

Once realization dawned on him, scenes from the book began flashing through his mind. He tried to
sort out what was real and what was fiction. He felt better knowing that most of the details in the book about his life has been made up. But, Christ, if her name and her job and her
mother fucking face
were the same, then where was the line going to be drawn?

"Are you okay?"

Julien coughed a few times to buy himself a second to think. He needed to get more information from her, but knew she'd get suspicious if he started asking too many questions. "I'm good," he said. "Just went down the wrong pipe." He took a sip of the bottled water that had been sitting on the bench between them.

"I won't read the book if you think it'll give me nightmares," she said. She was only joking,
but Julien flinched a little.

"No,
no, no, it's nothing like that. Like I said, it's no big deal. It's just a romance novel. It's just that I like you, and I don't want the story in the book to affect whatever's maybe happening between us."

She was like putty in his hands. She was blindsided by how much she
wanted this guy, and if he was asking her to
not
read a little book because he wanted to see how things would play out between them, then consider her a no-reading fool.

"I won't read it," she said.

"Thank you," he said. He touched her thigh for a split second when he said it, and her gut clinched at the contact.

"Julien?"

"Yeah?" His voice was still so deep, even though he was basically whispering.

"I like how you look."

He smiled, and the sight of it made her feel like she wanted to tear up for some reason. She had to look away to keep it from happening.

"I like how you look too," he said.

The way he looked in the light of the streetlamps was almost too much. There was an element of danger in his appearance, and sitting next to him in the dark, quiet park made her feel safe and vulnerable at the same time. The voice was another thing. Based on the simple laws of attraction, this guy Julien appealed to her in every way—even the sound of his voice. She couldn't think of a single thing she'd change about him.

They sat on that park bench for an hour before deciding to head back to the gym to pick up her car.
He asked her a lot of questions and she did the same, and their conversation never slowed down, even in the Jeep on the way back to the gym. Her car was the only one left in the parking lot when they arrived, and he pulled up next to it and put the Jeep in park.

They talked for another hour, just sitting there in the front seat
of his Jeep. There was never a quiet moment, and it wasn't because either of them felt like they had to make conversation. At one point, she plugged in her phone to show him one of her favorite rap songs, telling him he should use it as his next walk out song.

He laughed and told her he'd consider it. She turn
ed down the volume of the stereo but, left it playing for the last twenty minutes or so of their conversation. The song
Mirrors
by Justin Timberlake had come on and was playing when she said she needed to be going. Julien ran a frustrated hand over the side of his head as if he was sorry for what he was about to do. Then, out of nowhere, he leaned over the empty space between the bucket seats, reached out and wrapped a hand around the back of her head and brought her toward him for a kiss. She willingly closed the distance between them, leaning in faster than his hand was pulling. Their lips met in what might as well been a flash of lightning. The chemistry she felt was overwhelming, and she pulled back, after their lips had only been touching a few seconds.

"Goodnight Julien," she said.
She was smiling and trying to act aloof since she was almost certain there was
no way
he was feeling the same intensity she was. He sat back and put his head on the headrest with a sigh.

He recovered quickly looking at her with a sweet smile. "I guess I'll see you at the gym, if you decide to take any of my classes."

Nadine gave him a coy shrug. "I might just decide to look you up on the schedule." 

Shit-fire, what was
she thinking looking at him like that? He wanted to rip her clothes off. He wanted to get his skin on her skin, and he didn't really even care if it happened right there in the Jeep. Somehow, he harnessed the animal instinct, and reminded himself that he had much bigger fish to fry at that moment.

He left the gym, headed straight for Shea Miller's house.
It was 10PM on a random Tuesday night, and Julien drove to Shea's with no concern whatsoever for the speed limit. He had the windows down with no music playing and his hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were white. His palms were wet with sweat and his heart was racing. He thought about calling the author a few times on his way to her house, but he couldn't get his thoughts together enough to work his phone.

Julien
would normally consider himself a reasonable person, but as he drove to Shea's house he talked to himself out loud like a lunatic. He told himself that everything that was going on was still well within range of
normal coincidence
, which was obviously a lie.

He pulled into Shea's driveway going about twenty miles an hour, and his
Jeep skidded to a stop before he put it in park and climbed down in a hurry. His long strides covered the distance between his Jeep and her front door within a matter of seconds, and he pounded on it with a heavy fist.

