by Lisa Suzanne
I love you. I’m so sorry that it’s not in the way you need me to, but I hope you can see that our friendship is strong enough to overcome my stupidity. You will always be my first love, and you will always be my best friend. You will always be my rock, my strength, and my friend. I hope that I can be the same to you, because no matter what life brings us next, you will always hold that place in my heart.
I don’t deserve a second chance, but I hope you’ll give me one anyway.
Love,
Jules
I thought about her email for awhile before responding. I heard the buzzer going off in the kitchen, signaling to me that my pizza was ready. I took it out of the oven and cut it, and then I took a plate with me and headed back to my laptop.
I reread the email for about the tenth time, and I realized that I wasn’t angry anymore.
Lindsay had some effect on me. I knew that it was strong, but I hadn’t realized how powerful it actually was until it finally dawned on me that I was over Julianne.
I think I was over Julianne the moment Lindsay appeared in my life. The first time.
And I was going to win her back. No matter the cost; whatever it took. I was going to end up with Lindsay.
My reaction to Julianne’s news had been one of shock. I reacted with my emotions rather than my logic, and I knew that was something I was going to work on. I had to work on it. I wouldn’t let my temper cost me the most important person in my life.
My phone buzzed with my 7:00 delivery just as I finished rereading Julianne’s email for the twelfth time. The 7:00 delivery of roses to Lindsay’s house said, “U is for UNWORTHY. I am unworthy of you, and I am fully aware of that. Give me another chance anyway. –T”
I typed out a reply to Jules and reread it twice before I sent it.
Julianne,
Thank you for the heartfelt apology. I don’t doubt your sincerity. What you did killed a part of me, but you should know that I’m doing okay. I’m not angry anymore. Your friendship has meant everything to me for the better part of twenty years, and while I might need some more time to get over what you did, I know that I can’t cut you out of my life completely.
You should also know that this change of heart has come at the suggestion of someone I met. It’s a long story, but she made me see that I couldn’t move on with her until I fixed things with you. That’s what prompted my call the other day, and your news shocked me. I didn’t react well, and I apologize for going into hiding for a couple of days. Someday I hope I can be happy for you. It’s a strange realization that you and I aren’t going to end up together, but I’ve figured out that there’s actually someone else I’m meant to end up with.
I wish you the best, and I’ll be in touch when I’m ready.
Travis
I stared at the email for awhile, knowing that my sentiments were true. It was just one of those times when I wasn’t sure if I was ready to reveal to Julianne that I was over her. I had spent so much time loving her that it felt strange that I had actually fallen for someone else.
My 8:00 delivery text came through, the very last delivery the florist would be making, and I knew that I didn’t have much time to kill to get the rest of my plan into action. The last delivery was another dozen red roses with the note, “V is for VITAL. I don’t know when it happened, or how, but I know that you are a vital part of me now. Please call me. –T”
I hit the send button on my reply to Jules, and there was a knock at my apartment door less than a minute later.
Thinking it might be Lindsay, I jumped up to answer it.
And I was utterly shocked at who stood on the other side of my door.
Julianne Becker, looking as beautiful as ever, wearing a cast on her left hand, stared back at me with anxiety and worry in her eyes.
CHAPTER 13
“Jules,” I whispered.
“Oh, Trav,” she said, throwing her arms around my neck.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, pulling her into a hug that was as natural as breathing.
She pulled back, and her cheeks were wet with tears. “I had to see you. I had to know that we’re going to be okay.”
“I just emailed you…” I trailed off, knowing that it was impossible that she could’ve gotten to my apartment after reading my email that quickly from Tempe, Arizona. Or Fountain Hills, where Nick’s place was, or wherever the hell she was living now. I stepped out of our hug and held my hand out for her to come on into my place.
“You did?” she asked. “You saw mine?”
I nodded.
“What did yours say?”
It took me less than a split second to decide what I had to do. I wasn’t going to let Julianne ruin my life again. I was going to continue with my plan. It was my turn to be selfish; whatever Julianne had to say, whatever the reason she had come to see me, it could wait. It would wait. Because I was going to go get my girl.
“Jules, I’m sorry, but I don’t have time for this right now.”
“But I came all this way…” Her hands were shaking with nervousness, and it was then that I noticed she held in her hand the necklace I’d given her as a gift the night she’d dumped me for Nick.
“I know you did. And I don’t mean to sound like a dick, but maybe you shouldn’t have. You’ve got your thing going on in Arizona, and I’ve got mine here in California.”
“You’re really okay?”
“Sort of. I have… um, plans for the night. I have to leave in less than an hour.”
“Oh, okay. I don’t want to keep you.” She stared down at the floor. “Here,” she said, lifting her gaze and holding the necklace out to me.
“I gave that to you. It’s yours.”
She just looked at me, completely speechless.
“Do you have somewhere to stay?” I asked, my good manners winning out over my conflicting feelings.
She shook her head.
“We’ve got a guest room.”
“No, I don’t want to impose.”
