The Boy Who Knew Me When (From Boys to men Trilogy) (11 page)

And the tears began to fall, my sniffling and blubbering increasing as I nodded “yes”. Brandon pulled me across the seat of the truck and into his arms. He cried into my hair and I soaked through his Old navy t-shirt. We were both an emotional disaster.

“I promise, I promise!” I sobbed.

We sat in each other’s arms until the crying stopped and we both felt safe knowing that we would never be completely apart, no matter what came between us.

“Come on, I’ll walk you in. Mom can wait. Besides Brea will have my hide if I don’t say goodbye.”

I laughed at the truthfulness of his statement and we both climbed out of the driver side of the car, walking up to the apartment talking about how paranoid Brea could get. He never once called me baby and he never reached for my hand. We were friends and nothing more.

We stumbled into the apartment laughing at the fact that I had just cussed out my keys after trying to open the door with the wrong one and we both stopped short at the sight of Ford asleep on the couch. Brea walked out of the kitchen holding a cup of coffee, and bounced up to us, her bare breasts flopping freely under her baby blue tank top.

“I told him to go home but he was pretty stubborn about insisting he be here when you got back. He fell asleep about an hour ago.”

I heard Brandon shut the door behind me. He was no longer smiling, his face was empty and I could no longer tell what was gong through his head. I moved my body forward while Brea stepped back to Brandon taking his hand and squeezing it to reassure him.

“Is that him?” I heard him whisper to Brea.

“Yup!”

I knelt down in front of this big beautiful sleeping man and smiled in awe. He had fallen asleep sitting up, nuzzled into the couch pillow with his head resting on the palm of his hand. He looked like an angel; he seemed so peaceful that you could never imagine him being plagued by a life of suffering. I placed a hand to his knee and he awoke with a jerk.

“Hi,” I spoke softly afraid he might float away at the sound of my voice..

He let out a long breath that sounded as if he had been holding it in for hours.

“Jemma? Am I dreaming?” My smile widened.

I shook my head
“No”
and suddenly everyone in the room disappeared around us. Ford pulled me up off the floor and took my place kneeling before me. He pulled me closer to him pushing his head in the pit of my stomach.

“I’m so sorry sweetheart. Tell me you forgive me?”

Forgive him? What was there to forgive? And then I remembered full well what there was to forgive only it was not Ford who should be pleading. I fell to the ground, falling right through the hole in the arms wrapped around me and met his stare.

“There is nothing to forgive you for Ford; Brea told me all about Heather.” I said.

“Julian” He whispered. “Please Jemma, call me Julian. I am Julian with you, I’m not Ford, he ain’t real sweet heart, and you make me real.”

A knot rose in the pit of my stomach. He has always been Julian to me as well but I wanted to respect his wishes to be called Ford even when I struggled to get the words out. He put his hands to my cheeks.

“I know about Axel, sweetheart.” He took a moment to look into my eyes, looking for assurance that I was listening to him. “I know and I don’t care one damn bit about it. As far as I am concerned it didn’t happen.”

He then pulled my face to his and kissed my lips. Our tongues became a tangled mess of love and lust. When we heard the door slam we struggled to pull away, only doing so when we both remembered that Brandon and Brea were still in the room. My first thought was that Brandon had gotten angry and left but that wasn’t the case. Brea had opened and slammed the door to get our attention.

Remembering our manners Julian and I stood up off the floor. A quick glance toward Brandon and I knew the pain the scene that played out had caused him but he had not moved an inch. I felt a sudden jab in my heart and wanted to run to him but Julian’s hand took mine into his and I refused to let go. I looked to Julian and he walked with me over to where Brandon and Brea were left standing.

Julian extended his hand out to Brandon. For a moment I could see the doubt dancing around in his head but being the gentleman he has always been he extended his as well.

“Julian, you must be Brandon?”

Brandon shook his hand but made no comment; instead he dismissed Julian and stepped towards me putting his hand to my locket as he kissed me on the forehead. He then turned to Julian in defeat, stood up straight, mumbled “Take care of her.” and disappeared.

