14. Chapter 14
Chapter fourteen
Juliette
Caleb separated the money as I returned from the bathroom. Kelsey had gone upstairs to bed, leaving us alone to discuss. "That went well," I said cheerfully, opening the dishwasher.
"I'm dumping Vikki."
My expression must have said it all because he didn't let me react.
"We had a fight."
I did not want to talk about his girlfriend. "It's not my place. I don't know Vikki."
"You made it your place when you agreed to all this. Am I an asshole if I break up with her over the phone?" He came up next to me and started loading the cups as if he were talking about the rain.
"That depends on how serious you are and whether you have a future with Vikki."
Caleb winced. "I don't. Vikki never wanted kids."
"Do you love her?"
"Who, Vikki?" He paused the dishwashing and sighed deeply. "No, it wasn't serious like that. When I got the call that Kelsey existed, I was with Vikki. We were cooking lunch. The first thing she said was, ‘It's not your problem.' The first thing I thought was that I missed fifteen years of being Kelsey's father. I think that was the moment I should have left her. Everything she's ever said to me since has made me," Caleb's voice trailed, brown eyes narrowed, face twisted in disgust, "see her very differently."
If he was offering the information, I was going to pry. "Did you want kids, before you knew? "
"Yes. I never met anyone who wanted them. I spent my whole twenties building my career. Then the past seven years dating and things not working out. I always, sort of thought I'd be married with kids by now."
Me too. Been there, failed at that.
I halted that train of thought. "How will you tell her?"
"I said I'd call her tonight. We had a fight and I basically already told her it's over. Well, I said if she didn't accept that I'm Kelsey's dad, then she should leave. So maybe she'll dump my ass first and I won't even have to do it."
"You're a mess." I shook my head and handed him the baking dish to dry.
"She can stay in the apartment until she finds a new one. We've only been together three months. That'll make it easier."
"Because women only want material things."
"I didn't mean it like that," he said.
"Mhm."
"She only moved in with me because her lease was up, and she hadn't found a new apartment in time."
"I'm confused, were you two together at the time?"
"No... I don't know. Since I came here, she said some things that, for me, they're a deal breaker. How do you turn away a kid? No good person does that."
"Wait, I need more backstory here. How long had you been together?"
"Well, I prefer not to answer that."
"No, you can't start spilling your life story, get to the good part, ask for my advice, and then stop."
"We always ran in the same circles. And then we started casually… being together, in an intimate way—adult intimate not emotionally intimate—for about two weeks."
My jaw dropped. I'd deal with the euphemism later. "Two weeks! You let her move in after two weeks? Did you even like each other in an emotionally intimate way yet? "
"Don't judge me, alright. And I can tell you're holding back. Ha ha. Very funny. Would you rather I had said I thought we were just having sex?"
I let out my laughter. "Yes, I would. Like an adult."
"Okay, first of all," he held up a finger, "you are very intimidating because you always have that teacher look on your face. Second, we don't know each other like that to be talking about it ." He pointed at the air between us dramatically. Distractedly, he started inspecting his cuticles, and began picking nervously at the skin around his nail bed.
"I'm sorry I ruffled your delicate sensibilities," I teased.
His eyes flicked up, piercing me through thick dark lashes. "Trust me, there's nothing delicate about the way I like to fuck. I just didn't think it was an appropriate topic of conversation between us. I like to be romanced a little first, you know."
Caleb
Instant laxative.
"I didn't mean to say that," I said, as though it would obliviate her memory.
Juliette's openmouthed stare lasted an eternity. Long enough that I recounted all the ways I could remove my own tongue from my throat. Each scenario bloodier than the last.
Finally, she broke the excruciatingly awkward silence. "I have never been so caught off guard, and I teach teenagers all day." Her blank delivery burst into laughter, easing the tension an infinitesimal amount.
"I'm mortified and currently calculating how much a ticket to the nearest plastic surgeon who specializes in the ol' Avox special is. So, we're on the same boat, sweetheart."
Juliette shook her head, her musical laughter dying to a low chuckle. "Do you ever think before you speak? Ever? "
"Not around you," I admitted, pulling at the hair at the base of my skull. The small pain was a mild punishment and reminder to please, for the love of all things holy and unholy, shut the fuck up.
"Lucky me. Also, I do not always have a teacher look on my face." Juliette had the gall to look offended. Her bangs were half an inch too long, so that she developed a habit of blowing them out of her eyes or shaking her head to part them when they were irritating her. She did so, and a strange sensation stirred beneath the surface of my skin.
"You always look like you're about to judge me."
"I am."
"It makes me uncomfortable."
"Good."
"I tend to ramble."
"No kidding?"
I shot her a fed-up glare. Her lips only spread wider, baring more of those pretty white teeth in a smile that said she was enjoying this.
"Okay, okay. I'll stop making fun of you. On a serious note, are you okay with dumping her?" she said.
I'd thought about that a lot since our fight the night prior. "I'm not heartbroken at all. Vikki will land on her feet. I'll lose some friends in the smear campaign, but I don't live there anymore, so what will it matter?"
"Lost hope on moving back?" she asked. Juliette dried her hands on a floral dish towel, our eye contact caused me to lose the ability to speak for a beat.
"Yeah," I replied dumbly, entranced by the way her slender hip leaned against the counter. The movement curved her body, and I felt a strange pull in my hands to set her ponytail loose and see how long her hair was. Brush her bangs away from her brow.
I'd only ever seen her hair up.
"You're okay leaving your whole life behind?"
