Chapter Seventeen

· Seventeen ·

Juliet

“Gluten-free cupcakes and a cuddly hedgie have arrived!” The rapid stomp of Bea’s boots down the hallway punctuates every word she says. She steps into the room with a jazz hand, the pastry box keeping her from doing it with the other. “They haven’t started yet, have they?”

“Nope!” I step inside from the balcony, trying to erase the image of Will Orsino in a heather gray T-shirt stretched tight across his chest and blue gym shorts clinging to those tree-trunk thighs. Christ on a cracker, it’s hot out here.

“Cornelius!” Kate croons. She takes the fanny pack–style carrier bearing Bea’s pet hedgehog.

“Thanks, BeeBee.” I take the box of cupcakes from my twin, setting them on the little café table I’ve placed behind our chairs for easy access. It might be ten in the morning, but I woke up craving the hell out of cupcakes. Who says they can’t be a brunch staple? “You’re an angel.”

“?’Course.” Bea kicks off her boots. “So. How’s the view today?”

Kate glances over her shoulder, down at the court. “All shirts still on.”

I peel the paper off my cupcake and shove half the thing in my mouth so I don’t have to be a part of this conversation. In the past, I haven’t minded jokingly objectifying these guys when their shirts come off, when it’s been my friends and my sisters’ partners (whom I’ve obviously not been ogling) and some random dudes I don’t know (whom I have, purely as a woman with eyeballs who enjoys ogling sweaty half-naked men shooting hoops). But it’s different now. Now Will is in the mix, and the thought of seeing his shirt come off makes me feel like I’m going to burst into flames.

“That’s fine,” Bea says, settling into her lawn chair wedged onto the balcony, “I can wait.”

Still chewing my massive bite of pumpkin spice cupcake with what tastes like a bourbon vanilla frosting, I busy myself with closing back up the cupcake box.

Kate swats my hand away and yanks it open again, poking around. She scowls. “You took the pumpkin one.”

Bea leans back in her chair and points. “I got two pumpkin ones and”—she reaches farther back on her chair and plucks out a chocolate-frosted chocolate cupcake—“two death by chocolates for me.”

“I didn’t know it was pumpkin,” I tell Kate. There’s frosting on my thumb. I lick it off with a pop. “I thought it was carrot cake.”

“Gross.” Kate makes a face.

I poke her wrinkled nose. “Don’t yuck my yum.”

“Carrot cake is there.” Bea points to the cupcake in the corner that I’d mistaken for vanilla, based on the heap of creamy white frosting on top.

“Darn.” I scoop it up from the box. “Guess I’ll have to eat that one, too.”

“More pumpkin for me!” Kate takes the remaining half of my pumpkin cupcake from my other hand and pops it in her mouth. Her eyes slip shut as she groans, then says around her mouthful, “Holy shit, that’s good.”

Bea snorts. “Keep your orgasm sounds to yourself, please.”

Kate’s still chewing as she peels off the next pumpkin cupcake’s paper. “I hate everything right now except heating pads and refined sugar. Let me have my joy.” She bites into the new cupcake, then explains, “Just got my period.”

“Ugh, me too,” says Bea.

“I just finished mine last week,” I say miserably, before biting my cupcake, right into a mound of frosting. “So now I’m ovulating and horny as hell.”

Kate pats my back in sympathy. Bea clasps my hand and squeezes.

They both know I’ve been abstinent since my breakup, that I’ve needed to be. And they both know I’m a cranky hornball for the second week of my cycle.

A little wave of relief crests through me as I put it together. Maybe that’s why I’m so hung up on Will, at least in the physical sense. Maybe this will get better soon, and every time I see or think about him won’t be lusty torture.

I drop onto the middle seat and Bea wraps an arm around me. “I know it’s not a cure-all,” she says, “but at least there are sweaty soon-to-be-shirtless men and cupcakes. Even if they are gluten-free.”

—

When the guys start peeling off their shirts (understandable; it’s hot as hell outside), I make a beeline for the bathroom under the pretense of “really needing to pee.”

I can only hide for so long, though, so eventually I make myself head back toward the studio. At the sight of my sisters in their lawn chairs on the balcony, I stop on the threshold and smile to myself. It’s a bittersweet image.

