With those words, she ended the call and I stared at my phone and tried to dial her number again but the receiver kept telling me that she was now unreachable. I tried multiple times and to no avail, I couldn’t reach her anymore and I groaned in exasperation, my own anger erupting within me as I threw my phone against the post and watched as it caught sparks before it clattered on the ground.
Closing my eyes for a moment and trying to control my breathing, it took me a moment before I felt slightly calm. As much as I wanted to run to the airport and hop on a plane and fly back to Los Angeles to explain to Audrey everything that transpired at that moment and how everything was taken completely out of context, I knew that the effort would be in vain.
Audrey made up her mind. I felt like there was nothing I could do to change it.
Dejectedly, I went back inside the house and spent the rest of dinner acting like I was totally fine, even when Eleanor kept throwing me looks. Leo volunteered to wash the dishes and Max helped him dry them. Mom was busy with the book she was reading and Eleanor was re-checking the case she was handling and I was just in the living room, desperate for a bottle of beer to ease the pain that I was suddenly trapped in.
“Mom?” I felt like a tiny boy when I called my mother and she looked up at me, reading glasses perched on the bridge of her nose. “Can I head to the penthouse? I’d really like to rest now.”
Mom looked at me for a moment and stood up, sitting next to me and placing a hand on my forehead. “You must be tired from the flight. Sure, sweetie, you can head home now.”
I smiled at her slightly and kissed her on the cheek and then turned to Eleanor who was looking at me curiously as I approached her. “How did it go?”
Shaking my head lightly, I didn’t bother to give her a full response as I simply kissed her on the cheek and patted her back before heading to the kitchen to tell Leo and Max that I was leaving. I brought my motorcycle with me and I stopped by a convenience store to buy a pack of beer before heading home.
When I arrived at the penthouse, the first thing I noticed was how the kitchen was in complete disarray, the same way it looked when I first arrived this morning and I knew that Alexa must’ve tried to practice cooking again. A part of me wanted to shout their names in annoyance, knowing that they must’ve been in Everett’s room, but I was too tired to be angry at anything else so I decided to clean the kitchen by myself.
I finished cleaning up and then began putting everything back to where they belonged but stopped for a moment and sighed, zoning out for a moment, too out of it to do anything or think of a solution for my current situation. As I’d thought a hundred times since I’d found out about the article, I could fly to Los Angeles right now.
But Audrey would never want to hear your explanation. It wouldn’t mean anything to her.
I heard someone coming down the stairs and then heard Everett’s voice. “I’m sorry, Jules.”
Looking up at him, he looked sheepish as he nodded at the kitchen that I just cleaned. I walked in on the same situation earlier and was annoyed at how dirty it was but right now, I didn’t really have enough energy to give such a fuck. “I wish you’d tell her to stop but who am I to do that when I used to be the same as her when I was learning how to?”
I placed a pan back to the proper cupboard it belonged to as Everett approached me and then I added, “I just wish you didn’t have to ruin my kitchen as she learns.”
Everett merely chuckled and then helped me with the dishes and then started a pot of coffee while I moved to the counter and sat down, running a hand through my curls and closing my eyes for a moment. Maybe if I closed my eyes, when I opened them, everything would fall into place again and Audrey wouldn’t hate me as much.
My brother handed me a cup as he sat across from me. “Something bothering you?”
Everett and I were close because we were close in age yet we were so different when it came to personalities. Still, it was never too hard for me to open up to him but the situation I was in at the moment wasn’t something that I would like to disclose to one more person. Eleanor was already enough for tonight.
“Will you ever ask her to move in here? This house is too big for just you since I’m barely here. Besides, hers is small.” I was purposely changing the subject because I didn’t really want to be put in the hot seat so I put Everett in it.
“Sometimes you make me think that you look down on her apartment,” Everett commented, snorting as he shook his head and sipped his coffee for a moment. I’d been to Alexa’s apartment once and it was honestly too small. It made more sense if she lived here since I was rarely home.
“But it’s something on my mind but maybe it’s too early to do it now. I don’t want to rush things with Alexa. A relationship is all new to us.” Everett finished and then shrugged, as if it wasn’t too big of a deal.
“Why do you always do that?” I couldn’t help but ask him curiously. The thing was, I always felt as if Everett treated his relationship as this fragile thing that would crumble if he took one wrong step. I didn’t think that was healthy but what the hell did I know since I can’t even salvage whatever relationship I had with Audrey?
“Do what?”
“Sometimes you make me think that you’re walking on eggshells with your relationship but you’re not because your relationship is surprisingly going in the same direction as Milo’s and Leo’s. But you’re always too keen about not rushing things. It makes me think that you’re not too serious about this relationship if you don’t want to take it all the way.”
I knew that last comment was rude and uncalled for but I was honestly curious about what he would say. Alexa is Everett’s first girlfriend and that was actually an advantage he had over me. I’d been with so many women but none of them were real and serious relationships, at least, I never took them seriously. Had Audrey given me a chance, she would be the first woman I took seriously.
But that went down the drain before anything serious could even happen.
“It’s not that I’m not taking this relationship seriously because I am but the thing is, Jules, we’re only twenty-six and there are bunch of things that Alexa wants to do and I want her to do that. I’m not going to stop her from pursuing herself and what she wants to make out of her life and everything she wants to do for her family.”
I furrowed my eyebrows, unsure of what he meant by that. “What are you saying?”
“What I’m saying is that I want Alexa to shine as brightly as I see her and I’m not rushing for her to move in with me or to put a ring on it because I’m not ever thinking of letting her go. I’m not afraid to lose her because I’m confident that I won’t. So she can take all the time she needs until I know that she had done everything she wants before finally asking her to be mine until death do us part.”
Everett sounded so sure and confident with what he shared with Alexa that I was jealous because Audrey could never see me in the same light and I desperately wanted her to. I swallowed, drinking the coffee that Everett gave me to hide the insecurity that spiked up within me with his statement.
“Does love really make a person sound that incredibly sappy?”
“Let’s see if you can still act cool when you’re the one in love.”