by Lucy Eden
I started drawing in deep calming breaths. My hands were shaking in my lap and my heart was pounding. I wasn’t sure if I was reacting to the accident or to our conversation about our day at the museum. In the following weeks I’d thought about him non-stop. I reflexively kept one hand on my phone at all times hoping to feel it buzz with a call or a text from Julian. But as the weeks and months passed, the butterflies died one by one and the excitement I’d felt was replaced by the same foolish feeling I felt as a teenager, pining for a cute older boy who was just being nice to his friend’s kid sister.
Is it possible that I misread his signals back then? If I did, what am I supposed to do with that information? What if I bring it up and I’m wrong? I’d be stuck in this truck until we get to the wedding and then stuck at a mountain resort with our families for the entire weekend. My brain was still whirring when Julian tapped on my window.
“Jesus Christ!” I jumped in my seat and clutched my heart. After rolling down the window, I screamed, “You scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry.” He rested his elbows on the open window and leaned in, grazing my upper arm with his fingertips. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“I’m fine.” I wasn’t, but it had nothing to do with the accident. “What’s going on back there?”
“Well, the ground is really soft and we have two flat tires. I’m gonna call triple A and see how soon they can get us out, but I have to walk around because the reception is spotty around here. So sit tight and I’ll be right back.” He tapped the door of the car and started backing away.
“Wait. You’re leaving me here alone?”
“I won’t go far. Just enough to get a signal.”
“No. We’re in the mountains of Upstate New York. I’m not comfortable with you wandering around these woods by yourself. I’m coming with you.” Our town was small and diverse, but not without issues. There were an unspoken set of rules my parents expected Marcus and me to follow, and I know Julian’s family was the same way. One very important rule was strength in numbers. I unbuckled my seatbelt and reached for the door handle. The door was open an inch when Julian pushed it closed and leaned in the window.
“I love that you’re so worried about me,” he began, and my heart thudded at the word love, “but my number one priority is keeping you safe. Number two is getting us to that wedding. If I fail at either one of those things there won’t be anything left for Wendy to strangle after our mothers are done.” He grinned at me. I rolled my eyes, let out a chuckle and nodded. “Sit tight…Nadirah.” He gave me a lingering look that melted me before he turned and walked in the direction of the road.
Apparently, I’d been holding my breath because as soon as I lost sight of Julian I let out a huge sigh. I thought about turning on the car to play some music, but I didn’t want to risk draining the battery. I scrolled through my phone for a few minutes, but I couldn’t do much without a signal and I didn’t want my phone to die in case we were stuck out here for longer than we expected. Staring into the woods where Julian disappeared was too stressful, so I started looking around the truck for something to read. I knew that Julian loved books and I was surprised that I couldn’t find one.
The glove compartment opened with a pop because I’d officially reached owner’s manual levels of desperation. After one final glance into the woods with no sign of Jules, I dug through the glove compartment. I pulled out a stack of papers and I was careful not to read any of them when a photograph slipped from them. My breath caught in my throat when I saw the image. It was Julian and me on the night of my senior prom.
That morning, the boy who’d asked me to be his date decided that he wanted to go with someone else. I was devastated, embarrassed and planned to spend the night in my room crying when Julian showed up.
Apparently, my mom called my brother in Atlanta, who called his best friend in New York. Julian found a suit and drove all the way from Brooklyn to be my date. He set up his camera on a tripod in our living room and he took about a million pictures of us using a tiny remote control.
My parents have a framed photo of us posing side by side and staring at the camera with big smiles, but I’d never seen this shot before. In the photo I was holding in my lap, Julian and I were facing each other. He must have said something funny because we were laughing as I adjusted his tie. In the split second that photo taken, our eyes locked. It was a completely unplanned candid moment and it was the most beautiful picture I’d ever seen. It reminded me of Benito’s little girl with the orange. It was a perfect moment full of power and emotion captured in a split second.
The driver’s side door clicked and creaked as Julian pulled it open.
“Okay. I managed to get a signal.” He climbed into the driver’s seat. “Triple A says it’s gonna take at least three hours to get someone up here, so that means at least—hey what’s up?”
I wasn’t aware until Julian said something but I’d been staring at the photo in my lap with tears in my eyes.
“Why do you have this?” I whispered as I handed him the picture. He took it from my hands, gently brushing my fingertips in the process.
With the photo in his lap, he exhaled a deep breath and whispered. “It’s my favorite photo in the world. The best one I’d ever taken.”
“Julian…” my voice trailed off because I wasn’t sure what to say or how I wanted to process this new information.
“When Marc called me and told me what Tyler did, I was pissed. I was relieved when he asked me to take you as a favor, because I was gonna do it anyway—”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because.” He exhaled. “I’ve known you almost our whole lives. I cared about you. And if we’re keeping it a hundred, I wanted to whoop Tyler’s ass for canceling on you, the day of prom. Who does that shit? Especially to someone like you.”
“Someone like me?” My ability to form sentences and use words escaped me as I listened to Jules speak.
