Chapter Forty-Eight

Julia

"I'M SO PROUD OF YOU," Lex says. "You're declaring your terms, no holds barred."

"Yeah," I say, as I clear out empty bottles from the bar. I haven't stopped moving all day long. "I guess I am." 

It's not the first time she's said this, but it's like she knows I need the reminder. It's hard to feel good about what I did when this sadness hangs over me.

Last night was the first I spent without Giles in a while. But I couldn't sleep. I kept expecting him to call me to find out where I was, or to try to talk things out. But he didn't. And when I left for work today, I left with my heart sinking like a boulder.

Maybe he felt pushed into a corner because I demanded answers right in the moment. But you know what? If he hasn't figured out what he wants by now, he doesn't get to enjoy me in his bed. It's not fair for me. I know what I want.

Standing in front of him and practically begging him to tell me that we're a real couple just left me feeling needy and pathetic. I shouldn't have to beg him to realize I want things completely and absolutely clear. I don't want to be one of those girls caught between something real and nothing at all. 

It doesn't matter how good Giles and I are together; we will never be good enough while one of us isn't ready.

"You look like you're regretting your decision," Lex says.

I get to my feet and grab a nearby towel to wipe my hands. "I could've held off on confronting him on it for another day, I just got so upset after overhearing his conversation with Ava."

"Why would another day be better?"

"Giles was supposed to meet with his mom this morning. So a part of me feels guilty that I added more to his plate last night."

"They went to visit his father's grave?" Lex asks.

I freeze, staring at her. "What did you just say?"

"I'm just assuming, since you said a while back the anniversary of his father's death was coming up."

"Fuck," I say, under my breath. My stomach sinks and sinks until I have to hold onto the edge of the counter to keep from sinking with it. How the hell did I not put that together myself?

"Are you okay?" 

"I think you're right. I think today's the day. And I fought with him last night and left him to face it alone, after promising I'd be there for him. Fuck." I shut my eyes. 

Even if we aren't a couple, even if he doesn't want that with me, it doesn't change the fact that I care about him. It doesn't change the fact that we are friends, real friends. You can take everything else away from us, but you couldn't take that away. Giles is my best friend and I'm not there for him when he needs me most. 

Lex's voice is cautious. "It's not too late," she says. "You could call him."

I scratch my nose and glance away. "I doubt he'd want to talk to me right now." 

"I have a feeling he does." 

"What makes you say that?" I ask, looking up at her.

"Just go. Go home, go talk to him."

"Oh God." I cover my face with my hands, suddenly mortified by how selfish I was last night. If I hadn't been so wrapped up in myself, I would've put the pieces together and realized what it meant that he was meeting his mother and why he was dreading it so much. "How do I even look him in the eye today?"

Lex gives my shoulder a light squeeze. "You'll be fine. Go. I'll cover for you."

I take a breath then hand her my apron. "God, Lex. Thank you so much..."

"Don't thank me just yet," she says, uneasy.

Back home, I close the front door behind me but it's not until I'm greeted by the empty living room that my nerves rip through my stomach. Giles's car isn't in the driveway. My phone is in my hand, ready to dial his number. But what do I say? 

Lost in thought, I head to my room, my footsteps slowing as I rehearse lines in my head. 

I didn't know. I'm sorry.

A door closes, but on the other side of the hall from Giles's room. Ava appears at the hall entrance, looking both surprised and relieved to see me.

"Oh good, I thought you forgot," she says. She's fully dressed, hair and makeup done, ready to go out somewhere.

"Forgot?" My stomach sinks again. If Ava's talking about what I think she's talking about, why is there the hint of a smile in her eyes?

"The game, you're still coming, right?"

"Game?"

"The Padres game, at eight."

"Tonight?" I ask, trying not to let judgment creep into my tone. It's the anniversary of her uncle's suicide and she's going to a baseball game?

"Yes, tonight."

"Where's Giles?" I ask, distracted.

"He's been gone all day," she says, looking down.

Of course. He's probably still with his mother. I stick my phone back into my pocket, deciding I shouldn't interrupt him. As badly as I want to make things right, the impulse to do it right now serves only to soothe my own discomfort and guilt.

"Are you coming?" she asks again.  "We need to get there a little early or parking will be a bitch."

I shut my eyes, running a hand over them. People mourn differently. I get that. But I, for one, am not in the mood for a game tonight.

