“What are you talking about?” Ben’s heart sank. This was the last thing he expected to hear after the intensely intimate experience they’d just shared.

“You only hired me to get you organized and get your systems set up. That’s all done now. So, I’m quitting.” She smiled at his horrified expression. “You’ll be fine, I promise. I found a bookkeeper who can come in once a week and keep you on track.”

“No. I won’t be fine.” Was Julie disappearing again? Already? No, it wasn’t fair to hold her previous disappearance against her like that. Lighten up. “I’ll be going through Julie withdrawal,” he said lightly. “You’ll have to let me see you every day to get me through the transition.”

“No problem. I have the perfect opportunity. How about I hire you this time? I need help running my lines for Grease. You mentioned before that you’d be willing to do it.”

“Of course I will.” Relief flooded through him. She wasn’t ditching him. At least not yet.

“It’s crunch time now; the first dress rehearsal is in two weeks and I’m still not off-book. That’s one of the reasons I need to quit Knight and Day. I don’t have time for everything.”

He grumbled at her. “I guess that will have to satisfy me. Running lines with you. Naked, of course.”

“Yes, didn’t you know this is the nude version of Grease? I mentioned that the part of Danny is being played by the gospel choir director at the Baptist Church, right?”

“The one with the big belly and the bald head?”

“Yup. He has the best voice in town. And he can really move. You should see him in the ‘Greased Lightning’ number.”

He traced the inner slope of her hip bone, where the texture of her skin became even softer. “Are you sure it’s safe to do something so public, Julie? What if that man is still hanging around?”

“That’s exactly why I told them no at first. But I’ve been here over a month now, and it’s such a small town. He would know by now. So I think he’s gone. I really do.”

“I hope so.” He spread his fingers across the slight rise of her lower belly.

She shivered. “I don’t. I wanted to catch him. I wanted to be the hero who put that bastard behind bars.”

With a soft laugh, he nuzzled her hair. This was the fiery side of Julie, the one who’d stood up to his father. “Nice thought, but I’d rather you stay safe. Count me in for whatever rehearsing you need. You know my schedule better than I do by now.”

“So true.” She turned her head so their lips met in a long kiss. “Thank you. I tried to get Felix to help, but there’s just no way to sing ‘Summer Lovin’’ to a scowling kid in glasses without cracking up. I’m not that good an actress.”

He laughed at that. “Speaking of Felix…do you think he’ll be okay with us,” he wasn’t quite sure how to put it, “being together?” There, that seemed vague enough to cover all the bases.

“He knows we’re old friends.” She looked away, tangling her fingers in the scatter of hair on his chest.

“You don’t plan to tell him more than that, huh?”

“Well…” She ran her tongue across her lips, a sure sign she was nervous. “He doesn’t really do well with change. Coming to Jupiter Point has been tough enough, not to mention dealing with the Reinhards. I’d rather keep this quiet, if we can.”

Ben’s heart sank even further. As teenagers, they’d hid plenty of stuff from their parents. He’d snuck out to meet Julie when he was supposed to be doing homework, that sort of thing. But now they were adults. Did they really have to do this?

But she didn’t want to upset Felix, and he couldn’t argue with that.

“Okay, I get it. So where is this line rehearsing going to happen?”

Her hand traveled farther down his chest, her soft palm cool against his still-heated skin. She was such a sensual woman. How was it she’d had only two sexual partners in the past twelve years? He should probably thank Felix for scaring off all the men, like a solemn little gargoyle watchdog.

The kid could try to scare him off too, but Ben had a few tricks up his sleeve. His charm, his persistence…but most of all, his Cessnas.

“Here, when I can find someone to stay with Felix. Maybe he could go to Tobias and Carolyn’s for an evening and play with Sarah. They really hit it off, though I don’t understand why. They’re so different.”

“Sarah never met a kid she didn’t like. She’s like a wide-open flower, always soaking in the sunshine.”

“Wow, I love that image. That’s beautiful.”

“She’s a great kid. Felix is too,” he added quickly. “I’m trying to win him over, but he’s tough.”

“You already have. He likes you, probably because you answer his ten kajillion questions about flight mechanics.”

“He’s really something. He already knows more than I did after a year of flight school.”

Julie smiled proudly. “We call it ‘pulling a Felix.’ He absorbs information like a sponge. It’s pretty incredible. He’s even got the Reinhards impressed, and that’s hard to do.”

“Speaking of the Reinhards…” Ben caught her hand under his, stilling it before she could get too close to his cock and make him forget everything. “Any chance you could wrangle me some invites to the Winter Ball? I’d ask them myself but I’m still filled with rage about what they did.”

She blinked at him in surprise. “You want to go to a ball? You always thought it was ridiculous.”

