Page 300 of Branded
None of that was my problem.
And yet, knowing that, I still found myself driving back across town to Jules’s.
I’d just hang out for a few minutes, make sure that they were up and moving so that Ethan wouldn’t be late for school.
That was just…being neighborly (my house wasn’t all that far from Jules’s).
And her night had been rough because of me and?—
Well, that was pretty much the point I stopped trying to make excuses and just gave into the urge to check up on them.
Insane?
Yup.
But I still drove to the apartment building, still parked at the curb.
Still waited, the sun growing higher, the sky brighter.
Even as there wasn’t a single sign of movement in the house.
No lights on. No movement through the windows.
I was spying on her and that was creepy as fuck, and who really cared if Ethan was late for school one day?
Except…I knew that Jules would care.
She’d beat herself up.
One interaction with the pair of them in the park, coming to know her at CeCe’s over the years, and I knew that she would hate that her son was late for school because she forgot to set her alarm or overslept or?—
“Fuck it,” I whispered, turning off my car and getting out.
I’d just…
Well, I didn’t really have a plan, other than it involved making sure that Jules didn’t have anything else in her life to make her feel sad or disappointed.
I made my way up to the front door, pressed the buttons on the keypad to unlock the door (doing this while ignoring the sliver of guilt—it was for her benefit!), and…
Then I walked back into Jules’s house.
Eighteen
Jules
Sunshine was stabbing at my brain through my eyelids.
Too early.
Not enough sleep.
Not enough?—
Wait.
Sunshine was stabbing at my brain through my eyelids.
Sunshine shouldn’t be shining into my eyes, not until I was making Ethan breakfast and running around like a chicken, trying to get all the last-minute things together.
