“This definitely isn’t how I saw my Sunday going,” said Juliet. “But I can’t complain.”
James smiled. “Good.”
After that, they returned to the river otter exhibit. Ryan told them about the diet of a river otter, which allowed Juliet to crack many jokes at James’ expense.
The otters themselves were unbelievably lovable. Juliet couldn’t get over how graceful they were in the water.
They each got to feed the otters a piece of fish using a pair of tongs. The otters reached up with their adorable little paws and snatched the fish away.
At the end of the day, they got to meet the penguins. Ryan told them that the penguins were the only animals that were hand fed every day, so they too could hand feed the penguins.
“This is amazing,” gushed Juliet as she lugged a bucket of fish into the penguin enclosure.
James sighed. “I’m pretty sure they would prefer oysters to these stinky fish.”
Juliet rolled her eyes. One of the penguins waddled up to her and pecked at her shoelaces.
“Oh my gosh! Look, he likes me!”
“I don’t know, I think he wants to steal your shoes.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” quipped Juliet. “They’re not even his size.”
James burst out laughing, which startled the penguin. He stopped pecking at Juliet to turn his head and look at James.
“Get out of here before you scare him away!” whispered Juliet. “You don’t have a great history with birds.”
James obediently shuffled backwards, and the penguin continued his pursuit of her shoelaces.
Once they ran out of fish, they thanked Ryan for showing them around and exited back onto the main zoo path.
“After being in that humid penguin exhibit,” Juliet said, stuffing her hands deep into her pockets, “I don’t know if I can stand being outside much longer.”
“I’m so glad you said that, because I was thinking the same thing,” said James. “Would you want to grab a bite to eat?”
Juliet bit her lip. She knew that she should go home. She’d spent more than enough time with James. There was no need to get too friendly with him and allow unwanted feelings to bubble up…
However, she knew that there wasn’t anything for her to eat at home, and she was pretty hungry.
“Okay, where do you want to go?”
James shrugged. “Wherever. I’ll let you pick, I don’t know the restaurants around here.”
“Hm…I know a really good deli?”
“Works for me!”
As they approached the car, James fumbled with the keys and dropped them on the ground.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “Do you need me to drive?”
He shook his head. “No, no I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
He unlocked the car doors and they both took their seats. Juliet realized that her seat was already warm – he must’ve started the car from afar. A nice touch.
“I need to talk to you about something,” he said.
Oh boy, here it was. He was finally going to tell her what he’d been after all this time. She turned towards him. “Okay, what?”
“I’ve always regretted how our relationship ended. To tell you the truth, I never stopped thinking about you.”
Juliet felt her heart thundering in her chest. Where on earth was this coming from?
He kept talking. “I know this seems like it’s out of left field, but I really enjoyed getting to hang out with you for the past week, and I know that I messed up big time with the driving, and I am really sorry about that – ”
She felt like she had to interrupt him before he added anything else. “It’s fine, I swear.”
He flashed a brief smile. “What I’m trying to say, very poorly, is that I would love to spend more time with you. I was hoping we could go to the award ceremony together?”
“You want to go to the gala?”
“Well, yeah, with you. We could go just as friends, but what I really always wondered – I mean, what I really want is to know if you could ever consider giving me another chance?”
Juliet sat back. She definitely didn’t expect this. It was hard to look at his pleading blue eyes. She looked away.
“I don’t know what to say, James.”
He jumped in. “Just say that we can go together, and I can see you win the funding for your clinic. And then, if I don’t mess anything else up or almost kill you, you might want to see me again. And then if I don’t mess anything up that time, you might want to see me again, and so on…”
How could this possibly be what he was after? She almost felt like she was back in college, the night he asked her to dinner, and she was so sure he just wanted help with biology lab or something.
“James – we broke up so long ago…”
“I know. I was a very different person then. A worse person.”
Juliet felt like her head was spinning. This was too much to take in. “I don’t – ”
“You don’t have to answer right now. I just feel like – well, I can’t keep making up excuses to see you. I figured you were going to get suspicious that I was in Lansing so often.”
Juliet laughed. “Yeah, I was getting a bit suspicious.”
Except that she was completely off base as to what he was scheming. Why couldn’t she fathom that he might still have feelings for her?
It just seemed…impossible. And arrogant, that this rich and successful guy would still be in love with her. When they broke up, she felt like he didn’t even care. Not really, not enough to keep his promise to move to Texas. Not that she gave him the option, but still, he made his choice.
Was this just a case of wanting something he couldn’t have?
“I know it’s been a long time,” he said. “But I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least let you know how I felt about you.”
She rubbed her forehead. “This is kind of a lot, James.”