“Of course it’s ridiculous. But I remember how much my mom always wanted to go. She even switched to the Reinhards’ church so they’d consider putting her on the list. But they never did. I was thinking that an invite would give Mom an extra reason to come home. How could she turn down a ticket to the ball?”

“Oh Ben.” She rolled over on top of him and plopped a kiss onto his chin. “Has anyone ever told you you’re the sweetest, most adorable, most endearing, most wonderful, most—”

He stopped the flow of flattery by claiming her mouth in a rough kiss. Seriously, “sweet and adorable?” He didn’t want to be that, not anymore. “You’d think that my years in the Air Force would erase all the ‘sweet and adorable’ out of me.”

“Well, they didn’t. Sorry. I think you’re stuck with it.”

He gripped her bare ass, filling his hands with her flesh. God, those curves, that sweet whiskey-and-cream skin, those dark nipples begging for his touch.

“So, will your mom be in Jupiter Point by then? The ball is only two weeks away.” She squeezed her thighs on either side of his hips. The tips of her breasts hardened against his chest.

He groaned. “You expect me to answer questions while your pussy is touching my cock and the rest of you is right in front of my eyes?”

She bit her lip, wicked laughter turning her face pink. “You came,” she pointed out. “You’re satisfied. We did the deed and now we’re just hanging out talking.”

“You think I’m satisfied?”

“You sure sounded like it. Moaning and groaning and cursing.”

“Well, yeah, I was very satisfied. But that was then and this is now.”

“That was about ten minutes ago.”

“Exactly my point.” He was definitely ready for another trip into the mind-blowing realm of sex with Julie. “Ancient history.” He reached for his nightstand again and snagged another condom. He brandished it at her. “Ready?”

In response, she snatched the condom from him and ripped it open. She moved her ass farther down his thighs, giving herself space to work. She rolled the condom onto his shaft. With the clumsy way she worked at it, he knew that sheathing a man with latex wasn’t something she’d done with the occupational therapist. Ha. Another first.

When he was covered, he pushed his swelling cock into the hot cave between her legs. That felt so good that he had to stop and battle for control. He gripped her hips and lowered her onto his erection. Her channel was still hot and moist from ten minutes ago—had it really only been that long? He had no idea. Time with Julie stretched in weird ways. He rubbed his thumb over the nub of her clit and felt it swell immediately.

Oh yeah, she was just as hot for him as he was for her. That had always been true. She’d promised her mother not to have sex until she was eighteen, and they’d kept that vow. But no one had specified anything about oral sex, kissing, finger-fucking, or anything else they could come up with. They’d let their imaginations run wild and enjoyed themselves plenty without losing their technical virginities.

But he’d never stopped wanting it. And now that they’d made love, officially, with full penetration, he was actually glad that they hadn’t done it before. His primitive boy-brain would have exploded. He would have spiraled deeper into love with her, like Alice down the rabbit hole. He never would have gotten over her disappearance.

And maybe, in fact, he never really had.

After round two, they took a break to devour the lasagna he’d made. Ben was actually a pretty good cook. He’d cultivated that skill as a way to please Julie’s mother, and he still remembered some of the recipes she’d taught him. Not lasagna, of course. Too much cheese and pasta; Mrs. Reinhard would have fired her for a dish like that.

Julie pulled on his overshirt, the blue cambric barely clearing the tops of her thighs. She’d finally taken off the thigh-highs, thank God, or they’d still be back in bed going for round three. She lit the candles while he served up the lasagna, garlic bread and salad that had been sitting while they screwed their brains out.

“Sorry the lettuce is wilted. I blame your nipples,” he teased.

“And the butter is congealed on the garlic bread. All my fault, too?”

“If you weren’t so sexy, we could have had dinner like normal people. So yes. All your fault.”

She made a face at him, then took a bite of lasagna and rolled her eyes in bliss. “Oh my God. This is incredible. I’d say it’s better than sex, but, well…it’s not, quite.”

“I’d say I’m insulted, but I’m not, quite.”

He sat down with her and they dove into their food with the appetites of two people who had just burned approximately ten million calories having sex. They fell silent as they ate, completely comfortable with each other, completely attuned. Ben was pretty sure this moment marked the happiest he’d been in many, many years. That piece of him that had been missing—well, it wasn’t completely filled. Questions about his father, the need to see his mother and sister, all of those realities still existed. But being with Julie, like this, went a long way toward healing the hole in his heart.

True, they didn’t have an official term for what they were doing. Were they getting back together? He wouldn’t say that. Renewing their friendship? That didn’t take into account the getting-naked part. Which he wanted to keep doing as long as possible.

He cleared his throat, looking for a delicate way to bring up the topic of the future. “Is Felix liking Jupiter Point any better?”

“Hard to say. He doesn’t complain as much, and he’s started spending time with the Reinhards without me around. That’s huge progress.”

