Julian's Pursuit (8 page)

When the lock finally connected, I turned the doorknob and stepped into my two-story townhouse.

Ah, it felt good to be back home. Going out to socialize and party was fun and all, but it got in the way of me just being home in my pajamas, doing what I wanted. Or just doing nothing at all. With how hectic my life was, I found great joy in simply doing nothing on my days off.

I guess that made me a homebody. If given a choice, I’d rather stay in and read a book or watch Netflix than go out and socialize.

Hell, even the trash went out more than I did, and I was totally fine with that.

Toeing off my strappy heels, I padded into the living room and found Brianna on the sofa, her legs curled under her, watching
SNL
reruns.

“How did it go?” I asked, setting my keys on the coffee table.

“All right.” She stood and stifled a yawn. “Evan didn’t wake up at all, and your mom was in her room all night. So yeah, everything went great.”

“Good.” I reached for my purse and slipped her two twenties. “Thanks, Brianna.”

“Hey, anytime,” she said easily. “You know, whenever you need a babysitter, I’m always available. My mom loves it when I babysit. It gets me out of the house and she says when I babysit, I’m a teen acting like an adult so the adults can go out and act like teens.”

I gave a little laugh. “Well, I’ll keep you in mind the next time I want to go out and act like a teenager.”

After Brianna left, I went to Evan’s room to check on him. He was out like a bear hibernating for winter, snuggled in a nest of blankets. Without turning on the lights, I kissed his forehead and tucked the blankets around him. Then I closed the door behind me and walked down the hallway to Mom’s room.

The lights were on, and she was passed out in front of the TV. Sighing, I reached for the remote, flicked off the TV, and picked up the liquor bottle lying next to her bed.

Then I made my way down to the kitchen, deposited the bottle in the recycling bin, and emptied the trash outside. Just as I was walking back inside, I heard my phone beep.

Reaching for my satin clutch, I removed my phone and checked my messages.

It was a text from Julian.

Just wanted to make sure you got home okay.

After a frozen moment, I texted him back.

I did. Thanks for checking.

My lips curved into a subtle smile. That was a first… someone actually caring enough to check in on me.

Later that night, I tossed and turned in bed with restless vigor, trying hard to get some sleep, but my mind refused to slow down.

Julian said he wanted to be friends, but I knew he wanted more.

More than I could give him.

I didn’t want to fall for him. I had a feeling that if I did, I’d never fall back out.

And I didn’t mix business with pleasure. I didn’t
do
complicated.

I knew I should have stopped thinking about Julian the moment I laid eyes on him.

Should stop thinking about him now, this instant.

Should never think about him again, except only as my coworker.

And yet, I couldn’t stop thinking of the way he looked at me tonight, the way he held me as we danced, the warmth of his breath tickling my ear, the feel of his calloused fingers strumming against my spine, the heat from his hands burning through all the layers between us.

Even now, I felt his touch… in every nerve ending, every cell of my body.

Damn him
. Damn him for bringing all my nerve endings to vivid life.

Damn him for making so many emotions course through me.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I moaned into my pillow, trying to block him out.

I didn’t want to think of Julian. But I could think of nothing else.

Chapter Eight

Three weeks later…

“Go to bed, sleepy head.” I tousled his hair and he stifled a large yawn. As the little runt climbed into bed, I found myself surveying his room. “Look at this room, E.” I sighed. “It’s a mess.”

“Don’t worry, Mom,” Evan assured me. “It’s always clean in the morning.”

I rolled my eyes. “And who do you think cleans it for you?”

He shrugged. “The house fairy?”

I shook my head and tucked his comforter around him, wrapping him in a protective cocoon. When I was a kid, my mom used to tuck my comforter under my feet and she called it “making an envelope.” To this day, I can’t fall asleep unless I have that envelope under my feet, and my son can’t fall asleep unless he has that envelope under each arm and his feet, like a burrito.

So this has become our nightly ritual: a blanket burrito and a bedtime story to soothe him to sleep. “Good night, my little Cheese Monster.” I dropped a kiss on his forehead.

“Noooooo!” His voice teetered toward a whine. “You haven’t told me a story yet. A meatology.”

I smiled. He was his mother’s son. Ever since my parents’ divorce, I’d left the fairytales in books and movies. Too often, the fairytale curtains came crashing down the magical moment the couple said, “I do.”

We never saw the rest of the story.

Most likely, Cinderella’s prince charming spent his time trying to fit glass slippers on other women’s feet.

But mythologies—with their big themes of love and lust, war and betrayal, pride and prejudice, the abuse of power, and the fraught relationships between men and gods—had always fascinated me. Whether Greek, Roman, or Norse, there were never enough mythologies to satisfy my thirst.

“You mean a mythology?” I asked, and Evan nodded fervently. “All right.” I searched my memory for a tale. A short one since it was getting late.

In the next breath, I began. “The ancient Greeks believed that humans were originally created with four arms, four legs, and a head with two faces.”

“Ew.” Evan made a face.

“Zeus, the god of sky and thunder, feared their power. So he split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.”

Evan considered this for a moment, confusion on his too-honest face. “Is that why I have half a heart?”

My own heart climbed into my throat and I swallowed hard around it. And it took an effort to force my voice to lightness. “Buddy, you may have half a heart, but you have the biggest heart I know. And you know what? I don’t have to spend my life looking for my other half because you
are
my other half.”

