And just like that, it was over.
–
Flashback – 35 months before –
He had thought it was a simple case of attraction.
That made the most sense, didn’t it?
She was beautiful after all.
Any man would feel a pull toward her right away.
But it had been a month.
A month of the strange sinking feeling in his chest when he saw her. The only way he could even think to describe it was like when you were driving a little too fast on some backroad – the kind that was hilly and bumpy. And you shot up over a hill, feeling the whole car go airborne for a second. And your stomach dropped. And your heart dropped. Then you flew down the hill feeling exhilarated, alive, tingly, and happy.
That was how he felt.
Absolutely every single time she came into the room.
After a month.
Maybe he had been trying to call it simple attraction, seeing as the other option was, well, ridiculous.
But as much as he tried to lie to himself, he knew the truth.
Attraction was like a punch to the gut, it was a shock to the groin.
And while he felt that too, it was more.
So it had to be more than just wanting to get her into bed. As much as he delighted at that idea.
It was more.
And it was getting harder and harder to even lie to himself about it.
The fact of the matter was, he felt it the second he laid eyes on her.
Instantaneous.
That was what it was.
Uncontrollable.
Nonsensical.
Sure, he had always been perhaps more romantic than a lot of guys, more prone to putting women on pedestals.
But this was different than that.
This was something akin to something within him recognizing something within her.
Like fate.
Soulmates.
All that insane, over-the-top, cheesy stuff.
That was what it was.
There was no way to look at it through any other lens anymore.
He knew it the moment he saw her.
Something in his soul said Mine.
Every interaction since then had only reinforced the idea.
There wasn’t a thing he had seen so far that he didn’t like.
Her ambition.
Her perfectionism.
Her cleaning and organization compulsion.
He even had a thing for the parts of her that maybe others would consider flaws – her detachedness, her desire to keep everyone at a distance, her stone-cold rationality.
They weren’t flaws.
Just parts of the whole.
And the whole, yeah, he dug it.
He spent too many idle moments thinking about it. About her. About him. About possibilities.
Fanciful, sure.
But he couldn’t seem to help it.
Even though he knew how things stood.
He knew that she didn’t feel it too.
He knew that she didn’t look at him and see a future, see a house and kids and a dog and family game night.
She didn’t see that.
Not with him.
Jules was someone who would likely approach relationships with the same mindset she approached everything else. With thought. With careful consideration.
Not hearts and flowers.
But boxes of the right traits checked off.
He wouldn’t be surprised to learn she had an actual list for men. Along with a timeline for when she should meet him, date him, marry him, move into a home with him, have babies with him, give up her career for it all.
That was how she was.
And he didn’t fit into that picture.
There was no denying that bothered him, maybe even hurt him – even though he really had no right to hurt given that she hadn’t led him on, he’d been alone in his feelings.
And he hadn’t made a move.
He hadn’t even suggested his interest.
He hadn’t opened that door.
But he figured he had time.
After he knew her better.
After she knew him better.
There would always be time.
Until, of course, there wasn’t.
But he wasn’t thinking of that.
He was thinking of how well her navy blue slacks and white camisole brought out her eyes and hair and figure. About how she had four different smiles that he knew of.
Her customer service smile, the one that got tense at the ends, that made her eyes squint a bit. The fake one.
Her ‘you’re an idiot’ smile. She gave that one to Kai a lot when he was being silly. And Lincoln when he was having more girl trouble.
Her ‘everything is as it should be’ smile. She got that one when the finished her files, her transcription, the cleaning and organizing. When everything was perfect. That was her smile of relief.
And then the big one.
The best one.
The one that made lines etch in her cheeks and her eyes dance. Her genuine happy smile. He liked that one best, of course, and saw the least. She seemed to save it for her little sister when she stopped in, or her mother when she sent her lunch without asking. That was her least prominent smile. But it was the one he loved the most, the one he secretly hoped she would flash in his direction at some point.
But he was starting to think maybe she never would.