When she lived here, this room was Bea’s studio, where she painted. The small back room is barer now, and you can actually walk through it—no rolls of canvas littering the ground, or tables of paints, or long, thin strips of wood waiting to be assembled into frames. There are still the bookshelves, filled with my romance novels, but now Kate’s backup cameras and equipment, which she stored here when she always worked abroad, Bea’s thick books about famous artists, are gone. It’s just a room of half-empty shelves, a gold armchair, and an old floor lamp Mom and Dad gave us with a Tiffany-style glass lampshade.

I hardly come in here anymore. I just feel lonely when I do.

But it’s moments like these, when my sisters camp out on the balcony, when they’re here and happy in this apartment that at one point or another has been a haven for all of us, that I don’t feel sad about what’s not anymore. I feel grateful for what is.

“You okay?” Kate glances over her shoulder. “Get the runs or something?”

Bea whacks her shoulder. “You know she’s self-conscious about when she has tummy troubles.”

I used to be, when out of nowhere, eating a food I’d had no issue with before had me sprinting to the bathroom. Now that I eat gluten-free, that’s mercifully not a problem anymore.

“I’m good,” I tell them, squeezing back into my chair.

Bea offers me our shared mimosa in its thermos champagne glass. I take a swig and let out a satisfied ahhh . “What’d I miss?”

I tug down my sunglasses from my hair and keep my gaze lifted, hopefully passing myself off as being interested in the pigeons hopping along the balcony a floor up. I’m not ready to risk a glance at the court yet.

“Everyone’s half-naked,” Kate says delightedly. “Except Will.”

My head snaps down. I peer out at the court, where the game is in full swing. I’m not as relieved as I’d hoped to be.

He’s got his shirt on, all right, but he’s still a sweaty, sexy sight to behold. His gray T-shirt is soaked, plastered to his body, as he dribbles toward the net and throws his shoulder into Christopher, who’s defending him. Will spins, then sends the ball up through the air, just over the net. Jamie catches it and dunks it.

“Alley-oop!” Bea crows.

“No need to gloat,” Kate says grumpily.

Christopher’s got the ball now, dribbling down toward the other end of the court. One of the regular guys I don’t know is defending him well, but Christopher still manages to dribble in, pull up, and sink a jump shot that hits the hoop on a cheery ding before it rattles in.

“Woo!” Kate screams.

Bea lowers her sunglasses and says, “No need to gloat, huh?”

Kate smiles sheepishly. “I got swept up in the moment.”

While their verbal volley continues bouncing across me, I watch Will lift his shirt by the collar, dragging it over his face to wipe the sweat from his eyes. Thank God we don’t own binoculars, because I’m not sure I’d have the strength not to use them.

Even without binoculars, I can see the general impression of a hard stomach, a line of hair arrowing beneath his waistband that glows copper in the sun.

A whimper leaks out of me. I try to cover it with a cough. Kate whacks me on the back. “Mimosa down the wrong pipe?”

“Yep,” I squeak.

Kate keeps distractedly whacking my back, her eyes on Christopher. I pluck her hand away and set it on the arm of her chair.

“You good there, KitKat?” Bea asks.

“Very.” Kate makes a noise that puts her orgasmic cupcake appreciation sound to shame. “God damn , my boyfriend’s hot.”

Bea and I shudder. Christopher’s like a brother to us. We don’t want to hear that.

“So.” Bea sips from the champagne thermos and sets it on her thigh. “I feel like I have done a very good job all week of not asking you about Will Orsino—”

Kate’s head snaps our way as she shouts, “Wait, what?!”

“Shh!” I smack her shoulder. “You’re screaming.”

“What,” Kate asks, leaning in, her voice not nearly quiet enough for my taste, given the subject matter, “is going on with you and Will ?”

“Nothing!” I tell her. I turn and glare at Bea, then say for emphasis, “ Nothing. ”

Bea shrugs, sipping more mimosa. “He stayed after game night last Sunday to help JuJu clean up.”

Kate lets out a whistle. “Voluntarily? He definitely wants in your pants.”

“Oh my gosh, you two.” I throw up my hands, exasperated. “We just hit it off as friends. We’re enjoying a single mingle. That’s it.”

“Hmm.” Bea glances back down at the court and glides a hand over her pet hedgehog, tucked into her cross-body carrier, his little nose peeking over the edge as he sniffs the air. “I know, Cornelius, I noticed that, too.”

“What?” I ask.

Bea says, “He’s a strawberry-blond hunk. You have a thing for redheads.”

