“Hi, there,” my mother said as she quietly made her presence known in my doorway a few minutes later. Her black Chanel bag dripped from her shoulder, the chain digging into the fur lapel of her jacket. “Obviously, you can see we’re back early. Your father closed on the deal the first day we were there. He’s just that good.”
“Did you get to do anything fun while you were there?” Evie asked.
Caroline studied our faces. “We did see a show, but I was anxious to get back and see how my baby was doing.”
She rushed to my side in a forced attempt to pretend like she gave two shits about me.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Evie offered. I quickly shot her a look, but she wasn’t looking my way. I didn’t want her to leave. I’d have taken those awkward minutes with Evie over being alone with my mother anytime.
“Actually, Evie, why don’t you take the rest of the day off?” Caroline offered. “You’ve been working so hard this week. Please, take some time for yourself.”
“Thanks so much!” Evie said. A little part of me died when I saw the excitement written all over her face.
“Why do you seem so sad, Julian?” my mother asked the second Evie left the room. “Did this week go all right?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I snipped, turning away from her.
“Are you not feeling well?” she asked, placing her cold palm against my warm forehead. I wanted to tell her to cut the crap. No one was watching. She didn’t need to pretend like she cared anymore.
“No, that’s not it.”
“Do you miss Eleanor?”
“Not really.”
“Are things not working with Evie? Should we find someone else?”
“No,” I said, snapping my face in her direction. “Evie is great. Don’t get rid of her. I’m just tired. I want to take a nap.”
My mother hesitated before standing up, studying me as if I weren’t the same son she’d left just a few days ago. “Okay. I’ll leave you be.”
5
EVIE
I traipsed into my room to grab my bag and found an envelope full of cash lying on my bed. Five crisp one-hundred-dollar bills, all for a few days of work. I picked up my phone and immediately dialed my best friend and partner in crime, Carys Harrison.
“Hey, let’s go out tonight!” I said. “My treat.”
“Two words… hell yes,” Carys said. “You don’t have to ask me twice.”
As I left the Garner-Willoughby mansion a short time later, I thought about Julian. I wondered what he was going to be doing by himself that night. I knew he was used to being alone, but a part of me could tell he was enjoying my company. I could see it in his eyes or when he would subtly smile whenever I’d razz and challenge him a bit. I wondered if he ever wished he could go out with friends his age and have a normal, young adult life.
I pulled into the parking lot of Carys’ apartment complex, and within minutes, all five feet nine inches of her sauntered out. Her shoulder-length, platinum blonde hair was polished and flat-ironed with nary an out-of-place strand, and she wore her highest nude pumps and shortest black dress. I always felt impossibly plain next to her, but she’d been my best friend since third grade when her family had moved onto my street, and I’d grown used to the spotlight always being on her anywhere we went.
“Hey, chick!” Carys said as she hopped into my car. A mix of spicy, floral perfume and hairspray filled the car. “Ready to hit the town tonight?”
“I’m so ready,” I said, pulling out of the parking lot. A light sprinkling of snowflakes dusted the windshield as I drove, and I chuckled a little at the fact that it was still winter and Carys was dressed like she was going to be partying it up in Cancun. “It’s been forever since I’ve been out.”
For a split second earlier that afternoon, I’d contemplated canceling on Carys and sticking all the money in savings. I wanted to buy my dad a snow blower for next winter and my mom a diamond necklace, and Alexa needed a new wardrobe. I could hear my dad’s lecture about money being ‘easy come, easy go’ and the value of a dollar. But I needed this. Just one night to celebrate the fact that things were finally headed in the right direction for me.
Carys reached over, turned the radio on, and began singing along to one of our old favorite songs from high school. “Oh my God. Remember this?”
She screeched along to the lyrics. Though she couldn’t carry a tune to save her life, it never stopped her from belting her heart out.
“Where are we going tonight?” I asked.