“I know,” he said putting his hands up. “I get it. I didn’t mean to dump this on you. So maybe take the week to think about it, and if you’ll have me as your guest at the ceremony, we can see how it goes?”
She sighed. “I’ll think about it.”
“Thank you.”
She cleared her throat. Time to change the subject. “Do you want the address for the deli then?”
“Sure,” he responded. He seemed much less nervous after saying his piece.
It seemed that he passed his nervousness off to Juliet.
Chapter 18
They ate dinner at the deli, James regretting that he agreed to go. It wasn’t because the food wasn’t good, because it was – but because the service was so quick that they were done in 30 minutes. He hoped to have more time with Juliet, but before he knew it, he was dropping her off at her apartment.
He didn’t want to put pressure on her, so he didn’t bring up the gala again.
“Well, I hope that your zoo experience somewhat made up for me almost killing you.”
She laughed. “Yeah, I think we’re even.”
“Great.”
“That means no more wasting money on me,” she added.
He gave her a shocked face. “Wasting? It’s hardly a waste to have a once-in-a-lifetime experience like that.”
“Uh huh.”
“And besides, what’s money worth anyways?”
He stopped himself before saying the second half of his catch phrase: if you can’t spend it on someone you love. No need to use the L-word when she was already nervous around him.
She unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the door. “I should’ve known you were going to say that. Alright buddy, time to go home and cry in front of your fireplace.”
“I will,” he said with a laugh. “Have a good evening!”
“See you.”
He watched as she walked back into the building. He was well aware that this may be the last time that he got to see her; being her date to the gala was really the last thing he could
think of to wrench himself into her life.
At least he told her how he felt. It was finally out there. It was a relief, but it also terrified him.
To Juliet, it may have seemed like it came out of nowhere, but for him, he’d been waiting for this moment for years. If he was lucky enough to be her date, he could not mess anything up. If he did, she would probably never see him again.
All that there was left to do was wait for her decision. He didn’t want to annoy her, so other than a few text messages back and forth about the blizzard that hit Lansing the next morning, he didn’t say anything else. Instead, he tried to busy himself with making sure that he would be ready to be the best possible date.
By Thursday, James started getting nervous he hadn’t heard from her. Maybe she had someone else that she wanted to take.
Why hadn’t he considered that? It was highly possible that she had a bunch of guys chasing after her. James probably wasn’t the only one. But he was the only one who’d broken her heart and been a terrible disappointment before.
On Friday morning, she sent a text. “Did I ever send you the final videos?”
“No, you didn’t. But I’d love to see them,” he responded.
She sent a link to both the long and short versions of her video entry. They were both incredible, and he even started tearing up at the end – not only because it was so touching that all of these animals and their owners went through cancer and made it, but also because it was so closely related to Juliet. This is what she did every day. She helped people take care of and save the animals that they loved.
“Those were incredible,” he wrote back. “I don’t know how anyone could beat you. Have you seen any of the other videos?”
“Yeah, they’re also on the website. Some are pretty good.”
James watched some of the competitor’s videos. They weren’t bad, but they weren’t as good as Juliet’s. He told her as much.
It took her a while to write back. Juliet wasn’t one for praise. “Thanks. I guess we’ll see. Are you still interested in going to this thing on Saturday?”
He wrote back immediately. “Absolutely.”
It felt like it took her an eternity to answer, but it was only four minutes. “Well then – it’s a date!”
At the same moment James was hit with intense joy and nervousness. He was actually getting a second chance. “Awesome. I’ll pick you up Saturday, around noon? Let me take care of the travel, pretty please?”
“Ha, alright. I guess that’s your department. See you then.”
James already chartered a jet for a flight from Lansing to Chicago on Saturday. It’d be relatively quick – only an hour – but James wanted to be sure that they had enough time to outrun any storms that might cause issues.
He stayed in contact with his pilot that week to make sure they kept a close eye on the weather patterns. Luckily, it looked like Saturday would be a clear day from Lansing all the way to Chicago.
James arrived at Juliet’s apartment promptly at 12 o’clock on Saturday. He no longer had the Porsche – he drove back to New York City and left it for his dad. Instead, he bought a Subaru for their short trip to the airport.
It was the first thing that Juliet commented on.
“You’re finally starting to remember what you need to survive the Michigan winter.”
“I didn’t want to take any chances.”
“We’re only going to have about two hours of leeway before the gala starts, so we’d better get going.”
James reversed out of the parking spot. “About that…”
She turned to him. “What?”
“Well, I didn’t think you’d want to take the risk of driving with me again…”
“James,” she said flatly, “what are you up to?”
“Nothing!” he said in a too-high voice. “I just thought it would be faster, and safer, if we flew. Plus we’d have more time to get ready.”
“James – ”
He interrupted her. “You have to admit that a one hour flight with a real pilot is much safer than a four hour drive with me at the wheel.”
