Lush (9 page)

But considering that
she clearly needed to still keep some distance as she came to terms
with how she obviously felt about him, he decided to play dumb.

He climbed of the bike
and hoisted it onto its centre stand while she was still on it then
walked over to her bike for a better look. It was all black and so
damned sexy that, picturing her on it, he got even harder than he
already was. If it weren’t a single seater he would have lost
himself in fantasies of what they could do on it. Still if he took
the seat and lifted her onto the gas tank, facing him....

“Mike! Stop salivating
over my bike and get in the damned elevator!”

He turned to face her
and realised that she was at the lift, holding the door open.

The seconds it took for
them to reach the eighteenth floor dragged by in silence. He didn’t
talk because he needed the time to sort out how to tell Jules that
she had always been the one. On her part it was probably more the
seething-anger variety that came from denying your feelings.

***

Julia felt utterly
shaken and vulnerable as she walked into her apartment and offered
Michael a drink. They were clearly attracted to each other, but it
wasn’t enough. She wished it could be because she desperately
wanted a repeat performance of his kiss, and judging by the
erection he’d been sporting on and off all night, he obviously
wanted way more than a kiss. Sex with a man like Mike would
probably be utterly mind-blowing, but what she felt for him had
always run so much deeper than the physical. In light of that there
was no way they could ever be anything more than friends, and if
she was being totally honest with herself, they probably couldn’t
be friends either.

“Sure,” he said,
completely and infuriatingly relaxed. “You got beer?”

It was a testament to
the strength of her willpower that she didn’t snap at him again.
Instead she smiled politely and led the way to the bar in her
games-come-TV room. “Yep, Heineken okay?”

“It’s weird,” he
commented, looking the room over. “This space is definitely a
chick’s den, but seeing a pool table, foosball, and dart board is
unexpected.”

She regarded her den
with an analytical eye. The cream, turquoise, purple and pink ’70s
style wallpaper was a bit of a giveaway, but the flat screen was
huge and the Bose sound system was the kind of thing a guy would
generally favour.

Coming round the bar
she handed Mike his drink then took a seat on the stool two down
from the one he settled on. “Yeah, well I always was a tomboy. The
rest of my place is more conventional. The interior decorator I
hired gave it subtle feminine touches. No traces of the real me
anywhere but here.”

“So is this the only
room that represents the
real
you?”

“I guess so. This is
the only room that I decorated and furnished on my own. This is
where I come when I want to think, or just forget that I’m a proper
adult who needs to make adult decisions.”

“What is that supposed
to mean?”

Oh, just that I need
to put a stop to this thing between us before you hurt me
again.
“I don’t know,” she said instead. “Probably just that
sometimes the stresses from work and life get to me and I start
questioning what I’m doing, where I’m going. You know, I only drew
up a will a few months ago because my lawyers forced me too. I
haven’t even given my retirement proper thought. Do I retire at
fifty like my folks, or do I wait till I have to stop working? And
if I retire young, how do I know how much of a nest egg will be
enough? The economy is unstable and inflation is rising. And oh
God, don’t get me started on the medical system. If something
hap–”

Michael cut her off
with a sharp whistle. “Jesus woman! Stop before you make my brain
bleed. Talk about twenty-five going on fifty-five. No wonder you
need a place to escape. Sounds to me like you’ve given everything
far too much thought.”

“What’s that supposed
to mean?” she asked, mirroring his earlier question and bemused
tone. She actually knew exactly what he meant. She was babbling on
about things that she never discussed with anyone but her
folks.

Like her dad, Michael
obviously thought she was nuts to be worrying about things that few
other twenty-five-year-olds worried about. But her mom seemed to
understand her. Women were so much more practical than men.

“It means you need to
stop trying to control everything, and you sure as hell have to
stop overthinking your life. Start enjoying it before it passes you
by.”

Riiight
. She
gave him her best give-me-a-break stare. “That’s rich. I don’t see
you taking your own advice.