“I didn’t tell you?” she said. Her eyes lit up as she turned to me and placed her hand on my shoulder. “I found out through some people at work that Spencer is in town this week. Aaand… I heard he was going to be at Mulligans tonight. I think we should go there. And I think you should show him what he’s been missing these last few years.” Her lips curled into a devilish smile.
“I can’t,” I objected, panic instantly flooding my body. I wanted to turn around. I wanted to puke. I hadn’t seen him in years, not since he dumped me before he left for college. “This is weird. I look horrible. Why didn’t you warn me?”
Without hesitation, Carys whipped out a stick of berry lipstick and a mammoth tube of mascara and began working her magic on my face as I drove. She flung her makeup back into her purse and pulled a hair tie off her wrist as she swept my dark hair into a top knot and secured it.
“Lose the cardigan, dork,” she said, tugging at my sleeve. With her help, I wriggled out of it, my skin immediately prickling from the frigid air. “There. Gorgeous. Any other excuses?”
I pulled into the parking lot in front of Mulligans scanning the area for a sign of Spencer’s presence and wondering if he still had his black Range Rover. My heart pounded hard in my chest at the thought of bumping into him. I’d played that scenario in my head a million times over the years, but I never thought it would happen.
Being rejected by someone who once loved you like crazy would give a girl a complex. I spent years fantasizing about the day I could prove to Spencer that I was good enough for him and he’d made a huge mistake walking away from me. From us.
Inside the warm bar, I flirted my way into a couple of free drinks and ran across some old friends from high school.
“Evie, I haven’t seen you forever,” my old friend, Evan, said as he walked up and wrapped me in a big hug. “What’ve you been up to?”
“I just started a new job working for the Garner-Willoughby family,” I said with a proud smile. “I’m their son’s nurse.”
“Oh,” Evan said, wincing. “I’ve heard about them.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “They’ve been great, so far.”
“You just… hear things…” he said cryptically. “I don’t want to get into it.”
“You have to now,” I insisted, eyebrow raised.
“Arthur is my mom’s second cousin or something like that,” he said, taking a sip of beer from his pilsner glass. “I don’t know the full connection. I’ve just heard some pretty, um, interesting things about Caroline. Please be careful around her. But hey, if she’s good to you, she must like you. Good for you.”
“This is a pretty heavy conversation, guys,” Carys interjected, slipping between us and hanging her arms around our shoulders. “Tequila shots?”
“Oh, no, I can’t do those.” I waved her off.
“Are you kidding me? Are. You. Kidding. Me,” she said, her tone incredulous. “Don’t be such a lame-ass tonight.”
She traipsed back toward the bar and returned with a tray full of tequila shots, salt shakers, and lime wedges. She wasn’t taking ‘no’ for an answer. As I licked the salt, shot the tequila, and bit the lime, the world around me began to disappear little by little, and for the first time in forever, I forced myself just to let go.
“Dance with me,” I shouted to Evan over the music booming from the speakers. I pulled his arm and dragged him out to the dance floor where we danced as if no one was watching.
<
br /> About three songs into our two-person dance party, a tap on my shoulder pulled me back into the present moment. I spun around, breathless and red-faced, to be faced with none other than the enigmatic and uber-elusive Spencer Goodwin.
“Hi,” he said, flashing his trademarked half-smile.
“Spencer,” I said, trying to catch my breath and nonchalantly wipe the faint perspiration from my brow. “I was just dancing with Evan.”
“I see that,” he said, glancing over my shoulder to where Evan stood behind me, hands on his hips.
“I haven’t seen you forever,” I said, nudging his shoulder. “How’ve you been? What’s new? We need to catch up.” I tried to shut up, but the words kept coming. The more he stood there quietly staring at me, the more I wanted to fill that silence with casual words that took away the sting of staring at a man I hardly knew anymore but remembered so vividly. “How’s school? How many years do you have left? Do you come home often?”
