RJ

I’ve written since I was seventeen-years-old. I’ve poured my heart and soul into every book I’ve ever published and a dozen more that will never see the light of day.

My work has been rejected by countless publishers and agents. Told it wasn’t good enough or wasn’t quite right for their line or imprint. It was picked apart and dissected and packaged back up in ways I didn’t even recognize.

That shit stings. Sometimes it even hurts like a bitch, no matter how long you’ve been in the business. Thick skin still bleeds.

None of those stories, those rejections, or that ridicule cut as deep as the wound I inflicted upon myself when I betrayed Julianna.

I didn’t realize the damage I’d done until I returned home. She’d never stepped foot in my condo, but I felt her everywhere. The mantle above my fireplace where I keep pictures of my parents and grandparents, and even one of Eddie. She wasn’t there, but I felt her there. The second stool at the kitchen island. The shower. The empty right side of my bed.

Two days. That’s all it took for me to fall for her. To miss her like hell from the moment she left until right now, standing outside her door with my heart literally in my hands.

I don’t know if it’ll be enough, but if I learned from all of this it’s that life’s most precious moments are usually found between fear and faith.

My time with Julianna was exactly that.

The only problem was, though we’d both took that leap, only one of us had faith in a happy ending. Whether that ending was the two of us saying goodbye with smiles on our faces or whether it was setting a date to see each other again, she saw the possibility and all I saw was the pain.

Until I took the blinders off and opened my eyes. Until I saw that our ending didn’t have to be an ending at all. That it could be the beginning and our two days together...maybe they were just the prologue.

Craning my neck from one side to the other, I hit her buzzer. I know she’s home because the sweet older lady that was leaving the building at the time I almost rang the bell outside, not only let me in, she also told me exactly where I could find Jules. That’s another conversation for another day, for damn sure.

I hear footsteps in her foyer and her hand bumping against the door when she checks the peephole. A solid twenty seconds passes before she flips the lock—thank God for that—and opens the door.

She’s dressed in gray workout pants, a yellow, I’m a Gleek T-shirt, and her dark hair is twisted in a sloppy bun that instantly makes my fingers twitch. I can smell her, too. That sweet lavender and vanilla that just isn’t the same coming from a three-wick candle as it does straight from her hair.

“Hi.” She tries for a light, casual greeting, but her eyes tell the truth. She didn’t think she’d ever see me again.

“Hi, yourself. We need to talk about your security.” Shit.

Her eyebrows lift and then she chuckles. “Well, it’s nice to see you, too.”

“I’m sorry.” I rub my temple where an idiocy headache starts to form. “Can I come in?”

She points at the envelope in my hand. “That’s not a lawsuit for slander or some crap, is it?”

I snort. “No.”

“Okay. You can come in then.” She steps aside and waves me by.

The place is exactly what I expected. Cute and homey. Colorful. Just like her. “Nice place. Very you.”

She gives an airy laugh. A laugh I’ve missed so freaking much. “I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, considering this is the cheapest place I could find to rent.”

I glance over my shoulder, smiling, as she leans a shoulder into the wall dividing the foyer and the living room. “You look good. Tanned.

“I just got back from Panama.”

“Oh.” A vacation. In Central America. Where there were probably other men.

“With my parents.”

Thank Christ. “A special occasion or...?”

“I took them for their anniversary. We were supposed to go the week I...” She pauses, her eyes darting to mine. “Um, we were supposed to go in January, but I had to work, so we rebooked.”

“You were with me.”

“It wasn’t a big deal.”

The hell it wasn’t. “How much money did you lose rebooking?”

“Stop.” She laughs and rolls her eyes. “It’s fine. I wanted to be accommodating. Big opportunity and all that.”

Hmm. “I don’t like it.”

“Too bad.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Knock it off, Richard Gere. I’m going to start feeling like a cheap hooker.”

“Vivian was not cheap. Rodeo Drive, remember?”

She sticks her tongue in cheek, shaking with silent laughter. She nods to the envelope again. “So, is that like your credit card or what?”

“Maybe.”

She tips her head to the side, but a small smile finally curls her lips. “You’re something.”

“I’ve been told.”

Coming into the living room, she drops into a chair. I take the couch, elbows on my knees.

“How’s Eddie?”

“Lazy.”

“You’re so mean to him.”

“He hates me. Why should I be nice? Can you have dogs here? I’ll drop him off. You can have him.”

“Oh, shut up.” She throws a pillow at me and laughs. “You would be lost without him.”

“Kind of like I’m lost without you?”

Her lashes flutter ever so slightly. “RJ...”