Ava notices my reaction because her tone grows desperate, "Please don't bail. Everyone else bailed. Please. I took the night off and I got tickets, but I can't sit in a stadium by myself. I need to get out of this house or I'm going to go crazy."

 She's serious. There's a plea in her eyes. It whispers something to me in the silence, words without a voice, stirring an instinct that's nagging at me to go with her. I may not be in the mood for company, but Ava's in need of it. And if I can't be there for Giles tonight, the least I can do is be there for Ava.

"Yeah. Okay, " I say, my voice sounding as far away as I feel. "I'll go."

Ava drives us there with the windows down, and the sounds of the road around us drown out my thoughts the whole way. Petco stadium is just under thirty minutes away, but the drive feels much longer when neither of us speaks a word. The silence isn't awkward, exactly, but there's uneasiness to it, as if we are both afraid to say the wrong thing. But also, tonight is the first time Ava and I are spending any real time alone together in the months we've been roommates.

We find parking in the giant lot and file into the stadium among a growing group of people pouring in. I get what Ava meant about not wanting to sit in the stands alone. There's nothing lonelier than being surrounded by strangers. 

Ava pulls me into one of the vendor lines, and we both stock up on food, though I don't have much of an appetite. 

Walking out onto our seating section takes me by surprise. It's my first time at this stadium and I was not expecting the picturesque view. Ahead, past the outfield and beyond the beaming overhead lights, the diamond shaped structure opens up into the night, framing the cityscape. 

It's half past seven and the sun is making its way down in the horizon, obscured from our view. The clouds over the buildings are tinged in a majestic array of purples and pinks. 

Ava and I take our seats and for a while, we're both too distracted looking around the stadium at sights around us to talk much. Our seats are on the seventh row of a balcony area behind the home plate. We have the perfect view of the field in its entirety, though any figures on the field resemble dolls from this height.

"He used to bring us here a lot, when we were younger," Ava says. Her voice draws my focus on her, chewing on a cheese fry as she stares out onto the field, absently. 

"He?"

"Uncle Finn. He was a huge baseball fan and would bring us to as many games as he could. Giles never cared about baseball and just came for the food. But me? I learned the game inside out. Those nights, I got to pretend I had a dad and a brother for a little while. Giles hasn't been to a game in forever..." She trails off and throws another fry into her mouth, chewing for a few minutes before looking at me sideways. "Do you love him?"

My mouth parts in surprise, confused for a wild second about which of the two men she means. Though it's obvious that she could only be referring to one.

"I do," I say, nodding through the tightness in my chest, the truth squeezing me there until I can no longer ignore it. I do love Giles. We may never be able to be together the way I want to be, but there's no denying that I love him.

"Good," Ava says, not looking at me. "That's good."

 She's wrong. It's the worst kind of torture, realizing you're hopelessly in love with your best friend. A guy who can't give himself to me the way I need, the way I want. A guy who will always be just out of my reach.

The seats around us fill and the sky starts to dim, notch by notch, as the sun finally sets somewhere over the ocean. All this time, music plays over the speakers, catchy tunes to excite the crowd. And everywhere around us, people sit with huge containers of food and tall cups of beer. From our seats, we can see the Padres pitcher warming up just off field.

I'm sipping from my drink and staring at the sky when Ava jabs her elbow into my side. "He's looking for you," she says, nodding over to the front of the rows.

"Huh?" I say, eyes trained on the large form of the Padres mascot standing at the end of our section, his back to the railing. 

The friar costume looks even more ridiculous in person. Massive, oblong eyes stare out, unblinking, over an enormous nose. His smile is wide and permanent and his protruding chin nearly lost in the roundness of the face. A single row of thick, black hair runs over the top of his forehead, ear-to-ear, comical in the way it serves as both his eyebrows and what's left of his balding head, which pokes out on top. 

He wears a shapeless monk gown with the Padres logo on it and flip flops on his abnormally large feet

Catching my attention, he continues to wobble a large arm, signaling me to come down to him. I point at myself to make sure it's me he wants and he nods vigorously, large head bobbing so violently I'm worried it might fall off.

"Go see what Luke wants," Ava says, laughing a little.

I consider for a moment just ignoring him. The mascot is a beacon for attention. A few people in the rows in front of us are snapping pictures of him with their phones. But Luke is adamant in his cartoonish gestures for me to come up to the railing. And so I do, squeezing past people in my row and lowering down the steps until I reach him.

"Hey, Luke," I say, without much enthusiasm.