As if on cue, Carys popped in between us to intervene and save my inebriated self from regret and humiliation.
“I’ll bring her right back to you.” She pulled me by the arm back to the corner of the bar. “What are you doing? This is your one shot, and you’re blowing it. Stop talking so much and act like you’re not interested in him. If you want him to eat his heart out, you have to play the game. Now, go try again.”
Sheepish and still red-faced, I sauntered back over to Spencer, but by the time I returned, he was surrounded by other old friends who were also equally as excited to see him. I made a beeline back to our table and ordered another drink. I’d blown my one shot.
I watched him from afar as he laughed and smiled and talked practically surrounded by half our graduating class. After several minutes of feeling like a complete ass, I checked the time on my phone. It was barely ten o’clock. Julian was probably sleeping.
“What’s new with you?” a man’s voice said, startling me. I looked up only to see Spencer standing before me. He’d come back, and it took everything I had not to melt under the nostalgic warmth of his ocean-blue eyes and shaggy, auburn hair. He took a seat across from me.
“I just finished nursing school,” I said. “I’m a private nurse for the Garner-Willoughbys right now.”
“Good for you.” He smiled, his eyes sweeping over me as if all of our sweet high school memories were replaying in his head. “I think about you all the time, Evie.”
Taken aback, I opened my mouth to respond and then stopped. I’d fantasized about him saying those very words to me for the last few years, but never in a million years did I think it would happen.
“I wish things could’ve worked out with us,” he said with an air of bittersweet regret, his eyes lowering as he spun his empty glass on the table.
“Yeah, if only I would’ve gotten into Vanderbilt, huh?” I said. I easily could’ve gotten into Vanderbilt. I graduated at the top of our class. My family just couldn’t afford it. I should’ve added, “And if only you’d never cheated on me.”
My stomach dropped, floored by the vivid memory of my first love telling me things were over and the way my teenage self interpreted it as not being good enough for him.
After a couple of minutes of awkward silence, our little reunion was interrupted by yet another old classmate, and as he and Spencer got reacquainted, I got up and returned my empty glass to the bar. I waved goodbye to Carys and headed outside. There was no point in sticking around and talking about what might have been with the guy who crushed my heart into a million pieces.
“Evie,” Spencer called out, running behind me in all his former track-star glory. I kept walking, and the instant the cool, February air hit my face, I embraced the freezing cold of the night. “You can’t drive home. You’ve been drinking. Let me take you.”
“You’ve been drinking, too,” I replied, stopping to turn to him. He looked even more gorgeous than he had before standing in the street under the pale light of a streetlamp, snowflakes falling into his perfect, ruddy hair.
“Actually, no,” he said. “I haven’t had a single drop. I’ve been drinking water all night.”
“Oh. I just assumed…”
He placed his arm around my shoulder ushering me toward his car, and my stumbling feet indicated he was correct. I was in no shape to drive myself home. “Come on. Get in my car. I’m taking you home.”
6
JULIAN
I couldn’t sleep. My mind fixated on Evie and refused to let go. The way she was so quick to push me away and end our kiss, and the way she was so eager to take the night off and get away from me stung like nothing I’d ever felt before, and I didn’t have the slightest clue what to do with those feelings.
It didn’t help that some douche in a black Range Rover dropped her off at eleven o’clock the night before. I watched from my window as he pulled up and she stumbled, drunk, to the back door. He didn’t even walk her there. He just drove off and left her.
The moment a hint of sun peeked from around the curtains of my window, I reached over and buzzed Evie on the intercom. I waited, patiently, until she came scrambling into my room, her hair a frizzy mess and a thick bathrobe tied tight around her.
“Hey,” she said with a scratchy voice as if she’d spent the entire night yelling. “This is early, Julian. You okay? You need something?”
She rubbed her eyes smudging a hint of makeup under them. She covered her mouth after she spoke as if the smell of last night’s alcohol was too strong for her to stand.