“I’m your other half?” He flashed me a toothy grin. “
Weird.
”

“Yes! You ninny! You’re stuck with me for life.” Laughing, I pressed several sloppy kisses to the crown of his head. “MUAH! MUAH! MUAH! Now go to bed.”

“But, Mom. That was way too short. Tell me another mythology. Please?”

“All right,” I relented. “But promise me you’ll go to bed after that.”

“I promise.”

His eyelids fluttered closed as I regaled the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur.

Midway through the lengthy tale, Evan slipped into a deep and peaceful slumber. Smiling at his sleeping form, I smoothed a stray hair from his brow, my last words a hushed and reverent whisper.

After a hot shower, I trudged downstairs and found Mom in the living room, staring at her phone, looking perplexed.

“I got a voicemail saying I was going to get STD benefits,” she informed me. “Took me a while before I realized they meant short term disability! Hah!”

“Mom.” I sighed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you contracted an STD when all you do is hang out at the herpes compound.”

“The Gutter Bar is
not
a herpes compound. Besides, there are three things we need to do to ensure our survival—eat, drink, and reproduce. We eat and drink for pleasure, so why are we judged for having sex for pleasure?”

“I’m not judging you, Mom.” I crossed the living room and joined her on the sofa. “I’m just saying you should spend less time at that seedy bar. I mean, what do you do when those drunken creeps grab your butt?”

“Oh, I’ve got that one covered.” She gave a snort of laughter. “I let out the most massive fart. Half the time, my butt’s concentrating on holding farts in! Do not distract the butt, I say!”

Suddenly, my phone beeped in my hand, and I was grateful for the distraction.

“What’s with you?” Mom asked.

“Huh?” I murmured, glancing at the display.

“You’re grinning like the cat that got the cream.” After a pause, she added, “You
never
grin.”

“What cat?” I said distractedly as I looked at my phone, reading a text from Julian.

We’d been texting back and forth for a few weeks now. And I’d even gone out for coffee with him on several occasions—acting as though he had a gun to my head, of course.

I was attracted to him, but it was more than that. He was kind to me and he made me laugh, when little did these days.

Even his texts put a smile on my face. Like the one he’d just sent me:

Describe your ex using only movie titles. I’ll go first.

28 Days Later. We didn’t last very long.

I texted back:

Just one movie? I’ve got three: Liar Liar, Jackass, The Departed.

My phone beeped with another text.

Now describe your last date. Also using only movie titles.

Smiling, I texted:

Dinner For Schmucks. You?

He texted:

Superbad.

I texted:

That was a super bad movie.

“Are you even listening to me?” Mom peered over my shoulder and narrowed her eyes. “What the hell is this? Describe your last date using only movie titles? Easy!
Free Willy.
”

I stared at her, and she said sheepishly, “Don’t ask.”

My phone beeped with another text, and Mom’s eyebrows came together with an almost audible snap. “I knew it!” she cried. “I
knew
something was different about you. Who is this guy?”

Annoyed that she would notice such a thing, I merely lifted my shoulders in a faint shrug.

“Who is he?” she asked again.

“No one.”

“Is he someone from work?”

“No.”

“I bet he is.” She gave me a sly, knowing grin. “You never go out, so you
must
know him from work. Are you friends with him on Facebook?”

“Mom—”

“Has he sent you an invitation to play Candy Crush?”

I raised my eyes to the ceiling. “Mom, I don’t know what type of guys you’ve been seeing, but he would never send me an invitation to play Candy Crush.”

“Do you want his pencil in your sharpener?”

“No, Mom,” I huffed. “I do not want Julian’s penis—
pencil
—in my sharpener!”

“Oh, so his name is Julian? Hmmm,” she mused aloud. “If he works in advertising, this Julian guy needs to get a little more creative. All this describing dates and exes using movie titles—LAME! How about he comes up with something a little more original?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Like?”

“Like how about describing your sex life using only movie titles. Here’s yours:
Toy Story
,” she said gleefully, her voice trailing off on a laugh. “I know all about your magic silver bullet, Buzz Lightyear.”

“Mom! Will you stop going through my drawers.” I expelled an annoyed groan. “And, no! My vibrator is
not
named Buzz Lightyear.”

“Aha!” she exclaimed, ignoring my last comment. “I’ve got another movie title for your guy:
How To Train Your Dragon
.”

I took a deep breath, my patience nearing an end. “Mom, I’ve heard enough.”

But apparently, she was on a roll. “How about describing your last fart using only movie titles?” Before I could get a word in edgewise, she said, “
Silence of the Lambs,
since I had a gyro for lunch. Or maybe
The Purge
.” By now, her speech had started to slur.

“Mom.” I stared at her. “How many drinks have you had tonight?”

I saw her shoulders go stiff. “A couple.”

“How many?”

Her mouth pinched in annoyance, but she answered me all the same. “You already said that.”

“So I did. How many?” I pressed.

She brought a finger up to scratch her head but nearly gouged her eye out instead.

She was drunker than I thought. “Mom, I asked you how many.”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” She set her lips in a pout.

“Can’t we just have a conversation about it, Mom? Without you shutting down on me every single time.”

“Is that what this is? A conversation? Because it sure sounds to me like a lecture.”

“Mom—”

“Shh!” she hissed. “Say another word and I’ll drown you in a toilet.”

I bit back a sharp retort. A sense of helplessness and futility washed over me.

What more could I say? She was what she was—an alcoholic mother.

Even worse, a loose cannon when she was trashed.