Julian’s hands cupped the sides of my neck. “No. No one ever has,” he said softly.
“Tiller and I informed him that surprise birds were a little bit like boomerangs, and he might want to make sure he had all the necessary accouterments in place before receiving his boomerang birds. I may have also mentioned that birds tended to multiply in the process of returning to the original gift giver.”
Julian’s gorgeous lips widened as his laughter took over. “You’re such a meddling asshole,” he accused. Thankfully, he didn’t seem all that bothered. “How many other times have you gone behind my back as my own personal thug?”
The list of remembered moments fell like Santa’s dropped scroll and unrolled across the floor of my brain. “Lots,” I said without embellishing. “In my defense, I honestly thought I was being a good friend at the time. I thought that was all it was.”
When his laughter died down, he asked, “And Erin? How many times did you meddle in her shit like that?”
I pursed my lips in thought. “One time I had to get between her and Hazel. Your sister can be a menace.” I remembered another time. “Oh! And once she almost got attacked by a dog while we were jogging in the park. I got her out of the way just in time.”
Julian tilted his head. His eyes were bottomless blue. “Those aren’t instances of jealousy.”
“No.”
We stared at each other as the word sank into the space between us.
I knew I probably should feel guilty. It wasn’t fair I hadn’t felt those same things for Erin. But then again, I’d told her many times how my love for her was comforting and safe. Familiar. Easy. Like a simple melody I knew by heart. She’d felt the same way.
And that had been the problem.
My love for Julian was also comforting and safe. Familiar. Easy. But Julian was comforting like the sound of my own thumping heart, like the sunrise after a long night that lets you know the world’s still turning. Without him in my life, I wouldn’t know how to be myself.
And he was more than that, too. He provoked me and challenged me. He made me want to be a better person. He quieted my mind when it was zipping in a million directions and kicked my ass when I needed it in a way I wouldn’t tolerate from anyone else. He was the guy standing in front of me, when the world was against me, and the guy right behind me when I was achieving my greatest accomplishments. He was up and down, both the thrill ride and the best friend in the seat next to mine, holding my hand while I rode it.
My everything.
Which was why, even if I should feel guilty about not being able to love Erin that much, I couldn’t. I was just sorry, like Erin had said, that I hadn’t figured shit out before it went as far as it had.
Julian brought my face down to kiss me again softly. “This is real, isn’t it? You and me.”
“Always,” I promised. And I felt it deep in my bones in a place last week’s wedding vows never would have seen.
We kissed and caressed and loved and explored and stroked each other off until we were beyond exhausted. As soon as I finished cleaning us up, we fell into a deep sleep wrapped around each other’s naked bodies.
When the doorbell woke us up the following morning, I was ready to murder Mikey and every Grindr user in the Aster Valley area. I stormed out to the living room and answered the door buck naked. “We don’t want to have sex with you,” I shouted.
The guy on the front porch was at least thirty years older than me and wore a paint-stained coverall. He didn’t seem particularly startled by my words or my nakedness. “You and my ex-wife have something in common, then. You still looking for someone to fix the broken light over the garage? Pim and Bill said you were looking for a handyman.”
Julian came racing out of the bedroom, yanking a hoodie over the sweatpants he’d already put on. He shoved me behind the door. “Oh my god, you must be Tiny. I’m so sorry. Ignore my boyfriend. Yes, of course I still want you to fix the broken light. Let me show you where the ladder is.”
Julian shot me a glare over his shoulder that made me want to kiss him until he forgot his own name and drag him back to bed, even if it meant the light never got fixed. But I couldn’t lie, hearing him call me his boyfriend so casually was almost enough to make me okay with the early wake-up.
I knew this situation wasn’t easy for him. In a way, it had been easier for me to realize the truth of my attraction to Julian than it was for him to accept it, precisely because he’d wanted it so much for so long. I’d only had to open my eyes and see what was right in front of me, while Jules had to make a conscious choice to offer up his heart despite me unknowingly stepping on it so many times in the past.
Fortunately for me, my best friend was incredibly brave.
I knew it would take time for him to truly feel confident, but I was more than happy to reassure him as often as he needed that he was my first and only choice, forever.
And the idea that he was starting to believe in us made my heart soar.
Once they’d left the cabin, I headed back to the bedroom to pull some clothes on, wondering if it was too late to apologize to the repair guy. Probably better that I didn’t wind up with a reputation as the local pervert the minute I decided to relocate to Aster Valley.
Before I had a chance to go out and talk to the man, though, my phone rang with a call from Erin, and my stomach somersaulted as I felt the real world begin to intrude on my happy Julian bubble.
Had she heard about me and Julian already? If she had, she was going to have questions, and she might not accept the answers as easily as Tiller and Sam and the others had.
Plus, if Erin knew, did that mean Rod and Lorraine did, too? Rod had been my coach and mentor for so long, he and Lorraine felt more like parents to me, and I cared what they thought. How would they feel when they learned that I’d been in love with Julian, not Erin, all along? What would they think about my plan to quit my job at the store and leave Vail for Aster Valley? Was I ready to risk their rejection?
In my head, I heard Julian calling me his boyfriend, and that gave me the boost of courage I needed. All that mattered was Julian, and if he could be brave, then I could, too.
So I hit Accept, ready to tell my ex-girlfriend about how much everything had changed…
But it turned out some things hadn’t changed at all.
18
JULIAN
I showed the repair guy where the ladder was and tried to apologize for Parker’s behavior, but it was hard to sound sorry when I couldn’t stop smiling.
If you’d asked me two weeks ago whether I was doing okay, I would have told you I was. I had good friends, a great family, the excitement of a new job with Tiller and Mikey. I’d told myself I was reconciled to Parker marrying Erin even though it would change our relationship forever, and I had purchased a wallowing hole where I’d naively thought I’d get over the brunt of my sadness within the span of a week.
It hadn’t been until this morning, when I’d leaped out of bed to hear my naked boyfriend yelling at the man he’d thought was another Grindr hookup, that I’d realized how close I’d come to utter disaster.
A life that didn’t have Parker Ellis in it every morning and night, making me smile, driving me crazy, grounding me in the constancy of his presence so that I could draw a deep breath… that was no kind of life at all.