“Excuse me?”

“All you do is
work.”

“Says who?”

“Your sister for one.
She misses you, Mike.”

He took a long sip from
his bottle and nodded. “I know. And you’re right, I need to make
some changes.”

“Good. So let’s get to
that honest conversation you wanted. You can ask the first
question.”

He laughed but it held
no trace of real humour. “What? You mean this wasn’t already an
honest conversation?”

Fighting down the urge
to roll her eyes she took a swig of her beer and gave him a patient
smile. “It was, but I’d rather have some direction than just ramble
on. Now ask your question so I can ask mine. You must have had
something particular in mind when you proposed this
tête-à-tête.”

“Fair enough.” He
pinned her down with a very penetrating gaze. “What was your ‘not
that pretty’ comment about on Friday night? It’s been driving me
crazy.”

She tried to think up a
way to sidestep the tiresome question but instead felt her temper
flare. “Why are you so fixated on it? I told you it doesn’t
matter.”

He eyed her with a
level of exasperation that seemed to match her own. “I’m fixated
because it doesn’t tie in with who I think you are. It doesn’t fit
with everything I’ve known about you since we were kids and all the
new facets I’m discovering now.”

Oh hell no!
She
would not let him talk her into exposing her deepest and darkest
source of pain. If he couldn’t figure it out on his own he did not
deserve to know. In fact the fact that he couldn’t figure it out
was just further proof that everything she had ever felt for him
was totally one-sided. “Seriously, Mike, drop it. It really and
truly does not matter.”

He put down his drink,
spun out of his stool, and was in her face faster than a hiccup.
“Bullshit. It matters. I can see it in your eyes every time I bring
it up. It’s like the proverbial fucking elephant in the room. Just
tell me already. You said you were open to having a completely
honest conversation. So man up and let’s have it.”

“Fine. You really want
to know?” She put down her own drink and shoved him out of her
space then got to her feet and started pacing. Best to just rip the
Band-Aid off so he could satisfy his curiosity and she could slam
the door on his face, and their sham of a friendship, when he
ridiculed her. “It was what you said to me as you left me there in
your parents’ garden that night when you kissed me and gave me an
almighty lecture about staying away from guys till I was ready to
face the consequences. Now have a good go at me about how stupid I
am for holding on to past hurts and get the hell out of my
apartment!”

He pulled her up short
and steered her back to her stool then took the one next to it.
Trapping her knees with his own he forced her to face him. “What
the fuck are you talking about?”

Fighting back tears she
stared him down. The second he blinked she let rip. “You said you
didn’t want to see me end up like your mother when she fell
pregnant with you! You told me that I wouldn’t be able to find a
guy who’d marry me like she did, because even though I was pretty I
was not
that pretty
!”

“Oh Christ, Jules.” He
slumped heavily against the bar top then reached for her beer and
downed it before looking at her with a pained expression. “You
were, and remain, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I was
just trying to scare you off having sex, especially unprotected
sex, till you were ready. I can’t even remember half the things I
said that night because I was so fucking hot for you. I wanted to
kiss you senseless and so much more from the second I saw you, and
I knew that just about every other straight guy who could see you
then would want the same thing. But you were too young and I was
leaving for university. It drove me crazy to know that I couldn’t
be with you. And worse, that I couldn’t trust myself to be with
you.”

“Well you sure had me
fooled.”

“Then I guess you were
real easy to fool. I was so hard I thought I was going to explode.
I’d been madly in love with you since you were fourteen and you
climbed on my bike and said you’d love me forever if I taught you
to ride. Teaching you was absolute torture because I’d never felt
like that before, but there was nothing I could do about it. I was
seventeen and it was inappropriate.”

