“Holy fuck,” he whispers, closing his eyes and pressing his forehead to mine.
I just nod, enjoying the way the fine sheen of sweat on his forehead melts into my skin, one body to another, two people as one entity. I’m still not ready for it to be over as he begins to pull out of me; I press my hands to his lower back, holding him to me, and he stills.
We stay like that until the temperature drops and our bodies turn cold. Outside, the sun dips below the horizon.
And for these moments, it’s just us, just Jason and Juliette, two people who’ve fought through every shitty thing to get to this moment.
And it’s beautiful.
TWELVE
We spend several weeks alone at the house. Luis visits us every couple of days, but most of the time, it’s just us. I can tell Jase doesn’t want to take me anywhere—it’s still going to take a while to regain the strength and weight I lost under Dornan’s (lack of) care, and Jase insists on feeding me up, cooking me creamy pastas and juicy hunks of beef. We talk a lot about the future—kind of—but we don’t talk about Dornan. We both seem to know we need to focus on the baby before we do anything reckless. However, the thought of Dornan still out there, actively looking for us, makes me frightened beyond belief. I find it so hard to reconcile this new, meek and afraid girl with the tough-as-nails Julz that woke up in a nightmare three months ago, but that Julz didn’t know if she pushed Dornan too much, it could cost her her child.
Walks on the beach and dinners on the porch. Lazy afternoon sex and spooning at night. Everything is tinged with a film of fear, but most of the time, I think we do a pretty good job of blocking out the threat of the Gypsy Brothers and focusing on us. It’s the first time we’ve ever been able to just peacefully co-exist, and I find myself falling even deeper in love with this man who is my everything.
I lock the bathroom door once a day and retrieve my bottle of medicine from the depths of my makeup bag, measuring a slightly smaller dose as each week passes. My one dirty little secret amongst all the good stuff, but with each passing day, I’m more confident I can do this. I can beat this. When the bottle runs out, Luis seems to know, turning up with another.
He is truly a guardian angel, and I don’t even know why he’d do this for me. I want to talk to him about his mother, about my father, but he doesn’t seem ready to talk about that. When I question Jase about him, he’s just as vague, warning me away from pushing him too far. Seems The Prospect has a few scars of his own.
On the beach one afternoon, I am dressed in a cheap blue one-piece I picked up at a gas station during one of our rare ventures into town for supplies. Jase is wearing swimming trunks, his back bare, the GYPSY BROTHERS tattoo emblazoned on his skin like a homing beacon.
I touch my salty fingers to the thick black lettering on his back and he flinches slightly.
“Luis is getting his lasered off,” Jase says quietly, scanning the deserted beach from behind his aviators. “I think I’ll do the same.”
I think about that for a moment, as I trace each letter with my fingertip, the black ink an obvious burden to him.
“I think you should leave it,” I whisper, pressing my palm flat against his back.
He turns sharply to look at me. “What? Why?”
“Because you’ll be the only one left.” After we kill that motherfucker and his son, those bastards who refuse to die. “Imagine how afraid people will be of you, then.”
Jase laughs, taking my hand and dragging me around to the front of him. I end up face-up in his lap, smiling as he peppers kisses all over my face.
“I don’t want people to be afraid of me,” he says, tracing underneath my eye with his thumb. “I just want to be a regular guy, with a regular wife, and a regular kid.”
“I’d love to meet them,” I say lightly.
He rolls his eyes, kissing me again. “I’m talking about you,” he says, and my heart does a pleasant little skip.
“We should buy you a minivan,” I joke.
Jase raises his eyebrows, patting the side of my cheek. “That is a terrible idea,” he says, leaning down and pressing his lips to mine. I laugh as his salty lips crash into mine, a real, light-hearted laugh that fills me with hope.
I am really here. With the man I love. And our baby. A baby who by the odds, should never have survived being in that basement with Dornan. I shiver as Dornan’s face looms above me, just like it always has. I hope that once he’s dead, I can forget him, but I’m not so sure.
