Page 43 of Star Crossed
“Maybe I should hire someone. Get Terry to come over and see what he can do. He’s always fixing up old houses and—”
“Over my dead body,” Wyatt said sharply. “We’re not changing it, Ju Ju Bean, no matter how badly you wanna citify this place. You need something to modernize, go work on your office—again.”
“I own half this house!”
“Which means you need permission to change things from the other owner, who has fifty percent stake in this property, and unfortunately for you, he likes it just the way it is.”
She folded her arms over her chest and sulked. “I hate you.”
“And I’m really broken up over that,” Wyatt said, not sounding broken up at all. “Why dontcha go smile at your phone and text your boyfriend in Las Vegas since you’re in such a charming mood this evening?”
“Fine.” Jules rolled out of bed and snatched her cell phone off Wyatt’s nightstand. “Have a great time sitting here all alone with your girlfriend Bruce.”
“I will,” Wyatt said, ever confident he didn’t let the jab bother him. “Be sure to have fun making that boy jerk off for you.”
Jules gasped, feeling her cheeks heat. She wasn’t sure how Wyatt knew she was doing that. She was always careful. It was likely he was just guessing, but that didn’t make it any less embarrassing. It was on the tip of her tongue to say something terrible, to point out that at least she had someone who cared, even if he was far away and only able to connect with her via phone sex. Wyatt had been alone since Tabitha left, and Jules was fairly certain he hadn’t had sex in over a decade.
“Go ahead, say it,” Wyatt taunted, making it obvious he was reading her intentions clear as day. “Cut me, Jules. I dare ya. See if I bleed.”
There was a dark, miserable side of Wyatt the rest of Garnet never saw. All they got was the outgoing, charming sheriff, and they didn’t have to deal with the heartbroken shell of a man a young, pretty redhead had left behind a long time ago.
“Will you?” she asked curiously, wondering if Wyatt was so dead inside the pain had dried up and left him completely broken beyond repair. “Do you still bleed over her?”
“Always,” Wyatt said without hesitation before he turned away and looked back to the television. “I’ve never stopped.”
Jules’s face scrunched up, and she was surprised to find she was fighting tears. If it was for herself or her brother, she wasn’t really sure. She did know she needed space from him, because Wyatt was self-destructive in a lot of ways. He’d rather sit in this old house that had ghosts in every corner and sulk over a woman long gone instead of go out and fall in love with someone new. For a long time Jules was right there with him. Sad and unhappy, goading Wyatt into hurting her just to make sure she was still alive enough to bleed.
Wyatt was her twin; she knew that’s what he wanted, for her to hurt him deeply enough to reallyfeelsomething, and for once Jules didn’t feel like playing. She wasn’t going to cut him just so he could ache over a woman who didn’t deserve that level of loyalty from him.
“I feel sorry for you, Wy Wy,” Jules said, knowing even as she said it that her pity cut deeper than anything else she could have said.
Sure enough, Wyatt turned to give her a look of horror, his light eyes wide and stunned. For a long moment he didn’t say anything; then he growled in a low, furious voice, “Get out of my room.”
Jules didn’t argue. She closed his door and ran down the hallway. Her bedroom was as far away from Wyatt’s as two bedrooms in that house could get. It was by design. Her father had separated them once they’d gotten old enough to fight in the vain hope it’d help. It hadn’t, not once, and Jules shut her door more forcefully than needed. She flipped the lock despite knowing Wyatt wasn’t coming to talk to her, not after that. Conners could deal with just about anything, take any pain and come back asking for more, but they couldn’t tolerate pity.
By the time she fell onto her bed and dialed Romeo, she was crying about a whole miserable lifetime of loneliness. Over being too tall and too strong and too intimidating to men to end up like all her friends from high school who were content and settled. They’d gotten married in their twenties and had babies. Now they went to baseball practices and dance competitions. They stood outside the schoolyard talking and gossiping with each other, and they were truly happy. Jules could see it on their faces.
And she was on the outside of all of it. She told herself all the time that she didn’t need those things, but it was a lie. She wanted a husband and kids and so very much more than an old house and a broken twin who didn’t know how to find happiness any more than she did. Now she was nearing her thirty-fourth birthday, and she mightneverhave it.
“Hey,” Romeo answered on the second ring.
“Am I a bully?” she sobbed into the phone. “Do you think I’m too rough ’round the edges? Do you think I’m gonna be alone forever?”
“Whoa.” Romeo’s voice softened as he said, “Jules, come on, calm down. What’s going on?”
“I don’t like it when you call me Jules,” she finally admitted, though she’d probably deny it tomorrow. “Everyone in this town calls me Jules, and they all think I’m gonna die old and alone like my father did and my grandfather and every other Conner ’cause we’re cursed. Didja know that?”
“Tino, get outta my room,” Romeo barked at his brother rather than respond to Jules.
Jules heard Tino laugh. “Tell me how you really feel.”
“Now, Valentino! Get the fuck out now!” The phone crackled as if there was a scuffle on the other end. “You got your own room. Go find it.”
“Wow, no love,” Tino grumbled. “I see how it is. Selling out blood forsticchiu.”
“Non mi rompere le palle, non mi scassare i coglioni,” Romeo said over the slam of a door. “Testa di cazzo.”
Jules waited for something else to happen. When there was nothing but Romeo’s heavy breathing on the other end, she finally sniffed and asked, “What’d you say to him?”