Better just come out with his question. “How long are you planning to stay?” He tried to make it casual but didn’t quite get there.

She put down her fork. “I don’t know. Until the semester ends, maybe? I sublet my apartment until June.”

Until June. That wasn’t enough time. Not nearly.

He cleared his throat. “So you like living in LA?”

“No. Not really. It’s overwhelming, especially for someone who grew up in a small town like Jupiter Point. But I’m used to it now, and Green and Pristine is doing great. You’d be amazed how much people are willing to pay to get their houses cleaned.”

“We have dirty houses here too.” He glanced around his tidy condo. “Not mine, of course. I’m a neat freak.”

Smiling, she toasted him with her wine glass. “Another point in the plus column. The very long plus column.”

He clinked her glass with his. “But seriously. What does LA have that we don’t? Besides more traffic and more dirty houses?”

“Felix. Savannah,” she answered promptly. “Savannah has nothing but bad memories from here. And you know how Felix is about change.”

He struggled with the follow-up question to that, one which seemed so obvious to him, he didn’t even know why he had to ask it. “Couldn’t you stay here when Felix goes back to LA?”

She blinked, her face turning pink, then white. “Excuse me?”

Oh shit. He’d put his foot in it now. “It was just a question.”

Now two spots of red were burning in her cheeks. “You want me to abandon Felix? I can’t do that. He needs me.”

“Okay. Okay. I get it.”

But she was on a roll now. “I’m his godmother, and that’s so important to me. Savannah and Felix are the only family I have. Not all families are based on blood ties.”

“I know that.”

“No, you can’t really understand, because you have your brothers.”

Now they were in familiar territory. “Sweetheart, I do understand. That’s why we used to talk about all the kids we wanted to have, remember? You wanted a family of your own. We both did.”

“Well, now I have one.” Her pulse was pounding in her throat, her chin stubbornly lifted. He knew better than to point out that her dream family, the one they’d talked about as teenagers, involved her own babies, not Savannah’s. He’d stumbled into a minefield here and he had to get out.

He knew why, too. He’d skipped ahead to the part where she was happily settled in Jupiter Point and he could see her whenever he wanted. “I’m sorry, Juls. Of course Felix is your family, and so is Savannah. I do understand. I swear I do.”

“Okay. Good.”

Slowly she relaxed, the tension leaving her shoulders, and she sat back in her chair. She took a swallow of the wine she’d brought. Then another one. She fiddled with the stem of the wine glass—okay, so maybe she hadn’t completely relaxed, he realized. Damn, he’d really stepped in it.

“Are we okay?” he asked cautiously.

She nodded, then gave him a careful look. Uh-oh, he remembered that expression. It meant something serious was coming.

“Maybe it’s a good thing this came up. Because we should be really super clear about what’s going on here.”

“Sure. Clear is good. Clear skies, clear sailing. Clear skin.” He rubbed his jaw ruefully, a reference to the acne that had plagued him in high school. Also, a blatant ploy to play on their shared history.

She didn’t smile. “Felix is my first priority. Everything else comes after him.”

Now it was his turn to go for the wine—mostly so he could delay his answer. He had to get this right, or he sensed that she might flee. “I understand,” he said eventually.

“I can’t imagine making any decisions that don’t put him first.”

“I get it. Really, I do. I just have one question. Who comes after Felix? Savannah?”

She looked back down at her wine glass, tracing a drop of red liquid down the side. “I don’t know. Maybe. After my mom died, she was the only person keeping me from being homeless, remember? The Reinhards didn’t seem to care about me one way or the other. They liked feeling charitable but I always knew if I caused them too much trouble, they might change their minds. I used to lie in bed at night and think about what might happen if Savannah decided she didn’t like me anymore, or wanted me gone. I figured they would have kicked me out like that.” She snapped her fingers. “But she never made me feel that way. Not once. She never held that kind of threat over my head.”

“Of course not. Only a really rotten person would do that.”

In his eyes, Savannah wasn’t nearly as generous as Julie thought. Once, when he’d had too many shots of Jägermeister at a party, he’d asked her why she hadn’t been upset when he and Julie had gotten together. She’d just shrugged and said that she was upset at first, but then realized that with Julie “off the market,” neither of them had to worry about competing anymore.

Which was absurd, because Julie had never competed with Savannah. Her mother used to lecture her about that. Don’t make waves. Remember that it’s their house. Their world. The deGaias were just “extras” in the Reinhard movie.

“I know Savannah comes across as super-confident, but she’s not,” Julie was saying. “She’s very sensitive. Her parents were so cold to her, always trying to control her. They weren’t affectionate like my mother. I always knew that Mom loved me. That was why we moved to Jupiter Point, so that I’d have a decent place to live, good schooling. She wanted me to have stability. If not for me, she would have kept traveling. She put me first.”

