Total pages in book: 24
Estimated words: 21955 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 110(@200wpm)___ 88(@250wpm)___ 73(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 21955 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 110(@200wpm)___ 88(@250wpm)___ 73(@300wpm)
“So…” she said. “How long have you…felt this way?”
“Forever. The whole time. Ever since Dad and Lucy took us out to dinner to tell us about the wedding.”
“No way! It’s the same night for me too.”
“I even remember what you had. You ordered the escargot because you didn’t know what it was and thought it sounded fancy. I thought you’d chicken out when you found out it was snails, but you ended up sucking all the garlic butter out of the shells. I can still picture you doing it.”
“Oh great, what a romantic, ladylike image!” We were laughing. That walk was all laughing and kissing.
“What about you, what do you remember about me that night?”
“I remember you were really nice to my mom. I thought you had a good relationship with your dad. You just seemed good on the inside. You were wearing a chocolate brown sweater that was the exact same color as your eyes.” She turned to me then and put her hands on my face. There were little gold glints in her green eyes. I put my arms around her and she did the same. I could feel so much of her skin pressed up against me, from my thighs all the way up to my chest. She pushed herself against me, and of course I got wood.
I tried to back away a little, hoping she couldn’t tell. She was only eighteen, and I didn’t know if she’d ever had a serious boyfriend. I’d been away at college most of the time. But she didn’t want me to pull away. She grabbed me harder and started to grind into me a little. I gotta say, I was surprised, but I got over it pretty quick. Holding that hot girl in my arms, the girl who had starred in my dreams for years, feeling her rub herself against me that way—it was pretty great.
But we had to stop. I mean, there we were at a state park. I couldn’t just take her behind a tree and jump her bones, even though that was a tempting thought. When I got with her, I wanted to take my time, do it right. Not to mention, what were we going to do about the whole brother-sister thing?
“Hey Julia. If we don’t stop now, I’m not going to be able to stop”
“Okay.” She was panting a little, her eyes sparkling. “Let’s keep walking. If we stand still, I’ll molest you.” She winked.
“What are we going to do about Dad and Lucy? Should we tell them?”
“I never thought about this part. I don’t know. I don’t want to keep it a secret.”
“Yeah, me neither. It makes it seem wrong, kind of,” I said.
“So…do we just…start acting like boyfriend and girlfriend and see what they say? Or do we sit them down and tell them? Ha, I know, we’ll take them back to that restaurant where I had the escargot!”
“Jule.” I stopped laughing and pulled her close again. “This is more than boyfriend-girlfriend stuff for me. I love you.”
She leaned her forehead against my chest then, and I couldn’t see her face. Had I scared her? It felt like forever before she looked up into my eyes. “I love you too. I always have.”
Julia
When I got home from the hospital after clinicals there was no one there. Mom must have gone out. In the mirror beside the front door, I could see big black tracks of mascara running down my face. It had been my hardest day yet as a student nurse.
I really wanted to talk to my mom. She’d left me a note in the kitchen—it was one of her volunteer days and she’d be back late.
This was one of the things that I had to fix in my life: not enough friends. I used to have lots of friends, before the accident. But once I was out of the hospital and was facing life in a wheelchair, most of them just drifted away. It was partly my fault, but also part of it was that a lot of them had gone to colleges far away and just didn’t keep in touch. It would have been nice to be able to pick up the phone and talk to a friend about what had happened.
Of course the first person I wanted to talk to was Nick. I’d thought of him while I was still at the hospital, even. But I didn’t want to get all dependent on him. He was a freaking billionaire now. He could have any girl he wanted, not to mention go anywhere, do anything he wanted. No matter what he said, he’d be gone from Greenwood soon. He didn’t need to know how often I woke, tangled in the sheets, damp from dreams of him, of his hands and mouth on me—everywhere.