She threw her hands up. “That’s not the point!”
“Then what is the point?”
“Well I can’t think of it right now,” Juliet said, clicking her tongue, “but I’m sure I have a good one.”
He laughed. “Come on, you have to admit that driving all the way there puts us at risk for missing the gala entirely.”
She sighed. “I guess so.”
“And although this car could get us there, do we really want to risk you not being able to accept the award in person?”
“If I’d have known that you were going to spend a bunch of money on a flight – ”
James waved a hand. “But you didn’t! I was going to do it anyways. The jet was parked in Lansing all week. I had to get it moving.”
“A jet? James, this – ”
“Listen,” he said, suppressing a smile, “I’m trying to milk the perks from the company before I get fired. Is that so wrong?”
She laughed. “You’ll never get fired.”
“You’d be surprised.”
She looked at him, as though searching his face to see if he was telling the truth.
He kept driving.
They got to the small airport and parked the car. Luckily, their flight was the only one scheduled for the next two hours, so the jet was already waiting on the runway.
James hopped out of the car, making sure to get both his and Juliet’s bags. He knew she would act like it annoyed her that he carried her bag, but deep down she’d secretly appreciate it. She’d told him as much years ago and he never forgot.
They walked onto the jet and James loaded their bags into storage. As he shut the door to the baggage compartment, he stole a glance at her. She was looking around the cabin, gently touching the soft leather seats.
Juliet would never admit that she was impressed, and James didn’t want her to. But it had to beat the bus rides that she used to take back in the day.
“Can I get you something to drink? Or a snack?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No, I’m okay. Thank you.”
“Okay, I guess I’ll have to drink all of these ginger ales by myself…”
She smiled. “Well I guess one ginger ale couldn’t hurt.”
“Coming right up!”
The flight was quick, and James spent the time looping through the other videos in the competition and making fun of them.
“Look at this. Look how shaky this image is. I’m getting motion sickness just looking at it. There’s no way this one’s going to beat you.”
“I’m not worried about that one,” said Juliet. “I’m worried about the one where they used that dolphin as a spokesperson. Er, spokes-dolphin.”
James frowned. “Everyone loves Flipper. But that was all they had: one dolphin and two cats. And they had that lady droning on about how special this dolphin was for like three minutes. Way too boring.”
“We’ll see,” said Juliet. “I thought that all of the videos were really nice.”
“Aw come on,” he said. “Where’s your competitive spirit? We’re going to blow the rest of these guys out of the water!”
“I hope not literally! I do like dolphins!”
James shrugged. “Whatever it takes to win.”
“Oh my goodness,” Juliet said, rubbing her forehead. “You’re going to have to stay on the plane while I go to the gala. I can’t allow you to threaten any of the animals in the competitor’s videos.”
“No, don’t!” he said. “I would never! I was just kidding.”
She crossed her arms. “You’d better be kidding. That’s not funny.”
“Okay, I’m sorry. Please don’t kick me out of the gala already. I have one more surprise that I think you might actually like.”
“James! What is it with you and all the surprises? You know that I don’t like – ”
He held his hands up. “I know, but
this was necessary. It’s going to be helpful.”
“Please don’t tell me you did something cheesy like rent a limo to take us there.”
He almost did, but the image of her disgusted face flashed into his mind and he abandoned the idea. “No, nothing like that.”
“Then what is it?”
He bit his lip. “Do you really want to know? Don’t you want to just be surprised?”
“Not really, don’t make me turn this plane around!”
“Please don’t do that,” James said, a smile tugging at his lips. “Okay, listen. I’m not going to tell you what the surprise is, because you really need to see it to understand it. But I promise that I only did it because I really thought that you would like it and appreciate it, and it’s the last one. I swear.”
Juliet hid her face in her hands. “Why do I have a bad feeling about this?”
He laughed. “Probably because I get a lot of bad ideas. But! You’ll find out soon, and you can judge for yourself.”
“Ugh, fine.” She put her hands up in defeat. “Did you say that you had snacks?”
James smiled. She was finally giving him a little bit of trust. He had to make sure not to overdo it.
“Yes, I did. Let me go and grab them.”
Chapter 19
The plane started its descent into Chicago. Juliet made sure that her seatbelt was fastened as she nervously munched on some pretzels. She hoped that they would settle her stomach, but nothing was helping. She couldn’t get over the feeling that she was in over her head.
She spent days agonizing over whether she should take James as her date to the gala. It wasn’t just that James wanted to be her date – that she could’ve stomached. It was more than that. He asked her to give him another chance.
Why did he have to say it out loud like that? Even if taking him as her date meant that she was giving him another chance, she didn’t like thinking of it that way. It made her feel too…vulnerable.
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