Chapter 2

Juliana

 

 

I was watching the clock like a hawk. Five more minutes and I was out of there. It was too damn bad that the hands of the clock seemed to be stuck at five minutes to go.

There. It finally moved. Four more minutes.

In silent thanks, my eyes rolled to the carpeted ceiling tiles above my head that were probably a hundred years old and would be there for the next hundred. The bank where I worked was nothing if not traditional. The walls were off-white, stained in places from leaky air conditioning units that looked like they had been installed sometime before the last world war.

Sunlight filtered in through slightly browned windows, accentuating the light coating of dust that perpetually floated in the air. The whole place smelled like the musty Eau de Cologne in a decades-old bottle that had been hoarded, and in the fullness of time, had gone off, mixed with old lavender toilet water tinged with mothballs.

The minute hand of the clocked finally ticked again. Three minutes to go.

I started logging out of my secured email server and shutting down the systems that guarded the money of least a third of the 6,000 or so other people who called Stone Mountain home.

Five o’clock on the dot, I shot out of my chair, and as if she had sensed it, my phone buzzed with a text from my best friend.

Amber: What’re we doing tonight?

In our small hometown just outside of Atlanta, there weren’t too many options. There were three, to be exact. Elmer’s, the dreaded karaoke bar that I tried my best to stay away from unless I’d had a few too many cocktails. Penn’s, the upscale cocktails place that opened recently and happened to my favorite. And last, but not least, there was Rennie’s, the sport’s bar on Main Street that my boyfriend wanted to go to that night.

Me: Basketball on. Scott said Rennie’s.

Three blue baubles told me that Amber was writing back. It took no more than a few seconds for her reply to appear.

Amber: :-(  Boooo!!!

Amber and I weren’t fans of the darkened sports bar, but I knew she would show up later anyway. I stuffed my phone in my oversized black purse and shouldered it.

It was finally time to head home.

I pushed through the revolving doors that led to the open-air parking lot right outside and hurried to my car. She was a beat-up old light blue Jeep that was probably going to conk out any day now, but she still carried me home safely today.

The first thing I noticed when I arrived was that there was a brown El Camino parked in my spot in the driveway. I didn’t know anyone who drove one, and it annoyed me that Scott hadn’t told whoever he’d invited over to park behind his truck, like I would now have to, instead of my own spot.

“Hey,” I called to Scott when I stepped inside the house we’d been sharing for a couple of weeks. When I’d still lived here alone, the small place was always immaculate, but since Scott had moved in, it was, well, less so. There were always shoes and dirty socks lying around, dishes all over the kitchen and muddy footprints tracked onto my cream-colored carpets.

I couldn’t keep my slightly OCD tendencies from flaring up, picking up a pair of boots that Scott had left in our cramped entrance hall. Mild irritation prickled in my stomach, but I locked it down.

It’s just growing pains, I reminded myself.

Scott didn’t answer me, but the television was blaring from the den to my left. A sports commentator’s excited voice lured me to where I would inevitably find my boyfriend. I hooked my purse over the wooden coat stand at the front door and followed it to find Scott and some blond guy with dreadlocks sprawled out on the couches.

“Honey, I’m home,” I said, trying to keep my tone bright and light the way Scott liked it.

Neither Scott nor Dreadlocks bothered to tear their eyes away from the ballgame playing out on the television. Scott merely grunted, “Hey, babe.”

I sighed and gave up on trying to get a proper hello from my boyfriend, knowing that it was a lost cause once he got like that—so immersed in the game that his world narrowed to only that and nothing else. Scott loved sports so much that I’d even caught him watching Extreme Fishing once or twice when there was nothing else on.

Heading to our bedroom down the short hallway, I wondered if Scott would ever love me as much he did his damn sports. Probably not. I didn’t know why I was okay with that.

But whatever, real-life relationships never measured up to the romance novels that I regularly devoured.

I shut the bedroom door with a soft click behind me, collapsing onto the crisp white comforter that covered the queen-sized bed as I kicked off the ugly brown faux leather pumps that the bank required to me to wear as part of my work uniform.

Rolling off the sheer stockings next, I lifted my ass off the bed and shifted the coarse material of my equally ugly brown work skirt and then just lay there for a while. A part of me wanted Scott to come in, to find me half-dressed, so I could watch as his cobalt blue eyes grew dark with lust. That same part of me wanted him to crawl over me on the bed, his messy dark hair falling over his forehead in that way that I loved.