At Brandon’s leave Brea seemed to come alive “Brandon, wait a sec.” she yelled and made her own disappearing act following Brandon out of the room. I stayed by Julian’s side. It was time for Brea to do whatever it was Brea did for Brandon; it was time for her to hold him up. No matter the promises we had made, once again I had broken his heart. This time around there was no confusion. We both knew were we stood, where I did anyway.

Julian stayed with me for the rest of the day. He filled me in on all things Heather and I filled him in on my relationship with Brandon. I needed him to know that I had no intentions of exorcising him from my life. If he was not accepting of our relationship then there was no future for us. Thankfully he understood that Brandon and I shared a past so great that made it difficult to let go of.

“As long as you have no intentions of going down that road again for anything other than friendship I don’t have a problem with it sweetheart. I could have been in your life as well but I chose not to be. I took the coward’s way out.”

“I don’t understand? It wasn’t your fault you had to move away Julian.”

“Well, I went back to Montgomery a few times. Gran and I had to set up the sale of mom and pops house. She tried to get me to pay you all a visit but I was scared. I figured your mom and dad would hate me.”

I simply stared at him in confusion. How could anyone have hated him for something so far out of his control? The funny thing is that for years I had thought the same thing about my own mom and dad. That they hated me for being the one that lived. They rarely ever showed me anything resembling parental love after Nicolai was killed, sometimes they wouldn’t even acknowledge my existence no matter what I did to deserve a second look.

Julian frantically wiped at his upper legs with both hands, I could tell he was trying to keep them from their chaotic journey through his mane something I noticed he did every time he got nervous. I put my hands on top of his and glanced up at him from under my eye lids, my eyes pleading with him to calm down and tell me what was on his mind. 

“Alright, since we are laying our cards out on the table.” he sighed nervously. “The day everything went down, he shot my mom and pop first. There was no life left in them, they died the second the bullets hit. They had begged and pleaded for my and Nicks lives but it only seemed to make the son of a bitch hungry for more blood. When he aimed his gun at me, Nick lunged out from under my dad’s body and threw himself out in front of me. The guy shot him twice trying to get to me. The injuries I sustained, they were secondary hits from the bullets that killed him Jemma.”

He moved his hand to the top of mine. He was shaking, tears had filled his eyes and I was completely paralyzed. Everything I had heard about that day was from third party accounts from kids at school. My parents never spoke a word about it and nobody dared say anything to me directly.

“He saved me, in the end he was the better man.”

“He saved you?”

After everything those were the only words I could wrap my head around. Nick, the boy who tore the heads of my Barbie dolls, who would steal my chicken nuggets when nobody was looking, had died saving the only person I could see myself sharing my life with. My brother, who was only twelve years old, had died a hero.

I felt Julian lightly squeeze my hand before he reached up to touch my face. He ran his thumb over my cheek holding my head up with the rest of his fingers.

“Tell me what you are thinking sweetheart?”

I couldn’t tell him what I was thinking right then and there because I was completely dry of words. I had done so much talking that I had no speech left in me to react to the bombshell he had just laid out in front of me. I wanted to tell him that I didn’t hate him, there was no way in hell that I could, but the words lay lifeless at the back of my throat.

I put a finger up in front of him and did the only thing I could think to do. I ran into my room and slid a small plastic chest out from under my bed. Inside lay all of the memories of my life before, memories of a life that Julian was such a large part of. I pulled out my old drawing journal and carried myself back to my seat placing the book into his hands.

Without saying a word he opened it and began to flip through the pages. I watched as he flipped through page after page of drawings, my mouth smiling brighter and brighter every time he smiled. Some of the paintings were normal little girl stuff, rainbows and butterflies, but others well they were all Julian. Some were as simple as his name being written over and over again in bubble letters, some were drawings of the two of us, some little hearts with both of our names scribbled inside, each one a perfect documentation of the childhood crush I had managed to hold onto
all through Jr. High.

Julian stopped at one of my self-portraits. It was a drawing of me as a little girl dancing around my parent’s back yard garden with fairy wings. He ran his fingers over the swirls around my body that indicated I was spinning in circles.

“Always wearing those wings, you were such a happy little girl. I loved playing with you, sometimes more than Nick, you were just so carefree. I would get so fucking mad at Nick for being so damned mean to you. He could be such a jerk sometimes.” He looked up at me from the page. “But I loved him like a brother.”