“Yes, you do. You wouldn’t have come here if you didn’t expect me to offer.”
“You know me well.”
“BFFs for life, right?” My voice took on a sarcastic edge that she chose to ignore.
A small smile graced her pretty lips. “I hope so, Trav.”
“Read your email,” I said, pointing to the couch so she could have a seat after her six hour drive to see me. “Make yourself at home. I’m sorry I can’t stay to talk. I have to go change.”
I headed down the hall to my bedroom and walked into my closet. I stared at my clothes for a full three minutes before I realized that Julianne being here could actually serve an important purpose.
“Jules?” I yelled down the hall.
“Yeah?” she yelled back.
“I need your help with something.”
She followed the sound of my voice, and she appeared in the doorway of my closet. She looked at me curiously, and she looked like my best friend. Not the girl who I had loved with all my heart for half my life, but the girl who would always be there for me.
“What can I do?”
“I need a suit. Nice shirt and tie combo. Shoes, the whole deal.”
“I’m on it.” She flipped through my hangers and pulled out my black suit, handing it to me. “Can I ask what this is for?”
“Did you read your email?”
Her cheeks turned a pretty shade of pink. She turned away from me and back to my clothes. “Yes.”
“It’s the girl that I referenced in my email. I sort of… fucked things up royally, and I’ve been spending my entire day trying to make it right. I’m ending the day with a pretty bold move.”
“What’s the bold move?” she asked, handing me a white button down shirt.
She glanced through my ties and fingered a red one, and then a black one, and then some patterned ones.
“I’m sending a limo to her place to pick her up and bring her to me. I’ll be waiting at a classy wine bar.”
She
glanced up at me from my ties. “Sounds nice, Trav.”
“I was hoping for better than ‘nice.’”
“Sounds romantic. I don’t know what you want me to say. This is weird.”
“What’s weird?” I asked, yanking my t-shirt over my head and pulling on the white shirt Jules had handed me.
“Giving you advice about another woman.”
“It never was weird before.”
“Before?” She handed me a blue tie, but it just didn’t seem right to me. I opted to skip the tie.
“Before I told you how I felt.”
She froze for a minute. “Can we get back there?” she finally asked, hope evident in her voice.
“I’d like to reiterate my email.”
“The part about you getting in touch with me when you are ready?” she asked softly.
“No, Jules,” I murmured. “The part about me moving on. The part about me having found the woman I’m meant to be with. And I need to go salvage that. I’m sorry I can’t stay and talk to you about us, but if you’re the friend that I need, you’ll understand.”
She nodded. “I understand, Trav. Go get her.”
I hugged her briefly and she left so I could finish getting ready.
I got a text from Dan’s friend who drove a limo. His name was Jorge, but tonight he was playing the part of Xavier because I didn’t have another X.
I received a text that the limo had arrived at her place. When “Xavier” arrived, he delivered a note to her that said, “W is for WHAT I REALLY FEEL. I need to tell you that in person, Lindsay. Put on a dress and meet me. I won’t take no for an answer.”
I really owed Dan one.
He was in the limo, too, to convince her to meet me in case she said no. And later, he told me about her reaction and their limo ride together.
Lindsay had opened the door and rolled her eyes when she saw Jorge standing there with a note. She read it and shook her head. Dan watched from the limo, and she closed the door in Jorge’s face. Dan approached the door and knocked, and Lindsay opened the door again. She had been surprised to see Dan there, and he talked her into following the directions in the note. He told me that he stood in her entryway until she came back twenty minutes later looking beautiful in a black sequined dress. Dan texted me when they were leaving Lindsay’s place.
They rode in the limo together to the bar. Dan told her that I wanted him to tell her the name of the limo driver. Lindsay had asked what it was, and Dan had said, “X is for Xavier, the man taking you to Travis.” It was a scripted line, and according to Dan, he had delivered it perfectly.
When they arrived at the wine bar, Dan waited until Lindsay had seen the neon sign displaying the title of the bar. And then, just as the limo pulled out in front, Dan said, “Y is for YORK Wine Bar.”
I had left my apartment just after I had gotten the text from Dan that they were getting ready to leave Lindsay’s. I headed straight for York, and I waited at the bar for her. I ordered us each a glass of champagne, because I knew that there would be celebrating after she decided to take me back. I listened to the slow tune on the piano; it wasn’t overwhelmingly loud, but it was loud enough to encourage a few couples to hit the small dance floor.
I never, not even for a second, thought that she wouldn’t show.
My only option was to be confident, because if I wasn’t, if I let negative thoughts invade for even a second, I’d be screwed. I’d get too nervous and I wouldn’t be able to do what I needed to do, which was to get her back.
Dan texted me when they were about five minutes away, and the second the text came through, I became a nervous wreck. I downed my glass of champagne in one gulp, and then I started in on the one I had ordered for her. I ordered another glass so there’d be one waiting for her when she arrived.
The champagne did little to calm my nerves. The place wasn’t very crowded; it was a Tuesday night, after all, so I figured that she’d easily spot me the moment she walked in the door, where my eyes were trained as I anxiously awaited her arrival.
