Dear Heart, I Hate You

Katherine nodded. “I will for sure.”

The sight of the two girls exchanging a hug warmed me inside. I liked the fact that they had gotten along well. It made things so much more pleasant when the females didn’t want to claw each other’s eyes out.

I hugged my brother tight and released him with a pat on his shoulder. “Miss you. And great game tonight, by the way.”

“Thanks. And thanks for coming. Maybe you can come out to LA to visit Jules and meet me at a game there?”

Cooper made it sound so innocent, but I knew what he was doing. He was trying to push me to commit to seeing her again after she left tomorrow.

“You never know,” I said with a shrug. At this point, I had no idea what would happen after Jules left, and I couldn’t think about it. Not right now.

“Just trying to help, brother,” he said before giving me another quick hug.

“Don’t need it, brother,” I said, mimicking his tone.

“You might need it a little bit,” he added with a smile that looked exactly like our father’s before he reached for Jules. “It was really nice to meet you,” he said, then whispered something in her ear that I couldn’t hear.

I didn’t like that. Not at all.

Pushing aside my annoyance, I pulled Katherine into a hug and pressed a quick kiss to her cheek. “It’s always good to see you, sis.”

“You too. I really, really like her, by the way,” she said softly as we hugged, and I nodded in agreement.

I liked Jules too, but she was leaving tomorrow, and that would most likely be the end of our story.

It had to be. It was the only thing that made sense.

Good-bye

Jules

“What did my brother say to you?”

Cal kept badgering me in the car on the way back to our hotel, trying to get me to spill, but I refused. It was much more fun to torture him.

“He said it was nice to meet me,” I said with a sly smile.

“No, what did he whisper to you?” he asked again, and I played dumb.

“He didn’t whisper anything. You’re imagining things.”

He wasn’t. Cooper had told me that he’d never seen Cal so happy, and he hoped that things worked out between us. I didn’t know what that meant exactly, considering I was leaving tomorrow, but the last thing I wanted was to scare Cal off. If I told him what his brother had said, Cal would probably run for the hills. And I wasn’t ready for him to run yet.

“All right, Jules, I’ll let you keep it to yourself. For now,” he teased before squeezing my leg.

I watched as the city flew by us, my sense of direction completely out of whack. I had no idea where we were, where the hotel was, or if I’d seen any of these landmarks before. Everything looked different at night.

“You okay?”

When Cal’s voice broke through my thoughts, I turned away from the view outside my window and admired the other view—the one in the car.

“Yeah. I had a really nice time tonight,” I said sincerely. Meeting Cooper and Katherine had been so much fun. They were an awesome couple.

“I did too. They love you, by the way,” he said, and I couldn’t stop myself from smiling.

“They’re really great. And Katherine already friend-requested me on Facebook.”

“Double trouble.”