Page 43 of Accidental Fiancé

“It’s just old books mostly,” he said with a shrug. “Mementos, that kind of thing. But feel free to explore.”

“Not worried about me finding your kinky sex dungeon?” The moment the words left my mouth, I knew I shouldn’t have said them. It was too flirty. Too suggestive.

A slow smile formed on his lips. “Are you?”

My heart sped up, and my mouth went dry. “Should I be?”

His smile widened a little more. “Get as acquainted as you like.” He picked up his bag. “I’ll see you later.”

When he left, the lack of a kiss this time was felt. “Stupid,” I muttered to myself. Julian was not mine. As I scrubbed the counter, I reminded myself that the only things in the house that were mine were my stand mixer and my clothes. Hell, not even the car was mine. I had to keep myself tethered to that reality, no matter what.

When it came time to take Piper to school, I gently knocked on her door. “Piper?”

She opened the door, dressed and ready to go. “You’re taking me again?”

“I am. I will be for a few weeks if that’s okay.”

She bobbed her head and took my hand. Hers was so small, and for some reason, that made my heart wobble. I didn’t understand it. I’d never been a kid person, but maybe Piper was a grown-up person.

In the car, I turned on the music and sang along to each song, teaching her the words so she could sing along with me. It was a party until we reached Etta’s doorstep. I smiled and kept things pleasant if for no other reason than to be the bigger person.

Back at the house, I ventured up to the third floor to find Julian was right. It consisted of books and an area with boxes full of memorabilia. There, I found his dusty old yearbooks and pictures from childhood. Rosewood High School spared every expense on the quality of such things—I was surprised they hadn’t fallen apart. The materials were so shoddy that a stiff breeze could easily have blown them away.

Flipping through the pages, I found a picture of me and Julian sitting outside laughing. He and Nora made high school pleasant for me. Without them, I might have gone into mean girl territory myself just to survive. Kind of like Emma. How easy it would have been to end up like her, had I not had Julian and Nora.

A few pages later, I found a picture that took my breath away. My hand clutched at my throat when I saw it. I’d let Nora braid my hair that morning, something I rarely did. In the picture, I was upset, walking down the hallway with Nora. About ten feet behind us was Jules. He looked bereft. That day came to mind so fast that it was like being there all over again.

We had gone behind the cafeteria where no one hung out, so I could rant without getting yelled at for bad language. I was mad about getting a B on a calculus test because I had shown my work, and the teacher still said it wasn’t enough, that I had done too much of the math in my head. I was frustrated and distracted so I hadn’t noticed when Julian moved in. Not until I had a close-up view of the gray specks in his iris. The next thing I knew, his lips were on mine, a lustful, hungry kiss.

I told him the first thing that came to mind—that a kiss wouldn’t fix my grade. He laughed it off and said he was willing to try anything to help. But then the bell rang, and I had to get to class. We didn’t have the chance to talk about any of it afterward.

The moment I saw Nora, I knew I couldn’t say anything to her about the kiss. I loved her, but she would have teased meabout it, and I didn’t want to hear it. I just wanted to forget it ever happened. Julian was my friend. Nothing more.

At least that’s what I told myself. But maybe he had always been more.

It wasn’t hard to believe the narrative she mentioned yesterday. That he and I were always hanging out if she wasn’t around. Was it more than a friendship? Had he told himself it was and that’s why he had kissed me? Or was he just experimenting with me to see how I’d react?

That was what I had told myself back then, that it was just a harmless kiss to distract me from being upset. Maybe I had told myself what I needed to believe at the time because seeing this picture of him following me in the hall with that look on his face was not the face of a boy who had tried to make his friend feel better. It was the face of a boy who just had his heart broken. I had humiliated him with a casual joke and he had been kind enough to let it go so he didn’t upset me any more than I already was.

I flopped onto my back on the rug and told the ceiling, “Ugh, I’m an asshole.” I could not believe I didn’t see it sooner. Maybe it was because in high school we all had multiple types of pressures we were under, and we were all just trying to survive.

Shortly after the kiss, Julian’s father died, and that overshadowed everything that had come before it. He was emotionally distant for a while and I was too young to have the grace to handle it well. Eventually, we came back to each other right before he left for college. It wasn’t the same, easy-breezy thing we had before, but we were still us. I worked to put myself through culinary school while he was away and we were both too busy to keep up with old friends.

But things were different now. We were adults with bills, responsibilities, a kid in his case. Every time I thought about Jules a passionate warmth filled me up, making me want hisgoodbye kiss every morning. I liked him, and I was tired of pretending otherwise. My parents were right—embracing reality was the smart thing to do. Even though we agreed in the beginning things would be short term with us, that didn’t mean we couldn’t keep this going.

The alarm chime rang loudly, letting me know a door had opened. I ran down the stairs with the yearbook still in hand and found Julian walking into the kitchen. I was still back in high school in my head so I saw the cute boy overlayed with the handsome man he had become. It was dizzying.

“Oh, hey.”

“Been on the third floor, I see,” he said, jutting his chin at the yearbook.

“Yeah. You’re home early. Is everything alright?”

He nodded, looking tense. “I wanted to talk to you without Piper around.”

“That sounds serious.”

“Not really,” he replied, sitting at the kitchen island. “I’d like to pay you as a consultant for your time, Maggie. That being said, we keep thingsstrictlyprofessional between us moving forward. No more lines crossed. What do you think?”

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