But I knew he wouldn’t. And the other, much more realistic side of was me was entirely happy about that. I blew out a deep sigh just as my stomach rumbled. I’d skipped lunch to run a few errands, and I was paying for it now.

Putting my confusing feelings over my relationship aside, I quickly changed out of the skirt and hideous yellow button-up shirt that made my pale skin look gray, pulled on a pair of yoga pants and a comfortable tank, and headed to the kitchen for a snack.

I rummaged through the nearly empty fridge. Scott and I both sucked at cooking, so most of our meals were take-out. There were a couple of eggs though, and some cheese that didn’t smell too bad yet. I grabbed that, a tomato that was only a little bit soft, and went to work making one of the only things I knew I wouldn’t mess up—an omelet.

As if on cue, Scott’s voice drifted from the den. “Hey, baby, make us something to eat, would ya?”

“Fine,” I grumbled.

A further examination of our tiny yet modern kitchen revealed that we still had some mayonnaise, half a loaf of bread, and some half-stale tortilla chips. I put together a couple of egg sandwiches, paired them with some of the chips on plates and lugged them to the guys.

Scott and Dreadlocks kept their eyes glued to the television; my boyfriend’s beautiful blue eyes didn’t even flicker towards me when I shoved the plate at him.

“Here.”

Scott reached for the plates, passing one to Dreadlocks without ever making eye contact with me. No thank you either.

Great.

I rolled my eyes and went back to the kitchen to whip up my omelet, then sat down at the kitchen counter that opened up to the dining room on one side to eat it. I grabbed up my phone to distract myself from the sense of loneliness that I felt, despite the fact that my boyfriend was in the next room. I scrolled through Facebook, pausing my thumb on the screen when I saw an ad that caught my interest.

Penn’s was having a live band tonight. That sounded like a lot more fun than watching whatever game was on at Rennie’s. I finished my omelet, cleaned up the kitchen, and padded back to the den.

I paused in the doorway, watching Scott throw his muscular arms in the air and cheer when his team scored. When he quieted down, I walked over to him and sat down on the arm on the couch was stretched out on.

“Hey, Scott.” No response. “Baby?”

He finally managed to tear his eyes away from the game. “What’s up?”

“There’s a band at Penn’s tonight. Wanna go there instead of Rennie’s?”

Scott’s eyes widened, and he looked at me like I’d just suggested we take a one-way trip to Mars. “There’s a game on, Jules. We gotta go to Rennie’s.”

He shook his head, his dark hair ruffling from the movement. Hesitating when he saw that I was definitely pouting a little, his lips curled into that smile that he knew I couldn’t resist. The one that showed off the cute dimple on his right cheek and made his eyes light up like he actually, just maybe, cared about me more than the game.

Scott’s arms wrapped around my hips and he pulled me onto his lap so that I was straddling him. It was entirely inappropriate with Dreadlocks right there, but he didn’t seem to notice, and Scott clearly didn’t care.

He cupped my face in his hands and brought my lips closer, until they were inches away from his. “You know we gotta go to Rennie’s when the game’s on, babe. I promise to make it up to you later.”

Scott flashed me another smile, a sexy one that made my nether regions supremely aware of our position on the couch. I was wishing we could take advantage of it when Scott started smothering my neck with kisses. A shiver of pleasure ran through me when his lips brushed a sensitive spot behind my ear. What we had together wasn’t so bad. And damn, the man could definitely kiss.

I sighed happily, every kiss cheering me up a little bit more. When I was about ready to get started grinding my hips against his, Dreadlocks be damned, I pressed a quick kiss to Scott’s cheek. “Fine, Rennie’s it is, but you better have something awesome planned to make it up to me.”

Scott’s dimple came out to play again when he answered me in slightly rougher than usual voice. “Don’t I always?”

He didn’t, actually, but I wasn’t pointing that out to him now. It would only start another fight that I wasn’t in the mood for, and besides, I was trying to cling to the warm glow that his kisses had given me. So I let it go and rose from his lap. “Sure.”

He slapped my butt when I went to move past him. So hard that it stung a little. I winced but tucked my chin down to hide it. “Go put on something sexy for me, babe. We’ll leave in about an hour.”

Sexy? For Rennie’s? I honestly didn’t see the point of dressing up to go to the hole-in-the-wall sports bar, but maybe it would inspire Scott for later. Shrugging, I nodded and headed for my closet to try to find something that fit the bill.