Jase breaks the kiss. “I’m hot,” he says. “We should swim. You coming?”
I nod, and he gets to his feet, giving me a hand up.
The water is a cold slap, but refreshing at the same time. With the methadone I’m slightly sleepy all the time, so it feels good to be woken up by the cold seawater. I float on my back impressed with the way my bump rises out of the water, when Jase yells.
I put my feet down quickly, scanning the beach as I wipe salt water from my eyes. “What?”
He’s holding something in his hand. “I found something in the sand!”
I will my heart to stop beating so fast. Nobody is after us. We’ve not about to get ripped apart by bullets. No, he found something in the sand.
I swim over to Jase and stand, waist-deep in the water. He’s on his knees, still searching the water, and he holds something up to me.
It’s a ring. It looks like an antique, diamonds pressed into the thin band and a monster square diamond in the middle, surrounded by smaller ones.
I hold it up to the light. “Wow. Somebody must be missing this.”
Jase nods. “I think there’s something written inside, can you see?”
I turn the band around, feeling awful that someone’s probably looking for this gorgeous piece of jewelry. I squint to read the tiny writing inside.
J & J and a love heart on either side of the initials.
I gasp, almost dropping the freakin’ thing in the water. Jase laughs as I look down at him, where he’s kneeling on one knee.
“Is this—”
He nods. “It is.”
“But how did you—”
“I had some help.”
I take a shaky breath. “This is for me?”
Jase smiles, taking the ring back and pushing it onto my ring finger. It sparkles in the sunlight, dazzling me.
“It belonged to my grandmother,” he adds. “My mom’s mom. If you say no she’ll haunt you for the rest of your life.”
I shove him in the shoulder playfully, my chest swirling with dueling emotions. After everything we’ve been through, could things really be this easy, this wonderfully good?
“Juliette,” Jase says, moving his sunglasses onto his head so I can see his eyes, “will you marry me?”
Is he joking? Of course I’ll marry him. I’d die for this man.
“Hell yes,” I say, swallowing back the lump in my throat. I lean down to kiss him, a salty wet kiss that tastes of the ocean.
I have never felt happiness like this. It’s wonderful. It’s…terrifying.
This is the life I’ve always dreamed of. The life I assumed was reserved for other people. Not for dead, broken girls like me. But here, now?
I’ve never felt so alive.
I am loved. And nothing has ever felt so good.
THIRTEEN
Everything is going so well. So well. We’re getting married, and we’re having a baby. Two things I never thought I would be able to say. Two things that I’d never seen in my future, and that I probably don’t deserve.
My demise is pathetic, really.
I’m holding the bottle of methadone in one hand, my little measuring cup in the other, when the door to the bathroom bursts open. I jump ten feet in the air, reflexively dropping the bottle into the sink. “Fuck!” I curse, horrified.
“Crap, sorry,” Jase says, closing the door again as I watch the last of the precious fluid glug down the drain.
I swipe up the bottle in my hand, but I’m too late. Everythi
ng but a few drops is gone, gone, fucking gone.
I stare into the basin, hearing a glug and a gurgle, and I freak the fuck out.
Every last drop, gone.
I try to call Luis on the burner phone Elliot left me. No answer. I even get so desperate as to cut the plastic methadone bottle in half with a pair of scissors and lick every last bit of sticky fluid from the inside of the bottle.
It doesn’t do anything. Not even a mild buzz. Nothing.
After pacing in the small bathroom for a few minutes, I begin to shake. I’m panicking, freaking the fuck out. I have nothing left. Not even some fucking codeine for when shit gets really bad. Which it will. Really fucking soon.
It’s better this way, I finally reason with myself. Get clean, detox—hell, I’m already halfway through, with the way I’ve been dropping my dose steadily each week, and all in plenty of time before the baby’s born. By the time they need to stick an IV in me during labor—because I’ve decided I’m definitely having as many drugs as they’ll let me have—the track marks in my elbow will be gone entirely, and this day will be nothing but a murky memory, a lesson in the fragility of things.