"Well, I…" this woman made it hard to think with those piercing blue eyes. She had me tumbling over my thoughts, dropping them, and watching them run out of my mouth. "There's nothing important there. Nobody needs me. My parents are still working, my friends are mostly married. My life is my job, and then Vikki, who just needed a place to crash. We never meant to be in a relationship—me, I—she didn't want a relationship. And then," I sighed, and stopped. "I swear I'm not pathetic, you're looking at me like that again."
Juliette shook her head, wiping the raised brow, tight lip, and unmoving gaze from her expression. "I wasn't thinking you were pathetic."
"You are judging me, I can feel it."
"Okay, I was judging you. Why were you with Vikki if you didn't want to be with each other?"
"I wanted to be with her, but we weren't serious. Last night, she told me she loved me for the first time and there is no doubt in my mind that she did it to manipulate me into forgetting what she said about Kelsey."
"Maybe she does mean it?" Juliette pried.
I barked out a laugh. "Vikki doesn't love me. She enjoyed me." I let Juliette fill in the blank there. Her gaze dipped to the floor and back up, her cheeks staining slightly.
"I don't understand why you strung her along."
"I could say the same about her. She was supposed to move out." I winced. I hadn't admitted this, even to myself. "Time just passes, Juliette. What do you want me to say? I liked her. We got along. I didn't think about a future until I met you and Kelsey. I sort of coasted, and Vikki was part of it for a few months, and now she's not. If you knew what she said, you wouldn't defend her at all. She said Kelsey was my mid-life crisis."
I waited. Expected. Prepared myself for the inevitable "is she?" I was certain Juliette was still holding onto. Her lips parted. I steeled myself for another verbal riff. Low, almost a whisper, she said, "That's fucked up."
That surprised me. There was an unmistakable concern in Juliette's expression. "Yeah. Then she tells me she loves me because she wants me to forget she insulted me like that? Or cover up that she's a terrible person? No. It was over before she moved in."
"Yet, you allowed it. "
"I don't really have a backbone when it comes to boundaries and beautiful women," I laughed. Why was I telling her any of this? Why? Why? Just shut up, Caleb, you fucking idiot. Shut up.
"I used to be like that," Juliette said. "It was exhausting, being my ex-husband's everything. Want a cup of tea?" Her fingertips hovered over the tea bags stuffed in a mason jar on her counter. I shook my head, and she plucked a bag out and started brewing it for herself. "He said jump, I asked how high. He said quiet, and I asked for how long. He had an affair, somehow convinced me it was my fault, and then did it again. We were together several years. So, I get it." Juliette rounded the island and sat opposite of where I stood.
"Sounds like a real asshole." I leaned against the countertop and stopped myself from drumming my fingers.
Juliette blew the steam off her tea, took an alarmingly boiling sip without reacting at all, and shrugged. "He is."
"Christ, woman, doesn't that burn?"
She grinned over the lip of the mug. "If it doesn't sear off the top layer of my tongue, I don't want it."
"You're a masochist." I tried to hide my horror, but could feel my lip curving upwards.
"Yes," Juliette replied simply.
The knot of anxiety that had balled itself in my gut from unveiling the most vulnerable part of myself (by accident and through my inability to shut the fuck up around her) dissolved under her quiet, gentle acceptance.
"I'm sorry I dumped all of that on you just now. I kept trying to shut up."
Juliette patted the seat next to her. "Don't be. I'm getting the feeling that you don't have anyone else to talk to."
I accepted her invitation, rounding the corner while I asked, "What gave that away? The six times I've said it to you?"
She chuckled. Juliette rested her chin in her hand, mirroring my posture. "I never told anyone my ex cheated on me. So, we're even. "
Our conversation steered to safer waters well into the night. I found out that she left school to pursue ballet as a career at twelve. She learned that I failed out of freshman year of college when I thought I was going to be a doctor. I told her how I ended up in marketing and app development. It was plain on her face that she understood not a single word about my job, but fluffed my ego when I explained my position in the company and tech world now.
"You should be proud of yourself," she said. Something in the way she set down her second cup of tea and smiled while she said it made my chest tighten.
I thought that, maybe, this was what new friendships felt like. It had been years since I made a new friend. Surely, these nerves were just that.
But I also couldn't tear my eyes off her. When she yawned, I briefly wished we hadn't met like this.
I felt the heat rise up my neck and looked away, ashamed of my runaway thoughts.
"I mean it." Her slender hand, warmed from the hot teacup reached into my line of vision, clasping around my fist that rested on the table. "I'm sorry I've been such a bitch."
Our eyes met. "I sometimes need someone to put me in my place."
An almost imperceptible upward twitch of her brow followed swiftly by a rueful smile. "Well, we're partners in crime now, so I promise to be nicer."
"Thanks," I nodded, "for everything."
"Hopefully, this will work and you two can be a family." Juliette said, looking down at the countertop and tracing the veins in the stone. There was something behind that, but it wasn't sarcasm. "I think once she gets to know you, and therapy helps her let go of Erin, she'll come around."
"God, I hope so." I glanced at my watch. It was a quarter to one in the morning. Leaning in, bodies aligned from elbow to shoulder, I showed her the time and whispered, "My mom is gonna kill me." As though by magnetic attraction, we both turned our faces towards one another, catching each other's eye, the tip of her nose only a few inches from mine.
Juliette's freckles vanished under a crimson blush.
I had underestimated how much I had invaded her space. How comfortable I felt a mere six inches from her. We'd been talking for so long it felt, to me, as if our personal space had become one. Juliette's blush could have meant anything. I chose to believe that it was not because of our proximity. It must be a result of the scaling tea.
I stood, stretching my back. "I'll be here by eight to run with Kelsey."
Juliette turned in her seat and looked up at me. "I'll make sure she's up and ready to go."