It finally dawned on Ben. “So you want to do the same thing for Felix. Put him first.”

She nodded. “I love Savannah, and I know how much she loves Felix. But he’s always been really challenging. She needs support, and so does Felix, especially now that Savannah’s gone so much. He needs consistency.”

He took a sip of wine to keep himself from asking the logical next question—what did she need?

Still, she caught his expression. “Don’t start thinking I’m some kind of self-sacrificing saint. I’m not. The truth is, I just really love that kid. He was such a funny baby, like a little newborn owl.”

“He still looks like an owl. A curly-haired one.”

“He does, doesn’t he?” Julie’s smile radiated pure affection. Ben actually felt jealous of Felix for a moment. “Look, Ben, I know you think I cater to the Reinhards too much. But it’s really not about that. That’s actually why I started Green and Pristine, so I wouldn’t be on their payroll, like some kind of nanny.”

She drained her glass of wine and poured herself some more. He hid a smile, remembering how even their occasional beach-party-Solo-cup-keg-beers used to make her extra chatty.

“I looked around and thought, what job does no one really want to do, that I’m totally used to, that doesn’t require a lot of interaction? I didn’t want to work for someone else, I wanted my own business. I didn’t even have my high school degree until I got my GED later on. I didn’t qualify for much.”

Talk about a tough situation; but Julie was never one to back down from a challenge. And she’d done it. She’d started her own business and thrived.

Ben leaned back in his chair and stretched out his legs. “I had no idea how hard starting my own business would be. I can’t believe you did all that at seventeen. Actually, I can. You were always so on the ball. You were the smartest person I knew, and the kindest.”

Her face flamed pink as she gave him an embarrassed smile. “And you were the sweetest.”

“Sweet? Damn. Not again with the ‘sweet’. When are you going to delete that word?”

“Never. You were the sweetest, kindest, most tender, affectionate, loving…” With each word, she inched her chair closer to him, until they were side by side, and then she was slipping onto his lap. “Wonderful, amazing…” Now she was kissing him, little feather touches of her lips along his neck. “Extremely handsome, oh so sexy, sometimes funny…”

“Sometimes funny? I used to make you laugh until you peed your pants.”

“Sometimes. Other times you cracked the lamest jokes. It’s okay,” she said quickly. “I liked them anyway. And honestly, it’s not good to be too perfect.”

He snuggled her against him, a warm bundle of sweet-smelling woman—his woman.

No, not his. She’d just finished telling him why she wasn’t his. Couldn’t be.

Her kisses reached his jaw, where she encountered a layer of stubble. “You’re a lot hairier than you used to be,” she murmured.

“That’s because men are hairy. And I’m a man now.” He thumped his chest with the hand that wasn’t wrapped around her.

“Yes, I think you are,” she said thoughtfully, after dropping a kiss on his earlobe.

“What clued you in? My bulging muscles? My sexy-ass flight jacket? My big hard co—”

She sealed his lips with hers before he could get too down and dirty. They dove into a hot, deep, slow and passionate kiss.

When that kiss finally came to an end, she was breathing fast. She ran her tongue over her lips, a lingering movement that made his cock swell against her leg.

“No, none of those things,” she said. “Though they’re all true. It’s the fact that you’re mature enough to understand where I’m coming from, and why we can’t be anything more than lovers.”

“And friends,” he added, through the stab of pain to his heart.

“And friends.” Her radiant smile didn’t soothe him one bit. In fact, it made things worse. “I was afraid that making love would change things too much. I shouldn’t have worried. This whole grown-up thing is great, isn’t it? It’s like having your cake and eating it, too. We can be friends and have sex and no one gets hurt. Maybe this is what they call adulting.”

He managed to smile at her even though none of what she said felt right to him. Have your cake and eat it, too? The cake she was describing was like the kind her mom used to make. Gluten and dairy free with too much sugar in the frosting to make up for the cardboard consistency. Sex was good. Friendship was good. But underneath it all, his heart yearned for something else. Something only she could give him.

But he would never get it from her. He knew that now.

This was a good thing. Better to know. Because maybe all this time, part of him had been hoping for and dreaming of the day he and Julie found each other again.

Well, they had.

And it was wonderful and terrible and…fuck. Confusing as hell.

He hid his sudden emotion behind a laugh—his tried-and-true method. “How about we skip the cake and feast on something else?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you saying there actually is cake here?”

“Would I invite you over and not include dessert? Would I let all that training from high school go to waste? I got a chocolate hazelnut torte from Pie in the Sky.”

“Chocolate hazelnut…” She batted her eyelashes at him adoringly. “I take it back. You are perfect.”

He smiled modestly. “Told you.”

“We’ll get to that cake.” She swung herself on top of him and began unbuttoning her—his—shirt. “After.”