Less than a minute later,
Shea came outside in her pajamas looking at Julien with an expression that was more worried than annoyed.

"Fucking Justin Timberlake!" he shouted. "Why'd it have to be mother fucking Justin Timberlake?"

Shea's expression turned into one of annoyance as she closed the door behind her. "Julien you need to keep it down out here." She swung her right hand out and pointed at the window that was behind her. "My kids are sleeping in this bedroom right here. They probably heard everything you just said. What in the world is going on? Are you drunk?"

"No I'm not
drunk
." He raked his fingers across the sides of his head with both hands in a frustrated gesture. He was standing a few stairs down from her on ground level, and she was on her porch looking down at him with her arms crossed. He began to pace back and forth. "What made you write what you wrote, Shea?" His voice was still booming in spite of his efforts to keep it quiet. "Are you some kind of fucking witch or something? Because I didn't sign up for that."

"Shhhh, Julien,
God, my kids can hear you! And no, I'm not a freaking
witch
. I'd appreciate it if you never call me that again. What the hell's going on with you? Is this about that girl at the gym? I heard you had another one. I'm sorry about that. I never dreamed—"

"It's not
another
Nadine," he said, looking up at her. "She's the
real one
." He started pacing again. He went back and forth in front of her porch. "She's
exactly
the girl in the book, Shea. The fucking book is coming true, and I'm living in it like a puppet. Fifteen minutes ago, I kissed her with that damn Justin Timberlake song playing. It was like I couldn't stop myself. We were sitting in my Jeep, and she said she had to be going, and I did it. I kissed her during that Mirrors song just like the book said."

Shea gasped and put a hand over her mouth. "Yeah, but in the book you're
not in a car when it happened."

"In the book I have
brown eyes and I live in an apartment downtown. In the book I don't even
have
a Jeep or a dog, but that's not the point." Julien tried to gather his thoughts. Shea just waited for him to continue. He climbed onto the porch and stared Shea down. "Look at me in my eyes and tell me you're not some kind of witch."

"Julien, I told you not to say that again. No, I'm not a witch. Now tell me what's going on."

"How did you think of the things you wrote in that book? Did like an angel come whisper in your ear or something?" 

"No, God, Julien," she said. "It's not the Bible, it's just a romance novel." She tried to smile, but he was clearly not in the mood.
"I just made it up!"

"What made you call her Nadine
LaBelle?" Julien's tone was that of a police officer questioning a suspect.

Shea looked
at him defensively. "I just Googled
French girl names
and it was on the list. Nadine had a nice ring to it. I could imagine it sounding good when she introduced herself in a French accent."

"What about
LaBelle? What made you choose that name?"

"
It means fair, or good-looking, or something like that," she sputtered. "It's a romance, remember?"

"Yes, I fucking remember, Shea, but your little romance novel is
happening to me in my Jeep and at my job, and I'm starting to get a little nervous."

"She could be faking it Julien, did you ever think of that?"

He looked at her through narrowed eyes. "Of
course
I thought of that. It's the
very first
thing I thought of and what I've been telling myself for the past few weeks since she came in. She's not faking it, Shea."

"How do you know?"

"She has the same name, which is easy enough to fake, but she
looks
just like the Nadine you described in the book, and there's no way to fake that."

"
I heard about that," Shea said. "Brad said she was a dead ringer, but that could be what gave her the idea in the first place."

"What idea?"

"The idea to change her name and come here to meet the real Julien."

Julien stared
at her. "She's
not lying to me
. She's never read the book and her God-given name's Nadine LaBelle. The sooner you get that through your head, the sooner we'll be able to talk about the important stuff."

"I think what you just said qualifies as important stuff, Julien. You realize that's a major statement, right?"

"Yes, I realize it's major, Shea. Why the hell else would I come here like this?"

Shea stared ahead, trying to wrap her mind around what Julien had just said.

"She's a teacher at that French school," he continued, "and she's got an ex-boyfriend." His tone was somber, and Shea knew he wasn't saying any of this lightly. Julien was an intelligent, guarded type of person, and Shea was struck dumb by the way he seemed to believe Nadine was real.

One of the first thoughts she had when the idea started to
turn over in her head was that the news didn't really surprise her all that much. She'd never based so much of a character on a real person, and she could distinctly remember the thought crossing her mind that the story she wrote could come true for Julien. Shea's knees buckled, and she collapsed onto her porch in a heap. Silent tears started to fall down her cheeks.