Page 27 of Julien (Confessions 2)

“Oh, good,” she said with a grin, and then kissed his cheek. “I just wanted to try one, that’s all.”

“One?” Julien said, and looked at the rectangular packet in her hand.

“Yes. One…packet.” She headed over to her dresser, where she picked up a bottle of perfume and sprayed it all around the place and then walked through it.

Julien coughed and waved his hand in front of his face.

“Shit, spray a bit more next time,” he said, and when she turned toward him and held it up with a devious glint in her eye, Julien glared at her. “Don’t even think about it or I’ll tell Mom where she can find evidence of this new little fad you’re going through.”

“It’s not a fad. It’s…sophisticated. Chic.”

“Sure it is,” Julien said as he walked over to her bedroom door. “Until you get cancer. You might want to spray a little more of that stuff. Mom and Dad want to talk to us. Sounded important.”

“Really?”

Julien nodded. “I hope they haven’t changed their minds about Nice. I really want to get away for a couple of weeks.”

“Because of Timothée?” As the two of them headed down the hall to the stairs, Jacquelyn slipped her hand through the crook of his arm and rested her head on his shoulder. “Stop worrying about him. If they do decide to stay here for break, I’ll introduce you to Clément. He really is your type, much more than Timothée. Clément is tall, sporty…kind of an ass sometimes. But I think you’d get along great.”

“I think I’ll pass. He doesn’t sound anything like my type,” Julien said, shaking his head.

“He’s everyone’s type. And anyway, it might do you good to date someone with more confidence, instead of some quiet little thing like Timothée. You’re so smart and hot.”

Julien screwed his nose up at her.

“As if I wasn’t going to add that,” Jacquelyn said. “We’re twins.”

Julien sighed. “Look, I like…quiet people. I’m quiet.”

“No, you’re not. You just think you are.”

“Well, don’t you at least think it might help me to date someone who is gay?”

“Oh, did I forget to mention that Clément is one hundred percent about the cock? Well, he is. Surprise.” She winked at him.

“You are not setting me up on a date, Jacquelyn. Please tell me you haven’t already.”

“Oh, come on. It’s Léa’s seventeenth birthday next week and Clément is nineteen. Again, perfect. There’s nothing sexier than an older guy. They know what to do—or so I’m told.”

As they walked toward the kitchen, where their parents waited, Julien rubbed a hand over his face, the idea of a blind date making him feel nauseated. “Remind me again why I love you?”

“Because…” she said, and kissed his cheek. “We’re twins. Duh, you have to. Or it’s like not loving half of yourself.”

Julien laughed and shoved her in the arm. “Fine, I’ll come to the party. But that’s it. I’m not promising anything else.”

“Okay, okay,” Jacquelyn said, and then they both walked over to the small island in the kitchen where a plate of freshly made macarons sat. No doubt from Aurélien earlier that morning.

“There you both are,” their mom said as she, and their dad, came into the kitchen. She walked over to Julien and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “We need to talk to you.”

“Yes,” their dad said, and nodded. “We do. It’s concerning my job. You see, at the beginning of the month, I received an offer for partnership at Bartlett & Latham.”

Julien looked at their dad, shocked by what he’d just heard. Isn’t that… “The firm in America?”

“Yes. The one I worked for when you were both little, and have continued working for by correspondence over the past few years. I’ve thought about it and discussed it at length with your mother—”

“But…” Jacquelyn interrupted, and then stopped as though her brain were trying to catch up with what he was saying. “But what does it mean if you take a partnership there? We live here.”

Julien didn’t need their dad to explain, though. He already knew the answer. They were going to move—to America. That was what they wanted to talk about. And all he could think was how everything in his life was about to change…again.

“That’s what we need to talk to you about,” their mom said as if on cue, and squeezed Julien’s arm. “Instead of going to Nice for spring break, how would you feel about Los Angeles instead?”

“AND THAT’S HOW I ended up here,” Julien said into the otherwise silent room.

Priest was regarding him with an attentive but cautious expression, and Robbie looked as though he were waiting for him to say more. That, however, was all Julien found he could talk about right then, because everything that came after that led him to an ending he’d rather not get into detail about tonight.

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