I saw her walk in the door and glance around nervously. Her eyes met mine from the doorway, and my rampant nerves suddenly settled at the sight of her.
I stood and locked eyes with her, and she made her way toward me.
When she arrived, I went in for a hug, but she held me off. I leaned in and kissed her cheek anyway, and there was the familiar citrus scent. I felt transported to a picnic in a field on a warm summer day just by smelling her. I saw her chest heave on a sigh.
She took a seat on the stool next to the one I had vacated when she walked in. I sat, too, and I handed her the glass of champagne.
“Travis,” she began. My name rolling off of her tongue was glorious. “I only came to tell you to stop. Today was completely over the top. My kitchen looks like a flower shop.”
I grinned. She was angry, but damn, she was beautiful.
And she had kept the flowers.
“I feel like you coming here has to mean more than just telling me to stop,” I said.
“Your card said that you wouldn’t take no for an answer. I have to be honest; I didn’t want to see you.”
“Why not?” I asked. I was maintaining my confidence on the outside, but I was totally panicked on the inside.
How was it possible that all of my hard work that day didn’t even make a dent?
“Because I knew that seeing you would only confuse me.” Her voice was soft, meant only for me to hear. If that.
I leaned in closer to her. “And does it confuse you?”
She blinked and closed her eyes for a moment as she inhaled, and then she opened her eyes and swallowed hard. “Your fucking scent confuses me. Everything about you confuses me.”
“The feeling’s mutual.”
“Why are you going to all of this trouble?” She took a sip of her champagne, and then she set the glass back on the bar and stared at it.
“Lindsay. Gorgeous. I think I need to explain my W card.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I said I needed to tell you in person what I really feel.”
She glanced over at me, her eyes narrowed. “And?”
“And I have never been good at expressing myself. But with you, everything has just felt so right from the very start. What I’m feeling… it’s out of this world, Lindsay.” I leaned in close to her again, so my breath was warm against her ear. “It’s unreal. It’s crazy and wild and uncontrollable. It’s too soon and too much and too overwhelming.”
She leaned back cautiously, away from me, and looked me in the eyes. “What happened on Sunday?”
I gazed at her, and she looked away. “I called Julianne like you told me to. We talked. I realized a lot about what I felt for you. And then she told me that she had gotten engaged.”
She sucked in a sharp breath, and I pulled her chin so she had to look in my eyes.
“I was upset. I went to the beach to clear my head and got lost in thought. I was a selfish asshole who was too wrapped up in my own rage to think about anything else. I drank myself into oblivion and woke up the next day feeling like shit. And then I saw the messages from you and realized just how stupid I was.”
She pulled away from me, yanking her chin out of my grasp. My explanation wasn’t working. I had to do something, and fast.
“When I saw your texts, I was so afraid that it was over between us. But I realized that it could never be over between us. I know that you are it for me. You were the one that I was destined to find not once, but twice. And Julianne, I realized, means nothing to me anymore. She will always be my friend, but my feelings for you are so… different from the feelings I had for her. Stronger.”
I knew my tone was pleading by that point, but I didn’t care. She had to know the whole story. And I also realized that I had essentially told her I loved her without saying the words. I told her that my feelings for her were stronger than the feelings I had for the woman I had loved for most of my life. That had to mean somet
hing to her. I wasn’t ready to say the actual words yet, and she wasn’t ready to hear them yet, but we were both there. Well, I was. I wasn’t sure about her anymore.
She was quiet as she took another sip of her champagne.
“Say something, Lindsay. Please.”
She took a deep breath. “I’m not a jealous person, Travis. But you have to hear what you just said to me.”
“What?” I was confused. I had just basically confessed that I loved her. Didn’t she hear that?
“You said that you stood me up because you were upset about another woman.”
“Did you miss the rest of what I said, though?”
She shook her head. “I heard it all. But the bottom line is that you put your own feelings ahead of mine. The right thing to do would’ve been to call me. To lean on me. But instead, you handled it on your own, and that’s part of what broke up my last relationship. I can’t get back into something like that again.”
She stood up to leave, but I stopped her by standing and grabbing her arms, hauling her into me. “Dance with me,” I murmured. “One dance. Don’t leave me yet.”
She sighed wearily as she looked everywhere but at me. “Fine,” she muttered. “It’s not like I can leave anyway since I didn’t drive here.”
I grabbed her hand in mine and led her to the dance floor. A lazy tune played on the piano, and I pulled her into my arms. She wrapped her arms around me, too, and it felt like a goodbye.
Panic iced my veins.
I didn’t know what else to do.
I held her in my arms, my confidence shot. All I wanted was to hold her this way forever. We just belonged together; she was short and petite and beautiful, and I towered over her, but we were a perfect fit. I held her against me a little tighter, and she rested her cheek against my heart, which was beating erratically so close to her. I leaned down and kissed the top of her head, and she cuddled into me.
“This was why I didn’t want to come,” she murmured.