“So, just because he’s a redhead, I must want in his pants?”

Bea turns and gives me a look. “You’re telling me you don’t want a thing to do with that tall, hot drink of spiced apple cider out there?”

I groan in frustration. I hate lying to my sisters, but I don’t want to tell them the truth, either. I know they wouldn’t judge me, that they’d support what I’m doing with Will. But our plan, what I’m trying to do with his help, it feels…tender. This work to finally move myself forward, to get ready to put myself out there romantically again, it feels like something that’s just supposed to be mine and Will’s.

Bea misreads my silence and gives me a campy grin. “Come on. You can’t tell me that wasn’t funny. ‘Tall, cool, drink of water’? Tall, hot drink of spiced apple cider?”

I give her a nonplussed stare.

Bea mutters to Cornelius, “Tough crowd.”

Kate says, “Let’s workshop it.” She taps her pursed lips. “Ooh, I’ve got it. How about, a ‘tall, hot shot of Fireball.’?”

Kate and Bea cackle in tandem.

I give them a death glare that shuts them up promptly. They both school their expressions as they glance back out at the court. I’m relieved to see the guys shaking hands, slapping backs. The game’s over. I made it through without spontaneously combusting. I feel like I ran a marathon.

“Well,” Kate says, slapping her hands onto the arms of her chair and standing up, “that’s a wrap. I’m gonna go check on the egg casserole.”

Bea stands, too. “Right behind you.”

I start to get up, but Bea gently presses me down at my shoulder.

“Just relax,” she says. “You prepped all the food for brunch. Let us do this little bit and set it out at least.”

I peer up at her. “You sure?”

“I’m sure.” She lifts her carrier for Cornelius off her shoulders and gently slides it over mine. “Sorry for grilling you about Will, JuJu. I just…want you to be happy. If he doesn’t interest you beyond friendship, if you’re happy as is, I respect that.”

I peer down at tiny Cornelius, who yawns adorably, guilt twinging inside me. I don’t tell her she’s wrong, and I don’t confess that she’s right, either. “Thanks, BeeBee.”

She sets the thermos in my hand and smiles. “You and Cornelius enjoy some R and R. I’ll let you know when brunch is up.”

Men’s voices echo down the hall. I glance over my shoulder and see Christopher walk in, then Jamie, followed by Will. I snap my head back, staring out at the court. My heart’s flying.

I hear Kate squawk, imagining that Christopher’s pulled her in for a sweaty hug, then Bea’s laughter. Jamie’s deep voice, his words too hard to parse, then Will’s just a little deeper, his crystal clear. “You sure?” he asks, then after a beat says, “Thanks, man.”

I swallow, nervous. Should I get up and say hello? Am I being weird or rude, staying put? I’m still debating what to do when I hear a soft knock on the doorframe of the studio. I glance over my shoulder, and my stomach flips.

Will’s red-faced and sweaty, smiling ear to ear. “Hey.”

“Hey, you.” I smile at him, because I can’t help it. Because when I see Will, that’s all I want to do—smile at his damn cute face and his kind eyes and his sweet gentle giant presence.

He nods out toward the court. “Enjoy the game?”

“Thoroughly. You?”

He nods again, still smiling wide.

My smile grows as wide as his. “You’re high as kite on adrenaline, aren’t you?”

“Nature’s best drug,” he says, double tapping the threshold. “I’m gonna grab a shower now, but I’ll be quick. That egg casserole you made smells incredible, and I’m starving.”

Then he turns and strolls back down the hallway, probably clueless that he’s just wrecked me by planting in my mind’s eye the image of him showering, lathering my body wash across his skin, that soap drifting down those big, hard pecs I saw his shirt plastered to, those thick arms I’ve curled my hand around, between his thighs, stroking down—

“Gahh!” I shake my head. “Stop it, Juliet!”

Cornelius pops his head up from his carrier, his dark, curious eyes glancing around, probably wondering what all that noise was.

“Sorry if I scared you, bud.” I reach for the tiny hedgie inside his carrier and carefully draw him out. His tiny feet tickle my palm as he settles inside my cupped hands. “Cornelius, I can do this, right?”

He lifts his head up and down. I’m pretty sure he’s just sniffing the air, having gotten a whiff of the egg casserole that’s come out of the oven, but I’ll take his little nod as the reassurance I need.

“Yeah,” I tell him, stroking softly down his quills. “I hope so, too.”