Dear Heart, I Hate You

My cheeks warmed. “Thank you for coming out. It was so much fun.”

He stood behind my car, holding his bag awkwardly, as if unsure of how to walk away from me. I fidgeted in place, not knowing how to let him go. I sure as hell didn’t want to.

Cal drew in a sharp breath and grabbed me again, pulling me tightly against him. “I really hate this.”

“Me too.” I kissed his mouth, my heart shattering. “So much.”

Studying me with a pained expression, he said, “I’d better go or I might never leave.” He gave me one last quick kiss and turned away quickly, as if afraid he might change his mind.

God, how I wanted him to.

Once he disappeared from my view completely, I climbed back into my car and had just started to pull away, but the ping of an incoming text message made me slam on my brakes.

Dream Lips: I miss you already.

With tears in my eyes, I tapped out a response.

Jules: Come back.

Losing It

Cal

Walking away from Jules at the airport was fucking brutal. It was one thing to let her leave me back in Boston, but being the one who had to get on a plane after a weekend that amazing absolutely sucked. I wanted to turn around, get right back into her car, and tell her to take us home where I could make love to her for hours.

But I didn’t. I couldn’t.

I had to walk away, had to get on that plane, go home, and get back to work.

I also really needed to focus less on Jules and all of this long-distance shit, but there was little chance of that happening. I wondered for a minute how the hell I’d allowed myself to get sucked into something like this—a situation with no happy ending—before I fantasized about her naked body underneath me and forgot all about reality.

As soon as I landed, I called her to tell her I made it back home safely. She sounded tired, but her voice was sweeter than usual. We had bonded this weekend, on every level. As much as I might have wanted to convince myself otherwise for my sanity, I knew it was true. The only difference was that I was better at hiding it than she was. Jules had opened up to me so easily, so quickly, her feelings always so transparent and honest, but I tried to keep mine at bay.

Crawling into my bed alone that night after having Jules in my arms was just one more thing I added to the suck column of this whole thing. I’d been perfectly fine my entire life without having her next to me in bed, but now it felt ridiculously empty and cold.

Shaking my head, I reached for my phone and scrolled through the new pictures she had texted me of us. I’d just left, but she already felt worlds away.

• • •

When I woke up the next morning, I texted Jules as usual, but also added that I missed her before I could talk myself out of it. There was a quiet battle starting to brew between my heart and my mind, and Lord only knew how I’d survive once the war finally broke out. I tried not to think about it as I got ready for work, preparing myself for the numerous questions that would inevitably come from Lucas.

Work was pretty standard, with the exception of my calls with Tabbie and Ron back in California. They both signed with me for a trial year, and I sensed that this was only the beginning of my celebrity client list. I planned on blowing their minds in that year and being someone they could depend on so thoroughly that they couldn’t imagine not having me in their life, let alone making any financial decisions without consulting me. My bosses were ecstatic about the new additions to our client roster, and teased me about a prospective partnership coming about sooner rather than later.

Lucas wandered into my cubicle and perched on the edge of my desk, pouting. “I can’t believe you saw Quinn and Ryson at a party in Hollywood. Hell, I can’t believe you went to a private party in Hollywood without me. Life isn’t fair.”

First thing this morning, I’d told him briefly about the party and my new clients before telling him I’d give him all the details after the stock market closed. He had freaked out, the way I knew he would when I mentioned Ryson’s name, forcing me to threaten to pound on him if he didn’t calm the hell down.

“It was from a distance,” I said. “They were dancing. It’s not like I talked to them or anything.” I tried to play it cool as if it were no big deal, but we both knew that it was a pretty big damn deal.

Lucas crossed his arms over his chest, studying me. “You leave for the weekend and come back with two new clients, one of whom is an actress. A pretty big one too. How does this shit even happen?” When I just shrugged, he said, “I know how. Jules. Jules happened. Why couldn’t she love me instead of you?”

I laughed. “I think we both know the reason for that.”

“She could change me,” he joked, mocking all the women who’d said those words to him in the past, wrongly thinking that his gender preference was simply a choice he’d made. “How is she, by the way?”

“Great, I think.”

“You think? You don’t know?”