Watercolor (27 page)

“Please stop singing,” I groaned. “But yes. Then it happened.”

We both were quiet for a moment. “Okay,” Gabi said. “So what now?”

“I don’t know.” I was at the window, and the barista gave me a disapproving look. I mouthed a
sorry
and took my bag. “But he was
so
sweet to me, and after that first time—”

“You did it more than once!” Gabi screamed again.

“Oh, well…” My face felt hot. “I really love him,” I said quietly. “And after that first time I was so disappointed and he was so affectionate. We kind of fell asleep, but we woke up later and that’s when it really got good.”

“Julian is so hot,” she sighed. “And you’ve got what? Like a month or so before you leave for college?”

“Oh…” Everything changed with her words. I knew it was there, I knew the facts, but somehow hearing it, knowing we were so close, my eyes flooded. “Oh, god…”

“Anna?” Gabi’s voice was worried. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know.” Blinking hard, I had to pull over. I couldn’t see for the tears that wouldn’t stop coming. “Oh, Gabi.” My body shook so hard, I had to put my head on the steering wheel again. “He can’t leave me.”

“Wait… But you’re leaving, too.” Her voice was softer, and it only made the pain worse. The miles seemed to stretch out between us, and it was all coming so fast. It was why I’d hidden the scholarship letter, why I didn’t want to tell him. And now this.

“Anna?” I could hear the panic in her voice.

“I’m here,” I whispered.

“Oh, thank goodness. Now come on, breathe. What did Julian say about it?”

“He said…” I shook my head. “He said we’d talk about it when the time came. But what if he says we should break up—”

“He’s
not
going to say that.” Gabi’s voice was stern. “Julian would never break up with you now.”

My stomach twisted with burning knots at her words. “Maybe I could go with him?” My mind was moving fast. “He said something about me being in Savannah and how great that would be.”

“If you didn’t have your own plans,” she argued. “And if you hadn’t gotten the queen of all nerds scholarship!”

“I don’t care!” I was breathless, frantic.

“Holy crap, Anna! You are not throwing away a full ride to a top school for a guy.”

I knew she was right, I knew it. At the same time… “But it’s Julian!”

“He won’t let you do it either,” she continued. “I’m calling your mom.”

I closed my eyes for a second, trying to calm down. My heart was pounding, but I managed to slow my breathing. “Gabi, I love him.”

“I know,” she said, her voice gentler. “So let’s think about it.”

I thought too quickly. “It’s at least 600 miles from New Orleans to Savannah.” The tears were back. “It’ll never work out.”

“Why don’t you talk to him about it? I bet you two could do like a meet in the middle deal or go home on the weekends. That’s actually a longer drive for him.”

“Sorry, Gab, I gotta go.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll call you,” I said, hitting end. It felt like a lead weight was pressing on my chest.

Everything was different now, and the thought of us being separated was impossible to even imagine. I needed to see him. I needed to spend every waking second with him—every night too, for that matter. Dad was waiting on coffee, but I turned the car south toward the beach.

Julian was in his garage when I arrived, but instead lifting heavy metal, he was standing behind a canvass holding a brush. The sight of him made my insides swell with joy in spite of our miserable future. I was so in love with him. His blue eyes caught me, and he stood quickly, stowing the brush on his easel.

“Hey,” he said, jogging over. “What are you doing here? I didn’t think I’d see you until at least this evening.”

I stepped forward, pushing my arms around his waist and my head to his chest. “I needed to see you,” I said, fighting tears. “I talked to Gabi.”

He took my hands and led me to the bench near the door. “Is something wrong?”

We were facing each other now, my leg bent in front of us, and his brows were pulled together over his bright eyes.

“I hope you don’t mind if I told her about us,” I said.

His faced relaxed into that teasing grin. “Did you tell her I was the king and all that good stuff?”

I closed my eyes, looking down. “I didn’t go into details. But, Julian…” Then my eyes blinked back to his, worried. “What happens now? What are we going to do?”

He was still grinning. “Hopefully a lot more of what we did last night.”

“I’m serious. We’re going to be a million miles apart come August.”

That removed his grin. He scooted forward and pulled me into a hug, which made my eyes flood again. His arms were around me, and my face was pressed into his shoulder. I inhaled his warm scent of sunshine and ocean and soap, until a hiccupped breath jerked my body.

“Hey,” he leaned back, catching my cheeks in his hands. “Don’t do that.”

For a moment, I could only study his handsome face. Dark hair messy, blue eyes. Savannah seemed like my only choice. I blinked and two tears hit my cheeks. His brow creased, and he wiped them away with his thumbs.

“Stop,” he whispered. “We’ve got months until August.”

I shook my head. “It’s only going to get worse, and by then it’ll be unbearable.” My voice cracked as I spoke. “Why didn’t I apply to Savannah?”

“Because you didn’t want to go there? Because we weren’t together. It doesn’t matter now.”

“It does. I can’t even think about us being separated like that.”

“So don’t,” he shrugged, dropping his hands. “It’ll just ruin the time we have now. When August gets here, we’ll deal with it.”

“I don’t know how I’ll deal with it,” I dropped my head, but he caught my chin.

“We will.” His blue eyes were firm, and I inhaled a shaky breath. My lips pressed together, and I tried to believe him. I had to believe him. I didn’t have a choice.

“But what about the separation?” I said, my voice the slightest bit stronger.

He shrugged, pulling me into his chest. “It’ll suck,” he exhaled. “But we had a little time last month to practice.”

“Oh, god, and it was awful.”

“I say we stockpile being together.” He kissed the top of my head, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “What better way to prepare?”

His tone made me smile. The tiniest flicker of hope stirred in my chest, and I held his arms. “I’m willing to try anything.”