Overhead, the announcer's voice chimes from the speakers, "Ladies and Gentlemen, please rise for the presentation of the flag." There's a scramble of fabric and movement as everyone behind me gets to their feet.

Luke leans in, the freakishly large face of the smiling friar inches from my own. 

"I've got something to show you," he says.

"Right now?" I ask, self-conscious that I'm standing in plain view of our entire section.

"Yeah, right now," Luke says, turning to look at the field.

Unable to gauge anything of Luke's expression from behind the mascot suit, I turn in the same direction as him. My hands close over the cold metal bar of the railing as I gaze out intently, though unsure what I'm really looking for. The color guard, a group of uniformed US Navy sailors, march the flag onto the field, stopping just beyond the pitcher's mound.

The announcer comes on the speakers again. "Ladies and gentleman, he first sang at Petco stadium when he was just twelve years old. Here to perform the national anthem again, San Diego's own Giles Caldwell."

My heart skips a beat and lodges somewhere in my throat. Mouth parted, I watch Giles approach the infield, microphone in hand. 

I can't see his face. He's facing away from the crowd, and me, looking toward the flag and the outfield beyond. But my eyes move over every inch of him, marveling in how he looks so small from this distance and yet larger than life. 

The giant screen over at the end of the stadium switches from a live shot of the color guard to a close up of Giles as he raises the mic to his mouth with a faint echoing sound. 

My hand moves to my chest and beside me, Luke's does the same. Except mine didn't move there in anticipation of the national anthem, but instead because my chest literally swells at the sight of Giles. Up on the screen, the face I know so well is in crisp focus. 

I can't help but stare. He's gorgeous and radiates a confidence that fills the entire stadium. I battle the urge to run to him now, to run down however many flights of stairs I have to in order to reach him. But I stand, frozen, watching.

Giles opens his mouth and the very first note he sings erupts with such a strength that it drives right through me. My heart thumps madly against the palm of my hand as I listen to his powerful voice. It's deep and rich, with a tremble that makes the hairs on my arms stand on end. 

Incredible. It's incredible that he sounds like this. Incredible that he's here singing. Something about his performance is haunting and exorcising all at once. 

You should do something special that day, something to commemorate his life.

He took my advice. 

Deep in my gut, the truth rings out that he's singing this song for his father. He's singing it for me, too, his eyes staring back at me from the screen as if he can actually see me where I stand. All of this makes my own eyes burn and a small breath catches in my throat.

God, I love this guy. My heart's about to burst from my chest as though offering itself up as proof. It aches at the thought that I might never feel those lips on mine again, that we might return to the time when we tried to be just friends.

Cheers of appreciation erupt at random from behind me as my section--and people around the entire stadium, it seems--react to Giles reaching his ultimate crescendo. And when he sings the very last lines, everyone goes quiet. His final note echoes around the stadium, reverberating through me and around me, nearly lifting me off my feet.

My ears ring from the cheers and applause of the crowd at the performance. The now-familiar voice of the announcer booms, cutting through the stadium noise.

"And now a quick message from our performer."

The noises die down a few octaves as Giles turns to face the crowd. To face me. He's so far away and yet I can feel his eyes lock onto mine. Even with the distance between us, with me up here in this balcony and him down by home plate, I suddenly feel right in front of him. The cheers around me die away completely, as though I've been enclosed in a soundproof box.

Giles's voice comes over me again, this time his speaking voice, also deep and smooth. "Julia Castillo, I need you to listen closely because this is important." He points up at me and even from all the way up here, I can see his lips twist into a smile. "I want to be with you. You and me? We're an 'us.' We're a couple. We're a thing, an item, a solid pair. Just you and me and none of the static in between. Because, just in case you haven't figured it out yet, I'm in love with you." He pauses as excited noises rise from the crowd. "You got that?"

Luke nudges me with one giant elbow of his costume. And I nod in disbelief. 

"Stay right there," Giles says into the microphone. "Don't move."

I can't move, anyway. My knees have turned to jelly. Giles hands the microphone to someone nearby and runs off the field, into the stadium. The announcer comes back on, saying things that don't matter. Things I can't even begin to decipher, because my heart is thumping in my ears as I stand, motionless, waiting, only vaguely aware of everyone else taking their seats, talking amongst themselves, and staring at me.

"You look like you're going to faint," Luke says, patting the top of my head in what I'm sure he thinks is a reassuring gesture.  