“C’mon, Dee Dee. You’re smart, funny, kind and I didn’t realize it until you came down those stairs but you’re the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.”
“Wow. I never knew you felt that way.”
“I didn’t either until I got home and saw the pictures. Do you remember that night?”
I’d never forget that night. My mom came into my room and sat on my bed. She rubbed my back and told me that my prom date was here and it wasn’t Tyler. She helped me get dressed and put my make up on.
I was almost a hundred percent sure I was going to walk down that stairs to find my dad or, by some miracle of airline miles, Marcus in a suit.
But it was Julian.
He was grinning at me, holding a corsage to match my dress. We posed for pictures. My mom cried and my dad joked about using his shotgun if Julian kept me out late. We went to prom and stayed long enough to make Tyler jealous. We were crowned prom king and queen, but I’m sure it had more to do with Julian’s lingering popularity at our high school and everyone knowing what Tyler did to me. He took me out for pizza and we sat in the parking lot and talked until it was time to take me home.
“Yes,” I whispered. “Of course I remember. That was one of the best nights of my life.”
“Me too. I started thinking about you in a way I never had before.” He sighed. “And I haven’t stopped.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that night?”
“I wanted to but…” he trailed off.
“But what?”
“You were seventeen.”
“So, you were twenty.”
“And…you were seventeen.” He looked at me and raised an eyebrow.
“Well, I wasn’t seventeen at MoMA.”
“No, you definitely weren’t.” He bit his bottom lip with a wistful expression. “When I saw the subject of my favorite photo in the world standing in front of my second favorite photo in the world, it just…it felt like fate.” He turned his body to face me. “You were even more beautiful than I remembered. And different somehow.
I can’t explain it but walking around that museum, talking to you and learning about all the amazing things you were doing and seeing. I felt like I wanted to do and see those things with you. I wanted to experience the world through your eyes. I wanted to share my world with you. When you had to go to class, it felt like someone was squeezing my chest. For weeks I was afraid to travel anywhere without cell reception, because I was afraid of missing your call, but you never called.”
He was searching my face for something.
I was searching for something to say.
Everything Jules was saying was everything I wanted to hear but I wasn’t sure how I should respond. This intense and heavy moment felt like I was being offered a delicate priceless treasure, but terrified to accept it for fear of breaking it.
“I was…waiting for you to call.” I’m not sure why those are the words I chose, but that’s what I said.
“Shit,” he whispered. “No cap?”
I shook my head.
“Damn.” He reached up and scratched his head. “What would you have said if I did call?”
“Hi.” I tucked my lips between my teeth to stifle a laugh. Julian laughed in response and the tension in the truck shattered like a pane of glass. “I guess we would’ve gone to lunch and taken it from there…” I shrugged.
“Wow.” Julian reached up and scratched his head again. “I need a minute.” He opened his door.
“Wait. Where are you going?”
“Look, I know where my head’s at. It’s been there for years and I’m a little tight that it’s took me this long to tell you, but things will be complicated with us from jump. Your brother is my best friend. Our families are close.” He reached for my hand and squeezed it. “Honestly, I don’t care about that. I’m ready to risk it all for you, but I want to make sure you feel the same way before we cross a line.”
“So why are you leaving?”
“Because, you need time to process this and I really wanna kiss you but if I start kissing you I’m not gonna wanna stop.”
My eyes went wide with shock. I opened my mouth to speak but no words came out. So, I closed it again. Julian smiled.
“Nadirah, you don’t have to say anything. Even if I just made a complete fool of myself, it felt good to get it out. I’ll respect whatever you decide.”
He released my hand and left the truck, closing the door softly behind him. A minute later, I heard the click of the tailgate opening and felt the truck bounce slowly as he climbed into the bed.
Three
Wow.
Just, wow.
Jules had feelings for me. Real feelings.
He felt the way I felt about him all these years and he never acted on it. This wasn’t a hard decision. No other person I’ve dated, woman or man, has ever come close to making me feel the way Julian had in the last half hour.
I slowly opened my door, jumped out of the truck and walked around to the back where I found Julian sitting on the tailgate staring at the photo. My sneakers crunched over leaves and twigs. The noise made him turn.
“Hey.” I called to him.
“Hey.” He jumped down and lifted me by the waist to sit before hopping up beside me.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
I sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Well, I’m not sure exactly,” I said in a chuckle. “It’s a lot of information to take in.” I put my hand on his thigh and he covered it with his own.
“Yeah.” He nodded. I reached for the photo in his other hand and held it up.
“Why this picture?” I asked. “You must have taken dozens of photos that night. Why is this one your favorite?”
“When your brother told me what happened, I borrowed a suit from my roommate and hopped in my truck. I had zero expectations and I was fully prepared for you to shoot me down. My intentions were pure. I couldn’t bear the thought of someone I cared about being let down when there was something I could do to help. But when you came down those stairs…” He sighed. “You were all light and beauty and optimism. No one would have blamed you if you were angry but you weren’t. Not only that, you cared about me.”
“What do you mean?”