“Yeah.” I nod and let those two syllables work their way through my system, warming parts of me that have lain dormant for the past month, waiting for this. For her. “Look, Crash, I’m just going to come out with this, okay? I’m not good with this stuff and if I wait too long or try too hard, I’ll fuck it up.”

“Okay.” She watches me carefully and I’m not sure if I should be worried that she’s so calm right now or glad for it. Doesn’t matter. I’m doing this.

“First off, I fucking love when you say my name.” I give her a smile, feeling a little like a chump, but, hey, that’s what this is all about, right? “And when you called me Rush...and said you weren’t sure you knew RJ, it damn near broke me. I know I kept my career from you, but I was still more real with you than I’ve been with anyone in a long time. Having fun with you, laughing...just fucking breathing...was different with you.”

She picks at the seam in her pants, listening quietly.

“I don’t just mean other women, Crash. I mean me, too. I was more me with you than I’ve even been with myself. It took a lot of soul searching, but I finally understood that the only way for you to really know me like you deserve and that I deserve, too, was if I took a hard look at myself first. You know that saying about love? You can’t love someone until you love yourself? That’s what you were telling me, wasn’t it? Not just about love, but...life.”

My gaze rises to hers and where I expect to see tears, there’s a patient, knowing smile, which proves my point. She knew me better even I did.

“My intentions were there. I thought they came from the heart, but how could they when I’d guarded myself like I did? I had no idea I’d put that armor in place until you rattled my cage and pointed it out.”

She nods now and I imagine she’s clapping her hands in her head. Maybe even reciting a little ‘Praise Jesus, hallelujah!’.

“So, I’ve spent the past month trying to grasp all of this. One minute I’d think I had it and then next, it’d be gone. You don’t know how many times I wanted to come here and ask you to explain it to me again.”

“You could have. I would have tried.”

“I know. But I had to figure it out for myself and there’s only one way I know how to do that.” I slide the envelope across the small table between us. “This is for you.”

“Me?”

“Originally, it was for me. It was what I needed to do to sort all of this shit out.” I swallow down the vulnerability. Yeah, I’m laying myself bare here, but I’m not afraid of it. “Now that I’m good in here...” I thump my chest with a fist. “I can share this. You’re the only one I want to let in like that, so now...now it’s yours. It’s me. And I’m giving it to you in any capacity you’ll have it.”

She hiccups and the tears start to fall. “RJ...”

I smile. “Yeah, I know. Pretty fucking empowering shit. I wouldn’t have been able to sit here like this and say these things if you hadn’t shown me how important it was to do me first.” I air quote those two words and she half laughs, half cries.

“What is it?” She sits forward on the chair, contemplating my gift.

“Open it.”

“I’m scared.”

I laugh. “You? Scared? Shake that shit off, babe. I’m dying to know what you think.”

“God, I’ve missed your smart mouth.”

“Missed yours more.”

“That’s a matter of opinion.” She shoots me a smirk and reaches for the envelope. “You know I don’t like people telling me how I feel or what I should do.”

“Open the fucking envelope, Crash.”

“Except you,” she admits, closing her eyes and almost relishing in it. “I like letting you tell me what to do. Like letting you take care of me.”

“You let me?”

“Oh, yeah, handsome. You look all tough and in charge, but I’m the one who’s really in control here.”

“Fuck that,” I laugh, knowing damn well that’s exactly how it is. Always has been that way with us. “Open it.”

“Okay.” She flips the prongs and reaches inside for the stack of papers. The manuscript. Not edited, because this is my gift to her, so what happens to it now is up to her, too. Maybe it goes in a drawer or maybe we pretty it up. Her call.

“So?” I search her face, waiting for a reaction, as she smooths her fingers over the title page. It wasn’t hard to figure out what to call our story, but I’d understand if she’d want to change it. If we ever published it. This novel is my heart and soul and if she wants to keep a little piece of it for us, I’d understand.

“Crash,” she says, reading the single word. Her nickname and my everything. She smiles...then she cries...and then she smiles again. “I love you.”

That achy burn that’s been stuck in my chest since she walked into my yard shifts a little and I clear my throat. “I love you, too.”

“I know. And you knew how I felt, too. Right?”

I dip my chin. “Yeah.”

“So, now what?”

“You run the show here. You tell me.” I lift a hand and a wicked little smile dances across her pretty lips.

“I can think of some things,” she says easily, and I chuckle.

“Adult things, by any chance?”

“Adult things aren’t the only things, you know.”

“No, but they’re the best things.”

She feigns a gasp. “RJ Scott, did you just write this to get laid?”

I cock an eyebrow. “Will it get me laid?”

“Most definitely.”

“Soon?”

“As soon as you get me out of these pants.”