Jase knocks on the door again about fifteen minutes later. “You okay in there?”
“Yeah,” I call out. “Just morning sickness.”
I’m almost five months along. My morning sickness dried up weeks ago, but he doesn’t know that.
The worst part is, because I grew up watching my mother go cold turkey so many times, I know exactly what awaits me. A fine film of sweat breaks out on my forehead as I remember the way she would clutch her stomach and scream when she ran out of smack and had no way of replenishing her supply. How she would puke for days, and cry and cry and cry.
I wish I didn’t know what was about to happen.
I go through the motions. Eat a good breakfast, knowing it will probably be my last good meal in a couple days. Jase must notice how quiet I am.
“You okay?” he asks.
I nod. “Yeah. I think I’m just getting a flu or something,” I lie.
He looks concerned. “You need to see a doctor?”
I shake my head emphatically. “Nope.” You cannot know what I’ve done. “I’ll just get some rest.”
I dump my bowl in the sink and move stiffly to the bedroom, laying myself under the thick duvet.
It doesn’t take long to hit. First, the headache that feels like a vice squeezing my skull until it explodes. Then, pain spreads to all of my joints. My stomach churns for a couple hours, and then I start puking. I’ve got the sweats. It’s all stuff I know much too well from days spent nursing my mother as she suffered through the same.
The clock does nothing to help my plight. I think three hours must have passed, roll over to the clock, only to see two fucking minutes have crawled by. I am dying. I want to die.
This is the worst pain I’ve ever experienced; the shame of knowing why I’m sick only adds to the writhing pain and panic that runs through my veins. Simultaneous fire and ice, hunger and thirst, empty and full. I am a mess.
I sweat and twist, knotting myself in damp sheets, until Jase is there with a cold compress and a glass of water.
“You think you have the flu?” he asks me, helping me up and holding the water to my lips. I take a sip, the cold water refreshing as it hits my tongue and throat. He’s frowning. He looks concerned.
“Do you need a doctor?” he asks me. “Is the baby—”
The baby seems completely fine. She continues to pummel me, seemingly unaware than mama is sick as a fucking dog and would really appreciate some stillness for a little while. Every well-directed jab of tiny arms and legs kicks my hideous nausea into overdrive, the only thing stopping me from puking more the fact that I have already emptied my stomach. But in a strange way, I’m also welcoming of the movements. My fellow fighter, my mini warrior, my daughter—I still find it incredibly strange to say that, daughter—letting me know she’s still in there, still as feisty as ever. A survivor, just like me.
I take another sip of water and it’s one sip too much. Violent nausea grabs hold of me again, bitter bile rears its way up my throat, and I’m lucky I have a bucket beside me to grab and hurl into. I’ve never been a delicate vomiter—I almost always get tears in my eyes and feel like I’m being suffocated—but this is even worse than the standard morning sickness fare. I look in the bucket, half-expecting to see I’ve finally hurled up my own stomach.
Nope, just the water. I take the glass back from Jase and suck out one small sip, swishing it around my mouth before spitting it back in the bucket. The logical side of me says I’ll be dehydrated very soon if I can’t keep fluids down.
“I don’t need a doctor,” I say, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. “I’ll be fine.”
Jase presses his hand to my forehead, his hand freezing, and he raises his eyebrows.
“Jesus,” he says. “You’re like a furnace.” He takes the bucket from my hands and leaves the room. I let myself flop back on the pillows, frustrated. I’ve never been good at letting other people take care of me when I’m down and out, and this time is no different. But Jase is a natural.