“I thought maybe we could go for a walk,” I said, testing her.
She leaned against the door frame and smiled. “Is that all you wanted?”
“I know it’s early, but I need some fresh air. And you’re right. I should be more active,” I said.
“I have a horrible headache,” she said, rubbing her temples. “Can we go in a little bit?”
“Yeah. Fine. Whatever.” I turned away from her.
“I promise,” Evie said, her sweet mouth curling into a gentle smile. She walked over to my bedside and raked her delicate fingers through my hair, her nails tickling my scalp. “I have a thought. Let’s get breakfast. We can go for a walk after.”
“You don’t have a car,” I said dryly as the image of her stumbling inside last night took center stage in my head.
“What are you talking about? Yes, I do,” she insisted, her face falling when bits and pieces of the night before probably started to return to her memory.
“It’s not here,” I said. “Some guy dropped you off here last night.”
“What did you see?” she asked without pause, nibbling on her fingernails.
“I don’t want to say.” I shook my head and breathed out.
“You have to tell me. Please.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Did something bad happen to me?” she asked innocently. “I need to know. I didn’t mean to drink so much last night. It won’t happen again. Please, tell me what you saw.”
She wasn’t worried about something bad happening to her. She wanted to know if he kissed her goodnight under the pale moon and starry sky and falling snow. She wanted to know if he looked deep into her beautiful blue eyes and brushed her cheek with his hand as he told her he’d see her tomorrow. He didn’t do any of that, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her, though it would’ve given me great pleasure for her to stop fawning over that idiot.
“That was your ex, right?” I asked, sucking in a breath. “The one who cheated on you?”
Her eyes lit up as she stifled a smile. The thought of that loser putting a smile on her face, and yet, she wouldn’t even give me two seconds made my blood boil.
“Julian,” Evie said tenderly, taking a seat on the bed. “It’s so much more complicated than you know.”
“I heard his car pull up,” I said, my voice low with resentment. “I looked out the window. You climbed out. Almost fell. And then stumbled to the door. He pulled away. Shall we go?”
I didn’t want to look at her. I didn’t want to see her sweet face fall.
“I’m going to go change,” she said, standing up. I could hear her trying to hide the disappointment in her voice. “I’ll be right back. Don’t move.”
The second she was gone, I hoisted myself out of bed and walked slowly to the bathroom to get ready. I wanted to prove that I was worthy of her love, her attention. I wanted her to think of me and smile the way she did when she talked about that asshole. I was tired of being some patient she felt sorry for. I didn’t want her to touch me like I was a sickly child. I wanted her to touch me like I was a man.
I disrobed and stepped into my tiled shower washing from head to toe. I toweled off a few minutes later, combed my hair with Brylcreem, and finished getting ready.
“Julian!” I heard her call from the other side of the door.
A white towel draped around my waist, I popped the lock on the door and swung it open. Her lips formed an ‘O’ shape as she took me in.
“You did this by yourself?” she asked, astounded. She couldn’t take her eyes off me, and I could’ve sworn she was breathing me in as the steam from the bathroom escaped from behind me. “You look… good.”
I shrugged and looked past her heading to my closet.
“I mean, you, um, you look healthy,” she stammered.
“I’m going to dress myself today,” I announced. “If you don’t mind.” I pointed toward the door, and she left the room still stunned and silent.
I carefully changed into jeans and a polo foregoing my usual lounge clothes for something that made me look a little more normal. As I walked around, I realized my clothes were noticeably tighter on my body which was finally beginning to fill out a bit.
“You can come back in,” I announced.
She stepped back into the room, her eyes never leaving me for one second as she took me in like I was a complete stranger to her, someone she’d never seen before in her life.
“What’s going on?” my mother said as she silently entered the room. She was always sneaking up on people like that. “He’s got you up extra early today, Evie.”
The Beginning of Everything: Garner-Willoughby Brothers Duet — Book One Page 4