41. Chapter 41

Chapter forty-one

Juliette

The bed was warm, too warm. The air crisp and cool. My eyes fluttered open, and I saw the window to my room open, letting in the early Summer air and the lazy sounds of Saturday morning in the suburbs. Someone was mowing their lawn.

Caleb , I realized. It had been a long, long, time since I woke up to a man in my bed, one that I loved. I reached over to my phone to check the time, but it was dead. I threw on a long tee-shirt, ignored underwear for now, and went to go find Caleb. He was probably in the kitchen.

When I stepped into the hallway my heart plummeted. Without the sound of that lawnmower, I could hear the sounds inside of my house.

"I'm not having sex with her," Caleb said, in a hushed tone. "You don't know what you're talking about."

Panic so acute I couldn't breathe had me running down the hallway.

It was Kelsey.

Who saw me, half naked at the top of the stairs, hair a mess, pale with shock.

"Wow, Miss Juliette. Brava."

She clapped slowly as I, like a coward, jumped back, pressing my spine against the wall so that she couldn't see me anymore. I darted to my room and threw on a pair of leggings, tossed my hair into a scrunchie, and raced back to the kitchen.

In the time I had gotten dressed, Caleb had picked his shirt from the night before off the floor and was dressing, too. Our eyes met across the living room, the silence deafening while Kelsey glared at us. My discarded robe and lingerie might as well have lined consciousness and stood by her, as I felt their menacing presence poking out from under the table where Caleb had kicked them.

"I trusted you," she said. "I texted you last night. And now I know why nobody answered. You were too busy fucking my dad!" The last three words rushed through her clenched jaw, a furious growl that made me flinch.

They hit me like a truck. "Kelsey, I'm sorry," I pleaded.

"Sorry?"

"We didn't mean for this to happen." Caleb rubbed his temples.

"Oh, you slipped and fell on each other? Cool, glad to have this talk." She threw her bag onto the floor and started up the stairs.

I followed her, desperate to apologize, to fix this. "Your father and I—"

"I trusted you!" she screamed, holding the railing with a vice grip. Caleb and I winced. "I needed you to pick me up and instead of answering you were with him?"

A wave of nausea struck me. "What? What happened? I'm sorry. I didn't have my phone on me," I stuttered.

"I went to a party. I got real fucking drunk. I drank so much I blacked out. We never made it back to Ana's. Got up this morning, puked the whole walk home. Alone. Then, I got here and found your little love nest in the living room." She was screaming. At the top of her lungs. Kelsey's fury, the pain, was explosive.

I burned from the shame. I'd never in my life felt shame like this. We had been so lost in each other we fell asleep. I glanced at the clock behind Kelsey. It was a quarter-past eight.

"I'm too sick for rehearsal today, Miss Juliette. I won't be going." Kelsey stomped up the final three stairs and slammed the door to her room shut.

"Shit." Caleb grabbed my hand. I wasn't aware he'd followed me to the bottom of the stairs. His chest to my shoulder.

I turned to him, seething, churning with every emotion all at once. Dizzy from it. "How could we be so stupid?" I hissed.

"I fell asleep, I'm sorry."

"You were supposed to leave!"

"I'm sorry. We both thought she'd be gone until after class. And after last night, what we said," his voice trailed .

God, this man was insufferable with the way he wore his heart right there in his eyes. For everyone to see. It was a miracle she hadn't found out sooner, and a curse she found out the way she did. This was the worst case scenario. Of all the scenario's we never thought to come up with, this was the absolute worst I could think of on the spot. We had been so careful. Until we became reckless.

I shook the misguided anger and squeezed his hand. "I meant it, if that's what you're asking."

"Me too," he responded, a weight visibly lifting from his shoulders.

We cursed ourselves again and stood there, stewing in our consequences. His hand in mine, bodies aligned, eyes on Kelsey's door upstairs, we waded through the burning, sticky tar.

"She lied to us," I whispered.

Caleb didn't seen phased by it at all. "She's a teen. Everyone lies to go out drinking."

"I didn't."

"We've been lying to her for a month. I think you're focusing on the wrong thing right now. This was not how I wanted her to find out about us."

"No, it wasn't."

Caleb's face twisted in horror. "She saw me almost naked. She walked in right as I was pulling on my jeans."

"We can never have sex in a common space ever again," I whispered, looking over to the disheveled living and dining space.

Caleb winced with shame. "I'll buy us a house with enough common space to—"

I slapped his arm. "Now is not the time. Are you kidding me?"

"I'm sorry. Shit." He ran his hands through his hair and looked like he wanted to throw himself off the nearest cliff. "What the fuck do we do now?"

"I have to go to work," I said. "We have rehearsal. I'll come back right away."

"You're leaving me with her? "

"You're her father. Figure it out," I snapped exasperatedly. "I doubt she's coming out of that room at all."

"God, we are so stupid." Caleb scrubbed his face and I did the same.

"So stupid." I agreed, my hands covering my face. "I did not think that falling in love with you was going to be one of the consequences of our actions."

"I was in love with you before we ever kissed."

I could slap him. Instead, my heart fluttered, and melted, and felt like it might inflate with joy and float away. I groaned, "I just wanted to get laid."

That fucking smile.

He whispered a final, and decisive, "Shit."