He’s going to be such a good father. He’s showing me he’ll be an excellent husband, but I already knew that. Someone who risks his life on an almost hourly basis to protect me deserves a fucking medal, especially when they also hold my hair back while I vomit and clean up the bucket afterward. I am truly the luckiest girl alive. I went back to L.A. to kill every single motherfucker who did me wrong that afternoon six years ago, and not only did I get to revel in their sweet suffering, but I’ve also managed to score a fiancé and a baby out of the deal. It’s all too good to be true.
Which is why I just have to push through this. Get past my body’s desire for the smack, get past my dependence on the bottle of cherry-flavored liquid that was keeping me from going completely insane.
“You wanna try and eat something?” Jase asks, as he returns with the empty bucket. He places it beside the bed as I kick the blankets off again. HotColdHotColdHotColdHOTHOTHOT.
My body’s doing a lousy fucking job of making its mind up. Blankets on, blankets off. Repeat.
I shake my head. “Maybe later.”
Jase nods, taking a stand of my hair between his thumb and forefinger and tucking it gently behind my ear. “Try and get some sleep,” he murmurs, leaning in to kiss my forehead. My skin burns where his lips have touched, but it’s a nice burn.
It’s raining outside again. I drift off, thinking that when I wake up, the worst will be over, and I can finally be free.
FOURTEEN
I’m screaming. Screaming and thrashing about, my nightmares full of blood and terror and his face.
“Hey,” Jase yells in my face. His voice cuts through the greasy haze, and I force my heavy eyelids open, peering up at him.
“Wake up,” he urges. “Are you awake?”
I hear fumbling and the lamp next to me switches on, blinding me. “Ahhhhh!” I protest, throwing my hands over my tender eyes. Everything hurts. Everything hurts so fucking bad.
Jase grabs one of the shirts I’ve hung next to the bed and drapes it over the lampshade, dulling its intensity. Thank crap for that. I slowly take my hands away, looking up at Jase.
He looks mad.
“What is going on?” he asks, and I see anger flash in his eyes.
I struggle to sit up, but it hurts, everything hurts. I try to catch my breath.
“What do you mean?” I ask weakly, my teeth feeling like they’re about to burst out of my gums. The pressure, the pounding is fucking intense, and it’s everywhere, all over my body. My skull. My skull feels like it is going to explode.
“You’ve been crying for almost an hour,” Jase says gravely, running a hand through his hair. “Saying I need it, saying help me. What the fuck is going on, Juliette?”
His eyes are dark with emotion. He looks like he’ll wrap his fingers around my throat and throttle me if I give him th
e wrong answer.
“I have the flu,” I say. I lie. To the man I love.
I am a terrible person. We promised no more lies, and straight away they’re coming out of my mouth faster than I can draw breath. There is something seriously wrong with me.
His jaw clenches; I see his fists are balled up as well.
“Last chance,” he says. “Don’t fucking lie to me. I deserve the truth.”
My heart rate picks up considerably, my mouth suddenly very dry.
“What is this?” Jase asks, holding up the two pieces of the methadone bottle I’d buried in the bottom of the trash. Fuck.
I don’t answer. He’s seething; I can see it in the way he’s watching me with those eyes, those dark, haunted eyes of his.
He stares up at the ceiling, clearly disgusted.
“Can we talk about this later?” I ask, swinging my legs out and letting my feet hit the floor. I stand, wincing as the sudden change from laying down to standing up makes me dizzy momentarily. Sharp pain shoots up my spine, and I gasp.
“Fucking heroin,” Jase says with an air of resignation. “Really? I didn’t pick you for a junkie, Julz.”
Images rush at me as Jase’s cruel words hit home. Dornan’s face, those identical eyes of his boring into mine, taking his twisted pleasure as he got me high again and again, as he took me to the brink of death, only to bring me back to life. That fucker did this to me.
“Fuck you,” I spit, narrowing my eyes at him. “I didn’t do this. He did this to me. I’m just trying to get better.” That month of lazy sex and morning beach walks and a goddamn marriage proposal are all but forgotten, a lie, a mistruth because I am a liar and an addict.
Gypsy Brothers: The Complete Series Page 49