“I developed early,
Mike. I looked at least sixteen when I was fourteen. That’s part of
the reason my folks wouldn’t let me experiment with make-up and the
clothes that all the other girls my age were starting to wear.
Hell, with the right dress, a little mascara and lipstick, I could
have gotten into an over 21 club. But here’s the thing; on the
night you broke my heart I wasn’t fourteen anymore, I was fifteen
and a half and I wanted you so bad.”

“But I was eighteen,
Jules. It was a huge age difference back then and no matter how
physically developed you were, you were still officially a kid. I
mean fuck, you’d never even kissed a guy until that night.”

“Exactly! How do you
think that made me feel? The guy I’d loved for half my life kissed
me in a way that I’d never even imagined a kiss could be, then
insulted me, then walked out of my life without so much as a
backwards glance because he wanted to study in a country thousands
of miles away and play the field!”

Michael made a low,
angry sound deep in his throat and glared at her. “I did not want
to play the field! But yes, I did want to study thousands of miles
away. I wanted to be somewhere where my father’s shadow didn’t
reach me and I could not reach you. After that night, kissing you,
I dreamt about you for three fucking years! I used to fantasise
that things were different. That you were my age and that it was
okay to want you the way I did. I planned our goddamned future and
imagined marrying you! Building a life with you! Fathering children
with you! I lived for those fantasies, counting down the years and
months till my graduation so I could come back to you!”

“Then why didn’t you
come back?” she screamed, yes screamed, because it was the only
thing she could do to release the stabbing pain that his confession
caused her. So many years wasted because he had not been honest
with her when she’d offered him her heart.

He raked his fingers
through his hair and his anger turned into a frustrated groan.
“’Cause you got together with Rodger’s cousin in your freshman year
at NYU. Let’s face it, I didn’t stand a chance. Andrew was the
perfect guy that every girl in New York wanted to be with. And
before you deny it, I know it’s true. Even Kirsten got all dreamy
whenever she talked about him.”

“You didn’t even try to
find out if that was how I felt too.”

“There was no point! I
heard through the grapevine that he was your first and you were
totally crazy about him. This is going to sound so fucked up and
immature, but I guess learning that you gave your virginity to him
destroyed my dreams.”

Even though the
confession was not remotely ridiculous she let out a derisive
laugh. Mainly because she was close to spilling serious tears now;
angry, exasperated, miserable tears. “Yeah, that is fucked up. I
can’t believe what a chauvinist you are, getting all bent out of
shape about the loss of my virginity when it could have been yours
any time you wanted if you’d just told me how you felt that last
night on the rooftop. And by the way, I wasn’t all that into
Andrew. I was just desperate to shake off my, wait for it.
Virginity! And he was a safe choice. You know, Mike, if you had
called me just once and told me to wait for you I would have. If
you had told me how you really felt I would have waited for you for
the rest of my life. I was so crazy in love with you that I would
have done anything to be with you.”

“Then why the hell did
you never call me?” he demanded angrily.

“Have you not heard a
word I said? You cut me to the core that night on the roof! You
destroyed my faith in love, and for a little while you even wrecked
my self-esteem. I think it’s thanks to you that I’ve never really
fallen for anyone. You made me give up on love just as I had my
first taste of the physical side of it!”

He looked at her
without saying anything for a long time, then he said so softly
that it was barely a whisper, “I’m sorry, Jules. I had no idea that
your feelings for me ran that deep.”

“Bullshit! You knew how
I felt! That’s why you knew that I’d meet you on the rooftop at
midnight!”

“I thought it was just
a girlish crush.”

“Why should that have
made a difference to you? You were a player! As far as I can tell
girlish crushes are what guys like you thrive on.”

He stared at her with
open hurt, then swallowed hard and cleared his throat. “If it makes
you feel any better, I stopped playing the field after I kissed
you. I didn’t so much as look at another girl till after you and
Andrew got together.”

The air left her lungs
in a rush. Of all the revelations Michael had made, this one was
the sucker punch to crown all sucker punches. “I never... I never
knew.”