 I'm not sure how many minutes pass before Giles is rushing toward me, breathing hard, cheeks flushed.

"Hey," he says, smiling wide as he catches his breath. I just stare at him. Somewhere overhead, someone shouts something at us. A few people laugh and someone else responds with a suggestive whistle. Giles doesn't bother to look at them, just keeps his eyes on me. "Can we talk? Inside?"

A hand on the small of my back, he guides me away from the seats and into the relative privacy of the inner halls, where people are too busy ordering food to be interested in us.

"I've got a lot to say to you," Giles warns. His mouth closes and opens again. 

"Giles, I--"

"Let me go first, please?" he says and I fall silent. Really, I'm not prepared to speak. My heart's still beating so fast I think I really might faint. I'm not even sure I can string words together at the moment. 

"I've never been good at relationships," he says. "I've never been good with words or opening up to people. I've never been good about facing the things that scare me. I've never been good at being a friend. But somehow, with you, none of these things have been an issue. With you, these things come easy." He pauses, bringing a hand to the side of my face. "It's because you make me a better man, Julia."

I try to let his words sink in and, though they caress my insides, guilt still surges to the surface. 

"I'm sorry," I blurt out. "I'm sorry I wasn't there for you today. I didn't know."

"I know you didn't know. But you were there." 

It's my turn to look confused. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a photograph. I take it, and my mouth gapes in surprise. I've never seen this before, but I recognize the night it was taken.

 It's a picture of me, lit up in laughter, face glowing from the surrounding lights of the fair games. That night, I thought he was taking pictures of himself and his prizes. But he's barely visible in the corner of the photo. He was taking a picture of me. 

"You looked so happy," he explains. "I loved that I was part of that. You asked me what I wanted. This is what I want. Everyday."

I stare down at the picture in my hand, running a finger over the glossy surface. "When did you get it printed?"

"Last night. You were gone and I needed you to feel real, so I printed it out on Ava's printer and then I stared at it for hours."

I continue to stare at the picture now, not really seeing myself. What I see is the shift that happened between us, the first crack that brought down the wall keeping us apart. The first night we stayed up talking. All the nights we found comfort in each other's stories, in each other's voices. In each other's bodies. All the nights we came together in ways that words can't describe. 

Giles pulls my chin up to bring my eyes to his. "I stayed up all night trying to figure out the exact moment I fell for you. Then I realized that I didn't fall for you. You grew into me, tangled yourself up in me, and now..." He pauses, but his eyes burn with the promise of more so I remain silent, counting the milliseconds before his voice rolls over me again. "...I can't tell where I end and you begin. And I don't want to. You showed up and settled into a gap I thought was a permanent part of me. And...I'm in love with you, Julia. I'm so fucking in love with you."

My mouth opens wider. I take a second to breathe in his words. The air around us smells just like him, blanketing me, making it impossible for me to find my way back out.

"You said love makes people stupid," I remind him, an involuntary smile splitting my face.

"Love does make you stupid, I still stand by that statement," he lays his hands on my waist, "but it's the good kind of stupid. It's the 'I can do anything' stupid. It's naive and a little crazy. But it feels so damn good. So really, when you think about it, where's the harm in that?"

"None at all." 

"I'm glad we're on the same page on that."

"I think you're forgetting something."

His eyebrows furrow, despite his smile. 

"You haven't asked me if I love you back," I point out.

"Well, then? Do you?"

I tilt my head back and let a few seconds drag by, as though I'm thinking about it. 

"Damn it, woman. Quit playing with me," he says, tugging at my hips until my body is pressed tight to his.

"Of course I love you, stupid."

He grabs my face and kisses me. I suddenly don't know where I am, because his lips on mine make the whole damn world flicker away to nothing.

I should've known it would always come down to this moment. Whether we admitted it or not, we fell for each other a long time ago. The only choices left were to give into it or run from it. We resisted, but we couldn't run. 

Some things in life are inescapable. Me and Giles, together? There's no way to describe it other than a ridiculously innocent optimism that there's perfection in a tiny corner of the world. A tiny corner that belongs to just him and I. Nothing else can reach us. Because, together, we're bulletproof.  

You've just read the first novel in a series of standalones. 

Don't worry, you'll see more of Giles and Julia throughout the Hearts of Stone series. 

 

Up ahead... A free preview of ENTANGLE get to know Alexis (Lex) Stone in her steamy, angsty office-romance.