“He loved you, too. And so did I. Never seeing you again was hard on all of us.” I blinked a tear away. “I have three more of those you know.” I said pointing to the neon green journal.

“My crush on you got worse when you never came back. There was a boy in my sixth grade science class that looked a lot like you. The day it came to finding science partners I paired up with him. Turned out he was mean as sin but I quickly found that as long as he didn’t talk I could sit next to him and pretend he was you. It was completely silly but it made junior high a lot more tolerable.”

Julian laughed out loud and put his arm around my shoulder. “Can I keep this?” he asked.

I shrugged, “Yeah, you can keep it. Most of what is in it is about you anyway.”

He smiled and leaned in for a kiss which I happily returned.

Brea came home around dinner time
, we ordered Chinese delivery and put in a movie Brea had picked up from the Redbox before heading home. I could tell Julian wasn’t particularly fond of sitting through Nicholas Spark’s
Safe Haven
but he never once complained. Half way through the movie once our stomachs were full of egg rolls, crab Rangoon and Sesame chicken I cuddled up next to Julian on the couch. My body molded perfectly to his as if we were made for each other. I had not felt so contented, safe and
ME
in a very long time.

Chapter Nine

Julian

Jemma was back in my arms, sleeping like a baby which was exactly where she was meant to be. Nothing in my life had ever felt as right as it did when I held her. She was so absolutely beautiful! I couldn’t concentrate on the cheesy movie being played out on the television because all I wanted to do was look at her. I wanted nothing more than to sweep her up into my arms, carry her to her bed, rip her clothes off and bury myself deep inside of her but I had to restrain myself. Especially with Brea shooting me knowing looks from the arm chair.

“She can’t have sex with you. Did she tell you that yet?”

“No, but I don’t see how that is something you get to decide. And where did that come from I wasn’t even considering it, we need some time. ”

“Yeah, uh huh, I am a lot of things but blind and stupid is not one of them. You were so obviously fucking her in that head of yours. Can’t say I blame you, you would be an idiot not to want her but you need to know that according to Brandon the doc says that part of her new plan is
NO SEX
of any kind. Not even Clinton style.”

I arched an eye brow up at her strange remark. What the heck was Clinton style?

“Clinton style?”

“You know,
I did not have sexual relations with that woman
, Clinton style. No touching, no nothing. I am surprised she hasn’t told you especially since I know for a fact that it takes every inch of restraint she has not to rip your clothes off.”

Does it now? “Has she told you that? How long is this plan supposed to play out?”

“Sixty days. And she doesn’t have to tell me, I can see it, it is painfully obvious. Not to mention the fact that if I had a good looking guy like you knocking down my door I would take you anywhere at any time. She and I might have our differences but in that respect we are exactly the same.”

I moved my eyes from Brea down to the sleeping beauty lying in my arms. How was I going to last sixty days without touching her? Could a man live sixty days without food or drink? If what Brea said was true then we were both going to be suffering through this little pact of hers.

When the credits began to roll I put Jemma’s arm around my neck and carried her to bed. I searched her drawers for something more comfortable, finding a nightgown; I pulled her pants from her body leaving her tiny pink panties with a little bow safely in place. Unfortunately the sight of her treasure sent a heat wave through my body which caused the need to shift the suddenly hardened package in my jeans. Taking a deep breath I continued, unbuttoning her shirt, sliding it off of her arms and gently lifting her up to slide the short t-shirt gown over her head.

My body stiffened upon hearing her sleepy voice quiver out my name. Her arm shot up in her sleep, trailed down my bicep, sliding over my chest and down to the heavy bulge in my pants. It took everything I had in me not to unzip them and release my shaft into her hands, something she seemed to be demanding even in her dreams. The idea that she was dreaming of being with me again nearly made me come on demand.

I laid her down under the covers and excused myself into the bathroom to relieve the ache in my pants. There was no way I was leaving her but at the same time there was no way I could lay next to her with a hard on that nearly shot my dick off like a rocket after two strokes. The next sixty days were going to be a nightmare!