“That’s my girl,” he squeezed, then pushed me back up to face him. The determined look was still in his eyes, and thinking of all the ways he’d proven his love in the last year fanned that flicker of hope into something bigger. Maybe it was possible. If he’d inherited even half the stubbornness of his parents, he could make anything happen.

“We’re not breaking up,” he said. “We’re not saying goodbye. We’ll focus on finishing school, and take every opportunity to be together.”

“It’s a really long drive,” I said, thinking. “Good thing you’ve got that nice car now.”

His smile grew bigger. “So I’m doing all the driving?”

“Of course not. But you’ll be lucky if I go back to New Orleans if I do,” I teased, catching his hand and lacing our fingers. “What are you working on over here?”

He pulled back, stopping me. “Nope. You can’t see it.”

My eyes narrowed, and I took a quick step toward the back of the garage. He caught me around the waist, easily lifting me and carrying me away. “Julian!” I squealed.

“It’s something special.” His mouth was at my ear, and a little charge tingled down my neck. I wasn’t sure if he noticed, but when he put me down, his voice was lower. “We should go inside and get started on that stockpile.”

My insides warmed, and I hugged my arms around his neck. “Can’t,” I said, kissing him quickly. “Dad’s going to kill me. I never made it back with his coffee.”

“Why did you run off with your dad’s coffee?”

“I had to buy more, but I sort-of wigged in the coffee line.” I took off out the door back to my car. Julian followed me, and when I stopped, he gave me a kiss.

“It’s going to work out,” he said, looking straight into my eyes.

“I believe you,” I said, kissing him back before jumping in the car and heading to my house.

Chapter 27

My phone startled me awake, and the first thing I noticed was Julian was gone. I sighed, running my hand over the now-cool spot in my bed that had become his almost-constant nighttime location. He’d decided our code word was
shortage
, and it was silly enough that I’d agreed. Now “shortage” was my all-time favorite problem to hear.

Lifting my phone, I expected to see his face, and I sat straight up when I didn’t. The number staring back at me was one I hadn’t seen on my phone since New Year’s Eve. It was Bill Kyser’s.

My voice had the smallest tremor as I answered. “Hello?”

“I’m sorry if I woke you,” Julian’s dad said, and he actually sounded uncomfortable, too.

“I was awake,” I lied quickly. “Did you need something? Well, I mean, of course you did…”

“Anna,” he thankfully stopped my rambling. “I’m calling about Julian. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you, and—”

“I never got to thank you for the car!” I said fast.

He paused, then he seemed to remember. “Oh, that was nothing. Just a matter of finding something new for Will and signing his old car over to Alex. That’s not why I’m calling.”

“Sorry,” I said growing quiet.

He took a deep breath before continuing. “Julian hasn’t been staying at home.”

My face flushed, and I didn’t know what to say to that. Did he know Julian spent most nights here? It didn’t seem to matter.

“Alex is upset. She wants to talk to him, but he won’t speak to her.”

I chewed my lip, thinking. I knew Julian was pissed at his mom, but I didn’t know they weren’t speaking. “I’m sorry about that,” I said. “With school ending and everything, I’ve kind of been distracted. But what—”

“I’d like to talk to him. Could you ask him to see me?”

“Me?” My forehead lined. “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

“If he’s anything like his father, he’ll do whatever you want him to do.”

A little charge moved through my stomach at the implication. “What are you going to say to him? If he trusts me, I’m not setting him up for an ambush.”

“I wouldn’t ambush him,” he said. “I just need to know what he’s thinking. What his plans are.”

“Did Ms. LaSalle ask you to call me?” He didn’t answer, and I realized she had. Bill Kyser would never have called me. It all made sense now. “I guess we’ll see how much he’s like his dad.”

“He can visit my office any evening. Text me when he’s coming.”

Standing in front of the Phoenician I tower holding hands, we both looked up, up, up to the top where his dad’s offices were located.

“He didn’t say what he wanted?” Julian asked, and I couldn’t tell if he was nervous or not. He didn’t seem to be.

“Just that your mom’s upset, and he wanted to know what you were thinking.”

Julian nodded. “She put him up to this.”

“And he put me up to this.” I turned to face him. “Do you want me there? I don’t mind waiting down here for you if you want to be alone.”

For a moment, we both thought about it. Then Julian leaned forward and quickly pressed his lips to mine. “Wait for me,” he said. “I won’t be long, and I can use you as an excuse if things get weird.”

“Thanks,” I teased. Actually, I was happy to let him use me as his excuse. I felt solely responsible for his being here now.

He disappeared into the high-rise, and I walked down to sit on the shore and wait for him. A steady stream of foot traffic moved past me. It was almost May, and senior trips had started along with families taking their last beach vacations before the whole town blew up for the summer. As for us, only prom and one week of classes remained before graduation.

Julian’s unwavering assurance that we would survive the transition and temporary separation helped ease my fears about August, but I could only imagine his mom was a hundred times more worried. I looked down, sliding my sparkling dragonfly ring around on my finger. It had come to symbolize so much more to us than his thanks for my little news story so long ago. Now it was a promise. And I never took it off.

My thoughts were miles away, years into the future, when I noticed a person was standing beside me. Squinting up, I saw Ms. LaSalle looking out at the ocean. She didn’t say anything for several moments, then she sat beside me.

“They’re all going to react this way,” she said. “Julian knows. We have to tell the others, and it’s always going to come back to what I did.”

Her eyes were tired, and I scooted around on the sand to face her. “You’ve spent a lot of time with Lucy,” I said. “She loves you already. And she’s loved getting to know you.”

Julian’s mom shook her head. “And when she hears the rest of the story, she’ll hate me.”