“The moment this was taken,” He pointed at the photo, “I had just apologized for not being able to tie my tie correctly—My dad has been trying to teach me for years and I still don’t know how. You laughed and said, ‘That’s why you have me. I’ve got your back.’ And you retied my tie. I’m pretty sure that was the moment I saw you—really saw you as something else. The shutter remote was in my hand and I just pressed it. I wanted to find a way to hold on to that moment forever.”
“Julian,” I whispered with tears in my eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because, Dee, you were—”
“Seventeen,” I said in a watery chuckle.
“Seventeen,” he repeated with a smile and leaned closer.
“Well, I’m twenty-five now.” I placed Julian’s hand on my thigh and leaned closer.
“Oh, I know.” He closed the distance between us and our lips met. I tilted my head to the side and brought our faces closer.
Julian wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me into his lap. His tongue slipped into my open mouth and I sighed as our bodies melted together. This kiss was eight years in the making and I wanted to feel every ounce of sensation. He reclined on his back on the bed of the truck and I broke our kiss to reposition myself and straddle him. My eyes went wide at the giant bulge in his jeans.
“Whoa,” I whispered to myself as I ran my fingertips over the ridge in his jeans.
“Careful,” Julian whispered after a soft hiss, “he’s sensitive.”
“Julian?” I scooted my body forward so the juncture of my thighs was positioned over his hips.
“Yeah?”
“How long until the tow truck comes?” I glanced around the surrounding woods. It was completely deserted. Julian looked at his watch before he answered.
“At least two hours.” He grinned up at me causing a fluttering in my belly and tingling between my thighs. “Why?” he asked but I suspected he knew exactly what I was thinking.
“How much kissing can we get done in two hours?” I leaned forward and brushed my lips over his. Julian skated his fingertips over my bare skin under my t-shirt, causing me to shiver in the mild summer heat.
“I think we can get a lot of things done in two hours.” He kissed me again. “What did you have in mind?”
I grinned and covered his mouth with mine. We made out like teenagers in the bed of Julian’s truck, clawing and pawing at each other through our clothes. Julian rolled me onto my back and looked down at me, grinning.
“Damn girl.” He broke our kiss. “Listen, I should tell you something before we go any further…” His face was serious.
“Okay…” My stomach knotted wondering what Julian was about to tell me. This moment felt too perfect.
“I’m attracted to men and women.” He looked nervous as his eyes raked my face for a reaction.
“So, you’re bi?” I asked. I had no idea. Of course, my brother and I would have no reason to discuss Julian’s dating life. No reason that made sense.
“Yeah, I am. Would you have any issues with that?”
“No, of course not.” I smiled up at him. His face split into a wide grin and he kissed me again. “Would you have any issues with me being bi?” I raised an eyebrow.
“You are?” he asked and I nodded. “Well, that’s not gonna work for me.” His expression was serious for a second, making my heart stop, before his face split into another grin. I narrowed my eyes at him and slapped him in the chest.
“Ha ha,” I deadpanned. “But there is one thing…” I tucked my bottom lip between my teeth.
“Anything,” he whispered and I hoped he meant it.
“I’m monogamous and I expect anyone I date to be monogamous too. I mean, no shade if you aren’t—it’s definitely not for everybody— but it’s
really important to me.” I tucked my bottom lip between my teeth and waited for his response.
“Do I get to be monogamous with you?” He smiled down at me and brushed a curl away from my forehead.
“Do you want to be monogamous with me?” I asked.
“Have you been listening to me for the last hour?” He laughed and tickled me. “Yes, Nadirah Marie Westin, I want to be monogamous with you for as long as you’ll let me.”
“Damn, my whole name, huh?” I giggled. “So, Julian Michael Harris Jr., I guess we’re doing this.” I reached up and dragged my fingernails through his fade.
“I guess so.” He lowered his body to mine and kissed me again before sitting up and opening the truck box nestled under the rear window. He pulled out some blankets and pillows.
“Someone’s prepared.” I propped myself up on my elbows and narrowed my eyes at him with a smirk.
“Get your mind out the gutter. Sometimes I sleep in my truck when I’m on assignments.” He chuckled and arranged the blankets and pillows.
“Do you have condoms in there?”
“Condoms?” He whipped his head around to face me with his eyebrows raised. I smiled and nodded. He grabbed a duffle bag from the corner of the truck bed, unzipped it and retrieved a strip of Trojans.
“Well then, get over here. We don’t have much time.”
He walked over to me on his knees and wrapped his arms around my waist.
“You’re gorgeous, Nadirah.” He pulled my t-shirt over my head and planted light kisses on my collar bone and chest. “So fucking gorgeous.”
He laid me down on the blanket and painted my upper body with his tongue and lips.
I wrapped my palms around his waist and smoothed my fingertips over the muscles of his abs and pulled his t-shirt over his head. My God, this was a beautiful man. He had a slim build but every muscle was toned and taut. Sweat began to glisten on his rippling shoulder muscles as I watched him move over my body tasting and tantalizing. I slid my arms out of the straps of my bra to give him more access to my bare chest.
“Did you know you have a cute little mole under your left breast?” He asked between licks and kisses.