A Love Like Ours

Chapter 14

"I knew it!" she screeched.

Her excitement only stroked the edges of mine, only tickled the ends of my nerves.

"Alright, relax," I said when her voice returned to a normal decibel. My heart was already pounding. "Nothing's happened."

"But it will," Emily said suggestively. "I knew this would work. I just... I knew it."

And I could picture the pride in her eyes. It was making me too hopeful.

"We're just getting coffee, Em. Don't make it more than it is," I said, sniffing at the armpit of my shirt as I walked into the house, dropping my keys on the counter as I strode through my empty kitchen.

I'd spent the day with Julian, and rather than writing, we'd passed most of the time just talking, just trying to figure out what to make of this whole week. We'd figured out some melodies, tweaked some harmonies, decided another portion of a song needed strings to fill out the sound, but we'd made no headway in determining whether or not all this shit with Madelyn was going to be good for me in the long run.

"I mean," Julian had said at one point. He leaned over the pool table, aiming for a striped ball in the far corner. "What are you gonna do if she just apologizes and goes back to New York to marry her fiance? What then?"

I stood there, watching as he sunk the shot, and could've very easily broken my cue stick over my knee at the thought.

Instead, I folded my hands around it and rested my chin on them. "I don't know." I sighed. "Don't think I haven't thought about it though."

Julian stared at me from the other side of the table. "If I were in your shoes, that's all I'd be thinking about."

"If you were in my shoes..." I studied the table, circled it until I was standing right where I wanted to be. I leaned over, aimed... "You'd also be thinking about what could happen if she doesn't."

If she didn't leave. If she... if she stayed. If she loved me and wanted to be with me again. Somehow, for whatever reason, that hope outweighed the fear, no matter how heavy the fear became.

I sunk the shot, and looked up at Julian again as he smiled gently, like he was sorry for even suggesting the other thing. "Of course I would. That..." He shook his head a bit. "That would be all I thought about."

For whatever reason, hearing him say that, knowing that he realized the full extent of my feelings, the full extent of how desperate I was—it made me ashamed. I looked down at the floor.

"Which is why you have me, dude," he said then. "As much as it sucks for both of us, someone's got to remind you to be careful. To," he switched his cue from one hand to the other, "keep your wits about you with this whole thing."

I tapped my cue a couple times on the floor, hating that he was right. "I know."

Julian leaned over the table, studying it from different angles as he said, "So, you're going to see her later."

"Just for a little while," I said, feeling defensive for reasons I couldn't quite understand.

Julian took his shot. Missed. "You have any idea what she's gonna say?"

I sighed, weighed my options as I stared at the table. "Well, she said we didn't have to talk about... you know."

Julian was quiet, waiting while I chose my position. "You still making her wait?"

I cursed when I missed. "I'm making me wait."

Julian chuckled a little. "All part of the plan though, right?"